Need Subaru brat build advice...anyone know about hand controls?

[hillerheilman]

So I recently bought an'81 Subaru brat from a guy who, funnily enough, is on this forum apparently. Anyway, it needs a new engine and transmission so I had planned to just gut it and rebuild it from the frame, but I'm unsure where to start rebuilding once I've done that. My first thought was to find a wrx at a wreck auction try to swap the engine, transmission, etc, from that into the brat. The trouble that I'm having is that I require hand controls due to a disability, and I'm unsure what can/needs to be done. My question is, would it be possible to have an automatic transmission with shifter paddles, but instead of having the paddles control the gears, have one control the gas and one control the brakes? Any advice is appreciated.

 

~Hiller

[ANIM_Hooneru]

Gday Hiller,

One of my mates uses hand controls on his cars due to his disability. He has a condition known as Sacral Agenesis/Caudal Regresion which has resulted in him being only fully formed to the bottom of his torso, with very small and malformed legs and feet which are fused together.

 

Over here in Australia if you use hand controls to legally drive on the road you have to have an automatic and "registered" controls that have been installed by a certified engineer. When Luke bought a new car and had his hand controls removed from his BA Ford Falcon and put into his VE Holden Commodore it cost him $400 (from memory) to have them swapped and recertified...so look into the costs involved first and factor that into your budget. I think his controls cost about $1000 when they were new however they can be changed from car to car.

 

I will get onto Luke and get him to send me some pictures of how his controls work. He has a twin lever setup that runs to a single bar that runs 90° to the steering column. When he pushes it towards the pedals (away from him) its on the gas and when he pushes it towards the floor its on the brakes. His controls made it so you had to get completely of the accelerator before you could brake.

 

I'm not sure about the legality of the style hand controls you talk about. I imagine you could rig something up similar to a slot car controller maybe for the throttle, it should in theory give a linier throttle signal you could use opposed to using a tps...if it was an engine that had the stepper motor to run the throttle body. it would really depend on what engine and box and ecu combination you went with.

 

An aftermarket ecu such as a Link, Haltech, Motec etc would be the way to go because you can pretty well set up tolleranes and signals according to the modified setup you are going to have to design, rather then design your modified setup around the tollerences and sensor signals the stock ecu is going to be expecting.

 

For the brakes to run off of a hand control you would probably need to use a hydraulic system like off a motorbike clutch to actuate the pushrod that would drive the brake master cylimder.

 

Luke runs a Speedway car here and all we have in terms of hand controls for it is a thumb throttle lever on the steering wheel and the throttle cable is wrapped about the column. It also has a 2:1 "quicksteer" reduction on the column to halve the rotation he has to do to go lock to lock. For the brakes he has a big lever beside the wheel that runs off a pivot and hits the brake pedal for him. For the clutch we have a motorbike hydraulic setup with a lever attached to the actual shifter...it has its own vaccumn assisted brake booster sitting on the passenger floor to make it easy enough for him to clutch left handed. Mind you...thats a speedway car. I doubt that sorta stuff would fly in a road regestered car.

 

The best advice I could give, work out what you want to do engine wise, draft a budget, and go from there. The EJ engine swap process can be a bitch and can easily go way over the time and money you allocate for it...compared to installing a lever system like Luke's road car to an EA81 engine which would a be a piece of cake.

 

I'm sure there would be something on YouTube showing how Lukeys cars are set up...look up Lukey Watt Racing or Wheelzy and there should be something.

 

Hope that helps, shoot me a message if you wanna talk about it more. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

Edited March 24, 2017 by ANIM_Hooneru

[GeneralDisorder]

It's really not easily possible to do what you are asking - the WRX engine will not fit in the engine bay as it is too wide - and that's a first gen Brat which is even narrower than a second gen..... I've seen it done on a second gen but 1G..... I doubt it. So BIG modifications would have to be made. It's been done but it costs a lot of money. Also the WRX engines you are likely to be buying are not something us Subaru mechanics buy used typically. They are complex and prone to failure when abused and high mileage. Rebuilding one is an expensive proposition. I just finished an '06 WRX build for a customer - blown HG's and cracked oil pickup tube. The bill was over $10k. Mind you it's over 100 HP increase over stock and he got some other upgrades but with the fabrication, wiring, etc required, and add in that you don't already have an engine to rebuild.... don't expect to spend any less than $10k on such a project. 

 

GD

Edited March 24, 2017 by GeneralDisorder

[hillerheilman]

It's really not easily possible to do what you are asking - the WRX engine will not fit in the engine bay as it is too wide - and that's a first gen Brat which is even narrower than a second gen..... I've seen it done on a second gen but 1G..... I doubt it. So BIG modifications would have to be made. It's been done but it costs a lot of money. Also the WRX engines you are likely to be buying are not something us Subaru mechanics buy used typically. They are complex and prone to failure when abused and high mileage. Rebuilding one is an expensive proposition. I just finished an '06 WRX build for a customer - blown HG's and cracked oil pickup tube. The bill was over $10k. Mind you it's over 100 HP increase over stock and he got some other upgrades but with the fabrication, wiring, etc required, and add in that you don't already have an engine to rebuild.... don't expect to spend any less than $10k on such a project. 

 

GD

a fair point. As to the size of the engine, I have to replace the whole front end anyway due to it Being damaged mostly irreparably, and I'd assumed I could make it fit in the process of cutting the front end off and welding the new one on. Do you have any suggestions as to an alternative to a wrx? I would really like something reliable, and still get a substantial increase in horsepower.

[hillerheilman]

Gday Hiller,

One of my mates uses hand controls on his cars due to his disability. He has a condition known as Sacral Agenesis/Caudal Regresion which has resulted in him being only fully formed to the bottom of his torso, with very small and malformed legs and feet which are fused together.

Over here in Australia if you use hand controls to legally drive on the road you have to have an automatic and "registered" controls that have been installed by a certified engineer. When Luke bought a new car and had his hand controls removed from his BA Ford Falcon and put into his VE Holden Commodore it cost him $400 (from memory) to have them swapped and recertified...so look into the costs involved first and factor that into your budget. I think his controls cost about $1000 when they were new however they can be changed from car to car.

I will get onto Luke and get him to send me some pictures of how his controls work. He has a twin lever setup that runs to a single bar that runs 90° to the steering column. When he pushes it towards the pedals (away from him) its on the gas and when he pushes it towards the floor its on the brakes. His controls made it so you had to get completely of the accelerator before you could brake.

I'm not sure about the legality of the style hand controls you talk about. I imagine you could rig something up similar to a slot car controller maybe for the throttle, it should in theory give a linier throttle signal you could use opposed to using a tps...if it was an engine that had the stepper motor to run the throttle body. it would really depend on what engine and box and ecu combination you went with.

An aftermarket ecu such as a Link, Haltech, Motec etc would be the way to go because you can pretty well set up tolleranes and signals according to the modified setup you are going to have to design, rather then design your modified setup around the tollerences and sensor signals the stock ecu is going to be expecting.

For the brakes to run off of a hand control you would probably need to use a hydraulic system like off a motorbike clutch to actuate the pushrod that would drive the brake master cylimder.

Luke runs a Speedway car here and all we have in terms of hand controls for it is a thumb throttle lever on the steering wheel and the throttle cable is wrapped about the column. It also has a 2:1 "quicksteer" reduction on the column to halve the rotation he has to do to go lock to lock. For the brakes he has a big lever beside the wheel that runs off a pivot and hits the brake pedal for him. For the clutch we have a motorbike hydraulic setup with a lever attached to the actual shifter...it has its own vaccumn assisted brake booster sitting on the passenger floor to make it easy enough for him to clutch left handed. Mind you...thats a speedway car. I doubt that sorta stuff would fly in a road regestered car.

The best advice I could give, work out what you want to do engine wise, draft a budget, and go from there. The EJ engine swap process can be a bitch and can easily go way over the time and money you allocate for it...compared to installing a lever system like Luke's road car to an EA81 engine which would a be a piece of cake.

I'm sure there would be something on YouTube showing how Lukeys cars are set up...look up Lukey Watt Racing or Wheelzy and there should be something.

Hope that helps, shoot me a message if you wanna talk about it more. Looking forward to seeing how this goes.

that sounds really interesting. Yeah I'd definitely like details if you can provide them. I've seen a rally car on youtube with a setup similar sounding to that

[hillerheilman]

Ej 22, or a Forrester turbo engine maybe? Would that work better?

[AdventureSubaru]

Yes. If you want to follow in the footsteps of what's commonly affordable and been done with great success, that would be the way to go.

 

The one successful WRX swap into an 80s subaru ended up destroying axles and such in short order. It would take a lot of further work to make it practical.

 

For a small, lightweight car like the brat, an EJ22 makes plenty of power. With an adapter kit, it can be mated to a 3at transmission just fine.

 

Or - with a little more fabbing and parts shopping, you can switch it over to EJ (4EAT or 5mt) transmission and running gear. You would trade 4WD for AWD, or possibly FWD only if desired.

Edited March 24, 2017 by AdventureSubaru

[GeneralDisorder]

An EJ22 would work much better without destroying every other mechanical component and overpowering the chassis, suspension, and brakes. If you did manage to put a ~250 HP WRX engine into that chassis you would find that the whole chassis is about as stiff as wet tissue paper and after a few good hard pulls your doors won't open and close correctly anymore. We have a friend with an EJ25 high compression NA engine making about 190 HP and he had to put in an 8 point cage besides also switching it to AWD drivetrain just to make it reasonable on the road and not twist itself up like a pretzel. His is also the larger, stronger 2nd gen chassis (85).

 

Even the EJ22 will not fit without notching the frame rails. Too wide. More reasonable though. And cheaper. 

 

The Brat chassis is light enough that 175 to 200 HP will scare you half to death. It's not like they had good handling. I've ended up sideways through front lawns in the '85. That's with it being AWD. Remember it's well over 1000 lbs less than a WRX. Power to weight ratio is what's important here not HP numbers. At 190 HP the Brat will outrun a stock 2.0 WRX in a drag race. It also has RV torque cams so it makes big low end grunt unlike the WRX which needs 2000+ RPM to spool it's turbo. 

 

GD

Edited March 24, 2017 by GeneralDisorder

[dfoyl]

Here's a first gen BRAT (Brumby) with WRX engine - the fourth-from-last photo shows the engine shoehorned in to place. Owner is on AUSubaru and has had the vehicle for several years so it can be done reliably (there are a few others out there also).

 

https://www.carsales.com.au/private/details/Subaru-Brumby-1978/SSE-AD-4345093/?Cr=1

 

As GD said, it will be far easier with a SOHC engine (EJ22, phase 2 EJ25) than a turbo EJ (which are all DOHC, regardless of WRX or Forester turbo), due to the width.

[hillerheilman]

Okay so what I'm gathering is that while a wrx swap would be possible, it'd be really costly and difficult, and basically be overkill. So it looks like I'm going the ej22 route. So, that being established, they usually came in the mid-90s legacies or imprezas, right? So I could potentially just get one of those and pull the parts I would need from that rather than order them individually? Speaking of parts, if anyone knows where I can get a brat front end with the four round lights(79??)or has one they'd sell, or knows where I might source one online, I would appreciate it. I've got another front end with the square lights already, I just prefer the look of the round ones

Edited March 25, 2017 by hillerheilman

[DaveT]

For doing one of these swaps, yes, get a whole doner car.