I fucked myself up pretty good on this build. Nose ate shit last week. Then i sliced my left big toe. Then straight after that, i dropped a red hot slice of tubing on my right big toe. It slipped straight over like a ring on a fingur. Except it was red hot, and made my toe smell like crispy bacon.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there

There was lots of blood. And lots of swearing.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there

Time to upgrade the PPE?

Attached Thumbnails

 

The cage has more bars than a group of adolescent boys reading a sex mag!

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No Subarus currently owned

Yeah. Its got a few. Ive seen MMS cages with even more though.

All ive really got left to do is the door bars. And the A-pillar support bars.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there

I spent a bit of time calculating the wieght of my cage. I measured each piece, and extrapolated out the wieghts from there. Using a value of 2.2 KG per M for the 1.5" tube, and 2.6 KG per M for the 1.75" tube. For tubes with coping joins at an angle, i measured to approx half way of each cope joint, to try and get as accurate calculations as possible.

I also calculated the sheet metal mounting points by using an online calculator for material wieghts.

As it stands now, there is approximately :
53.76 KG of tubing
4.15 KG mounting plates (and the brake pedal brace thing)

Although I still have the door bars to go, and a few gussets here and there. Which might bring it up to about 65-70kg all up.

And I am contemplating adding a bar or 2 from the rear towers to the lower / mid point of the main loop. And maybe even a front strut tower bar that links into the firewall near the pitch stopper mount. So maybe approaching 75-80KG if I go all out with the cage.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there

Foz should survive a bomb blast with all that tubing!

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Bye bye betty blue. Hello F6.

Today I removed the front windscreen from the wagon. Before removing it, I made a cardboard template of the windscreen. And then used that to make a transfer to the polycarbonate sheet. I did that before attampting to remove the old screen just incase it broke apart. But thankfully it held together. I used the piano wire method for cutting the old adhesive out. First i got a TIG rod and heated it red hot, then poked that through the glue, that made a hole for me to pass the cheese cutter wire through. Then its just saw it back and forwards all the way around. It seemed to work pretty good.

2019-02-02_06-41-56 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

2019-02-02_06-42-06 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

2019-02-02_06-42-39 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

2019-02-02_06-42-53 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

As always, I was curious to see the weight differences. The polycarbonate windscreen wieghs 6.1kg, and the OEM forester glass wieghs 11.76 kg. The polycarbonate is about the same thickness as the OEM glass. I think it will need a center brace so it doesnt cave in at high speed though, so that might eat into those weight savings a little bit.

OEM glass = 11.760 KG.
2019-02-02_06-42-25 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

Polycarbonate = 6.100 KG
2019-02-02_06-42-17 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

There should be even better wieght savings with the rear window and side wagon windows, as I have 3mm polycarbonate to make those out of.

Because I still have the GD WRX wreck sitting out the front, i thought Id compare the forester windscreen to the WRX. And interestingly, the Forester window is actually SHORTER than the WRX by about 2 inchs. The forester window is also about that much wider than the WRX. I wasnt expecting it to be shorter. Which is nice because if its a smaller window, it means its also going to be a little lighter.

2019-02-02_06-42-31 by bram biesiekierski, on Flickr

I have some 10H nano diamond coating that I will experiment with on some scraps of polycarbonate. Its special a coating that you can apply to give a strong scratch resistent layer over things. Polycarbonate is quite impact resistant, but not very scratch resistant. And is known for scratching very easily. I have heard these coatings are the DIY way of making polycarbonate very scratch resistent, without buying the expensive pre-coated polycatboante sheet. It is also hydrophobic aswell, so water should just bead right off it. Which might mean I can ditch the front wiper aswell, to save a little more wieght.

Now that the window is out, I can make the A pillar gussets. I have a small sheet of 1.6mm hot rolled mild steel, which should be perfect for making gussets.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there

Busy day for you mofo! You need to cut some more weight out of it to offset that cage.

Good work mate.

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Bye bye betty blue. Hello F6.

I did another side job after yours on saturday aswell. (Remember your theory about tradies with clean utes)

I actually believe i will be able to remove more wieght than the entire cage adds. Here is how i plan on doing it.

2 kg ABS delete.
4 kg Booster delete.
10 kg Bare bones wiring haness.
6 kg Gutting rear hatch door.
6 kg X 2 Gutting rear doors.
6 kg X 2 Gutting front doors.
2 kg Gutting dash.
8 kg Removing under body deadener.
6 kg Race fuel cell.
4 kg Front wiper delete.
5 kg Polycarbonate windshield.
6 kg Polycarbonate rear wagon window.
3 kg X 2 Polycarbonate side wagon windows.
2 kg X 4 Polycarbonate door windows.
6 kg Spare wheel well delete.

Some of those wieghts are estimates and may not be correct. But you can see how a lot of small things all add up to substantial savings. And that is the only way to remove substantial wieght on these car. To remove lots of little bits.

And these are all new things since the car was last run. If you count previous mods, then its piss easy. Hell, I saved 14 kgs just by fitting a lithium battery for one example.

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Doing it for all the wagons out there