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I got a new motor! A real nice one this time, 90,000km on it. This is from a Gen 2 Mark X, which supposedly had some improvements to the PCV system and piston rings. Soit ends up with less shit all over everything in the intake. The state of the valves/ports was MUCH better than the earlier engine from last time. Hard to even know what's there, with all the shit on top as it comes from factory: It's been time consuming to get it ready to go, because it needs to be stripped down to a bare block. I've done a few things a little differently this time but the to-do list: -Swap to front sump setup -Remove heads, fit Kelford valve springs and retainers -No porting the heads this time (Will be interesting to get a base line with standard vs ported later on) -No plugging the DI holes time (Will leave factory injectors held in place, filled with resin so they cant blow open) -Swapped intake/exhaust -welding the rocker pins -Fitting BMW hydraulic lifters with Barra rocker clips -Adding the VVT cover plates, and loctiting all of the VVT pulley bolts. I've finished one side, and the head is bolted back on. Just need to finish the fiddly job of refitting the valve springs, then the other head can go back on. Exciting!

It's now in its new home I'll need to really map out what I'm going to do with it. Paint the engine bay is a given. I think I'll also restore the underside of the car and replace all the bushes, balljoints etc.

The new motor is back in the hole, and so far so good. Last time I got as far as running the car through the gears up on stands to make sure everything was working. So this time more of the same, but since the motor hasnt crapped itself. I've been dialling in some of the low load areas just by running the car up in 5th gear. With a blip to 8900rpm for good measure. EDIT: not 89,000rpm, haha. Yes, I need to tidy my garage up. But was full of fizz to just get this running haha. Anyway, some observations so far. 1. When the fuel is a bit more dialled in, the throttle response is SNAPPY! As in, mega snappy. It's gonna be awesome I reckon. Feels a lot more snappy than 1NZ did. Hopefully it's not too touchy on first blip of the gas. 2. I got the hot idle sorted and stable, idling at a nice 750rpm no problem. Then have run it through a few iterations of trimming the warmup enrichment. Now it starts nicely off the key, with no foot on the gas even when cold. Excellent. 3. I've been having a weird issue where after cranking, one of the widebands stops responding on canbus. But if I unplug/replug in then it works again. I've got a spare relay in my fusebox, so I'll hook them up to that. So I can just have them come on shortly after the engine starts. Which is probably the better way to do things anyway. 4. Currently at idle there is around a 10% imbalance bank to bank, in wideband readings. Which is interesting given that there are the air tubes linking two banks together. However it might need a little more fiddling with the throttle stops and so on to get it to match. Otherwise perhaps I've got a small air leak somewhere, ahead of the wideband on one bank. Or maybe a poorly performing injector. Will narrow it down and figure it out. It will be interesting to see if the problem goes away once the throttle % goes up. As that indicates a different sort of issue either way. I can make a compensation table in the ECU to get the air fuel ratios fixed up anyway, if long term they are slightly problematic at full throttle conditions. 5. The way my fuel rails are, the injectors can rotate underneath them 90 degrees either way from their normal position. So, when the injectors are in their normal orientation. The widebands will show something like 14.6:1 air fuel ratio. If I rotate the injectors 90 degrees, it now shows around 16.4:1 on the wideband. Then this is very repeatable. Interesting! The injectors must have a dual spray pattern left and right, which changes to top/bottom when you turn the injector. It's crazy to see that it affects combustion quality and the reported air fuel ratio so much. That's all for now, I need to finish mounting the battery properly and finish the exhaust. Then it's about ready for a bash around the paddock or maybe a trip to the dyno. Cant wait to hear it under some load at full chat! It feels like I'm getting to the fun part of the project, and where it's fun testing and setting things up. Exciting.

Exhaust box part two, take one. Chasing a more Porschey sound and also move the outlet to the side for less potential fumes being drawn into the cabin when a window is down. I have been studying various classic and modern 911 silencer boxes and decided I'd do my best at replicating the original design which looks like this... I flipped the design so my outlet would be on the drivers side of the car. Ordered some perforated tube online and bought some 1.2mm stainless sheet. The sheet was polished stuff so I had to get this photo before I cut it up... With my old box removed I cut and folded the stainless, extending it back and down a bit for more volume. Machined up some new flanges to suit the existing inlet pipes.. With those welded in place and the inlets bolted up.. ..I checked the box lined straight with the relief on the rear valance.. At this point I stopped taking photos and just built the thing. I had originally wanted to weld it completely using the Tig but access meant I ended up mig welding the interior panels. I figured that as long as the lowest welds were Tigged in stainless I can hope for a bit more longevity than the rusting out mild steel unit that goes behind the Datsun. One photo I did take was of the partition I had fun drilling out many holes in.. So the finished interior ended up like this... I used all of my graphic skills to make these diagrams to 'show the flow' Old straight through box... New baffle box.. I made some more flanges for the tailpipe. Welded one onto the box, where you can also see one of the exhaust hangers.. 2" stainless tailpipe with flange welded on. I can now easily change the tailpipe in size or shape. Box then got a flick of paint, knowing that I'll no doubt be opening it up to change things.. Started it up. Completely different sound as expected. Much more characterful and classic porsche 911 but a bit hollow. Sounds cool when revved up. Took it for a drive and its much quieter with no load on. At just before 3000 there's a resonance. Then again at 5000. Hard to describe but its like the exhaust pulses are matching and it creates a new timbre, like when two voices harmonise. Its almost comical but not what I want. Hannah took some driveby videos that sort of display the sound... Exhaust box part two, take two... We got home and I pulled the box off and cut a slit along the bottom and added a vertical strengthening plate with a folded over edge to hold its shape. This would stiffen up the base which I think was the cause of some of the tinny thrumming... Took it for a hoon and it sounded odd? Got home , removed the box and realised I had almost covered the inlets. Silly boy! Exhaust box part two, take three. I cut some squares out so I could remove the centre strip obscuring the inlets.. I then I realised was also obstructing flow around the 'holey' partition plate. This time I folded up some stainless into a V shape.. It took ages to tig weld in, starting with many tacks. Its not pretty but I figure it cant be seen easily Splashed some more paint on and took it for a hoon. Its much better but still not what I want. I have more ideas but ran out of time. It was now time to pack up the car and head to Blenheim for the big Hospice classic car car. Some alloy flexy tube had a arrived from Chinaexpress so I finished off the passenger side fresh air vent. It works a treat! Inlet here behind the grill.. We took Kevin along for the weekend. I seemed fine with the new exhaust.. Spent the evening at my mums place giving the imp and engine a good clean. Very shiny.. Car show the following morning. I'd made an information board up because there's just too much to explain to folks looking over the conversion.. The conversion was very popular. Always a crowd looking over it. Really positive response and many people I spoke to really appreciated the info board. I caught up with a lot of old hometown friends, many I had not seen in years. Fantastic weather and good coffee carts! The trip each way went perfectly. Cruised with the flow of traffic, had lots of fun on the twisty hills. Filled the tank for each trip and we were really pleasantly surprised that the flat six returned around 7.5L/100km each way!!! (38mpg in old money) I was expecting maybe getting into the 9s. Its such a good cruiser though - that 5th gear really helps and the torque allows the car to stay in it most of the time when cruising. One of my favourite cars at the show was this little thing... More car photos from the show can be seen here...

Got meself a vanity plate to confuse the natives

Next bit, the wheel arch/quarter panel This is a super common area for these to rot as evidenced by the low cost and wide availability of repair panels for this very spot But why do they rust there? Well...let me count the ways... Bit more cleaning and careful chopping trying to figure out how best to deal with this efficiently. Like the previous sail panel, which this is just the lower section of, this area is also triple skinned: 1 the inner arch, 2 the sail panel and outer wheel arch and then 3 outer quarter panel over that, all loosely spot welded together and then lovingly coated with lashings of lead to cover it all up at the factory. Chopping done now to start adding nu metal Patched the inner arch, then remade the lower rearward bit of the sail panel the front part had to wait as there was more of the inner arch to patch first - i tend to work on this for an hour or so every few days so i sometimes throw paint and seam sealer on as i go And done, from what i could gather from what was left, the factory part was only floating behind the covering panels, i closed it up to the inner arch to make it a wee bit stronger and also reduce the chance for dirt to get up there again, but its still open (towards the front) to drain any condensation or whatever that does come down from further up in the car (inner roof etc). Now there is something for the quarter panel to stick to The rarespares panels are a big help but still need to copy and make a lot of the smaller details. Remaking the factory seam was not necessary given its leaded and invisible from factory but it will make it a bit easier when its time to redo the front dog leg, and does finish of the tricky bit under the corner of the door Overall pretty happy with how this turned out. Door gaps and body lines all came out minty And only a skim of filler to hide the weld and blend it in to the rest of the car, which as you can see wasn't perfect before (i didn't cut out all of the big crease)

After the wagon was legal the plan was to get the flattop fully signed off on the repair cert. It had already had a check over once all the repairs had been done, just needed to be coated in some sort of rust preventative on the body, panels and chassis, so I was told. The repair certifier I had used was finishing up at the end of March. A couple of months to get it all stripped, blasted and epoxied, and then roughly bolted back togehter sounded easy enough. Got the body all stripped bare, dragged it to the blasters and then off to work to finish stripping what paint was left and blast a few bits a bit better. 2k epoxied and back home. Then emailed the repair certifier to get clarity on what needs doing to be signed off. He replied back saying NZTA won't let us get it signed off until it's at the compliance stage eg: a running, driving complete car. How dumb! At least the short deadline gave me a good push to get the body blasted and coated. Had the chassis blasted and epoxied as well. Doors and boot lid also done but no pics.

In this exciting update, more rust! This time its the rear sail panel on the drivers side. The passenger side has the same rust spot (to do) so i assume its a "they all do that sir" type scenario, and im guessing its water and muck flicked up by the rear wheel, finds its way up there and doesn't come out. For this to happen the rear wheel arches need to have holes too, and well... (spoiler alert for the next exiting update). This is mostly hidden by the trim that is an extension of the drip rails. Just trying to figure out where and how to cut it for good access, while also retaining enough datums to be able to put it back on. Cause I needed to chop out the middle layer too (there is another layer that the headliner sticks to on the inside as well, thats fine Chopped out and cleaned up Inner mostly done. Mocking up the outer layer, which was pretty tricky as each 'face' has a compound curve but also gets wider as it goes, so well beyond my ability to make as one bit Can see it coming together here, managed to reuse the little cutout for the rear face of the door detail Weldyweldy Grindy grindy Pretty much ready for paint minus some pinholes (several more steps of weldy and grindy) Blasted some primer, have a hole to fix where the grinder caught the edge a few times, but im out of welding gas Then a few rounds of filler and then some metallic red (colour match for my Forester) just to finish it off (for now). Of course it reacted with the cheap spray can primer i used! While i had the filler out i also fixed up the nose cone and bumper. Progress is slow but its progress

Finished off setting up the coilovers today. Popped them in, dropped it down and hey presto!! Perfect. has 50mm of droop and compression with 55mm between the diff and chassis. Just need to finish the final weld in and the sort bump stops. planning to mount a bracket off the side of the chassis for the bumps too to bolt to. not overly low, but I can’t go lower if I still want to steer. forgot to take a pic of the shocks in there, my bad.

Alto's fixed, I got a high velocity fan for the garage oven, and I'm gradually regaining motivation... it's Starion time! There's a million things to do and that's got my ADHD arse stuck in a loop. It's so easy to walk into the garage, point at stuff "that needs doing, that needs doing, that needs doing"... and overwhelm myself and walk out. What I want to get fixed Right Now™ is the exterior; get those rusty doors repaired, the dents out of everything, and the final prep and colour on it all. But there's very little of that that I can actually do myself. Sure I could get a welder and all the fixings and give it a go, but chances are that'd just cost me more in the long run. The door rust I could probably do and maybe some of the dents but the damage to the bonnet and fenders, and the panel alignment at the front... I'd love to DIY it all the way up to the painting stage but I'm pretty sure I need a professional from here on out. That means money which isn't quite available at the moment. It's not ideal to do the interior before the dust-creating exterior but that's the direction I'm going in for now. There's a lot of stuff on the shelves that are This Close to just going back into the starion and out of my brain, and that really appeals to me! --- The very first thing I did to get back on the horse was something I'd started thinking about a year ago. There used to be metal stoppers in the floor pan for draining water. They're all rusted to crap and out of production, so I measured them and sourced some grommets to take their place. This worked pretty well, except for six in the main floor pan which have a cylindrical wall rather than just a sheet metal lip. I didn't want to cut off the cylinder part but after some test fitting I figured that if I forced and schmoo'd them in with RTV black, they'd likely stay put. Another thing I'd been researching a lot was what sound deadening to use. There's two real product types to consider. Butyl+aluminium dampeners. These absorb vibrations and are easily the most effective way to reduce sound. You only have to cover 25~% of a panel to get almost all of the benefits. The benefit trails off significantly as you add coverage after that point. Sound blocking material. Some kind of material that absorbs the sound waves from the air itself. The problem with this stuff is that you basically need 100% coverage. Even if you get to 95% coverage, that final 5% is going to let a surprising amount of sound energy through, to the point where you might not even notice a difference vs 0% coverage. So, I basically ignored the latter. For the former, there's a few people who have been trying to set up testing rigs to produce actual numbers for the various sound deadening products out there. One of the most promising products was Resonix, who of course produce their own tests. The problem is that the product would cost over A GRAND to import into NZ. Additionally, the products that Resonix and other enthusiasts tend to test are largely limited to sale in Europe and the USA and are overly expensive to ship here. I was considering an Amazon Basics brand that Resonix rated highly but in the end I just did the basic bitch thing and got the dominant brand, Dynamat. Its performance is high and even though it's expensive, the brands we get here are either rebadged and impossible to get numbers for, or not as effective. In the end, if you're in NZ, unfortunately Dynamat is probably the best value unless you're on a strict budget. Also unfortunately, I'm unlikely to ever know if Dynamat was the correct decision. It's either going to be noisy in the car or not and I don't see myself replacing it for shittier stuff just to measure dB! I got the bulk pack. Most internet sources said I'd need double the amount, but I know that only a small amount of coverage is necessary, so I was hoping this would be enough to stretch. Laying it out in the lounge, I realised I'd overestimated the amount I'd need. It quickly became clear that I had more than enough to replace the factory sound deadening, put extra sound deadening on every panel in the car, and have some left over. In fact I'd easily have enough to go well over 25% coverage. Well, better not waste it! First I got everything clean. To start with I was careful about how to cut and position it all. I still hadn't truly absorbed that I had enough of the stuff, and I'd read that this was a bitch of a job. Once I was happy, I went in. I peeled back a corner of the product and stuck it firmly before slowly peeling more and sticking as I went. I didn't run into many air bubbles but a prick with a pick was effective at getting rid of them. I got a free roller from hyperdrive for buying the pack, and this was great for flat surfaces, but for getting into curves, I found that the rounded back of a screwdriver handle was better. In all, the product was easy to stick firmly down. It's also quite forgiving; I was able to peel some off after half an hour without it damaging the paint or leaving any schmoo behind. I'm glad the roller was free because I wouldn't recommend buying it. You could easily get away with something rigid with a soft surface, like a vinyl applicator. I opted not to cut any holes for the drain plugs. My reasoning is that if water gets in the car such that I need to drain it, then the seats etc are coming out regardless, and at that point I'd rather just use a shop vac than go through the hassle of removing the plugs and re-schmooing them down later. Plus, the deadening acted as extra insurance against them popping out over time. My first goal was to replace all of the factory sound deadening... and here that is! I don't know what other people were complaining about when they installed it. It didn't take all that long, I wore disposable gloves but didn't feel anything remotely sharp enough to cut me, and getting it all rolled down properly was easy. Cutting it is easy with scissors and craft knives. I also wanted to cover other panels and areas of the car that never head deadening, such as the roof, but I really did overestimate how much I needed. I also bought some of the aluminium tape that Dynamat offers. DON'T DO IT. It cost $35 for 9m and I only got half the floor done! It's also totally un-necessary. I just did it to avoid getting butyl on my clothes and shoes as I moved around in there. I think any old aliminium tape can be used, and found these black rolls for $6 each. Exact same dimensions, but 10m long. It's a shame that some of the tape is shiny dynamat branded and some is black, but it's covered in carpet, doesn't matter in the slightest, and to be honest I think most people wouldn't even notice if they were staring at it. --- This is the firewall padding. It's stained, gross looking, discarding everywhere, and the car was filthy when we received it with a full ash tray, chicken bones on the carpet... I'm replacing it. I found a thick sheet of Mass Loaded Vinyl online which was priced well and almost the exact dimensions I required. I laid the old padding on top and traced around everything with a paint pen. I initially was going to use spray paint but less messy brains prevailed. Cutting it out was easy with scissors, and I used a drill for the smaller holes. The mid-sized holes were hard to get clean cuts on but I managed. And it fits great This is the carpet. Was it black? Was it grey? Was it beige? Great questions. The main thing is: it had CHICKEN BONES integrated into it when we received the car. Yeah, nah. A few places in oz sell replacement carpets so I chanced one of them. I opted for cut pile for a more lush feel, and some new padded backing as well. Dry fitted: I'll still need to harvest the plastic door trim bits from the old carpet (or more likely, the red starion). And of course I'll need to cut it some places, most notably for the shifter, handbrake etc. I'll also want to install the same hook and loop setup that the old firewall stuff had to connect the two pieces together. I'll hold off actually installing it for now because I'll want to route the loom and boot/fuel cables and what not. But it looks like it'll come up really nice.

CNC routed a box to hold all my cooking stuff for camping.

Slow progress is still progress. When we collected the car from the shipping guys, we had to remove the ramps from the trailer, which meant drifting a bent "pin" (2m long pipe) out of the ramp hinges. It took A LOT of hammer swings. Soooo... now I have tennis elbow from that, and can't swing a hammer to drive in a tent peg (as I found at waitangi weekend). So getting this apart has been a bit of a challenge, I've had to get dad to come around and help me to break all the balljoints. I've just been chipping away at it. Its all apart now though, and I've placed another RockAuto order for the correct ball joints, and a few other bushings, brake hoses and power steering lines. I've got some work to do with the press now. I've also been chipping away at a little side project... I'm stepping way way out of my comfort zone (I'm the guy who avoids the telephone at work) and have started a YouTube channel. I'm quite enjoying it, and am getting more comfortable talking to the camera and less concerned about whether the neighbors think I'm a bit weird talking to no-one while I'm in the garage... If you've got any thoughts, tips, suggestions, I'm all ears!

Going to pick it up soon.

I've wanted one of these for ages. A little petrol motorthat I could convert to gas. This one came up on Market place, I lowballed the guy and ended up selling it to me for not much. I knew it had an overheating issue and no wof. Borrowed a trailer, drove to Oamaru and picked it up. It's pretty tidy, came with a spare 2y new front indicators, new water pump, new thermostat, and new alternator so that was nice. It was overheating due to a blocked radiator, got that to the radiator shop for a clear out. The drag link off to HBI engineering for a rebuild. I gave it a good wash, fixed lots of niggly little things got a WOF, drove it round, got sick of putting petrol in it so I pulled it to bits again to convert to gas. Pretty basic LPG stuff, Impco 125 gas carb and throttle plate adapted to the factory manifold and a reverse engineered carb hood to attach to the factory air intake. I pulled the carb to bits and gave it a good clean up, added the factory toyota cable guide to the throttle, reworked the cable bracket and that was all very nice. it has an Impco regulator and electric lock off mounted on drivers side whichcame to bits for a good clean too. I mounted an 80L tank on the chassis rail where the petrol tank was. All looking good, time to start it, which took some thinking because I had a dual fuel carb that wasn't getting a vacuum signal to the right place, sorted that out and away it went. Apart from a knocking noise. When I welded up the air injection pipes a ball of mig splatter fell into the exhaust port and made its self known. So off came the head. Now it has shot peened pistons and combustion chambers which is nice. The blob didn't do much damage. I put it back together as is, its all good! Anyway. That sucked but it wasn't the end of the world. So now it runs really happily on gas. Goes nicely. Really smooth. Great light throttle response. Way simpler than it was on petrol. I replaced all this. With this. Future plans may include a tipping deck but for now I'm pretty stoked to have it running and uses usable as it is.

Well it's in the room now. Mini me wants a "workshop" underneath so I'll get a workbench and some shelving in there. And he can decorate that part in typical 3 year old tornado fashion

A general update with more documentation needed.... did some dry runs on the engine which seems to start/run ok for a short period. Was a bit of a pain to run some fresh brake/clutch lines but likewise we got there. Got some much needed enthusiasm to sort the painting of the front panels before the weather gets too cold. Now I have no excuse to mount the rad and sort the cooling for some longer runs, then its just 999 little things before going to the WOF man.

This is about where I bought another '60 Chevy. I was originally after some sort of 59-60 GM wagon before I bought the flattop, and this came up as a good deal after multiple price drops. Long story short, spent 7-8 months cutting out rust, welding new bits in and getting it ready for compliance. At the beginning of the year it finally got complied, wof'd and reg'd! Might start a build thread for it sometime.

Home foundry, Ceramic shell, generally lost-PLA though I'm starting to play around with wax a bit. I've got a mate who helps with resin printing and he has some burnable casting resin to try out so that's the next mission. Most my stuff is intake manifolds for my own product line but can do anything really, as long as I can get into internal cavities to remove the ceramic. Pumps and blower would be a good use case for investment casting for sure!

Heck, nearly a year since the last update. We moved, car came up on a transporter. I got my local WOF man at Rod Cliftons to take a look before I moved (before that I got Andy Smith to do the WOF's), and dealt to most things on the list - little stuff. Got a WOF no worries etc at Barry Motors in Waihi in November or so. Sometime recently I noticed a slight fuel leak from the gas tank area (can confirm that fuel will mark epoxy floor paint) so pulled the tank out (getting covered in fuel of course). It's fairly easy, just disconnect the fuel offtake and sender wire then undo the two straps, the filler tube and cap stays attached. It had more in it than I thought and was fairly heavy. I drained most of the fuel and broke out the big soldering iron. I've soldered this tank before, I think the leak was in area where some original steel was still exposed in the middle of the blob, so I gooped that up. Soldering like this is low risk, not naked flame to ignite and vapour hanging around. It didn't blow up and kill me anyway. Jammed it back in and took a test drive - all good. This stuff came out of the tank, seems that it has been POR or similar coated at some point, I don't recall doing that but maybe? Hopefully doesn't cause any issues in the future. I started it with bonnet open and noticed the starter cable joint smoking where it bolts onto the solenoid (up on the inner guard on Ford's of this era) so I took that apart and gave it a good clean up. All set for Beach Hop 2025, much shorter drive to get there this year!

In our world, a failure is when nothing gets broken and when it does...... On the other hand, one of the test subjects arrived with a duster gun holster under the steering wheel, I have no idea why Americans would need compressed air while driving so I moved it to my lathe as the manufacturer intended.

Extreme morris pesting. Quite funny watching people walk up to the rego label to see what it is - i'm sure '1977 austin 400kg' is very enlightening. Of course technically it is an 'austin-morris 575DL', an inspiring name indeed.

The inevitable happened.. As a big time K series fanboi, this wasn't an easy decision.. Knowing certification was on the horizon, it just made sense. The thing is.. and while it's not all about the power, I asked myself - Did I want a 5k with a bunch of work done (increased unreliability risk) to barely scrape 85hp.. or do I just put in a 4AGE that is bone stock with that Toyota reliability stamp and get around 100-105hp? It made sense to me to take option B. It sort of happened in a meant to be kind of way. A good friend of mine has a 4age powered KP60 with a recent ish (8000kms ago) stock rebuild and was almost ready to whip out the motor to replace with one he had been building for a few years (all the N/A fruit). At this time a post was made on the facebook where somebody was wanting a 4 or 5k engine.. After a bit of back and forth, he seemed like a GC and we came to an agreement on price. He ended up buying the rebuilt engine with all the "go fast" bits for a price where we were both happy with. The new to me motor was originally out of an AE86 (big port) and with it coming from a KP (with loom, ecu etc), I knew I had put myself in the best possible chance of an easy ish install. Couple of wires to the ECU and hey presto. Lots to consider.. New set of certification rules to look into, converting from cable clutch to hydraulic, space within the bay, cooling, heating, and more. More to come soon

With just two days to go before I had to leave NZ to head back to Canada, I was able to shoot over to Rotorua from Taumarunui where a BNT had a reputable Dayco branded auto tensioner on the shelf on clearance. I was headed to Taupo on that day to see family for lunch so the extra 2 hour round trip from Taupo wasn't too bad at all. I slapped it back together cleaning up the damaged lower timing cover because the brand new replacement from Amayama that should have arrived mid-Jan was nowhere to be seen. And as luck would have it, just three days after I left this turned up on the front doorstep

I think the truck has a Hilux style diff and a Hiace type gearbox. Should last for ever. Name a more iconic duo.

Change of plan. Starting work late afternoon now, so quickly went for hoon, no leaks! Reassembled interior and a quick wash. I’ll drive it to work and hopefully when I finish at 2am on Sunday there will be no drama. Boy, it looks yellow in photos.

Just putting these here for reference, photos etc from Ford's Iron Mountain plant in UP Michigan where the woodie wagon bodies were built until 1952 when Ford went all-steel and the plant closed down.

Dug out my old Sanyo stereo system, circa 1981. Tape deck is koozed but rest of it makes a great sound. The cabinet however looked terrible, all the lamination had peeled in the sun. I pulled the entire top off, discovered it had a rough finish so smeared on some filler, sanded, brushed on some varnish and sanded again before applying some Temu woodgrain vinyl and trimming with a scalpel. Looks much better...

I'm still working my way through the front end. So far I've done the bushings and ball joints in the A-arms, reinstalled them with brand new KYB shocks. I've rebuilt the left front brake assembly. The right one I have had to order a new adjuster cable for, so that's on its way across the pacific at the moment. I also jacked up the rear and whipped the drums off to check if any other parts were missing, and there was a broken adjuster cable there too, so that's on its way as well. The adjuster cables were $4 and the shipping was $34, so I went through RockAuto's shopping list for anything else I could think of that could come from the same supplier without bumping the freight up. So also on its way is: Fuel pump Spark plugs (fuck these are insanely cheap in the USA) Plug leads Wheel bearing seals I was also going to get an air filter, but it must have made the box bigger cos it doubled the freight, so that can stay there for now. I've gone back and forth in my head, and decided not to paint things. It would add a massive amount of time to it to do properly, and I'm justifying it by calling it a "survivor car", whereby it can have shiny new mechanical parts but not paint.

Work/Life/house jobs are kicking my ass. Mostly work though, which is such a fucking boring story. My shed will be erected in the next 2 weeks, which means more distractions, but in a good way for the long term health of the projects. I expect up until about may/june there will be little in the way of project progress while I sort the finer details of wiring, benches and storage.. However with chassis/engine engineering tasks feeling like they are nearing completion, or so I keep telling myself, I have started thinking about the cab. You need to go back in the thread to page 1 so see how bad it is, but its pretty stink how many holes there are. I started fishing around in Oz to see if I could locate a decent cab or some rust cuts. The first vein I explored found me a free dual cab tipper in tidy condition. But 6.5 hours inland from Sydney. It made no financial or logical sense. The second vein netted me a rust free bare dual cab shell with all the rust cuts I needed for $500au (yes the idea of a dual cab has so much appeals, but the scope creep and associated work lengthening the chassis, combined with realistic assessment of my life saw those thoughts quickly dashed.. ) this one was 330km from Melbourne, and just a bare cab. Still $2500AUD ground freight before sea freighting. And then Id be cutting it up (dude wasnt keen on chopping up on my behalf.). Once we both agreed that was a no go, being the GC he was he had a search on FB in Oz on my behalf and found a very mint complete single cab truck. 220km from Melbourne on the right side of the city to the shipping depot. We have been haggling the details but he has agreed to remove the cab and slap on a pellet for me and arrange the drop off to Melbs. I will be somewhere between $4-5k all in on the cab by the time it gets to me but I think for the saving of several hundred hours of metalwork and the expedition of the project (meaning camping missions far sooner than they otherwise would be), it is invaluable. I will likely keep the cab colour as is, give it a little spit and polish and just rustproof for now. But how good?? No amount of repairing what I had compares to the bone dry rust-free desert goodness of this thing.

Over the Christmas break a year ago, I built some stainless headers for it. Pretty sure they were very close to equal length on the L/H side, but to make the look symmetrical-ish they weren't quite so close on the other side. Made an aluminium 4" tube intake pipe to adapt to the biggest K&N filter I could find. This was the point where this car was the last it's going to look like a car for some time. Looking back, probably should of just kept it how it was, got it going and enjoyed it for a bit. But then one day, I decided to strip the paint off.

Slowly plugging away, learning as I go. Before i had the window pulled, i thought id check where the water was leaking through.....Makes sense 😅 Back to the rust repairs, cleaned it up the best I could Made my cut lines Cut my hole Made a template by holding cardboard underneath and tracing the outline, then cut the design out That's pretty much where I'm at currently, have borrowed a welder from the bro so should hopefully get it welded up this week, I'm waiting to buy some weld through primer, but everything is closed in Brisbane due to this little cyclone, its very inconvenient! Seeing as I'm making this up as i go i think its going ok. Ill hopefully tackle the square floor patch today as that is pretty straightforward, the top patch with the curved area, I'm going to plug weld the through the curved bit onto the lower skin and want to have that coated in something so its not just bare steel under there. That's the plan anyway!!!🤷‍♂️ On the passenger side the rust isn't nearly as bad so i think ill just bang a +/- 40mm hole saw through and patch that way. If any of that is retarded please let me know!!!!! i haven't fabricated / welded anything of importance for over a decade so I'm very much winging it!!!! Cheers

Reason I got it out is I won a record on the radio, so keen to get my beer crate of albums out. I've ordered a new stylus for $30 and looking fwd to traumatising the kids with arcane music and the rituals in playing it... I've even got the smoked glass doors somewhere I think. Be good to refit them and experience the satisfying magnetic closing 'clunk' again...

And then a photographer asked if she could take some pictures of the car while I was out to breakfast with the wife, happy to oblige. Going to mopars in morrinsville this saturday, be interesting to see if there are any other polara/monacos there.

Ok, so I’ve made a big push on this the last week or so @Dudley and @di0n and a couple of other friends have been super helpful. I got the engine back in and realised that if I turned gearbox rubber mount around 180° it let the engine sit forward just far enough to clear the clutch master, I spaced the mounts a bit and put the crossmember spacers back in and I have a metric bees dick of clearance pretty much everywhere. We pushed on Saturday to get it ready for a show on Sunday, but I ran out of steam. Some of the highlights - Crossmember and caster arm brackets in. - @Romans old T3 caster arms are in - Dion cleaned up the drivers front guard that he’d mangled when he owned the car - Driveshaft in - We spent an hour or so measuring and moving the diff and setting the pinion angle and I’ve tacked the leaf mounts onto it. - @Dudley welded up my 2 to 1 section of my exhaust and painted it bright red for me, now I just need to cut it and make it fit after he somehow warped it. - Front wheel bearings replaced. To Do - finish exhaust - fill diff/gearbox/engine fluids - finish welding the leaf mounts and reshape the brake lines on the diff - get handbrake cables modified to fit ae92 fxgt calipers - wire alternator - wire fans -finish alarm and fuse box wiring - fuel return line - bleed brakes and clutch - DRIVE

I can offer a slight teaser with this photo of my cat, the logo inspiration, sitting near the headstock. She usually looks angrier so I must be doing alright.

Ahhhhh Norman the ambulance. (Bit of a read sorry ) The diesel motor and parts get picked up this weekend (I believe).. I hope the guy the bought them gets it all going and it lives for ever.. definitely not the motor for me.. I think I'm just out of my depth with them. So what's the plan for Norman you ask. I was on the hunt for a XD XE XF 4.1 (carb motor ) and trans... And I found a good running low k one in chch for $1500.. But ive had a thought in my head i cant get rid off.. I know any ford motor going in will need a sump reworked or even remade completely and also a re cert. And if I went with the 4.1 i woild still need to find . Everything ..IE radiator, fan,trans cooler, exhaust,find a way of matching auto to factory speedo. Ect ect and its all old. Or I can buy an BA falcon for $1500. And thats where I'm at .. its the original plan Ive allways thought off and use to actually think about it looking at it in bogans shed. So the plan is BA barra and 4 speed auto, the factory parts like rad ,oil cooler , full wiring loom ,fuel box ,all the electric controls and even the dash ,..bring the whole van into the 2000s .. Thats not and easy job and a bigger program planed .. buy I tried the simple and I didn't like it ...infact I told my nephew I feel nothing for it ..no excitement. So Norman is going into storage till my mk3 and nephews mk5 are done.. then ill build Norman while doing my other mk3. That's the plan Cheers

Exhaust certified! Now just a vtnz wof

Hola, so as above, I decided to look into getting some child seat anchor points installed, so I made an appointment with a engineer (essentially cert man who does mods too) I decided it would be a good idea to pull all the crap out of the back so he could get a proper look at everything properly. So out came the seats, rear "parcel" tray and sound deadening etc and.......RUST 😭 Divers side Passenger Side Floor underneath the rear seat So that's a bit of a buzz kill, tho not completely unexpected. I've spent the last couple of weeks (a couple hours a week only) cleaning up the rust, organising steel and cardboard for templates and removing the fuel tank and rear window for access(sits directly below the rusty parcel tray) , I hope to have templates made and rust cut out this weekend. Also the good news is there appears to be factory child seat anchors that are already there!!! I just need to get some bolts the correct weird 40 year old english thread some sort of 5/16 Whitworth wankfest. The have these threaded posts then an approx 80mm square 3mm place welded to the underneath. The engineer we happy with what was there which is a bonus!!! Cheers

^ Those weird cutouts are for soldering gear, but normal tools quite easy, just cut to depth req'd and peel out shapes...

Looking round for materials, I cut the side panels out of the old steel wheel tubs. used the front of the TR bonnet, and cut up a Toyota Echo bonnet to finish the panel. It's now high enough that I can add carb spacers if I need to. It will need some panelwork and a bit of filler, but overall I'm pretty happy.

Although it may look a little crusty on the outside, it should be healthy internally after only having around 8000 kms since it was rebuilt. The engine was pulled out of a two door slant front, which has some subtle differences to the four door best front but in theory it should still be fine. It was the bug eye that had a much shorter bay therefore less space. There really isn't a heck of a lot of information (and absolutely no step by step guides) on the internet for this stuff so it's going to be a lot of asking peers, trial and error. Moving from a cable clutch to a hydraulic clutch was first on the list while the bay was empty. Oldscoolautos do a pedal box conversion and with a little bit of bending, hole elongation and a few grunts I managed to get it all lined up and fitting in the bay. This allowed me to know where the master cylinder sits and plan around it moving forward. Engine mount wise I used the flos engine mounting brackets paired with some AE86 Cusco race mounts. The brackets came deconstructed, so I had a friend who is handy with a hot glue gun them together for me. What I like about the flos brackets is that it allows the 4age to sit flat along the bay rather than on a slight angle like factory. This does add complications for the gearbox mount and the shifter will be leaning slightly towards the driver side but it's not a biggie for something a little more aesthetically pleasing. I had planned to keep them in the raw metal finish but these eventually got hit with a fresh coating of gloss black. Bolted the box and engine together and in it with for the inaugural test fit. Immediately I saw some things I would need to re work/consider. Issue #1 - The heater core fouls on the back of the head. I did anticipate this being an issue so prior to the install I was able to remove the interior to get the heater core out. Although it's not a daily, I still want to retain the functionality of a heater. Relatively easy fix.. Modify the bottom heater core pipe to bend 90 degrees, chuck in a bulkhead fitting on the exhaust side firewall and re mount the heater tap under the dash. I am a little nervous about having a heater tap under the dash as it does introduce another variable for leaks but hopefully with some FT hose clamps i'll be alright. Issue #2 was that the intake plenum fouled on the brake booster. Not by a lot but enough to render the brake lines useless. I am faced with a few options to move forward.. 1. Revert to standard and sell up 2. Remove the TVIS plate.. That may have give me enough space, just.. but will change the way the engine performs 3. A combination of removing the plate and shaving down the intake runners 4. Look into alternative brake booster/master cylinder options (such as a wilwood pedal box) 5. Remove the intake plenum all together and replace with ITBs.. Each had their own pros and cons but of course, naturally I went with option 4.. because dorts. As I said, it comes with it's pros and cons. One of those cons is that the internet tells me the factory ECU will struggle with individual throttles.. So lets add aftermarket ECU and wiring job to the ever growing list of things to procure. I didn't fancy investing further without knowing things will actually work as desired.. Fortunately the m8 that sold me the engine had an SQ engineering manifold, ITBs and trumpets for his new build and was kind enough to let me trying before I buy. And of course naturally it would have been rude of me to not test fit his G4A headers. So at this point we've established the 4age ITBs combo fits and I need to fork out for an aftermarket ecu.. It meant the world was my lobster for further outputs. Coil on plug is an obvious improvement to make but I am not really a fan of the coil plate sitting on top with the plugs on display. I took inspiration from Sean (Kune RE on YT) who used small port covers, made up a centre plate and used Subaru Legacy/WRX coils. I went about sourcing some covers, commissioning Stu (OSGC) to whip me up a centre plate and grabbed some coils from Pick A Part to dummy up. With the coil on plug conversion under way, the next eyesore to tackle was the distributer. I no longer needed it from a spark perspective but it was required for a camshaft timing perspective. The crank trigger wheel kits you can get off the shelf are a little bit of an eyesore.. I got my hands on a G4A trigger kit and picked up a couple of hall sensors for the crank and camshaft. This should totally negate the need for a distributor so I nabbed a dizzy blank off plate from JSP to seal things off. This also puts me in a good position for future scope creep and not restricting myself with header options. With the engine back out, I took the opportunity to give it a little freshen up.. Re plated nuts and bolts, bunch of new gaskets, purchased and vapor blasted the new to me ITBs, new frost plugs and a general scrub and paint. I stand by my earlier comments in the first few posts that I have no intention of bringing the starlet back to "brand new condition". Used but maintained.. Otherwise I will obsess over it and it will simply never get finished. The car has already been on jack stands for far too long for my liking. Ignore the idle control valve and the vacuum chamber/box thing.. That was me just messing about with placement. Next on the list is cooling and then into the fuel system.

Carrying on from a little over a year ago, finished up the Wilwood caliper adapters. More rust repairs underway. I think 2 or 3 out of 4 doors needed some sort of repair at the bottom, this one being the biggest/worst. Rear trunk channel was a bit crusty under the seal too. Fuel filler tunnel had a bit at the bottom. The parcel tray had some butchering done previously to fit some speakers, so cut that out and made a new one. Made to suit a couple of 6x9's and some of Dads and Brennan's finned speaker covers. The firewall originally had a separate cover that was removable that the heater bolted to, it wasn't really needed so made a panel to weld in to smooth it out a it. The front radiator panel wasn't symmetrical where the battery clamp originally bolted to, so fixed that up since the battery isn't going to be mounted there anymore. Pressed some louvres into the panel too, to allow for a bit more airflow into the air filter. Filled a bunch of unused holes too. Mounted the airbag stuff in the boot. Since the LS1 has an aircon pump, I thought I may as well use that to fill the airtank. Machined up an aluminium adapter to bolt to it and output a couple of hose barbs for the inlet and outlet.

Well well well Look what the cat dragged home....

Checking fluids recently for my good lady Mrs Flash, I noticed that it was rather wet looking around both the clutch and brake master cylinders. I'd rekitted the brake master cylinder a while back and at the time I noticed that the reservoir had a slow weep, but figured it would keep for another day. Decided to pull everything out for a closer look. Yep, definite signs that fluid has been making contact with the paintwork underneath: The base plate was pretty crusty looking too: In the photo above you can see the business end of the clutch master cylinder with definite signs of a leak. Decided to treat Mrs Flash to a new pair ..... of master cylinders I mean Clutch : And brake: Started off by giving the base plate and spacers a good clean, a hit of sand paper and a spritz of my favorite VHT satin black engine enamel. Turned out like so: Whilst I was going through the brake system I also noticed signs of a leak from the left hand side back brake cylinder. Popped the drum off for a look see. Yummy: So got a pair of fresh back wheel cylinders added to the same order: Came to strip out the offending cylinder only to discover someone had been here before and had managed to round off the flare nut. Luckily I was able to remove the old cylinder complete with hard line. Clamped the flare nut in my vice and took to the cylinder with a pipe wrench. Nothing subtle about my methods: Got everything back together, gave both systems a good bleed. Much neater and we should be good for a while longer in the brake and clutch departments. Thanks for looking.

So this process has been exhausting to say the least. Two banks to merge into one is not fun as far as getting it all to line up nicely. The first two attempts turned to shit and I ended up jigging it up with angle and clamps and still having a mare. I’ve got the 2.5” 2 to 1 section made up and only had to 3D print one small bit with the welder. From the merge it runs down the tunnel to the resonator which I've kicked up to get as close to the bottom of the diff at full droop as possible. It then runs under the diff, up between the shock and the fuel tank through a 3" v-band into a rear muffler. This is not my forte, and I don't weld often, so it's been a lot of puzzling and cutting and re-welding. I almost feel like I've got a prototype to build a whole new exhaust off. I'd really like to be able to melt my welds down a bit as there are some areas where I've sucked too much and I feel like with a gas or tig welder I could push the weld around a bit more where I've ended up with too much filler. Definitely a learning curve though, my first ever exhaust build as someone who hasn't welded too much.

Thought I'd treat myself to two easy jobs for a change. First up the the replacement of the bonnet hinge support rubbers. The Moke has an interesting setup in terms of bonnet hinges. It consists of two rounded metal tabs on the back edge of the bonnet that "clip" into a little holding rubber and then swivel in that rubber when opening or closing the bonnet. The nice thing about the setup is that you can take the bonnet completely off for engine maintenance just by unclipping the tabs from the rubber. The old rubbers were looking a bit sad, not to mention being covered in overspray: Looks like old mate had painted the body with the rubbers in place, so I was a bit worried about what I would find paint wise once I'd removed the old rubbers. Luckily not too bad. The rubber is held in place by a split pin pushed through from the back. Close up of the old rubber once removed: Installing the passenger side replacement was a breeze. Here is a photo taken from inside the Moke cabin showing the locating split pin in place : I nipped the ends over after taking this photo just to keep the pin in place. Moving on to the driver's side it was immediatley clear that it wasn't going to be that easy as the back of this rubber sits behind the wiper mechanism cover plate: Luckily not too bad to remove which then revealed the wiper setup. I was expecting to find a cable driven wiper setup like that fitted to the older Minis so this was a bit of a surprise. Anyway, quickly swapped in the new rubber on that side and buttoned up the wiper cover once again. Went to refit the bonnet in its new support rubbers and the hinges felt far to loose for my liking allowing the bonnet to easily slip off the rubbers. With visons of bonnets crashing off and taking great gouges out of the mudguard paintwork in my head I quickly removed the bonnet and gave the rubbers a closer look. Turns out that the original rubbers had fatter sides that sat nice and tight in the metal U bracket, whereas the newer rubbers have thinner side walls. You can clearly see the gaps in this close up: Yikes, what to do to remedy this without damaging the paintwork. Scratched my head for a bit then came up with just the tool: A few slow turns of the clamp screw followed by a little rest period between turns and things were looking much better. Even managed to do it without stuffing up the paintwork. Took to the other side with my clamp setup and then slapped the bonnet back on. Needed a good push to get the metal tabs into the new rubbers, so I'm a happy bunny once again. Next on the list was a set of replacement wiper blades. The old ones were well flogged and the driver's side one had started to come apart: A set of fresh ones that I sourced from Minisport, but originally supplied by Minispares UK if the packaging is to be believed. Gave the original stainless steel wiper arms a good polish with some Autosol before installing the new blades. And that's another small job ticked off the list. Thanks for looking.

It's that time again, a New Year, another track day. This will only be a small update. There were basically no changes to this car since the last track day, and I really wanted to focus on my skill and technique instead of just going full send like I was last time. The one change I did do beforehand was to change the brake fluid. I had previously been using generic Dot 4 fluid, and I noticed a couple of times at the last track day, particularly when coming off the track into the pits, that the pedal went very squishy for a couple of presses. It wasn't an issue on the track, but did indicate to me that the fluid wasn't keeping up. I brought the Alto into the garage, and up onto the Quickjacks Using my vacuum bleeder, I flushed the system and drew through the new Castrol React "performance" Dot 4 fluid. I know a couple of others that have used this on the track with good results (in much heavier and faster cars than the Alto) The vacuum bleeder is good for quickly flushing the system, but I always finish up with my one-man bleeder bottle, just to make sure I have a nice firm pedal and no air in the system. Once that was done, I finally fixed something else that's been bugging me for a while; I refitted the missing section of mesh in the rear bumper (to the right of the number plate) It's not a perfect match, I'm not sure how long It's been off the car for, but it's better than a gap. The drive up was fairly uneventful this time, no one in a fancy BMW trying to blind me, and the weather was even decent. No friends could make it this time, so we did a solo trip and picked our usual spot out early I managed to convince my wife to hop in the passenger's seat this time, for her first time on a track. We started off with the usual training sessions, which were a little different this time around. They had the three exercises; a slalom (weave through cones there and back), reaction test (drive at some central cones with a light either side, which randomly light up to show you which side of the cones to go) and an "ideal line" through a corner (like a Gran Turismo license test, pairs of cones set up to guide you around the best line of the corner). Usually you would do an exercise and continue on to the next one, but this time they ran each group 3-4 times through each exercise before moving onto the next one. Once the training sessions were done, it was time to jump into the Group 1 "slow group", and get onto the track I only recorded the data for the first two sessions, one with my wife in the passengers seat, and one out solo. I think I did about 3 or 4 session in total this time. Due to higher ambient temps, and having nothing to prove, I left it on low boost this time. The first session, we did 13 laps, with a best of 1:42.76. A pretty slow, but smooth session. Compared to the fastest low boost lap from last time (a 1:39.86), although I was down on speed on the straights I was carrying a bit more speed through the corners. My wife says this was me trying to show off, I say it was me trying not to scare her, and end my marriage by putting it sideways into the gravel. Fastest low boost lap from September Although she didn't file for divorce, and she'll still go in a car with me (mostly because I'm her ride home), one session was enough for her. Hopefully I can get her out again next trackday in something a bit more exciting than the Alto. Even better would be for her to one day be behind the wheel herself. Pulling into the pits the new performance brake fluid was already evident. It had none of the soft pedal that it had last time, and worked well all day. After a quick cool down and some lunch Ignore the badly photoshopped out thumb over the lens. Rookie move. It was time to line up and get ready to give it some proper beans (Featuring old mate in his way too fast Porsche, in the wrong group, again. Unlike last time, he didn't stay out there long, bullying the slower drivers and went out in the faster groups later) I had some great little battles, including with one of these OG Lotus Sevens I got back to the pits and the owner came over and jokingly commented that I was the one he just couldn't shake. Every corner I was there, right up behind him, but he could just pull away from me on the straights. I love a good little battle where you pick a car, and see if you can stick with them. The fastest in that session was 1:40.13. Way off my best time, but not bad for higher ambient temps (around 22-25c) and on low boost. What is interesting though is that the cornering speeds aren't that different from when I had a passenger, in fact, they're almost all slower, the only gain was in straight line speed. I know I'm heavily limited by the tyres currently as the front just starts to wash out and go wide, which is what was happening when I pushed harder, leading to understeer and slower exit speeds. One thing I attribute the higher cornering speeds this trackday, vs the last ones, is a change in technique. I had previously been using a lot of trailbraking, where most of my braking was done before the corner, but I was still on the brakes during turn in. The reason for this was due to how the Jazz cornered in my very first trackday; you brake heavily into the corner and the back will rotate when you start to turn. The Alto on the other hand, hated the idea of rotating and this technique didn't really work with it. Too much rear end grip I guess. This time, I tried to make sure all my braking was done before the corner began. So going into the corner, I would be hard on the brakes in a straight line, off the brakes completely when I start turning, and then hard on the gas as soon as I could and use the LSD to pull the car through the corner. This suited the Alto a lot better, although on low boost it did struggle a little with lacking power to really pull out of the corner. I'm looking forward to trying out new techniques in different cars/platforms in the future. I'll be back to FWD again, It is my favourite platform, but I'm itching to try RWD or AWD and see how different it is. Before wrapping up for the day, I was offered a ride in a GR Yaris. I have pined for these things since they came out; they're legitimately one of the coolest cars to have been released in years. 260hp 1.6L 3 cylinder turbo, manual, AWD in a 3 door hatch. This car broke my mind. Leon is an awesome driver, being well involved in all the local motorsport events and having spent a lot of time on the track, so I can't discount his extensive skills, but what the car could do was beyond what my brain could comprehend as physics. The way it gripped and pulled around corners was incredible. The big brakes shed a bunch of speed before the corner, but once into the corner it pulls around it with no fuss and then slingshots out and straight towards the next corner. We had fun chasing down and passing a bunch of cars To say I loved that car was an understatement. If I had unlimited money and space, one of those would be the first into my garage. Once back into the pits and the grin on my face stuck there for a while, it was time to pack up and head off. Another trackday done, and the last one in the Alto. And with that, that brings us to a close on this chapter. I won't sugarcoat it, the Alto is sold. It's bittersweet, and it's one of the few cars I have sold that I am actually sad to see gone, but the Alto goes on to live new adventures with a new owner, who is local, so I'll still see it around. The last photo, as I left it with its new owner It was a little weird to see it at Cars and Coffee today, and know it wasn't mine anymore It'll do him well, it's an awesome little car. We had some great times. I took that car from a barely usable ex track car in Japan, cobbled together with whatever bits the seller could find to get it through compliance, to an awesome little track ready, daily usable, dingus. 070 - Suzuki Alto Works For me though, It means I can look for my next toy. Something to play with on the track again, and learn new skills and techniques. Something with a bit more power, and better parts availability locally if it all goes wrong. I have some ideas in mind, but time will tell what I actually end up with.

Round 6 of Night Speed Drag Wars. What a round for myself, I went through scrutineering and rode my bike around to the pits, where I went to start it up and check a few things. Well, we aren't starting. Battery completely flat! After almost 300kms of riding, it seems either the voltage regulator or either stator isn't working. A quick phone call to @Roman and @flyingbrick, and they bought a jumper pack to help and a multi meter up, which confirmed no voltage. First test run, 12.4. Very close to my personal pb of 12.2. The second run was 12.3, third was 12.6, and i was fast asleep on the line. A few people were going for another run, so I qued up before giving my dial in time, and I ran a 12.05. New pb so put my dail in as 11.95. Round one was against Shaun on his Harley. Believe it or not, i broke out at 11.919 a new pb but knocked out early. After a while, I thought I'd try to do a grudge race and try to get another pb. My battery decided not go at all. So I watched the rest of the bike races, resulting in Ben coming 1st for the second time for this season. A push start for me, lights turned off i followed @MostlySuzukis with his mate Aaron beside me and Ben following me we got on our way and before I knew it we were home. I've spoken to a fellow gsx1100 rider here locally in nz and asked if he's got spare parts. This is his turbo powered 1428cc 300hp gsx1100 that does 8.8 second quarter mile at 152mph Hopefully, he can have a dig around and check his parts. Round 7 is in 3 weeks' time. I'd really like to get a new pb and get a few more runs under the belt with the trumpets on.

Excellent, let the pesting commence