Time for an update. Been doing a bit of work to the car lately, and buying alot of parts aswell.
Purchased a pair of OMP RS-PT seats. Bolted them in with Kyouu seat subframes and OBP side mounts. Got a OMP 802 6 point harness aswell.
Started chipping off the inside body deadener insulation stuff aswell. Most of it chips right off with a little bit of manual labour. I just used a plastic trim tool that kinda works like a plastic chisel. Havent bothered with dry ice yet either. but i think i will need it for a few stubborn sections. Took a couple of hours to strip the bulk of it out from under the seats, and all the rear wagon sections. still have to do under the front feet area and bits on the trans tunnel etc. but if its as easy as the rest, then it should be an hour or so more to chip it off. (Probs need another half day to get all the residue off and the remaining tough sections). But that can wait for another day. The silver paint isnt under the stuff, but it does still have a primer paint, so im not too fussed at this stage.
Also deleted all the remaining SRS stuff. Man there is some weight to be saved pulling that out.
Went to see Brad Stacey about a harness bar, but he wasnt keen on doing just a bar. But we got talking about cages and I think im going to get a weld-in 6pt from him when funds are sufficient. In the meantime I built my own harness bar so I can do the last couple of rounds of the year before the cage is finalised with the new seats.
It looks a bit ghetto, but I do not doubt its strength. I bought a length of 42mm diameter X 2.75mm wall steel tube. And using a few pieces of 50mm X 4mm thick angle, I welded up a custom bar that locates onto the front face of the rear strut towers. It also ties into the 7/16 UNF holes in the rear pillar that is used for the rear seatbelt reel. Plus I have then used an additioanal 7/16 mounting plate behind the rear strut tower on each side. Plus it also ties into a set of the M8 mounting holes for the rear seat upright brackets on each side. I could also bore a hole into the tube, and use an additional pair of M8 bolts on each side if needed. But i think with all the mounts its tied into now, it shall be strong enough.
Using the angle, I actually bored a hole through one flat and slid the tube through it, then welded around it on both sides. This means that its not relying solely on the welds, but also the strength of the angle iron. And with the end piece that mounts to the pillar bolt hole, i not only welded all the way around, i also sat the angle infront of the tube, again, so its not only relying on the welds, but also has steel infront if the pipe. The tube is heavy duty steel. Its a larger diameter AND thicker wall section than the CAMS minimum requirements for roll cage steel. So it should be plenty strong for a pair of harnesses. I chose the thicker pipe because my welding is a pretty average, and welding thicker steel is alot easier than thin stuff.
Also, the strut tower is made of very thick metal (for car sheet metal). It was probably a about 4-5mm thick in that section, (made of 2 layers of about 2-2.5mm sheet) So im confident it will be adequate with the load spreader plate behind.
Also got a APS twin cylinder hydraulic handbrake. And a bunch of pipe and fittings. And started making up the hydraulic circuit to plumb it in. Slowly getting there. I bent up and flared all the hardlines for the engine bay side. I was going to try and do each run of line as one long uniterrupted line from brake bias valve to the cylinders. But this was proving exceptionally difficult to do. Its just to hard to try and bend both the cabin and engine bay runs and then feed it thru the firewall. So i have decided on braking the runs down into 2 seperate portions. One section in the engine bay. And another section in the cabin. With bulkhead fittings at the firewall to join the 2 sections together. This means twice as many fittings and flares. But it makes it possible to get it real neat.
This is the firewall run of pipe. On the left of the photo is an STi Brake bias valve. This is positioned on the drivers side strut tower next to the master cylinder. The 4 lengths of pipe have been bent to run along the firewall and then down. The other end of it will be directly below the main harness pass through on the passenger side of the firewall.
This is it. You can see the standard proportioning valve below, and the STi valve with the extra pipe work hanging on top. Basically you undo the 2 outputs from the valve block, and then put one of the hardlines to each side of join you undone.
When I start doing the actual brake line swaps, I will also fit my GDB master cylinder, these are a bit larger bore than SG forester, and should improve pedal feel with the bigger cylinder.
This is the inside of the cabin looking at the firewall. The 4 holes will have the bulkhead fittings installed into and the lines will join in on both sides. I didnt think i would need the bulkhead join, so didnt order the parts till later. So cannot progress much further until the extra parts arrive.
The actual handle will be mounted just a bit forward and left of the gear selector. With the cylinders tucked up on the passenger side center console area below the stero fascia on the left. Kinda left of where the SRS module is.
Usually, this handbrake (and most others) would be set up so you pull it towards you. But it would have the cylinders to the REAR of the lever. I still want it to pull towards me, but I want it with the cylinders INFRONT of the lever. So to do that, I had to "convert" it to push. Then turn it around so its back to pull.
To do that, I first had to unbolt both cylinders and turn them upside down on the frame. I then turned to entire assembly upside down (so the cylinders are back the right way up.) I then need a custom handle made (basically a copy of the original handle except with the main mechanism upside down) so it can then work with the upside down frame. With the frame upside down, it means the pivot point is now above the cylinders instead of below, and this is what converts it from push to pull. Then all I have to do is turn the entire assembly back around and its back to pull, but with the cylinders infront of the handle. Alot of mucking around. But its was the only way to get it in that location, and mostly tucked out of the way. It should all work nicely, the leveridge lengths etc remain virtually the same, so it shouldnt affect the force required to use it etc. All its doing is allowing me to get a more streamlined mounting solution and hopefully ideal lever position.
I did try grabbing the imaginary handle from the racing seat and can reach it without lifting shoulders etc from the seat in my preferred driving position. And it is close to the gearstick aswell. The other option i was thinking of was in the standard radio hole. Dead center in the middle of the dash and poking up near the left of the steering wheel, but this seemed a bit better to me.
A single cylinder handbrake would be alot easier to position, but I need the twin cylinder in order to retain ABS functionality and also keep the diagonal split braking. So in my eyes this is the safer way of doing it.
Russ is working on a custom lever and is trying to organise a special handle for it aswell. Once thats sorted out ill put up some pics. I might just leave this here as a little teaser of what i have in mind...
