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Completed the 57sc Sump Model. Moving onto the pattern making designs now. These should be a lot easier than the crankcase! Casting version with machine allowance and shrinkage compensation First cut of roughly what the sand cores would look like.

fuck me, so they've done the compliance check all ready. failed on park brake warning light not working ( i stupidly forgot to plug it in) and rear brake imbalance. all the rear brakes are new so i should be able to fuck around with adjusters and sort it out. that's it. i am fucking stoked. i really needed some good news and this will do nicely. the other thing that happened is that Alex who runs Western compliance tried to buy the car off me, which is a complement i suppose. so ill go pick it up Wednesday night and take it from there.

Went and check out the rubber issue today and both front and rear screen rubbers don’t fit good and the rear quarter glass rubbers are average as well compared to the originals. Need to do some research to sort the best rubbers. Rear bumper I had rechromed has a couple of ripples in at as well so it’s off to get stripped and sort the ripples and chrome again argghh. It looked very straight when I dropped it off but the new chrome highlights any defects. The moulding fit off has paid off big time as quite a few of the mounting holes have had to be welded up and redrilled to get it bang on.

The internet has informed me you have not gone big enough

New engine is alive Back on the 47mm throttles for run in as had good tune for them. trying some stuff hence wiring abortion. have wiring for multiple setups on same loom, so can swap between easy must of done something right, 150kw at wheels on the small extractors, most its ever made on same setup is 145kw, usually around 143kw. Note to self put mic further away; RIP mic and all speakers.

So I got the block into the boring bar. It's pretty straight forward boring a block. Doing a cylinder liner is a bit more involved as far as the boring bar is concerned. This block is at 30thou over or .75mm in metric. I have bought 40thou over or 1.mm pistons. It has a bit of wear. But hopefully it's should clean up once it's honed. This picture is of a test cut. So you dial the boring bar head into the bore. If you have a decent amount of wear it pays to slightly offset the bar towards the wear so you clean all going well at the next oversize. So in this picture you can see the boring bar hasn't totally cleaned with this size cut. I have only set the bar at 81.90mm. So I have .1mm or 4thou to hone out to get to our finished size of 82mm. We generally like to leave this amount to hone to achieve good rk rvk this is the depth of hone pattern. I'll go into that a bit more once we get to honing it. Once we've finished honing we normally go to the surface grinder. The top of the block is a little corroded so I'll probably take a few cuts to clean it up. So I've done a light cut to see how it looks You can see it still needs more off it. In this case it's not a issue to take more off the deck. When you are dealing with a late model diesel or performance engines that have been set up with good tight clearances it pays to watch how much your removing as you may have to detop your pistons as they may start getting to close to the head once assembled. Also valve reliefs can also need deepening. But this is more so a issue in extreme cases. This good old xflow should be fine. But i will be checking all this later once i can dumby the engine up

Ore progress on trial fit up, installed glass but not happy with the new rear quarter window rubbers so looking at another supplier. Quarter bumper brackets need so work as well as bumpers don’t sit quite right.

Also funnily enough the dude with the motor texted me back tonight to say the engine should be out this weekend, result.

Just won an auction in Japan for a clutch pedal assembly and manual spec brake pedal. Stoked

Temperature has dropped and work has slowed. Have been deliberating over engine choices for aaaaages, was pretty set on running a M104 (basically a Merc RB/JZ), other alternatives included an M271 (supercharged 4 cylinder thing) or an OG M180. I flip flopped for about 18 months until this popped up on trademe for $1 reserve, it's mine now. So I brought a 54 year old engine that 'ran when parked' 20 years ago sight unseen. It's not an L series Datsun donk but rather a Mercedes M180 which is what these cars originally came with. It doesn't look half bad under the rocker cover but even with the plugs out and a bar on the front pulley it has no enthusiasm to turn over so could be seized, more investigating required..

Because I'm such a hardcore Friday night raver I'm here doing an update on an old car whilst my cat sleeps in front of the fire. Rock on. This little Imp...its great fun!!!! I have not really clocked up many miles yet, as you'll find out why soon, but those miles that have been driven have been fun. Its taken a little while to get used to the balance, steering feel, brakes and sheer grip that exists. Still not fully confident at flinging it about but getting there. Its a giggle. I'm just weary of the slippery wet corners that are about now we are into winter here. The little Datsun engine is a gem! Its still not quite perfect at idle and just off idle but once rolling its great. I can really see why the Datsun 1200 cars have such a following- they are about the same weight as an Imp with similar gearing and were well known for being peppy little performers. The engine sounds pretty cool when trashed. I have since found out that this is indeed a completely stock unit and it was a different engine that the previous owner, Rob, had fitted with a supercharger. Anyway- onto fettling. There are always a few things to sort on a fresh build. First off was to sort out the dodgy running carb. In my previous update I thought I had found the problem with the accelerator pump boot being split. Turns out that wasn't the problem... I managed to locate a couple of A12 carbs from a local fella for beer money. One was a complete standard 1200 carb with stock sized jets etc. I took my fitted carb apart and soon discovered that not only were all the jets completely wrong, way too big and pretty butchered as well they were also housed in the wrong carb for my engine! The carb I had fitted was off an A15 which has larger throats and venturis. Great for a slightly hotted up motor but not what I'm after right now. The leaning out issue was because someone had fitted a air bleed that was way too big for the primary jet, among the many wrong other jets. So I rummaged through both carbs, got the best bits from both and assembled a nice new carb that was stock and set to factory specs. I had a page covered in jet numbers and felt happy in the knowledge that I can now possibly join the elite group of carb Barries forever chasing the perfect tune (when the know full well that injection is just soooooooo much better in every way! ) A photo of some carbs in pieces.... So with the Imp now fitted with the right carb I took it for a spin. Because the work shop is now clogged up with the start of a tiny house build I had to drive it out from the back of the workshop and up the grass drive to the cabin. I thought it best to get some photos of it next to the other Imps... I did a few test drives and I had to remove the carb a few times to dial in the float height, getting pretty quick at that process I must say. The difference is huge. Much better all round except for a hesitancy just off throttle. I'll continue to tweak things and see if I can improve it but I am starting to wonder if the vacuum unit I got from another car for my electronic dizzy has too stiff a spring. I think it might not be advancing the ignition enough under light throttle loads as it should. Ill get back on that. Next issue was a funny one. Some of you will have seen it already. Not funny for the amount of pissing about I had to do to fix it but funny in what I found. A work of art really. Rob has to be proud of his handy work at creating such a masterful bit of Barry engineering! The story goes like this.. After getting back from a quick drive checking the carb was OK I noticed a horrible vibration in the engine. I popped the lid to discover a very out of balance main pulley. Bugger. I knew it was a hybrid pulley made up of what I think is Toyota pulley on the Datsun hub but I had never looked further into it because it just worked. But not any more. I removed the pulley to discover this on the back... Hmmmmm. Lovely welding. Purposeful. I'll have to grind that lot off and make a new hub. I'll start by removing those two screws.... Eh?!!! its not weld. Its magic fake weld thats been machined into a flange(like)thing. Its wonderful! Just look at this art ... The Datsun hub had a crack running through down the keyway too. I had no choice but make a new hub to suit. First off I cleaned up the pulley and had its running perfectly true... Then I popped to my local steel supplier and get a big lump of steel bar from which I machined a new hub, with a centre locator to tightly locate pulley central. In photos.. Then the internal keyway. When I was working as a (young) fitter turner back in the 90s I would use either a broaching machine or a shaper, depending on the size of the key way. I have none of those tools. I did contemplate milling it from each side with a end mill and filing it out square but that would take ages on this fairly hard 1040 steel. So I made my own internal shaper bar to use in the lathe and just scraped out the keyway using the carrige. I bought a lump of 20mm bar at the same time as I got the round and cobbled together a tool holder from it. This will now be handy for future jobs I'm sure... and in action (well about as actioney as a photo of a non moving lathe tool can be...) Resulting in a nice neat keyway.. Which fits nicely right here. Beefier then the original Datsun offering too Hub drilled and next to pulley.. And altogether now, in a uniform coat of black paint... Much better. In order to tighten the main bolt, of which I had to buy a new slightly longer one to allow for the beefier hub, I had to make a tool to hold the pulley. I had tried tightening it up with the car in gear, on the ground, with the handbrake on but I didnt like the feel of trying to put the 110 lbft through the transmission like that. so yeah- tool time. Now I have another random tool to got in my wooden box of other random tools specific to only one thing... Doing its random tool thing... So I had a working Imp again that was not going to rattle apart. Best thing I do is to take it for a drive. I took it to town where we met Sam and is son Chris, who jumped at the chance to go for a ride with his Dad in the little blue car. Here they are returning... While in the shop buying stuff a Honda city turned up and parked (badly) next to the Imp. What I always think of as tiny cars looked huge next to the Imp... We went to the steel merchant for some more steel bits for another project. The rear opening window is handy for shopping. Note the lovely old land cruiser... While in town I rang Rob, the previous owner of the original race car shell that donated all the running gear for this restoration. He popped down and met us and had a good look over it. I reminded him of how I'd love the Weber sidedraft manifolds he had left over from his ownership. Well good old Rob actually popped home afterwards, found them in his piles of stuff, tracked us down later on in town and handed over these to me ! ... Wow! awesome. Top bloke. I'll now be able to fabricate a decent inlet setup for injection in the future. Yes!!!! Later on that afternoon we parked next to another small car... This evening Hannah and I took the Imp out for a hoon on our local roads which are just perfectly made for little nippy cars. It was such fun! I love it when the (tiny) little secondary opens up. Its got a lovely induction sound (right behind our ears, even with two thick blankets covering the engine cover..) We went for a nice evening walk and I took a photo of it parked up on the near the beach... Closer... Tune in next time to hear about the stupid mistake I made when buiding a cold airbox setup....

More progress with gapping the doors bonnet and boot. All welded back together again. Trial fitting allthe exterior body parts to check all good and also fitting the front and rear screens and rear quarter windows to check new rubbers all work.

Where do i start. A while ago my brother started building an mx5 for his girlfriend and ended up with a fairly straight, but de registered rolling body, offered it to me for free and i was keen for a future track car project. I also happen to have a job which involved crashing cars, and thanks to a certain american standard roadside barriers must meet, we crash a lot of Dodge Rams. with plenty of v8 engines kicking around i hatched a plan and proceeded to talk about it for at least a year without actually doing anything about it. then the engine blew up on the corona, so while i wait to save up money to build that engine properly, i thought id make a start on this one, which by all accounts should be nearly free, with the only big ticket items needed being a roll cage, a diff swap and a driveshaft. So last weekend i dragged the mx5 into work, where i have all the tools i need to build a race car. and over the week started the efforts to remove the engine. Now that sounds easy, but boy was this truck fucked up. while the engine faired very well with the only damage being an engine mount ripped out (block still fine) and the starter motor wanged in (i have alot of spares). the chassis was bent at near 90 degrees around the engine, i also didn't really want to remove the trans. i started with a 9" angle grinder and removed as much fucked body and frame as possible. i then undid the remaining mounts and then promptly discovered this engine doesn't have lifting points? strapped it around some dubious strong points and tried to lift it out with the forklift. it rapidly became clear that the turbo fucked chassis was going to make it impossible to get out. so packed up, went back to work and had a think over the next few days. that brings us to today, what i had decided to do was cut the chassis in half just behind the trans and lift the truck off. so out came the 9" grinder again and i began by cutting access to the rails around the fucked body, and then trying to cut the rails with the grinder. sketchy at best. so thought fuck it, step it up a notch eh? though this was actually much safer. Gas axed the rails and out she came!

This was on TM a while ago; but i already had drawn some inspiration from the internets;

My understanding is those used to be the go to 'gang-bus' for forestry crews back when everyone had lots of dudes on the ground.

It’ll be perfectly safe if you put it against a fence or post and do a stationary load test

Na it is local. There is a guy called Chris Purcell in chch that wrecks them, he snatches up all the wagons he can, doesn't leave much for anyone else. He sells runner engines for 2.5k plus, the one I had lined up was 1500. There will be room for a rear drawer, but it won't be very deep. The other drawers and cubbies I have planned will probably cover what I need...

Been super busy at work etc lately so it’s hard to finish it all off. Will keep you all posted on the progress. Winter cruising is just around the corner.

Spent some time adding to the wiring and tidying the routing and earth's etc. Then I spent the weekend welding the deck up. And adding somewhere for the batteries to go. I kind of wanted them closer to the cab but this meant either bolloxing up my side drawer plans or making them really hard to access, this is a reasonable compromise. The deck also has this feature; Because I will mount this bad boy that I picked up the other day; This is good as I do not like to lift things. In other news, the engine I have lined up is looking less likely as the dude has not responded to my messages for 3 months. I have a truck coming from the Waikato through Nelson and back in a few weeks, so if anyone has a decent silvertop lying around let me know. I literally have cash sitting here waiting to spend on an engine.

Another cruise session at Lakeside a few weeks ago and unfortunately the gearbox failed. It was not catastrophic so I was able to drive the car home 10 mins from the track. I used the dropped crossmember method to remove the gearbox which worked really well. It's been shipped interstate for a rebuild and I was told on Friday that the gears are all good but bearings are shot. Heavy duty needle roller bearings will be fitted as part of the rebuild. I'll be using Redline MT90 oil this time and have sourced a heavy duty transmission mount keep things supported a bit better. Thanks

Buzzed the engine mounts on.

Same car, maybe?

Holy shit. Front spaghetti. Engine spaghetti. Inside spaghetti. Fusebox spaghetti. Currently (ha!) I have; Headlights high and low Indicators Hazards Park lights Brake lights Wipers and washers Heater blower Acc, main and start off the key A glow plug timer I have the glow loom stuff hacked out of the Safari loom. Things going surprisingly well, I have only blown 7 protection fuses during engagements.

V3.0 Bottom end All the ARP's Threw the bottom end in the car, before attempting to put head on, since don't have an engine stand. One small issue. 16v sumps are a little bigger than the 20v one that was in there. Hits the bash plate/ brace. will probably modify the engine mounts engine to lift the engine 5mm or so. cbf'd taking sump back off.

16 in the clip and one in the hole, ktrips about to make some bodies turn cold Now they yelling their hybrid hate, but with climate change, ktrips had to conservate

More progress! Getting exciting now seeing it coming together

Shell is back from the blasters and ready for the final weld off. Rear quarters been dipped and already to go back on. A.l going well it should be in the paint shop by Xmas....

Break up your composite deadband test into two parts. If (temp < old - deadband) { do stuff; } else { if (temp > old + deadband) { do other stuff; } }

Years ago when I took the MS65 through VTNZ they said the chassis numbers didn't match, so I went to Toyota and they had a look and go "meh?" And wrote me a note stating a mixup at the factory (NZ new) and VTNZ were all happy. Had a look at the numbers myself a bit later and couldn't find any discrepancy, everything matched fine. Stuffed if I know what they were on about, but now I have a handy note if I ever wanna swap chassis / tags.

You can buy new locks on eBay. I have a set of new ones here

Wandering pick a part and measuring discs and calipers I decided that Subaru calipers would probably work. Also I had already decided on 26mm X 280mm discs from a peugeot and the Subaru discs were the same diameter and thickness. It was a turbo Impreza of some kind. The chassis number started with "GGA....", but the rego and chassis plate where missing. I think it would be 2001+. I still need to redrill the disc and make a sandwich plate to bolt it to the hub. Unfortunately this hub is scrap because I turned the location diameter for the disc ~0.5mm undersize. My lathe is small and I didn't want to risk misalignment by removing the hub from the chuck to test fit the disc so I just used the vernier caliper to check the size. Thinking about this now, next time I will leave the hub in the chuck, and remove the whole chuck from the lathe to test fit it to the disc. I have three more hubs, so I can only fuck up one more. It looks like it will be straightforward to make the caliper adapter bracket.

do weekends work for most people ? could be keen to venture out to the Puketapu tav or somewhere similar one saturday arvo if that works

There's a guy on here called MIRAGE-MAN, and the reason his car has these funny-coloured doors....... .....is because his original doors were in good condition. He took them off to save them and put crappy ones on instead.

No luck so far but we're gonna keep trying

I need to flip this thing on it's lid, so I can finish welding up the frame. I got it running, to heat up the oil pre draining, it was running like a hat full of vagina's, but It's probably only run like 5 times in the last 18 years, so that's understandable. When I drained the oil it seemed to be mostly petrol, so I guess a float is stuck. Whipped the carbs off for a clean, hopefully that will help it run better. Regards, VG.

Damn, now that's a dirt cheap rollover jig

Sunday night update time. For a start it continues to look fucking banging. I mounted some trad looking but actually LED tail lights. I added a mount spot for a Ute crane, pretty sure I have found one cheap. Then I sucked in my gut and pretended I wasn't scared and started laying out the loom. It took all weekend to get to this stage lol. Mostly it was separating things out to where they need to head to and figuring out what wires did what for the steering wheel controls. I also broke the heater blower and wiper stuff out of the Dyna loom so I can feed them from a DC DC converter. @moparmuppet kindly dropped a convertor off to me and had a perv the other day, although it might not be chunky enough, it is rated at 8a continuous. I also pulled a whole lot of important looking shit to do with glow plugs and such out of the Safari loom. Interestingly it doesn't look like the new loom has relays to run the main lights, but I have pilfered those from the Safari setup as well. I am feeling surprisingly comfortable with all this which I was not expecting. Maybe tomorrow I will apply power to it and let the smoke out. That will be halarious.

The little IMP is now all road legal !!!! I refitted the carb this morning, hoping for the best but it was still terrible. I just couldnt get it to idle below about 1500 rpm and it had a big flat spot on light acceleration. So I gave up and we drove it to town, the long way through Kaiteriteri so I could have some fun on the windy road there. Wow its fun! Soooo much fun. Even with an engine that wouldnt pull properly, horrible flat spots, tyres that are definitely too high in pressure, a few clanks from the yet to be fully secured pipework, noise from the un-insulated engine bay shelf, noise from no carpets, fumes being drawn in through the old heater hose routing holes etc etc... it was still fun. It really is like a big go cart. The steering is lovely. Gear shift is great. Brakes getting better as they bed in. The temp gauge sat pretty much bang on an indicated 80 degrees C whch I reckon is more about 90. Fan only came on when we stopped, as expected so I was really happy about that. We got to town and straight into the booked WOF slot. Our local friendly wof man just loved it. Kept saying how cute it was, how neat the install was etc. Really impressed. Did all the check things as usual, test drive and it was all good. We looked about all the neat stuff in his workshop.... WOF attained and we went to the local council and got a years license. $47 - yay for old cars. Did a shop at supermarket, did the proper look back over my shoulder at my little Imp, sitting there in a sea of bland grey modern cars, looking sooooo tiny. On the way home we popped in to show it to another couple of fellas who run a nice country workshop and had sorted out the tyres for me. They too loved it and the older fella reckoned it was running way too lean and certainly had a big air leak somewhere. Then off home, this time driving over the much steeper longer climb. No worries even with terrible carb. No increase in temp. Yay for that. I got home and removed the carb. Discovered two things. Firstly. Spot the schoolboy error here... Yep- That accelerator pump can go downwards for sure, but not if the lever pushing it down cant go up at the other end! My air filter base was stopping it. This also meant that along with only a tiny bit of travel I was also not getting the secondaries to open properly. Easily sorted with a hole, some alloy and some epoxy. Second thing- this... There goes my air leak. Air getting pulled in through that huge split, past the accelerator pump piston and into the venturi. Well at least I am pretty damn sure that this is the culprit! Reporting back with findings soon.....

.

Hi cunts! Straight uploads sounds like someone is paying for a big old server somewhere? Excellent. I always hated the photobucket thing. I’ve got a ton of photos to add soon so will get stuck in. Car was fucking fun even with the 2.8. Had a super light flywheel and an LSD and loved going sideways. Also has a short rack from Z3 which saved my life a few times! On track: Also. It fucking loved to skid. I went through a few tyres! Why is it that peer pressure always emerges just after you’ve bought new ones? I bought a Sikky kit to mount engine so I could focus on other stuff. Kk touched me when I was sleeping once. My fav car that I had to sell recently was my e30 vert. My tenants trashed my rental house and I had to sell the thing to buy new carpet. Sold it for $4500 which I really fucking regret! This direct upload thing is great!

Drivers door complete and only the boot lid to go and body work finished. Still trial fitting parts etc and once done it is off for the final blast and prime then off to paint.

Have now seam sealed the front right inner wheel arch. Also got the car up on axle stands and off the trolley thing it's been on for the last 18 months and seam sealed the under side, no pics of that. Masked up the front left inner wheel arch and top coated it with Wurth 'Gravel throw and underbody protection'. I don't want to use the full fat bitumen based underseal as it's a prick to get off in the future if you ever need to - a lot of the underside of this car is still coated in it as the blaster couldn't remove it and I don't have the patience to lie on my back with a heat gun and scraper to get it off, so it can stay. This stuff seams to be favoured by those in the Porsche circles online so we will see how it goes (means I have Porsche parts on my car now right?) has the added benefit of coming in a rattle can, not sure if that means it won't last but it takes a bit of effort to scratch it once its dry.

Still plodding away, got a pair of Slam Specialties RE5s for the front, would of likes to run the larger RE6s up front but they're a bit marginal for clearance on the diameter front and I'd rather not risk having a bag rubbing on something. Hot glue gunned some mounts together, all designed to be bolt in: Full Squash (onto factory bumpstops), followed by full droop - looking like I'll need limiting straps at full droop to stop all the weight hanging from the bag. Back when this was at the panel beaters I made a day trip with Ned to Mercworx is Tirau in search of a new boot, as mine was full of cheese. took a punt on one that had a dent in it but look solid. Finally got around to getting it blasted and primed at Autoblast and, other than coming back in the wrong primer and having a couple of dents in it, it looks ace - not a spot of rust in it. New one on top of old one: Have started seam sealing the underside, started with the front left wheel arch. Initially tried masking up the lines to give a cleaner finish but have decided that isn't worth the effort; a finger swipe gives the best outcome. (as an aside when Wurth say their seam sealer is 'brushable' they're using that term very optimistially) Hopefully have the underside seam sealed by the weekend touch wood.

Doors taken apart with skins removed and hinge plates. Frames off to the dippers.

Runner system prints completed.

This arrived today. LSD.

More progress with the boot floor being removed which showed up some rust in the rear chassi rails. One side has been repaired and the other well on its way.

Went to have a look at the Cortina today and more good progress. Front end all fitted off ready for final gapping and welding. Rear quarters removed for dipping and the whole lot very clean underneath so well impressed. RHS boot floor needs a replacement section and then it’s mount the body on the rotisserie for blasting before final rear panel fit off.

Starting to get the guards and front panel all ready for the final fit off and welding. Good to see a grille on the front again! I have sourced a NOS rear light panel so that should turn up in a couple of weeks and the last bit of the puzzle is the lower rear valence which is proving pretty elusive.

Hopefully you're still going on this!!!