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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!

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.

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.

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...

Have a couple of full sets of valve gear now. Valves, springs, retainers, guides. Dad machined up 2 sets of guides. Just need to ream them to suit inlet/exhaust clearance etc Fitted out the small shed as the 'foundry/pattern making' shed. Getting back into sand making with a new foundry which is exciting. We just made 4 cylinder block halves and starting on the water jacket and cylinder cores at home now. Im hoping to have them all assembled next week and head up to Auckland to cast them. The plan is to machine inhouse so I might need a couple to get it right!

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)

I bought a 3" Adrenaline R muffler, and I've been hoping that just 1x muffler will be sufficient. So welded a flange on and bolted it up to the end of the 2-1 section to test it out before committing. I'd say its probably still a weeee bit too loud (Still need earmuffs on when it revs out) So I'll have to try stuff something else in there too. This one was filmed with the camera bit further back, and the audio recording level turned down so it wasnt clipping. In person it's still ear splittingly loud. Currently the ignition timing is all very conservative, as I'm not sure what the motor is going to like with port injection and the 12:1 compression. Overly delayed ignition timing means more exhaust energy (noise) comes out the back. So it will quiet down a bit as the timing gets dialled in. Currently there's no VVT advance happening, everything is just at home positions. So from experience the intake starts getting a LOT LOT louder when you start introducing some overlap. As much as I do love some incredibly obnoxious intake noise. If it's so loud that it's melting my brain. Will need to make an airbox to calm it down a bit. Ha. I am still chasing an issue (by which I mean I havent investigated it yet) where the reported voltage to the ECU drops off, when the rpm goes up. I am suspecting this relates to a bottleneck at my fuse/relay box. So will do some troubleshooting. I have officially run it to the 9k mark now, and valvetrain has survived. Haha. So hopefully a bit more left in it yet. It feels tantalizingly close to being drivable! I need to make some heat shields in quite a few places. As there is a huge % of the engine bay that is line of sight to the radiant heat emitting from the exhaust manifolds. This video is probably a fairly good representation of how the car will sound when it's finished and driving.

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.

Well shits been happening. Ryan at OCD Performance in Te K banged out a full new loom with all the bits and pieces i was after. Was after a clean hidden loom in the engine bay which he bloody nailed i reckon basically cant see anything once the airbox is back on. Cars home now to strip down and send body to the painter and then sort someone to build the engine.

More exhaust tinkering. But first I decided to make some new front caliper brackets. The race car I first bought came with a set of 80's CRX sliding calipers and vented rotors. 231mm/17mm thick. They work really well. However the brackets they bolt to are only held on to the uprights with two of the original drum brake mounting holes. This is actually the way many of the disc brake conversions sold for imps over the years are done but I've never been super happy with it. The holes they mount through are spot faced and quite close to the edge. My fear (yes possibly a bit paranoid but) is that the casting could break and the caliper bracket get pulled away under heavy braking, jamming the caliper in the rim and locking the wheel. You can see the setup in this pick I took not long after getting the race imp... There is better, more fail safe way to do it using all three mounting bolts, which is also stiffer and also modular. I bought some 10mm steel flat and got to work. Drilled and bored the centre hole to exactly match the axle size.. This way the brackets will always sit perfectly central and even if all three bolts let go (is a very super paranoid way) the bracket would still stay in place concentrically. I didn't take many photos of the build, a process that ended up taking way longer then I expected but hey, that's car projects. Here's the bits on the bench as I'm measuring out and marking etc etc.. The finished parts before paint... Only down side is the extra 380 grams of unsprung weight per side However, on the plus side I do get to inform the various Hillman Imp doomsayer Barries out there that I have added more weight to the front of my car so I wont end up in a hedge next time I attempt to corner it I shimmed them up to suit ( for the final install the bolts are reversed and lock washers install btw) Test drove and its all good. I really need some new pads though because old pads are worn to suit the old brackets which I had noted were slightly bent. The new setup is far stiffer. The original pads are rock hard anyway and have always really only start to bite once there's some heat in them. Keen on suggestions of pad brands to try within NZ. The basic TWR ones from Repco always seem to work fine though so I'll go that way first. Luckily these discs, calipers and pads are all still readily available new and cheaply. I think they are used on many different earlier Civics and CRXs which helps. Stuff from Rock auto is insanely cheap for example. Next up was my ongoing exhaust sound experiments. Upon suggestion from one of the fellas on a 911 forum I cut the box open and added a deflector to help flow. Here's another exceptionally well drawn image showing the science behind my modification... The red arrows show the exhaust gas flow. Now please humour me and lets just pretend its flowing like a lovely consistent river of lava. As it flows out from the exit it will follow the curve around and into the bellmouth of the next pipe which shoots in a straight line through the silencer and out via the tailpipe. There will of course could be pressure pulses created by the tail pipe exit so if they come back they, as depicted in yellow, should create a vortex, do a perfect swirly thing and get pulled back into the pipe. In theory. I welded a lid over my master piece of fluid dynamics and then cut open another bit of the box. This time I filled the cavity around the perforated tube. I'm hoping it might quell some of the 'hollow cackle reverberation' sounds. It didn't. After welding a lid back on, splashing some paint around I took the car for a hoon. Its certainly quieter and from my seat of pants o'meter I think my gas flow mastery has added at least 1 small pony into the mix. But there is still an annoying reverb sound at around 2700rpm (which happens to be around the 100kph area in 5th) I think I know the cause. Its the exhaust pulses in the lower chamber matching each other. In fact Wikipedia has a section with more detail on this... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humming So with that result my exhaust experimentation will continue.

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.

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!

It's a serious bit of kit (death wish).

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

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.

Going to pick it up soon.

Well, someone else is carrying on and waving the 1NZ flag which is great. Marino from Whangarei took his vitz to the Garage1NZ workshop for some dyno tuning today. It's an iterative improvement on some things that I did. So its an earlier 1NZFXE, with the mechanical waterpump. The innermotive 264 deg cams and valve springs from Thailand. (about half the price of JUN/BC stuff) 20v throttles, 4-1 manifold and a 3" exhaust I think. Sneak peak at @kpr's new youtube channel logo: Made a delicious ~160whp at 8500rpm And deserves honorary oldschool.co.nz membership for adding some 13" wheels and slam. Good shit Marino! Love it.

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

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!

Here is a very late update. A lot of my pictures were removed from the image hosting site and I just gave up on posting. I got her all sorted and running great. She was running and driving for a few months before I finally got around to fitting some airfilters. K&N stopped making them to fit the DCNF carbs a few years ago. After hunting for ages I gave up and bought these foam ones from the U.K. I had them on for 3 glorious days and had just picked my son up from school while stopped at a red light she started to cough and splutter a little. Then the engine died and smoke started pouring out from around the bonnet. I told my son to bail out, grabbed the extinguisher, (best $25 I ever spent) went to open the bonnet and whoomfa.. opening the bonnet let all the oxygen in and my car flashed before my eyes. For a second I thought she was a goner. Luckily I got the fire out pretty fast so not too much damage really. I rebuilt the carbs, New fuel lines, a few wires etc and a massive clean. Now she's all back together good as new apart from a slightly scorched bonnet that I'll one day get around to sorting. So yeah.. I can't say I recommend those air filters.

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.

One step forward and two steps back. Managed to do a couple of things which made it better. I adjusted the carb so that the flat spot off idle was no longer there. On the test drive it doesnt like it at load so I seem to have just moved the flat spot further along. Might have to wind the jet out a little further but I felt like I was already too far if you go by the base settings in common literature. Open to ideas on that one. On looking back I dont recall the vibration being there anymore so that's a positive but with the flat spot I wasnt able to go too fast so maybe it is still there. Welded on a stronger return spring so it doesnt rev too high at idle. Also managed to sort the issue of the overheating problems. The water just wasnt getting to the front rad. I added a T piece (for the eventual heater matrix) where the booster was and just filled it up from there. Was able to idle it for a while and the radiator and fans do a great job. Where the water goes in the radiator is quite hot to the touch but by the other side it is barely even warm. I took off the hose at that end and there is plenty of water so the radiator is doing it's job. Now for the shit part. I parked it on the ramp to burp itself and noticed a big oil leak. Im guessing the rear main seal (that came with the bullshit adapter kit) has shat the bed. Super frustrating as it means the engine has to come back out. I'm up to my assholes in projects though so sadly it'll have to wait. This project simply will not die.

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

Update on this little beauty from the new owner. He's loving it. He's just got it a new COF, has got himself a truck licence and a TSL and is now in the process of tidying it up. New deck installed and he and his wife are currently stripping the old paint off it in preparation for new paint. I'm super happy it went to them and really glad to see it getting some love.

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...

Forums been down, distractions were lacking, so out in the shed a bald guy got cracking... Into some cans and then did some grinding and painting. End result. Second seat installed and tested. Put the XE centre console in the other day to check the look. Digging it.

Toyota festival

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.

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...

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

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.

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

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.

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.

Sheds finished, completely unorganised but the hoist works. Arms on the hoist are too short for the front chassis rails so waiting to hear back from the installer when some longer arms turn up. Might see if swapping front to rear would work.. or, I could turn the car around lol. In the last year or so I’ve picked up a complete wiring loom out of an 83 from a GC down in Christchurch who labelled everything as he pulled it out. Also picked up a factory instrument cluster as I’m more keen on that than a digital dash. Knowing me it’ll probably be another year or so til I make an effort on it but at least I walk past it every day now.

And so there was, a 66 monaco. Different tail-lights extending onto the trunk lid and different grille for 66. The monaco was the up-spec 'fairmont' to the polaras 'series 1 au falcon forte'. Great show, roughly 100 old mopars in attendance, split pretty evenly between aus & yank. I especially appreciated the rainbow array of chargers. Suprisingly there were no ap5 or ap6 valiants or dodge vans in attendance.@Roman came too in order to graph number of antiquated jalopies vs soil hydrocarbon levels.