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Still, a better investment than bridgecorp shares aye?

In the late eighties/early nineties, Personalised Plates issued blue numberplates in special combinations called 'Investment Plates' and, for the most part, duped people into buying them with promises of amazing returns. An Investment Plate seemed like the perfect period addition to a garish '80s sportscar. Coincidentally, 334488 was for sale which seemed appropriate for a 348. Purchasing it was a bit of an ordeal because the elderly owner didn't have email, cellphone, internet banking etc and lived 3 hours away. They paid $5025 for it in 1995! It's never been on a car. They'd been advertising it for resale so long that the advert still refers to her husband who has passed away. Apparently, the investment plate market's failure can be partially attributed to the introduction of MMP. You can read more about it on: http://www.investmentplates.co.nz/ The British version: https://www.regtransfers.co.uk/buy/numberplates-investment Some other weirdo trying to get a piece of the pie: http://www.1-plates.co.nz/oneplates/

Ahhh one other thing. I made a table in the ECU that temporarily converts my tacho to a fuel economy meter. It's not as simple as just measuring injector pulsewidth, because you could have the same pulsewidth at a higher speed means better economy. So it uses some calcs based on injector pulsewidth, rpm, and vehicle speed in order to wave the needle around, it's a bit unnerving at first haha. But if the needle shows between 2-3k rpm you're doing good, and if its pinned at 8krpm you need to revise your driving strategy haha. Will be interesting to keep an eye on it on longer trips. I dont think it's useful for quantifying changes to the tune etc in the same way as taking averages from the logs though. I also found that I'm a bit of a noob and had my fan switch-on temperature and hysteresis set to a temperature where my fan would just be on all of the time. ha. So fixed this and now the fan runs only very minimally.

Coming back to this overly simplistic model I drew ages ago: As previously mentioned I've got a spare map sensor hooked up for datalogging (well it's not a map sensor anymore, just a pressure sensor) Tonight I thought I'd finally put it to use and see what sort of air pressure I'm getting at various points up the bonnet, up the windscreen, and start of the roof, and on the front bumper area. So, tape the hose to a certain part of the car, go for a run to 110kph on the motorway, log results, move the hose and test again. Results not as expected! Nothing I initially measured, varied by more than the margin of error of the sensor. As in, if it showed 101kpa when stationary it showed 101kpa when going 110kph as well. And yes I did double check that the sensor works haha. The only tests which showed any variation were taping the hose to the glass on the rear of the side mirror. (Showed a pressure drop, as expected) And having the hose in the rear of the wheel well area. (Showed a pressure drop, as not expected! Thought it would be high pressure area here) I saw more of a change in barometric pressure, than actual pressure variations across the front of the car. It may be that a more sensitive sensor is required like a 5kpa manometer or something, but then is it even really worth bothering about trying to change something if the pressure difference is actually so immeasurably low? I suspect that the rear of the car will be the interesting part for pressure drop etc, however probably what would be more relevant and interesting will be doing some wool tuft tests to see where the airflow detaches. Similar to this: I might need a volunteer or two to help out though at some point, to follow the car down the motorway and snap a few pics so I can see what's happening. Anyone out West Auckland interested in participating in some Dave Science? Disclaimer: actual scientific content may vary from advertisement

Long time no update! Had a bit of balls up with the council/plumbing plan change which took about 5 weeks to get sorted and stopped me from pouring the slab, so I went about doing other menial tasks. First up, I spread 70 tonne of 65mm then 20 tonne of 20mm basecourse with the tractor, hand raking much more than I wanted to! Getting it any where near flat with a tractor is a lot harder than you'd think, especially with the middle poles in the way. Compacted with a 500kg compactor in multiple stages then put 6 tonne of sand over top and compacted again. The plumber popped in one arvo and put some pipes in. I borrowed my old boss Mark's 1.6 tonne digger and went to town, digging 120m of trench for the power cable and an extra 20m or so for the phone. Dug under the creek by hand later on and also through the gardens at the front of the section. Fun times! Driveway dug out and 60 tonne of 40mm basecourse spread out Up at 5am to lay out some polythene over the sand. Then four lads and a concrete truck turned up at 7. Home by 10. Mist didn't clear til about 1pm. I left them to powerfloat it and do the roller door rebates. There is no steel mesh in the slab hence laying the polythene the same morning. We used fiber mesh mixed into the concrete itself. Basically the newtech/hairy bog version of concrete! Once again borrowing Marks tools. I pumped water from the creek about 60m away to cut the concrete into 4x4m squares. Quite impressed with the fiber mesh tbh. Started the rest of the framing this week, just as the weather has turned to custard. Wind and rain ftl Couple random pics. Danger tape and trench back filled

i'm tired, can someone scrounge a cardboard box and cut a silhouette and draw sunglasses on it and stand it in a corner somewhere? Cheers.

I bet everyone from this thread checking out investments plate's site will put a spike in their visitor count and we'll see a press release next week 'demand for investment plates soars!'

I met neal and roman dave. Survived both encounters. See you in a year or so folks.

We wanted to use that fibre reinforced concrete but as it wasn't on the shed plans and the (a young, fresh out of school, full of himself, no common sense, un approachable type twat) fair dinkum engineer didn't even know of the stuff it was gonna be a mighty delayed headache to him to just tell the conciliatory inspector it would be a fine alternative to mesh (it's way better than steel mesh!). Even had the people from the the original concrete company in the states contact the engineer but his head was up his own arse and he couldn't be bothered to help. So that was my story. I too love the way you have so much space and privacy !!!

A cup of Dilmah while listening to some Sharns

Went to one of them auctions for the investment plates back in my youf Folks were paying STUPID money for stuff... hundred grand + iirc for single digit/letter stuff.. such nonsense

Haha, their "about" page cracks me up: Sucks when the market runs out of "greater fools" and you're the last one haha. Wonder how much they forked out for that.

Wat

It depends how you get to said hp number. Pity they didn't do the runs on something with a more aggressive cam/s. But still, you can see how the open header comes on power sooner, in the 3500-4000rpm range. Everything i have tired on 4age junk is basically the same. No big gains up top, but big losses as it comes on power in lower mid range with exhaust restriction. more cam overlap the worse it gets. So now you can throw away your little restrictive exhaust. put that 3" on and go to the next size up cams. have the same powerband and more top end. its totally different on something that doesn't run much/any cam overlap. (most stock engines & turbo stuff) exhaust can be smaller. with exhaust restriction losses will more likely be at max hp, when the most flow is required.

Started stripping the passenger rear quarter today Virgin steel, and found stuff.. Needless to say I'm pretty disappointed. I actually had a nos quarter from Japan ordered but these monkeys wanted to go with this piece of shit panel, goes to show that even top end beaters are still wannabe plasterers at heart.. gonna have to cut it out and put new steel back there..

you are risking electrical fire by pushing it?

Drove the car over to Hamilton on Saturday to leave with Greg @ Midnight Upholstery for his shop open day. Couldnt make it on the day but looks like it was a good one! Few pics taken by Earl @ Popeye Pics Talk among yourselfs http://oldschool.co....westpala/page-9

^that should be enough to pay for some insurance.

3 more new posts above tonight ^ Fitment of the freshly chromed bumper and tail light bases, and rear trim etc First wedding for my mate, was best man so mrs drove the bridal party in it Talk among yourselfs //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/34313-the-westpala/page-9

Just before leaving taupo I bashed the front of my car into the ground (again) Drove home okay, but figure it's time to sort this out properly. Pulled the sump off, looks pretty bad... AND THEN WHAT THE FUCK IS A SCREW DRIVER DOING IN MY SUMP?! Couldnt believe my eyes when I saw that, must have been there for a long time So perhaps I've fixed an engine rattle as well... I've got a spare oil pan to fit, big thanks to Pe-arce foe this. But I'm hesitant to do so without coming up with a better way of protecting it, I certainly dont want to do the same thing again. I'm thinking some slightly harder springs up front will help. Raise ride height a little and reduce travel a little. Then come up with some sort of bash gaurd.

So now I reg'd my 121 I have been having some serious thoughts/beers over what to start next. For economy and theoretical ease of completion I decided to resurrect my 929.. some history ensues. I bought this in early 97 after spotting it down the back of Canterbury Radiators on Tuam st (chch) and bought it for the pricey sum of $300 de-reg'd. I then sold my poo brown (bracken) 78 wagon to fund the rebuild only to see it a year later at the local wreckers.. boo. Anyway, the car was originally a tan gold but I had BRG on my mind, more specifically mx5 racing green. So I bare metaled it and found a completely straight, rust free body, the doors had some holes along the bottom, a mate gave me some good rx4 doors, I think the bonnet had some issues but, cocanes a hell of a drug.. The same mate helped me prime, fill and prep the car for paint which was completed at some truck painters place in wigram for $150 in enamel BRG (cheap). I had also built a cam'd MA a year previously which I installed with a 626 five speed. The whole thing was completed including exhaust and new 235 yoko 352's for about $1800.. not bad for a bum on the dole I thought.. just before paint.. don't have any finished shots other than a speed camera shot and one at my sisters place.. I was supremely stoked, for three weeks drove around accepting the looks and the nods like a true try hard rotor head and then... Had a bit of a booboo.. got a bit of school mum road rage at the intersection of rutland st and innes road (rugby park in chch) an intersection that I had had trouble at before but clearly not learnt from. Had a van blocking my lefthand view, saw a rav4 take a gap and gunned it only to be t boned by a mondeo. I was fairly heartbroken to say the least, lots of drinking completed my day of despair. Luckily I had been hit straight on the rear wheel and the diff took a fair amount of the impact snapping the nearside leaf spring and popping the propshaft, somehow the wheel itself escaped unharmed.. My sisters bf knew a panel beater and the car eneded up about 5 doors down from where I bought it. $1500 later and a donor rx4 quarter and I was back on the road.. fucken PHEW! It had a fairly hard next 2 years then blew a head gasket and sat from then on while I pursued further automotive acquisitions. When I look back I can't for the life of me figure out why I stopped driving it cos it then went into storage and subsequently lapsed reg while I was overseas.. Duh!.. When my cheap storage failed in 2012 it sat in the drive out here in brotown under a shit tarp and suffered a little paint wise. Tried to sell it for 6 months but couldn't get enough, glad I didn't as it was the one thing I knew I'd regret.. fuck family pressure. So I then got serious and bought one of those heavy duty uv resistant tarps two cans of fishoil liberally applied and stuck it out the front where it has done surprisingly well given the conditions, whoever said cars don't do well under tarps.. well.. something. Really all it needs is a respray (will try for the original colour), engine and a cleanup and it should be back on the road soon enough. I'll clean up the suspension while I'm at it, it has 121 struts coz of the vented discs so I might have to revert back to standard if anyone has some lying around (Dane) Yes this is an early 4, but it will be the look I'm going for.. albeit with some early 626 steelies..

Turbulent boundary layer. Mythbusters did it so you know it's good.

There are still hotrod Barrys out there that want dumb money for mustang related plates

Driving with the economy meter is interesting! Basically you'll be driving along fairly normally at say 70kph, the needle will be on say 7k on the tacho. as you slowly accellerate, the needle will drop and drop, and then when you get to a certain point it just stops and doesnt go down anymore. If you keep accellerating from there, the needle starts going back up. So once you get to that low point, you back off the gas to hold that speed, and the needle will drop down to say 2krpm or 3krpm. Whether you're on a hill, a downwards slope or whatever. Within the space of about 10 seconds you can find the most economical load and rpm combo which is pretty cool. It's amazing how deviating just a few kph either way of that point takes away economy really quickly. I found that my throttle was quite jumpy when trying to fine tune that needle angle, so I have revised my e-throttle curve to be even less sensitive below 70% throttle. I might setup a second throttle map so that if you ever go above 6000rpm, it will start a timer and switch to the "race" throttle map which is linear. Then if you havent gone over 6000rpm again in the space of a minute or something like that, it goes back to the mushy throttle. So congratulations to me, I've just figured out how to make e-throttle as unresponsive and mushy as OEM cars, the thing that everyone hates about it hahaha.

I've heard of a few similar stories about young engineers and also some council inspectors around town having had some pretty big threats against them for annoying builders over the years! The Carterton council have been pretty damn good though, I must say and luckily I don't have to deal with any engineers I've only ever used steel mesh before, so I was very dubious about the hairy bog (it was stated in my plans to be used) but I'm more than happy so far. There are actually a few neighbours around but the closest two are probably 200-300m away so that's good. They all have covenants stating that they can't subdivide etc so it should stay as a "small lifestyle block" I'll probably just use the land for a few beefies/homekill etc. I also want to develop the natural spring near the back into a wetland, incorporating that into my backyard when I one day build an actual house.

Finally getting somewhere with it.. Couldnt believe my luck with the headers haha.

Also hibernating this one out guize. Iimmmm meeeeeellllting

Real easy. Get the design 100% before you start. You will have the floor and sides up in a few hours. Hatch is fun, but plan it well and you will have no problem

fryburger says it in his opening line, they are putting 620 odd horse power through the muffler. even in a twin system that would still be 300 per bank and way over what most expect, IM only going to have 220-240hp and many more of us are wishing to even see over 200. its very different looking at a big power 8 and a 4age, or a 1600 crossflow or in my case a 6cyl bmw

What are they hiding

Also, how accurate are your odometers? If your speedo reads 110 when you're actually only doing 100, is it clocking up 10% better l/100km? I noticed the Vantage speedo is bang on compared to those roadside radar doohickeys so my 14.2 avg l/100km is presumably moderately accurate.

Overnight parts from japan (well not really), 20/30 mm lowering springs Chucked them in tonight, looks to sits about the same as before but should settle a bit so will recheck in a few weeks and trim to suit. they have an extra flat wind/are somewhat progressive so will be a much nicer fit even when trimmed.

Just because I'm a weirdo I spied this at Pick a Part Wellington - a NZ-new V3000 SEi with digital dash and full steering wheel pod mounted climate control. Had never seen this setup before!

Import an NSX!

Then bought himself on aliexpress and got back here for free shipping

Phew been a while!! I am happy to admit I've been too busy driving to post here!! (Stop skiting.. ) I decided to take the "easy" option to "reliably" daily my Levin. So sadly I removed the Twinscrew and wrapped it up nice for future use. Reasons: * Cost to complete * Too noisy for neighbours and Wife (sellout I know) * Dubious blower condition - play/gear lash, need to get my original blower back from Rob as this is just my spare Anyways I threw a pod filter at it, tweaked the Master Fuel trim up 15% so it's not too lean and viola! Had several dodgy moments (as you do with first drives of a longtime project) with main issue being cooling. Sorted this now with another fan and 71deg thermostat. Aaaaand wedding car! My wife even suggested doing some skids with me after the ceremony(!) Thanks to my Bro in Law Sam for the second wedding car, keeping it classy with an all Toyota affair... Barely made it up to Whangarei and fouling plugs like a SOB but all GOOD!!! I then celebrated by taking it to the 4 & Rotary Birthday Bash Holy crap twin plate clutches are hard to drive, especially when you have no power! makes me look like a hoon/amateur (not completely inaccurate)

Small update. Have been slowly stripping bits off, taking them to work and bead blasting them. Have panel beaten the front guard with a claw hammer and broom handle and gotten most of the dents out. Leaves it looking quite naked: IMG_20160505_212433 by Andrew, on Flickr Also had my order from webike japan show up today (was sent from Japan 4 days ago!) IMG_20160514_101123 by Andrew, on Flickr Includes a leg guard, headlight case, headlight lens, front brake shoes and Mirror And a quick mock up Mock up by Andrew, on Flickr

I'm only going to come if I find an LED / LCD TV on the side of the road like last time. I got $230 for it. Going there or coming back, I don't care.

What's it with wimen using all the fuel? My Mrs is the same. Even on long trips I can use less fuel.

So I finished my real estate sign radiator side panel thingys. Before trying anything else I wanted to get some tests first regarding drag etc. According some coast down tests and the Excel sheet my car has a Coefficient of Drag of 0.39 which is pretty ugly. Sooooo according to this: http://www.wallaceracing.com/Calculate%20HP%20For%20Speed.php At 200kph my car needs 105hp just to push through the air. So there is less than half of my power left to accellerate with. If I could reduce my CD to 0.35, this drops to needing 95hp. If I could reduce it to 0.3 (unlikely/impossible) this drops to 83hp. Making my car more slippery would be the same as gaining ~20 horsepower. I find this surprising as I would have thought changing CD would make a greater difference than that. Maybe I should double check my maths haha. It seems easier to just keep it as is, and then just have the car make more power haha. Certainly not worth turning the car into a teardrop shaped abomination when you're only going 200kph. Maybe a different story on the salt flats though!

Bit more low and the cleaner guards put on

This post has: No Graphs No long paragraphs on boring topics JUST DOORT NOISES New PB of 1.21.7

Sooooooooo while I've had the car apart for other stuff. cobbled together an injector test bench so I can work out deadtimes and flow rates etc etc. Took about 4 hours of running tests at various pulse widths and voltages etc last night to characterize the Altezza injectors @ 60psi. At 60 they are awesome and linear right down to 1.6ms which is lower than what my car idles at. Will test a bit lower today and see where they start becoming a problem Hopefully the second set of injectors will take a bit less time, now that I know what the process is. I came up with a spread sheet that helps figure out the dead time, basically you adjust the number up or down until you get a flat line instead of it sloping one way or the other. Deadtime too high: Deadtime too low: Then once I worked out the deadtime for this voltage (13.4v) I could run a simpler test at other voltages, as I already know one of the values. So this time I'm looking to get the flow rate matching at all voltages, once their deadtimes have been excluded. Based on already knowing the value for 13.4v The Altezza injectors are awesomely linear though. (If injectors were non linear you'd see less of a straight line and more of a curve) It will be interesting to see how well my $120 Aliexpress 1000cc single pintle injectors compare, haha. I should probably start putting my car back together though, trackday is next weekend!

Booked in for an ANZAC day trackday at Hampton. Cant wait! Between now and then, just giving the car a once over and making sure the brake pads/discs etc are still looking alright. Pads are maybe 2/3rds worn now, but have not had a single iota of brake fade using them. Ferodo DS2200 gets my tick of approval. While I've had everything apart, thought I'd see if these other tire sizes look feasible... Keep in mind that these pictures are shown with the tire resting against the strut, so would have to sit 10+mm further out. starting with 235/50/15 Definitely too wide! then next a 225/50/15 This might be doable! It would be awesome to run a 225 all round. Might give me a few more laps before tires start overheating. Maybe a few less laps until brakes start getting super hot though... Might need some venting if driving with semislicks. As the discs look like they've seen some epic temperatures which cant be great for bearings etc. Might repack the bearings with grease while it's all apart. Trackdays wouldnt be fun, without procrastinating about putting your car back together until the night before. EDIT: Late request by Snoozin for more graphs per post:

Bout a year and a half ago i managed to score a 89 gx81 prefacelift chaser 1g-fe, something id been looking for for a while. Was meant to start one of these ages ago but never got round to it... Here's what it looked like the day i got it: Managed to get it a wof and some rego and started looking through every facebook page about this chassis for things to buy Mate of mine hit me up seeing if i wanted to buy a w55 manual conversion, I obviously said yes and got it all switched over a couple weekends later. Best decision ever. What happens when your mates want a go... Next on an impulse buy i got some 17x10 mesh reps and cut the springs asap. Also around that time i stumbled across a facelift chaser at a local wreckers for $300. couldn't believe it, bought it, and towed it to work. Stoked to have a front bar that wasn't completely warped, i swapped the bar and lights over so nice not having the front end on the piss then scored some xyz adjusties I put some sounds in went for a drive with the girlfriend to rotorua a couple weekends later. Was a real nice roadtrip everything was mint. Came back sunday night and stayed at mums just for the night. then my car got stolen........... mean.... was watching tv then just heard it drive off into the night. Drove around for 2 or 3 hours, got pulled over in mums swift for speeding, so just started frantically showing the cop pictures of my car saying we were trying to find it and gave him my number in case. Was the most gc cop ever. found it at 5am in onehunga and called me straight away. ruined ignition, bunch of tools gone, wheels gone and sounds ripped out. could've been so much worse though. got it back from the cops a week later and the cunts had taken one ignition lead so had to drive it home on 5 cylinders.... Having that parts car was the best thing ever. Decided i didn't want big wheels any more so bought some 14x6.5 and 14x7 5 stud SSR Starsharks which i didn't think i would ever see for sale. so happy. so so happy Have since swapped the front guards to ones that haven't been pulled to africa. Progress is slow. very slow. but it's going the way i want. Next on the list is sending 2 of the starsharks to pine for a full rebuild with 4.5 or 5 inch lips. then when i get some coin send the other 2 down. I've been hunting for a 1gge for a while but whenever one comes up its been shit timing funds wise and location so thats still high on the list. Also panel and paint is very high on the list. Those are my realistic goals. My unrealistic goals are Mizuno Works itbs and extractors.

It's time....

I'm sure one of the Jap spec turbo models came with a digital dash. But sadly the Magna had just the one engine option though with EFI and manual they weren't too slow. Because the Magna has been widened it shares the same platform dimensions as the AWD 90-94 shape Diamante and GTO of which both were just widened versions of the 6th gen Galant VR-4 anyway. I would say the Diamante/GTO subframes would bolt in and possible to repower with GTO's 3L turbo 6 and getrag 6 speed combination. The major hassle would be converting the rear to AWD.

You mean like ?????? Because that would be RACIST

Well made it to Whangamata and back for Brits at the Beach. Towed well behind the Escort, sat well and flew up most hills, though I did loss traction in 2nd up the first Whitford hill from Howick. New tyres needed. Camped with Jackson in his Transit and another Teardrop of Franks who tows it behind his Ford Consul Capri ( 7 speed custom made overdrive gearbox) No leaks and was warm , rained all weekend.