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Dyno. yes. all went as normal for a dyno session (read - problems, then fixing problems the more problems) but in the end it did not asplode. made 360kw on 91 fuel and 20psi. engine temps were low and stable, heaps of oil pressure and managed to get a really good tune into it. only one slightly weird thing was the idle speed control but its working fine, its just not responding as accurately as it should. drag day here i come.

Job done. Came out exceptionally good

yes they are. look i wanted to do worst case and go from there. i talked to the team at hitech about how to run various fuels (not E85) and still be safe with the tune and there's some options that aren't super great. anywho, for now i can drive it anywhere i want and get fuel anywhere i want and still boost the shit out of it so im happy with that.

Ok, boring pictureless update to help me procrastinate. I've been acquiring bits and pieces to install the Link. I've got 4 1az/2az coilpacks which fit the 1uz perfectly, well except for my drivers side rear one where the plug is gonna be very friendly with my clutch master, so I might run that one backwards. @Snoozin had a Bosch voucher he wasn't gonna use, so I bought that and got a temp/pressure sensor for oil, a map/iat combined sensor that I'll include in my throttle adapter and a liquid pressure sensor that I'm gonna tee into my fuel line before the rail. I got a Spartan 3 lite (by mistake, I wanted the CAN model) and an ADV o2 sensor. It's amazing how much wiring no longer needs to be on the engine. - No more drivers side cam angle sensor (just uses passenger side bank) - No more idle speed control (uses e-throttle for idle control) - AFM becomes MAP and IAT - No more factory o2 sensor wiring - No more ignitor wiring Not to mention the following going in the bin from the engine bay - Dizzys x2 - Coilpacks X2 - Ignitors x2 - Idle speed controller - AFM - Leads and the huge crossover cover for them can go. It removes a lot of junk off the front of the engine. I've been playing in the PC Link software and have assigned my inputs and outputs. Now it's time to buy a bunch of wire and start making a loom. I've been watching the HPA and Cartune videos to work out the best way to wire it up, now it's just working out which wire to use. TXL/TFL seem to be about the same price in NZ and TFL looks to be easier to get and still works out cheaper than buying the Link looms. TXL from the USA works out waaaaaay cheaper, but comes in 500ft rolls and it looks like it might be a little harder to get here, so time/money, I might just buy TFL from MSEL. I think I might replace my knock sensors with Bosch wideband donut sensors too.

That is all, thank you for your time

Did a minor brake upgrade, 320mm disc and a caliper spacer on the front and a new standard size disc on the back, mainly because I wanted them to match, there was nothing wrong with the rear rotor. Pads are not that old so re used them Once they bedded in, it made a huge difference (on the front anyway) Instead of the front brake being a gentle retardation device, it now actually works as a brake, that stops! How novel. around town it's one finger on the lever to pull it up. Two fingers you could probably lock the front,if you wanted to fall off, which I dont. I had thought about doing twin discs on the front but the parts are quite hard to find, and expensive HD used to do a kit but that is NLA, the main reason for wanting twin discs was mostly cosmetic . I'll keep an eye out for the parts anyway but it stops good enough that it's not a must do

one of the leftovers from its past as a drag car is a 2wd/4wd switch. but yes, its super easy to make a GTR 2wd with the removal of a fuse.

Thanks for the company all. Relevant to the table conversation....spotted when I got back to town.

No, on the F6A there are STD bearings and that's it. In Suzuki's eyes if anything is out of spec, scrap the lot. On later Suzuki engines you match up the number on the block, to the number on the crank and then pick the right colour bearing for that location.

Always remember that oem quality, just means supplied by the lowest bidder with the best sales pitch.

According to the internet's the crank might need to be ground or the flywheel shaved a bit to fit. Quick eyeball and dirty calliper measurements say that the holes to locate the flywheel onto the crank are both the same depth and diameter. My two cents is the biggest difference in the flywheels will be the teeth for the crank sensor pick-up but as I have a tach terminal on the alternator and a mechanical pump I dngaf and have no use for them Sat the flywheels back to back and the bolt holes line up and ring gear is the same diameter and tooth count by eye Sitting on the bench the ring gear don't quite line up but that's not a fair comparison as I need to measure up with it bolted to the crank as the offset is slightly different. That money could have been spent on the Honda gearbox and towards a dyno tune but shiny new parts are exciting and ordering parts is about all I'm capable of doing at the moment

Got into the carb tuning. Haven't tested but it was an easy swap as I just changed metering rods. The chart below is for a 1403/1404 carb. Position 1 is stock 1....................1423 (.086")............................1460 (.065" x .052") ..............................none - stock calibration I wanted to go one step leaner in power and cruise which on the chart is position 6 6....................1423 (.086")............................1463 (.067" x .055") ..............................Rod This means only a rod change with a 1463 rod. First step is to undo the torx fasteners, no need to remove the cover, it just swivels out of the way. I put rags down the throat of the carb to catch anything I might drop but one moved just as my torx bit fell out of the driver. Luckily it was caught on the booster venturi and I could grab it with a magnet. The numbers are hard to read but the needle was a P/N 1460 (labelled 65 62). The piston holds the step up spring which is left in the carb and the rod is held in by a tiny spring so a bit fiddly to remove. The new one was selected and fitted and all put back together. Just need a road test now to see if it worked or if another change is required, the next step is the stock rod but a different jet. Springs and rods are easy but I'm not sure about jets. I don't know how you get them down the hole and lined up so hopefully my change is all that is needed.

Made in NZ in CHCH I believe, I was just impressed by there super fast load time - I don't need Popping Chicken or Big Wangs swinging about so suits me perfectly

TWO JOBS IN ONE DAY WHAT THE FRANK! Fitted the tail light I bought in Japan. The one in the car was cloudy as fuck. 900$ well spent.

Someone I know bought a 2 post off trademe and then when he rang the place to get it serviced they sed they had told that shop that sold it to scrap it, he got a refund

Addendum . This is the first And last Bracket I've ever welded on with a MIG welder.

It's cute that you clowns think I don't already have range rover diff centres in the parts bin along with a billion other parts that I'll never use.

Not quite overnight parts from Japan but about a week from Latvia Conversion clutch kit and all the shifter bushes and clips, new release Bearing and slave cylinder. Honda genuine packaging feels a bit 'nicer' with its Honda branded bags VS Mercedes genuine in a generic plastic bag The clutch kit was a expensive gamble as it's designed for the newer common rail diesels and I've just seen a bunch of info saying they should work. First moment of truth /relief. Yes the plate fits. Thank you Mercedes for not changing the input shaft spline for 30 odd years of gearboxes Old om606 clutch disc VS the new one More bigger is more better right?

More rewinding, I was put in contact with a nice fellow in Auckland got in touch about some black leather bits he had available. Now that the car is going to be grey, I'm even less enthused about a grey interior, so I snaffled it up. The leather is in decent condition, or at least MUCH better condition than the cracked and damaged original grey leather stuff. The catch: it must have been introduced to a flood at some point in time, because the metal bits in the bottoms of the seats are absolutely fucked. Fortunately, the grey leather seats' metal stuff is in good condition. So I get to add upholstery to my list of fun things to learn and suck at. I disassembled the black and grey passenger seats early on and set about restoring the bits. It immediately started to pay itself off. The top half of the seat is alright. There's corrosion on the bottom brackets, but nothing crazy, and I didn't feel the need to disassemble much here. Just the back of the seat, which revealed further rusty bracketry, but not enough to really do much about. I simply painted what I could see with rust converter, and the main brackets got wire wheeled, masked and painted black. The rails are all riveted together, and I just don't want to deal with that stuff (yet). So I simply dunked it all in evaporust, cleaned, rust converter'd, wire wheeled and painted it. I made sure to move the bits around after painting so nothing bound up, and vowed that I'd fill it with grease later. The black seat leather was then carefully extracted from the base. The leather at the site of the bolt holes etc is pretty rough. Mostly intact, some thin or ripped bits. The rust impregnated itself quite well to a lot of it. I used a combination of careful evaporust dipping and some soapy scouring pads to remove the crusts. You can see where some of the internal seams (where wires once laid) are torn, I'm curious as to what physical stuff went down to cause that. There'd be some mechanical forces involved, after all fabric doesn't like moving across jagged rusty wire, but I don't think that explains all of it. Fortunately, theres very little of these places actually visible once all the trim etc is on. The... uh... leg thingy also got some treatment. I was going to use the grey seat's bracket but it was such a straight-forward hunk of metal that I just re-used the black one. A long pause happened here because of life and procrastination, but eventually I put my A back into G... and pressured girlface to help. There are a few wires that run through the seats in loops to pull the centres of them in, and these loops had mostly been destroyed by the rusty wires. Girlface fixed these by hand-sewing new fabric in. Gorgeous. The black vs grey base, uncovered - I was really impressed at how good the grey base was. I didn't do too much to the grey base; just slathered on some rust converter and used our steam mop to restore the foam. Then it's time to use my aliexpress upholstery set! Was not looking forward to this part but it was probably one of the easiest parts tbh. The clips are surprisingly non-fiddly. I managed to re-use stiffening wire from the grey seat and get things buttoned up okay. The hardest part was actually just wrangling the leather (which has shrunk with age) onto the base (which i'd fluffed up the foam on). Getting this lever into the hole took half an hour alone. Eventually, after a lot of cross-referencing the other seats and some repeated steps, the bracketry was on and lubricated with lithium grease, and the top went back on it. Looks great I need to fix up a couple things, the leg thingy lever is a bit tight and doesn't want to disengage. Also the slide-everything-forward-for-passengers-lever is a bit touch and go. For the driver's side I might just be a bit more frugal with the paint as it could be adding extra friction, but I'm hoping it's just a spring or something that I've mis-configured.

You can see yourself out

PFT. Plymouth for thread.

A mere 11 years after finishing this car and 1 year after finding the right badge for the boot I've finally fitted it.

With a bit more driving I can confirm it drives better on actual winding roads, feels more confident to turn in. Just lacking the power to match it

Been down on power lately, nothing left in the tank after work and needing weekends to rest…it turns out it’s some rheumatoid arthritis sort of gig. So when I actually had some vim, I achieved some low-key stuff. Contacted a dude to measure and machine engine, he’s keen but haven’t had any timeline suggested. Have mostly massaged dents out of the stainless trim and hubcaps, pushed and pulled the car off the lawn with my wee van and got it under cover on concrete so I could have a bit of an investigate,measure and make a shopping list. The rear UJ is wasted, this was known, but comical with the cap off! This is what’s inside a torque tube..really just a driveshaft in there with a bearing one end and a seal the other, both replaced now. The drums are all fantastic and with a little radius to freshen they will go through compliance, thankfully. The rear brakes are lovely, can still read part numbers on the shoes and cylinders move. All got stripped and cleaned up, seals pass the test for now. Front shoes are aged but still alright for some cruise miles.. Brake pics are before shots I’ve chipped off the original underseal along the rear tub seam and uncovered some rust, cant blame it! RH wasn’t too bad. Wire wheeled all nuts/bolts/washers for the engine and some trans ones, sandblasted the crossover pipe/thermostat housing, waterpump and timing cover along with oil filter housing.. no polishing this time, just some clear coat.. Should pop with some greeny-turquoise paint on the steel bits. ^ thick old oil caked inside there! Drained the trans and gave it all a scrub. The pan was full of congealed gross, I hope it’s not too shagged but needs to go to the shop. There was a piece of cast iron in the pan too..Didn’t appear to have broken off anything/no fresh cracked face..perhaps a pawl or keyway that has dislodged! A discount code from the thread and a 6 day turnaround had the first of me ROCKAUTO parts arriving. How good are they! A bunch of wheel bolts, a fan belt on clearance, bearing + seal for torque tube, sway bar bushes, brake hoses and a set of shoes. The ignition barrel and keys were $25, probably cost more to match and cut a key to my original, which has the faceplate pop off regularly. GM run that setup for many years I could, maybe should have ordered engine stuff too but something deep down says hol’ up..just incase this motor is a flop, or a runner shows up, etc.

And then I did this. Zorst hangs all lopsided and mong from factory because nissans are stupid so I made a better bracket to take the rotational load off the turbo flange. Which is a V band so not great at resisting rotational load. All finished. Should be able to drive it tomorrow.

Hey @Lord Gruntfuttock AI is coming for yer jerb:

Looking to do a pop top camper conversion on our Defender, running through the threshold doc, a cert is required, no argument there but i'm struggling to find any information on what design requirements exist for camper conversions. When we priced up existing production conversions, the price well and truely pays my time and the purchase of tools so thats the road we're looking to follow, i've allready completed the bulk of the CAD modeling but its now into details, will calculation sets be asked for? if so, what is the certifier wanting to see, i'm hoping its just pragmatic proof its no worse than factory? Pretty keen to go knock on the local certifier's door with a reasonably well detailed set of plans for the first chat so that I can complete the design and get onto the fun stuff.

It seems I have totally underestimated how awesome a quality set of brakes pads can be. just bed in the winmax pads, like holy shit, it stops like a motherfka now, and pin straight, no pulling etc. this thing is insanely fun to drive now knowing I can stop when I need to. pedal throw and feel is so perfect. $271 worth of pads and a change in master size. Worth it

The AFR gauge looks a little better now. I'm not showing a picture under the dash, it's embarrassing. The gauge comes pre-terminated which makes installation really easy for a novice but leaves heaps of extra cable you don't need. The cheap plugs on it are not easy to replace so there is a big loop to hide out of the way.

Did some boring maintenance stuff: Replaced the crunchy radiator hoses. I never liked the braided cover on the top hose either, it achieves nothing and keeps pricking my fingers any time I get near it. Got some new OEM stuff which looks a lot nicer and nice and soft. Easier to fit than I thought but the lower hose clamps were a bit of a FAF. Topped it up with 5l of coolant and water, should end up 50:50 but I will need to check it after a drive. I don't think I got it up to temp in the driveway, it does take a bit of time so I'll need to drive it and make sure it gets all the air out. At least I have a working gauge now so I can keep an eye on it.

How hard to tuck rim without bags?

Well she got washed and dropped off to the certifier. this paint just blings off in the sun, love it I know there will be a couple of things that I only noticed when I dropped it off. Couple of grommets around the front brake lines and 3 P clips instead of the factory metal fold over tabs. and I wasn’t aware that you need receipts for braided fuel line. of course I never kept that, so I just purchased 4m of -6an ptfe that I’ll swap out just to not be a Kent. for a hardcore hotrod guy he actually thinks it’s awesome. But he did also rate the hunter. hoping the list doesn’t get too big. Did supply a flash drive of the build photos for the seat mounts, handbrake set up and anything else that was cunty to remove or covered up.

Had the mustang on the dyno today with a bunch of other cars. Was a good opportunity to see what sort of numbers it would do and by extension how healthy it was. I was second up after a nice old Porsche that was converted to EFI. It made around 185kw and was quite impressive. The mustang had a few issues making it harder to get a number. I don't have an RPM gauge, the temp sender is wrong so it never reads warm, the oil gauge works but is more of a suggestion and the trans wouldn't stay in 2nd. For some reason it was trying to shift up. Don't really want it bucking off the dyno. I had warned them about the RPM gauge and we agreed on 6000 as a max limit but I thought it would peak way lower so just back out once it does but they had to guess the RPM to tip in and setting the dyno up was difficult. I would have thought they could put a clamp on the HT lead but I don't think they do many old cars. Once they figured it out it made 145kw and 287nm but was still climbing. Who knows if the RPM was accurate. The AFR was rally rich. The graph is in lambda apparently but they said it was around 10:1 AFR with some lean spikes. I'd expect it to tip rich but that is a bit much. I may need to chuck some smaller jets in it, fit an RPM gauge, and look at the trans/shifter linkage. On the plus side, it made the same HP at the wheels that it made factory at the crank so I can't complain too much. Leaning it out may make it smell a bit better though.

Bash plate now attached with glue and silicon bronze screws. Of which were nearly $3 a pop. Ouch. This weekend hoping to flip it to finish the topside and sort a trailer.

This was a C of a J. Not bending the brass strip but getting the nuts attached to the towing eye through the access hatches internally. I used thread locker and nylocs so hopefully I never have to even think about doing it again.

So I mostly finished the wiring tonight. I say mostly because I still have to wire in the temp and fuel gauge. Above is what I started with. Disgusting. A mile of cloth tape later and she looks a little more tidy. Still need to tidy up the dash and button it up. Next on the list for the Landy is a carb change to a twin downdraft weber and install a bench seat. Then just little things before a wof.

Hit it with some colour but wasnt happy with all the imperfections. So ended up sanding back the three top planks (which are at the bottom) and respraying them. Now the planks above it have nasty overspray so I'll have to wait a few days for it to go off and have a look at buffing out the overspray. What a way to run a railroad!

Really nothing too exciting to post this week. Just another 40 hours of sanding. I think the last time I posted about it I had just got the first coat of surface primer on. I got that rubbed back and put on another coat. Rubbed that back and it highlighted just how bumpy it was with the fibreglass layers. Especially on the bottom panel which had a few layers of glass on it. Mental that after all the paint that went on, most of it was sanded off. Anyway I then put on some 2k primer I had laying around. The tin was maybe a year old and even though I spent ages mixing the tin and then with the hardener in the cup, it didn't flow on very nicely. I was forever playing with the settings on the gun and when finished, I had to pull the entire gun apart to get out the globs. Due to it being a crappy shoot, I was all set to rub it back and then get some high build primer to put over it to get things smooth. But thankfully sanding it back has it feeling really nice. There are still some imperfections but nothing worse than the scrapes and bruises from dragging it onto a trailer a few times. The other side is yet to be done but if it comes out as nice as the port side I think it'll be ready for 2k top coat. Went for boring white but the top plank will be a contrasting teal to give it some life.

I was just going to go for boring old white. One of the things that bugged me about boat colouring was the lack of choice from the main players. I'll probably stick with white to hide all my terrible planking lines and imperfections, but it's nice to dream. I'm playing with boat colour generators now.

Interesting and thanks. The only slight complication is that I go from a choice of about 5 colours to unlimited which then gives me more decisions I'm incapable of making.

The other option is to use a good quality 2k automotive paint. The paint rep at work has a hydroplane and that's all he uses. Same logic as comment above

Landy looking good! Love the outboard hoard. My brother has been buying up small outboards for no good reason lately. I get them going in work time. 2cyl 2t are so much fun in the run drum.

After a week of constant sanding (you know it's bad when for a rest you turn to wiring a land rover) it was nice today to paint two coats of neat epoxy on it. Because runs are now my arch nemesis, I spent the remainder of the day tipping it and then delicately scraping off any runs as they formed. You can see the remnants of prior runs in the fibreglassing. It can think about what it has done for a day or two then I can put on the high build primer. In other news a big ass rope that washed up ashore is now my permanent pushin' cushion. If you look at the pic of the mitsi in the previous post I have always used a carpet offcut. It can now safely be cut up to be used on the floor of the Landy. Nothing but the best for that ol' girl and the L200 clutch will appreciate not having to push shit around the paddocks.

I really need to extract the digit on the landy so have pushed it into my loungeroom so it's in my way.

Skeg is now on and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. There is a bit of final fairing to do but wont be hard with a block plane and belt sander. It has yet to have a metal rubbing strip over the top yet. I went to my favourite place to shop which is the recycled timber place in Upper Hutt. I just walked around and found whatever felt the heaviest. It's a gumtree of some sort. Great for ballast and being dragged onto rocky beaches. Cut it into as many bits as possible to choose from. Made up a small jig that is 2mm wider than the centreboard so as to not cockblock myself down the line. You can see it under the clamp there. I put on 600g tape on the stern part and 200g on the fore parts. Peel ply on top of it all to help it set properly. Next up is to use some 400g cloth on the very bottom. This isn't part of the plans but I know where I'll be mostly using this boat and it's shallow, rocky and has a forest worth of sunken logs just under the surface waiting to fuck up any plywood hulls that get too close.

So I decided to stop being lazy and re-coated the entire hull with light fairing compound. The softer stuff though this time and easier to sand than the other fairing compound. When this is all sanded smooth it'll need another coat or two of straight epoxy and then the primer. Adds another week to the project but I'd rather have more epoxy on it than paint to fill in the troughs. Goes on like mayonnaise. I did one row of planking at a time then waited for it to run before scooping it off the next plank and then doing the next plank down. Took some time but at least I wasn't doing the whole thing at once which would have been quite boring. I did tip it but found it was so thick it didn't really make much of a difference. As that'll need a couple days to set, that means tomorrow I can start working on the skeg. Really looking forward to working with wood again.

@Dudley and @dave came round and helped me bleed my brakes (they don't work). We unlowered the rear by 12.5mm (the diff still smashes the floor). Not sure whether @Dudley or @dave was the one that noticed it, but my rear wheels had a wobble. Turned out the hub rings weren't letting the wheels seat properly and the holes on the discs for the studs needed a chamfer because there is a slight taper at the end of my studs. Got that all cleaned up and the wheels turn freely. Took it for a couple of test drives down the road. I love how at the end of the second video you can hear it light up just rolling on the throttle in 2nd. I've still got a bunch of small jobs to do, but it drives, and I can work through all the little bits. I'm pretty happy with how it sounds, and it goes well, and has a decent amount of grip. Now to find some space for the diff, some brakes and finish a bunch of little wiring jobs.