News and Blog for Sunday, April 4th 2010

Got a little more done on the Vanagon, the work honestly has been slow going but still waiting for parts. Lets start with the one part I have managed to accumulate over the last week. One of the two required engine wiring harnesses for replacement. I ordered this one from the Subaru dealership and the second one I found for a better price and will be purchasing online. This harness

Blog Entry for Sunday, March 28th 2010

This weekend was very productive when it came to things not related to Albert :( First off, bulk trash day is nearing so I spent a few hours on Saturday after working OT so get everything I wanted out to the Curb. This turned into a complete cleaning of the "Parts Warehouse": Most of the stuff was left over SVX or really old G60 / 8v parts. After cleaning it

Blog for Thursday, March 18th 2010

It's been warm out so I have been busy! I have gotten more of the much needed body work / paint prep on the driver's side. This last week has shown some significant progress in the way of obtaining a reasonably flat surface to paint onto, among a few other things with the Van. We start by sanding into the paint used to protect the work from moisture, I noticed

Blog for Wednesday, March 10th 2010

Got some more stuff! Things have been a little slower moving around here because of work-related reasons and the nice weather we've been getting doesn't seem to want to align with the weekends I have off. Nevertheless, here is what I managed to get done... The postman brought me a package containing 2 hella boxes: The boxes actually contain my new smoked turn signal lights: I wasted no time on

Blog and news for Thursday, March 4th 2010

Progress is starting to pick up! South African lower grill and lights have arrived! This is a big turning point for me and this project, this completely changed the looks of the Van, actually I was quite in shock standing in front of it for the first time as looking at it in person is much different than any picture. I already had the HID ballasts on hand and just

Blog Entry for Wednesday, February 17th 2010

Got more done today! I pressure washed the JDM block and tore it down a little more. There were many wiring loom pieces, as well as random old leaves and a cigarette butt. I blew all of that out and gave the block a good look over for cracks: It was interesting studying the markings and comparing them to the other engine. Start of EG33 Failure analysis One thing I

Blog Entry for Thursday, February 11th, 2010

Not much in the way of progress. The garage is cleaned and the transmission and parts get dropped off tomorrow so everything can be sent out to be cryo treated. I have made some progress on my digital instrument cluster. Now that the final batch of LED matrices has arrived I can begin basic construction of the display components. I have had some problems with my PIC programmer so I

Blog for Friday, February 5th 2010

Finished the beginning of the transmission page for the EG33 swapped vanagon. (click on the image below) I have had some setbacks in programming my pic microcontrollers, but that's okay it's just the learning process. I think I have acquired the next server that I would like to host everything from and am still working on getting xeon parts. I will have a separate project page for that later on.

News and Blog for Monday February 1st, 2010

NEWS: - The DoogieLabs Vanagon page has been updated, JDM engine section has been added - The downloads section was officially moved over from Area51 - Added a poll BLOG: Disassembly of the JDM engine has commenced while I wait for my 3rd and 4th gears to come in from weddle industries. The engine has came apart smoothly without any apparent problems. I have noticed that the lower wiring harness

Blog Entry for Sunday, January 27th 2010

After 9,000 miles of trouble free driving I had my first problem! Actually, I was already aware of the issues with 3rd gear because just after I first put together the Van I was "locked out of 3rd" for a while but it eventually fixed itself and it held for 8,500 miles. There is a known defect related to 3rd gear in the 091/1 transmissions. I have been taking my

Blog Entry for Friday January 15th, 2010

I haven't had much in the way of extra time, between work, spending my days off wiring a project car, and tending to the usual social agenda that leaves me little free time to advance my personal knowledge, so things have been a little slow lately. I don't really mind any progress is progress, I have been most pleased in my understanding of the Subaru ECU I have been reverse