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i've pretty much removed all the shitty non stuck red from the car. i need to tidy up a few bits before i can think about putting primer on it but im pretty close. this is very weird, every car i've ever painted needed months and months of rust repairs and panel work before the primer tin comes out of the cupboard but not this time. i have found three dents in it that have been filled with bog without event the slightest attempt to remove them so ill fix those. i also found a whole bunch of bog on the front left corner, which i removed to find absolutely nothing wrong with the steel underneath. like, nothing, its the correct shape, no dents, no rust, nothing. it just had bog on it. not sure what to do next, i need to take the screens out and fix two 5mm holes i found but there isn't any other rust that needs fixing that i've found so far. as i say, this is all a bit weird, im not sure how to proceed. 2020-11-01_05-57-24 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-11-01_05-57-32 by sheepers, on Flickr

After years of using forums to find ideas on my various projects, I have decided to give back and document this build, '88 Nissan vanette, to s15 sr20det conversion. will upload as I go, hopefully it interests some people.

all ready to go again bar sanding spot putty, good weather + energy.

So we organised a time and left after work to pick it up at night without a trailer... because what could go wrong?.... All i knew at this stage is that it drives, not certified but on hold, and would probably drive the 2 hours home... probably. So we got there and paid the man, exchanged it and got on the way to go home, only thing is i couldnt see very well due to the pink/green sticker remains on the cracked windscreen haha so i removed that, and it made it home fine.

Turns out the new van only had half throttle and a fuel leak, I drove much better after some adjustment, then ripped it all out to sell on.

The front spring change made it handle better but made the soft rear springs stand out a lot more. @Bistro had some leaves lying around that looked like they might fit so i engaged the safety squint and split some springs from the parts car Spot the difference No real change in height when relaxed, but around 10mm higher in the car which is what i wanted. The bolt through the leaves was too short, but fyi a chinese honda gx390 headbolt is perfect, even same thread. Had to engage the safety prop under the diff to change the springs out too. has been load tested under heavier things so is only slightly bowed Took the family to the mount for the nth island Datsun Nats over labour weekend. Did heaps of driving. most of it at a fair clip too. Under 10L/100km too. didnt take any photos, but saw this one of FB Im thinking about selling this as i need the space and time to work on my next one.

So we now have 3 micra children.... It was a lovely sunny day to make a trip to the big smoke that is Nelson city. We took the Imp, partly because the Argentinian girl selling this latest march acquisition wanted to see the it but mainly because I knew it would look cool convoying home together, yellow and blue- like a swedish flag. or like the jersey I wore to one of the oldschool nats- see if you can spot the blue... Had lunch and arranged to go pick up the latest march (yet to be named by us but was called Tweety by its owner). A bit of chat, handed over a wad of cash and took a photo... I got first drive heading home. Wow at all of the LOLs piloting a 1.0litre Micra with an auto box. Actually really neat about town- would be perfect for a city. But point it at a hill or into a good headwind and it has to put some real effort in. Not where near as peppy as a 1.3 manual but still neat enough. The car has a full set of lowering springs, I reckon maybe 30mm drop. They seem ok but it has not got the anti sway bars like our other two have and the subsequent rolling around corners is quite noticeable. LH speaker doesnt work and the original tape deck fitted is shite. Mustn't grumble. This car just looks so neat and I love the colour. Took some snaps on way home... Fuel time. Will be interesting to see if this little 1.0 uses less fuel because small engine or actually uses more because small engine working hard- especially when attached to a slush box. Oh - which I think is actually a normal 3 stage auto? I have only ever driven one cvt before - in a newer Tiida and it was distinctive in the way it worked. But the box in this little car (Mandy?) shifts up in stages, with a pronounced jolt, just like any other auto. I presumed that all K11 autos were CVT but maybe not? Hannah's smile (at the style/size/colour/correct amount of doors but not at the performance...)... Note how much lower it sits. We got home with Imp leading over the hill because I wanted to hoon it in the imp and this micra wont allow such fun. Took more pics. I'd have lined up the 2nd micra (megan?) but its battery was completely flat having sat unused for 2 weeks now. Whoops. So we pushed it into the shed and took these.. Found these in the new micras glove box (Mary?), all in Japanese but interesting and neat to have nonetheless... Hmmmmm. So three K11s in a row. We will just use Milly and the new one (Meredith?) for general trips out and about until after xmas since they are both road legal and then look to doing the big swap of parts. Will attempt to just do most in one hit and just enjoy a week of micra lego. I wonder when the 4th one will pop up?......

You'll notice in the previous post, I omitted the step where you start the engine to make sure you haven't fucked anything up. So got to the boat ramp this morning, invited my dad out again as safety boat. Got off the trailer and the engine wouldn't start at all. Not a single fart. Went home, did some actual diagnostic work and figured out the electric box bits weren't getting any juice. Turns out I'd knocked a crappy plastic crimp on terminal loose from the EFI relay. Phoned up the old man but felt super bad asking him to drive another 45 mins over to the lake. So I went to meet him at Ohiwa Harbour since that would only be a 5 min drive for him. The wobbly wheel bearing decided to grenade on the way there. Stopped at Mr VG's house to pick up the axle he had welded up for me and slammed it in there before the wheel fell off. Decided to undersling the axle to fit my new wheels under the guards...Then at the boat ramp discovered the extra ride height means I need to park my Ute mostly in the sea. Anyways I finally got to go boating and the harbour was rough as guts. Steering cable snapped about 200m short of the boat ramp. After sitting there doing donuts at idle for a short while, I climbed onto the engine cover and sat hanging off the back so I could steer the nozzle with my feet. Now to figure out why the cable snapped and sort that out before next weekend. Better flip that axle over too and massage the guards.

A fellow gx61 owner has finished the guards for me and fixed the rust around boot seal and top of c pillar Moving forward I've made the call to change it back to NA and focus on getting it legal while saving for ecu and all other associated parts for supercharger setup to get the most out of it. Maybe even the 2400cc hks pistons from yahoo.... Keen to get this thing on the road and enjoy it!!!

To start with, I purchased this gem which I found on trademe, and brought for a good price, from a guy who had spent a lot of time and dollars building, nice older gentleman from a coastal town, uncertified but still had live plates.

After fucking around with the carb and doing some diagnostics it was deemed the new Ebay chinese 200 dollar delivered to my door carburetor is fucked. Who would of thought I switched back to the old carburetor and it started first pop Red wire is starter wire for starting at engine bay. Idled mint. Sounded mint so went for a hoon and ran like a dream. Got back home and transmission fluid was pissing out of a rubber hose that had fully split! Lucky was only on my street. I installed my new Fenix oil cooler with new hoses shortly after. I also noticed the rear output shaft where it met the driveshaft was leaking so decided to fix that while I had transmission drained. Repco has a listing and had one in stock. Bit of a bitch to get out I used an oil seal puller. Got it out in the end. After a quick search the easiest way to install the new one was to use a 50mm pvc cap or the likes of (I used a 50x40 bush as its thicker) and tapped it in with a hammer. Once back in I used the same method to put the dust and retainer. Driveshaft back on and buttoned up and re filled with fluid. It was running really well so i drove it to my mates place and that's where it all started to go wrong.. I guess all the cranking over till the battery dead has killed the battery and its lost its charge so I had to get jump started to go home. On the way home it suddenly started to loose all power for a split second but it was getting worse. I managed to get off the motorway but it ended up dying in a pretty rough area in takanini and with the battery flat and it getting dark it was decided I'd get a tow truck... The battery was still under warranty so I was able to swap it out. Got a much bigger 530cca battery this time round When installing the battery i quickly discovered the accelerator pump on the carb was missing the spring and the split pin. Which would explain why it lost power. I'm hoping any spring in the same diameter and length will do the trick but will check Getting closer.

Picked up some wheels for a pretty sharp price today. Hayashi Racing Street Fins in 13x6 +13. These have always been one of my favourite wheels and had the privilege to visit their shop in Osaka a couple years ago which was awesome. I brought these knowing that they probably wouldn't work on the front due to these cars having a shit hub mount setup as per below. The wheels have cutouts in between the pcd holes but they only just foul on the bolts by a couple mm. I had initially planned on counter sinking the hubs but I don't think they have enough meat, otherwise milling them to suit tapered cap screws but doing this would require cert. Alternatively I'm looking to swap out the hub bolts for as small and shallow cap screws as I can, then milling out small notches on the wheels and rebalancing them. If anyone has any other ideas let me know haha. They sit just outside the guard, but once modified and fitted up properly they'll be just inside. The current ride height is actually lower than this pic shows but I'll definitely need to lower this when I have some spare sheckles. Beside that I took for a burn up the road and it went mint! Mrs was pretty impressed with how peppy it is for a little 1200! Chur, Tai

With the location for the booster finalised I did some cardboard aided design followed by some plywood aided design so that I could do a test fit. The test fit with the plywood bracket highlighted some fine tuning needed which I incorporated into the final steel bracket. The remote booster is now tucked up in what will hopefully be its final position. I'll incorporate the single mounting bolt at the back of the booster into my protective steel cover plate which I'll fabricate next. Thanks for reading.

Because i like weird stuff and it seemed like a lot of effort went into this van, and previous owner was sad to see it go, i decided to tidy it up and fix some issues like leaking valve cover, handbrake ajust, new windscreen.

By this time i had removed the sr20det and serena drivetrain from the donor van and i figured out it had quite a few good parts to it.

1988 nissan vanette 1.5 l, column shift manual, in my price range and reg on hold. got it from auckland. So we went again... at night.. to pick up this van that i had brought on trademe. apparantly drove fine, just needed couply things for a warrant.

Also painted the wheels black because i diddnt like them very much.. diddnt end up looking any better haha, by this stage i had kind of given up on this van and was looking for a donor van that had a better look and maybe later model such as a 2000 + model vanette. Found a bunch of rust and all the things it failed on was too much to bother with not to mention the effort involved in fixing all the bad work.... Soo i was looking for about 6 months for a 2000 plus vanette/bongo/mazda e2000 for around $1500-2000 with a blown engine or something, aaand just diddnt get much luck i brought one on tradedme but just before i left to go pick it up from quite far away i did a background check, money owing on it ... great so i cancelled that sale, as there was no mention of that on the trademe add... gave the seller a neutral feedback, he gave me my only bad one i've ever had :/ so i kept looking, bidded on a few but no luck. Could not believe how hard it was to find a van of that year considering how many i had seen for sale, then i came across the right candidate .

Cool- thanks mr deetee- glad you enjoyed the read. Its fun for me to post it up (its like a nice diary I can go back to) There will be heaps more happening over the next few months that's for sure

well that was an exercise in patience.. I'm not the best with wiring but I do enjoy the challenge and problem solving side of it... but what I thought would be a couple if hours this morning splicing one loom into the other ended up being 8 hours....but most of that is the fact that no bulbs worked in any of the housings I had....so I had to pull apart and clean every terminal included the fuse holder.. but 3 part looms later....the list of things working is better. heater , wipers (both speeds....I know flash guy) , dash lights , glove box light , park lights (front and back ) headings and high beam , reversing lights and brake lights..oh and number plate light and horn. just need to sort indicators out.....got them to work from hazard switch but not from stalk...( horn and high beam work on the stalk........might just be the stalk ). even got the intercooler in.. (bit tight but once I make some tabs to bolt the rad supports to it will be perfect.

I got 2.0 done today . Uses an old truck air tank shortened up as the firebox . 4 and 3 inch air inlets and 3inch outlet. Heat shield around chamber pipe to keep it hot

Here's a few before and after shots: It's not perfect, but is good enough for this racecar owner.

So i dabble in charcoal cooking and have a stack of wood (blue gum,apple) so thought why not make my own charcoal. after some youtube-ing i found a style i liked and could make. its made from a 55kg grease can . With a 3inch inlet ,4 inch fire box and 3inch flue which is all in the center and sealed. Then a tube from the top of the drum to the firebox inlet. This lets the wood gas self fuel . takes around 4/5 hours to make a drum load. currently working on 2.0 , more fuel more air more heat

It's less sad now Screen in today and did a nice coat on the floor to seal things up. Carpet acquired too. Full set of new seatbelts on the way Determined and doing what it takes to get to Beach Hop come Novembers' end! oh and see you at drag day (if I don't break it!) Overall stoked with the progress and proud of what I have managed to achieve. Dad spent his youth mucking around with this series of Holdens and as a nineteen year old, hearing the many tales of different shenanigans that happened back in the day involving these things only makes me more determined to get it going. Old times seemed so much cooler. Next up is for me to install carpet, finish up dash install and fix wiring. Then a few suspension bushes, tie rod ends, test drive, wof. mint.

Interesting project, there was a white one of these with pale blue airbrushing with SR20DET in Dunedin in the early 00s on Enkei Tarmac Evos. Looked like a death trap!

Not even my car @Dudley , but is amazing. Ke20 with big block 4k beyond repair. but instead of getting parted or scraped, it lives on

Pulled out of the crimp quite easily, but still dont know why someone wouldn't just solder the pump wires to the housing as I did.. the wires were long enough ....

This left the other van without a diff, but that's fine just dropped it on the wheels to become a lawn ornament

I took them both to work, cut the mounts off both and really just took the 2 leaf brackets and welded them on the bigger ex-coil spring one (with some measuring), swapped out some better parts to the big one, better brake drums, cylinders, a handbrake cable .. painted it and put it in . Diddnt really take much work to do .

Now I had done some research, and turns out the donor van had a h190 diff with coil springs and was quite tough, whereas this new van only had a h165, a lot weaker, so I went to go swap them out ... however the new one was a leaf spring..

I figured well, its probably the exact same chassis and wheelbase with similar engine, year, manual, so i went to pick it up, test drive fine, so we paid the guy and left for home. It was quite loud and rattly, but got some petrol and went to go uphill, well, it diddnt like going up hill, or on anything other than going down hills. gutless! But still drove so drove it until the front light disappeared on the right side... A head light had blown and the indicator/park light assembly was flopping around in the wind , at the same time a cop follows me.. well he just passed and i pulled over and took the light off and chucked in the van. got home safe .

Yesterday I triple checked the required length of my modified steering column so I'll drop that off with Brenton tomorrow morning so he can do a cut and paste job on it. It needs to go for crack testing afterwards, so I figured rather get a pro to do it. Hopefully the pic below is the last one of the steering column in two pieces. I also spent a bit of time working out the route for my gearshift cable so I could confirm the length it needs to be. I've got a lead on someone local who may be able to make the cable up for me, so I'll give him a buzz in the morning to see if I can drop by his place.

got this thing back from powdercoating all the bolts, springs and brackets came back from zinc plating got the motor pretty well scrubbed down and most of the bike put together today. ive got to make a new intake manifold for the xr200 carb and i have a nice stainless steel muffler i need to make the rest of the exhaust for and some new foot pegs wouldn't go a miss. still plenty to do before eastcape, seat should come back from upholstery tomorrow so will be good to see the bike looking mostly complete and tidy

been trying to get this thing done fast, got it stripped down and sent it off for a rollcage, came back this week and i am over the moon, Nick Stewart at SAFEngineering smashed it, the fitment is amazing nice and tight and super simple exactly what i wanted some parts i've ordered have started to roll in 6 point 3x2 takata harness and bride zeta 2 for max fanboy mike shaw fibreglass n2 kit mocked up for now, will fit it this week all going well also picked up these potenza TR-3 wheels but cannot get lips to widen them until march next year so have something else coming in the mail still waiting for my brake kit to arrive so i can put that together, now the fun part of prepping it for paint which i'm really not looking forward to.

Had a little accident before first test run. they were a bit close to the ground . so yeh fail. think they would have done ok, if made it into the paddock and not hit bit of concrete on side of driveway haha enter v2 these were front strut inserts. so bigger shafts. sealed gas shocks, you know the ones that say dont open or heat. i did neither of course. they are twin tube, so the outside bit just holds oil and nitrogen pressure. they have a pretty basic shimstack that bolts to end of shaft. i drilled out the rebound bleed holes and modified the shim to bypass more oil on rebound. done this so they return faster. plus the other butchery can plainly see in pic. the only real pain in the ass was the seal at the top. it just pushes up against the outer housing. so i had to preload the housing when welding them back together. put 90psi compressed air in them. one had slight leak with air in it alone. but seemed to fix itself once put oil in them. So.. they actually act like real hydro bumps. as the shaft goes in it compresses the air more and acts like a spring. along with the compression valving. the dumbed down rebound valving lets them pop out fast but not too fast, so shouldn't push the car back up. should be able to mess with oil level and air pressure to make them harder of softer if dont explode first. they have 50mm travel

Fuel Pump and Reg are here. Collecting last bits this week. Soft mounts are on too.

And a notorious part that rots from the inside out on these - the hatch hinge point - 3 layers of sandwiched rust

Holy shit it goes hard for what it is now fudging the gear shifts on the same bit of road 0-100 in 20 seconds, A similar bit of flat road with better shifts - 0-100 in 17 seconds It now accelerates hard past 80kph and sits real happy at 100 (which was always my goal), even continuing to accelerate to 100 up hills rather than burbling along. Top speed is probably roughly the same as with just the 150 kit well chuffed with that expecially after the extended dicking around trying to get the parts. Am currently running 2 base gaskets and i will keep the fuel a little richer than i had it before so hopefully no pinging now either. Next/last on the list is the exhaust which is the last bit i can see to get decent gains out of, carb and ign could be changed to get the last little bit out but not high on list of things i want to spend money on. now to calibrate my tach and put a few hundred km on it to be sure its good comparison video to come soon

gettin more done. front guard was silver at some point. has a smack in the front corner which was never even tried to be fixed, just fill it with bog. so i go that out and its pretty good now. ill keep removing the crap paint to get it down to factory red/primer. then i guess ill chuck some epoxy primer on it. 2020-10-29_09-41-33 by sheepers, on Flickr

double update tonight ^ Got the factory intake and exhaust manifold off and prepped it for the fenton style split manifold Got the manifolds on and all the parts from sticky flanges to make a twin 44mm to 38mm tail pipes exhaust to get some rapping going on . Also got the leaves in the front reset 2" to get it sitting a bit better. Bit of a before and after, looks much better i think! Finish exhaust, mount the siren and we are good to go to beach hop.

so, now its time to paint it. its been re-sprayed some time in the long distant past and from what i found sanding back the roof i think the reason it was re-sprayed is because of some problem with the original paint. there are fish eyes in the paint that go through the top coat and all the way down to the factory primer. its obvious that this car was painted factory red, then another coat of red was laid over that and these is a defect that shows in the first layer of primer. anywho, so far its been alright getting the old paint off, long may it continue. 2020-10-27_08-29-57 by sheepers, on Flickr 2020-10-27_08-29-46 by sheepers, on Flickr

this absolutely needs to be turned into a prerunner style truck

Wilson’s old car. I have a GT EX coupe also... l20et and auto. Currently about 20years into a 1year rebuild, rego on hold.

Sinnis Apache 125 has a china clone of the gn125 engine available in fuel injected for the last few years. Might try import some parts for that They also seem to do 0-100 in 17 seconds standard? must be a gearing thing i dont think my gn is any slower than normal

Organising long term projects and parts Got a lucky streak as @AE25 knew a guy that worked for a company that needed to clear out their old shelving. It's amazing how much stuff you can fit in a 40ft high cube

probably should. probably wont though

Some more technique would probably help too yeh. Maybe more power so it trys to flip over backwards