Long overdue update time...
Long and short of what has happened over the last few months (other then 4 new tyres and a keyed/damaged front wing) I have fitted an oil cooler and re-positioned the power steering cooler to allow for this.
It’s been a bit of a nightmare to be honest, fitting a Mishimoto kit apparently designed for a Bug/Blob, only to very quickly discover it isn’t really designed for either in UK spec and certainly not a Blob Eye.
Below pic shows the cooler, mounting bracket and lower plate to force the air to flow through the cooler instead of under it. It certainly looks the part and to begin with I thought it might be smooth sailing.
The bracket is bolted in to the two holes where you see the white plastic clips currently holding the bonnet release catch cable in place. I imagine most of you have now seen the first problem, how can I put an oil cooler in the space taken up by the power steering cooler...?!
I tried to work out any other options for mounting positions in this area, trying to find a way of leaving all the power steering gubbins in place, turns out it just wasn’t possible if I wanted to use the bracket as intended.
This pic shows the space available to the right of the power steering cooler, space is taken up by horns without many options for a basic move around
I tried moving bits around but if I used the two blank holes available in the upper body work the cooler would end up being almost in the headlight.
At this point I set my sights on trying to work with the kit as it was intended, I set myself on fitting where it should be and working out the power steering cooler side of things later down the line. I pulled the cooler pipe out of the way to at least get the oil cooler in to place. The power steering cooler was only a problem because Mishimoto developed the kit on a US Scoob, which didn’t have a cooler pipe located like the UK spec.
At this stage I came across my next problem, the oil cooler and mounting bracket fouled on some of the metal work near by, again a problem highlighting the fact it was a kit designed on a bug eye, not a Blob eye.
The bolts and metal ‘tang’ sticking out in the second pic were in the way, the metalwork to the right of the bolt in the first pic was in the way. I cut of the ‘tang’ and had to leave everything else in place as it was all necessary.
To get over the problem of the fouling areas I got the grinder on the bracket and oil cooler to shape it and allow it to fit.
I also had to chop up the metal plate that sat at the bottom of the oil cooler because it wouldn’t fit behind the crash bar. Again a problem that came about because the kit was made using a bug eye as a template.
You can see what a tight fit it is, after getting this far I still had to work out cramming the lines too and from the sandwich plate in that ran from the bottom of the cooler.
One line runs down through the gap between the air-con condenser and the chassis rail, the other line runs under the headlight, down the gap where the fog light would be on a WRX/WR1 and out trough some plastic panels separating this area from the engine bay, next to the exhaust manifold/subframe.
On we go to the next issue (talking of the exhaust manifold!). Mounting the thermostatic sandwich plate, thought this would be simple however it turns out there is only one very specific place it can go. The banjo bolts for attaching the lines are chunky, they don’t sit flush with the sandwich plate either in terms of thickness/height.
I had to chop away at the heat shield around the manifold to make the necessary room for the bits to go, the instructions in the kit did say this would need to happen.
So one fiasco later (and with power steering cooling still to be sorted) the oil cooler was in place and working! I purchased some DEI heat shielding to put around the oil lines close to the exposed exhaust manifold
Power steering cooler story will follow shortly...