kws

Need to use someone like Blackhawk to buy it https://share.google/4KWt9bBjGOETMKGkI The Monster site is a bit inconsistent in how it works

https://www.monster-sport.com/e/car/zc33s.html#exhaust

Rover V8s run low pressure, but high flow, for instance. 10-15psi idle, 35psi @ 2000rpm

Since I'm still waiting on the block to return from machining (again), I moved on to fixing some other small issues. One of them was that the shifter looked haggard. Very rusty, floppy and neglected. I ordered a full set of genuine bushes for it and set about stripping and fixing it. Since the center console is still removed from the car, it was easy to remove the four bolts from the top and drop the shifter out of the bottom of the car Up close, it didn't look any better I marked the directions for reassembly and took some reference photos as I stripped it all into bits After removing the lower rod, the bush on the bottom of the shift lever didn't look terrible, but it was as hard as plastic The whole assembly is just a sandwich of parts. It all makes sense when you look at it, but together it looks like a mess I removed the upper rod from the assembly, removed the nuts from the two bolts in the middle, carefully pushed the boot through the plate and then I could wiggle the shift rod through the plate Next, I used a hammer and a punch to knock out all the old bushes All the bushes were very hard, perished and had suffered from sitting around. With all the bushes removed, I hit everything with a wire brush to get the loose stuff off, and then spray bombed them with some black zinc paint. This should protect it a bit better, and it looks 100x better than flaky old rust. Reassembly is literally the reverse. Before fully assembling, I thoroughly cleaned and greased the pivot ball on the shift lever. The ball rides between two nylon cups. In hindsight, I should've ordered a pair of these and replaced them, as the ones I have are a bit rough, but with new grease they should still do the job. I then reassembled the main shift assembly and pressed the new bushes into the bottom of the shift lever It's interesting to note that they are a different style bush to the green ones I removed. The upper rod has a single-piece rubber bush, and there is a steel sleeve that also goes through it The transmission end of the lower rod is a bit more unusual. It has a pair of rubber tophat bushes , and into those press a pair of plastic inserts I lubed the bushes and pins up with rubber grease and reattached the lower rod Annoyingly, someone had obviously lost one of those pivot pins, as on the trans end of the lower rod, where it has a cross joint, an ill-fitting bolt had been used instead. I have a new pin on the way to replace it, as that'll be as sloppy as anything with the bolt there. The last bush actually resides in the gearbox shift rod Again, this is one of the green bushes, the same as the bottom of the shift lever (same part). Notice how it's slightly recessed around the center hole. The replacement bushes are a harder compound, and flat on the faces The original parts guide shows that for each of these bushes there should also be an o-ring. See my expert MSPaint cutaway drawing below, showing one end of the tube the bushes are in. Orange is the bolt/pin, green is the green bush, black is the o-ring, and the grey on the left is the plate that the pin squishes against the bush. The new bush does away with the o-ring and the recess and presses the steel right against the faces of the bush. I knew the part number had been superseded, but wasn't sure why, so now I have a set of surplus o-rings. Oh well. Anyway, the shifter should be all new and fresh now, and hopefully shifts nice and direct. It's currently sitting in the boot of the car, with all the other parts. Moving along, in a kinda shifter related task, next was to eliminate the inhibitor switch that had just been clicked into Park and tucked up behind the battery to allow the car to start. I unplugged it and took it to the bench After reading the workshop manual and checking the wiring diagrams, I knew which wires I didn't need anymore, so I unwrapped the bundle Cut the switch off and depinned all the wires I don't need from the plug Leaving me with two wires for the Park position (black/red & black/yellow - which connects the ignition switch to the starter) and two wires for the reverse lights (red & yellow) I cut the two thick wires, the black/red and black/yellow, shorter and soldered them together. This shorts the Park wires together and will allow the car to start. I left enough to be able to heat shrink them Next, I crimped a connector for the reverse light switch on. I would've liked to use an OE connector, but I didn't have one for this end of it, only the one on the reverse light switch Which also meant cutting the connector off the reverse light switch and crimping a matching connector on that I then wrapped my little harness in fabric tape and finished off by plugging the empty holes with a light smear of sealant to help keep moisture out It looks much better than having a stupid inhibitor switch hanging around I did, of course, test it I was pleasantly surprised to hear it also had a cute little reverse beeper in the car, to tell you you're going backwards. In a typical ADHD flurry of random progress, next on the hit list was to remove the trans mount and replace the bush with an uprated Monster Sport one. I knew by touching it that the bush was very soft and floppy. I removed the single bolt through it and removed it from the car Interestingly, it had these "stoppers" on each side of the bush There isn't a heck of a lot to the bush at the best of times And when it's cracked and flogged out, it offers almost no resistance to movement The Monster Sport bush is still rubber, but a harder compound and a far more substantial build I marked the orientation of the bush so I could get the new bush in a similar place, and then, using a reciprocating saw, cut through the sleeve of the bush until I could use a hammer and punch to knock the bush out And then it was as easy as finding the right size socket to use to press the new bush into place, making sure to align it as the old bush was Nice new uprated bush ready to go Because of the design of the new bush, you cannot fit the stoppers on each end now, but I guess it doesn't need them I also have the rest of the Monster Sport engine mounts to fit when the engine goes back in. As you can see in the above photo, I also replaced the stock rubber bush on the clutch cable with a Cusco one from an HA36S Alto Works. It was a straight fit, other than having to remove the rubber boot to fit it, as I couldn't get the bush over the metal collars that retain the boot. The outboard collar slipped off with the boot and could be reused, but I had to cut the inner collar off and replace it with a small ziptie. What else. Oh, yeah, the ground cable. I recall from viewing the car at the auction that something was funky with the battery ground cable There wasn't one. It was a bare stub of a cable bolted to the inner guard. Cool. So I raided Pick A Part and, after digging around some different cars, found this from a Daihatsu Sirion Which turned out to be perfect It's nice not have to use jumper cables to ground the battery whenever I want to liven the car up. So that's all for now. I will hopefully have the block back this week, but I'm still sans genuine conrod bearings as the supplier in Japan is being... slow. In the meantime, enjoy this sneak peek of the future Parts Used Monster Sport Engine Mount Set - 647500-2000M Shifter Bushes - 2823160B10 x4, 0930514006 x1, 0930612009 x2, 0932014018 x2 (and o-ring 0928012014 x4 not used) Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering.

Not to forget the rear of the car, I moved on to replacing the shocks there, too. I knew the rear shocks were stuffed the day I had the car delivered. I noticed it sank a lot when I sat in it, and this is what happened when I bounced the rear end With the car up on stands, I whipped the rear wheels off and had a look around Still had the original red shocks The fuel tank just in front of the rear axle Solid rear beam and a panhard bar to locate it The other side is much the same, but with the addition of the brake hose and grotty muffler I did unfortunately notice that the rear trailing arm bushes are split, so I have ordered Monster Sport replacements for them too I did have plans to whip the drums off and replace the shoes, but I am going to pick my battles for now and wait until I have driven the car and worked the brakes a bit before messing with those. Otherwise, it all looked pretty good. Lots of light surface rust from sitting, and a bit of dirt, but nothing too major. I'm very happy all the shock and spring mounts are solid with no signs of rust or cracks. The shocks were very easy to replace, since it's a divorced spring setup, not a coilover. I jacked the rear beam up a bit to take the tension off the shock bolts and stop the spring from forcing it down once the shock is removed The shock is held in with two bolts, one on the bottom going into a captive nut and the top one, which is a long bolt going through the chassis rail and through the shock. Remove the nut, and the bolt can be slid towards the outside of the car to remove the shock. Offset ring spanners really helped due to a lack of access (or just remove/lower the muffler...) Removing the old shock showed that it was there for decoration only. It had no resistance to compression or rebound As usual, before fitting the new KYB shocks, I made sure to compress them fully twice, or priming them, as is recommended. Refitting is just the reverse. Bolt in one end of the shock, compress it slightly and bolt in the other end. Tighten bolts to spec, job done. The new shocks do look quite nice in there Finally, I needed to replace the old brake hose with my new braided one This turned into a real pain. The top fitting came undone easily enough But the bottom one was stuck fast, and I knew I was in trouble when the flare wrench started to round it off Sure enough, it rounded completely off without coming loose. Thankfully its a small section of pipe that leads to the RH drum, so I undid it easily from the drum and removed the whole pipe with the hose It wasn't pretty I ended up locking it in the vice, and using a big spanner on the metal hose fitting to finally break it free and remove the hose It turns out the pipe was corroded into the hose fitting It didn't help that the flare nut was corroded to the pipe too, and resisted turning. I cleaned up the corrosion and freed the flare nut off from the pipe. I did think about making a new pipe, but it turns out that Suzuki will sell you a new little pipe for $15, so I have one on the way. In the meantime, I refitted the old pipe. There was still enough shape in the flare nut that a standard open-ended spanner could tighten it up firmly. It looks good with the new braided hose and should give the pedal a nice solid feel I'll need to do it again when I replace the pipe, but I flushed and bled the system. It now has fresh fluid from end to end I need to drop the fuel tank next and have a look inside that, and work out why I didn't hear a fuel pump running when I turn the ignition to ON, so that should be fun. The block is still with the engine builders, having the crank machined for the new oversize bearings. Hopefully, I will get that back soon, and I can get on with building the engine.

I had similar on the ZC31 Sports I bought, previous owners running on 91 and it really killed the power on them (even being NA). A tank of 98, disconnecting the battery for 10 mins and away it went. Mate has one of these Swifts and they are a hell of a lot of value for what they are. His does double duty as track/daily, and he loves it. I kinda regret pumping all the money into the current Alto instead of just buying one of these. The BRZ, unsurprisingly, was faster.

Following on from making the calipers all nice and shiny, the rest of the front suspension needed to be refreshed to bring it up to the same standard. The first job to refresh the suspension was to bring out the mighty slide hammer and bash some hubs out. I don't love the design of having the rotor behind the hub like this. The Marina is the same, but at least it has tapered bearings, instead of roller bearings like this. Using the wheel studs and nuts, I attached the hub puller fitting Then the slider hammer was threaded into place After a few good whacks, the hub came free Even though I do own a press, the manual says this is the method for pulling the hubs, and I do believe this is easier than trying to press the hub out of the knuckle off the car. As a note, on the Works cars, there is a little spacer in the back of the hub. Make sure not to lose this, and that it's fitted the correct way around, with the taper facing the hub. It normally sits right at the base of the shaft and spaces the hub off the bearings. Because the wheel bearings were noticeably rumbly and I wanted to replace the bearings while here, I also had to pull the knuckle off the car. The tierod end ball joint was pressed out And the bolt securing the lower ball joint was also removed. This left two bolts holding the knuckle to the strut, which were easily removed. The sad-looking lower arm. The ball joint felt as bad as it looked, so replacements had already been ordered As it turns out, there are actually heaps of aftermarket options for these arms, as they were used for years on a few different Suzuki models around the world. I grabbed some Meyle ones from Spareto. They did come with new bushes for the swaybar, but I believe due to a change in design, they need some tweaking to fit, and since I'll be removing the swaybar to fit the engine, I have put them aside for now. The lower arms are held in place with a single 14mm head bolt through the inner bush And then the swaybar. I removed both arms together, as it was easier than trying to wrangle the swaybar out of one arm Replacement was as simple as just sliding the new arm into place in the front mount and sliding the bolt through the bush As not to stress the bush, I did tighten the inner bolt up at about what I expect the ride height might be, but since I have never seen this car on its wheels with an engine fitted, I had to guess. Worst case, it's pretty easy to access the bolt to redo it once it's on the ground. Annoyingly, the manual offers no torque spec for the front suspension at all, so everything was just done to the Japanese equivalent of Gutentight - グーテンタイト (blame Google Translate). The new arms are a bit nicer than the old ones With the arms fitted, I moved back to the hubs and knuckles. The first task was to knock off the rotors and hope the replacements I ordered were right (they were). Four bolts and a tap with the hammer, and the rotor comes off. I wirebrushed all the mating surfaces and then installed the shiny new Brembo rotor I popped that aside and moved on to the bearings. Everything was covered in grease, so I guess I'll need to take a good look at the CVs before I reinstall them. I couldn't get my seal puller in under the seal, but a small pry bar worked a treat Which then revealed the inner bearing. There are two bearings, an inner and an outer, which are separated by a sleeve between them You can see the sleeve here I started with the inner bearing, as it was easier to hammer out since it didn't sit nearly flush with the front of the knuckle, as the outer bearing does. Carefully using my punch, I tapped the sleeve between the bearings off to the side, giving me access to the inner race of the bearing (the rusty lip visible in the photo) I then wailed on the bearing with my hammer and punch, taking turns on alternate sides of it, until the bearing came out with the sleeve The outer bearing was easier to press out on the press. I used an old inner bearing race from a previous job, and a big socket to press it out Notice that only the outer faces of both bearings have seals; the inner faces are open to the inside of the knuckle, which is why it's packed with grease. The new bearings I got have seals on both sides, so one seal per bearing needs to be removed. I know some in Japan that do this job, pack the bearings with grease and then seal them up completely, but I didn't like that idea, so I went with the OE style of having them open to the knuckle. There were two recommendations I came across in my travels. One was to use C3 spec bearings, which have a little extra clearance, and the other was to make sure you replace the grease in the bearings with new, proper wheel bearing grease, as they barely come greased from the factory. I popped the seals off the bearings, and yes, they barely have any grease in them Using the old lump-of-grease-in-the-palm method of greasing bearings, I packed the bearings with high-temp wheel bearing grease And one seal per bearing was then refitted Next, I cut up one of the old bearings to make the outer race into a pressing tool. This allowed me to hammer a new outer bearing into place without putting pressure on the inner race But it was more important on the inner bearing, since it's deeply recessed. The cut in the old bearing stops it from getting stuck in the knuckle as the new bearing gets hammered into place. Both bearings will bottom out against ridges inside the knuckle to set the depth. Don't forget to pack the inside of the knuckle with grease and refit the sleeve between the bearings. I also used the old bearing race to knock the new axle seal into place The final job was to mount the knuckle in the press and press the hub into the bearings. There was no way to support the inner race of the bearings to do this, but since it took little pressure to press through, they should be fine (and it's better than what the manual recommends; bashing the hub in with a hammer) Which ended with a nice shiny assembly with a new brake rotor and bearings. I couldn't help but test fit a caliper Looks good to me. Now to give it something to hang off and then I can reinstall it. With the knuckle gone, the strut is only held in with two nuts on the top mount and the brake hose. Remove those, and the strut comes right out These are the shocks listed in the parts book as "RED" and appear to be made by SHOWA, a well-known supplier of genuine accessory/uprated shocks in the JDM market (and motorbike shocks, but they aren't my thing). I had to scrape years of crud out of the top mount before I could access the top nut I cleaned that out, stuck some spring compressors on, and zinged the top nut off I forgot to take a photo, but the top rubber mount was compressed to about 3/4 the height of the new one. Unsurprisingly, the old shocks were completely poked, with little resistance to compression and zero rebound. I did find it interesting that the top bearing on these is nothing more than a plastic piece that rubs against a metal disc with a loose rubber seal to keep grease in There is meant to be grease in the grooves to lubricate the lot, but I hadn't cleaned that, and both came out like that, with no grease inside them at all. I probably could've greased them up and reused them, but I ordered new bearings instead. These are aftermarket, but even the new genuine ones are the same updated style, which is a self-contained version of the same thing. I popped one apart to see what was inside it. I know the Honda version has metal bearings inside, so I was surprised to see this was nothing but grease and what appears to be a coated (Teflon maybe) plastic disc with grooves in it, like the old bearing. I did fit the new bearing whilst retaining the metal disc from the old bearing. Without the old metal disc, the new plastic bearing would have all the pressure on just the outer edges where it backs up to this cap The metal disc mostly covers that recess and gives more surface area to support the bearing. Moving on from boring bearing things, this is a nice shiny new KYB "New SR Special" shock Here it is again with all the gubbins reinstalled, including new top mount rubber, new bearing, and new boot/bump stop Surprise, here it is again, back in the car this time The hub/knuckle was then refitted. I presume that the unused tab on the right is for cars that have ABS, which mine does not. As a fun little thing, these camber bolts, which came fitted to my old HA36S Alto Works (and were incorrectly fitted, so got removed when I first got the car) Fit the CN21S Alto Works perfectly, so they got fitted and set to max negative camber, because race Nugget With both shocks renewed and both knuckles refitted, I could fit the brakes. Two bolts hold the caliper in place, and the pads are slipped into place, retaining the original shims. I got all new hardware for the pads, and used Endless pads The front hoses got replaced with nice new Spiegel braided lines There seems to be a bit of confusion online about what pad hardware works. It seems genuine pad hardware isn't available alone, and only comes with expensive new genuine pads. I can confirm the TRW PFK75 kit fits perfectly. My calipers only came with one of four anti-rattle clips So I was pretty keen to get some replacements. As you can see below, the TRW clips are almost identical to the original one I removed (even if my original one is a bit mangled) The little retaining pins are also the same. The pad locking block is slightly longer, but fits perfectly With those in place, I gave the system a quick flush and bleed, and the front end (other than the swaybar) was done It's pretty colourful in there, but it should look a bit less Fisher Price with the wheels back on. I still need to replace the rear brake hose and the rear brake shoes, but that's a job for another day. Parts Used Front Shock Absorbers - KYB New SR Special - NST8006R & NST8006L - Yahoo Japan Front Brake Pads - Endless MX72K - EP237-MX72K - Blackhawk Japan Braided Brake Hoses - Spiegel KBS104-1 - Yahoo Japan Brake Pad Fitting Kit - TRW PFK75 - Spareto Front Brake Rotors - Brembo 08.D165.10 - Blackhawk Japan Front Wheels Bearings - 6007 2RS C3 x4 - Local Supplier Front Hub Axle Seal - 09283-44011 - Amayama Strut Top Mount Kit - SNR KB690.06 - Spareto Strut Bump Stop/Boot - Febest SZSHB-WGR - Spareto Front Lower Arms - Meyle 29-16 050 0012 - Spareto Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering. I have no sponsors; all suppliers shown are for reference only, and where I got mine from.

With the catches on the bonnet up, it looks like an RC car

Moving on from the bodywork and engine for a bit, I thought I would have my first look at the brakes. I knew from when I first looked at the car that the brakes were in dire need of work, the rotors looked like they had lived under the sea, and the fluid was old and dark. By some miracle, they still worked when the car was delivered, but the RH front locked on soon after. So I ordered some bits from Japan and set about rebuilding the calipers The first job was to remove the calipers. These are quite a simple design; the whole caliper is held to the knuckle with two bolts, and that's it. No bracket, so separate slider pins, just the two bolts Before I could remove the caliper, I had to remove the pads. This is done by pulling out the little spring pin and knocking the locking block out of the side of the caliper The pads should slide out after that's removed BTW, the manual is very strict about not touching the "pentagonal bolts" which hold the front of the caliper to the rear. It's the first time I've seen something like this used. I believe these are thread-locked in place too. Now the brake hose can be disconnected and removed. These little hose blocking clips come in handy again. The two bolts in the rear of the caliper can be removed now, and the caliper removed from the car. This really highlights the dire state of the rotors. No amount of skimming would save these, so hopefully the replacements I ordered are right. As a small note, the manual mentions it, but obviously whoever touched these brakes last didn't read it, as this retaining plate on the rear only fits one way. One side was right, but this side had it upside down, which made it interfere with the pin on the rear of the caliper. They just sent it anyway. The calipers were looking a bit worse for wear. Being such a simple design meant they were quite easy to strip down. First, I used my tyre pump air compressor to slowly push the pistons out. The RH side, being the sized caliper, took a bit of back and forth to push the piston out, but eventually it came out with a bang. Always use a block of wood or something to catch the piston, particularly if it's stuck, as it will come out with a lot of force. Also, make sure to use PPE; no one wants to catch a face full of brake fluid (again) To my surprise, the pistons are aluminium, which means they have some surface oxidation, but no rust. Using CRC as a lubricant, the oxidation was quickly removed using a scotch pad. The bore inside the caliper had some gunk built up inside it, as well as some oxidation of its own. A quick clean and gentle scrub had the bores looking good again. Next was to remove the two slider bushes. Both of these, on both calipers, were seized and required hammering to remove These slide inside a bore that has a pair of o-rings inside, with grease between them All the seals were removed next. Now it was time to clean them up, ready to paint. I soaked the main body of the caliper in the ultrasonic for a bit, and they came up pretty good, but the fronts, which is where I was painting, were too big for my ultrasonic so were wirebrushed and brake-cleaned. Being an Alto werido, I wanted to spice the calipers up a bit, and give them a bit of a forward homage (if that's such a thing) to the brakes of the later HA36S Alto Works, which come factory red. My old Alto Works, featuring my big brake upgrade So out came the rattlecans First coat Second coat Having actually read the instructions for once, I noticed that there was an "IMPORTANT" step, which involved baking them at 93c for an hour to cure the paint, to make it more durable and solvent resistant. So after three coats, and the required drying time beforehand, out came the BBQ for the first time this season. After an hour of baking and then cooling off, the calipers were looking pretty good. Now it was time to build the calipers back up again. I started by cleaning the slider bushes. The new piston seal was next. Grease it up good, and then slip it into the groove, being careful not to twist it. The piston comes next. This should be fairly easy to press into place by hand and slide smoothly. The piston boot takes a bit of wrangling to get into place, but I found careful use of a pick helps a lot to get the lip into place and then using the back of the pick to push the lip into the groove. Now the o-rings for the slider bushes can be fitted. Once again, grease them up good and slip them into the grooves. I found it easiest to use a finger from one hand to keep the bottom of the o-ring in the groove and then push the top of the o-ring into place with the other hand. The channel between the o-rings is just a groove to hold grease, so stick a greasy finger in and pack it. Now the slider bushes can be pressed into place. They take a bit of a push to get through the o-rings, but otherwise should slide pretty freely and smoothly. Next up are the boots for the slider pins. These are a bit of a pain to fit and very fiddly. It also helps to notice that there are two different-sized boots, as the retaining groove on the calipers is bigger on one side than the other. Each side has its own boot, one with a narrow lip and the other with a wide one. After much faffing about, I got all the boots on. Once again, careful use of the pick helps get them in place, along with lots of pulling and squishing by hand. I found it easiest to push the slider bush flush with the body of the caliper on the side I was working on, get the boot in place, and then push the bush through the boot and clip the boot into its groove; otherwise it just gets in the way. And there we have it, one rebuilt caliper ready to refit Rinse and repeat with the other caliper, and that's job done. This caliper needed a quick tickle with a file and sandpaper to tidy up some burrs on the piston, which a previous butcher had made for some reason But otherwise, it was exactly the same deal Until I replace the rotors, hoses and wheel bearings, the calipers will just chill in the boot, with the rest of the parts I have collected. As a quick note, I believe, other than the handbrake mech on the Cappuccino rear calipers, these are basically the same thing, and it's the same procedure to rebuild them. The seal kit I used was from Pitwork, which strangely, is a Nissan brand, and included Toyota rubber grease, to fit a Suzuki. Parts Used Brake Caliper Seal Kit - Pitwork AY600-KE009 Please note these parts are specific to my car and may vary. Please check before ordering.

Oh heck yeah, I'm friends with the original builder of the donor Corolla. Wondered where it ended up, and so excited to see it being revived in a starlet!

This is cool. I like boxy cars, look forward to seeing more of it.

The big rebuild has kicked off, but it's the kind of kicking that also includes screaming. In the last update of the engine, I bought the Cappo engine, stripped it down and got it ready to be sent for machining. The basic instructions were for them to skim the head and block for the metal headgasket, and to hone the bore on the block, ready for new piston rings on standard pistons. I also had them clean both, which resulted in them coming back looking very good. Unfortunately, that's where the issues with the engine began. I got a call before picking it up to say that they had found corrosion in the bores, which the honing wasn't able to remove. I was thinking the spots in the circle would be my issue, as I noticed these before it went for machining (it's just staining), but I should've been worried about the line with the arrow instead, which is rust pitting. I was told by the machinist that if I built the engine like this, I risk it smoking slightly or using some oil. This was totally unacceptable considering the efforts I am going to to rebuild this thing, and my utter hatred for engines that smoke, so I picked it up, brought it home and started looking into my options. As if by magic, shortly after, my bank account was looking a bit lighter, and these arrived on my doorstep via Japan. Trust Greddy, by OS Giken, 0.50mm oversized forged pistons Having the block bored out half a mm oversize will remove the corrosion pitting in the bores, give me a slight bump in cubic capacity to 667cc, and result in stronger pistons that can handle more power in the future. So, I packed the block up again, with the pistons, and sent the lot to the machine shop again, this time to have the bores resized, and I got them to check and set the ring gaps and install the rings on the pistons for me. Once again, the block comes back looking great, and this time, other than some light marking from them measuring the ring gaps, the bores are spotless. I thought, "Heck yeah, I have everything I need to assemble the engine. Let's go!" The first step in any engine build, once it comes back from the machine shop, is to give it a thorough clean. Doing a ton of research, I ended up with the plan of hosing the engine down with a garden hose, through all the oil and coolant passages, and then quickly blowing all the important surfaces down with an air gun and then either using WD40 on them (to displace water), or in the case of the bores, scrubbing them down by hand with a clean rag and ATF. The oil galleries also got hosed out with brake cleaner, and all the blind threaded holes were blown out. After flushing out the coolant passages, this was what came out of them. I'm quite impressed how clean it all is after two rounds of machining, no metal chips came out of anywhere, just these old dry flakes that would've ended up in the coolant anyway, which isn't the end of the world. Once I was satisfied the block was thoroughly cleaned out and dried, I masked it up ready for some paint and gave it the old "rattlecan rebuild" in satin black. I did about three coats, making sure to get up under the various sticky-outy bits. The sump got a quick rebuild whilst we were there too. Looks like the guys that stripped (and ruined) the original engine tanked and cleaned the sump as the inside was real clean and not oily. Once it was dry, the block was taken inside and the tape removed. Gotta say, you should always paint blocks when building an engine, man, it looks nice! I quickly refit the oil gallery plugs with some Loctite After chasing the head bolt threads (which were pretty clean after being blown out) I carefully taped the machined block deck so it didn't get scuffed, and then flipped the block over The main bearing caps had all been cleaned, too. Fun fact, you can tell it's a Cappuccino engine by the hole in the number 2 cap, as this is what a support for the oil pickup screws into. The Alto cap doesn't have this drilled, as the pickup doesn't have a support, since it's shorter and comes down pretty much under the number 1 cap. The bearings I chose to use were some aftermarket but OEM Taiho Standard spec bearings. Taiho is the manufacturer of the genuine bearings, and the bearings that came out of the engine, so it should be right, right? I've seen a couple of F6A builds online that also used these bearings, and they are sold by specialists (and Partsouq) as direct replacements for the genuine part number. I cleaned everything thoroughly and then fitted the shells to the block Followed by the clean and dry crank Which meant I could check the bearing clearances with Plastigauge (or the knockoff Flexigauge in this case) Cut a small section off and place it parallel with the crank, across both halves of the bearing surface (the middle is the oil channel and won't crush the Plastigauge at all) I carefully fit the caps, torqued to spec, removed them again, and checked that the Plastigauge was squished. Using the paper that the Plastigauge comes in, check the thickest part of the squished plastic on both ends of the journal. Unfortunately, despite many attempts, I could not get the squish into spec. It was showing 0.064~0.076mm, which is far too much clearance (not enough squish, the gap between the bearing and crank is too big). As you can see in the spec below from the Alto manual (and the EA11R Cappuccino manual is the same), the clearance should be 0.020~0.040mm with a limit of 0.065mm. Outside of that limit, Suzuki recommends replacing the crank, as they do not offer oversize bearings. The lower numbers are the measurements for the crank journal, and what size it should be. I got out the micrometer and measured the crank in as many places as I could. Everywhere measured 43.99mm +/- 0.01mm, well within the spec, so it wasn't the crank that was the issue. After tearing my hair out (or what's left of it), wondering what was going on, I sent the block, crank and bearings off to the machine shop. In my mind, there was no reason for me to suspect the bearings, as when I measured them with my calipers, they measured the same as the stock bearings that came out of the engine. As it turns out, everything measures in spec, except the bearings. They are a hairs width undersize, which explains the readings I was getting, and also why my calipers didn't detect a difference; it's literally a fraction of a mm thinner, and my calipers aren't that accurate. Speaking of bearings not fitting, these don't fit DOHC turbo F6A conrods You actually need F8A bearings for the conrods, the "F6A" bearings are far too small I ordered some more OEM ones that were recommended, but since having the news that the OEM main bearings are junk, I will be ordering genuine bearings for the lot. It's a significant cost, about $500nzd for the set (vs about $100 for the set of OEM), but it'll be worth it if they just fit and work. So that's where the engine is currently. The machine shop is looking into genuine bearings for me now, and I'm doing my own enquiries in the background, just in case they come up short and I need to get them out of Japan. There's basically a zero percent chance I will have it running over the Christmas break now. In hindsight, I always should've got the genuine bearings and not skimped on them. That's not the end of the world, though. I have a ton of other work on the Alto to do, such as building the head, rebuilding the brakes and suspension, and a lot of cleaning. In slightly different news, other things I have obtained... We did a 6-hour round trip to pick the front exhaust pipe up, as this was missing from the car when it was delivered. Thankfully it turned up at the other engine builders, so the guy I got the car from managed to save it for me. Saves me a few hundred buying a new stainless one. Thankfully, someone has already chopped out the restrictive '90s cat I also obtained a nice Monster Sport Type SP-X rear muffler to replace the very rusty OEM one on the car Another important piece of the puzzle was to get a replacement turbo. I will eventually upgrade to a bigger one like the HT07A, but for now, I need one that will play nice with the stock ECU and get the car going. My original little IHI VZ15 (on the right) has a huge amount of lateral play in the shaft, so I bought a spare VZ24 Cappuccino turbo I found online (on the left). They seem to share the same basic frame, and the intake side seems very similar in terms of size Interestingly, the exhaust wheel on the VZ15 is bigger than the VZ24. I don't know enough about turbos to know if that's a good or bad thing, but it is what it is This turbo has near enough no play, so hopefully it won't smoke and will make choo choo noises in the meantime. Speaking of ECUs, I spotted a CN21S Manual ECU on Yahoo Japan, so I grabbed that too. I don't know what the difference is, I'm presuming it'll have a higher rev limit to match the manual cluster with a higher redline. There is no boost control, but it may have ignition and fuelling differences since it doesn't have to account for a slushbox sucking all the fun out of it. Long term, it's getting a Speeduino ECU anyway, but this will suffice for now. Heaps to get on with, not enough hours in a day.

Sadly it appears this might be the case. Everything is measuring up good, and the new aftermarket OEM bearings I was sold specifically for this engine that others have used with no issues, are a hairs width undersize and causing the issue. New genuine bearings will be sourced. Lesson learned, dammit.

In my last update, I pulled the seats out, carpet up and fixed the rust in the floor/interior. Now it was time to put the carpet down, reinstall the seats and work on the rear rust. Before I could reinstall the interior, I really wanted to give it a good clean, so I pulled the Big Green Machine from its hiding place in the basement This guy is a beast. Heaps of suction and a heated solution sprayer. It's better than my favourite Little Green Machine for cleaning upholstery, but its size and weight mean that it doesn't get used anywhere near as much. It's more for cleaning house carpet than car seats, but it does the job. I put the carpet back in place and gave it a good vacuum with the shop vac to get the loose stuff off it And then I got stuck in with the cleaner. So much forbidden coffee was sucked out of the carpet It's not perfect, but it came up a bit nicer after a few passes. It's a bit more blue. You can kinda see the difference here, compared to the untouched driver's sid,e which has more of a brown tinge So, of course that side got some work too, pulling more mystery juice out A slight difference from how it was before The carpet is pretty thin and a bit worn on the driver's side, so eventually a set of nice carpet mats will go in, but that'll happen later. This is the liquid I removed from the carpet Now that the carpet was clean and smelled better, it was time to pop the seats out of the boot and back where they belong I didn't do it on the day, because I was stuffed after doing the carpet, but a couple of weeks later I did give the seats a good clean with the Big Green Machine too, and they came up much better (and smell better) Let's not forget the interior looked like this at the auction I think the previous owner had wiped the seats down, but not really cleaned them, as they too were full of forbidden coffee juice I'm pretty happy with how they have come up, including the rear seat. I might give them another going over once the car has been used a few times and the dirt has been shaken around. Now that the seats were out of the boot, I moved the speaker shelf out of the way, folded the rear seat and moved all the boot lining out of the way This meant I could safely work on the rusty boot seal lip. I started by wire brushing the area, and boy did it not get any better! No wonder it leaked! I started by making up the repair panel, using my cutter/folder. This strip was at the limits of what this little machine can do. Followed by my new toy, a shrinker and stretcher. I should've got these when I was working on the Marina, they make shaping metal so much easier Which gave me a strip of metal with the basic shape I needed. A bit more tweaking and it was pretty good. Next, the cutting wheel and chisel were used to remove the bad metal. Thankfully, the lower lip was in very good shape, so I could just peel the top lip off it and be left with a good flange to work with I tried to remove the rear bumper, but the fixings are all Philips head screws, super tight, and all seized, so that's a job for another day. I did my best to cover and protect it as I went. Next, I trimmed the patch down and metal-glued it in place I trimmed it all up nicely, plugged the holes on the other side of the opening and then primed the whole lot with epoxy primer Once the primer was cured, I then used seam sealer to seal it all up. It's more than you should probably use, but this is a "wet" area, and I don't want to risk any water ingress through a pinhole in a weld that I missed or anything. The seal covers the majority of this. I also seam sealed the back of the joint, inside the car. Finally, once the sealer had cured, I painted it with an epoxy topcoat. This is durable and a rust inhibitor. If the exposed boot ledge gets scratched up, I will likely wrap it in carbon vinyl or something. It looks a bit nicer without all the junk in the trunk, and the seal cleaned and refitted It could do with a skim of filler over the welds if I were picky and chasing perfection, but for now, it'll do. I also seam sealed the complete boot opening, since some of the old sealer under the boot seal had perished or was just gone, so hopefully that stops any moisture tracking in under the seal. That's the end of the welding. I have a couple of small areas of cosmetic corrosion to fix up in a couple of places, but since they are in the middle of a panel, and aren't structural, they'll get treated and then touched up with some filler instead of risking warping a panel with weld. One of the other interior things I hated was the sun-damaged and gross-looking steering column shrouds. You can see them in the photos above, a pale, flaky grey that was scratched to death. I originally tried to scrape all the dead plastic off, making a mess in the process. The idea was to paint them and hope they would come back, since the genuine ones were obsolete. It turns out the later C chassis Alto (CR and the likes) have slightly different covers, but are basically the same. The difference is, they are available new, and even better, they are available second-hand in good condition (in Japan), so that's what I did. There is a slight difference in the shape around the ignition (the bump is longer), but it all still fits together nicely Makes a nice difference Progress on the engine has been happening in the background in fits and starts, with many issues in the meantime. That'll be covered in another post soon. The goal to have it running over Christmas is probably not going to happen now, but I have plenty to get on with in the meantime.

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.