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Nearly done the transmission tunnel. This piece of the firewall has always annoyed me by how it isn't symmetrical, so cut it out and fixed that. Just need to do something with the little hole on either side where the tunnel, floor and firewall meet. Also built the fuel tank. Drew it up in Solidworks and then lasercut it. Added a couple of baffles that located and slotted into the top. Here it's fully welded, will give it a polish or something one day. The big flange is for the pump, the smaller one is for a sender unit and the small holes are for the return line and breather. I think it's just under 60 litres. Now to figure out how to mount it.

This morning I got a text from Joe and it has been picked up! I'm fizzing now. I found my exhaust gasket material so I can hopefully fix the leak, I've ordered a flexible too as it doesn't have one. I'll have a good look over it and make a wish list. But first I'll do the diff & drive shaft bolts and annoy the neighbours with tang noises down the road

I'm removing the side cover badges so I've patched up the mounting holes with fibreglass. Also decided to try weld my fender brackets on myself. Considering I'd never welded before, and only had about an hours practice prior to doing this, I'm pretty stoked! Hopefully it holds.

Pretty randomly our rep at work got to yarning with a codge who wanted rid of some Datsun stuff his son left in behind. $100 got me a set of new crow valve springs, 2 A12 heads and set of barely used valves and sparkie plugs. At least $300 worth realistically. Hoped one would have a rocker shaft cause all mine aren't quite 100% but alas. I also decided that cam bearings would be cheap insurance since mine weren't mint so got a set and a spare just in case but overthought it bitched out on installing them myself in case I wrecked the new cam soon after firing it up..they are buried inside the block, and scope for disaster is wide, so dropped the block and head off at reconditioners.

It's been nearly a month since the last update. I had a 2 week holiday in Bali which slowed things up. Got back into it tonight working through the list of stuff to finish off, Universal is mounted to the steering rack, found that it hit the engine mount so that had to be clearanced, put the starter motor on and there is space to shift the knock sensor to the other side of the motor so the dip stick will fit into the HQ sump, clips fitted to the diff for the brake lines. Clint (Cletus as he is known here) is coming round for an inspection for certification next week so lots has to be done. I want his OK before it all get blown apart again and painted. Progress for sure.

A little more No real power but ok for a 40 year old car

Almost 2 years little van has been busy done a couple of Gumboot rallies with all of of the greatness of 49hp then the motor gave up 1.3 xflow they go forever sometimes . Motor finally died so put the old sport engine into this to help it get a little more power so fancy rebuild a few extra engine bits and what can it do ???? drive line has a fair bit of work to match loads to update

Stop making the rest of us look like chumps please.

Haven't updated this for a while. Car is on the rotisserie at home in the garage and nothing new has really happened. I did receive my individual throttle manifold from @evil_si (Simon at Max Fabrication) and to say I'm happy is an understatement. Looks awesome on the engine! Need to get it in the engine bay to see how much room I have for trumpets. This manifold uses the standard 2jzge intake runners. They have been cut down and a 10mm plate was CNC'd. All throttles needed no modifying at all. Quite effective and didn't cost me the moon.

No pics are gay Heres a picture of the sweet blanket I bought on sunday to cover up the blue bench seat IMG_5613 by Allan Ainsworth, on Flickr

So Manfield finishes up... And I'm enjoying doing superlap and the camaraderie between competitors. Buuut everything else in life was starting to feel a little stale. I have been daydreaming about moving to the South Island for the last few years, but I'm not a planner person... I figure if I wait until I have a plan, I will never do it. So I made a bold move - To just hand in 30 days notice at my IT Manager job, with no idea what I'm going to do next. I knew this meant sacrificing the remaining rounds of Superlap, and would probably lead to some hard times financially and otherwise. But it was just what I felt was necessary. All I knew was that I wanted to move out of Auckland for a while and start on a fresh page after some tough times over last year or two. A few days after this, I see an ad pop up on facebook... "Remote Dyno tutor/manager at HP Academy in Queenstown" Awww hell yes, could that be any more the ideal career/city change, at exactly the right time?! I applied for the job - and got it Then not long after, thanks to Bigfoot, I had some accommodation sorted too. It was the most low effort career/city change ever! Within the course of a week it went from my family probably thinking I was a bit of an idiot for quitting my job without a plan. (and a fair bit of doubting myself as well) to, "God damn it you're a jammy bastard Dave" To anyone who has along the way thought "David why not just take your car to a tuner instead of wasting your time doing all of these stupid tests/graphs/etc" Well, all of these things that I've done were a major contributing factor towards me getting the job. So there's probably some motivational message there about following your dreams or something. But end result is I'm pretty happy right now, and working at a company where drawing graphs and looking at datalogs etc is par for the course. Which is bloody exciting. So I packed my echo full of essential stuff and drove on down to start a new way of life down here. So far so good! Keeping some relevance to this thread though - My Carina is still back up in Auckland. It's packed full of "want but dont need" items, it's ready to hit the road as soon as I've organized a place down here that has a garage to store it in. I've been learning so much from Andre and the team, it feels like getting an apprenticeship from one of the best engine tuners in the southern hemisphere. I feel like I'm only just smart enough to be on the cusp of understanding some of the stuff Andre talks about. But I think I know just enough, that he doesnt feel like it's a waste of time explaining things to me. I expect that by the time I've got the Carina down here, I'll be ready to redo my tune from scratch using the new knowledge and tools now available to me. Cant wait! A new southern chapter of graphs, nerdiness, and awesomeness awaits the Carina. The next post in this thread, when the time comes. There will be graphs, oh yes, there will be graphs.

Probably time for a little update on the Trumpy. So the new engine is currently being built up from an old PI motor that was lying around in a garage down south. Basic details are .40 thou over, forged pistons, Newman cam, lightened flywheel, balanced pistons/rods and rotating bits, 10:1 comp, extractors, and the EFI setup based on the old PI bodies. There is also a power steering rack and pump getting the treatment in town which will go in at the same time... Please enjoy some pictures

Urgh. Old people. YOU JUST DON'T GET IT!!

"SUNDAY 7TH MARCH" Fuck knows how hung over I'm going to be, but tentatively keen to come for a nosy, will likely get lost and end up in completely the wrong place though.

Where was I... Fillets, Floor came up okish.. Bought a kitchen, got fed up with looking at shit that was a mission to change/adapt to my kitchen. Its Chinese with German hinges.. 3.5k Put it together and semi installed in on Sat/sun and discovered they forgot to give me a bit.. That's better, Drilled some light holes, fucked one up but it was at 12am Tuesday morning so it's ok.. Crawling round in the ceilings a bit of a cunt, glad I'm not doing the insulation, Oh, and I spy with my brown eye.. Christened this one already, felt good.. Still not a fan of those taps as they're too new looking, would've preferred the ones I missed on the tard for a fiver.. getting closer and closer..was gonna get my mate to laminate my bench for me but I just found untreated 45mm laminate ply for $140 a sheet.. would be good for a temporary bench, see how the money goes.

Sooooooooooooooo. This thing passed cert with Zero issues Just need to fire through the picture of the top of the Loop plates on the inside, which i have, and Cert plate will be here in a week Mind explosion Who would have thought all that hard work would pay off.........

pft go the whole hog

80 profile is where it's at!

Pull bulb out?

Im surprised it doesn't go on the plate, given you need the correct width tire for a cert..... but glad it doesn't tho lol.

The whole arm was bent (which is possibly why the holes were offset), they've been sent back now anyway, the guy was sweet as about it. Cheers Matt

Gave that ago with no luck. Lay under it and had two feet booting it, she's pretty stuck Haha

Jolly good show, chap.

I'm stoked you're making plans for him.

The last few trackday events I've done, they have all been on very hot tracks in summer time... lots of grip for R888s which were coming up to temperature nicely, very quickly! Thanks to all this grip I've had, I've been able to wind the brake bias heaaaapppssss more rearwards than I ever have been able to previously. Which is awesome, it stops the car up great. Then, the Manfield round of Superlap... I was greeted by an intially damp, very cold track. First run out, feeling a little too confident... by lap 3(?) I still had almost no heat in the tyres, was pushing it a little too hard, and the brake bias caught me out. I spun off turn 1, ending up stuck in the kitty litter which was embarassing, and I felt bad for delaying the session while I was towed out. I went back to the pits, took a few winds out of the brake bias (it isnt adjustable in the cabin) Second session, wowzers! Track came up to temp nicely and the car was running great. I was still getting familiar with things as I've never driven there before. But had an awesome time. I was driving conservatively as I didnt want to be "that guy" that crashes twice in a row haha. Feeling confident lining up for the third session of the day, and ready to push a bit harder. I get waved out onto the track and my driveshaft makes a clunk noise. Try go forward again... same thing... shit. I head back to the pits, and it looked as though the hanger bearing had crapped itself, so the centre of the 2 piece driveshaft was free to flop around. It felt okay to drive "normally" so I said my good byes to friends at the track and went back to accomodation (Thanks Lachlan) I packed the car up and started driving home. I got about an hour out of Manfield, and driveshaft noise was getting bad going up a hill when it was under load - Boom! The front UJ broke, and the driveshaft went smashing around in the tunnel like a MFer! Lucky I had driveshaft loops in place or it would have made a bloody big mess. Once I got safely to the side of the road, and had a look under the car. It dawned on me that I am 6-7 hours drive from home, with a car that's fucked haha. About 1/2 an hour later, something magic happened! Some other competitors saw my car on the side of the road, and stopped up. They couldnt really help, but wanted to see if they could assist. Then some more competitors came past - this time with their track car on the trailer behind tow vehicle. They stopped up, unloaded their track car from the trailer so they could tow my car home - and drive their track car instead. These guys lived near Hampton downs, but drove all of the way to Glendene in the pissing rain to help me get my car home by about 2am. Which meant they didnt get back to theirs until 3 or 4am after a very long day. Absolutely blown away by the help. Big thanks to Jakke and Matt for being awesome well beyond the call of duty. Sometimes when you're up to your eyeballs in shit, and someone helps you out - The sort of thing you remember for a very long time. Some good memories and good friends, made by a bad situation.

Well weirdly I have found dyna, hiace and toyoace versions of that same chassis out of japan. I shall call them the LY15X chassis vehicle henceforward for clarity.

Got the fwd alternator bracket to work with the rwd water pump. this lifts the alternator up out of the way of top suspension link. and bit further away from mud and crap. just had to modify the top mount to bolt to top water outlet and waterpump. also make a new inlet for water pump fwd bracket already had some racing holes in it from when it was on the starlet? Started making some towers to go around the towers. getting the sheet to do what i wanted wasn't much fun,, but turned out alright after being thrown on the floor a few times not much clearance to turbo is main issue

Chassis end panhard mount. Yep the drag link goes through the middle of the bracket Ive given up on the whole offroad thing. going stance spec still got about 3" of droop and 2" up to go. need a forklift. likely have to go softer on the front springs, will see what happens once all the junk on the tray goes back in the engine bay

Got just a few flanges laser cut. Got most of the exhaust tacked together. Couldn't pull out the part with the resonators so they're going to need a couple more flanges welded on either side. Looks so good though! Will it need any flexi's up the front? I'm thinking it will be mounted at the front of the resonators and at the back where the shock mounting bar is with some quite stiff rubber mounts. A package finally arrived from America. New floor panels!

Went out to buy some resonators, realised how overpriced for how simple they are, so decided to make my own. Rolled up some perforated sheet, wrapped in stainless steel wool and fibreglass strand. Will probably make another couple to put in behind the diff, which hopefully will make it reasonably quiet. It's a real shame no-one is going to see underneath here once it's done.

Finished this patch Made a start on the exhaust and realised I have a problem with it fitting between the crossmembers. It's going to have to be made of lots of different sections with a heap of flanges, otherwise it won't be able to be removed or fitted. It's fairly tight just to get the x-flow bit in. Might be better if I put the x-flow underneath, so then that whole section to the headers can be one piece and just drop straight down to remove. Only problem with doing that will make the exhaust sit very close to the ground, but should be fine as it won't be as low as the running boards. Will run a resonator on either side in the middle and hopefully those sections can be slid out the back if there's a flange just before the diff kick-up.

Went down and checked out the progress last week and was happy with how everything is going. Have spoken to Andy Smith the cert guy and he is happy with the current progress. Car will head up to Levin in the coming weeks to get his approval. Top of the strut towers were to be made out of 5mm steel and the rest was made of 3mm thick steel as per the request of the Certifier. a tad over kill possibly but better to be safe. The adjustables come really close to top suspension arm but i will replace them with aftermarket adjustable arms Back of the strut towers were made flat and clear the rear seat which is good

put the remaining nuts back like nothing happened and drop off for a new super cat?

I smell a 13b monster J-Port conversion on the way.....

Why a sadface, considering the abuse that motors suffered i'm not that worried. that was my 1st thought too, makes it go away. gunna dig out a gauge & put that on it- could be just a dodgy sender- otherwise pull motor & have a look. Anyone want a boat anchor?

ive used a bit of chain and a 10kg dumbbell as a slide hammer/puller and that worked well !

Now onto some quick repairs and quick flick of paint... maybe.. if I can be fucked.

I have a proper axle puller slide hammer you are welcome to borrow id it helps man

Fixed

So... built a deck, Added some more fillets round the front and back doors, Photobucket is being a cunt so I'll do the rest later....

So 2 weeks before moving to the US this happens! Guy in OZ is rebuilding a T57 and needed a new block. So got to and cast one up! Didnt go 100% but still really well. On a plane to LA in 3days!

Evidence it moved: Engine bay, some stuff is still temporary: My washing line:

Paint a massive cock and balls on it please before you cover it up

Done the floor patch, just need to do the bit up the side and then there's a few little patches of rust, where the top of the guards bolt to the cab on both sides and a pin hole in the rear cab corner. That'll hopefully be all the rust in the cab done, then I can start on the transmission tunnel.

Well, unproductive weekend. Have a new front bearing for gearbox, a new clutch fork on its way, and a new rear main seal Non of which have been fit yet unfortunantly Will make a stab at gearbox tomorrow. So yeah, looks something like this in the engine bay now

Got asked if i have any pics of the car from when it was in storage. The better half did a quick search pulled these off the interwebs. Since it was off the road since 1969 im guessing it also had other older accommodation at some point. Three owner car so i guess the person who took these was the second owner who had it for a handful of months & we purchased from. And a few old photos we got given of the car & scanned from before it was painted mid 60s. Dated on the back 1962.

A little more rust fixed. Getting good at it now!

My dual quad intake arrived just before Christmas & i only recently have had time to look at it and the engines induction. So the intake was one of the first things i ordered way back in August. I was told it would take 4 – 6 weeks to ship. four months latter and many many emails it finally arrived. Prior to buying the crudson i was toying with the idea of Nailheads and had seen the brand Eelco as being the best intake for the old engines, better HP gains etc than the even the Edelbrock manifolds or six carb setups. Not to mention they just look bleeping cool. So off i went and brought one. Wasn’t until months latter and no intake along with a HUGE list of excuses i did a bit more research and found out the manufacture had an extremely poor reputation. mostly for taking the cash and never delivering the goods. a few threats of contacting paypal got the fire under him and the “motorbike accident”, “surgery” and god knows what else all suddenly cleared up and goods sent. The intake is all i wanted and more. Extremely happy with it. Its so light weight when compared to the factory single 4brl one i had. Nailheads love alot of carb. So two Edelbrock Performer 1405 carbs delivering 600cfb each will sit on top of the new aluminum intake. Got these from Summit when they had a sale coupled in with an instant manufacturer rebate meant i was able to get the two carbs at about the same price i could pickup a single carb for here in New Zealand. Obrein truckers sorted me for the washable airfilters along with the old school finned cover. Got to say Dennis Obrein was great to deal with. Extremely helpful and answered all my emails fast and fully. gave options and suggestions. top man in my books and I would happily shop there again. Quick pic of the induction components before I got busy on them all. So first thing was cleaning up the intake then painting it. Me being me i got a lil eagger and even though i knew it was not the best weather/temp to spray i still went ahead and sprayed. I know i know. Middle of the night when its cold and raining out should be a no brainier for not laying down paint. Still I blasted down my primmer coats and was happy enough with it i went ahead and splashed a few coats of black on it. Went off to see my old man for a few days the follwing morning but had a quick look at the intake before leaving and was relived to see it looked fine. I decided it was for the best that i was away for a few days to really let the paint cure otherwise i would of done something stupid no doubt. I also had planed to pick up the needed intake gaskets when i was in the city. No luck. All the car shops had never had one in and some had never even heard of a Buick 401/nailhead. Sigh… looks like i will be ordering them in. yet another holdup. Got back and popped the carbs, progressive linkage & fuel line on. Need to get some Vac block offs to cover a few unused ports. also the main PCV port on the primary carb(rear carb) is so close to the secondary/front carb i doubt i will be able to use the port & im thinking I will have to block it off as well. The Edelbrock carbs have a vac port at the back of the carbs meant for power brakes & im thinking I may be able to use this. Would suit me best as the PCV is located at the rear of the valley pan between the intake and distributor so this would mean the shortest rout if i use this vac port. Anyone here used the rear vac port on an Edlebrock for PCV? And of course i couldn’t help my self and popped the setup on the engine to get an idea how it would look & to check clearances etc. Its all a bit grubby but thats to be expected. im pretty stocked how it all looks. cant wait to turn this thing on \,,/(-.-)\,,/ And even though its not related to the the Hudson here’s a pic from yesterdays backroad explorations in the Buick. Took us through gorges & passes to some decent secluded river swimming spots then all the way to the ocean and sandy beaches. Nothing like a sunny day cruising with ya missus in the middle of the bench seat. Tunes blasting and a retro cooler of goodies. Pull up for an ice cream or to get fresh fruit from an orchard and watch from the shade of a coolabar tree as people congregate around the car taking selfies & pics. Also stumbled upon a Fair – same old crap really with little of interest. Happy New years guys

Over the weekend I got some work done on the corona. I picked up my struts and put my coilovers together. Huge drop in height from standard that's for sure and I have set them 7 threads up just to see how everything will sit. I put them in the car and realised the camber plates will need to be re drilled.... Take into account there is no engine or gearbox etc and it is sitting at this height. I then put her in the garage and next on the list will be to drop the rear end and see how my shortened hilux setup will fit. I am also contemplating building some rear strut towers to run a coilover suspension setup on the rear rather then the normal shock setup. Just an idea at this stage. Matt