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Got a little bit more adventurous yesterday and went for a longer drive out on the 80k zone so I could open her up a bit. Goes so much better, who would've thunk that efi and an 60mm Tb would make this sort of change. Finally found some info on this particular iteration of the f/ma, came out 82 the 1982 luce 2000 sg-s and not the cosmo like I previously thought, no wonder I couldn't find anything.. Was pretty healthy too really, considering they "upgraded" to the fe, 120hp/167nm vs the 12v fe 120/178. I was always of the opinion that it was a total boat anchor at only 90hp, I've done bit of work to them in the past and they've gone pretty good but efi is hands down the best modification, shits all over the 45dcoe I had on my 626.. Just don't remember it being this quick sans turbo.. Anyway like I said took for a spin, got it up to about 5500rpm a few times.. Once it hits about 4k you can really feel the vibration through the pedal compared to the carb, think it comes down to the way the linkage is orientated so at wot the cable is sitting at almost right angles to the linkage (kinda hard to explain without a pic) might need to adjust it round a bit. All went good till (luckily) I got home and it started running like a bag of dicks again, but this time an electrical miss, down a cylinder. Checked leads and they were definitely firing, pulled off an injector plug.. ahhh. 4 and 2 not pulsing so inj pinout #1 and sure enough when I wobbled the cable it came back. Ended up being some dry solder joints on the main plug, resoldered them and bob's. Also managed to get a viscous hub of an fe, was pretty loose so I topped it up with some silicon oil. They work a bit different from the Asian hubs on the toyotas as they unbolt and come apart in half whereas these don't come apart at all, instead the of a bimetallic coil they have a strip that when hot bows out releasing a little plunger type pin underneath which in turn somehow activates a valve inside. To top it up you have to get the oil through that little hole whilst letting air out (it was a cunt) works anyway and is much quieter than the fixed fan that was previously on there. Got a new oil pressure sender as well, the old one was leaking like a mofo.. No wonder the bottom half of the engine is covered in shit.. Ended up getting an aem wideband. Reviews said it was the best but more expensive than the innovate, trademe disagreed and someone had them for about 60 bucks less. I'll weld the bung on in the new year and get about tuning it a bit. Here's a great pic to prove I actually did something and didn't just want to talk shit, I forgot to take pics of everything else..

Yay. So I started sanding and it became immediately apparent that there were a bunch of layers and lots of them are fucking nasty. There is a layer of black dulon in there which is fucking everything up. Nothing for it but to strip it all back to metal. Side sharn, I bought this car in 2006 but I'd seen the car in about 1999. At that stage it had a black engine bay and a 3T sitting in it. The rest was in primer. He must have primed over the black art some stage. So anywho, fast forward to today and most of the paint is gone. I'm feathering the edges where it's a real cunt to get to and hopefully the epotec will seal the nasties from coming through. Time will tell. On the plus side I'll probably get primer on it before crissy then it can sit for a while before I sand it. Give it some hope of settling down. Still got strut tops to do and the top of the firewall

Couldn't stop there, went into overdrive and cleaned it with some simple green degreaser then a few go's with the wax and grease remover. Then finally got this in one colour, just used the rustoleum high temp paint from bunnings. It had a picture of a bbq on it so it must be legit. Looking pretty swish, almost like a brought one haha. I only had a few cans of paint and it didn't go very far so only got about 2.5 coats on it. It will be interesting to see if it lasts or not. All that remains is fitting the wood and making the grills. This will be tomorrow's job if all goes well. Chur

Straight to the pool room! I had some scrap stainless steel that has been taking up room in my shed. The plan always way to make something furniture related, however I only had a limited amount of material to work with. After some careful thought, I realized that I could make a bench seat out of it, and not a scrap more... Cutting and tig welding it together along with some smacks from a big hammer...all this activity at 8am is sure to please your neighbors? *Insert bender joke* Folded and tig welded to keep it together. I had to do it this way due to the sizes of the scrap I had to work with. And finished. It's not perfect...but I had to work with the limited resources I had. Theres a few dia4mm holes in the left side that were in the material already, but hey you can hardly notice it and it was free...so calling it a win!

Spoke to Evan Fray from Chevron Engineering today. he said they were only ever intended to run a lap belt from factory, and the laws support this configuration so ive got some lap belts to put in tonight. that should see it wofd. but we all know how dangerous that would be. even the wof guys agree the harness is much safer, so ill probably put the harness back in for actual driving, but fingers crossed itll be wofed tomorow.

So, i did this again using the same coil overs and springs. 8kg springs 210mm long Front compressed 91mm adding both springs together. so 91mm x 8kg = 728kg Front Rear compressed 63mm adding both springs together. 63mm x 8kg = 504kg Rear 1232kg with almost empty fuel tank (60L), no idea how much fuel it had when weighed it last time, but guessing would have been empty because it always is. worst case its about 100kg lighter than the 1376kg it was, All the weight come off the front. Which is what ive slowly been chipping away at. 59% front 41% rear with empty fuel tank. still not great but better than 64/36 Should be able to pull another 10kg out of the front if swap out the brake calipers and intercooler. Anyone got some fc/fd rx7 calipers hanging about ?

So got the last bits sorted today. Cut some steel and made some grilles. Had to stuff around with the firebox grille to get it functional as the setup was different to the cooking chamber. Also because the rails I fitted to the cooking chamber weren't square I had problems getting the lower one to look right. Everything is kind of shortly but it is functional and looks pretty awesome. I've actually finished this and got it all together but we shall wait til xmas to get some better photos. Hopefully my brother is as stoked as I am with it haha.

On a mission today. Rifle scope mount welded to angle iron. This will hold a solenoid valve, that in turn is connected to a timer switch. This will automatically drain the water out of my compressor... Test fit Yup, nice! This will work, so paint it and install it tomorrow. Small things...but makes life easy if you never need to think about it again.

And the creme de la creme. Had a mate at one stop cutting shop sus this out. Did an awesome job and it adds that finishing touch. So happy with how it's looking now. Had also welded up the remaining holes and bent the firebox lid so it sits a bit better and tried to sand back the paint on the inside of the firebox. All that's left now is to sort the front bench, drill some mounts for the thermometers/temp gauges and paint! Home stretch! Chur

Less wood burning hotter gives much better smoke, but will require more frequent refuels. Try lump charcoal with just a couple of lumps of wood instead.

I had a huge smoker fail yesterday, omg. Smoked ham that makes your tongue go numb

Sorted out the front bench. Cut up some 25x3 box and some 25x3 angle and welded up a frame (forgot to take a pic with the angle fitted). Drilled some holes and tested fitted with the mounts in place. Then placed the macrocarpa on top to have a skeeze.

Fuck does it do skids..

started cleaning/stripping the engine bay ready for paint. also started tidying up the wiring so its not in the engine bay. got a good chunk of it done, just need to extend the wires for the passengers side headlights etc and its done. ill probably start sanding today 2019-12-22_10-19-17 by sheepers, on Flickr

Well shit, I put the body bolts in and took it for a skid or two up the driveway, it feels good. Only into third cos the drive isn't that long, but it does good skids on the gravel lolol. Doest feel bouncy or wallowy, steering is good seating position is good. It feels pretty lively too. Everything seems to be working as expected, brakes and clutch need another bleed but still. Fucking stoked, might need a crywank now. Neighbor took a vid, I will post when I can get it.

How many you got?

Now you may be wondering how I achieved this engineering marvel... Well there's an entire chapter on health and safety written on the use of ladders... I ignored all of it, getting this 80kg colossus glass backboard all the way up there by myself. Its wose than you'd think, the glass backboard is one part, the hoop is separate again, and all of it is held in place by 4 M10 bolts with next to no room to access them. #suffersfromashorthose

Recycling reo ... recycling anything that will get it done, comrade.

Put the other distributor in, now has vac advance again. Runs a bit better, I'll see if its more ecom on pertol over the holidays I managed to pull the ends off 2x leads swapping them over which is a pain in the bum, a couple looked a bit manky in the ends so ive ordered a new set off my favorite supplier of parts. Who, it appears, sort out the GST issue at purchase so no problems there.

Yeah, that's a thought. Will think on it/do something when I am working on it/finishing it all off next. I pulled the electric motor off in order carry out some isolation works but got waylaid. I want to isolate it (electrically) from the rest of the structure and welder. I am not sure why except to say its an AC unit and I don't want the welder to earth thru it or fuck it in any way ... and turn everything electrically hot (if that's possible) I am not a electrician so don't know the intricacies of it all but just going to isolate the fucking thing so its not an issue. I am going to earth directly to the rim I think. It only does one revolution so don't need a fancy swivel or anything. Will see. Cheers.

Im gutted it doesn’t have a stack

Looking good.. May I suggest that you get a fire going in it as soon as possible. You are going to need to set the paint well, before its first use.. the smell from the high heat black is pretty horrendous. It will burn off tho, and then you will be all good, till next year, when you will need to paint it again. Also check on the can, but with the pot belly black that I used from bunnings, it said that you have to recoat within 16 hours, otherwise leave for 7 days then recoat. I didn't follow the instruction when I painted my spit, and it all bubbled off in the first burn.

Oh yeah, pacman:

motors all back together and pretty much ready to go back in the car. got a couple of little things left to tidy up but nothing major. and with that i started stripping out the engine bay for repaint. 2019-12-20_04-33-06 by sheepers, on Flickr 2019-12-20_04-35-02 by sheepers, on Flickr

So a quick bit of back ground (sorry this is the first place I've had to keep 2 build logs going and I'm a bit slow on the follow up lol) I've had the car since 2007? Give or take. She had 80 thousand and was in speccy beautiful condition. Plan was always for a simple clean blacktop 20v and daily. We then moved to tas and fast forward to 2014, not much had changed. She had wheels and suspension but that was it. I started to gather bits, 3sge and 6 speed, ecu etc for a conversion before my first boy was born..... Then in late 2014 I was admitted to hospital for a mystery condition. Turns out I had had a severe reaction to a common medication. This admission lasted 6 months and left me permantly disabled. Im pretty lucky with the depth of side effects considering what it put my body through. So the last 5 years have been predominantly rehab, learning to walk again, and gain basic functions back. Over the last 18 months, things have progressed well, and ive been abke to start playing again and have made some solid progress. I'm under the pump a bit to get my car running by the time Leo my son starts school full time in the new year. So hence the recent burst of enthusiasm lol. I'll try and keep things clear and logical but feel free to ask for clarity in the discussion thread...

New shocks in front: Rides like a dream now on new shocks, plus all new ball joints and springs all done within the past 6 months. And legal as fuck! WOF/REG/CERT...fuck yeah!

Booyah...mother fucking boooooyahhhh!!!

Some encouraging news, after my last outing I was too paranoid to drive it to the Christmas meet. Took it out this arvo for a spin round the block and it seems to be going good. Did have a massive flat spot of idle but I fiddled with some of the settings regarding low rev accel and injector wake and it looks to mostly have disappeared. Fuck does it go better than the carb, doesn't run out of puff at 4k like it did and actually pulled way harder than I was expecting, had to back off the gas as it just kept going.. Good Times. Just have to tidy up the plumbing for the fuel pump at the back and get myself an air filter (and a wideband) I also need to sort a fan but I think I'm just gonna get a viscous hub of an fe that way it'll flow more air and I won't have to worry about wiring up a fan and overloading my alternator, then she should be good to go.. Speaking of wide band, not really sure which one to get. Was looking at this one But I guess I should let the link do all the boat cut etc since all the functions are the and just use it solely for tuning in which case I should just get this one, Or go analogue and get this.. Maybe a little Xmas present to myself, then I can tune other things..

Here's the baffle/tuning plate setup. Used 3mm plate with an overlapping step to try and keep everything sealed half decent. Might look at changing to 5mm plate later and possible more plates to help with different heats. It's all removable for easy cleaning. It's not the tidiest but it should be functional, keep in mind a lot of this has been rushed as I don't have much time left and I'm not a precision engineer haha. And my minion/fiance gave me a hand with the sanding and metal prep which helped a lot! Gotta love the Samoan safety boots.

She's finally home! Picked up today and had an amazing time driving back to work then home. So much fun to drive!

You must be stoked! I somehow missed you finding the running problem and had to go back but that's all good, glad you got it sorted. Is it going to run some beefy bullbars?

Awesome result, well done!

Wishful thinking

Goes again, everything seems to work a lot better so far. Main power feed from battery and fuse box now in passenger foot well. pretty much the only place it would fit Made catch can that fits where fuse box used to be. some fresh spraycan paint even

Nearly finished. Just test fitting it all before a few final tweaks and a tidy up.

Ian Seabrook aka Hubnut a Youtuber from the UK is touring NZ and is visiting Wellington. He is keen to meet up with car enthusiasts while he’s here. Next Saturday the 28th he is hosting a meet up at Southwards between 10.00am and lunchtime. hope to see you there Ian If you checkout his YouTube channel you will see he’s a lover of all cars, but especially old school

Also threw together a damper/lower vent. I was unsure on how to go about this as the tank has various curves. I initially cut out an opening then welded in some mesh behind it. I played around with bending some steel for rails and also bending the slide door. Stuffed around trying to get the rails to work and managed to get it functional. I brought a cheap chipping hammer for $6 to use the handle for the door. Not 100% with the damper overall, but it works. I'll add on a stopper as well and clean it up a bit. Hopefully get another hour or 2 in tomorrow.

Shakotoms bike is slightly hidden sorry!

My kids keep hanging onto my house garage door like monkeys and getting lifted up by it as it opens...little fuckers@!!! No matter how much I yell or threaten violence (that's half true) they wont stop, until I hear "dad...dad...dad...!!!" Yup - door finally shit itself. Quick YouTube tutorial and I'm suddenly an expert on all things doors... Springs pretension set. New track with a belt drive to replace the now fucked chain track system...and viola...all sorted.

Bought a set 13x6.5 Work Equip 01's. Will refurbish them and then decide if I want to run them. Also scored this off Yahoo Auctions a while back. Has the plugs and also came with some black dash parts. Decided on how to raise the tunnel. Bent the handbrake section up to match the height of where the old gearbox tunnel top piece had to go. Then made up some filler pieces to fill the gaps. Plan was to keep it looking as factory as possible. Had to remake the crossmember as it needed to be built up higher. Used some tube that matched the radius and bent it to suit. Welded in filler pieces. Cleaned up. Next was to make some strips to fill in the sides. Had contemplated making them with the factory swagings, but decided it would be easier to flatten them out and make the strips flat. Then the tunnel to firewall gap needed filling. Made a paper template, transferred it to the steel, cut it, formed it and it nearly fitted perfectly first try. All cleaned up. Up next was the firewall cutout for the dizzy blank cover to sit in. Tried again to make it look factory, which I think turned out pretty good. Stripped out all the sound deadening with dry ice. Have only cleaned off the residue from the passengers seat and footwell area. Pulled out all the wiring as well. Need a F-series diff now.

So this is weird and is starting to fuck me off quite badly. All week I have been able to get it to run and idle no problem, but as soon as I hit the throttle it dies. If the fuel screw is wound in it revs higher but the throttle does nothing. When I crack the injector nuts it bleeds well but always seems a bit bubbly/foamy. Yesterday I swapped out the injector pump for my spare to see if that was the issue, shit is exactly the same. Today I set up an entirely separate fuel supply and filter to eliminate air leaks into the supply, shit is still exactly the same. What The Fuck? The intake is disconnected from the turbo, but at idle the turbo is pushing a bit of air, so I don't think it's restricting anything. Fuck I am running out of ideas. The next thing I will try is to take off the throttle arm and see if I have just set that rotation back way way too far. There is a mark on the top of the shaft and corresponding etches on the arm, but these are at 90 Deg to each other. I have modified the arm and potentially have lost the correct positioning. Any other ideas from you smart bitches? Edit; No need for more input, that was the problem. The throttle shaft has free movement so I set it to run through that movement. It turns out that that isn't throttle movement, it starts after that and is sprung. Some minor fucking with the position and it idles and revs just fine. Whew.

i divined for the water, used a post hole borer with 1.5m homemade extensions till i hit the water, i will put a submersible sump pump with float switch on it when i hit the water, i will stop digging at about 4m then lower the concrete rings down and keep digging and stacking the rings, if the pump won't keep up then I'm deep enough. the rings will stop the hole collapsing and the rings have been cured for more than two months. thats the plan anyway

Fark that's impressive! Just watch it dont cave in on ya!

Only managed to squeeze about 1.5hrs in since Monday which sucks as I was hoped to get a few more. Ah well little progress is still progress... I've cut out the main chamber lid and cleaned up the edges. Cleaned out most of the sludgy build up up there's not much rust at all so pretty happy. Will need to get it burnt out pretty well though before seasoning. I've also managed to start cutting and bend up the lid outer frame. It should over hang about 20mm so hopefully it seals well enough other wise Will need to look at some heat seal. Also cut some 50x3 angle for the legs. Should help add a little more weight to the front and make it a bit more stable. Will probably tidy it up and chamfer the ends though.

Decided to try and get this thing riding a bit nicer, previous suspension setup was a little soft and hit the bump stops a bit too often, and with the extra weight of a 4age it would of been worse. Went with a set of Fortune Auto's coilovers all around, since I'll end up chucking an F series or similar diff in and I have the skills to strengthen the rear strut towers. Picked up another pair of struts, cut them down and and blasted them. Wound them all the way down and the front ended up a little higher and the back's a bit lower. Might try and get the front down a bit more, to at least were it was. Made a stainless distributor blanking cover. Bought a Flo's upper water outlet, as it looked to be the much simpler and tidier way of doing the cooling system. Needed a RWD waterpump (inc pulley), thermostat housing and a little bypass pipe to complete the setup. And of course with everything else, when you change one thing you have to change something else. The FWD alternator bracket fouled on the thermostat housing, so I got a RWD one from Japan. Borrowed some Flo's 4age to K series engine mounts and made up my own. Sitting in the hole. Had to space the engine mounts out by 8mm, possibly because of the Cusco mounts being thinner than factory ones? Dizzy relocation kit installed, had to cut a bit of a hole in the fire wall for some clearance. Stripped the interior, pulled out the dash, heater, seats, carpet and scrapped off some sound deadening around the gearbox tunnel. Cut a big ol' hole for the J160 to fit. Probably didn't need to cut so much out, but to make it easy to drop out and fit, some extra clearance was needed. Also wanted it to sit up above the sills and chassis rails. Made up a gearbox mount. Added two extra body mounts further back so that it spreads the load a bit. Has heaps of ground clearance as well. The J160 shifter needed moving forward as it lined up with the end of the handbrake. Cut up the original shifter housing and welded it on to some ali tube and 12mm plate. Spent hours on our little lathe turning up the adapter bits. Works mint, barely any flex and feels like it should. Moved it 200mm forward from the Altezza position, 50mm more than the SQ kit and 40mm back from where the factory Starlet one was.

Honestly I thought it was going to be warmer in Melbourne by now, I'm using this excuse as to why I haven't done much. Also because I was a bit shitty about chinesium alloy radiatior being the wrong one (have refund now from seller at least). This is basically how it's been sitting for the last while because when I was last playing with the tail lights I found one had some kind of reflector in it so was trying to source some new ones/gave up because money. Also around the same time I was playing with red tint on the tail lights to get rid of the orange. That ended up much darker than I wanted and today I spent about an hour cleaning the red VHT tint shit off the one I tried it on (as pictured above). As it turned out I'm just an idiot and if I had realised that these could all be separated I could have just taken out the reflector thing, which is what I've done now. Without a doubt one of the lights has been changed in the past though. The other reasons I wasn't rushing to put the lights back in is these.. some rust around one of the light holes as well as these pressed in studs a few of them have come out of one side. I decided I didn't see that rust and just put it all back together using what was available. Most of the studs still work ok, good enough. Out of sight, out of mind. You can see the before(top), after (bottom) of the VHT red tint on the right tail light. I still want to get rid of the orange but will use Tamiya paint next time. I just couldn't remember which one it was but now I have the part number. It's still a little darker on the right side but shouldn't be enough to cause problems. Now off to get the correct radiator so I can run it for any length of time without water falling out!

I suck at buying good birthday presents for the wife, so I slapped together a drum kit for her using sockets, welding wire & frost plugs. Kinda messy but she liked it, sorted!

My next mini project was sorting out the twin carb linkage setup. I drew a lot of inspiration from the setup on my dad's 1600 but made a few tweaks. His is designed with the primary venturis furthest from the intake ports with the idea that when the secondaries open they have a straight shot down the thing's neck. In the interest of throttle response I've decided to instead put the primaries closest. This probably has little real world effect but I liked how it sounded. As you can see from the photos, there is a central stainless shaft mounted by a pair of rose joints, themselves mounted to two alloy plates clamped between the carb and the manifold. Off of the rod are mounted three stainless arms. The first is connected to the standard RS2000 throttle cable. The other two are connected to what I can only describe as miniature track rod ends which themselves are connected to another set, then the final linkage onto the carb. I back of the envelope calculated the lengths of the different arms to give me full pedal travel for full butterfly travel, hopefully avoiding a super twitchy throttle like the one in my dad's car. I also added an extra return spring on the cam cover just in case. In hindsight I want to revise the linkage with the two tie rod end things because they are both right hand threaded onto the central rod. This means I can only adjust the length of this part by one full turn relative to each other which would make balancing the two carbs damn difficult, if not impossible. Here is a video of the linkage in action, And here is a bonus video of milling up the carb face of the manifold. A huge thanks to Earle Tito Engineering Ltd for going the machining.