Honda upgrade on my 79 clubby estate

[chellwil]

Well this car has been through alot when i purchased her she had a 1100 manual, since i don't drive manual well my husband put a 1275 auto in her.....After rebuilding her from the floor up we drove her a year then we got the Honda bug haha. We soon transformed his into a honda VTEC now it's my turn but with an automatic VTEC. So here's our build.....
His before
His after
Mine before restore
Mine after
Now begin's my Honda build.....
s737.photobucket.com/albums/xx19/chellwil/D16%20clubman%20estate/

[clambod]

Pretty impressive. Why did you have to cut the subframe?

[chellwil]

we bought the same frame we got for my husband's swap, but after trying to shove the tranny into postion we realized mine is alittle fatter, okay alot fatter. So we had to adjust the subframe on tranny side and move the postion of the mount then it all went gravy. Now we are gonna cut up inner wings and put the frame and engine in car for another test fit, hopefully by the end of the week the frame can go to the powder coater.

[clambod]

Ah. I think I understand now. That's the difference between auto and manual Honda

[chellwil]

the mounts are the same if the tranny wasn't so fat it would have slid right in,so we adjusted the mount to lift tranny higher to allow room for the arms. i'll add more pics in a bit. we are currently mutilating my car but i'm so excited.

[chellwil]

I think i'm on a good start, just alittle more trimming and tweeking. I have to say she fit's pretty nice. I think it looks smaller then hubbies.

[clambod]

That is a nice neat fit.

[joakwin]

looks nice

you have any pictures of what you had to mod on the subframe?

and you went with an allspeed subframe right?

[chellwil]

still tweeking the frame but i'll add more of that once it's done, ya we got the allspeed frame. I have to say it's a great frame and with those few adjustments i could see them moding it and selling an auto option.

[clambod]

With a round nose and the all speed conversion you have to extend the wings etc. Did you have to do that in the Clubby?

[chellwil]

Honistly that's why we changed hubby's from round nose to clubby because he didn't want to have to get a fiberglass front or exstend his i believe it's like 3inches something like that. With the allspeed conversion for honda you just gotta cut some of the inner wings away and at the front of the clubby at the bottom under licence plate you gotta trim that abit but you can see by the pics i don't have to exstend just more or less trim away excess. If i would have went manual i would have only had to trim and put in subframe i had to mod the frame cause the auto is just fatter.
s737.photobucket.com/albums/xx19/chellwil/b18%20to%20mini%20swap/ this is hubbies build to give ya another look without modding frame.

[chellwil]

well the subframe is with the powdercoater and i finally picked some guages so now it's the waiting game hoping everything will come in sooner rather than later. Still alittle unsure what intake i'm gonna use either way it has to be cut and shortened.

[chellwil]

we got the powdercoating stuff back the guy did an amazing job JT Finishing's in bury rock.

[clambod]

That looks pretty good. You'll soon be putting all together then.

[chellwil]

got her all painted up now waiting for it to dry so we can put engine and frame back in hopefully for the last time. Alittle more wiring to sort out got the guages in time to make a custom dash and finish fatmatting the inside hmmmm my list seems to be growing ugh.

[clambod]

when you say "Painted up" do you mean the body shell?

[chellwil]

he had to repaint the engine bay from test fitting subframe and engine he accidently scratched and dinged it up. it's all pretty again, now to get frame and engine in without messing it up hmmmmm.

[clambod]

Do you have to lift the body over the engine, rather than dropping the engine in?

[chellwil]

we ended up putting it in from the bottom which made life so much easier, i think it looks pretty good now he needs to get to wireing her up, dammit i wanna drive it.

[clambod]

that's looking really good. A first class job.

[chellwil]

thanks hubbies been working hard april 9th is his goal date...... alot of hard work these next few weekends i'm sure.

[chellwil]

alittle more to do hope it's done for H2H

[clambod]

That's looking pretty good now. When do you think it will be on the road?
Has the wiring been done now?

[chellwil]

he finished up wireing lastnight and started fatmatting the floor so he'll finish up fatmatting today. it's coming together which is great.

[chellwil]

she starts right up the first time yeah! still gotta get the dash sorted and put seats back in. the h2h run today was awsome it was our first year doing it. The raffle kinda sucked though we couldn't hear Holly, she's too quiet. I'm thinking megaphone for her next year.

[clambod]

Looks like it's almost there. How much longer before it's on the road?

[chellwil]

this week hubbys driving it for the first couple of weeks to make sure it's all tweeked. she will be getting alignment and bigger exaust first week of may but other then that she's pretty good.

[chellwil]

she runs good and she will be attending L2B i'm so excited! this was last weekend in the pic!

[clambod]

That's not yours on the front cover of the latest mini world magazine is it?

[chellwil]

she is for sale!