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Fast forward 4 1/2yrs, and it’s finally road legal….

Ok, felt pretty clever with this one. I'm definitely more of a computer guy than a fabricator and hate measuring and marking stuff out. So I took a dirty thumb and rubbed it on some masking take that I'd placed where my missing bumpstops went. I then measured from the tape and drew the bumpstop plates up in Fusion, exported the DXF and dropped it into lightburn, chucked the steel in the laser cutter and etched the lines onto the plate. I then cut them out with the grinder and had nice centre points of my holes that the centre punch located in. I drilled them and rounded them. Then bolted my Bunnings Race Supplies bumpstops to them. This was when I realised I had made the plate too long, so I cut the ends off them, undoing all my nice rounding, drilled the holes out bigger, and chucked the plates in the vice to put a bend in them to match the chassis rails. I bent them with some sockets in the vice and managed to shoot myself in the stomach with a 19mm socket. Good times. Got them bolted in the car and took it for a drive. Much less smashing now. Just need to make a bigger gap between diff and bumpstop to keep the cert man happy.

well, i think im on the way to having a functioning car. the "tune" isint. but it runs. im trying to make changes to get the fuel map better but shes a hard road when your trying to drive and modify the fuel tables at the same time. any who, things that have happened , emptied 2 liters of cavity wax into the rear quarters, sills and chassis rails. reverse camera works fitted all the new door and roof line seals (which are fucking cool, the doors make the best noise when you close them) idle speed control system is fitted and (sort of) working but the idle speed needs way more work.... ABS is functioning 4WD is functioning all the dash is functioning (except for the oil temp gauge but that will be sorted when i fit the remote oil cooler) ive got more new genuine parts on the way because who needs money. still need air cleaners becasue it has none. still need to reinstate the idle air feed pipe off the bottom of the intake manifold (it was previously removed and welded up becasue who needs idle speed control right?) and a thousand other little things. but it goes.

Have been learning cad to do car related activities. First off the screen is this winch mount for my cruiser. After lots of mistakes and remeasures, i sent it off to the local metalshop and got the part yesterday. Gave it a quick etch prime and some satin black before i left work for the day. Spent today fitting it and trimming the bumper/wiring the winch up. Turned out mint i reckon.

Had a little country music playing today as it flipped. Colter Wall and Charley Crocket etc. Feel free to enjoy the song which was playing as she finally tipped over. About as land lubbery as you can get. https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=79SV4479MMc&si=loaWFChOPOkkmZLo So she is over and I only missed two screws that were still in the jig. I looked inside and there is no way I would have got them out so Ill have to drill out what remains and plug it with epoxy. It'll be all under the glass sheets anyway so not a big deal. A couple of pics of how she sat before tipping with the couch acting as a spotter. So much work to do above decks waiting for me. But that can wait for another day. I have a hundred or so hours awaiting me on the hull to plug, fair, trim, fill, glass, sand, paint. That'll be my spring I think. So the target is 1 December to get the underside done.

She’s alive att.Zz7TT_JQGlaHfqwli1EfOzRR_tx-YMBMiJIvdTf5Txw.mp4

Decided to make this bit as well. Done some weird stuff on the lathe/mill factory bottom hose fits. top just needs a generic hose with a 45deg and bit of straight

I tried but there's no room for that top style. There's no benefit to side feed compared to these insanely short top feed ones I've got anyway: I'd rather have a worse injector position with a good runner shape, than vice versa. So will keep the taller runners. So long as this all fits I'm just going to do this and get it finalized. As otherwise I'll be spending 100 years gong around in circles. My throttles turned up, everything looks good except for that the throttles are 50mm at entrance, 48mm plate, and 46mm at exit. Was hoping they were going to be the straight bore version damnit. Will see if I can whack them on the lathe and at least get the exit side out to 48mm. Will still be considerably better than previous setup, but not what I was hoping for.

Speaking of 2mm steel, already done my first paying job with the new mig, gave a couple rather rotten John Deere guards a new lease on life. Looks a bit rough, but after a good go over with a 40g flap disc and some high build etch primer it's more than good enough to brush on some JD green and get back to work lol

@chris r brought my new welder cart down from Auckland today, I'm stoked with it so far! Solidly built and cheaper than I could have sourced 2mm steel + decent castors and hardware etc etc. Having a relatively tiny shed made having 3 machines all on their own cart a real clutter and wasted so much space, now all 3 and a couple D bottles can all go on the one cart etc, just got the new plasma on there as it hasn't made it out to the shed yet, but will get it out there tomorrow. https://www.machineryhouse.co.nz/w2415

SUtututu

Its alive!!!! Fuck yeah!!! Started up, did a couple sketchy wheelies on my driveway and straight into full send up the road. It taps out in 4th gear way to quickly, needs much lower gear ratio sprockets to gain some top end speed. But fuck yeah! Wicked little bike, I'm stoked with it.

On the Jenvey website it looks like they all use the same basic casting but then bore out the center differently, then fit a different sized plate. So could get carried away with it if want (I do not want) Will just see how it goes like this. Clock is ticking and things need to keep moving along.

Subaru has a range of sizes too, yellows are 440cc from memory.

She’s off to a new home. Bring on the MK 1 Zephyr.

Hey Alex, I usually log in roughly every three - four months and have a good old catch up on your build, I found it on page 3?? Like I'm not angry but I am a bit disappointed.......

Doing my best “dad I’m bored” pose there

Found these seem to be simalar to dads but for normal rotors theyre cheap enough to justify might have to get em

Big ride on ol mate

Thats better. No pressure now.

That's just how it is, they would have just done a straight copy from the Jenvey kit which used the tapered bore. Shit happens. I guess in that config still good enough to make 350hp or whatever on a 350Z. But it should be easy enough to zing the exit side out on a lathe or cnc. Saw this now, hah:

The yellows can be decapped as well think they become 720cc from memory decapped Blacktop 20v sidefeeds are 295cc

I can assure you those wasps were not an assassination attempt. Bastards nested everywhere last summer, in the roof of the house and even started in my upturned wheelbarrow. Bike is unrecognizeable, amazing work!

Postie dropped the Engine and Wheel off yesterday- awesome! I didn't have much time today to do any real work on it today but made a plan for where the fuel tank will go and the shape too, also I should add the concept of the whole build may completely change! Now for question, not sure what size rear sprocket would be best to order if anybody can give me some advice it would greatly appreciated.

What about sidefeed injectors. The micra ones I've used are so low profile. Would be easy to get a neat rail 3d printed accurate enough to take them (they seal with two O-rings. The injectors can be turned 360 degrees so the plugs can face any direction. Mine are only 130cc but I'm pretty sure theres a higher output version from something that the micra boys use when boosting. Standard rail here.. Edit : nissan GA16 injectors are 185cc. I could measure up a housing/injector height etc if it's of interest.

Semi pointless update. I did score these for a reasonable price. 6.5inch 3way JBLs. Asian dude selling several pairs for dollar reserves on TM, look brand new, he had the boxes etc but was selling the grills separately, which I didn't want anyway. I'll 3D print a trim to cover the screws. Plan to make proper front pods like this. Also, this Bluetooth unit sucks! Will have to replace it with something better.

IDF?

Yes. Does need cert. An outlaw could do 'rust repairs' both sides, making a measurement mistake whilst doing so and put factory looking swages and things in the floor panels so it looks factory, and due to the rarity of the vehicle I'd wager that most inspectors would not pick it up, if it's not obvious But that would be illegal , and should be certified of course heavens, I can't imagine someone breaking the law to avoid certification

what about option s ? or u ?

Started attacking some things that bug me, the factory aerial holes on the A pillar for starters (I'm not a panelbeater, just a ruff bugger) The door mirror holes got buzzed up too because I'm a fender mirrors guy Also decided to have a go at getting the matte black paint off the roof and giving it a quick test polish and fair to say the original paint is still good underneath

So been a bit of a rush to try and sort things before the next race event as fairly busy with life. Had to change the left bottom arm as ball joint decided to go after 40 years of hard use. Replaced with one done by HBI Engineering (https://www.hbiengineering.com/) they now have a starlet bottom arm to AE86 ball joint on file if anyone needs one (stronger then standard starlet with the old T3 bushes). Since the car need to be realigned decided it was time to get a laser alignment and get all my rims + tyres balanced and checked over So down to Jason @ Matipo Garage to sort me out. Here's the initial alignment, toe was different as had just changed the bottom arm. The thing standing out there is that the REAR has -10mm toe OUT on the solid axle (with -9.5mm on the right side) Now an interesting thing occurred a few years back where I won a simulator training session (on a high end simulator), the instructor noted that just as I braked I turned the wheel right. With that much toe out when braking the rear of the car will instantly want to exit stage right, not to mention it explains why the rear wants to step out in left hand turns so easily. So we evened it up to have -5mm on each side to get me through the next event and afterwards I will get it straightened, and may as well get a little bit of camber added at the same time... Wheels So onto the balancing, all the wheels needed balancing, some by a lot more then others. But it was interesting to find that 2 wheels on the car where bent (badly), and 2 wheels from my spare set were also bent. So there's a high chance at the last event when we tried changing the front wheels to see if it made any difference, we swapped one set of bent rims for another set of bent rims 🤦‍♂️ And to be clear, they all look straight, there is nothing obviously wrong with them, just a lot more noticeable rotating on a balancer. So I had them off to Elite Wheels (https://www.elitewheels.co.nz/wheel-repairs/) (I can highly recommend them) it turns out all 4 wheels have twisted centers, so they machined the mounting face to get them right. I run the Revolution 4 Spoke Race Wheels which weigh 4.5kg each so very light. I have hit a few kerbs at high speed, and I'm probably on the upper end of the weight limit for them, so I probably need to be a bit more careful avoiding kerbs in the future. So pretty much all set for Speed Festival 6th/7th September (free spectating) at Ruapuna

seems leaving fuel tank with 1l of e10 in it for 10years isn't a smart idea. the worst of it is the baffles i had welded into bottom of tank, so zing'd it back out and made a new bit to go in its place I dont recall it ever fuel surging. so just made baffles the same other than some angles on the front, to direct and trap the fuel better top side of the tank is a little crappy, but should clean up fine, then weld the bottom back in. haven't decided if going to run a tank sealer kit though it or not. has any one had one thats been done long term? Got radiator mounted, The big hole on driver side will feed the intake cold air. If it gets some form of ducting or not, will decide at a later date. Had a fwd water outlet, which lined up with the existing top radiator pipe. but they dont compute with rwd water pump. as they dont have the thermostat bypass. It was buy a rwd water outlet that doesn't line up with radiator and cut radiator up again. or make a bypass fitting for the fwd outlet and waste half of my life trying to weld cast aluminum, that has had rusty coolant going through it for the past 30 years. you know what i did. Not great, not terrible

Basically finished now: Very disappointed with the way the seat turned out. The vinyl I used has been on the shelf a few years and the glue between the shiny bit and the backing has rotted so it looks a bit secondhand. When I find another bit of vinyl I'll stitch up another cover. It's all running properly now. The carb was literally glued up with old fuel and took a lot of de-gluing to get it to work, and the wasps nest in the air filter box didn't help! There's a few mods I'll get round to eventually. Chain guard is pretty much essential. A shield over the headlight would be nice (hence the M6 captive nuts in the (ex)rack, and some kind of engine bashplate would make it complete.

New gas forge almost done, all that plate I found, its 3/8" and 1/2" so its super heavy

At the front the alloy handlebars are now also wrinkle blue, and all of the controls are bolted to them including the new clutch & brake levers. I took the worst front headlamp mount and cut the rack off it, and welded in a couple of M6 nuts for future use....

Well it looks like all of the decent bikes are taking a bit of a back seat whilst I spend all of my time on a field bike.... Like most old, abused bikes there's lots of things that are badly worn. The swing arm bushes have already been replaced, but possibly the worst wear is on the left-hand side stand. To give an idea how much, this is the bush I had to make to take up the slop: This top-hat bush is 4mm thick, and where it goes through the hole it has an OD of 12mm and an ID of 10mm. The stand now flicks down (and up) as it should: The 'rattle can restoration' continues with the exhaust. I've been trying to use just what I have around rather than buying loads of new stuff. I had VHT white paint so the exhaust is now white: The shields are done in wrinkle blue paint (which I also had), and wherever possible I've been replacing the nuts & bolts with Stainless-Steel fixings left over from other projects. Pegs and levers are back on now, along with front & rear guards and shields.

Got most of the driveline back in last weekend, just the driveshaft, fuel tank and change of fluids to check out the brakes and it’ll be pretty close to WOF ready. A day on the car with Tony got the engine, gearbox, radiator etc all sitting back in place. Can’t find the filler tube for the fuel tank, but have potentially found something locally thankfully. hopefully not too far away now.

so it looks like the center bottom bit on my car has been cut and the top piece has been removed. my one does not look like this, it has no top bar. i might just make it work with what ive got and keep my eye out for another one.

Spent another hour or two on it this arvo. Good news is that the oil all over the rear axle is a busted shock, the half shaft seals are good & all the brakes are dry. Not so good is more rust, but I am sure that's all. Hoping to crack on with it as I miss driving it big time. If I don't get a new galv tub from Thailand, I'm going to make a longer flatbed at the very least. Gonna order some parts later, all the bits I didn't order 7 years ago when I last did this !

In between it not running I've been doing other things 'I've finished rearranging the dash so I could get the double din headunit in And the other shit as well. I'm fairly sure I'm missing a piece that screws into these two holes and holds the black outer surround into it. I looked at the other car and it had a piece there (which i stupidly didn't take a picture of) that holds the top edge of the black trim in place. Anyone have this piece that I could purchase? @fletch? Also how fucking cool is the AC/ fan control unit.

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

Was givin this skyteam 50cc awhile back from a mate which did about 100k in his monkey before swaping it for a 125 so she's new. New loom cdi coil ignition new front tyer just need to sort a chain carb ive gotn is to big but ive sorted a new carb so hopefully she will be riding soon. Was wanting to paint ect but more I look at it more I like it asis I'll definitely change head light and make alil nicer

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

The most 'fun' bike I have is a 1998 Triumph Speed Triple. Big pipe, Power Commander, Ohlins suspension and a noise that summons demons: The indicators are from a Triumph Bonneville America, and replaced the pathetic small LED ones that came with it. I like people to see the signals...... I bought this Union Jack radiator cover that (according to the advert) fits 'early Speed Triple': It doesn't even fit where it touches! So it sat on the shelf for a few months before I got brave.

Stuff has happened. I'm installing, a link fury New bosch air temp sensor Oil and fuel pressure sensors Oil temp sensor 1000cc high impedance injectors New fuel pump Wide band o2 sensor Boost control solenoid Reinstating the factory idle speed solenoid and air chamber As well as rewiring the entire motor and all the ecu to body/atessa connections. It's about 80%there. I've still got to install and wire the oil and fuel pressure, weld in the o2 bung, wire the o2, make a signal smoothing module for the tps to atessa feed and some other stuff. The wiring looks a mess right now because it is but at some point it will look slightly different.

As many on here will know Tasman district has had fair amount of rainy weather recently. Last weekend we had a big atmospheric river and got 320mm over 36 hours. Lots of local flooding and quite a few unlucky souls have lost quite a lot. For us it was just some of our driveway getting washed downhill and a few trees coming down so mustn't grumble. Anyway - it was a good excuse to stay indoors, crank the fireplace, music, espresso machine and tinker with the Imp. Ages ago I had picked up these Mitsubishi V6 pajaro instruments from the wreckers.. In previous posts I had stripped them down, chopped off all the excess bits not needed (trip meter etc) so they'd fit into some housings I machined out of thick walled alloy tube. I had found a Toyota speed sensor that I adapted to fit my Subaru transmission. Wired them up and checked it worked, which it did well but it was reading a good 10 ~ 15kph out. I then packed the lot away in a box and stashed it away. It was time to crack on and make something of them. First job was to work out an accurate speedo face to suit the setup. I cut a circle of paper, fit it in place and we went driving. Using a GPS speedo we marked out all the various speed points. Then I used a program online... https://www.blocklayer.com/gauge-templates ..however it didn't create what I wanted as most speedos have non linear markings, especially 0-20. I chatted to the fella who was running the website and he added some custom bins into the program to suit and it worked great. We printed off a new face that matched the hand drawn one and went for a drive to check it was good.. Then I spent some time having fun creating some gauge faces. I had a particular style in mind. My current design turned out pretty boring given how far one could go with the variety of fonts, colours, images, text but I wanted a 60s/70s look to suit the car and dash layout I have in mind. Fun thing is I can change it easily now I have a saved accurate template * Used the big printer we have that barely gets used. Cut them out to suit. Machined up some tiny wad punches to do the holes. Into the housings. The backside. Later on I'll need to add some led lights to shine through the white font.I'll also re-set the odometer to match the current reading even though it'll be in km from now on. The needles will then go back in place once I have finished all this. I removed the original Imp dash pads and instrument cluster. Its a heavy bit of kit. Comical wiring layout too. Sat in the car and eyed up how I'd like the gauges to sit. The idea is to build a pod that will work with the original MK1 Imp dash pads which I really do like the style of. I had part sheet of 1.2mm alloy which I cut, bent, rolled, twisted and tweaked to shape, welding all the bits together doing my very best to try not to create holes. Not the easiest thickness alloy to tig weld but managed ok. I also welded up a bolt on pod that sits below to take the original Imp indicator stalks. Checked it was ok. Covered the outside in medium density foam.. Bought some more cow that local canvas place still had a stash of.. Very carefully cut and glued it in place. Painted the other alloy parts in etch primer then satin black. Added some tiny warning lamps. Most important gauge, the oil pressure gauge, resides in the middle.. Really happy with the finish. There's a couple of blemishes (tiny knife nick) but overall considering the awkwardness of this build I'm stoked. And bolted in place. I can adjust the angles of the gauges quite easily too but its currently good for both of us. Ties in really nicely with the dash pads.. Next job is to sort out the wiring. I'd already made it far more user friendly compared to stock by having added several multi plugs. I'm going to re-do it though and use some smaller wire where I can along with Deutsch plugs. There will be a new dash face below the dash pads that will house 3 gauges, some rocker switches and a Triumph eyeball vent at each end. * Edit - here's an example..