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So in all of my froth I neglected to take account of my handbrake shenanigans. The exhaust route was a but tight (see comparitive pic 1 below) and whilst would have been fine if no handbrake stuff was going on the diff, I realized I was blindly ploughing on without considering that. Luckily I hadn't finished the exhaust, so I spent a night chopping it up and rerouting with more space around the diff head, it's much better. Just gotta connect the headers now, hopefully tonight's mish. I'm excited to hear it.

Well thats the cracked block stripped And #2 motor on the stand...will strip it later today.

I can't quite remember the exact moment that I suddenly became aware that I needed an FD RX7, but it became a full blown itch over the next few weeks, checking trademe and FB marketplace pretty much daily - but also noting that the price of these cars was starting to tick down, and a lot of stuff wasn't selling. So the third time the price dropped on this one particular machine that was already in the cheaper category happened to coincide with half a dozen beers in my gut and before I knew it, I was the proud owner of a 1997 FD3S so it arrived on the back of a truck, which I am told is how these vehicles generally prefer to travel from A to B It was a quiet day so I anticipated this wonderful opportunity to dig around the thing and see where and how I'd been hoodwinked, but instead the towie turned up at exactly closing time so all I could do was roll it into the shop and bugger off for the weekend.

In poorly-made things out of scrap, knocked up a nectar feeder for the local birbs. Seems to work...

What possibly could go wrong did go wrong. The MC needs new seals. I thought it might and should have had it done earlier. Anyway I found a reasonable replacement rear rubber spring seat as one of the ones I had was a bit nackerd. I fitted that and now the car sits level. So I lowered it down and dragged it out for a wash and to see how it sits. The ground outside is not level but it’s the best I can do for now.

You haven't mentioned what it's like to sleep in? Or is the wife ok

Dirty shitty fucking black mess .. thats how I would describe this motor. But original And well worn... the chain tensioner was almost all the way out and the chain just slipped off Motor is full of rust but no way ner as bad as the last bloody and the frost plugs hadn't rusted through....thats a good thing But shitty fucking black mess every where.. Will give it a good clean tomorrow maybe and check for cracks.

now the bodykit, I can kinda live without. Initially I went looking for a very stock machine but fate would have it (and not for the first time) I ended up with something very much the opposite. It does look like it'll unpick easily enough if the day comes, although that would mean buying stock guards and a stock bumper and most parts aren't cheap. So I'll stick with the kit for now, the downside of this is that I'm limited to exactly bugger all wheels that will fit. As mentioned it came on Enkei 3 piece wheels which sounds nice, but they don't fill the guards, and sit way too far in (even with the 20mm spacers there's extreme wheel rub if you even think about steering. I thought about changing the lips, I thought about changing the barrels, I thought about how that would mean spending 5k just to end up with some beaten to shit centres just to keep the wheel snobs happy. So I cheaped out and got some 9" -20 Rota RKR's because they're pretty much the only thing that would actually fit, straight off the shelf. Realized what I needed on Friday, found some for sale on Saturday in Cambridge, @RXFORD was coming through on Sunday, they were in Auckland Sunday night, and one of my customers was driving a truck straight past on the way to Whangarei the next day, the system works! (compared to the time I tried to bring a starion engine up from CHCH, which wore out it's welcome with about three different OS members, and THREE YEARS LATER, having never actually arrived here, was sold sight unseen) Despite being only an inch smaller they seem absolutely tiny, it's taken some getting used to. But I can turn corners now. Oh but the previous owner had wandered off with the lock nut key. He sent it up to me but it was too late, I'd already created this piece of art what is it? it's a small piece of pipe with five castellations cut into it, hammered into a slightly larger piece of pipe, and welded up with great enthusiasm and little ability. but it did the job! oh and with a socket welded crookedly on the end because I still had half a rod left and by god I was going to use it

Finished joining the dots. It sounds perfect, not too loud, doesn't get raspy with a rev. I'll post a video some time. I'll put a tail pipe on once it's all together and I figure where it's going to run. It had a slightly noisy lifter sound this time which seemed to dissipate with time and I noticed some fan belt squeal too. Perhaps I couldn't hear those things prior when it was uncorked. Will investigate. Stoked to get to this point. It's no show pony but good enough. Final engineering tasks on/around chassis are to mount spare wheel hanger a bit further back, as the muffler occupies the position where that was. Build the handbrake caliper mounting. Finish gear shifter things. I got an auto column shifter from an early Previa at pickapart which have a similar 4 speed auto. It also has an overdrive button. I need to check out lever linkage ratios but have a pretty good idea how that's all going to go, half of it's already built. Probably only other things are to build an additional fresh water tank which will occupy void above the trans or down low in front of radiator above front axle to push a bit of weight forward to counter the engine setback and spare wheel shift. Also think about mounting a trans cooler - I'm not sure if I should do this now or just wait till it's on the road and measure trans oil temp to get a feel for size of cooler needed?

Last thing today I took it for a drive around the airport which was interrupted by a BZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ which was pretty fucking obviously trying to tell me something was up. the "add coolant" buzzer and light was on and the temp was definitely higher than it should be. I had drained and flushed the coolant a week or so ago and thought I was pretty diligent in bleeding the air out, so I topped it up (and it wanted quite a bit), gave it another run, and... coolant all over the floor, under the overflow bottle. I had admittedly seen a little bit of coolant on the floor after driving it in but to be honest I filed it under "I don't want to see that". So again, another "ohhh that's why it was cheap" moment. bad water seals? is the engine pressurizing the coolant and blowing the water out of the separation chamber? nope, just a bad pressure cap on the chamber. topping up the filler, it was running straight out of here and into the expansion tank. with a bit of heat in it it would've been fair pumping out. a $37 fix, and everything's back to normal Suppose I should talk about how it actually drives? so yes it starts hot and cold (and very hot!) so I think the engine is, actually, pretty good. It's got 78k on the clock which is probably still young enough, certainly for what I paid. If it craps out at 100k that'd probably take me decades to run that figure up. with standard porting and turbos it probably doesn't set the rx7 world on fire, power wise - frankly that suits me. my other cars are a pajero and a triumph, and this is the fastest thing I've driven in quite some time. And it's harsh as well, it's loud and smells like two stroke and the suspension is hard as hell. a million years ago I had two series 1 rx7's, one was bog stock and the other one was more extreme than this. 9 times out of 10 if I was going somewhere I'd jump in the standard one. So I'm super glad that this has a comfortable interior, I guess I just wish it were a little more tame. maybe I'm getting old? Only real plans to come are to hunt down the last bits of interior and get it wof'd ........."shouldnt take much" says the previous owner.........

Then I hit the first major red flag - I'd been expecting an "ohh, THAT'S why it was cheap!" moment, and perhaps here it was: Excuse me what the fuck is going on down here? I do not appreciate busted wires and shit. At first I thought a rat might've gotten into the engine bay and chewed through the loom, but I found the rest of the wiring wrapped around the crank pulley shit, I hope it isn't anything importa-aaaand it's the oil metering pump so just to tell you guys how to suck eggs, that's the pump that feeds a wee bit of oil into the chambers to lubricate the seals. Now I did a bit of reading and discovered that the pump on the FD is a stepper motor controlled one, so presumably that means when the wiring got torn out of it, it just failed at whatever flow rate it was allowing at the time, as opposed to stopping working altogether. Hopefully that position was full tit max flow. SO, how long had the pump been fucked? Normally this would throw a fault code, but this thing has an aftermarket ECU so no dice I very politely contacted the previous owner and he said that he'd never seen the busted wires, and frankly knew nothing about it. One interesting tidbit was that he said he had had some boosting problems with the (notoriously finicky) sequential controls on the turbo, had replaced a solenoid, but the problem had come back shortly afterwards, and that that was when he decided to sell the car. Why is this topical? Because when the metering pump loom was torn to bits, it pulled a hose off the vacuum chamber for one of the solenoids! So there's every chance that this occurred pretty much the last time this car was driven. Needless to say it's on premix now.

Got my water piping all sorted. got TBL to bend up some stainless tubing to match up to the Franklin performance kit and EWP. just need some nice joiners now. got my oil line fittings , but they forgot to send out the 2nd 180, so that’s a job that won’t be done til next week, dang. also finished off the drivers seat mount. Added in crush tubes to all mounting points. will sort the passengers side over the weekend and make the doubler plates. I also picked up a pair of FC RX7 rear calipers today f RT on Ryan at Sprint RE, even got the cables with them and adaptor plates (although for a hilux), just need pads. the adaptor plates are so close to being a perfect fit to the b1600 diff too. But it gives me something to work from anyway.

Well my exhaust making lesson comes to an end, but not the way I'd hoped. So after last time's episode about the pipe hitting the floor I decided to get some more bends and put it out the way in the path that the other exhaust took, just without the giant mufflers. So far so good. I also used Australia's entire supply of copper goop which generally worked ok except for the parts where it linked from the old and the new, seemed to leak most there. Turns out the solution was just add more goop. Then I ran the car a bit more on the stands after putting together a slightly better muffler hanging system. All was well so far; even got it to idle a bit better. Once I dropped the car down and.. well not so good. The portion that goes over the diff no longer goes over the diff but now into the diff, and as a result snapped the bolt holding my muffler on so it went on the piss. Additionally the car does not go low on the passenger side because it's stuck on the exhaust. I did also notice when looking at other people's exhausts that mine was routed weirdly over the diff so it's just a disaster all around. I did have an inkling that would happen but I wanted to use that route for two reasons. 1) Had that muffler so tried to reuse it and 2) research suggested people were not keen on the under diff due to the potential difficulty when jacking the car up. It just occurred to me I'm putting the exhaust together with the car already jacked up which means it's already at max droop so point 2 basically moot. There was some legality issue about it as well but clearly that's not really something I'm worried about. So after all this fucking about did I get anything out of it? Maybe 10mm more ground clearance and a lot of noise. I think what I'll do is just pull off that muffler and basically end it at the diff for the time being, just so I can move it around for some sweet instagram photos and then park it forever. I was going to try get this ready for a classic meet in early December but I'm actually going to be in Japan so no need to rush on it. Oh, one good thing though I found a brand new oil cap, so that's nice. Now that crusty water pipe and the K-Tuned filter does my nut in.

So the car is from the other end of the country, I did zero due diligence other than a quick carjam to make sure it actually existed, asked a few questions, got a few replies, pulled the trigger so first impressions; the exterior has definitely seen better days, the kit is cracked in multiple places, the paint is faded / blistered especially around the engine bay, the spoiler is gone (by request of the previous owner who wanted to keep it, no argument from me) leaving mount stubs all over the boot, the wheels are just there to get it rolling, the offset is totally wrong, they rub everywhere and have been kerbed with incredible thoroughness Comparatively, the interior (which wasn't mentioned at all in the ad and I only got a few grainy photos of) is much nicer than I expected. It has a half cage which I originally planned to ditch on day one but honestly the back seats are completely worthless. The seats are factory, it's got a few extra bits and pieces inside and some carpet missing which I'll hunt around the internet for The engine bay is a bit sad. First up: wedding night surprise, she's not a natural yellow. bit of a bummer but oh well. Still on the factory turbos which is a nice indicator that perhaps it hasn't had too much of an ass-kicking in it's life. Rusty water everywhere which set a few alarm bells ringing. airbox is gone and all that's left is ugly stock induction pipes flapping in the breeze and some chafed through pod filters So I cleaned everything off and spent a few dollars on things shiny and frivolous The stock air pump was sitting there but was unplugged, not sure if the ECU had been tuned for it or not, the previous owner had done some work recently (more on that in a minute), maybe he had left it unplugged by mistake? I got rid of it anyway as I really just wanted to get in and tidy everything up. Pic 75% complete as I had to block up the air pump inlets on the induction and fit a new alternator/water pump pulley and belt with the air pump gone. Tightest alternator pulley nut ever, holy shit

New pump fit the factory pod pretty well wiring was same gauge plug was different soldered the joints and covered using the submersible fuel line that came with the pump as I didn't trust the heat shrink I had. Old fuel filter on pump was utterly rooted pump itself looked fine. Managed to salvage the factory flexible hose and reuse on the new pump.

Got the front of the roof chopped three inches. I need to cut a small piece out of the centre to get it to line up. When you look at the windscreen surround it tapers in towards the bottom a fair bit.

I probably need to have an engine hold its guts in for more than 3 minutes at a time first. haha. Hopefully I'm past the worst of it and can start getting to the good part... (drawing graphs and posting them on the internet) He's got very different objectives to me, so I dont think a collaboration video would make much sense. As he's running a business and looking for the cost/benefit point of making parts and so on. So ultimately his videos are promotional material for his business which is cool. I think it's awesome he's able to do that as a full time gig. I dont really add any value to that equation. One thing that I'm keen to test though, that he's pointed out as a flaw with factory cams. Is that he says there is a bank to bank imbalance because of the way the rockers work. I am thinking that this imbalance likely completely goes away once you have one bank's home position advanced slightly ahead of the other. Rather than assuming that the zero degree "hard stop" is each cams zero point in relation to each other. However that's just my theory and he's done a lot more testing than I have, so I could be totally wrong on that one.

I need to get some more pics but stock photos would probably cover most of this off. Other shit I found, well going back to day one when I jumped in it to fire it up and drive it off the truck, it fired up real nice, except the oil pressure gauge which was cheerily sitting at zero. so I'm sitting there while the towie mucks around getting his ramps lined up, wondering if I'm rooting what's left of the engine, but I figured if it actually had zero oil pressure, the towies would have already blown it to bits when they absolutely would have taken it for a hoon at some point on it's way up here. Turns out the senders are notorious for crapping out, I pulled mine and its resistance range was way out. SO I JUST BOUGHT A NEW ONE AND IT TOOK ME 30 SECONDS TO FIND IT ONLINE AND IT WAS THAT EASY BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HAVING A CAR THAT ISNT AN OBSCURE 40 YEAR OLD MITSUBISHI IS ALL ABOUT Ventured underneath for a look and found the powerplant frame cracked through apparently this is another very common fault on these cars, this one has an aftermarket Mazdaspeed brace (or a Mazdaspeed badge on a red painted factory brace?) but apparently they're barely any better. Will zap it up where it sits

I'll get some popcorn.

My grandads wheelbarrow. Was a man that did everything by hand on a hilly property with the wheelbarrow. Had mixed up many cubes of concrete until he got too soft at 87 then he brought a concrete mixer. Was a little worse for wear and tyre was toast so disassembled for a blast and paint down the line, factory colour tub and frame in chassis black. Spent $10 more then a garbage tyre from M10 on a 3.00x8 Shinko scooter tyre, was a bitch to get on but now have a tyre even when flat that has a stiff enough carcass to be pushed around. Good for 100kg at over 80kph so good enough for home. Button head stainless cap screws because im shallow and like stuff like that Is going down to my sister in Gisborne so good to see it get another life.

I’ve got a good pair of chrome Lucas spotties you can have for postage, they’re the type that mount off a bumper. If you’re interested I can get a pic.

Back in the 80s dad worked at a place that owned a fleet of 6cyl holden utes. (Dad reckons they were unreliable trash,) one of them had a 202 black motor that threw a rod/punched a hole in the block. They found some clever welding outfit who glued the block back together. (I would presume the bore would have needed a sleeve)

Better pic yeaterday in sun. But reposititioned after watching birds landing preferences...

Yeah I understand that. But I would just prefer to start with a none cracked block

Also living vicariously through this thread. The old lady had one for about 2 weeks and ended up taking it back to the dealer as "It were shite" and got her 635 CSi back... The brother in law had a red one a few years ago but since he has the mechanical knowledge of a banana, when it popped some plastic cooling system components he just pushed the car off to one side and left it for a year or two - I was very close to taking a bunch of cash to him and rescuing it: If it hadn't cooked up, replace the rooted plastic parts and proceed. Or if it had, remove the dorito and replace it with something terrible such as a well built 1.9TDI. Hopefully your WOF list is very minor and you can enjoy the car over summer!

I'm sort of trying to avoid messing with it too much, especially if it was going to need re-tuning etc. If the turbos give up I really can't say if I'd go hunting for another set of twins or go with an upgrade. Someone does appear to have replaced a lot of the hoses in the rat's nest, PO said he'd gotten in there to replace a solenoid so perhaps it was him It's got an Apexi power FC (with a hand controller - for when I want to press some buttons and make it explode?) Honestly they are just such a gorgeous car I just had to have one. Like everyone, I wish I'd bought it ten years ago for half the price, but that's life. And it is so refreshing to deal with a 90's car for a change (sorry fellow oldschoolers) not everything is broken, there's no rust, there's aftermarket support, the manuals are in english... coming from the starion to the FD is absolute night and day

Finally got both B pillars finished and finished a bit more on the doors. Have braced it up and gapped the b pillar door hinges. these old Ys had very tight gaps in some parts and even touched with little to no way of adjusting them. i can at least move the cowl around to get better gaps in the front as I’m not bringing the whole roof down at once.

Was advised by a mate to have the injectors cleaned but fuck me that not cheap... $500+ to have my cleaned $690 for a serviced set But mine were bloody dirty But as with most thing.. I decided to pull 1 apart and see if I can do it myself. I found a nozzle in side with a part number.... few Google search later I had a set on the way from the states for less than $80. Once landed i stripped the injectors, cleaned them and rebuilt them with new nozzles Put them back on with new washers. *new waterpump on *oil filter housing on with new filter *inlet on ,*exhaust on. Starting to look like a motor again. And so far .the Bedford, motor, auto ,everything all up..owes me less than $550 and shitnloads of my hours but thats pretty sweet

So ive had this for while now... (about 5 years) Been sat out side mine now (under cover ) for a year or so. And be for that it was a mates bedroom inside his shed.... basically been dry stored since 2011 when the last LD28 died and he gave up on it. I got given this by him as a way of saying thanks for me painting his Valiant hearse .... twice (long fucking story). I didn't ask for anything in return.. but he knew I loved the thing and one day messaged me to say he had put it on my name .... I honestly never thought I'd get it but ..he asked me if I was home one night a year or so ago and dropped it off.. It is reg on hold , original black plates and certified for an ld28 auto. (Had no motor or box ). But all ready converted to a camper on the 80s with gold porn style shag pile carpet. This is how it had been for 12 + years

@smokin'joe I have previous version of the above unit. I signed up to mailing list as they gave decent discount codes to use. Was $330 all up, which wasn't too bad at the time. Thickness it will bend / roll will depend on width. Can bend some ok thickness sheet if it's not too wide.

My favourite line so far! welded up with great enthusiasm and little ability Awesome car! Love it!

Can't remember your cam selection but they do a recommended cam profile https://frankensteinmotorworks.squarespace.com/shop/p/2gr-fe-frankenstein-motorworks-camshafts Looks more aggressive then the kelford options

Not sure if you've seen the latest update good info on factory injectors ie 4bar gives 15% more flow (good to confirm) Also talks about his recommendation on aftermarket injectors. He's developing a billet oil pump gear He thinks the 2GR will do 8500rpm with rods/pistons/headwork. So hopefully the 4grfe will do more

The Plymouth next door to it has lapsed, so might be some more work involved in that when we get to it but the Dodge is live and on hold thankfully

Swung into Rocket this week to check out progressing, Dan and the lads have been hammering it out, bloody stoked on progress. -Have cut the tunnel to allow gearbox to be raised to a better angle (had to come up about 30mm) -Modified gearbox xmember to suit TKX -New driveshaft to suit TKX -Welded up old master cylinder holes in firewall -Fit wideband ports in each header runner -Mounted the pedal box -Mounted wilwood billet reservoirs in the windscreen cowl so nice and hidden away but accessible -Braced EWP as its coming out from the radiator a fair bit -Mounted overflow bottle -Made up the Greens intake manifold kit and welded it up, to get the EFI hardware intake to fit with the MFR airbox overtop and fit under the bonnet -Redid rear diff shock mounts to suit the BC Golds (old shocks had a way narrower eye) -Few other misc holes filled and fab bits done Few things left to do - Clearance floor for diff head an low -Finish sheet metal work for tunnel -Sort brake lines, handbrake cables to suit wilwood rears -Modify MFR intake filter pod to work better with the 20b position /air box angle -Change exhaust to go under diff instead of over (fitted but was really tight and not much clearance) Very happy with how its all coming together and looking!

It's amazing what happens when you have the right tools. Also, fuck Loctite, rust is the best bearing retainer compound.

Not wanting to blow my own horn or anything, but I posted the 2 colour pics above to a b1600 page on fb the other day. shits blown up… it’s been shared all over the show, got 1000 likes and have received many PMs about it. don’t even recall seeing a single negative comment. definitely helped with the motivation

Pretty much sorted the oil line dilemma. i will run a 180 off the front cover to a 100mm of hose to another 180 to get the hose to return to the cooler with a 90. everywhere is too tight to run a continuous hose. This route I believe will offer flex when needed. then I set about my list of stuff I wanted to try and tick off today. got the seat base mounts fitted (ready for the next step). then fitted the second 5 stud axle and front hub on the left side. She’s full 5 stud now. fitted the fuel tank and fuel pump. then started getting some final mock up of factory stuff (heater box, wiper motor assembly, dash panels). this way I can sort the wiring out. discovered that I need to swap the steering boxes over as the one in it is too long to run the steering wheel with the column cover. also mounted the park brake lever, decided to keep the factory unit as it’s ready to go, saves faffing about. now that the heater box and park brake is in, I can now design the centre console. ive had an upholsterer pop by to go over the design, just waiting on pricing now. measured the accelerator cable and speedo cable to get remade. marked out the shifter hole for the 12a turbo box. Then chucked the bonnet, grille and light surrounds on for a photo. loving it, but I do need to lift the front 15-20mm.

The day it was dug out

Day 3: Sundsvall So after the morning thrash with the wheel bearing we were pretty keen to get a run on the board and then re-evaluate the situation, maybe even take it easy we were in 2nd overall in the class so no stress right... We were a bit late after the drive and seting up the pits etc but no worries, got everything sorted, even ended up zip-tying a rag in the drum to catch the oil from the destroyed axle seal. got queued up in a mint Swedish summer day. First pass went well, around a 9.13@125 with an ok 60'. Good enough, or was it... I had the crazy idea to rearange the boost lines and put some boost onto the top of the wastegate to help it stay closed, up until this point it was just disconected and using the emap to blow it open. To aid with control I wired the wastegate on the hx40 closed and routed the boost to the top of the gate throught the boost control solenoid so I could have some control over it. To start with I ran it at 50% duty cycle, lets see what happens... As a side note you can see the dump valve stratergy still working a cham. Turns out that was the right thing to do, it cut a 8.76@130, with a 2.0 60'. I came back around and the lanes were empty, so I had a quick squiz at the logs and everything was GOOOOD, so I bumped the duty cycle up to 75% 8.63@131 2.0 60' , ripper, that put us into 1st place in the class. But the lanes were still open, and there was more duty cycle to be had. lets see what 100%can do... This is how I ended up being towed back to the pits... This is the diff over leaf kit i was using, and due to the funny laws in Denmark around modifying cars I hadn't welded the leaf mounts to the diff, they arent ment to be, but then they aren't made for drag racing either. Turned out that on the launch the axle had rotated in the u bolts and torn some of the spring perches off the axle tubes and munted the cups, broke the rear driveshaft u-joint, which then broke the front driveshaft u-joint, all in all a big mess. The mercedes part of the driveshaft was the difficult part to source, so we got to work asking around the pits if there was any local driveshaft shops that we could coax into action, we got a few leads, but upon walking through the pits, I saw Frederik, one of the other diesel class competitors, who to be quite frank was having a shit of a time, he was runing an old Mercedes with a nastier version of my engine and trans combo. the first day he broke his diff, the second day he had the same issues as me with the timing light, and as it turned out he had broken his gearbox on the drive and had spent all day fighting with it, he was beat, and out. I politely asked him what he was doing with his driveshaft, and he said that if it would help me finish I could have it, so the difficult part was sorted, then I rolled up to the gibb performance truck and after a few trips back and forwards to figure out exactly what it was I was running, I got all of the bits I needed, ok so time for dinner and then get into it. So this is where things got a bit tricky, I had my tig, and I had a generator, but the generator couldn't run my tig, so I hit up Martin in the Hotrod next to us and I could use his generator, but it had swedish plugs on it so I couldn't plug in my tig, so then I borrowed his tig, and his generator couldn't run that either, but luckily the team to the other side of us had paid for power, but that was 50m away so then I had to scrounge 50m of swedish extension cords, which we managed, and so finally the whole operation was under way. btw because of the late start time this all occured at around midnight, thankfully we were so far north in Sweden that we basically had the midnight sun, and there was only a period around 02:00 that we needed torches. But we got after it, beat the spring perches back into shape, welded them on, reset the sway bar and caltracs, assembled both driveshafts and got it back on its wheels, we finished at around 04:30, I had the bright idea that we should have the first hot shower of the week and so we hit the sack, set the alarms for 09:00. After the most peaceful 4 hours of sleep in my life we woke up, packed up camp and hit the road after the days checkpoints.

Day 2: Dala-järna We rolled into Dala-järna around 00:30 and set up camp, had a kip and woke up fresh for a day of racing, on the drive I had given the fuel and boost tables a bit of the old page up action and I was keen to see how this would play out on track. Dala-järna is an unpreped airfield so I knew that we wouldn't be as fast as the day before, but never the less, I riding high on the success of yesterday. I queued up and did a good burnout, things felt good and I stalled it eup, let rip and it felt good, easily as fast as yesterday, so you can imagine my disappointment when Philip handed me a time slip for 11.35... So I queue up again, Dala-järna had a weird system where it was a single line and split into two right at the burnout box, so it seemed to be hugely long but it went quickly. This run it was a red light... So I queued up again, 10.87... and again, red light... By this point I was extremely frustrated, I even call on a few of the other races to help figure out what was goin on. I queued up again, and another red light... This time though Phililp videoed the whole thing, and it became immediately clear what was happening, the 4" exhaust that exits behind the front passenger tyre was bellowing black smoke and tripping the beams. So i jumped on the laptop and changed the control stratergy so that the dump valve would only open when the undriven wheel speed was 3kph. Queued up again, but this time it pushed through the beams and we got a 10.30, better but still not good. One more time, 9.41@127 with a lousy 2.25 60' good enough for 3rd place, and after the shit fight we had we were more than happy to pack up. By around 21:00 we were ready to hit the road, we got the check points and put them into google, we were in for a long night... Basically as soon as we left we could hear something wasn't right in the diff, there was a metallic rubbing noise, but due to the distance we had to cover we ignored it for as long as we could. After about 45 minutes we pulled over next to a lake and inbetween being eaten alve by mosquitos we figured out that the cage in the drivers side wheel bearing had left the chat. We tried out life lines, and got the nummber for Lennart from Gibb performance, who was following StreetWeek around with a truck full with rear end components, but the time was around 23:00 at this point so I guess he was in bed already. At this point we were around 40kms outside of Mora, so we made the call that we were going to limp there, travelling at 30kph gave us time to figure out a plan, and we made the call that we should park at the tyre shop, as they opened first in the morning and their facebook page had some photos of race cars. We got there, parked up and set the alrams for 05:45. We got up in the morning and met them as they were coming into work and whist helpful they didn't have a lead on a bearing. The did suggest that 50kms away there was Proshop which dealt in American junk so not all hope was lost. There was still a bit of time to kill and seeings as the wheel bearing was just a skf ball bearing, we decided to drop into the John Deere dealership and see if there was any luck there, but to no avail. The guys at the tyre shop had pointed us to the Swedish equivilent of Repco, so we started making out way there, on the way there we stumbled upon a place called MECA, which turned out to be a bit like BNT, more aimed at workshops with tools and parts and things. So at 7am, fithy, running on instant coffee an around 5 hours sleep, I rocked in there and asked in English ( Swedish is NOT Danish) if they had a wheel bearing for a Ford 9", to which the old guy behind the counter replied "The 80mm one?", it was at this point I knew I had my guy. After a bit of computer work, some looking in the physical parts catalogue, back to the computer, it turned out they had three, a pair and one other brand, I was a bit scared that this might be an ongoing thing so I bought all three. I asked if it was fine if we changed it in the parking lot and that was ok by them. So we got to work. I cut the old bearing off with the angle grinder and using the armco as a work bench I started hammering the new one on. After ½ hour I decided to ask if they had a press, and it turned out that the old guy had a tractor workshop 3 km away, so I grabbed the axle and jumped in his car. it took around 3 minutes to get it fixed up and ready to go. Turned out old mate only worked part time at MECA to keep the tax man happy and from 11-late he worked under the table fixing tractors for the local forestry industry. If you ever read this Neils, you saved the day, thank you! We jammed the axle back in and hit the road, it was around 10am and we still had quite a journey ahead of us. We made it to the first checkpoint just in time for lunch, so we had food with some of the other StreetWeekers and carried on. We made it to the second check point and everything was still good. it was about here that it started being very mountainous, and I began wondering where they would fit a drag strip... Turns out Sundsvall Raceway is an old coldwar air stirp that is on the top of a mountain, the gravel road leading up to it didn't really let on to the excellent track that awaited us.

Update time Not too much hasn't happened lately. After sorting out a parts car I'd been gather bits n pieces I needed. Got the dash cluster tidy with unbroken plastics and a couple things that were missing, but now I've got something even better for this. Twincam g200w and digi dash! So the plan was my mate had bought the parts car and was taking the motor etc and said anything I need to just take what I need. Grabbed misc parts, trims and also all the rust cuts I need which I now have. Since he's going overseas next year he won't have the time anymore to complete the swap and is tossing up selling his piazza to help fund the trip but only if he can get what he would like for the car. Chatting with him we made a deal and I've now acquired everything to make the swap happen. All engine accessories, wiring, control boxes etc plus the rear garnish and badging to turn mine from a XL spec car to a XE. Stoked!!! The only thing I need to find now is the right size bellhousing/front section of the gearbox. My single cam box will work except the starter is on the drivers side and there is no room for how the block is shaped to fit it. Isuzu used the same box architecture across a multitude of vehicles (box in question being a MSG). Trolling through old forum posts and Facebook pages I've narrowed down that either a 4ZD1 2.3l from a tf rodeo shares the same gearbox but with the starter on the side I need, apparently c190 and c223 non turbo diesels are the same but no concrete info to back this up. Local pick a part has what looks like a 4zd1 tf rodeo atm so will try get down and drop the gearbox out for a look. 150 bucks there for a 2wd rwd box so I could just pick the whole thing up and cut my losses if its wrong. If I'm jammy I may be able to use my current loom to make it work for now and do the digi dash swap later. Will see how it all looks later on as the garage is choka full and can barely work on anything with all the crap around