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Well since the vette wheels ain't gonna clear the brakes, iv committed to go the hard way to some cool wheels, ex 7 series bmw, 2 piece 18x8 18x9.5 style 42s made by bbs,fronts are spot on flush to the guards at +20p, rears are gonna need diff given the chop chop about 25mm each side, should look pretty sweet in gunmetal or dark silver centers & high polished lips something like the pic with the bbs centers & show off the fancy brakes at the same time

Hi Alex. Have you considered a balance or X pipe between the banks before the muffler? I'm not %100 on the science, it does help smooth the sound and quieten things down though. The J pipes are interesting. I wonder how they work? Increasing the muffler volume? IDK. What is the shift pattern? is it conventional 5 speed?

Rule of thumb is that if it leaks a drop from when you enter and exit the Scrut shed for inspection, then it will be a problem when staging, and yes we check. If it drips after a few hours then its not so bad, but anyone who knows they have an oil leak whether it be slow or fast should spend 5 mins zip tieing some form of rag/nappy/tray under the problem area. If the underside of your engine/x-member is a mess and covered in sludge we may fail you. Please take some time before the event to have a clean up under there.

And the final update for this week, I've been noticing some oil in the bottom of the engine bay occasionally. Too clean to be diesel engine oil, too viscous to be refrigerant oil and too non stinky to be gear oil. Solved the mystery today. The gearbox oil is milky and specifies normal 15w40 engine oil. So water must be leaking into the drive leg past the prop shaft seal and displacing the oil out of the breather. This means the boat is coming out of the water as soon as the new seals arrive. Since all of the hardware is immersed in salt water 24/7 I'm sure disassembly will be a breeze....

Rather complicated post coming up. The second big purchase was this; Well not this exactly, but the reason for installing a longer track on the cabin top. To make sense of this, lets look at some sails. These are my 3 regularly used headsails (go on the front). At the bottom, we have the #1 Genoa in grey. The next white sail is the #2 Genoa and the third multi-color sail is our #3 Jib (there is also a #4 jib but its a shit day when that has to come out). Since this is primarily a car forum, I'll explain a little more in case anyone is interested. Big genoas are great for making lots of power. As seen on the previous page, La Vida has a big genoa and relatively small main sail. My boat has a big main sail. Because these big genoas are so long - they have to go outside the wires that hold the mast up (shrouds). Every time you tack, the wind has to blow the whole sail around the mast then some poor sucker has to crank it in tight with the winch. This takes time. But if you're making lots of power with the sail - its worth it. There's also an effective limit to how tight you can pull them in towards the centreline of the boat as the sail can only come in as far as the wires holding the mast up. Beyond a certain point - the wind tends to accelerate through the 'slot' between the genoa and the main and will push on the back side of the main "backwind" reducing its effectiveness. Again, if you have a huge genoa making power and a small main - not a big drawback. What I've learned so far this year, is that around Tauranga harbour, its better to be able to tack quick. And on my boat, the quicker tacking outweighs the benefit of a bigger headsail since the mainsail is still making lots of power. So when we run the #3 jib - because its shorter, the ropes controlling it can be run inside the shrouds - which is what that track on the deck is for. This means it can be run tighter for better performance going into the wind. It also doesn't have to blow all the way around the mast during tacks and its way quicker and easier for the guy on the winch. You can see the better angles quite well in this pic, and how short the track was previously (also look at the wool tufts on those sails - beautiful laminar flow!) Now the #3 jib in the above pic is falling to bits, we put another tear in it last weekend so its time for it to be thrown away. I do have an older less good #3 jib which will replace it as our preferred sail for winds around 25-30knots. The local sailmaker is building a new #2.5 jib which will be a slightly larger area than the existing one. Specifically designed to be efficient from 15-25knots of wind. So this will become the favourite sail for use around the harbour or on windy days. The longer track will give us more control over the shape of the sail as the position of the pulley on that track changes the angle you're pulling on the sail- thus changing how tight the bottom is vs the top and its overall shape. Pics of the sail to follow in a couple weeks once its finished.

The lo-brid lives on.....

Here's the first bunch of money, a proper autopilot. Looks basically the same as the old tiller pilot but there's one big difference. On the tiller pilot, all of the magic is self contained in one box including the ram to steer the boat. On this one, the ram is separate and the smart stuff lives elsewhere. So down under the rear bed, there's a compass/gyro sensor and a motor controller box. The compass sensor thing, the ram controller and the control panel display all link together on a high speed bus. Because the sensitive bits can be below deck and far away from speakers/metal stuff that cause interference - this should solve my previous problem. Also the newer compass gyro thing is all solid state instead of a bullshit 40 year old design gimbaling fluxgate compass like the old ones. Plus its got the smarts to learn sea states and how the boat is handling then make proactive adjustments as the boat rolls down waves. We'll see just how good it is once the commissioning is finished next weekend. With more data, the new autopilot can be more accurate. I haven't yet figured out a way to tell it rudder position - but boat speed and wind direction would be useful. It will use speed through the water to adjust the amount of steering movement used as the rudder will be more effective at higher speeds. To get the autopilot talking to my previous generation instruments, I had to add in a converter which takes the serial data and whacks it onto the new style bus. Adding my chart plotter onto this bus also gives the autopilot heading data so it can steer to a set waypoint. I also added a new generation multi-function display onto the bus which can replicate any instrument (currently showing True Wind Angle and True Wind Speed). This means the 2 instruments at the back of the boat (seen left and right above the speakers) can be used by the person steering when there's someone in the way of the other instruments (grey squares on the cabin bulkhead). And there's ALWAYS someone in the way of the depth gauge when you're in shallow water trying to pick the right time to tack.

Whilst the car was in the air for its brake upgrade, I wanted to chase a knock I've had in the front suspension. After spending a lot of money and redoing everything in the front end, I was a little annoyed when there was still a noise when going over bumps. The only thing I hadn't touched was the front swaybar D bushes. I had done the end links, arms, shocks, mounts, everything. Thankfully in one of my previous orders from RHDJapan I added a pair of the Cusco D bushes for my upgraded front swaybar. So while the brakes were off, and the car was in the air, I removed the clamp brackets and bushes. I started on the LH side, which I haven't touched before. Access is a bit limited, so ratcheting spanners are a lifesaver here. I didn't notice at the time, but what I believe is the cause of the noise is visible in that photo. With the two bolts removed, I removed the clamp, spacer under the bar and the bush The bush was visibly deformed compared to the new one The reason for this was obvious once I inspected everything. There was this weird mark on the spacer plate and bush Ah, that's why. The spacer plate wasn't fitted correctly, was twisted, held in by one bolt and not supporting half the bush. You can see the hole the bolt should be through here Instead of twisting as it should, the bar was moving around within the unsupported bush. I don't know how long it's been like this, definitely before it came to NZ though. Thankfully with the new bushes in hand, I was able to reassemble it correctly. The old bushes were also very dry with no signs of any grease in them. I used some Superpro polybush grease I had kicking about to lube the bushes first It's a bit of a fiddle to get everything lined up, and the bush clamps the bar quite tightly, but reassembly wasn't too bad once the bolts were lined up. Using a bar to push down on the clamp helped a lot as the bush wanted to push it up and off. I tightened the clamp at ride height, not that it probably matters since the bar rotates in the bush. I've had the other side apart before, when I did the rear engine mount, so that was just a simple repeat of the other side A test drive whilst bedding the brakes in shows the knocking is completely gone now, and the car feels more planted in the front. I suspect the bar was significantly less effective than it should've been. Hopefully I can get a couple of good fast runs in it this week and see how it's affected the handling. With that done, the last thing while the car was in the air was to remove the front lip and reaffix it, since it was sagging on one side With a bunch of improvised fixings removed, the lip fell off. Apparently none of the tape was actually holding it up Looks weird without it now Removing the old tape sucked. It wasn't stuck to the car at all, but it wouldn't let go of the lip easily. I used a heat gun and my thumbs to roll the tape off New tape was applied And the lip was put back into place, using some old and new fixings to secure it a bit better. To give it the best chance of sticking, I supported each end with a jack and block and gently heated the tape. It's not perfect, but it's better than it was and hopefully won't come loose again

When I get an idea in my head, it's very hard to make it go away without giving it a satisfying conclusion. I wasn't happy with how close I was last time, but ultimately failed at upgrading my brakes. Let's recap, the HA36S Alto Works and Turbo RS have dinky little 230mm rotors. These are the same size as the previous model Alto Works back in 1998, when they were smaller and lighter. The Kei Works, about the same size and weight as an HA36S, was gifted the bigger 14V caliper brackets, and 257mm rotors from the Swift/Ignis shopping basket. 230mm is probably fine for stock power, and how you'd normally drive an Alto, but when you add more power and want to drive it hard, particularly on a fast track like my local one, the little standard brakes leave something to be desired. There are a couple of suppliers out of Japan for bolt-on big brake kits, but after shipping we're talking $500+NZD, which is madness. Silkroad makes the cheapest one, with a 255mm rotor and custom-designed bracket with joined bridge. You would also be limited to sourcing the replacement rotors from Silkroad in future. The 14V brackets from a HT51S Swift/Ignis are a bolt on to the Alto, using the existing Alto calipers. These space the caliper out in order to use the bigger rotor. This would all be nice and easy, except the Kei/Swift/Ignis rotors all have a different 49mm hat height, which pushes the rotor backward toward the strut. The causes unhappiness with the clearance for the caliper bracket. You cannot alter the position of the caliper bracket since it's mounted to the front of the knuckle. The solution is to either space the rotor out from the hub, use rotors from some Toyota (Cynos iirc) and machine the center bore out to the required 60mm (thanks to the weird stepped center bore on the hub), or find a pair of rotors that actually fit (an easier job said than done). I hated the spaced-out rotor idea, everything became studcentric, including the rotors. So the Suzuki rotors were a no-go. There was some discussion about centering rings and things, but it all became too complex. The Toyota rotor option was also a no-go, I don't like the idea of having to machine consumable items in order to fit. All I was left with then, other than buying the Silkroad kit from Japan, was to find a rotor that met the criteria. This led to many hours of trawling through every single rotor catalogue and website I could find. Eventually, finally, I had a breakthrough on some random website in Europe. Enter, the Chery J1 from China. By some bizarre miracle, this horrible little shopping box of dubious quality was reported as having the perfect rotors. 257mm diameter, 17mm thickness, 60mm CB, 4x100 PCD and a 44mm hat height. The height is 1mm different from the Alto brakes, but otherwise everything else is perfect. Had I found the secret sauce? For future reference, the OE part number was S21-3501075. Apparently it's also used on some Mercedes, I don't know what though. After some more digging, I found RDA in Aus actually makes rotors for these too, using the P/N RDA8423. I'm sure other suppliers are out there, the EU sites have a few options. Anyway, thanks to the help of a great chap on the Oldschool forum, I managed to get my hands on a pair of front rotors from a Chery J1, from Pick A Part, spiders and all. Half a can of fly spray later, the spiders left me alone They were used, and rusty, but were barely worn, didn't have a lip and still measured the full 17mm thickness. I pulled the Alto in, jacked one side up and got to work fitting the Chery rotor and 14V bracket. Promising. How does the centering look? Perfect. No clearance issues, the rotor is centered, and it's all hubcentric. The next task, now that I knew it fit, was to have the rotors skimmed by a local company. They came back looking very good. The guy did audibly shudder when he asked what they were off and I answered Chery J1... He didn't ask further questions when I said not to worry since they weren't going back on one. Probably already wrote me off as a wrong'un. The surface rust is already returning... Before I could fit them I had to prep and paint the 14V brackets. The Alto comes with red calipers and brackets, because racecar, but the standard shopping basket models were unpainted. The mismatch made my eye twitch. I cleaned them with brake cleaner and then wire brushed the heck out of them before hitting them with a few coats of VHT caliper paint, focusing on the visible areas once fitted. After a couple of days to cure, it was time to fit everything once and for all. The Alto once again returned to the garage, this time both sides were raised The pile of bits was laid out for prep I removed the slider pins, which were all free, and cleaned and regreased them with some ceramic brake grease. One of the pins had a tear in the boot, so I later stole the boot from the standard Alto pin on one side. Interestingly I noticed the Swift pins were all solid, whilst one pin on each side of the Alto has rubber bushings on it to allegedly reduce noise and vibration The pad retaining clips were cleaned up and refitted The wheels were removed, and I began the removal of the standard brakes Remember to hang the caliper securely so it doesn't stress the hose The old rotor was pressed off with a bolt I then cleaned the hub bore up with a wire wheel on the drill and added some copper grease so it won't rust into place. You can see the stupid CB step here The big rotor was then slid into place with a wheel nut to hold it, and the 14V bracket bolted on and torqued to the required 85NM. The Alto pads were then slipped into the 14V brackets, with new grease. I found my calipers were missing whatever this insert is, so I stole it from the Swift calipers The caliper was then fitted and the slider bolts torqued to 26NM The difference in the size of the rotor doesn't look huge there because the caliper is still close to the center hat, but what isn't immediately obvious is that the hat has a larger diameter on the bigger rotors. If the hat had the same diameter as stock the caliper would be a long way from the hat. With my braided lines, the hose is a little tighter to reach the caliper than stock, but it's not stretched or strained, it just takes a little wiggle to get the caliper into place without pulling on the hose. Rinse and repeat for the other side of the car, and the brakes are done. They really do push the caliper out and make a pretty good visible difference. Stock 230mm brakes Now I needed to give them a pounding to bed the pads into the fresh surface and make sure they weren't going to fall to bits the first time I tried to stop. I took the car on a gentle drive out to some open back roads and set on my usual break-in procedure. Turn the wick up to high, and do a series of 100kph-20kph near-stops. I ended up doing 4 or 5 of these, getting the brakes hot enough that I could smell them, and then cruised around for a bit with minimal breaking (and no stopping!) to let them cool off. After a little bit of cooling off, I stopped and checked the wheel nut torque, and grabbed some cheeky photos. As a side note, the Cusco mud flaps have been doing a great job So, how do the new brakes feel? Well, the brake feel on the Alto has never been amazing, it's a bit soft and vague for my liking, even with the braided lines and new fluid, but it is an economy car at the end of the day. The new brakes haven't fixed that, but they have made the pedal feel like it's doing more when you do press it. If you really stomp on it, the car will pitch forward on its nose and shed speed like an anchor was dropped. If you press them hard enough the ABS will kick in and remind you it could lock the wheels if it wanted. Even on the track I had a hard time braking hard enough to hit ABS with the stock brakes. Very happy with the upgrade so far. Was it cheaper than the Silkroad kit? Yes, by a couple of hundred dollars. Would it have been cheaper if I didn't buy used Swift rotors that didn't fit, and used Chery rotors that needed skimming too? Yes. Knowing what I know now, you could grab a couple of 14V caliper brackets from an old Swift or Ignis from Pick A Part, order some new RDA rotors and away you go. I'll be driving the Alto around a bit in the next week or two just to shake it down before the trackday at the end of the month and make sure we're all good. I can't wait, this thing should be a weapon on track now.

Ive been painting random stuff when im bored i did a blue with pearl keep in mind this is all spray can i started with primer then blue anither coat of blue then i dipped my finger in the pearl and blew it off my finger onto the car then did coat of clear then pearl clear again then pearl and then did one last coat of clear to seal it in

I've been informed by one of the fellas on a classic porsche forum that I need to eat more cake

Right, so another update. I finally got the bloomin Canopy off. A whole afternoon of Dad and I trying to gently remove it. Whoever had put it on there all those years ago, definitely didn't want it coming off. It was riveted, siliconed, welded to the windscreen frame and they have riveted the frame, then put box section to build the frame over top, so you couldn't get to the rivets -.- So we will start with a bit of a before photo. We managed to drill all the rivets from the top that were at the inside edge of the canopy like so Then came the removal of the front panel, which I might try keep and make removable for a bit of weather protection. Idk. I'll see if I can get a canvas one made or something.... Then pushed it outside and hacked off the frame at the windscreen end. Finally, it was to be an actual Moke and not some weird looking box thing that remined me of a C-Cab model T. I celebrated by taking some terrible photos and cutting off a bit of the car... As you can see in this last photo it looks like there is a little more rust work than intended as some moisture got under the canopy and there are a few small holes. Because all the panels are fairly flat, so it shouldn't be too tricky in terms of shape. I also bought my first part for the Moke. Scored some adjustable tie rod ends second hand off Marketplace. I think I have a few spare rubber bushings, so will change the back ones as the advice is to have nolathane on the front and rubber on the back side. I also have a lead on most of an engine, so just having a bit of a think about the best plan of attack, and a few options for gearboxes so need to see what's what there too. Plan next is to remove the side parts of the screen and then maybe start of the rust underneath.....

Yep, I’m happy with the direction of the flashings now.. I positioned the skylights up close to the ridge so the back flashing won’t be too long.. Cladding is trucking along, got it to window head height.. may need to get an experienced installer to complete from there up as it’s proved too hard for my builder.. happy with progress nonetheless.

I have a confession to make. I feel dirty for what I have done and must come clean. I have raised my car Hear me out though. I know its a terrible thing but my hand was forced and it had to be done. So after my birthday cakes had been all eaten, mainly by me (little fatty), I decided I needed to look at the suspension. My front springs are essentially Rootes 'Monte Carlo' spec which means 195lb" and 9.5 inches long, or about an inch shorter, with one less coil than standard imp springs... But because I'd modified the spring perch on my stock dampers to make the car even lower it meant the Monte springs were not captive at full droop without the aid of retaining straps. These are fine in use in the UK and quite a common fitment on lowered Imps but they wont pass the muster here in NZ for certification when that time comes. I also had a total lack of any height adjustment without resorting to various spacers beneath the springs etc. So I started looking at various coilover kits made specifically for the Imp. There's at least three brands out there that do kits, all made in the UK and all quite expensive once freight is added into the equation. Luckily I ended up chatting to a fella called Frank in Australia who I've bought stuff from before. He imports and sells Gaz coilovers as well as loads of other Hillman based items. He had a near new front pair he was removing from one of his Imps and offered me a good deal on them. They are the 'short' dampers to suit lowered imps and he was including the appropriate 'super low Monte Carlo' springs. These are 8.6 inchs long and needed if I wanted to keep my Imp sitting nice and low. So while they were on the slow boat from Australia I started looking into the rear shocks. The stock Imp items were working ok but I knew that one was low on oil and not ideal in action. I was informed that Nissan Navara D21 front shocks were an almost straight swap so I got a shiny almost new pair from a ute at the local wreckers to try out. To my surprise they were actually considerably softer in damping than the Imp items, both in bump and rebound. Still, I had them to try so I machined up some suitable spacers to suit and the smaller Imp bolts and the top bushes.. Bolted them in place and went for a drive. Nup. I don't like. Too soft and a bit too wallowy. Passable for normal driving on smooth roads but start driving with a bit of enthusiasm and the back end starts getting a little bit flighty, especially in sharp compressions. I would have to sort something else out and started looking into ideas. Then the Gaz coilovers and super low springs turned up. Here are my standard Montes next to the super lows. The same coil count and rating but just set shorter. I wanted to test them just to be sure so things got a bit scientific.. They were rated exactly as they said on the tin. The Gaz dampers and superlow springs showed the overall length from bottom eye to the top of the spring to be very similar to my modified dampers and standard Monte springs. Things were looking promising for me to keep my Imp at the same height. So I fitted them.. I then removed my retaining straps and the arms dropped further, so releasing my springs from captivity I had to wind the collars up 15mm to hold the springs from rattling about. Oh well. I suspected I might end up in this situation. On the bright side it does mean the excessive negative camber has been removed and I also wont be smashing so many hedgehogs/other roadkill with my license plate. I went to sleep and had nightmares about my new lofty height. This morning I revisited it and replaced the absurdly thick, what look to be just generic damper top mount rubbers with my old stock Imp items. This moved the shaft fixing up 5mm so allowing the collars to be lowered the same amount. So I now have a 10mm extra ride height with room for adjustment and completely captive springs. The camber is about bang on for what is recommended on a road imp. I took it for a good drive to try them out but I'll talk more about that soon. Moving back to the rear dampers. I removed the soft Navara items and looked at my leaky unit. The shaft has a small amount of light corrosion just below the bumpstop. Although it was fine when I'd fitted the shocks, 13,000kms thereabouts of driving since has seen it lose fluid. I had a plan. They are pretty common designed double walled units. There is a gap between the outer tube and the inner tube that the piston slides up and down. As the shaft enters the damper the oil height increases from displacement. This cavity was down on fluid. I drilled a tiny hole near the top, through the outer skin and whilst extending the shaft out I added oil with a small syringe. I then tapped the hole and fitted a small machine screw and O-ring. The shock works perfectly enough now, at least until I get some replacements. Now it was time to look at the rear ride height. The new engine and gearbox is at a guess something like 20kg heavier than the Datsun setup. I'll have a better idea next time I weigh the car. Its enough that the car has sunk maybe 5 or 10mm. Not a lot but combined with the higher front it now had a distinctly nose up, bum down look that I'm not keen on. Plus I'd like the driveshafts to be a little straighter. They were heading slightly uphill to the hubs with the angle getting steeper as the rear squats under acceleration. The rear springs are standard 1" lower, slightly stiffer Monte spec. So I made some 15mm spacers. Probably only needed 10 but I can machine them down. It now sits as such. Bum slightly up. Half a tank of gas. Exactly no bags of cement thanks Barry. Hannah measured both front and rear arch heights as I sat down into the car and shut the door. Interestingly, and I think quite a good thing, is that the car drops 10mm equally front and rear. I'm going to try this new setup out before deciding if I skim my spacers down. Another important issue I really wanted to sort out was the exhaust drone. Every time we would take the car for a drive the drone was overpowering. I wanted to believe that we'd get used to it or learn to drive around the drone zone of roughly 2300rpm but it was futile. It had to be addressed. Mention of J pipes, resonator pipes or 1/4 wave resonator pipes or whatever name they might have was mooted by several people. Not just on for this car but also on other peoples threads and on the oldschool exhaust discussion thread. I read up about them and they sounded like an ideal potential solution but I really just didn't have any room to fit them between the exhaust box and the headers. But how about inside the box? Extend the inlet within, tee off from that to the outside and use an elbow to send pipes forwards. I looked through my collection of random stainless tube fittings.. Something like this?.. Hmmmm... it could work and was worth an investigation. Car on the hoist and within 5 minutes the entire exhaust box was removed. V clamps are fantastic. I removed the gazillion 6mm bolts, broke the silicone seal and removed the lid. Some measurements were made and a holes were cut as neatly as I could with the plasma cutter. I hole sawed some stainless tube that matched the inlet diameter.. Welded a slightly smaller 32mm pipe and fitted the tees into each end of the box. Pulled out the heavy length of 50mm 304 stainless bar and cut off some discs Those I machined up into stepped flanges. 4 holes drilled and tapped in them to suit and then welded onto the outlets on the box. The J pipes had the other flanges welded on via the inside.. Above the new Tee pipes within the box end expansion chambers I added a shelf of stainless perforated sheet that bolts in place and then filled the void above with more packing. This was just another way I could absorb some sound.. Lid was siliconed back in place and bolted down. Now the J pipes. I fabricated those up with the bends and made them as long as I could. There are multiple websites with ample information on how to calculate the required length depending on engine rpm, frequency, cylinder count etc etc. But they are usually dealing with exhausts that have just one main exhaust pipe to J pipe off from. My setup is like two 3 cylinder engines really with their own separate exhausts. I wasn't sure which calcs to use. But pretend I have just one exhaust feeding off both banks I was looking at a J pipe length of circa 800mm. I figured I would halve that and my finished J pipes came out at just on 405mm with the ends almost meeting the rear arch inners. I figured I can always chop them down in length so better to start as long as I can. I found some ideal stainless penny washers for the end caps.. J pipes installed... They are a bit ugly though. Although I can't see them from within the engine bay they are easily visible outside and I don't like seeing them. I have also never really liked the way the box ends don't tie in with the back corners so I had an idea to try. I carefully made these stainless guards.. There were already some useful holes I had added to the valance lip for the Datsun exhaust.. Guards/ugly pipe hiders in place... Time to try it out. I was pretty confident that there was going to be some amount of noise suppression but how much ? Upon start up we could both tell it was quieter. Took it for a drive to go pick up yet another customers rusty Hiace for work and yes - it was quieter!!! The drone was knocked right down. Its still there at certain loads but no where near as horrid. Now as per the earlier mention of a drive to try out the new front shocks. Well it was also a good chance to try out the exhaust. This time I was sans Hannah. It meant I could thrash the car to my hearts content without Hannah having to cling on for dear life. There are no grab handles in the car and the Recaros only hold you so much. I took the laptop though and used it as a chance to let the autotune see some of the more extreme areas of the fuel map. 30kms of twisty hillclimbs local to us and a good solid use of the throttle travel. Damn its fun. The exhaust is much better drone wise but I almost want a little more sound. From inside the car its still more straight six than flat six. I'd like more of the guttural, raspy Porsche flat six sound. My exhaust/engine sounds smoother. A bit of this could be because its water cooled and the Porsche 911s I like most are aircooled (and usually twice the capacity...) They are almost clattery at idle, slightly hollow. I do some have other ideas floating in my head about future exhaust designs. I know these engines can sound more 'Porschey' but I don't have as much room to play with as the bikes I have been viewing. But wow- this engine is a little gem. I'm tending to keep it in gear for much longer between corners because its so smooth at high revs whether I'm on or off the throttle. It'll be much better when I build my new dash and have a rev counter right in front, that's for sure. The gear change is getting better and better with use as the shaft bushs loosen up a bit. I have ideas for improvements too but no rush. Its a delight to drop from 3rd to 2nd, a gear change that can make or break the fun to be had in a car driven hard on hills I feel. The program managed a good amount of changes to the fuel table and its pretty good now. Start up hot or cold is great. Just a few bits to smooth out. I'm going to tweak the throttle plate stop screw and idle bleed appropriately. I think the throttle disc is a bit sticky when closed which doesn't help for light throttle action when trying to move off slowly. The rear navara shocks, as noted previously were not helping. Looking forward to the next drive now I have originals back in, complete with all their oil. The front shocks are actually about the same as what I had originally. I have set the damping to what I feel is about the same as the originals. It really doesn't require much damping in the front (unless some internet Barry has finally managed to persuade me that 3 sacks of concrete in the front really is the way to set up rear engined cars) I am going to dig out the go pro, hope the batteries are not dead and try to get some better camera angles along with better exhaust sound representation. I really want to hear what its like from outside with the new exhaust and better tune.

Sorry I havent got to it. Tomorrow!!

What’s your budget like? I am not the most experienced painter so can’t say too much but I use a Devilbiss GTI pro lite which is a pretty expensive entry level gun. It’s really good, forgiving and easy to use. The fan can open up really well too. The Gunman does a few reviews On guns you can buy on YouTube, he’s pretty good. Also recommend Pete’s Hobbies channel for recommendations on the aliex guns. tldr; devilbiss if you have the money, ANI/aliex if you are on a tight budget.

If you get stuck I have a muncie rebuild how to with from memory a section on the Hurst Shifter. (in saying that on youtube there is lots of videos) But basically I would polish up the plates and lightly grease. Have the linkage bushings tight (or if you really want to splurge get spherical rod ends) , and once you know the throw from the lever itself, the hurst housing should have some threaded holes - for a nut/bolt to be wound in as stops - that way you can smash gears as hard as you like against the stops without over throwing the selectors

I’m presuming you’re running standard brakes with non-ventilated discs on the front, drums on the rear and, a single circuit master-cylinder and a Hydrovac (inline) booster? (From memory there were some B1600’s with front drums but please don’t quote me). Short answer is boosting the front only will result in a serious front brake bias, it won’t make the pedal heavier it will just significantly reduce braking to the rear to the point where quite possibly it becomes an issue at WOF time. My recommendation (i.e. cheapest path of least resistance) would be to go for the twin boosters option; a 2nd unit under the deck would work well – just make sure the air inlet is well shielded from water splashes. A twin circuit master-cylinder running two Hydrovacs will give you the same amount of boost and a similar pedal feel to a single Hydrovac boosting a single circuit master cylinder system, (presuming both single and dual master-cylinders have the same bore, and the Hydrovacs are the same). As an added bonus if in the future you are looking at a brake upgrade (RX7 would be an obvious choice) it’s relatively easy to adjust (or compensate) front/rear bias by changing bore and/or control sizes on the respective boosters. Hope this helps.

If I'm going to buy a primer gun from there, maybe I should also buy a paint gun and max out the shipping costs. Any suggestions?

I had the dilemma … wheel choice. ive decided to go with 17s to fill the arches a bit more . But what wheel??? I thought of going with the new style of 17” Hotwire but decided nope after seeing them on a Torana. so it only leaves me 2 options , but I’m swaying toward one more than the other . the 2 choices are a new set of 17” “Simmons” reps Oooooor a 30 year old set of Rays MS-01’s. i had these on my fc many moons ago and regretted selling them. these go for dumb money and always need to be refreshed. thoughts? or other decent alternatives that aren’t G Zeros?? 5x114

Any progress? you can always check for an intake leak by spraying some easy-start around it while its running and see if it changes the speed.

Yea those velux flashing kits are junk. Probably don't meet the building code too. Good move going for custom made flashing.

i think it's the typical arrangement with clips on the top window channel and double sided tape. the fiddly part is to get the clips out without cracking the plastic. its got a few clips (3 for front and 2 for rear) and double sided tape on the top edge and also a little pad at the B pillar ends. probably a fishing line or a skinny jnr hacksaw blade to cut thru the double sided tape and hopefully the clips fall out. have a quick practice on the rear left side and see how easy (or not) before spending too much time. tbh im terrible at this myself, destroyed a few of them at PaP practicing lol. here are some photos of them off car. cheers

The next sacrifice for my wheel tomfoolery is this 13" starshark. I don't know why I have a 13" starshark. I suspect some whisky was involved in that one as I'm 14" for life. Anyway as you can see it's pretty old and crusty as per everything in my life so I figured why not try a new Rustoleum colour and learn about some new tape as well. Previously on this adventure I mentioned about bleed from the cheap ebay tape I was using so I ordered some fancy 3M edging tape. This tape seems more plastic than the other paper-based tape which is probably excellent for stopping bleed but makes it much more difficult to cut cleanly, at least that's what I found. I did a quick scuff over for the old yellow and also ruined the lip in the process by trying to get out as much of the old pitted crust as possible so now it looks matte and uneven. As you can see I taped around the edge and there's a little gap between the face and the lip which I could (for the most part) slip the blade into in order to get a clean cut. Then after that some more masking and the usual plastic around the outside treatment and into the paint booth. Couple coats of this blue (which actually looks a bit more tiffany blue in real life) and then some gloss clear coat which I've also never tried using before. Once the paint was dried and tape pulled off you can see some bleed still but this is actually not from the tape. The reason this happened is the lip is so pitted the paint actually went underneath the tape as there was a gap. Also to the surprise of nobody, paint doesn't stick well when the prep is poor. Anyway perhaps the finished product is better than the start product? Learnt some more things along the way. I think in my head the best way to approach this type of wheel would go like this: 1) dip or soda blast it first to get the old shit off 2) Cut the lip off 3) Paint what you want 4) Diamond cut the one star as sanding for an hour for an average finish was not fun 5) Weld new lip on That way you'd get a clean paint job. I may still do that just for kicks.