A few teaser shots of the finished car, more on the build coming soon!

One of the many items that need to made to fit is the exhaust. Since much like the driveshaft, every swap fits a bit differently in the 510 there isn’t really an decent off the shelf solution for either the down-pipe or the exhaust. In order to get the job done I contacted Kelly who owns Kelly Built fabrications in San Jose. A good friend to a lot of the folks I know in the Bay Area car scene,  Kelly is known all around the Bay for his insane fab skills.

Request to him was a complete 3″ stainless steel exhaust and down-pipe with v-band connections and the HKS Carbon-Ti muffler I had previously purchased.

Kelly also added the v-band flange for my blow off valve, bung of the IAT sensor, and nipple for the IACV feed line to my cold-side intercooler pipe.

Amazing can’t even describe the quality of Kelly’s work on all of the components. Everything turned out amazingly well and fit the exact request I had made to him.

Welcome back! Lots of posts in one day but I need to catch up. Next up I’ll walk through some of the interior work and final steps up to where the car is now, done and running!

One of my goals with the car was to keep everything simple. I wanted a clean simple interior without having to track down 46 year old parts and components that may or may not be in decent shape. In order to do this I opted to go far a full aluminum dash, aluminum interior panels, and new carpet. I matched this to my set of Bride seats that I had in my STI and a Personal leather wrapped 300mm steering wheel. I also added a trick set of stainless steel door sills from Skillard.

For all the gauges and necessary information inside the car I turned to Speedhut gauges for a pair of custom made multi-gauges to match my existing Defis that I kept from the STI. The first Speedhut gauge features a 4 function display with Volts, Fuel Level, Oil Pressure, and Water Temp. The second features the tachometer and speedometer, along with odometer and other functions. The Speedo and Odometer are fed from GPS for a super reliable and accurate reading that involved minimal wiring and no speed sensors.

Along with adding in all of the interior panels and components for the main cabin, I also finished up the trunk area. In order to modernize the fuel delivery to meet the needs of the SR20det I opted for a custom made aluminum fuel cell that mounts in the original location between the rear strut towers. I also added the Techno Toy Tuning side panels and wheel well cover.

Next up down-pipe and exhaust fabrication!

So as I mentioned in the previous post, this time around we’ll cover the drive train and braking components on the car. With the motor in it was time to start working on getting the components ready for actually moving the car. Since every swapped 510 SR20det project is different no one makes an off the shelf driveshaft. I needed to have something custom made in order to fit. I started off by getting the rear end sorted out so I could take measurements from the transmission to the rear differential.

For the rear I choose to go with the tried and true Subaru R180 out of the WRX STI. I added to it the Cusco 1.5 way limited slip differential, billet stub ends, and the Ermish Racing CV Axle kit.

With the rear end pretty much buttoned up I could finally take the necessary measurements so I could have the driveshaft made. Once I had everything I headed over to Driveline Service in San Leandro. After a bit of planning I left everything in their capable hands and returned a mere 3 days later to pick up the completed driveshaft.

With the drive line all setup and installed it was time to get the brakes on. As mentioned previously on the blog I am using 4 piston Brembos off of the Ferrari 360 Modena for the fronts and 2 piston Brembos off of my old 07 WRX STI for the rear. Mounting was accomplished with a set of custom made billet aluminum brackets and center hats. Along with the calipers I also made all new stainless steel hard lines for the brakes and clutch and added a set of Techno Toy Tuning negative camber roll center adjusters to the coilovers.

Next up I’ll cover more of the assembly with the interior and finishing steps!

So it’s been quite some time since I last updated this. Having a new baby and general life stuff got in the way of updating the blog. However I had been cataloging everything and making sure I had progress photos of all the steps.

For now, let’s start with the general assembly after I got the shell back from the body shop. After towing the shell back to RBMS Auto Care in Hayward, where my buddy Mert kindly let me assemble the car, I began slowly piecing everything together.

I began with tackling some of the exterior items first. Tail lights, fender flares, turn signals, front lip, etc.

After I had those items finished up, it was time to drop the motor in. We finished up the motor what felt like eons ago and now was the time to finally get it in the car! I was so excited to see how everything was going to fit together.

After a bit of wiggling and adjusting the motor dropped in surprisingly easily. Since assembly of the intake and turbo components was much easier with the motor out I was really hoping that we would be able to drop the motor in from above. Typically, most people bring the motor up from the bottom with the subframe already attached and then add all of the other items on once it’s in the car.

With the motor now in it was time to start getting all of the accessories and other components on. Headlights, radiator, intercooler, etc. where all on the list.

Now with the motor in and most of the larger ticket items installed I took a bit of a break and knocked out some of the smaller exterior items. Since I wanted to prevent access to the engine bay I opted to remove the hood latch and cable and run a set of Aerocatch hood pins with keyed locks instead. I also wanted to add a bit more security so I add a set of Solex deadbolt style door locks.

We’ll continue the assembly in the next section! Interior, drivetrain, and more!