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As above, brought Shilohs old mig as a gasless only machine. As most people I had only had bad experiences with gasless migs and then applied that opinion to all gasless options. Worked for a place that had a goat farm so welding no prep galv pipe all day and saw how good gasless machine could be for certain jobs. Insert the dairy shed special; -Boc Raptor 160a with all gas parts removed. -Knurled roller -0.9mm ESAB Coreshield 15 gasless mig wire 5kg Is a great combination. Its not for everyone, its not cheap but it serves a purpose that is painful and is cost effective for what it can do. 10 amp so it can run off poor dairy shed wiring and 30m of extension leads. The key for why you would use gasless for dairy work is that all your work is on galvanised pipe under 5mm so you dont need the grunt and because you dont have a gas, the flames/smoke that comes off the galv cant affect the gas if there is none. Basically all your issues you have when welding no prep galv with gas such as green flames, random popping throwing zinc everywhere including down inside overalls, holes in your weld are to do with using gas. Ive always used arc for everything mobile but it can be a pain if your only doing thin work and isnt that fast at all. Here is a job I did this week, breast rail for dairy cows which sits over the top of their shoulders to prevent the new milkers trying to jump out over the top of the rail in front of them. Vertical bars are the pieces cut out of the old dairy shed which was replaced in 2011. Horiziontal bar is the old bore pipe. Minimal prep on the galv, none on the bore pipe welding up. Also a jig I made up for doing fast 90 degree pipe connections. @RXFORD will be happy to see his neighbours clamps still going hard. Works really well for keeping the 2 pipes in the same plane and 90 degrees. And some rawdog testing setting it up. No cleaning, both 2nd hand pieces of material pulled out of the long grass/ground. Not bad penetration.

Been working on the 2 cylinder to work out the programming/process. Learning a lot. For the most part its rigid enough to get a good surface finish, but a couple of faces want to ring no matter what. Luckily a couple of jacking screws sorted it. It may or may not be a problem on the full block but if it is its not a big deal. Unless I forget to remove them before the 4th axis moves!! Now onto the harder part of boring and doing the combustion chamber. Boring should be ok but doing the bowl will be tricky. Waiting on a special tool holder for it.

So this week I made a big push to get the car finished up for cars and coffee today. I got the brakes bled and finished up some last wiring bits and got the loom all wrapped up and mounted the guards properly for the first time since I’ve owned the car. I evened out the heights of the front flares on the rear guards and tacked and screwed them on just to get the car presentable. Turns out the diff is really smashing into the rear floor so I borrowed @lush’s trailer and trailered it down to cars and coffee. I drove it on and off the trailer and had some great yarns with people who really weren’t expecting the V8. I’ve driven the car up and down my road a bit and it’s pretty rapid. I’m pretty stoked to say the least and looking forward even more to getting it on the road.

I'm still busy getting it to not run. I just fitted a 24 tooth trigger wheel to the CAS and put new bearings in it while i was at it. It's now dropping power between ignition on and cranking so the ecu is trying to reset as the engine is trying to start . I'm trying to scope the triggers to make sure that's working and I can't get anything because the ecu cuts out as you hit crank. I did get one very small glimpse of trigger scope that tells me trigger 1 is at 40 volts so that's pretty amazing. Some parts I ordered turned up so I fitted them (new door seals and inner and outer glass seals) and I also put the GPS sender in for the radio because I can't be fucked battling the engine anymore

Yeah, bench tests the same, no juice one side. Maybe it's run dry from being disassembled a few months. I looked at the manual, and looked around online: Consensus is that they're a very reliable part with a long lifetime. Lots of motors use variants of this Mikuni device. A snowmobile guy had a good example of bleeding the pump, but alas, that screw isn't on my pumps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xde96VD8-fY This is similar, and shows that they can be rebuilt if needed, but again, has the bleed screw I don't https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Js4hz74jB1g I do wonder if that was a later addition to the part. I grabbed another pump from my stash, and it wasn't pumping at all. I tried blowing the 2T oil down the tube, but that wasn't priming up up either. The answer seems to be simply to loosen the two screws on the plate and wait for air bubbles / oil at the top, then tighten. The 2nd pump is now working, I'll try the other one again soon, just to check that method works on both. Re-assembly ahoy. Then I can change that carpet... https://photos.app.goo.gl/NigkK3wQnPRRXHom8

Cruising around in the '61 Datsun Bluebird. I've only been driving it local to sort out minor mechanical issues but its almost ready for the open road! Thumbnail is the fresh restoration of the wheels and shod with new tires last spring.

Exhaust finished, for now at least 4-2-1-2 to control the valve in muffler, will use this pneumatic cylinder that the old boy brought home in a box of junk about a million years ago. has been hanging around ever since. vacuum is enough for it to open / close the valve. got a aliexpress 5 port soleniod which will control it via the ecu, with some load based switching. Will wait till car is running and see what it sounds like before bothering with any of that though.

Hola, Small update, between starting a new job this week, getting a horrendous 24 hour shit and spew bug and catching a head cold I've managed to find out a couple of things about the above injector resistor wiring, kind of. That box is indeed the injector resistors The factory car wont run with it unplugged My car does definitely run with it unplugged Thus, I conclude it isn't required anymore this is how it is supposed to look, the other plug is for the ignition ballast resistor, so also not required! The guts of the resistor box All of the visible wires are related to it, some were looped and soldered, others still attached and plugged in, just a schmozzle really, It was clearly "too hard" to remove all of the redundant factory wiring when they put the Motec in way back when.... I guess the good thing about having a car with both questionable reliability and quite a big following by Barrys is many others have had the same issues, figured out fixes and posted about them, the majority of the posts seem to be from about 2005-2015 so hopefully the old jag forums stay up a bit longer!!!!! Hopefully over the weekend i can finish tidying that wiring and chuck the bonnet back on, give it a wash and call it "done" for a bit!! Cheers

@kpr great comparison. ST def the most poos option for ae101. And pretty much 5e reason I went away from 20vs cause making near on 180hp is a lot of work with 20 of the valves. It’s so funny that after all the effort I’ve gone to, I’m only slightly better off than the rubbish factory headers and single plenum. Being able to tune the itb lengths explain filling the holes down low, and a few more rpms help, but otherwise they are identical curves. Which shows there’s something else restricting the potential, or else you’d see more variability with all the different setups. Not upset about this, as it’s a great result to get it all running smoothly, but just interesting to reflect on if all the effort is/was worth it for my setup - objectively, probably not, but intangible joy the doorts and lift brings is something else. Ready to give up on 4ages and figure out 250hp 2zz yet Kris..? It even has 16 valves to make you feel at home

Gaining that extra bit of rpm and power up top can mean a fairly decent difference to average power across a gear shift. Especially in lower gears where the rpm drop is big. Like this would be deceptively quicker than (checks notes) the zero other AE101s with a 2ZZ that I've ever seen

Here we go again.... Oh well, I s'pose 37 years is a fair rust-free innings for a Hilux chassis The rest seems good still so I'll probably replace it with a bit of box section. Interior & front end strip next and then engine out I guess.

Drove this thing to work today. Unhooked the el-cheapo blueteeth module, test the amp with a rca plug, fine, reconnected the module and it works fine. It does get random electrical interference, the old turn off and turn it back on gets rid of it. Took the gas tank out the other night and turned the tie rod half a turn, tracks much straightnesser. It's running real nice now, once she's all warmed up it just hummms.

Yeah good point. My current set has balance tubes built in, but I'm not sure if this actually helps or hinders. I probably need to run all of the lines to the throttles in parallel, with equal length pipes. Where as my current setup was more like it was run in series on each bank. I suspect the cylinders werent getting air evenly from the PCV and would rob each other in slightly different ways. If these throttles are junk and dont seal or whatever, can probably rebore them and/or make some new throttle plates on the CNC. I just didnt really want to have to start from scratch, as figurnig out bearings/springs/sealing/etc is a big project in itself. TL;DR: Avoid multi bank engines, bloody nightmare. Haha

Finally got around to setting it up today, fuck I am absolutely blown away with it! I've always kinda sucked at MIG, so kinda tried to avoid it even though I want to get better at it lol Played with the program auto setting menus then just point and shoot without even a test bead

with the longer trumpets its pretty flat up there (red). probably could still rev it a bit more though. shorter trumpets looks like it wants to keep going. but its just that its making less at 7500. very likely will both fall over within the next 500rpm. Maybe find a touch more in the trumpet length, but its pretty close. probably within 10-20mm of where it needs to be

not yet

Would have kept going for a bit longer, but it the rate of gain and loss of torque was starting to become diminishing returns. At that point, you’re better off hooking another gear and ride the power created from 6-7000 or so

Green is the closest to stock one ive tuned. in original car, stock headers, aftermarket exhaust 2.5'? cold air intake. link ecu and tune. otherwise stock

Seatbelts of that era are quite similar, so you can probably get one/a pair of new aftermarket universal replacement belts that just bolts in Roger at seatbelt solutions in Auckland might be able to help you or there's https://www.autosafe.co.nz/

starting to fill out, got basic table editing happening now.

Love how cheap the obx throttle were. No excuses with 51mm!! Way back, I heard the obx throttles were pretty rubbish for sealing throttle plate/setting up at low rpm. So could be worth including a port in the manifold for a remote idle speed control valve. Then you need to worry less about finicky adjustment.

Pretty successful day with @KPR dyno yesterday. Car ran well all day, no issues and no major oil leaks thankfully (found a dripping gearbox seal but thats about it). Cracker morning coming over the habour bridge. Left home 5am, got home 9pm so big day. Confirmed the 2zzge makes 121 noises - god damn it sounds good. Revving out to 8700rpm as there wasn't much more to be gained up top. In true KPR style, we tried some longer trumpets to bring the power band down a bit. This netted good results, picking up 4-5kw just below lift (5000rpm) and 6-7000rpm (where it will land after a gear change). This resulted in a nice juicy, flat power curve that will be a joy to drive. Original trumpets 135mm long (370mm from valve), ideal setup ended up being 185mm long (420mm from valve). It possible my trumpets were acting a bit shorter too, due to the large diameter bellmouth. I'll eventually do a re-print of the trumpets to adjust a few things and increase the length to what we found works best. Kris essentially did 2x full tunes - one for each trumpet length! Some interesting learnings 1. oil temp makes a big difference to power. the difference between 70-95deg can be a few kw. So thankful I've got the HEL thermostat to go on the oil system. 2. Oil pressure was amazing all day. Dropped off a little up top, but still 80psi at 8700rpm. 3. All the 2zz's seem to make about the same power (131-134-136kw ish), no matter what different setups people run for intake/exhaust. I've done a lot more work to mine than most(11.8CR, 1mm O/S valves + springs, headers, ITBs, underdrive pulleys etc etc), and only making a fraction more power. That is NA tuning the an extent, but can't help but think theres a restriction in the head that needs addressing to unlock a step-change difference in what they make. I've got a spare head at home I can tinker with, but it will probably be a problem for another decade. God damn, I can't wait to street lurk in this car. Looks so cool. Will share some videos in next few days when I get around to putting something together - go see IG for some instant gratification - https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNWf9QJyI7D/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

And all smoothed and ready for paint. Im stoked. Saved a heap of money making all these parts, and retaining the essence of the Dax look.

AG 2.50 After a very pleasant drive down to Whakatane today I arrived home with this haul: (Almost) 1 and a half AG's. The parts these beauties will donate will give me the following: Working speedometer, good mudguards front and rear, better front wheel & less worn tyre, better forks, cables and clips, and ironically a better tank with only one tiny dent in it. I'll put all of the parts replaced back on the almost complete bike and sell it on for parts as there's still going to be some good items that I'm sure someone else will be able to make use of.

This will be a last post for a while since I’m 1000km away from the car with no future plans to pick up, tho part shopping is on the cards, any suggestions for improvements and best priced suppliers. also on Saturday I replaced the window seal on drivers side, after 50years it has become a little brittle

Is that how i ended up with 3 sets. will bring them back once i work out the storage fee

Mate died last week when his truck fell on him. I think I'l start overkilling my jackstand situations now too.

I picked up a box from MBike today. 110cc semi auto. Might fit it tomorrow

Tacked on. I replaced the brake lever so it matches the clutch side too.

I made these clutch and brake perches today. The ST70 dax were auto clutch, so didn't come with provisions for adding a lever. Using some box section that I cut up and welded. Looks the part, matching the factory one, just upsized and stronger.

Bars cut and plugged. There were stress cracks that had been repaired (badly) some time in the last 56 years. I cut the bad bits out as I'm living the good life and its not worth the risk.

Header wrapped. This came out sweeeeet!!!

Big day on the Dax. I made a muffler for it, cut a cracked section of the handlebars out and plugged it, then welded in a support to strengthen the bars. Pic of muffler getting made. Its made from part of an old trampoline and random shit I had at home...

The BMW throttles, I'm definitely not going to be able to get them bored out enough to be worth the trouble. Even if I do, they wont fit on my manifold anymore. So either way I'm remaking stuff. So probably end up hanging on the wall of shame and/or onselling just the throttles etc. Anyone want some? Good for a smaller CC motor with a more normal port shape. Anyway, I'm back to the same old same old. Trying to solve throttle situation. Looking on ebay, aliexpress, where ever else. Seeing if there are any good solutions for a decent throttle size I've not thought of yet. Doesnt look like it, just circling the drain again... Until! Holy shit! How absolutely perfect is this. It turns out that OBX has apparently shut up shop. So they've got a bunch of stuff on ebay for half price. Their full 350Z kit is fairly garbage because the cast lower manifold part doesnt fit properly, and so on. But they obviously have a whole bunch of the throttles on their own to sell. Sweet! 51mm throttle set! For fairly decent price for brand new stuff. (about $700 landed) I'm perilously broke in terms of car budget right now, but this seemed too good to miss. So I've borrowed some $$$ to make sure I didnt miss out on getting a set. As I've not found or seen anything else that was going to work very well. I've started modelling up a new pair of manifolds which will fit these, and cross them over running flat. This is so far working out really well. -The angle of the runner into the port can now be absolutely excellent, with no horrible transitions or shape changes. -Bonnet height is not going to be an issue at all anymore, not even close. -I can have as much room as I could dream for, for runner length, outer injectors, dual stage runners, or whatever other obnoxiously unnecessary crap I can come up with. Awesome! -I've wanted to look at the idea of fitting small, well atomizing injectors in pairs per cylinder. Having one spray down each separated port. So now I can easily fit a fuel rail in the right place to do that. I was running to 79% duty cycle with the 302cc BMW injectors. So fitting a pair of injectors from a prius or similar which are around 220cc. But have zillions of tiny holes (16 I think) means atomization should be incredibly better. Which will likely be a helpful attribute when the injectors are still a fair distance from the valves. Instead of 4 injector holes per cylinder, it will have 32. Bloody good. Haha. This solves an incredible number of my problems all at once. Still a few things to sort out. But should be good! Will be exciting to see the difference on the dyno from last time. Will get a variety of trumpet lengths printed before the next trip up. Wont be any time too soon though. New manifolds and fuel rails (again...) is a fair bit of pocket money. But this feels like its heading in the right direction.

The day finally came, it was the BRZs turn on the track. I've been holding out for this trackday, since it was the first one in the BRZ and I wanted to keep it as stock as possible (except for driveline bushes and things to freshen it up), to experience the car "as it should be" from the factory. This was meant to be in June, to give me ample time before the WOF expires, but thanks to some bad weather it got called off and shifted to July instead, giving me literally a couple of days before the WOF expires. We drove up to Feilding the day before, and the next morning we emerged into a very chilly subzero morning, warmed the car up, melted the ice off the screen and cruised around to the track to get the usual pit. The blue car squad was completed by my friends in their mostly stock ZC33S Swift Sport (which is still faster than me in the BRZ). A stunning, albeit cold, morning After the driver briefing, we did a few laps of the track to warm the cars up and familiarise ourselves with the conditions and layout, and then we were unleashed in groups of either "slow" or "fast". I feel there should've been a "mid" range group, as there were some fast cars/drivers hanging out in the slow class, causing some grief. The first session was BUSY It was hard to string a good lap together with all the traffic, but the car was showing some promise. It gripped well, and hung on in the corners, but it did quickly show up one issue; the brakes sucked. Coming down the front straight on the third lap of the first session, I get hard on the brakes for turn one and suddenly the pedal feels... weird. It's not soft, it doesn't go to the floor, but it feels wooden, like I'm pressing on a block of wood instead of a brake pedal. I've cooked the pads. Damn. I was pulling decent laps already though, my second lap, before the brakes turns bad, was a 1:36.55, already faster than the fastest I went in the Alto at 1:36.91 The next laps were slower, as I wasn't sure at this point what was going on, so I was feeling out the brakes to see if they were still going to work or not. I found there was almost no pedal feel, and it was taking a lot more pressure on the pedal to actually slow the car, and it was a fine line from having that stopping force, to kicking in ABS. You can see from this video the first couple of corners I really have to jump on the pedal to cut the speed. Coming into the pits after the session and it was immediately obvious what had happened, from all the smoke pouring off the front brakes The smell of fried brakes was the smell of the day, for sure. Every session was followed by plumes of smoke like that, from both sides. I was pretty disheartened from that. The brakes were rubbish, and the car felt underpowered. It turned and handled pretty well, considering it's still on stock suspension, but it was leaving me feeling a bit cold compared to how much fun the Alto was. Not to be deterred, I pushed on and went out for another session. After the first flying lap, I decided the brakes weren't going to completely fail, and I just had to work with what I had. So on the second lap, I did this The fastest lap of the day, a 1:32.21. Even though it was the fastest I went all day, I was very consistent in my times, hovering around the 1:32 mark most of the day. BRZ Comparing that to the fastest I went in the Alto, even though the BRZ never really felt "fast", it smashed the Altos corner speeds in most corners, plus some added speed on the straights. You can really see in the BRZ how early I was braking though by the red shading before the corner. Alto 1:36.91 Unfortunately later in the day I decided to go out without the camera running, and did something a bit silly I had been getting a bit cocky with the car, pushing it more and more and getting some little slides out of it here and there. I had been running it in "sport" mode, which reduces the interference from the traction and stability control systems, but for this session I wanted to see if I could reduce it a little more. What I didnt realise, was that in trying to turn off traction control, but leave stability on, I had actually turned the whole lot off. I was on my own. I went into the hairpin fine, carrying a bit of speed, got on the throttle to exit and suddenly in a cloud of tyre smoke I was A: looking at the front of the car that was behind me, through my windscreen, and B: being flung from one side of the track, to the other. Thankfully the car avoided me, and other than my rear wheels just going on the grass, I wasn't stuck and didn't hit anything. It was an impressive 360 though. The car fired back into life after a bit of cranking (I forgot to clutch in) and I sheepishly cruised back to the pits, no harm, no foul. After that excitement I sat out the next session, but the last one for the day I went out and ended up having some fun with an old Holden Commodore race car. I could get right up his backside in the corners, but just didnt have the straight line grunt to catch him. In the end, I backed off a bit for a lap to give myself some clean space later on, as he was actually holding me up and killing my lap times. It was a good battle though, even if he had no idea I was there. It's quite apparent to me in the videos that the traction and stability control are really fighting me on exit speeds. You can see I go 100% throttle but the speed doesnt increase until I straighten the car (and sometimes you can just catch the little yellow lights flashing their heads off). I have a future mod that will hopefully fix this, without me having to turn the whole lot off and end up going backwards again. Because this trackday was run by a different group, there was a pro photographer there, so enjoy some nice looking speedy shots Blue car squad Over all, other than user error, the car behaved well. The oil temps were getting a tad high later in the day after some of the harder sessions, but generally stayed below 120c and cooled off quick when I backed off. Oil pressure was good even with the higher temps, generally holding the recommended 10psi/1000rpm. I would love to get rid of the mid-range torque dip, as that really dulls the feel of the engine. It reminds me a lot of the old twin turbo Legacy and the Valley Of Death between the turbos, where if you shift into a specific RPM range, there is just nothing there, and it falls flat on its face. To fix that though means spending more money, and to be honest in not sure how much of a Kelvinator car this is. I love how it looks, but it's not as fun to drive as I wanted. It's a damn nice car to drive, though. Next track day will tell. Before the next track day, which is late next month, I have a bunch of things to go into the car to hopefully sharpen up the handling, and some new Endless front pads to get rid of the shite Dixcel ones.

So I finally sorted out getting a wheel alignment! Back from being rope towed up the road. I had got it pretty damn close, said the alignment guy. Within 1 degree After adjusting the rear camber, it was obviously a little closer to the right side. Only 10mm difference though. So I user some card and tape to mark the location of the temporary clamping bolts for the mounts. Then carefully tapped it over 5mm. Then welded each mount in, one at a time. ...forgot to take photos of the last two. I'm happy with the welds, I got the settings just right, it would have been a real ballache to try grind out a bad weld. Then I filled in the access holes.

My solution was to weld washers to the depressions and pull the dent out: And after about ten washers and a combination of pulling, hammering and pressurising the tank again it came out almost acceptable. It will still need a skim of filler to smooth out the ripples but I'm happy enough. The bike isn't going to be a show bike, but I do like my vehicles 'nice'.

A generous coating of crackle black and a nice woven stainless steel mesh to replace the cheap hexagon one and: It mounts using 2 x M5 stainless button-head screws at the bottom and a 90 degree return which hooks over the top of the rad. It's quite subtle, if you could ever think that slapping a union jack on the front of a bike is subtle.....

Its been a long while since ive done an update on my chaly, but I've been chipping away at it lately to try and make it more reliable so I can use it as my daily to work when the weather gets abit warmer and the mornings get lighter earlier. Basically I've installed a new semi auto lifan 125 a new purpose built loom smaller headlight, remounted the front guard to the underside of the forks pullback bars and genuine chaly switches made some bosses from 25NB pipe for the front fork reflectors installed new rubber fork boots fitted rear rack fitted nibbi carb

1000% appropriate content choice here: https://docs.arduino.cc/libraries/tvout/

More track day prep here. One of the common issues with the Toybaru Twins is that the oil temps are pretty high, so in an attempt to control it, I installed an oil-coolant heat exchanger. I'm not really breaking any ground here, since this exact cooler was factory fitted to the second gen BRZ/86, and others have fitted it to their first gens, but since no first gen got any sort of oil cooler from the factory I figured this was a good compromise for what I'm doing. Yes, ideally you would fit a proper oil-air cooler in the front with a thermostat, but 90% of my use is on the road, where it wouldn't be needed, and one major benefit of the heat exchanger for me is that because it sheds oil heat into the coolant, it can also suck that heat from the coolant, which is much quicker than oil to heat up, to bring the oil up to temp quicker when it's cold. Example of Greddy oil cooler (blue radiator) Cusco even released their own version of the heat exchanger for the first gen, which was a little more in-depth and required tapping into the actual radiator hoses. The basic theory is that the heat exchanger sits under the oil filter, and has coolant circulating through the inside of a copper core as the oil goes around the outside of the core. It's quite a nice looking unit. Genuine Subaru, of course. This is where it goes, under the oil filter. And this loop under the throttle body is where others have tapped into the cooling system, and where I will too I purchase a meter of 5/16" / 8mm coolant hose and used some spring clamps to fit it to the exchanger. Half a meter on each side is more than enough and will need trimming to fit nicely. I removed the filter, which was way too tight, and then had to go out and buy a deep 24mm socket in order to remove the old threaded stub, as this needs to be replaced with a longer one Slightly longer The exchanger comes with a new O-ring already, it just needs a smear of lube before fitting Clean up the housing, since you won't be able to access it again. Make sure the small indent on the right is clear of debris too, as the locating tang on the exchanger needs to fit in there Thread the hoses through under the AC compressor first, and then offer up the exchanger. Once it's sitting nicely, slide the centre stub through and tighten to spec (45NM) Oil up the seal on the new genuine filter and fit that too, Hand tight, no uggas or duggas. And now you can see what It's going to look like Now it's time to connect up the coolant side of it I removed the loop that is there from factory. Nothing came out of the top pipe, but a small amount come out of the lower one and proceeded to go everywhere, so I quickly measured, cut and clamped the hose on The top hose was measured, cut and fit too. I don't know if it matters which way the coolant circulates through the cooler, in my research from others doing this the consensus was that as long as it was flowing through, that's what mattered. Ignore the tape, its holding a piece of thick rubber in place to stop the hoses rubbing. Will be replaced with some split conduit later. I took the opportunity to change the oil too. According to the sticker, it was changed just before I got the car with Valvoline 5W30 (which is fine oil). Oil pressure was good, but I was surprised at how dark the oil was in just two thousand km or so. After much research, going over all the relative viscosities of oils at certain temperatures, I settled on Castrol Edge 5W30 as my oil of choice. It's thicker than the stock 0W20, but Subaru did recommend 5W30 for extreme use cases (like track days), and I don't want a thin oil breaking down on the track and costing me an engine. Once everything is buttoned up again, the fresh oil is in the sump and the coolant has been topped up, start the car and at idle with the heater turned to hot, slowly open the bleeder on the heater hoses near the firewall until coolant comes out of it. This should be enough to bleed the air out, but keep an eye on coolant temps for a couple of drives just in case. So far the results are promising. Previously, I was regularly seeing oil temps 10+ degrees C above coolant temp when at operating temperature, which would often mean oil temps 100+C. Now I'm seeing oil temps much closer to coolant temp, within a couple of degrees The oil temps also drop back quicker than they did before after a hard run, and the time for the oil to come up to temp on a near zero C cold winters morning is significantly quicker, maybe even halving the time. As a bonus, it appears I have picked up a couple of PSI oil pressure at operating temp, too. I was sitting around 10-12PSI at idle previously, now it's 14-16PSI. Over all, considering it cost about a quarter of a decent oil cooler kit, and unlike those it also helps bring the oil to temp, at the moment at least, I am happy with the setup. The big test will be at the end of the month when I take the car on the track. Hopefully it can keep the temps under control. I really gotta clean that... Parts Used Subaru 21311AA220 - Cooler Assy Oil Subaru 21317AA070 - Connector Oil Cooler Subaru 15208AA130 - Oil Filter Subaru 803916010 - Sump Washer 1 Meter 5/16" or 8MM Coolant Hose Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering.

As part of my prep for the track day later this month, I wanted to replace the engine mounts. How to do it wasn't exactly clear though. There is a bit of information out there for replacing the engine mounts, but mostly LHD and most of them say to remove the headers to do so. Being the stubborn guy I am, and not wanting to remove the headers, I thought there must've been a better way. In my last RHDJapan order, I got a pair of uprated STI engine mounts. These have a stiffer compound rubber without being super harsh like the Cusco and similar with their polyurethane mounts. With the car in the air I slid under, removed the two under trays and had a look at what I was playing with. The mounts were surprisingly accessible. That bolt and nut are easy to access with a rattle gun and extension, but there is also one bolt above the steering rack which is a little harder For that one I found it was best to start the bolt with an offset ring spanner as it is recessed, and then once loose, undo it with a ratcheting spanner Both sides worked with the same treatment To lift the engine, which has to be done otherwise the mount stud will not clear the crossmember, I used a floor jack on the sump. I'm not that happy doing this, but many people have done it before, and I used a rubber block to spread the load. I got away with doing this with no visible deformation of the pan. The hardest bit was just working around a big jack right where you need to be. I started with the RH engine mount as I figured this would be the hardest to remove due to the steering column/rack, and I was right. I completely unbolted the RH mount and loosened the centre stud on the LH mount so that I could use that mount to pivot the engine over (instead of just lifting it straight up and having nothing keeping it in place). Once the mount was free, I could move it around, but couldn't seem to get it out. The trick was to remove the heat shield plate on the top of it (not captive like the STI mount, it just sits there) and unbolt the steering rack (mark or make note of the bolt positions before undoing them as there is some wiggle room). Without the plate on the top I had more room to move and rotate it, and lowering the rack gave me just enough room to squeeze the mount out towards the rear of the car and remove it. It'll take a fair bit of rotating and wiggling to get it out, but it's doable. Refitting the new mount wasn't too bad either. Because the heat shield on the top of the STI mount is captive and can't be removed, I did get it stuck just as it went over the steering rack, but a little gentle pop with a pry bar got it free and into place. To bolt it in I lowered the engine slightly, so that the centre stud lined up, but I still had free movement to screw in the two bolts. Once the two bolts were done up hand tight, I lowered the engine down onto the mount, leaving the centre stud nut loose, and moved to the other side. Comparatively, the other side was easy since there was more space to work (no exhaust or steering column) Once the mounts are in place and the engine lowered down onto them, torque them to spec (45NM centre stud, 35NM for the two bolts, one of which has to be done to gutentight since a torque wrench won't fit - in hindsight with the rack loose you might be able to fit a torque wrench on an extension in there). The steering rack needs to be refitted and bolts torqued to 120NM. In conclusion, yes, at least on a RHD car, you can replace the engine mounts without touching the headers. How are the STI mounts? Good. The driveline feels tighter, more like it's part of the car. There is a small amount of extra vibration now, mostly at idle, but it's barely noticeable (and nothing like the vibration the Alto had after the rear mount inserts went in). I probably wouldn't bother replacing stock low KM mounts with them, but my 190,000km mounts were worth replacing. Parts Used ST41022AS000 - STI Engine Mount RH ST41022AS010 - STI Engine Mount LH Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering.

Ooh, that's a bit more like it. Might have to get the paint out for the cab now... / The weights will probably go. I've already knocked some off with ball joints & brake cooling ducts.

Crust be gone: soo, has WOF. Garage complemented the work, so Hamish at Hammer'N'Weld did a nice job, (at a reasonable price!) Oh cool, the bottom is done, so now I can sort out the shitty carpet.

it was this: Ah, ok, some bogan had put the bolts in the wrong place, and the long one eventually wore through the water jacket. I had a think, and realised the cooling is only 15psi at ~100deg C, so, JB Weld! Tickle up the top of the piston Button up the top of the engine Then decorate the front of the Prius...

Except, no. I got to pondering the battery fail. I have a phone charger with a V meter. So I plug it in, and start watching. After a start it's between 13.8 and 14.5 as it should. Then after 5 min (replacing the charge taken by the starter motor), it started climbing, the gauge started flashing at 15V (nice feature), so at 15.7V, it's pretty clear why the battery was boiling off and putting white crusty around the terminals. Ah, oops. 5 or 8 years ago, it had that problem, and I took it to an auto-sparky, but now I think about it, it's killed a couple of batteries since then. Testing, testing: I put it on a variable power supply, it makes a cute buzzy noise. OK, looking closer, he'd bent the high-V contact away (incorrect, there's a spec gap), but the switching V was also incorrect (too high). So I set the gap in the contacts at the bottom correctly, and adjusted the switching voltage by bending the upper tab holding the resisting spring (per online guides). It Bench tests OK now. Tossed it back in the car. It's a shade low at start when idling, but now comes up to correct V, and doesn't over-charge. Golden. I wandered down to the battery merchant who'd been a GC, and told him it was a car electrical fault that killed the battery. He wouldn't accept payment for it, just told me to let him know if I was ever selling! Cool. People can be really good, if you treat them right.

Then @EpochNZwanders over one day to have a look at VW suspension on the drive. After, we have a quick look at the DAi, and it starts on the jumper cables. Hang on!. The battery is showing 12.8V after settling after charging, (OK), but drooping to 10V and less under load when starting. So I head off to Faast fit who supplied it, he tests it (OK on the hygrometer, but poos output current). It's just been a dead battery, all this time! Faast replaces under warranty (good service), and I throw a wee brass strap on because it's a slightly different shape. Runner! Drive to work. It's oookay, but not running well, maybe a little lean? Found an online airfilter dimension search (finally), and toss one in, then change the carb back to the one on the right (no hole in the barrel from long screw), and back to normal for that motor. Sheesh, what a chore. I need to remember to check the basics first. Anyways, it bloody great to be punting this around town again, and now I can get back to important tricky jobs like changing the carpet.

Have split that into assemblies, and had another go. Some observations: It works rather well (6" flames out the oil clagged expansion chamber just now). https://photos.app.goo.gl/t8qnrSrJkiMN4Fev8 The heat gun seems to work well for getting them started, but sometimes needs just a touch of butane into it to ignite the internals (WOOF!) say, about 1 second too much butane trashes the heaters on your heat gun in about 2 seconds (ask me how I know) That crap smells vile! Like creosote. The red band where I presume the internal carbon is burning creeps along the pipe at about 1 foot per 20 min.