Leaderboard

Made @nzstato come over to check out this old bus and lend me some advice on HQs specifically, and discuss the folly of old car projects in general and we have decided to press on. One bite at a time. Plan is to finish tidying the front clip so that is done and it can be reassembled and stored back on the car and it looks like a car. Brake master so it can at least stop itself as well as go. Will save a full brake overhaul till later. Will also start a big list of repair panels and random bits from aussie. Inner and outer sills ill just get folded up locally. Meanwhile, time for some diy panels using 1.0mm for the first time. Also $60 repco mini air grinder with 36 grit 3m roloc pads works pretty good! my compressor cant keep up with constant use, but its great for access and cleaning awkward areas as the small pad doesnt really catch like a grinder would, and the speed/torque is controllable which is much nicer than the all or nothing of the grinder Passenger fender, has a few bits of loose paint here and there and a few extra trim holes, otherwise excellent, only the typical rear corner mud trap rust. Made the inner brace first, Rust removed, mostly for access but trying to keep as much data to line up to as possible Ready to weld, made the drainage a bit more generous than factory Welded mostly from the inside, so i dond need to tidy the welds much So the other side that noone can see cause its behind the inner fender and up against the sill, which i will grind, look such better Then the outer, all welded in and the edge dressed over Got a bit of a hollow right where i couldnt get the dolly into, and its a bit wobbly and hand made at least up close, but pretty happy with that for panel number one, Ready for a skim of filler to smooth it off. Ill save drilling the rear bolt hole till we fit on the car and can adjust it a bit, and add a couple of tacks to lock it in its final shape and seam seal it but thats one rust free fender.

If anybody wanted to see the difference between a standard imp boot lid and a GT lid then you're in luck. You can see the rear radiator peaking through the slots here. Over the weekend I put together a new engine mount. The cert man didn't ask for it but I know that if the rear most mount fails the engine will just plop onto the ground. In this direction it should just drag rather than pole vault the car but having a mid mount will nullify that situation entirely. I was able to put the engine on a slight tilt to get the oil filler tube away from the firewall too. I was just going to cut and move it but the alternator is very close and it was all a little awkward. Hoping it won't affect much on the engine but I still need to redo the sump anyway as it sits too low. The vibration the engine had with mounts at opposite ends has been mitigated too. It was substantial. You can see it here. So I got a stock VW rear mount and just added some arms to some brackets on the body rails. I'll see what cert man thinks as I'm never precious about these things. I had to re-rout both exhausts but wasn't too tricky. One needed two curves put in and one just needed a slight mod.

I was thinking "oh I'll just finish X then get a post up" and that happened a few times so I guess I should stop and do a dump. And what a dump! Where last we left off I threw up a bullet point list and left it at that, so here's a follow-up pic barrage for that. I believe we're just after what engine reconditioners call a long block? A long block with a nice un-aluminium-taped surface. Little strips of copper and aluminium tape are EVERYWHERE. In the strangest places - on the insides of the intake funnel, underneath the steering wheel, covering the holes in the bonnet, some absolutely random spots like one corner of the windscreen and the top of the oil cap. Truly the last owner was absolutely mad. The engine internals were mostly closed in. I rectified that by putting the new oil pick up on with a nice new lubed o-ring, off-brand threebond and the nice and cleaned sump and wire-brushed bolts. If we were a long block before, I guess this is extra-long? Then Girlface swung by and we took the engine off the stand as it was just getting in the way now. We got the flywheel sorted out with a pry bar, four arms and three legs. Brake cleaner was once again misused as a non-brake cleaning product to thoroughly clean the clutch and flywheel surfaces before we got it installed with the special tool. This is the one place that the manual's machine translation kind of suffered - it did a piss-poor job of communicating how it wanted the bolt sequence done - but we figured it out. The printed tool worked a treat! And ya know, can't really leave it there before you go inside can you The next day I further accessorised with the new thermostat and its housing and returning the water temp sensor. Followed up by intake manifold - but not before separating the throttle body to install its new gasket. I also gently cleaned the TB with brake cleaner, about 50x more filth came out of it than it looks like it contains in the pic. One thing I tried to keep on top of was understanding where things went. Various bolts, pipes and other widgets are safely grouped on various garage surfaces and knowing where something goes ahead of time lets me avoid doing shit out-of-order and having to undo work, and gives me the confidence that I'm not going to be left short a bolt. So when stuff like the breather plate has a big ol' hole in it, I get antsy until I know what goes in there. Fortunately, my paranoia has served me well so far. The injectors never left the rail so no need for new o-rings there, but we didn't think to order new o-rings for the business end. They seem okay and they're easy to access so I'm OK re-using them. I made sure to give them a quick clean before putting the rail on (bottom injector cleaned here). I had left a coolant pipe attached to the oil cover because it gave too much resistance to being removed. I was going to leave it there, but after figuring out that the final item in my gasket kit was a new o-ring for it, we decided to just apply lube, pucker up and start jerking. Fortunately it got off after a few hard tugs and we were able to apply the new rubber. The old one was quite flat, so glad we did that. Loom time. When we removed the engine it was a pretty mad dash to do so, and we didn't have the manual. If we did, we'd have known we could have left the whole loom intact on the car and just disconnected it at the battery and fuse box. This hurt because the connectors on the back of the engine in particular are a total bitch to access and unclip, especially without damaging the clips. So, unfortunately a few of them suffered. What extra-sucks is that despite ordering a ton of cable clips from aliexpress of various types, not a single one of them is suitable for any of the clips :|. Josh taught me how to re-use clips that had been sliced through the cable, so I got them set up for the most important two broken clips, threw a naked zip tie on the second most important clip, and have left the rest for a later order of fresh new clips - they're reasonably accessible. I got left short a bolt. There was a bolt left for the knock sensor, but it only engaged by about 1-2 threads, so clearly not quite the right one. No idea where the real one went, but I had to get a new bolt from the stash. Maybe it ran away with the shaft key. Hopefully this is the only time that'll happen... Anyway, we've run out of things the engine needs before it goes on the car. Loom is on, turbo's going on after the engine goes in because it fought us too much on the way out, the extra intake stuff on the top will just get in the way. It was due to rain off and on over the weekend which is kind of a pain if you need to use the garage for something that isn't Starion work thanks to the Starion being not exactly weatherproof but... fuck it, it'll survive a little weather under a cover. On Sunday morning I cracked open the garage, tetris'd stuff around, threw the steering column back in the starion and made way for progress. First niggle: now that the loom was on the engine and not the car, there was no way of unlocking the steering (push-button ignition). We solved that by applying a lot of force to a tiny jack on a very weathered concrete driveway... :X ... but eventually we got it situated. An alternative would have been to dig around the steering column but easier mental path. I procrastinated a little by noticing a bunch of rust on the wiper stalks, fixed with a careful wire wheel and light coating of grease. Kelv came over to help and the three of us got stuck in. I always forget to take pics when there's company so... sorry from here on out lol. I remembered I hadn't done shit until the final engine mount was in place. The first two required some manoeuvring to situate, and at least one bolt was swapped with another, but honestly wasn't a struggle. We had a car with an engine in it: day's goal complete! With that done, we could now push the car out of the garage and tinker with it from the driveway or something. No need to wait for a sunny day and mess around with car locations. Everything is unlocked. A secondary goal of the day was to get the drive shafts in. Because existing neural pathways are preferable to forming new ones, I wanted to just wrangle them in as we nestled the engine into the bay. It didn't look promising. But with Kelv and his experienced brain with us, we instead decided to take the wheel route. I'd resisted this just because I hadn't put any thought into how the suspension on this car is configured and didn't want to crack into that with all the other shit floating around my head, and also because of the chance of it needing a re-alignment. But with Kelv leading the charge we managed to break the lower control arms free and bend the hubs just enough to be able to squeeze some shafts into some holes. It ended up being really easy, to the point that we were actually going at it so hard we didn't even realise the ball joints were separated right when we first started wailing on them, and we were just about to get creative. No alignment needed fortunately! Secondary goal of the day complete! It's all extra credit from here. Aww yiss. Whilst Kelv and Girlface noodled with torque specs and radiator hoses (we replaced the two main hoses because... well, because), I rushed to the bench to complete the turbo stuff I was meant to have done already. There's a set of gaskets and whatnot to fix up, and two crush washers need seeing to on the oil feed banjo fitting. Those old chestnuts... Whilst doing this, Kelv sorted installing the belt and idler. The belt feels a little tired and there's a nick in one of the grooves, so I've ordered a new one. We decided that the old belt will do in the meantime. Based on Kelv's swearing and grunting, the new belt will be a PITA to install. He also went off and brought his poorly Alto over to serve as a reference for niggly bits like earthing cables and 1-way check valves. What a tiny-ass country. After cleaning a silly amount of gunk off the turbo, flushing the turbo oil lines with brake cleaner then following that up with fresh oil and assembling its various components with gaskets into one turbo unit, it was time to put it on the car. It was very tight, and the oil line had to come back off to clear the A/C compressor, but we got it on. And then we went to connect the oil line. No matter what angle we took, how we bent or held things, the banjo bolt absolutely refused to grab threads. It was happy to do so without the line around it, so it wasn't fucked or anything, it's just that the angle of the banjo fitting needed to be 100.0000% for it to even think about being seated. Access was pretty poor with lots of crap around the seating site. We undid the block end of the line and that let us get the turbo end on, but then the block end was fucked, and it was even harder to access. The A/C compressor was in the way, and the A/C compressor is part of the belt system, which Kelv had already sorted. Much wailing and gnashing of teeth ensued but we took the belt and compressor back off and with further effort were able to sort both of the banjo fittings out. They were proper bitches even with clean clear access, so I'm glad we didn't just suffer needlessly. Also Kelv put the belt back on so really, I didn't experience much personal additional suffering. While that was getting wrangled, Kelv and Girlface got various bits of bracketry connected, hoses connected, ABS lines refitted, ECUs plugged in... It was around here we were like... "wanna get it started tonight?" Fuck yeah we do. We sorted out the clutch line - it's a bit loose, so we'll need to mess with it a bit more, but on the plus side there's a solid bushing (Kelv has pointed out a lot of things that are aftermarket that totally sailed by me). Apparently that was a common upgrade for the clutch that I was probably going to look at down the line for myself anyway, so nice to know it had already been done lol. Girlface sorted the cat and exhaust. "It was really easy". Kelv didn't manage to exit this pic. We filled the transmission with nice fresh gear oil and two new shiny plugs. The engine was filled with mineral oil to the most perfect mark on the dipstick I've ever seen. We double-checked all the coolant pipes, vac hoses, fuel pipes, plugs, sensors and whatnot. We ran the starter without injectors and coils for a while, which really made the battery quite sad, in order to circulate oil and build some pressure. It was looking a bit dire as the light stayed illuminated but just as the starter was really starting to lurch unhappily the light went off, indicating that pressure was okay <3 And seven hours into the job, what else is there left to do, but... What a fucking rush. It sounds good. The revs are all over the place because of the lack of piping but there are no leaks (that we can see), no weird noises, it's got oil pressure, and the knocking that the car always has is completely gone. We just have a (sort of) new engine now! All the bits that matter anyway. 126,671 KM -> 0 KM. And Kelv's standing there congratulating us and our efforts, "you've just rebuilt an engine!" It's obvious he would have been chuffed at getting it running that evening, but I could just see that he probably was getting even more out of just seeing how happy and excited we were to have achieved this. This second-hand enjoyment of our chuffedness is what really separates blokes like him from the unwashed masses. I got a lot of third-hand enjoyment out of that lol. Thank you @kws, we'd never have achieved what we did that night without you, and that manual you helped organise has saved a lot of headaches and added a lot of confidence in our work. We threw the bonnet back on and zhuzhed the drive shaft nuts up to log(n) ugga-duggas in the absence of a sufficient torque wrench / brakes (we'll sort all that out later), swapped the two cars around just as it started spitting, bid each other good night and went to get inebriated and watch the eurovision finals. Pretty good weekend, in all.

Sunroof is currently out being repaired by local metal wizard Hammer & Weld It's been nice to finally tuck it away in a garage before winter kicks off. Planning to slowly work through the rust before there's nothing left to engine swap!

So onto the next problem, I've had warped rotors for a while (low down on priority list), so i had them skimmed ended up with 0.12mm taken off of one side... So went out again, car was braking amazingly, I could brake so later and with huge confidence, then they started warping again. Ok need to sort that out as the rotors aren't cheap. They have also been hitting 600c+ which is not good for rotor or pad life. I brought knockoff makita blower and I put it on the intake to the brake duct and measured where the air was coming out. 30kph straight in and 10kph straight out the rotor at the red circle, 0 out the vanes. Granted in hindsight, its bloody obvious, but just hadn't really through through the ramifications and how bad it was. Fundamentally the hat (GP4 Fabrications Kit) is just not designed correctly it should have no holes in it. One 3d print later I had Testing that alone made a massive different to the airflow (naturally, it's so fucking obvious now) with air coming out 1/4 of the vanes. Here's the old cooling, so while I'm there i may as well do the job properly and make sure the air doesn't come out the other side either as that could cause warping as well. Multiple iterations later we have this So after getting laser cut we end up with these Clearance to disk will be adjusted if it requires it. That's the simple part done, hard part is now ducting the air into it nicely/safely. You can see the technical chat on that here: Fundamentally current plan is to go with a PLA mould and fibreglass/carbon/Kevlar on top of it, then softening/melting it out, I have someone doing the work for me whos an expert in fibreglassing. Heres attempt number one (carbon/kevlar). He had a go at getting the Mould out but it put up a fight. So I've printed some thinner moulds to see if that makes it easier for him. However I think if I put it in the oven at 70c it should melt out, so going to try that too, if it works it's very cheap and easy to make the moulds for complex shapes. Now naturally while the front brakes were working amazingly (being straight and all) the rears are now starting to get up past 600c as there is not a lot of room to get air into them, 258mmx21mm disk with AP Calipers. So work is proceeding to see what can be achieved with redoing the caliper mount and/or moving disk outboard for easier maintenance/replacement.

Faaarq this is hard. Too many constraints and me wanting to do everything properly are making my life difficult. Anyway heres some quick pics of progress. Been hitting my head against a wall trying to get the primaries to where the secondaries join. I think I need to hit it with a fresh mindset and box-load of creativity to come up with a workable solution. 2" to 2.25 through a 90deg bend @10deg divergence... Slip joints in place. I was worried about the secondaries being slightly too big so decided to gradually transition from 2" to 2.25. Worked out perfectly with the size of collector outlet. Megaphone all mounted for 2nd time... Ended up removing the subframe for easier access. Long-term plan is to make a tubular subframe to correct roll centre which would also solve this header clearance issue... but got to get car running/road legal first because that won't be a 5min job!

Haven't posted much as been working through annoying gearbox issues. So in one of the races I was going into the hairpin and instead of selecting 3rd it went into 1st. In a honda that would have been engine gone, but as it's RWD it immediately locked up the rears and i had a bit of a moment, but no damage. Additionally in the last race on the last lap as i crossed the finish line I attempted to go from 5th into reverse... Not ideal... S2000's run a reverse lockout where you have to push the gearlever down, for some reason it was already down when i went to go from 5th to 6th and so it smoothly tried to shift into reverse (to right of 6th). The issues: The gearstick had always been slow to recenter if you let go, so while braking your trying to pick the center gate, rather then just letting it go then moving it straight forward. I probably forgot to lube the ball and the shift lever worked it's way down at some point over the laps so the lockout wasn't in effect. Solutions Pull apart gearbox and double check its ok and put a put a stronger centering spring in and a install an upgraded detent kit (near disaster). Lube the gearlever, and get an 80% stronger reverse lockout spring made (works well) Go back out, and just as i'm starting to do a fast lab in quali shift from 5th into 6th 4th... Well that's an even bigger issue, it literally just smoothly went into 4th no complaints and felt like it was going into 6th. Thankfully I had dropped the shift point from 8800 to 8000 to see if it would improve the overall laptime, so the engine only hit 9550rpm... So some head scratching later, and pulled some of the upgraded detent springs out, which improved it from going into 6th 10% of the time to 95% of the time just sitting in the garage. Went out again. Unbelievably did it again, but it took until race 3 (good footage of me dodging a stalled car on grid as well). So at this point this has to be sorted properly, the engine will not take much more of that. Looked at hand position, concluded I hadn't really changed it between good and bad. So the Issues It turns out the detent kit was not installed as per the instructions (plus there was a last minute change to where a couple of springs were put then it wasn't tested), so that's a big issue on my side. However one of the springs puts an insane amount of pressure on the selector shaft (hence why it wasn't put in), to me it's just been poorly designed. So all upgraded detent springs removed, the center spring stays. But one of the issues is that their is so small amount of movement needed to go from the 3-4 gate to the 5-6 gate. What do i mean? Here's the lever in 3rd, Here's it in 5th That and I think the kinematics of my position is not helping the engine/gearbox are on an angle in the car, engine more over to passenger (left) side, so as you pull gear lever back, you have to put more pressure to the right. I think the detent springs accentuated this with the amount of pressure they required to hold it across. So solutions: Make the gear lever longer to give more throw between gates Remove the rubber isolator in it to remove any play in it. Find out the gear lever is also bent to the right, so straighten it... (this makes the kinematics worse) So here's the inside of a Honda S2000 gearshift lever (aluminum sleeve has rubber bonded to it) Spend time making up a longer shaft and end up with this Throw wise it's going to slow me down a bit, which is a good thing. It puts the lever height wise in the middle of the wheel, which is perfect. So fingers crossed all those changes finally give me some confidence to be able push it hard again.

The fitment isnt as bad as i thought it would be 50mm out from the front guards 35mm out from the rear Sliding door inoperable

Not perfect but good enough for a floor.

Recently acquired some 14x9 widened steelies from a friend

Cheers @GregT I'm really happy with how subtle it looks modified in my eyes and how much modified it actually is. I'll be sure to keep an eye on that drive nut. A before and after And another one

Period correct locks! Cant be bothered with getting standard locks working, I dont want multiple keys etc so Solex's seemed like a good/easy solution.

Crank and cam triggers done. Crank trigger is fairly self explanatory. Cam trigger was a bit more difficult. Is basically the eccentric cam that would have driven the fuel pump. I welded a lump on it and filed it up to make a tang. The sensor can reach the 40 odd mm to get a signal. I don't know how I'll time the engine because the lay shaft that this is on can go anywhere. That can be future sheepers problem. So the front cover and the sump is on for the final time. It's taken so much work to get to this point, what the fuck am I doing......

Removing the mud and giving the old girl a good bath made it look better, but also made it easier to see a fair few issues. I think this has been restored once before and there are a few rust bubbles starting and a fair bit of paint adhesion and filler cracking in all the 'usual' spots. I shouldn't have but i started to pick. The Premier sill garnish that had been riveted on this lowly Belmonts sills was holding a lot of mud so i drilled (some) of the rivets. Sucks teeth Ill think ill just put that back up there and pretend we didnt see that With the seal definitely broken i dug into all the suspect areas to see how many repair panels to put on the list . This deep crease explains the thick filler on the upper half of this quarter panel, the filler probably made the rust on the lower half worse. Removing the deep filler means the door shut looks 100x better than it did Good 5mm of filler of this too, and much the same on the other side, except that side has braze as well There were signs of lots of filler on this quarter too. It has also been (previously?) brazed some of the filler was 10mm thick Took most of it off with a heat gun, much less messy than with a whirlywoo. The panel looked like this underneath it, from a prang in the rear Spent a bit of time with some hammers and dollies and a bit of extra heat trying to shrink some spots and it is quite a lot better. Like the other side, removing the filler also significantly improved the fit of the doors to the body! So yeah, some bits are pretty much as i expected (doors) some are much much better than i feared (quarter panels, cowls) , but some i didnt even suspect, like the sills, are quite bad indeed. We will need every patch panel you can buy, which basically means its got bitten in all the usual places, but that is a nice change from not being able to buy any panels at all!

Rust caught early This car isn’t too bad for rust, besides lower a-pillar/firewall I birdpooped back up a few years ago. the worst of it is in the rear floor/seat, but I’ll deal with this later. Its mainly just failed seam sealer/paint over spot welds, but credit to previous owners as no water has been allowed to accumulate. I chiseled off some of the sound deadener expecting the worst but it’s fine, bad angled pic but to the right there are spot welds under it that are rusty And the boot generally scabby but shouldn’t require too much work which is a win pretty stoked with this, as a bad seal/poorly repaired rear end/water ingress would’ve made this worse Bonus points for Firestone full sized spare wheels tyre logo etched into the sound deadening: my door frames were rusty in areas, so sanded them back and treated them they were rusting from stone chips, so I may or may not have overreacted and spotted something else to disassemble I’ll figure out a way to paint this, even if it is very cracked from the sun after a quick wet sand and polish

Grey parts car sold to free up some space in the garage to bring black car home. black car officially has a WOF. It’s been off the road since 2009! Will bring it home soon and blow all the interior out of it. Everything is filthy from years of sitting and going to the panel shop. Ive got a spare car full of interior so will go through everything and clean and reassemble. Massive milestone achieved

Been chipping away at this slowllllyyy. DMA alloy tank with intank pump turned up from auzzie to replace the factory tank Have ordered a mountain of speedflow fittings and hose and am working on plumbing at the moment. Have decided to delete the masters from firewall and run reverse swing wilwood master to help with intake/filter clearance and clean engine bay up a bit more. Also measured up my BBS RS currently 15s but have ordered 15-16"step lips and barrels from Pine Engineering. Should work out at 16x7.5 with 2 inch lips and 15x8.5 with 3 inch lips in the back. Slightly better tyre choice on the 16s and fills the guards out a bit better. Have bolted a heap of bits and pieces on ready for wiring.

We decided to remove the front clip to tidy it up and make it easier to get to the suspension and enginey bits as well. Check out the custom radiator shims - the Torana must have a shorter engine bay. We got $50 of random 202 bits of FBMP and amongst a couple other handy bits that included a near new water pump, a much better thermostat housing and the extended fan thing. Nose cone off Note the blue inner on the drivers fender i think this was replaced post restoration as the paint is overall much worse than any other panel and seems to have been painted only once bolted on - the passenger side is also a replacement (originally a pale yellow/mustard) but was fairly obviously repainted with much more prep and attention while off the car. Other than the fender rust behind the front wheels where water and mud collects, the front clip panels are entirely rust free which is nice Fenders out Pulled everthing to bits, cleaned it, derusted, and painted Pretty pleased with that, pressed a couple of dents out with the press and it seems to sit nicer too Going through the front indicators to make at least 2 ok ones inner fenders tidied up rad support seperated from the nosecone and all bits including the lamps all cleaned, derusted, unbent, painted, threads tapped and reassembled. Nose cone has similar treatment but just knocking the cracked paint off on the outside and primed it. Looks worse at first glance, but its straight, rust free and ready to bolt back on, or for body work at some future point. Need to sort the rust at the base of fenders but all that stuff is ready to bolt back on. Because my big sheet of 0.8mm is for baby cars, I picked up some 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4mm panel steel offcuts today for $15 + GST ( https://rietveld.co.nz/ - what a treasure of a place - a true barry paradise!) so ill probably make a start on patching the bottom of the easier of the two fenders next to start to ease into it.

So point of having it stop is to have it driving is so it can be moved around. Driving a project is a good motivator too Point of being able to stop is to drive it outside to give it a good clean underneath, mainly so we can see whats under there and dont get filthy while working on it This car was driven a lot on wet gravel roads. There was a LOT of dirt underneath Quick tidy of the 14x7 and 14x8 Cheviots while they are off with some fine scotchbrite to get the worst of the oxidising off Some blue springs and matching blue AUSTRALIA RIDES MONROE GAS shocks in the rear. Pretty sure both he springs and the shocks are completely shagged from carrying around the LPG tank but interesting to see. This thing is an absolute whale compared to the rest of the fleet Gave it a wipe down with a waxy towel Swept out and tidied up stuff And shuffled everything back to bed

Ma te wa to Bill and whanau, then we headed home, with our van loaded up with other treasure from the shed(s) Forgot to mention i got jealous of her getting new car, so I got me one the same colour as hers on the way up. Given i had to drive this, Kirsty was driving the van the whole way home, she was none too pleased about it (But, yes it is better than my current 2005 Forester X its replacing in every way, thanks for asking - 2002 XT, totally stock, sub 200k and after a few wee issues (MAF sensor, oily connectors, new spark plugs) it really kicks when the whirly boi winds up!) Good Day in Welly before overnight sailing Breaky fry up in Kaikoura a quick stop to rise the north island off And about 3 days after we got home, this turned up. Used Classic Towing - worked out fine, but lucky both Bill and myself are home most of the time because the communication around changes of plan was a bit lacking tbh. The man can sure back a trailer tho. Its a fricken whale compared to my 'big' Fiat, an easy foot wider. Time to poke the bear First thing, remove the CNG stuff from the engine bay. Not only is it unfillable, the electrics are one of the layers of fuckery (the least bad to be fair, but also totally redundant), the tees that loop into the factory heater coolant lines to stop the regulator freezing up were corroded apart, and the carb hat gas injector thing made the air cleaner butterfly nut rub on the underside of the hood. 'New' heater hoses (from the old CNG line) and a bit of a wiring tidy up Fuel pump clean (no go in Feilding, leaks like a sieve now, still no pumping action), now bypassed with a clicketyclack, needs a rebuild kit (diaphram and gaskets) Carb cleanup, was pretty clean inside the bowls etc, works ok now, needs a kit too (tore a gasket) Dirty ol' single barrel Stromberg BXV-2 is clean, now sitting on the still very oily 173 Bosch dizzy removed, cleaned and oiled, gap reset, but all the points, cap, rotor, leads and sparkplugs all look relatively low miles, so perfectly fine for now. Changed the oil and filter (oil was black and smelled like petrol but no chunks), re-crimped a new loose connections, taped some twisted wires, removed some vampire taps and chock blocks as well Put it back in starting from first principles (ignoring the marks, get cylinder 1 on compression stroke at as close to tdc-ish you can with a long thing in the spark plug hole, rotor pointing to lead 1) and it was about 90 degrees off where it was before - dizzy couldnt be turned enough to get the right timing, so i wonder if it had been tutued with before and the hassle of it not running well was why it got parked. Bill did say it had several minor issues needed sorting out and they got a newer, better car and he just stopped driving it. Anyway, buttoned up and after some further fine tuning it starts on one pump of the pedal and idles smooth. Not smoky (any more) Still no coolant or brakes.

The last club day of the season (I was out in first round so not worried about points) was coming up and it was looking wet So I thought it would be a good opportunity to get the the car out for another shakedown of the new wiring, and get some experience in the wet (I've never driven in the wet). So first time out on a wet track in qualifying, i put it on pole... Race 1 Turns out it goes really good in the wet. Allowing me to take my first win by 30s over 2nd place (he sand bagged a bit after he accidently hit pit limiter and saw me race off into the distance). I managed a 1:42.5 which is I'm absolutely stoked with, that's only 7s off my dry time, and there was a little more in it (and that's with no changes from current dry setup). Also it confirmed that things like the wipers, lights and demisting (not running any, instead I'm using the heat from exhaust + radiator) all worked as expected. The wet's i ran are 4 year old ex Michelin TRS, and are absolutely amazing, it really was like driving in the dry, they are super soft and it shows as another competitor who is normally slightly faster in dry then me had older harder different brand wets and was 12s off my time. But also the weight of the car and it's handling characteristics show it's driveable/chuckable nature. Race 2 Race 2 was a handicap race and I was 60s behind first pack, unfortunately the guy who came 2nd place in 1st race was 15s in front of me, and he picked his pace up to match mine, i did manage to get within 9s of him on a damp track (rain had stopped). I came out of the day actually feeling excited to potentially race in the wet in the future, where as before I was very nervous, so that's also a massive win. ITBS Interestingly enough Tegiwa have just come out with some Jenvey ITB's to fit an EP3, they are very heavily compromised to fit in the engine bay, but do have some dyno charts. Check out the dyno results and see what you think about the results and claims... https://www.tegiwaimports.com/blog/?p=6297 Before: After: Let me know your thoughts in my discussion thread here:

This is not my car. Im just the low rate mechanic. What i knew about this car was: My Father in Law, Bill, has 'The Holden' in a lean to shed. Kirsty learned to drive in it, and shes always wanted it and Bill said she could have it one day. It has the engine and gearbox (exact details unclear) from the Torana her older brother rolled when he was 16 'dodging a rabbit' on a gravel road. Its been in the shed pretty much since they moved into the 'new house'. He used to bring it out sometimes to wash it but hasnt for a long while. She put her name on it a few years ago and sent me a pic. My first and only view of it till now. Then a couple months ago, he said 'come and get the Holden' So, we did.

Yeah I'd be checking fuel delivery pre injector pump. Blocked strainer where the fuel line runs to the injector pump if they even have one fuel filters etc

Don't 5get this is in 2 days, get ya favorite beanie out and ready for cold carpark sharns.

Even with loctite that final drive nut is going to come loose. They're noted for it. I'd machine it narrower so the nylon locking material is actually on the shaft. Nice job overall. You've kept the essential character of the bike.

I thought since the tyre was going to be replaced I would accelerate the wearing process Thought I'd be safe at an intersection out the back of nowhere I hope the guy in the camry that appeared in my mirror enjoyed it.... In related news it has no problem starting a burnout in third gear but the tail light cops a bit of rubber and it has stuck quite hard to the plastic under the tail The tyre I want is $460 so the vehicles ability to do burnouts is useless info to me now

There was always the GTIR vs GTX/GTR beef in the drag train back when they were worth fuck all and gearboxes were plentiful. Mazda guys always said they would smoke a GTIR because they were heavy little whales. Nissan guys always said their gearboxes were stronger. Both were always replacing gearboxes every 2nd weekend but a GTIR seemed to handle doing heli's for longer than a GTX

Yeah it’s pretty much just the gearbox being a total turd. Tbh this will probably just do trips to coffees and cars with the my young fella. But I do have a spare gearbox that I’ll get rebuilt just in case. As I do want to warm it up a little bit once I’ve finished tidying everything up

Thanks for the replies, I do want to fix it properly and haven't rang around dealers/auto electricians yet because 1, it's the weekend and 2, it's unlikely they can do it these days. The equipment they used to use is now all well out of date and they probably don't have it anymore. It was bespoke equipment. Some kind of laptop or computer with special software and hardware. Those stopped being supported decades ago. I am not a hard core Landy person but from what I have found online the 'official' ones were called Testbook and another called T4. Testbook is long gone. T4 is still around but only for OBDII equipped cars not early Discos. And they cost about 2kUS$! There were other cheaper after market units, Hawkeye and Nanocom, but even those are now old and hard to find or not made to support pre OBDII cars anymore. NickJ has the right idea, hence asking here, in a forum, in case someone can point me at the right kind of club/person that might do it. I don't have Facebook unfortunately. Am going to ask my local WOF guy when he's open tomorrow too, he's a practical country sort so might have some leads. And I am waiting to hear from the Land Rover owners club too. I need someone who has one of those old, aftermarket reset units I imagine. Probably the kind of thing where there is one person in a club somewhere everyone goes to. Again, I asked here in case someone knows who that is. As for official dealers, there is one reasonably close to me in Wellington, Armstrongs. Unlikely they can do it but I'll ask them tomorrow. They might have someone they send people to so there might be some independent place, again that's why I am asking here, someone might know already. But I need somewhere who understands this is a pre OBDII car or else they will assume they just need to plug in any old scanner to reset the code which isn't the case. The reason I mentioned certs isn't for mine, more a general question I asked in my original post, "What happens when cars get to the point where a simple software failure means you can't get a warrant anymore since the tech is too old but the vehicle still perfectly good?". At some point systems in cars won't be able to be fixed since the tech to do it won't be around. Cars that get software updates will eventually stop being supported. It's in the car manufacturers interests to be like Apple and encourage continual upgrading/selling new vehicles. It's always in governments interests to encourage new cars for safety reasons, environmental, more sales tax, lobbying from new car makers, etc. Old car like vintage ones you can always get going again. Even very bespoke parts can be remade. Things get a lot trickier when software is involved. Anyone who works in I.T. knows supporting old tech is a pain in the neck. It's not just the cars themselves. Cars that use OTA updates talk to servers and those also require maintaining over time. There must be a hell of a lot of infrastructure behind all that, all constantly needing updates and changes. Simon

More like right nut is bigger than the left one

Time for a new rear tyre I think this one has done less than 6000km Interestingly it has worn a lot more on the right side, I think that's because coming out of a right corner I can see better therefore it gets more beans

im going to invent a religion like the amish or similar you cannot track me via devices in the heavens, only the almighty god/allah/jeebus/flying spaghetti monster/hypnotoad can track me, he came to me in a dream to tell me so. also you may not replicate my image in video or picture form with these devil boxes you call 'speed cameras'

As long as they don't use it as some sort of backdoor "oh now we have this system, we can charge you for your rucs based on distance you've traveled " "Oh lol we can see how fast you're going, we never mentioned that did we? Here's a ticket"

Not much progress to report but lots of technical stuff going on with the design/fab of my headers, so sorry but this will be a nerdy post.. not claiming to be an expert, just figuring out how to make stuff work.. So here's my scratching for re-checking my length. Unfortunately I need to run 4-2-1 header as I can't fit 4x runners under the steering rack. The expansion chamber clashes with the swaybar (wasn't in the car when I mounted it argh!), meaning I've needed to push it back another 100mm. I'll need to incorporate the slip joins into the '2' section (because bottom section will be permanently attached to exp. chamber) as this is the easiest place to get the runners parallel where they'll slow into place.. This means my 9" secondaries are going to look more like 12", which by keeping overall length the same, will mean my primaries are getting close to 15-16" (which is the minimum as I understand it). In summary its complicated..... With restrictions in tube sizes available (above calcs is inches ID), I've had to go for 44OD primaries (works out well as is the same size as exhaust port) and 57OD secondaries. Secondaries in particular will be a little larger than optimum considering it's only a 30" long pipe, so it will likely favour higher RPM's. As long its making solid power from 5-6krpm I'll be happy. 2zz's have a massive torque hole at 4krpm so I'll be bringing the high cam in as soon as possible. Might also push me to add a big cam sooner rather than later.. Found this super interesting paper on the development of the 2zzge. Pretty much says they designed this awesome high-revving engine and then proceeded to put a terrible exhaust manifold on it to reduce noise emissions and wasted all the hard work they put into the head etc. https://www.lotustalk.com/attachments/toyota2zz-ge-technical-data-pdf.1297134/ For the header design, I'm following the theory laid out in Graham Bell's Four stroke performance tuning book. Main examples are based on 2L touring car engines, which is pretty comparable to what I'm doing (12:1 comp, itbs & 9000rpm). All my sizing/calcs are firmly in what he defines as purely 'racecar' realm... I also think engine & ecu technology has moved on since early 00's which has proven you can get away with a lot bigger tubes than the 'old' rules of thumb. I'm using an adaption of a venturi collector design with a centre divider plate. Apparently the venturi and divider plate should be equal-sided triangle 1/2" bigger than the primary tube. Nailed the fabrication on the secondaries in particular which I'm proud of. Will be interesting to see if these work as it does essentially create 2x venturi effects in the same collector - 1 where the pipes join, then a second as it expands to secondary. Who knows if this will work as intended? So this is my crossmember conundrum... I ended up needing a small bend between the collector and expansion chamber which is another compromise.. Primaries are roughed-out in Kinex blocks. These are a bit of a spaghetti junction as the 2-3 cylinder runners need to go the furthest so need to take the 'under' route. No doubt these will be refined a few more times as I confirm the position of the secondaries. I plan on tacking secondaries up to slip join, then start back at the top and work my way down. Wish me luck!! All this learning has taught me is everything is a small compromise when it won't fit in the car. Exactly how the power band will work out is yet to be seen, I won't be surprised if I end up making a few variations as I test these.. just got to keep putting in the effort and one day this damn car will be finished!

This is kind of random project thread worthy. So I’ve owned this old single axle car transporter for over 20 years (apart from a short period where a mate owned it, then I bought it back). In about 2005 I gave it a rough wire brush and painted it tractor red and put a new timber deck on it (necessitated by a mates Fiat 131R almost falling through the rotten old deck). I’ve been meaning to give it a refurb for ages, but it kept passing wofs and just looked like shit. It progressively got worse until @azzurro borrowed it and it had some structural failures where the spare wheel mounted (coincidentally while also towing a Fiat on it). He kindly patched it up before returning it but it needed attention. After moving back up north I decided it was time to tackle it and strip it right down and give it a birthday. Fix a few bad welds. Paint, new electrics, new deck etc. Anyway. After a few solid weekends of work it’s just like a new one. P.S. if you want to buy it, hit me up. It’s only small (suit Viva, 1200, Escort, Starlet etc).

Few more recent veneer projects, I sanded and re oiled the door and made a pattern for the edge, as it annoyed me being plain when the door is open. Bit of copper tape to tidy up the edges. Because the door hardware needed to be adapted to fit with the larch cladding, the latch area was a bit ugly so I made a cover for it out of plate, complete with creepy stamp text Made a floating shelf out of 2 pieces of 18mm mdf glued together, then a patterned front edge/top and bottom. The purple piece is Totara, really beautiful when oiled. Tried out making some 3D cube designs, I wanted it to sort of look like a serpent eye, the pupil is made of ebony. I think I fucked with it too much and then cut the board down into a weird geometric shape, I wasn’t really happy with it initially but it’s growing on me. Enjoying learning more techniques and trying to get my joins neater

Now we know it runs, next step is to make it worth driving The interior was pretty good condition but there was a lot of evidence of rats eating and storing snail shells in the engine bay and mice droppings in the interior, but no evidence they lived there long, and the shed it was in wasnt water tight so it was all a bit smelly and musty Anyway, all needed to come out for a clean & deodorised the seats, throw away the original horsehair underlay and to make it easier to do a few other jobs, like... Improve the shifter opening, replaced the galv flashing and countersinks that didn't really cover the hole, replaced with some alloy sheet (from the Sign of the year!) Metal from that trailer is in 5/5 classic cars we own now. Removed interior: Easiest approach is just remove everything to get eyes into all the corners of the floors and etc, and much easier give everything a good cleanup. Floor condition is most excellent, no rust at all! 'New' Underlay (free second hand stuff) to replace the original horsehair stuff that was a bit smelly and flat. I think the front carpet might be ex-torana too, it doesn't quite meet up with what im pretty sure is the original HQ rear carpet. Both carpets are in nice nick, and we will cover the gap (which under the seats) with some cheap nylon outdoor carpet from m10 that we will also use for the parcel tray that is also unmolested by axe holes for 6x9s etc. Rear came up nice as well, car has a tan interior with dark brown headlining - class! Removed the steering wheel and cleaned it, spayed the steering column black (was grey and still has the column change mech in it) and tidied the dash (omg its so janky!) up a touch, and also the wiring behind it mainly by removing anything that has added in as it either twisted, sometimes taped, chock blocks or vampire taps. And then remove the dead weight out of the boot to make room for bodies and crates of DB Its easily 80kgs, empty Things will likley slow down a bit now, as from here its time to start spending money on parts, most likley starting with brakes which i have not even had a wheel off yet to even check what they are apart from being discs up front and drums out back) I suspect the weird too easy/dead stop half way pedal/no brake function issue is the piston is jammed halfway down the master cylinder, as there is no leaks from any soft lines, and lots of fluid in the MC.

Then of course it was time to have a good look while cleaning it a bit, and taking stock So, its a 1974 Holden HQ Belmont Sedan in Orchid Red. Last wof/reg in 2001, so was on the road into Kpies early 20's around the same time i met her. Seems it also got the Torana front seats, maybe the centre console? Interior looks pretty good under the dust. Overall looks pretty straight and complete. Some rusty bits of course but not too bad at all for one of these 8s out back and 7s up front, massive CNG tank in the book gives it a rake. This car was a NZ new factory 202 manual 3 on the tree car. Bill bought it cheap from a guy who bought it to put the v8 that was in it into something else, or something - bought with no engine in it anyway The engine and box now in it is a 173 (2.8l) with a manual 4 on floor from the aforementioned rolled Torana, which had recently had a fair bit spent on the engine (??) It has a single barrel Stromberg and also has CNG. Only $4.20 to Whanganui! Took the plugs out and oiled the cylinders, cleaned the sparkplugs and filed the points and hooked up a battery. Neighbours come to assist. Many opinions were shared We managed to get it to fire off on squirting gas down the yap, but it just wouldn't keep running. The consensus is that the timing and/or the electrics are weird Brake pedal does nothing till halfway then hard stops, no braking action. Handbrake kinda works. Engine isnt stuck and clutch is free and gearbox goes into all gears. Bill is stoked it fired up, Kirsty is happy, and that it rolls at all is good enough for the transporter man. We push it back in the shed to wait for the transporter

Organized time off and ferrys etc and a cool 10 days hanging in Fielding. Real barn find! Her names on it so this must be it. We pumped up the tyres and had a general look around one day Then cleared all the stuff out over the next few days, did a lot of gardening too, Hooked it up to the van and pulled it into the light

85mm long = To me that looks to sharp on the inside of the outer runner (middle runners look fine throughout). 100mm long = 110mm long 120mm long = Yeah haven't changed pulley so will be 50 degree one, interesting, might have to end up putting it back on the dyno after the ITB's to look at all that. I have been offered the use of one, just need to upskill in being able to tune.

Yeah most people don't try anything that long, due to fitment / too hard basket in a lot of engine bays. But its really where the advantage is. when it comes to getting it dyno tuned. Id suggest having a way to try 20-30mm either way from that 320 length. is enough to see the power curve move around, to see if your in the right place. even though can shuffle it a bit with the vct , there still a litte bit to be had getting it bang on. If going to make a plenum for it. make it big as possible. same deal with feed pipe. Yeah kinda re the skunk2 manifold, the runner length thing works just the same on turbo stuff though. It keeps coming back to the packaging thing and being a diddle to make. shiny parts sell.

one word -> packaging they will be aiming for the 3rd harmonic (itb's, the skunk2 maybe even 4th) im aiming for the 2nd, which is stronger = more power tapered is said to accelerate the air. maybe. but are also losses in the pipe, so need to go bigger further from head to keep flow the same as. real world isn't much effective length difference with taper, unless is way too much. or turns into a massive bell mouth, which will act like the pipe ends part way down the bellmouth into the runner, rather than the face. in your case yeah i would taper out soon as get past the throttle plate. Example of engine not caring too much if runners are too big; The runners on the manifold i made are 2.25" tube. think its 53 or 54mm id. half way around the bend it starts tapering down to the port. so yeah its big. bigger than the rbc intake and huge compared to the stock k24 manifold. but still gains power right down at 4000rpm. close to 10% at that point, so not a small gain either. Another example. The only place my 4age with 52mm throttles drops below a stock engine is under 2000rpm.

ITB's Next Step So the wiring is now done just needing testing. The ITB's are a long term thing I need to slowly work through. So while rewiring I pulled the manifold off so I could measure the ports and create a flange in CAD so I could slowly work on the manifold adapter. So much crap on the internet I did a lot of research on the internet around K20 ITB's and the port sizing, and can confidently say some manufacturers have both the port angle and port size wrong in their drawings (and that's their job to get right) Jenvey are definitely the ones who have it the dimensions right and that's backed up by feedback from someone who has tested a few and found them the best. The jenvey ones are 48mm and everyone says that bigger then that is better (e.g. 52-54mm), but that ultimately depends entirely on where the throttle blade is positioned with the system. e.g on the following diagram, A, B and C are all different plate sizes but really have no impact on the amount of air being ingested, however position does have an impact on response and driveability (closer to head being better). So the Honda K20a CL7 port size is equivalent to 46mm throttle plate, which means if you put the throttle plate at B (48mm) you have accounted for the restriction it causes. Jenvey looks to keep a straight section (no increase/decrease in size) of 46mm diameter for a length of 85mm from port to throttle body flange. I suspect that is because you don't want to take energy away from the air by trying to increase it's velocity just before it goes into the head, but could also be packaging etc. I'm just speculating here. Additionally Jenvey have the port angle at 17.5 degrees, which when I measure is perfect for dead center (vertically) of the port as it narrows. Where as they others have 14/15 degrees which means the top side has a sharper angle then the bottom (which is flat). So I can see why Jenvey perform, their experience shows in actually getting the basics right. So they are the ones to copy as I can't afford their full kit BMW S1000RR ITB's Now the S1000RR ITB's are 53mm entry, 48mm plate and 42.84mm exit with a 3.5 degree taper on walls. The exit is not good if port size is 46mm., however I'm confident I can bore them out with a little effort on the lathe to 46mm which would be perfect, I only need to bore 10mm into them, so don't have to worry about the throttle plate. So I pulled them apart to see how hard it was and if it was possible to put each half on the lathe as is without having to completely dismantle the plates Then they wouldn't go back together, a small bit of panicking later I was thinking I would have to dismantle them which would then mean they needed to be resynced. But in the end I 3d printed a tool that now allows me to put them back together as they were from factory, so that's a massive win. Bore spacing was the other worry the ITB's are roughly 83-82-83mm and the CL7 is 94mm, but it turns out that it's close enough that it will be fine. So I can proceed with the ITB's and the design of the manifold to suit them. My intention is to mount the standard Honda injectors into the manifold in the same place as the Skunk2 manifold (close to head) so that the transition of the tune to the ITB's is easier, then setup outboard injectors at a later stage (and just block up the BMW ports). I'm not rushing this so it will be done when it's done. Just in comparison here is what others have done to fit bike ITB's to a Honda K series. https://www.jimbositb.com/product-page/throttle-body-adapter-plate-k24 https://danstengineering.co.uk/Honda-Civic-Type-R-K20A-Bike-Throttle-Bodies-Kit-GSXR1300-46mm-STARTER-PACK Feel free to tell me I'm an idiot here;

So I acquired a 3d Printer a wee while back and I've been learning how to design and create prints, and I finally had a cool job race car job for it. I needed to lengthen the Watt's linkage slots so I can lower the linkage to get more grip out of the corners, and it's really important they are straight to keep the axle alignment. So I 3d printed an insert that I could then outline the slot and center point for drilling the end of it out. Worked a real treat and allowed me to do a much nicer job. So the big downside of using @Roman ITB's are they are electronic, this means 2 TPS sensors, 2 pedal sensors new relay to supply power to the B plug of the ECU controlled by the ECU, and repinning and moving connections around. I had thought at the time when wiring the car about DBW and thought "na I'll never go DBW" Sigh. So knowing it was a pretty big job I thought it might be worth remarking the top of my current manifold as an interim measure, so with Daves help I designed up a new top cover. But once I got to that point I could estimate the amount of material need to print it and I was also very concerned with the strength of it hanging off the side of the engine with throttle body with the only attachment being bolts threaded into it, I'm sure it's all solvable with time and effort, but I knew I wanted to do ITB's so scrapped that plan. It did give me lots of experience designing a complex shape which was good. So onto the wiring job. My goal was to rewire ready for the ITB's but still run the Intake manifold for now. So I previously had these bulkhead connectors to the engine. And they are nice, however having had them on the car for a while I wasn't happy with them. They are big, but more importantly they are impossible to work on e.g. good luck getting the very center wire out. They do make it much easier for when testing the wiring as they provide a nice test point for connections, but otherwise they are really ideal for if you had another engine with the loom ready to go and drop in, but in reality I'm not a big race team doing that I'm just a club racer. So my goal was to create something that was more modular that I could upgrade/add bits over time easily. So I designed this in Fusion 360, printed mockups got it to how i wanted it, then had it laser cut and then @ajg193 machine the slots for the clips on the back side. It has standard Deutsch DTM/DTP connectors which were a bitch to work out how to retain, and they still aren't quite right (but that's to do with the clips on the back and I think I can do something better). But it will work for now. Really happy with how it turned out. It runs the following. 1: DTM12 (Front of engine) - Crank, Vtec, VTC, Oil Pressure, Oil Temp 2: DTM12 (Back of engine) - Exhaust Cam, Intake Cam, ECT, Starter, Alternator feed 3: DTM12 (Intake) - IAT, MAP, TPS Main, Fuel Pressure, ISCV. 4: DTM12 (Front of car) Transponder (can deal with lights etc in the future if required) 5 DTM8 (Gearbox) Speed sensor 6: DTM8 - Ignition Coils 7: DTM8 - Inboard Injectors 8: DTM8 - Outboard Injectors (not used at present) 9: DTP2 - ECU Ground to engine head 10: DTP2 - EWP 11: DTP2 - Fan 12: DTM4 - Can Lambda Connector 3 has everything wired up for the ITB's as well so just need to change engine side to suit, also potentially supports variable velocity stacks (BMW S1000R comes with them as standard). The idea is If I suddenly need a new sensor, I can easily splice it in to the engine side, and just run a single wire back to ECU. I've also wired extra sensors into the steering columns for the pedal sensors and clutch in the future so they will be straight forward to add later. Car is finally back together, It's running but I need to get it out on track again just to make sure everything is still good.

So things have moved along rapidly in diagnosing the power loss. Lol I had Dave at Dtech motorsport look over the tune and logs, as he has tuned more then a few honda K engines. He was fully happy with the tune and thinks it looks all good. Best guess at this stage is the intake manifold (Skunk 2 Ultra Street with 2x .5L plenum spacers) is to big for the stock engine. He advised removing the spacers initially, but unfortunately they are also used to get the throttle body into a position where I can get the intake pipe around the oil cooler duct. So onto moving forward with my ultimate long term (now short term) plan which is ITB's. Aside from the power gains (hopefully) they will mean I can do a really nice cold air intake setup. The car was built with lots of space in that area to play around as I knew I would eventually end up at this point. The recommendation from him is Jenvey Tapered ITB's as they perform the best. https://store.jenvey.co.uk/honda-k20-ep3-sf51-taper-kit-ckha07-kit I don't have the money for that, so over the coming months (in no rush for this) I'm going to backyard build a setup. I have aquired Roman's BMW S1000RR 48mm ITB's and will 3D print manifold, trumpets, airbox, intake to suit. It's electronic and I currently run throttle cable, but I think I have enough outputs/inputs on ECU and can just buy an new linkage kit for my existing pedal (https://tiltonracing.com/product/600-series-throttle-pedal/), that it probably makes sense to keep it electronic and not need to put Idle up valve in. Just going to be a lot more wiring i was trying to avoid. however the benefits probably outweigh the pain.

Clutch: So the aftermath of a clutch spring letting go. Bit's also made a small hole through the bellhousing. That was a new Exedy HD S2000 clutch, there were warnings on the internet about using them, I thought it would be ok as light weight car, and previous Exedy with the BEAMS handled a ton of abuse. Wow was I wrong, DO NOT use this clutch, after taking it out we could see wear on the posts and clutch springs where they were binding, it's just not designed correctly for the loads. Decided to try an Action Clutch (Considered Xtreme Clutch, but had a friend who's plate exploded on his car and made a bigger mess...) this time, at least the springs shouldn't be able to come out... Adapter Plate/Flywheel So while we were swapping that we found the input shaft bush was showing a lot of wear and was no longer concentric. I run a standard adapter plate (with flywheel to suit), they say on their product page "Precision machined from 6061 this adapter features perfect dowel pinned alignment and all hardware needed." Of course when I went to bolt it on one of the dowel pins wouldn't go in, I was in a rush for various reason and it become a one is in, that should be enough... Turns out yeah no, you really do need 2, we think movement between gearbox and engine has caused it to wear, which damaged flywheel where the bushing sat. The adapter plates also don't have a huge number of bolts holding everything together, especially at the bottom where their is the highest load. Adapter Plate Originally the gearbox bolted up to the adapter flange with 3 bolts (yeah I wasn't to impressed by that at the time, but a lot have been sold, so figured it would be ok), it's now been all modified to have 7, and more coming in from the engine side. We also managed to get one bolt at the bottom to go all the way through from the gearbox to the engine sump bracing (highest load). It won't be moving anywhere now... We machined the flywheel to fix it up and put a proper bearing in it (2032 6 series - I think from b series), so that should also take some mis alignment better. Engine mounting points, top of adapter plate sits above the top ones. Gearbox Shifter Linkage For any one interested, here's a good photo of shortening a gear lever linkage on an Honda S2000 AP1 gearbox to move it forward which i took while it was out.

So... Diff flange was all fitted up and the driveshaft was fitted and then checked against the instructions from The Driveshaft Shop, and it was too short... It was extended as far as it could go so could not thrust out if required. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I had even double checked the measurements on the quote via email before ordering and asked if it took into account the thrusting and they said yes... When building a driveshaft it's a fundamental measurement, to fuck that up time and time again as I had been pre warned shows that they don't have the process and checks and balances in place to ensure the consistent quality of their products. I contacted the original salesman and he was very responsive, he got me to take measurements with driveshaft in place and quickly had a spacer for the rear diff made and shipped out to me at their cost. (luckily the driveshaft was short, if it was to long that would be an interesting discussion...) Once I had the spacer I made up the heat shielding for the front of the driveshaft, the carbon shaft has warnings on how hot it is allowed to get, and also I want to protect the CV joint from getting exposed to to much heat to prolong it's life. I have a new speed sensor on the way as my one is behaving really weird (cutting off the signal at 5000hz), hoping that solves the problem. Next step is get the car out on track again for a shakedown to see if I've improved the way the cooling works and fingers crossed the driveshaft solves the vibration issues.

Flange has been done, and will get fitted this week. I can run the current driveshaft I have or the new one. Just press fits over existing flange. Original flange probably would have been fine with the forces involved and the fact it would have mainly been a clamping force. But I decided it's just not worth running the risk considering the catastrophic consequences that could occur. Come up great. So it turns out 0.5mm aluminum wont withstand 200km+ who would have guessed, I am surprised it actually survived a few laps. I had strengthened the bottom edge, but ran out of material before I could do the rest and got the car on track. Repaired version, with nice rounded edges for the airflow (not that I need any extra, keeping the car in the temperature zone is actually the biggest issue). Painted and it fits in nicely (ignore raw unpainted panel below, at some point will get splitter off and paint that, but not a priority). Sharp eyes will notice the grill is open, once car is fully shaken down and working how i want, then I will blank that off and feed cold air into the intake from the left headlight. Very long term It would be nice to have a fibreglass/carbon piece that replaces the grill, headlights and side lights as one piece, then put a vinyl photo on it to make it look normal. would save a couple of kg and be a lot more aerodynamic.

Some progress has been made. Driveshaft was sent up north to be balanced at a higher speed and the UJ's were tightened. And so had it out for another shakedown at a local sprint day. First race just took it easy checking things over (pretty boring video, best to skip). Second race, gave it full beans off the line against an EG civic with K24 and 300hp at the wheels, he got a bad start... Third race on slicks and it started drizzling, but overtook a Porsche and a Lotus... The driveshaft was a lot better, enough for me to push it a lot harder in those videos. But there was still a vibration there that won't be good for components, best guess is it's the angle of the engine/gearbox in the car, front of engine angled to left to clear headers and for weight distribution which means the UJ's are not in sync. Those videos also have me mucking around a lot with the brake bias as that's been all reset, along with suspension changes affecting rear of the car during braking so still getting it dialed in (sprint day you don't get many laps). Other thoughts, is the S2000 Gearbox throw is as short as the J160 with a short shift kit, if not shorter, it's a great feeling box. Also you may have noticed in my older videos I didn't heel and toe, originally that was because it was impossible to with the stock pedal setup and my seating position, but since I have the new pedal box and seat I really needed to learn, so with the minimal seat time I've been trying to get used to it, still a work in progress as you can see in the videos. So the shake down highlighted a few issues. Driveline Vibration still there What we believe is heat soak of the oil temp sensor as it hit 123 degrees, and there should be no way the oil hits that when it struggled to get over 80 on dyno (with some of my bonnet ducting removed which allowed a breeze over the sensor). Getting car up to temp with the EWP is a pain, it's not quite right at the moment. Was setup on dyno perfectly, but the real world has a lot more airflow over radiator. So before Christmas I shopped around for a driveshaft with a CV on the front, basically came down to only one place who were prepared/could make it to handle 9500rpm. Hence a new Carbon fibre driveshaft arrived last week from the Drive Shaft Shop out of the US, i'll be honest I was very hesitant in ordering from them as I had been forewarned by a couple of people about their quality and after sales support. But I had no other options. I can say their pre sales service was good with prompt communication and fast building of it and shipping. It still needs to be fitted into the car, we are just making up a flange that goes over the existing AE86 Diff flange (from the diff side) to better spread the load from the new driveshafts rear Hilux UJ which has a bigger bolt pattern. Here's the difference between Hilux and AE86 diff flanges. Heat soak of the oil temp sensor should hopefully be solved by some new shield i created. The EWP control is a bit if a pain, the duty cycle is controlled by RPM vs ECT. Which is great but i feel it misses another key input which is the speed of the car which affects the car's ability to get rid of heat. So it feels like half the solution to the problem. You can see the duty cycle all over the place here and the pump is barely breaking a sweat (and that's with half my radiator ducting closed off). For the EWP I made up (by hand, no lathe...) a reducer to drop the coolant pipe size down from 30mm to 18mm to slow the water, it goes into the return feed on the radiator after the water goes through the engine. I'm hoping that means I can use more duty cycle in the pump, so give a wider duty cycle range to play with. I've then tweaked the table handling the ewp to try and get it to be more flexible in it's ramp up/down by letting the ECU interpolate in between the cells more, feel free to let me know if this is a stupid idea... Old: New: So once diff flange is done, will aim to get it back out for another shakedown to see if we have finally solved the vibration and see how we are going with ECT. Discussion here:

So what everyone has actually being waiting for, the final comparison between Toyota Altezza RS200 3SGE BEAMS and a Honda Accord Euro R K20a engine in the same chassis Still trying to get my hands on a single dyno sheet with the 2 different engines on it. So this will have to do. Modifications/Setup Toyota Altezza RS200 3SGE: 120,000 k's SQ Engineering Quad Throttle adapter plate 4AGE Blacktop throttles 70mm trumpets Combined Piper Cross Filter Stock Injectors SQ Engineering Slim line alternator (smaller Echo alternator) No Power Steering pump or AC Custom header (TRD Copy) to side exit exhaust 2.5" Adrenaline R muffler Link G4+ Storm (Blue) Engine internally stock Lightened flywheel HD Exedy Clutch J160 Gearbox 3" Driveshaft with sliding yoke into gearbox Oil: Castrol 5w40 Rev Limit: 8000rpm Dynoed in 5th gear 1:1. Honda Accord Euro R K20a: 108,000 k's Skunk 2 Ultra Street Intake Manifold 770cc FIC injectors Skunk 2 74mm Throttle Body. 3" intake pipe from pod filter. Custom header to side exit exhaust 2.5" Adrenaline R muffler Stock water pump replaced with EWP Alternator replaced with smaller Honda D15 one. No Power Steering pump or AC Stock Oil Pump and Balance Shafts replaced with ported Type S oil pump. New Timing chain Lightened flywheel HD Exedy Clutch Link G4X XtremeX Honda S2000 AP1 Gearbox 3" Driveshaft with sliding yoke built into shaft as gearbox has flange VTEC 4500rpm Oil: Castrol 5w40 Rev Limit: 9000rpm Dynoed in 5th Gear 1: 0.94076 Same: Tires 54cm Michelin Slicks at 21 PSI, on same Rims Same AE86 Diff (Brakes were changed from stock to AP with knock back) 4.5555 Crown wheel and Pinion. Same Dyno Different: Dyno retarders have changed from 110v to 220v. Results 3SGE : 201hp @7250rpm 173.6 lbft @5150rpm K20a: 206HP @8250rpm 167.9lbft @5300rpm Thoughts I'm a little bit disappointed in final figure, but I think my expectations were to high. You have to take all the HP figures that everyone posts with a grain of salt. Especially anything from the UK who like to give made up flywheel figures when they dyno there cars on a rolling road... Changing from a front wheel drive to rear wheel drive setup definitely has more drivetrain loss, from what I've read a factory stock S2000 AP1 with 240/250hp at the flywheel dynos 200hp at the wheels. Also a lot of people show "stock internals" figures which include changing cams etc. So the power figure is in the right ballpark really for the modifications (stock K20a has 220ps at flywheel) as rear wheel drive. Looking at some of the NZ figures I have seen, the engine would probably get quite a gain (20 to 30hp) from a set of drop in cams (no other valve train changes) But if you ignore the single figure and look at the dyno sheet it pretty much makes 200hp from 6700 rpm all the way to 8700 rpm which is a very significant power band. So overall, it's a good improvement. Shakedown So I then got it out to the track and managed 4 laps before the gearbox lost most of it's oil when a bolt came loose. Luckily I was going fairly slowly so no internal damage done hopefully. However a bigger issue is a massive driveline vibration. Plan A: Driveshaft is getting balanced at 5000 rpm (it does 9500 rpm in 6th) Plan B: CV Front joint on the same shaft, or a replacement driveshaft. Driveshaft is to short to go 2 piece and we think the angle of the engine and gearbox is impacting the universal joints. However aftermarket CV joints for these are supposedly not very good. So currently looking at options. Car definitely felt like it was pulling really hard, but with so few laps, and me just making sure everything was working, not a good indication of final result. Videos: First 2 Laps: Second 2 Laps (where it dropped the oil): Flyby (Potato Cam):