jimrankin

Seems that most people don't run into "educated" law enforcement officers but if you might then make sure whatever you buy has a DOT stamp or you can get cited for illegal equipment. I had to install a set of DOT legal lights to pass for registration. Some states ban HID lights even with a DOT stamp unless you have the self leveling device factory cars need to use them. Seems that they are so bright that they can blind oncoming traffic if they are allowed to aim too high by changing the ride attitude of the car. That said, the LED lights look like a really good option, both for less power draw and because my incandescent bulbs seem to not like the shock from bumps and berms. Came home from a long ride after dark New Years Day by the light of one headlight again :-).

...without taking the steering rack out. Both ends of the rack had to be moved away from the frame mounts for the forward lower suspension arms to get the existing bolts out so I could replace the heims and install new shoulder bolts. Cars back in the trailer and stored right now so I can't check but I seem to remember that the MGB rack is 3 turns lock to lock. How much faster did you make your steering? I'm going to have to start looking at other 7's as I get the chance because things like the turning C/L of the hub to steering knuckle actually change the ratio quite a bit. Still same number of turns "lock to lock" but you can gain several degrees of turn by shorter distance to knuckle. I find the MGB ratio to be just a little heavy when driving slowly but it could be a bit faster at speed, especially if the car is set up to oversteer a bit.

I have the MGB unit also. evidently it wasn't used on all or some were modified by the builder, probably to save weight and cost as you can get the lighter aluminum Mustang II / Pinto rack cheaper. I've also noticed different front wheel hub carriers than on mine. When I ordered the Teflon heims to match some previous owners swap outs I didn't realize my front steering linkage was metric. Either the other racks were SAE or they have modified the tubes to take the standard heims. Same with my carriers. It's been stated that there are no 5/8" heims on the front suspension but mine were. Guess I'll stay with the rack I have but if the Pinto unit fits they are on sale right now for only $129.00, cant beat that. The two Teflon heims and suspension tubes I'm not able to use with the current rack cost almost that much and I'm going to have to find some Metric units to replace them. Also, the frame mounts on my car were welded on a bit "off" as the rack did not line up (1/8"+out) and the only way to get it on was to taper the ends of the bolts and have them stress the mounts as they threaded in. I wish I had done an "exact" center to center on the mounts while I had the rack out so I could see if the Pinto one would fit. Might still be able to get something in there to measure with.

What steering rack was used as the "stock" build for an S2K? My rack is metric and does not line up exactly with the stock frame mounts. It also has four mounting points. Looking at another S2K I noticed it used a different rack. I know that the Mustang II / Pinto rack seems to be the standard for most hot rod/kit builds. Thanks for any information on what you are using and if yours is metric or SAE.

I will venture to guess that with 3K RPM @ 70MPH it has to be the tallest gear available, and that seems to be a 3:55. RNR is over 1,000 RPM higher at 70 so that should put him higher than 3:90 because it's basically 25% more RPM so it should be a 25% difference in final drive. Part of that has to do with the overdrive built into top gear so it's not just as easy as 3.55 X 1.25 = 4.438. Powderbrake said he is at about 4,000RPM at 70MPH so that would put RNR into the same bracket. Since my last high school math class is really pushing 50 years ago it seems I've forgotten just about every formula I ever learned. Time to bring up johnk's spread sheet I guess.

Sun finally came out and I just got a chance to run the car at speed. 70MPH is just getting to 3000RPM in 6th gear. I was hard to see the GPS on my phone and the tach at the same time so may be off 50 RPM one way or the other, but close. I'm running NT01's 275-40-ZR17 rears so a fairly good sized tire but not enough to make the really large difference in RPM @70MPH that others have posted here.

Going out tomorrow, weather permitting, and do an RPM to GPS 70MPH check to see just what I'm turning. When we checked RNR's car we determined it was just over 15 bolts (four for one full revolution of the drive shaft) so we were just over 3.75 to one, probably a 3:90 as that is a stock ratio. Holly Crap Batboy, what do I have ??? Just counted this several times and I'm at 11.2 bolts for a full axle revolution. No slop in the differential and it's at full lock up as both wheels are turning in the same direction at the same speed. Unless I'm doing the math wrong this is a reduction of closer to 2:80. Nothing in any info I could find has a "final drive" ratio lower than 3:54. If Subaru is counting the reduction in the overdrive 6th gear this would make my rear gear about in the 3.50ish range. Or would that multiply it and make it a 2:26? I'm confused, but that's not unusual Maybe I'll jack it up again and try spinning the other wheel but I can't see that making a difference. .

Finally got around to cleaning up from doing some wood butchering in the garage and got the car put back together with all new Teflon heims and shoulder bolts. Turns out my car has a metric steering rack so didn't do the steering rod ends as I didn't have any metric heims or suspension tubes available, do that later when I find a source. Couple of things to note that were not brought up before: I used a set of standard calipers to measure the heim joint location at each end of the suspension rod instead of trammel points or a large caliper. See the photo, worked well and was easy to duplicate each replacement heims location. My carriers had originally used an upper tapered shaft ball joint when in the donor car. That is why my upper heims were 5/8" rather than what seems to be the standard 1/2". Since it was metric the threaded bolts I replaced were tight, the shoulder bolts required my using a 5/8" ream to get them in. I had to replace both the upper (shorted) and the lower (longer) 5'8" bolts as the heims were landing on the threaded portion of both. I welded on new brackets and extended the threads to just where the heim finalized so it sits on an unthreaded area. Should have ordered aircraft bolts for this as there are still a few thousands clearance with stock grade 8 bolt shafts. See photo of the shorter "tops". The brace has a large area to mate with the rear carrier and a wing to transfer the stress to the captured portion of the bolt as it passes through the carrier. I aligned the wing with the center line of the axis of stress. The old tube (black) the brace replaced is in the last photo

The biggest problem with a national health care system in the US is that it was started way too late. If it had been implemented right after WW2 it would be the "norm" here as it is, and successfully, in many industrialized countries. WW2 veterans were promised "lifetime healthcare" because when they were enlisted or drafted there was no "end date", it was for the duration of the war. At the end of the war this promise, that most vets didn't even know they were entitled to, was switched over to the VA system. A big opportunity was missed at that point as we had a surplus of government employees and the medical corporations and insurance companies hadn't taken over the healthcare system. Hillary Clinton was trying to get a system on the table when the country was running at a budget surplus and gave up because it was lobbied out of any chance of going forward by "for profit" healthcare and party politics, and that was even before Bill blew it. The majority of people covered by a healthcare plan in this country have it through their employer. Unfortunately, the majority of employees work for companies that do not provide that opportunity. Here lies the problem. Try to find a health care plan on your own that won't break your budget or exempt covering anything related to existing conditions, such as a member of your family having had an asthma attack or high blood pressure. Most of them also base their part of the "coverage" on the gross hospital bill. They pay, lets say, 80% of the gross bill. you pay the other 20%. Any relatively minor hospital stay is at least $100,000.00 (more like $200K here in the bay area), your still out $20,000.00, more than most working families can afford. And by the way, the health care plan you had then knocks down the hospital bill to what they "allow", and minus your $20,000.00 they will in most cases pay less than you did. If you don't have anything to risk, like a home or a 401K why buy healthcare insurance, since you can't be (at least here in California) refused treatment and the hospitals don't waste their time trying to get blood out of a turnip. On the other hand, if you have something they will find it and take it, no question about it. The affordable health care plan will hopefully allow people with no means of buying private coverage, due either to cost or exempting existing conditions the opportunity to become covered. Something to think about. I owned a union employee business for 30+ years and when I sold it I was paying right at $10.00 per hour for the health care portion of their benefits. Yes, $400.00 per week, $20,000.00 per year, not something the average non-covered normal working family can afford. What portion of that went to cover the cost to hospitals for the "non-covered, non-paying patient I don't know. Maybe if the majority of non-covered patients slowly become covered by this system the cost of coverage by businesses will decrease, improving the ability of covered companies to compete with companies who don't provide coverage to their employees. Get party politics out of it, or better, get both sides involved in making it work, because what we had wasn't working for way too many hard working moderate/middle income people.

The Subaru shop manual I have on disk shows the 3:90 as one of the "available option" ratios for American import cars. It was only used in a few models, and then as the option. I can spin the disk up to see which ones if anyone wants to know. We were just over 15 bolts so just over the 3:75 reduction, probably just enough to get close to the other .15 to make the 3:90 ratio.

RNR's spare differential is a 4:11 but it is the non locker with spider gears and no clutch pack or I'd "borrow it" to see if worked on track. Might just go ahead and buy a 4:11 LSD, can always go back to 3:55 or get a 3:90 that seems to work well for RNR.

I had figured that RNR was running the 4:11 rear gear because of the difference in our RPM's at freeway speed and his superior acceleration when we are side by side at speed. He may also have the earlier 6 speed so in 5th and 6th he does have additional overall reduction. I'm running the 3:55 rear to his 3:90 and if the transmission is also adding a little bit of reduction that would also drop his final drive ratio (in 5the and 6th only). RNR also brought up the fact that going to 4:11 or 4:44 might not be the best thing for some of the tracks we run due to "running out of RPM" on some corners or corner complexes. Might leave you either feathering the throttle to stay out of the rev limiter, short shifting between complex corners or just having to need to shift too many times compared to the higher ratios. Looks like the only way to tell is to use two different ratios and a data logger at the track to see. Unfortunately it's a bit of a chore to pull he differential, almost something you would need to do at a two day event with the change at the end of the first day. Any of the track drivers on the forum have experience with the 4:11/4:44 gears, especially if you had used a higher gear before and changed? Darn...now he has me wondering what to do, what to do..... Guess I'll go butcher some more wood and think about it.

All years 1st-3.133 2nd -2.045 3rd-1.481 4th 1.161 '00 to '03 5th-0.979 6th 0.810 '04 to '07 5th-0.943 6th 0.763 Don't know if there were any changes after the changes shown here for the upsize to the 2.2L motor. Complicates the RPM to tire size calculation. 5th gear is as close to 1to1 as it gets.

With what I have now (seems to be a 3:50ish gear) it was a real pig unless you downshifted on the highway, even at 75MPH. Just took too long to get up speed and you could shift to 4th at 75 and still not be in V-tec. 4:11 seems like the best of both worlds. I've got the car apart right now, all new Teflon heims, shoulder bolts and braces for the rear lower link bolt going in so seems like the right time. Shop is full of saw and sanding dust for a few more days but then back to grease again :-).

If I had stayed with my local San Mateo DMV I'd never have gotten a registration. Several trips, going nowhere) Thankfully a friend told me to go to the Cobra Club (these kit cars are what SB100 was written for) web site and I was able to download complete, and annotated with the exact DMV sections etc., instructions on what to do, bring and say. All the third tier SM-DMV supervisor said was "nothing on the web is true", do it my way and no, you don't qualify for a temporary operators permit, and yes, we are keeping your money Forgot who told me about going to the Los Gatos DMV and asking for "the kit car lady" but she sure saved me. Really wonderful person who took a couple of hours on the phone to Sacramento to undue everything done by the SM-DMV. She said I would never have been able to register the car the way they were classifying it. AND, she gave me a three month temporary operators permit and said come back for another when it runs out. She also advised me to come back a few weeks before the January SB100 releases because Sacramento was often negligent on doing what they were asked. Good thing because in the second week of December it was still in limbo so she called Sacramento again and walked it through, another hour of her time. Good news was that on January 2nd after only a few minutes with her phoning in I walked out with an SB sequence number. Check on this site and the Cobra Club sites for a friendly knowledgeable DMV in your area.

Evil, was yours an LSD? Found a few on Ebay that say 4:44 and LSD, from $100.00 to $550.00 (buy now price but still for auction) for exactly the same part. I'd say your $50.00 find was a good one for sure. I'll give car parts a try.

Evilromeo stated that he is using an '07 Forester replacement rear differential in his S2K. Does anyone have a basic list of which Subaru vehicle model differentials will "fit" our stock S2K's? I'm running a very tall gear, probably in the mid 3:50's and would like to get into something more along the lines of 4:10 or 4:44. Another member of this forum has a spare differential that we are going to check for gear ratio and LSD to see if it has what I need. But if it doesn't I guess it's going to be EBay or craigslist. I've seen Subaru rear differentials listed for anywhere from $175.00 (private sellers) to $550.00 for a warranted used unit from a dealer. Any ideas about what the average going price should be?

As a former Marine and Vietnam Vet I celebrated Veterans Day by making a donation to the Wounded Warriors organization. The specials for vets are a nice thought but the big chains should do something like donate a dollar of every customers purchase to a veterans organization, almost all of which are overworked and underfunded.

Getting an SB100 is easy now that the backlog is gone, probably still some available and if not will be 500 more issued the first business day if 2014. Once you have that in hand everything gets easy. CHP is just to make sure it's not built with stolen parts and then they give you a "vehicle identification" number and install two ID's, one a pop riveted on plate on the frame and one on a fixed panel where it can be easily seen. Only an actual manufacturer can issue a VIN number. With SB100 you get a build date but your car is "0000" model year and all you have to meet for equipment is 1960 automobile standards. Believe me, 1960 didn't have a lot of required items ;-). Depending on your local DMV (see who on this forum has been to an "easy" one near you that actually knows the sequence and procedures, if not you can be in for a world of hurt). You may have to take the car to a California certified brake and light inspection station. Several of the SB100 registered owners on this forum have not had to do that so hope you end up as one of "them". BMV will probably also require you to take the car to a CARB location. That's really just a rubber stamp to show that the car isn't a gross polluter since you don't actually have any more smog issues, forever, with the SB100. Lots of help on this board in previous post by many who have done this before you, read and learn, save yourself a lot of heartache and wasted time with retarded (not all, some are really sharp) DMV personnel.

I'd be pulling it out! LOL. I seemed to have forgotten my own and others statements about these cars all being slightly different. I duplicate the heim joint order posted on this blog earlier after counting what I needed and it seemingly being correct. Installed them all except the following; Both my upper outer heims are 5/8" instead of the more common 1/2" used on all the other front heims. My steering is metric, not SAE, so the two 1/2" X 1/2" heims for that don't work either. The existing ball type end has a longer shaft so will need a longer tube to fit the replacement heim. I'm still waiting for all my shoulder bolts to arrive (slow vendor, coming next Monday) so will go ahead and order the additional 5/8" heim/shoulder bolts sets and also the metric heims, two longer suspension tubes and appropriate shoulder bolts for them. Just an aside. About half of my existing heims did show some wear (only a couple were noticeably loose, most still within useable range)and I had replaced one that was really worn already. I think a lot, probably most, of the rattles were from the poor fit of the heims on the threaded bolts. It would probably be wise for anyone on a budget to replace all of the threaded bolts with shoulder bolts before spending the money on upgrading the heims. That would be a really easy, and cheap, starting point. Squeaks are still going to be there but I found that regular application of dry Teflon or MollyBlue chain oil helped a lot. Doing the shoulder bolt fix might also help the wear rate on the existing heims as some of the 'slam" might get reduced. Have to work on my boat and start a couple of wood Christmas present projects so the car is going to get covered and play second fiddle for a couple of weeks but will get back to it when I have everything to complete it in hand. At least it ain't summer. ;-). in hand

My headers are 1 7/8" primary tubes. With the baked on finish they actually mic. at 1.90" instead of 1.875. Due to the very short length of our system and the 4 into 1 being right at the cat/muffler you don't really get much for scavenging so not suret how much increase you will get. Might add a bit more backpressure, which helps low end but not much of that in a S2000 motor no matter what you do.

Your right, working on these cars is part of the fun. If they weren't so damm much fun to drive I'd say it was an equal part. My tooling/garage is more set up for woodworking so my metal working items are pretty limited. There are some members on this forum who do have access to some (seams to me at least) sophisticated computer programs and a couple with some really nice metal working tools. I really regret not having had a chance to learn how to run some of those tools. When I had mentioned this before a friend of mine told me that a lot of good but obsolete(anything that isn't controlled by a computer program) equipment is available cheap. Wish I had looked into it sooner, this dog is a bit old to learn very many new tricks ;-). The 7 is a perfect car for people who want to be able to do their own work with available tools and equipment, and for us guys who are still "stuck in the 60's" when "special tool" meant a micrometer or a torque wrench and "electronics" meant a timing light and a dwell meter. LOL. Love these cars, all makes, and this forum.

This should (I sure hope) prevent any future problems. I purchased longer grade #8 bolts so that the new heims will sit on the unthreaded part of the bolts instead of the threaded portion. Actually had to add one round of threads to get the bolt to pinch up tight. Welded on the new brackets so hope that end is nice and tight when it goes together with the new shoulder bolts. The new brace installs as shown here. I set the suspension at mid travel and then lined up the web of the brace to the angle of the rear lower link to keep it in the line of maximum force. Drilled and tapped a hole through the web that aligned with the two casting edges so the brace will stay aligned. It shouldn't move even without the pin as the whole thing is going to be torqued pretty tight. The "notch" is actually deeper than required, I measured from the thicker tube instead of the thinner one. Forgot to "measure twice, cut once" ;-).

Finished up all the fab and painted the parts yesterday so it was my plan to put it all together this weekend. I had noticed that I had several different types of shock/suspension mounting "U" brackets on the car plus the new ones I just welded up so knew I was going to need several different lengths on the shoulder bolts. I completely disassembled the cars front suspension this AM, back was already apart, so I could mike the different parts. I have three different thickness's on the section of the existing brackets the bolt clamps through and one bracket with an add to the range because my headlight mounts to it also. Not a problem except... I had been planning on picking up all of the shoulder bolts/nuts/washers at my local Fastenal store. Forget that, looks like time for an on line order as they didn't have most of it in stock and what they did have only sold in bags of 50. They didn't even have an anti-seize compound, had to go to my local hardware for that so at least I can install all the new heims into the existing suspension tubes etc and just wait on a UPS delivery next week for final assembly. I don't have any pre-paid track days scheduled so no big deal, just wanted to get it done and go for a ride!!

The VAT looked like a huge bite until I realized I'm in a nearly half that rate state and don't seem to get a lot back for the money. And, a 2 mile trip in an ambulance will run you about $12,000 for your overnight stay in the hospital that will run another $18,000. That's if you happen to work and pay taxes so have something to lose. If you chose to not work then the exact same ride and stay will cost you nothing. Gee, my 10% is getting somebody something after all, just not me.