Hello, this is what I hope to be a build thread for me converting my Toyota Platz to rwd. 
A Platz for most people seems an odd vehicle to put money in to and spend this much effort on, but I come from a background of vitzs so naturally I had to do something to the sedan version. I want to create something unique and different and show potential of these strange commuter cars. Here is a photo of the base car.

I have to mention this project is based around chopping the car as minimal as possible so it still has the ability to revert back to fwd for legality reasons. This adds the the complexity of not being able to just hack it up and use a Silvia subframe so it will end up being more of a bolt in a fair. Another factor is that it will be slammed on 13s and when doing that the centre point of the hub is almost inline with the chassis rails so this means it isn’t possible to use a solid rear axles either. 

I look forward to sharing my progress on here.
 

Picked up this husqvarna LT112 plus a parts mower last weekend.

Plan is to build it to NZ lawn mower racing specs (yes that’s a thing) even though there’s no club in the South Island, and just send it around the neighbourhood on the weekends and snow days.

I had an 80 series when I built our last house and it was invaluable for getting shit done,  should have never sold it...

Anyway,  life story,  get to the point. 

My new truck is a KZN185

96 hilux surf, turbo diesel.

It's done 340ks which is up there but I've had a few toyotas with high Ks and it doesn't seem to affect them to much. 

This truck drives really nicely,  even with the big tyres it doesn't seem to have that shaking vibration thing that modern rangers etc have. 

The orignal motor and clutch was toast so I chucked a sohc vtec in it. i've put 280mm mini rotors on the front with prelude calipers and its lowered on neuspeed race springs and koni shocks. I've taken the a/c and powersteering out. Currently it has a non vtec ssohc in it as the other motor is getting built at the moment.

I put a midwing and facelift bumper on it 

Its Slightly tidier now but I have no pictures 

Cant decide to tidy up or leave as is tray is off a 110 landy i think and is all alloy weighs sweet fuck all i changed wheels over 1 handed holding trailer up with the other.

We weren't looking for for anything in particular but was searching for something tidy and nothing we had before. 

It's a 1997 1.3L manual with 122000km 

Small amount of paint fade on roof and just general little car park dents. 

The interior is so good. Basically brand new. Only thing I had to fix was passenger air vent was broken. One trip to pick a part and had that sorted. 

Up close photo of the awesome yarn they used to knit the interior out of. 

Thanks for looking 

Nick.

After selling the Alto Works, there was a tiny little nugget shaped hole in my life, so I had no choice but to fill it with another Kei car.

If you were following the previous Alto from the start, you might remember this one from here.

Long story short, there was an auction (maybe an estate sale? Can't recall) a couple of hours north of where I live, and when browsing through the list of what was going to be available, there happened to be a Suzuki Alto Works listed. Weird thing to have in a barn, I thought, but hey I'm keen.

I went up to view and bid on the car, and as soon as I saw it, I fell for the little nugget. Who couldnt love that little face.

It'd been off the road for 11 years at that point, and had been sitting the whole time. The interior was foul

The exterior was also filthy, top to bottom, so it was hard to get a good gauge on the condition. Poking around with my torch though, I found a couple of spots that needed attention

The front of each sill, where the jacking points should be, had some rust, including this hole on the passenger's side.

The boot lip had been trapping moisture under the seal too, and rusted along there (and causing a leak into the boot)

The only real damage to the exterior, other than a couple of small dings, was this dent in the front guard. I suspect since the door hinges are bent, that the door over extended forward, damaging both

But otherwise it appeared fairly solid, and most importantly, mostly complete

No one knew if it had run, when it last ran, or if it was previously a good runner. I found the keys on the keyring in the car next to it, so moved them to the Alto, but otherwise it was all an unknown.

The auction rolled around, I did my best but ultimately got outbid. For me, the risk of the unknowns at that point were just too great, so I kept my top bid reasonable.

Fast-forward almost two years, and I get a message from a friend saying, "I put out looking to buy a Kei car, and got offered a car I read about on your very blog. It's too much of a project for me, but do you want me to put you in touch?" Heck yeah I do!

So he passed my email on and the owner dropped me a line "Hi, I have a Suzuki Alto Works for sale, would you be interested in a project"

Of course, I held back my excitement and asked for more details

He came back with a couple more details, but more importantly a couple of photos

Undeniably the same car, car club sticker and all. Unfortunately, he also mentioned the engine was rust seized, and had been sent off to a rebuilder to be stripped and assessed, which resulted in it being declared completely kaput (and a "$10K" quote to rebuild it).

I replied asking for more information about the engine damage and condition of the car and heard nothing but crickets.

Me, being me, couldnt leave it well enough alone. The damn thing was rattling around rent-free in my head, so 7 months after I heard nothing back, I flicked him a quick email asking how he was getting on with the Alto.

"Good timing, I was just thinking I should do something with the car or get rid of it"

After a lot of back and forth, the stars aligned and on my way to the track in the BRZ the other weekend I detoured an hour or so out of my way and went to look at the little nugget.

It was pretty well as expected; the front of the car was all in bits, the engine was spread across a few shelves, and the car was looking a bit sorry for itself.

On the plus side, he had cleaned the car inside and out, and honestly, the interior clean alone was worth having him win the car in the first place instead of me

The engine was pretty dire, but we'll get back to that later.

Anyway, it all checked out, everything was there, the rego was still on hold, and after going away and doing some more research into what on earth I was doing, I made an offer.

We settled on something in between what both of us were thinking, and a friend of his was roped in to bring the car and multiple tubs of parts down to me.

Yesterday the car arrived.

Here is my latest project, Nuggie, the 1990 Suzuki Alto Works RS-X CN21S

I had been super anxious all morning, but actually seeing the car roll up on the trailer, looking ridiculously small, just wiped all the anxiety away and replaced it with excitement.

Whilst discussing the transport with the transporter beforehand, we had been coming up with plans to get the car off the trailer and down into my garage, since my driveway, although short, is very steep. I think in the end it was going to be a case of using the winch on the van to winch the car down into the garage.

But thankfully that didnt matter. As it turns out, not only does the handbrake work, but so do the service brakes. So with a little push, the Alto was off the trailer and I gently guide it down into the garage using the handbrake to control it.

We unload all the parts, and after bidding farewell, I stand back and see the Alto in its new (temporary) home

Theres a couple more spots of rust than I could see at the auction (one of them is the front edge of the bonnet in the above photo, seems to be a common spot), and the paint is flat as anything, but it will hopefully polish up nicely. I won't do that yet, I want a good before and after in the sun.

I couldnt help but check out a couple of the cool little things about the early cars. One of them is visible in the photos above; the vertical door handles. These were only on the early cars, as they later replaced them with normal boring handles when they decided safety was more important than being cool and added side intrusion bars. This even necessitated changing the quarter panels since they have cutouts for your hand on the vertical handle cars.

The front seats are pretty wild too. Such late 80's vibes

You can actually quickly remove and flip the shoulder support on the backrest, for either higher or lower support

Another early feature I'm a big fan of is the super retro dash and the gauge cluster, both of which got "modernised" in 1991.

Moving on, spread across the tubs were all the engine components, and now that I had time to have a decent look at them, it was grim

The main journals on the crank are very unhappy

There are a couple of less than happy valves too. I suspect even if the engine didnt drink a bunch of water that it wouldnt have run very well with a burnt valve

But the block is the least happy

I'm looking into options currently, and have a potential lead on a complete engine that would be a better base to rebuild, otherwise I could bore this block out and use oversize forged pistons. We'll see.

Either way, I want it running fairly quickly (without compromising too much, I want it done properly), so have a roughly 6-month plan to be back on the road, and I want it out of the garage within a month or two as I'm very limited on garage space.

Parts have already been ordered, and I'll be making a start on the rust soon. Plenty more to come. Keep on moving.

So, applying tungsten tipped skill saw, added lowness (I carefully checked the safety instructions, this wasn't contra-indicated):

Slamaque! (Kei car wheels for scale).

This fit in the rear seat, fed the small OS team, and will get more tidied up later.

As posted elsewhere, my quest for a decent, versatile, old, mile munching car of coolness ended last week.

The whole point of the exercise is for her ladyship to be able to visit her ailing folks 250 miles away. The Fourtrak does the job, but slowly, with little luggage/dog space and  is a bit spiteful on the comfort front.

Couldn't bring myself to get another Disco 2 Disaster (despite thinking they're great), the Legnum/ Forester/ Stupid Yeti all got a look-in but being up in the air is also a priority.

I'd been chasing various Landcruiser 80's but they're pretty lumpy for where we live so I ended up with this kitsch, but handsome bit of late 90's off-roadability.

what does someone with too many projects need?

another one.

take it apart

of course it needs lowering, a scooter engine cause thats what was in the garage, had some spare go kart bits

So I started looking online for a suitable small boat to build and mainly Catboats. The reason a Catboat appeals is they only have one sail so easily sailed single handed. They are also beamy as the beam is nearly half it's length. I came across a design called the Marsh Cat 15' which ticked a lot of boxes. The only think it lacks is a small cabin but that could be added along with the build.

So the plans were bought from the USA as digital and printed locally.  

When I was living in the UK I'd spot these everywhere. Very popular little cars, but ones that I looked past.  That is until Hannah's younger sister needed to buy her first car. I helped them look for one and a Micra K10 came up for sale locally. We knew little about them except that Hannah and her two other sisters both learned to drive in K10s. Simple,easy cars to operate (685kg light too!!) So we Leila bought the little K10 and loved her first car, which became known as the Badger mobile - due to the trips  Leila would take in it to Badgermans beach down in Cornwall...

Sadly, because mother nature can throw out some right horrid things at us, Leila became ill with a rare disease called Crest syndrome, a type of auto immune thing. It started with her hands and she was unable to operate some items, including the windows. The little K10 became a bit run down and the road salt had done its job. Combined with the trickyness of using cars controls Leila decided to seek out a more suitable car.

This is where the little K11 came to reside with Hannahs family.  Hannah helped her look for a suitable car and then her brother found one. A four door 1000 facelift in dark blue. It had electric windows and central locking- two small things that made life for Leila show much easier...

That little K11 did many missions about the place and the family became quite fond of it. Its also what made me start spotting K11s and becoming a fan.

In a horrible turn of events Leilas life was cut short. The condition had continued to worsen to the point where it was effecting her heart. She died from a heart attack in 2017 at only 26. A huge loss to the world.

Her little Micra was then taken on by Hannahs brother and he now continues to take it on adventures and the other siblings borrow it. I used last year for the 2019 Retro rides gathering - this being the first time I had ever driven a Micra any real distance and I really enjoyed it.

While at the gathering I also spotted and fell in love with this little hillclimb beasty...

I was amazed at how peppy it was for a 1000cc car. Its handling was 'floaty' but fun. I could instantly see how they would make a sweet little pocket rocket for twisty roads- in very much the same way as the Imp is. Hannah was also smitten and of course there is the family connection to add. So we would own a K11 one day- that was that!

Fast forward to last month. I old my Viva wagon during lockdown and had some cash. I know that the Imp is to come off the road for the transplant. Lets start looking for a K11.

There were requirements to be met though. It has to be a manual, two door, pre-facelift (PFL) and ideally would have the CG13 engine- not the smaller 1.0. But we soon found that these combined features are a very rare thing indeed in NZ.  Kiwis never got Micras here new. They are all imports from Japan. Most are auto (CVT) with the 1.0 and most are 4 doors. All the earlier pre-facelift models, made up to the change over point of around 97, seem to have disappeared.

Weirdly - Australia had them new - imported from the UK! They apparently are all PFLs too! Lucky.

We found a very tidy 2 door manual face lift locally- but it stunk of ciggy smoke, was a 1.0 and a couple of other alarm bells rang about the owners and their honesty. They were also asking moon beams for it and wouldn't accept my lower offer. Plus- it was a not so pretty facelift version...

Then this 4 door PFL turned up locally, going cheap. After a quick look up on carjam we found out that it was a 1.3!  Also spotted in the photos were a rev counter. That rev counter dash is certainly a rare thing here- quite a bonus. With some more research Hannah deduced that it might be a March S. These have a few extras like the rev counter and a split rear seat. I messaged the seller and he confirmed it had the split rear seat. Oooooh we thought!

Now a March S is not the same as a Micra Super S- as sold in the UK and Oz.  I believe that the Super S has a few other blingy things like rear disc brakes, sportier seats, quicker steering rack and a deep front spoiler with added fog lights.  

^Dreams.

We went for a look. First thing I checked was the engine number- just making sure it was indeed a 1.3 with all those extra 20 ponies.  Took it for a hoon (wow- the 1.3 is way faster ! ) checked some things and made a cheeky low offer. 2 days later there was a counter offer and we bagged it for a nice cheap enough price of $825

Picked it up yesterday afternoon. Bought some engine flush, oil, filter and new plugs. Will giive it a bit of Tlc. Its a bit dented and rough but will still clean up ok.

Plans : 

1 - look for a tidy 2 door PFL car to swap all the good bits into. Probably will be an auto 1.0. Wont be a quick job this so it can wait till later in summer because there are way more urgent jobs about the place. Plus this car is meant to be a runner to use while the Imp is off the road- not another project..... but hey. How can we not have a play!

2 - Lower it. Most likely using some garden variety 'Makita modified' springs...  Apparently one can remove 2 coils and they will remain safely contained. We shall see.

3 - Find some nice alloy wheels. 13" x 6 would be nice. The pcd is 100mm so not too odd.

4 - Hannah wants a yellow Micra. So eventually it will be re-painted the official Nissan custard yellow..

5 - add a turbo. Maybe. Could be fun. That's a way off in jobs to do here though!

So here are some pics I took...

The seller had the most amazing jumper on! I'd have been stoked if that came with the car...

Before handing over the monies I thought it best to quickly check that the spark plugs were not seized in the head. Not coomon but worth checking to save a lot of aggro...

All good! So we paid the man and hooned off into the sunset- me in the Imp and Hannah getting used to 'her' new toy   Filled the tank..

Played cat and mouse over our hill to home...

I took some quick pics in the evening light...

JDM factory crystal for added healing power and bling. Some Marches came with these factory fitted...

One key element to a good Micra...

Another great thing to have when you're ragging all those little ponies to the point of exhaustion...

\

Some service items...

More to come soon. Lets see how much money we find under the seats etc

so it arrived on the back of a truck, which I am told is how these vehicles generally prefer to travel from A to B

It was a quiet day so I anticipated this wonderful opportunity to dig around the thing and see where and how I'd been hoodwinked, but instead the towie turned up at exactly closing time so all I could do was roll it into the shop and bugger off for the weekend.

i'm pretty new to oldschool, been around a few other places people might recognize me from so thought i'd chuck up a thread of where i've got to with my car and see what OS thinks.

plan is to keep it road legal so i can still drive it to uni all week, then to the track and home on the weekend. eventual plan is to do targa with the old man. this thing just loves windy roads, almost as much as i do. and thats probably the sole reason i haven't moved on to another car. had this for almost 4 years now. most of the progress has happened in the last year after attending a few track days then started thinking 'shit this is cool!'. have been a uni student studying engineering the whole time i have owned this car so has all been done on a very tight budget and all done myself.

this is how it started;

4afe, single pot brakes, shit arse respray, jamex springs (laugh)

went through and modded the 4afe a bit and also put koni adj. shocks etc in until i got to the point where i needed to do things properly. so went on a big money spending mission

wired in a blacktop with c56 LSD gearbox. added oil cooler and custom extractors to get it a bit better race prepared. oil temps were getting up towards 140deg after track sessions. works nicely with my massive airbox

converted to discs all round and big 275mm rotors with twin pot brakes on the front running TRD black pads i scored super cheap.

then decided to do it properly with a cage and racetech seats and harnesses. still daily driven and love every minute of it!

recently smashed the clutch to pieces at manfield. got a TRD clutch for 30bux and replacing syncro's in gearbox so no more curnchy crunch. hoping to get it all back together this weekend in time to get the suspension a bit better sorted with stiffer springs and HUGE rear swaybar in anticipation of winter series coming up. hoping to do all of the manfield rounds if money permits/nothing goes bang.

let me know what you think. hopefully will meet a whole bunch of GC's at nats for mean yarns!

Car is an ex-skid car, owned by (several) questionable individuals in it's time before me, and as such a decent amount of work has been required in the process of getting it back into shape. My goal is to get car cleaned up and presentable. Will also be modifying car in line with the vision I have for it.

I am by no means a master mechanic, but trying to give it all a crack myself either way. Have learned a lot so far, and I am excited to learn even more going forward!

Also it's kind of crazy to me that these are almost 25 years old.

But anyway, I am always looking at what is on the market and this popped up, high km's, slipping clutch, reasonably cheap. What's not to love?

It's actually not a 'WRX' its a JDM '20k', which was a weird trim/model in Japan that is really a WRX.

So I went to check it out, test drove etc.

Body is decent, needs some dents fixed and paint.

Battery was dead but jump started ok.

New tyres, recent wof.

Not a fan of the 18's on it.

Engine very oily but drives and sounds fine.

1st gear a bit shuddery but then smooth.

Doesn't pull as well as expected.

Only showing 7psi, should be 12-14psi. Thought turbo buggered or boost control issue.

Idle drops and tries to stall some times.

Made an offer anyway and ended up owning it. Life is short etc.

It seems to be in okay condition. But there seems to be grease where I would expect oil, so the wheels are a work out to turn. And all the oiling nipples have been painted over. The inside is full of old oil and grease and dirt.

So I guess I'll pull it apart enough to clean the grease out.

First step. Get the motor out to find the info plate so I know what VFD to get.

The motor is mounted to a rocking mount.

That's bolted to this cover with a couple of threaded adjusters to adjust the tension on the drive chain. Yeh, CHAIN...

The chain going off to the left is for the  axis power feed gearbox. The motor BARELY fits through that hole, and it has to be at the right angle too.

That big gear then goes into the column to some flat belt pulleys. I assume Everything has to come out of here to replace that flat belt.

NFI how this is supposed to come apart, the manual I have is for the MK2 and 3, which are quite a bit different to my MK1. They changed to V pulleys instead of chain, and a gearbox instead of those flat belts.

But I managed to get the motor out. It seems real big for 2.5HP. But it's short maybe?

And after cleaning the filth off the info plate. I'll need a 400V 3 Phase VFD, it can't be wired to use 230v 3 Phase.

Because the motor doesn't have separate terminals for the coils.

It does have these cool looking BEES bolts.

I've got plans to charter a yacht and go sailing around Greece for a month in 2024.  Partly as a throwback to the family sailing holidays I had as a kid, partly as one big adventure with my dad before hes too old to want to do it again and partly as a way to get married in style.

To accomplish this, I need either a RYA Dayskipper or Yacht master certificate... Or an international certificate of competency.  To get the ICC, you basically do a theory exam on navigation and rules, radio exam with a DSC VHF then a practical exam handling a sailboat for a variety of exercises.  Dad's already way overqualified but I can't share a boat with him or one of us won't make it back alive.  Probably me tbh, he's pretty fit 

Chartering a boat in NZ is ludicrously expensive so getting some practice for the exam was going to be a challenge.

So I bought a boat.

Poor wizard nearly had a hernia dragging this thing over the Napier-Taupo.

From what I know, it's a Ross 780 built sometime in the 90s.  The hull is glass over wood. The Ross was a pretty popular trailer sailer designed for a good balance of racing performance and cruising ability.  The other boat I looked at was an Elliot 780 which is more racing oriented.

This one was a project boat needing some love, so the previous owner has painted most of it and started on the repairs... I don't plan on a full restoration - just gonna make it suit my needs.  If I can kit it out to be able to spend a few days pesting around lake Taupo or tow it up to bay of islands, I'll be happy.

Here I am, with my brother on the back, this bike was even still in the garden at the old house up to a few years ago, with plants growing in the tray and the wheels rusted off

Made in waihi, the Akrad flyer, (the Mr akrad of pye radio fame) 300,000 units were produced from 1945 to 1984, the aluminium seats being cast from army surplus

I picked up a fairly crusty, but complete one a year or so ago, and it's been sitting dangerously close to my scrap pile ever since 

It's stock right now with the exception of Evo X Enkei 18x8.5 wheels, a Varis CF bonnet (wanted to swap it with an OE aluminium bonnet but they are hard to find and the Varis is growing on me) and a bunch of JDM gizmos like a malfunctioning A'PEXi I-Mobisses alarm system, DVD+HDD navigation pop out display head unit and toll card system that talks to you in Japanese.

Initial plans are to give it a decent clean up as the paint has many scratches presumably from automatic car washes and need to fix a couple mechanical issues like noisy rear wheel bearings and a leaking radiator. Longer term plans are to hit it with the lowering stick, 6 speed manual convert it (already picked up the box/transfer case, clutch, flywheel, shifter etc) and locate a M/T Evo 9 turbo to fit (as current turbo is slightly smaller and runs less boost). A MIVEC head swap would be nice too.

He drove across from Tauranga, was rapt with it, and drove it home.

Am I upset? No not really, I didn't get especially attached to that one since it burnt me (and my wallet) a lot during my near 2-years of ownership.

Decided I wanted another DC2R, some of you might remember my 96-spec I had about 2007-8 and came along to a couple of NZH NIMM's in etc etc way back then. I put the word out that I wanted another one, and happened to meet Tim Bell (unsure if he's on the forum yet?) around this time through some of the other Hamilton fellas and a group chat. Tim being both an excellent human and the owner of a minty fresh DC2R put the word out among of his Type R friends, and turned up this car.

DC2R Phone (1)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

It's a 2000 Integra Type R-X. The 'X' is basically the final run of these cars, from late '99 through to mid 2000. You all know what a 98-spec car had over a 96-spec. But the R-X added to the list with a few more luxury mod cons. Power folding mirrors, 6-speaker audio, blue-tinged faux carbon trim, privacy glass, bla bla bla. Basically the best spec they came in, unless you reckon no options at all is the best. Which is kind of is. But anyway.

It took a little bit of negotiation. The seller got semi-cold feet about the whole thing, had a change of heart, then another, and I ended up buying it for a fairly premium price. But it's clean and tidy, with absolutely minimal molestation. When I first viewed it, the car was on TE37, had a Recaro SPG on a fixed rail, was running a Neptune-chipped ECU via adaptor harness (yay no splices etc) but I was happy enough to not bother with all of that as I wanted as close to stock as possible.

As it stands, the car has a Mugen Gen 1 exhaust (cat delete via welded in stainless pipe), and Ohlins adjustable coilovers as it's only mods. Which is fine. Oh and a very terribad Japan-spec hodgepodge stereo of shitness.

DC2R Phone (2)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

But the good! It's clean, straight, has new rotors, Endless pads, 160000km on the odo, a VERY clean engine inside and out, great even compressions, the suspension has $1700 worth of recent rebuild receipts, excellent black Recaros, tidy dash and is the perfect base for what I want. Actually I need to speak to @64valiant about replacing the bolster on one side of the drivers Recaro.

DC2R Phone (4)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

My plans? Chuck some nice fresh audio at it - I've bought a stack of Focal speakers, have a nice Image Dynamics amp and an Alpine bluetooth headunit for it. Tidy up the alarm/install a new one, refurbish the tired OEM wheels, go through all of the tarnish fasteners beneath the bonnet and replace with nice fresh ones. You get the idea.

DC2R Phone (5)-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

I'll leave you with these phone shots for now - once I have the wheels done and dusted I'll be heading out for some proper shots with my big boy camera at some stage.

Nice to be back though. Forgot how addictive these wee engines really are. And how rattly and generally shitty they are/racecar.

However I often make things like this for a laugh and probably so do you, so now there is a thread for that stuff.

Extra points for repurposing worthless shit.

Like this redneck spa I smashed together over the weekend;

Unfortunately the gas ran out for the califont in the shed so couldn't try it out, maybe tonight.

I might put that pump on its own trolley so it can live out of the rain...