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Hoist.... Engage Finally got the hoist up and running, built a tyre rack. Looked under the car, she is mint as under there, not a hint of rust.. 50 years of British oil leaks did its trick

The last few trips over the remutakas was really really bad. So before the Motueka trip I gave it a compression check which pretty much confirmed it. I ended up picking up a complete motor, gearbox and radiator from a runner up the road. It all looks pretty promising with a new waterpump, hoses and other a few other parts. Queens birthday weekend I pulled the old one out and put the new one in. I cleaned up the new one, gave it some paint and put in a new clutch, pressure plate, waterpump barb, radiator, and changed over my electronic dizzy, carbs, fuel pump and extractors. I ended up cutting the exhaust off just after the extractors so I need to weld on some flanges, sort the timing and fill it with fluids then it's good to go. Fingers crossed it actually makes an improvement.

I got this $10 garden sprayer and tied the safety valve shut with wire and filled it with engine oil, had it putting out almost 60 PSI, forced about 1L of oil into the oil system wire turning the engine with a ratchet, and I could hear it bubbling inside

Rightyo, I'm pretty damn excited about my recent purchase so thought I'd share it now, although the car isn't in my possession yet ... Longish sharn below; After selling my 323 wagon in January for (IMO) silly money, I was immediately on the look out for another car, this time preferably a rotary. An option of taking out a 5-10k loan was on the cards, giving me a max budget of around 20-25k. I'd looked at a few cars locally, rx7, rx323, rx626 etc. Either they weren't ticking the right boxes, or would have required more money to get them legal than my budget could stretch to. And from previous experiences around paying off a loan whilst owning an old car, it does get hard trying to either keep the car running whilst paying off the loan, let alone saving money for modifications etc. So I made the decision to not get a loan and keep within my actual budget. Nothing rotary in NZ was going to happen with sub 15k, well nothing that appealed to me anyways. So after reading through the importing from Japan thread and picking a few people's brains that have 'been there, done that'. I began searching Japanese sites for a car that I'd be happy with and contacted Stacked to act on my behalf, and to help with questions I had on particular cars and more information that I wanted from the sellers. https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/55223-importing-from-japan/ I eventually narrowed the search down to 3 cars that were within my budget: 1979 mazda familia (323) wagon - still piston - still for sale actually if anyone was wanting to buy it, considering I sold my yellow rough one for almost 12k, this does seem like it could be worth while buying https://www.carsensor.net/usedcar/detail/CU5545473225/index.html?TRCD=200002&RESTID=CS210610 1981 Mazda Luce - not for sale anymore, but was 13B, automatic - luxury barge spec mazda 3rd option is the one I've pulled the trigger on and purchased - and just received confirmation today from Autohub that it's ready and waiting for shipping to NZ! 1985 Mazda Cosmo, 13B model, with, unfortunately an automatic gearbag. I only have the crap quality images below, but the car appears tidy, a little bit of rust in the doors, and thanks to one of @S124AB's contact in Japan, I was able to obtain some better quality pics which showed the underside of the car looking relatively clean and tidy. I priced up shipping, GST and a conservative compliance budget and this was affordable with no loan required. Anything rotary and manual seems to equal more dollars in Japan, so I'll live with the automatic for now. Plans will be; Get legal Lower Wheels Cruise and enjoy Save up for a manual swap, coilovers, cert, maybe engine porting of some sorts. Will update once the car arrives at my place. I'll either be really happy with the condition, or I'll be selling as parts lol

I saw these NOS or new old stock XE Fairmont Ghia centre caps on FB Marketplce for $60 and couldn’t believe my eyes. I checked and they are NOS therefore I snapped them up, as repro are like $72aud each! one day I will reco the snowflake 15” rims and these can take pride of place. I do love NOS goodies

Still using this when I can and taking it on regular trips. Most notably I took this down to Nelson and Motueka last September for a bike trip. Had no issues other then a weird oil vapour smell. I put it down to over filling the oil, I couldnt get a clear reading on the stick, and it clogging up the pvc valve. I was lucky enough to spot another escort parked up along one the bays and the retired guy was happy enough to lend me a few tools to remove some of the excess oil. Have just done general maintenance to it like replacing the rack bushes which were non existant and made for an exciting drive home.

Stripped all the tinwear off. Some of the problem is poor crankcase ventilation. As well as the standard cam, lightened flywheel, carbs and exhaust. This engine is actually blueprinted and dynamically balanced, which means it revs faster and higher than stock. Which means more pressure or splashy oil stuff inside or something. Add to that my stupid worst than stock breather, and shit comes out everywhere and anywhere.the front pulley doesn't have any seal, it has a thread that chucks it back inside, looks like some oil has made it out, possibly the oil pump cover below also? The rear crank seal has definitely been leaking, nice wee river running down the middle. Comparing the 1-2 side to the 3-4 cylinder side they look fairly similar. I'm thinking I didn't do fuckall to seal the alt stand when I put it on, was rushing to get it back on the road. The case is wet with oil around it. One thing I did do was replace the seals on the oil cooler, so imagine how pissed off I am with the fecking oil under it. But looking closer, some of the fins on the front of the cooler are pretty hammered and oil stained. guess the fan has been shooting things at it for 30odd years. So add that to the shopping list. With all the leaks up top, it's difficult to tell if the cylinders or pushrod tubes are actually leaking or just covered in shit? After the last rebuild, I wasn't able to re-torque the head studs once the engine was run in, question is, how far do I go with this? It runs pretty good and now I'm not driving it daily I've go a bit of time to seal it up properly. Look at this puddle inside the bottom slead! Yeezus.

Slow progress recently, but I have made a start on the sills. Now the outer is in place, i can make an inner & then button the outer up to the A pillar/rear arch

Have gone down the keep it equal route. Managed to get everything tacked and the collector on. Fitted it to the motor I have and thought they sat way to high. After this I decided to take as much as I could out of the tops. Since Runner 1 is the shortest when it comes to height it determines how low I could go. Managed to get 26mm lower out of all of the runners and visually it looks like it will be sweet Will be test fitting to an S15 in the next few weeks just for safety sake, then I can finally get stuck into fully welding.

I sealed each head stud, back it off with the power bar, put lock 2 nuts on the stud, extract stud, clean, apply sealer, install stud, remove lock nuts, fit washer and nut and re torque X 48 times.

WOF passed, just a mention of a chip in the windscreen out of the drivers vision area, and the cracked fog light lens (which still passes because its not letting moisture in). Great success. Also got sick of the guard rub from the RH Rear, so jacked the rear of the car up and had a look. Found a clean spot on the inner lip where it had been rubbing, so took a small sledgehammer to the lip and hammered it in a bit. No more rubbing, so now I can drive the car harder, like it was built for. Next on the list is to replace the clock spring so I can fit my 3 spoke steering wheel, and replace and rekey the ignition barrel since the previous owner made a mess of it somehow.

"question is, how far do I go with this?" Dunno how far to go, but something like this would be a good start at least https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/car-parts-accessories/volkswagen/new-listing/3133906103

Yup technology is amazing. Tonight I assembled a basic watt meter/load with voltage switch thing so that I can test battery capacities accurately. Its all just cheap shit from ali express but seems to work OK. You connect a fully charged battery and press the button on the side, this engages the resistors to give a 30 watt load, and then when voltage gets down to 12.1 it disconnects the load and holds capacity information on the screen. During discharge it also displays load in Watts and battery voltage. Quite neat. The old busa battery drops from 13v to 12.3 very quickly,and in total outputs just 0.4Ah before it disengages the load at 12.1v I know that I'd get more out of the battery if there was a smaller load (manufacturers test Ah over a ten hour draw down or something) but it should still be a lot better than what I got. Not quite brave enough to connect and test the new battery though, LOL.

I put this all back together now, I just fired it up and ran it at a 1500 rpm for 20 mins, a few head studs are leaking, when I re torque them I will pull each one out and put some sealer on it, it has around 40 PSI oil pressure witch is good for 30w oil and the kind of pump I am using, after I seal the head studs I will run it again and then change the oil to something elce.

Old solid front mount. Nice new heavy-duty kombi mounts in place. So fresh and so clean! Just need to remember to top up the gearbox oil, something else I've never done, not the easiest process I'm guessing. Which just leaves this thing to sort out. Which although looks cool from this side. Is caked in oil from this side. Any tips on stopping a vw engine leaking oil from ever possible place would be greatly appreciated. Fin.

So ran into issues trying to source factory rear shocks and after much frustration this happed... I pinched the suspension and wheels from my green car as that's parked up with compression issues.... Starion struts, starion Lower arms, lowering springs and mirage rear shocks Sad to see this car like this again but it's also given me motivation to start fixing the rust and bodywork properly

https://www.bunnings.co.nz/move-it-125mm-100kg-black-rubber-swivel-plate-castor-with-brake_p3940326 I got mine for an engine stand, they didn't have these ones when I got mine. 3 on each end should be heaps

AL2# tercel I had a 2a with 16v head on it that i bought for the head once upon a time, had been built for 1300cc rally class, although that 2a was from an AE80

In my experience, any extra pressure in the crankcase causes a myriad of oil leaks. As for the rear main, if its a fairly high kilometre engine then the bearings, especially at the back, will be slogged and letting oil out the seal.

Sooo much awesomes. Also, auto will be sweet for daily driving! Can't wait to see this on a sweet sweet set of Titans.

stock vs "ported", not bad gains with the little factory cams. not cracking 110kw was annoying me. so ran it up at 100deg oil temps. what a weapon.

Big day today for the old girl. WoF time, first time in 10 years! List of work completed to her in the last two weeks while I've had time off in between changing jobs: New battery New water pump New valve stem seals, head gasket, tappet cover gasket, carburetor gaskets New ball joints New shocks Indicator wiring gremlin fixed Battery discharging issue fixed (washer motor short) Alternator replaced for one that actually charges and doesn't whine! Full oil service New rear slave cylinders Front struts swapped for B310 big struts with bigger brakes (bolt in), lowering springs installed. Front brakes rebuilt (seals and pistons). New master cylinder New tyres (Nangkang 175/60/14) Spare bonnet for my Green 120y put on (already paneled and primed black) Spare arched guards sprayed with a rough blue match and put on. Tune up 2" Lowering blocks installed Rust cut out and repaired: Engine bay - left and right strut tower Under left and right front guards - support rails Radiator support Front valance Rear right door shut to roof seam So all in all, pretty happy with the WoF items! Spring eye bushes and tie rod on order, will hopefully see them next week. Could have picked these would be pulled up, should have done them in hindsight but have run out of energy! I will get some more photos up of the work completed. She drives really nice and smoothly, no more smoke thanks to the valve stem seals! A full buff and replacement of the pinstripe is certainty required!

Also

Time to work on car stuff has been stretched a little thin, but have made some slow progress. Took the head off, and found yep, valves bent. But no other damage. Valve seats looked fine and so did pistons. Cool! So for now I'll just fix it up and drive without VVTI. I pulled the valves out of my 2NZ motor (same part number) and sent the head off down the road to the engine place to lap the valves in and refit the valve springs. Hopefully get it back by the weekend maybe. There was another Vitz RS at Zebra so I went and pinched another C56, hopefully this one is a little more enthusiastic about going into gear. I'm getting pretty good at pulling motor/box out of these things. It's much easier once you know the order of things. I will keep current box in for now, and fit LSD into this spare one and check all of the synchros in it while it's apart. If they're bad, I will pinch the ones from my standard Echo gearbox as that thing shifts gear wonderfully. Assuming they're the same. Also just before my valves went asplode, I bought these for some lols / traction. Two of the tyres are a bit chooched but will hopefully do a trackday or three with them on the rear. (that does hardly any work anyway) Havent tried them yet but should be a laugh.

Cleaned up some engine parts, brake booster, battery tray, rejetted the idle jets, new gasket for the oil pump, removed and cleaned up the swaybar mounts. I assembled and put the new waterpump on the engine but forgot to put the alternator tensioner on! Removed the assembly and in doing so I had to destroy the new gasket. Happy to know the vnt copper gasket spray works very well. All put back together and assembled the rest of the motor for a start up. Unfortunately it wouldn't catch on any cylinders and a couple of back fires through the carbs. The only thing that has changed is I've leaned out the pilot jets from a 35 to a 32 and adjusted the fuel screws. Will check these and any potential vaccum leaks tomorrow. Have since cleaned up a few more cables. Good old British workmanship. Bonnet stay/post should have been centered.

Wow- I have not read this thread for ages. Great fun. Thanks for sharing and thanks for blowing up engines so we all get to learn/more thread time. ....and now I'm getting all sorts of ideas for the micra... I machined some pockets out in some pistons for a local dude who's made a frankenstein engine using a 2E )or something 1300cc coupled with a 20v head. Its in a K20 race car. It wasn't a chore to do really. But your idea of having shiny new pistons with better sealing rings sounds better anyways. I still wish my mate had offered me that little (earlier projector dash ) echo/vitz thing, a 4wd and manual version - the one I had sent you pics of ages ago when it was in here for work. He sold it fucking cheap to some fella in Wanaka. What a little weapon that could have been!

The booze bus

On my supercharged vx i scored a full Remus system basically the same pipework as an HSV System but has a single twin in twin out middle muffler that tucked well up in the tunnel. The rear muffler was also twin in twin out with slip joints it sounded awesome with the back muffler off dumped at diff but was a bit to loud. The whole system though was quiet (for a performance system) had a real deep mettalic sound to it obviously flowed well. Tempted to replicate the remus system with a bigger middle muffler and v banded big muffler at back so it flows well and is quiet but can drop the back off for noise and max flow without it been too loud, these things shriek with the boost wound up!

+1 for decent welding supplier and they will be able to crimp the lugs for you. They have the hard wearing double insulation cable, most electrical places don't.

Sweet! The best thing about an import is it is far less likely to have had any dickfingers touching it

Whilst this was going on, missus and I finally decided on a colour to add to the oil (blackball), so she started the back of the house.. Had a bit of a second thought when she stained the uprights that are mac thinking we should have left them natural for a bit of contrast.. To late now tho, in saying that, they go darker than the pine boxing so maybe it won't be so bad..

This chapter is called: I blew up my motor but shit that was good . So the VVTI issue. I realized that I would be able to get the front plate off the VVTI pulley, and then hopefully wiggle free the spring and the locking pin without removing anything else. Thankfully it worked! Then put that front plate on, and done. Then fire the motor up, advance the cam 5 degrees - success! The cam is moving, finally. Excellent. However - with more advance I ended up hitting valves into pistons - at around 20 degrees advance. Bummer! This motor must have smaller valve cutouts than the non hybrid engines I guess. I should have checked this, rookie mistake. So in some ways it was good that the locking pin was stuck, otherwise I probably would have done this on day one instead of lots of fun doorting around. It doesnt sound catastrophic, I dont think any valves have broken off. But the motor turns over like it's got no compression now. So probably tweaked the valve heads. But it's not crunchy sounding and it turns over freely. If anything I'm a little dissapointed that it's come to a fairly inglorious end, rather than sent to valhalla at 8800rpm blaze of glory. The options from here once the head is fixed or replaced: -Keep as is, run with no VVTI (boooo) -Cut bigger reliefs into the pistons so full VVTI can be used (hooray) but slightly less compression thanks to cutouts (boo) This all sounds like a bit of a downer, but my general mood right now is I'm fizzing about what an awesome success this all was. As a proof of concept, and a reasonably cheap project to keep me entertained this has been completely excellent. What I've learned is that there's no way I'm going to have the discipline to keep the revs on this motor below 8k when it loves to still rev up past that. So it would have been a matter of time until rods exited block. Also since I now know that I will have to remove pistons for machining some cutouts, I can replace rods at the same time with cheap stronger ones. This gearbox is a bit clunky and it could really do with an LSD. So while it's all apart for LSD install I can see if the shifter forks are a bit beaten up or something, and replace with parts from my old box which is buttery smooth to shift. So I've learned some stuff that would necessitate engine/box removal regardless. There will probably some slow progress for a while, but I'm super happy with how it's all come along. My goal is to get the car awesomely sorted for a December trackday and OS drags if they'll let me pest peoples eyes and ears with an Echo again. A++ would do hybrid motor doorts again

Okay so last night I had a good triple check through my settings and I think I must have had some filtering set incorrectly on the triggers... As this morning it's working fine So thought I'd just see if it goes okay Yes, yes it does Currently hardly any ignition timing, no vvti setup, no trumpets on it. But it bloody honks along and sounds glorious! Super stoked!

On the bright side, it might result in more posts in this thread - and I'm OK with that.

More frustrations The StuScience(TM) Alternator bracket turned up and worked perfectly! So I got the alternator working fine. So I could run the car for longer and take it around the block. The gearbox isnt shifting very well, I suspected air still in the clutch line but bled it again and same deal. So the gearbox might be a bit stuffed perhaps. It's fine when in gear just very clunky shifting. Maybe there were some other parts that are also different with the different box. Will do some homework. Also I'm getting a crazy amount of trigger errors, the ECU thinks the RPM is spiking high. I'm not sure why yet. It's possible I've upset something with my wiring butchery. Or maybe the alternator being close to the crank trigger is causing interference. Or maybe it's big cams/stiff springs/light flywheel causing some trouble. Not sure yet. It's an annoying issue to troubleshoot because there are clear symptoms but not a clear link to the cause. So as frustrating as it is, I just need to keep eliminating possibilities. The trigger scope results look fine, nothing crazy going on. In any case I was happy to go for a bit of a drive around the block, even though its running like crap. When it's not having trigger errors its good though, definitely feels way different ratios with that new box. 4th gear feels like what 2nd or 3rd used to haha. It might be a good idea to ditch my bodged together loom adapter, now that there's no chance of reverting to the factory ECU. Which is a fun-ish job but just annoying it'll take more time. Ahh well!

Came up a treat! No before photos cause who needs to see gross v6 stuff. Will paint the rocker covers got plenty of colours at moment will need to decide. They'll go back on for now to make engine watertight so i can go to town with the degreaser again to get the rest of the gunk and paint the block.

Figured out the EWP and got it working easy as. It's just 2 high current wires for 12v supply and earth. Then one is a pull to ground PWM signal to control pump speed. Then the other is a square wave pump speed signal which you can feed back to the ECU. (which is what I was hoping for) So you can tell if its jammed or stopped working before the motor overheats! Cool. It's got a failsafe so a high duty cycle on the pwm signal slows the pump down - So if there's no signal, it runs at full speed. Trying to work out the water line situation though, I'm not sure if there's a water bypass for if the thermostat is closed. What looks like a bypass hose also looks like a heater line. But if that's the case, no flow through heater core if the heater line is shut. There's also an extra heater sized water outlet on the exhaust side of the motor, which isnt there on the normal motor. Hmm. Might have to try find an engine manual that shows how it's supposed to go. Finally used my Aliexpress spec USB oscilloscope for something. I also got my head back from the engine shop with the new valve springs fitted, $75 saved me about 100 swear words and 10 hours so a good deal. Hopefully cams here on Monday.

My new work car arrived, and it's by far the nicest car I've ever "owned". Some fun gimmicks like paddle shift, cruise control, decent power etc etc its a turbo deeez that goes hard 4 wot it iz It doesnt even rattle or anything. Amazing. Really nice on long work trips, which I do a lot of. However obviously the best part of all this, and why it's in this post. Is that this now means my Echo has been released from its daily driving obligations, so I can start on drivetrain swap soon. Time for a full blown big block fuck around! I've still got the engine in storage up at my Dads, but have collected most of the necessary other bits. Also because I am a financially reckless man-child I have also ordered some JUN cams, fuck you bank account

Boring update, which greatly contrasts to this very exciting car The model after my shape (NCP91) has a 1NZ motor that has roller rockers in the head. So this means they have way less lift on the cam because its multiplied by the rocker ratio. So it looks like they only have something like 4-5mm lift vs 9mm for the normal head cams. So what might be an interesting is put the low lift long duration prius cam from the non rocker engine (about 270deg duration, approx 4mm lift) into the rocker motor. Might be a super easy way to get some sweet duration and lift for cheap on the NCP91 Which should also have reflashable factory ECU. So might be quite easy to do some doorts in that shape car. But while thinking about all this, people said that the rocker head only comes on the Japanese new engines. And I realized the prius motor swap I'd seen, was someone from America. So thought I'd better check and make sure I didnt have the rockers. I didnt, phew. But I was blown away at how clean this thing is under there! I guess its a 50,000km engine on a hybrid where the motor only runs part of the time... so the real run time kms will be a little lower. Hopefully it doesnt have ring sealing issues like some of them did. As they have very low tension rings for less friction. Might be solvable by fitting a vacuum pump on the crank case so there's a higher pressure differential on top and bottom of the piston. Yet again, prius is basically a pure bred race motor, already setup with piston rings for dry sump. haha I have ordered a valve spring and titanium retainers kit for it. This cost more than the whole motor did, but will be worth it to see if I can stretch it to 8k rpm haha. Also, this motor has the exhaust manifold at the back of the head, and then the exhaust runs backwards obviously. So I've been revisiting the idea of trying to use cad to design an equal-ish length manifold thats made from as few parts as possible. If I could get away with having the pipes run perpendicular to the flange, backwards, I'd only need 2 90 deg bends per runner and they would be within about 50mm length from longest to shortest. Also noteworthy that this design has each runner sitting flat on its own 2d plane, so each runner could lay perfectly flat on a table. So you could print an A3 drawing of the outline and then cut the bits to shape and tack it together without any fiddly indexing of pipe angles etc. Trying to get them a bit more equal (within about 20mm) need some longer bends for the center two, but still only two bends per pipe. Would just need to be cut from 180 deg bends not 90s. So might be a good first project for an exhaust manifold when I learn how to weld one day. Or otherwise easy to just cut all the parts and have someone else weld it up. Not sure how to make an economical/easy collector though but will scratch my head a bit more and try figure something out.

So checking out new motor. Has water cooled egr valve and water cooled crank case vent tube. Guess they try do everything possible to stop knock or misfire with a big egr amount. Interesting stuff, that, can fuck right off. The electric waterpump arrangement looks easy to wire up, 4 pin plug with two big and two small wires. Will be 12v, earth, then i suspect pwm input and maybe a return signal or just voltage for pwm perhaps. It looks like it would be easy to retrofit a mechanical pump setup or vice versa. Id like to keep the ewp for nerdy reasons but i suspect mechanical is lighter and more reliable. It will come down to how tricky it id to mount an alternator I guess. As the belt arrangement might be better with the mechanical pump in place. As it gives more belt wrap and acts like an idler between aircon pump and alternator. The intake manifold is interesting with a tiny tiny e-throttle unit and a shit looking manifold. This too can GTFO obviously. The egr pipes are all in the intake manifold though which is good. Nothing intrusive in the head. This later motor has a flat response knock sensor so it wont max itself out by 5000rpm like the other one does. The main trickiness of this swap, apart from mounting an alternator. Looks to be figuring out the water lines and probably just blocking a bunch of it off. Will draw some shitty diagrams to compare to regular motor next time im up.

Enough blue smoke coming from those Toyotas you'd think it was Mitsi Fest.

Well how much is turbo stuff? With a budget of 80kg for turbo stuff, that's a lot of turbo stuff to break even! In other news, today was an absolute bloody hoot! Handling was actually great, a little understeery but being so light in the front you dont get punished for it. Doesnt sledge much just tells you its not happening. A rear swaybar would be absolutely magic in this thing. A++ would overtake cautious beginners in the slow group again

Heading to Toyota Festival tomorrow to pest around at the trackday. Gonna be good! I'm gonna take my GPS along, as I've got my suspicions that this thing might actually be faster than the Carina through some of the tighter corners. So since I've had all of this going on, and seeing how parts are cheap etc etc and I've been trying to make my other car as light as possible. I must admit I've had some sick thoughts about changing motor in the carina. A beams 3SGE motor is ~160kg. A 1NZ motor is ~87kg. That's just an absolutely incredible difference. So figure with a downsize and turbocharge I could probably still be a good 40-50kg better off? I've been scratching around to try get a KG or two out of it here or there, but that's just a rediculous difference, and it would be super easy to make the same power level with a budget setup. And it's a little bit further back, and it would get better fuel economy, and thanks to being turbo I could keep a better final drive ratio for low rpm while cruising. So this is all just wild speculation / probably just get it running with beams motor and enjoy it for a bit. And then I had a hearty chortle when I was reading another forum and saw this chap from Finland: I'm not sure if this validates my idea as being a good one, or there's someone else equally perverted out there haha. He only had a time slip for 1/8th mile but was banging out some 1.8 sec 60 foots which is pretty sweet. Was originally NA 1300cc and he says made 100hp with ITB setup Then after a few iterations looks to be twin turbo and water to air intercooler. He only dynoed an earlier single turbo setup that made 192kw atw, and speculates that by change in injector duty has likely gone to around 350hp. It's completely hilarious that I've never seen anyone do a RWD NZ motor before, and happens to be a in a Carina of all things.

I pay more mortgage faster than I should so I can pay it off quicker I wear safety glasses when I'm doing stuff I sedately drove around a Nissan Wingroad work car I drive a Toyota Echo and then decided not to do fun stuff with it because that's a sensible idea too now that my work car blew up I draw graphs for a hobby I MAKE ALL THESE SACRAFICES TO THE GODS OF SENSIBLE AND WHAT DO I GET BACK MISERY! MISERY I SAY! HOW SENSIBLE CAN ONE MAN BE TIME FOR SOME BAD DECISIONS / DRAGS I jizzed up my shitty manifold with some carbon to hold it together for a bit longer Fingers crossed that this car makes so little power that nothing breaks

Page 4, shame... Haven't done much lately due to working on the stockcar to get that ready for opening night... Didnt happen cos the headgasket let go. So back on this today. Got the engine and box fully mounted. Headers bolted up, carb on. Stock accelerator cable will work. Wiring is all in the same locations. Radiator is bolted up to the hunter mounting points, oil cooler mounted. Just need shorter oil lines. Only fab work left is the new driveshaft, and slightly mod the headers to get it away from the steering box a bit more. Cut the shifter hole 50mm back.. Then pull the lot out to rebuild and clean it all up. Will run a howe/quartermaster release bearing to do away with the fork and slave.. Saves smashing the bulkhead for clearance. Tons of room in there for activities.

On the weight loss theme. A mate and I had a 4wd Subaru Leone wagon we thought we'd make into an off road buggy. We removed all panels and doors, chopped off the roof at the bottom of the windscreen height, chopped the back off at the rear most suspension mounting point and put the fuel tank where the back seat was. Added a single roll over bar and a bar across the tops of the chopped pillars. Now this isn't recommended for a tidy road going car but the performance increase was staggering. In the length of an industrial Dunedin block (maybe 100-150m max) we were cracking 130kph, it kicked the ass off my Mazda gtx at the time too. Never did take it off roading though, someone drove past and offered good coin for it. And that's my story.

So here we are again. I've said it before but this thing is farkin loud to drive around in, one of the exhaust studs had pulled out way back, so has been on the list of things to do for some time. Still even with all the leaks, I started noticing a weird noise from the rear end, wheel bearing? Drove around for a week or so and it was not getting better. My hatred of vw rear hubs is as high as ever, so I dropped it off at Frank's because fuck vw rear hubs with their 300pound foot of bullshit. Turned out both rear drums had flogged out and where fairly close to falling off! I think these new drums are made of cheese? So we'll see how long these new new ones last? Don't think the last ones did 10k? Realized I had a M10 tap and some threaded rod, dunno if this was the right way to go but thanks to the drums and fuckin covid it will have to do! Can see all the carbon on the head there. Removable rear valance made this job super easy! Engine is still going well, sounds very tappy tappy and the bottom is covered in oil. I would like to install a better oil breather system as it doesn't really have one, I'm sure this would help keeping the black stuff inside the case. My long term plan was to built a nice new engine before this one fucks out and straight swap them, I have also had naughty thoughts of a nice modern sohc Subaru engine, minimal chopping to install and an easy 200% power increase. Thanks for watching.

finally got the proper camera out on friday evening, car was looking pretty in the sunshine. bell and her friend had to get in on the action.