Having come to a point in my life where i have more motors than project cars, I have decided to move forward with a little something I have been dreaming up for ages. Gloria is an 83 Subaru Leone coupe, with GL trim, and an EA series drivetrain. As you can imagine, the whole thing is begging for a rotary engine (RE).

 

 

Glorious 80s digidash.

Everybody likes mouse crap

 

All Leone coupes came as fwd, but being no stranger to old subes, I had planned to swap it to 4wd, and use a kennedy engineering adapter plate I have acquired to run the rotary through the subaru trans. As time progressed and parts collected dust, I decided that 4wd wasn't going to cut it and I wanted another small lightweight RWD rotary.

 

As luck would have it an entire 1st gen legacy rear suspension showed up on craigslist for a paltry $20. Money exchanged hands and soon I had a plan, but where was I going to get an rx7 drivetrain? In hindsight I should have played the lottery that week, because I acquired a free '83 gsl in running condition that had been in a front end collision. I will be using the engine and tranny from the gsl for now, and upgrading in the future (bridgeport 12a )

 

 

Out with the old

 

In with the new

 

 

With a bit of cutting, welding, and fabrication the legacy rear end just about bolts in Once I mount the strut tops and fab the crossbraces I will be moving on to engine/tranny installation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Until next time...

good project and good pic. The 12A is okay but wait til you can get a 13B.....

 

 

wish i had this.

 

make for darn certain that oil cooler is not leaking at the fittings....if it is, you will fry that rotary in NO TIME.- they run hotter than a ho with no panties on.

Edited September 16, 201015 yr by bheinen74

good project and good pic. The 12A is okay but wait til you can get a 13B.....

 

 

wish i had this.

 

make for darn certain that oil cooler is not leaking at the fittings....if it is, you will fry that rotary in NO TIME.- they run hotter than a ho with no panties on.

 

I'm no stranger to rotaries I have owned 11 rx's over the years and my current rx7 has a built 13b in it. I contemplated running it in the sube, but it breaks rx7 parts, it would have turned sube axles to pretzels.

i wanna see ..cheers, brian

My work blocks most picture sites, so I can only imagine how cool this is. Is it driving yet?

 

Jacob

My work blocks most picture sites, so I can only imagine how cool this is. Is it driving yet?

 

Jacob

 

Not driving yet, rear subframe is in, rear strut towers are getting built today. Once it is a rolling chassis again I am going to tow-bar it to the car wash to hose off the ea81 before i pull it. At that point the new engine/tranny goes in. The distance from the end of the bellhousing to the shifter position is within 1/2in between an ea81 tranny, and the rotary tranny. The distance from the shifter position to the engines front pulley is almost identical between EA and RE, I'm telling you these were made for a rotary swap

 

Isaac

 

p.s. You're more than welcome to stop by anytime Brian.

ive been dreaming of a rotary/rwd swap on a little car ever since my festiva. my first car was a 81 glf. i can only imagine how sweet it would have been to rotarify that thing. til now. godspeed isaac.

 

 

 

RV

ive been dreaming of a rotary/rwd swap on a little car ever since my festiva. my first car was a 81 glf. i can only imagine how sweet it would have been to rotarify that thing. til now. godspeed isaac.

 

 

 

RV

 

See, I'm more interested in the Legacy rear, but I'm happy to see someone combine their interests into one car. Hopefully there's a 4WD Subaru nearby for the Spokane winters.

 

Jacob

I got quite a bit done today, strut tops and wheel well cutouts. I am doing the math and designing the legacy suspension mounting points so that it will be easily duplicate-able by anyone else wishing to do a major rear end upgrade. When I finish this I will make a writeup for the leggy to ea81 parts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We will see what i get done tomorrow

 

Isaac

 

 

renob123> Between my dad and I we have the entire ea81 lineup, and my wife's DD is a 99 legacy. Winter is covered... although I do have 4 studded tires that will fit this beasty

With a bit of cutting, welding, and fabrication the legacy rear end just about bolts in Once I mount the strut tops and fab the crossbraces I will be moving on to engine/tranny installation.

 

Until next time...

 

I'd weld the notches you cut into the framerails back in, and weld captured nuts in. I assume you notched the frame so that you could access the nut with a wrench?

 

I had a lot of stock captured nuts tear out of the body of my lifted EA82, so I would weld a nut to a big fender washer, and put that up in the torn hole, and weld the washer to the body. I had really good sucess with that and the washers never tore out because they spread the load across a larger area.

That piece of 1/4 plate is spreading the load In that pic it is only tacked in place, but now it is completely welded along the entire seam. The inside and outside are getting gussets as well.

 

like this once the rest of the gussets are added:

 

 

Good idea on the fender washer though, I have a sedan that has molested mustache bar holes that I think I just might do that to

Made some progress today

 

I originally planned to butt the strut top plates against the underside outer corner of the rear deck, because that is where I designed the strut top plates to index from, and then brace accordingly. Since this car is going to spend most of its life really low, and sideways, I decided to cut out part of the rear deck in order to gain an extra inch of vertical rise.

 

 

 

 

 

Once I had the struts in I threw a set of stock 15in legacy wheels on it to double check the fit, and my math.

 

 

 

 

 

Makes the stock 13in xt wheel on the front look pretty small

 

With a slight fender pull the legacy wheels will be the cats meow

 

 

Isaac

That looks awesome!! Great work. Man that thing will be low!!! The wheel is pretty tucked already and thats without weight on it!!

That looks awesome!! Great work. Man that thing will be low!!! The wheel is pretty tucked already and thats without weight on it!!

 

the difference between full droop and static ride height in my DD legacy is 3in, so I use that as my height adjustment. with 3 inches of compression the tire is even with the fender lip. This thing weighs ridiculously less than a legacy, so there wont be a full 3 inches of compression to reach static ride height. When it finally hits the road I will be running very stiff springs/coilover perches so the suspension travel will be minimal anyway.

 

Isaac

sweet , hurry up and post more progress!

That looks freakin awesome!! I wish I could be that ambitious. I have ideas and skills to do crazy things like this, but I never actually do them. Way to go man!

The wife is 7mo pregnant, and the kid has had a sinus infection so this update has taken a bit longer than usual. A lot of progress has been made, and I think I will let the pics do the talking

 

You guys didn't think I would leave you hanging did you?

 

Lookin good man. Cant wait to see the finished product of it going sideways down the track.

This is great! I love to see fellow Spokanites building cool stuff! If you need a shop hand, let me know! I wanna see this thing...

 

Keep up the good work, man.

VERY nice man....i'll get over there sometime. damn school:lol:... i see your dad almost every day......:lol:cheers, b

Any of you guys are more than welcome to come check it out, I am usually juggling about 10 projects at any one time, so there is never a dull moment around here.

 

My dad said he saw you at school Brian, we had a pretty good laugh about it.

That is going to have to come out.

 

 

Its a shame really, car had AC/PS/Cruise.

 

Nice empty bay.

 

 

 

 

New and old, greeting each other in passing.

 

 

 

 

 

Isaac

Looks like you need to add this car to the shop talk contest. This much fabbing, customizing and welding in what looks like a dirt driveway is certainly impressive.