kws

Cant link to it, but its in the Unfinished Projects NZ FB group

Having to machine a consumable part sounds like a sucky idea too

I'm not saying the door stabilizers aren't a placebo, but I swear I felt them on the drive into work this morning. The body felt tighter in corners, and less creaking.

I can't leave anything well enough alone, so the Alto once again popped into the garage for some quick upgrades. The first thing I did in the garage was adjust the Blow Off Valve. Since fitting it I had suspected I may have had a boost leak. There was occasionally a fluttering noise under boost, and when a fellow Alto owner took my car for a run up the road the other day it wouldn't reach 18psi and felt flat. There were also the obvious noises the BOV was making. It would "blow off" a lot, even when barely on boost, and if you eased off the throttle when on boost you could make it stay open and venting with a long woooooooooooooosh. To make adjustments to the preload on the internal spring you need to back off the lock nut on top and screw in the grub screw. It's not exactly easy to access on the Alto... completely obscured by the slam panel You can see the adjustment screw on top here The lock nut was easy to access with a 10mm spanner, but to do the actual adjustment I had to use a ball-end allen key, through the hole in the slam panel to the right of the BOV, on a really tight angle. I backed the lock nut off a few turns and wound the grub screw in. I also replaced the O ring on the vacuum fitting as this was a really loose fit. A quick test drive shows this may have solved the boost issue, as giving it a couple of quick squirts on the open road I saw at least 17psi on the boost gauge, and it feels a bit more nippy. I'll need to do some more driving to confirm if it's resolved or not. The BOV only opens at full boost or high load now, and snaps shut quickly, a much better solution. While under the bonnet there was another small change I needed to do. When I got the car I noticed the negative terminal was loose where it connects to the ground cable, and if you tried to tighten the nut further the whole stud would spin. I jammed a screwdriver in to hold the stud in place and managed to get it tight, but it wasn't ideal. I ordered a replacement I had a battle to get the nut undone and ended up jamming some random metal into the fitting to stop the stud from turning long enough to remove the nut. Going by the random copper strands around the stud, I suspect it's been messed with in the past to wire up something else, audio maybe. The replacement fit nicely and tightened up with no issue. I used some copper grease to hopefully stop the nut from seizing to the stud. Moving inside, I replaced the interior rear vision mirror. The Alto is so billy basic, that the mirror doesn't have a dipping function. As you can imagine, having a lowered car, with lowered seats, driving in the dark with a mirror that doesn't dip, well yeah, it gets annoying quick. Everything is like having a pair of suns behind you. Thankfully Suzuki used a similar mirror in a few different models, which does allow dipping; P/N 84703-81A14-6GS. There is also a small rubber vibration dampener 84782-76G00. The mirror is quite easy to remove. Pop the lamp lens off Remove the two screws and disconnect the wire behind the light (pulls free, no clip) The replacement mirror bolts right on into the same place. Just connect the wiring first and slip the rubber vibration doodad in too Another bonus of this mirror is that it moves slightly towards the front of the car, further out of the drivers eye line. Now I'll be able to drive in the dark, and Rangers won't be able to blind me anymore. Ha, take that. Another interior job, while I was here, was to replace the drivers seatbelt extender. I cocked up last time by bending one the other way, but this made it all go wrong. The belt was binding on the extender and wouldn't recoil properly. Another genuine Honda part was ordered I drilled the hole out to suit the bolt, and fit it upside down, like others had. It worked 100% better in this configuration. Finally, the last job in the interior was to replace the throttle pedal mount with an aftermarket one which changes the angle of the pedal so it's more comfortable for lowered seat rails. I had noticed my ankle was less than happy sometimes when cruising, so hopefully this helps. I ordered a cheap generic brand from Yahoo Auctions, it had an uh, interesting brand name... LSEX-F Using a deep 12mm socket I removed the two nuts holding the pedal to the bracket And then the three holding the bracket to the car. Reassembly was just the reverse. Mount the bracket, and screw the pedal to it. Easy. Don't forget to plug the pedal back in if you unplugged it. It doesn't need to be removed or even unplugged, you can just move it aside. In the quick drive I did it was noticeably more comfortable, but I'll need to take it for a longer drive to see how effective it is. Moving outside, I had a pair of Cusco front mud flaps to fit. I had noticed since replacing the suspension and adding more camber to the front, that I was now hearing stones and dirt hitting the doors as the front tyres are more exposed now. I will say they're probably fairly expensive for what they are, just two bits of laser-cut plastic, but the fitment was spot on. They have two height settings and are slotted so you can move them inboard or outboard. They're easy to fit. Remove two clips Line up the holes for the desired option, and reinsert the clips through the mudflap I set mine to the higher setting, and as far outboard as they go I think they look quite good. The back of them has a nice textured finish, whilst the "dirty" side is glossy. It looks like it covers the tread nicely, so should significantly reduce the amount of stones hitting the doors. And last but not least, I fitted some snake oil. There's a lot out there about these "door stabilizers", originally made by Aisin and marketed by TRD, so they can't be all bad. Whether they actually do anything, or if they are more of a placebo, we're yet to see. The theory behind them is that the car is a box with big holes in the side that are filled with doors, but these doors, although latching on the back edge, don't really jam up against the frame, so they offer little to no rigidity. The stabilizers work to jam the door against the frame, adding that rigidity back in. This little diagram is from Aisin. I think the effects are a tad over-exaggerated, but gets the idea across They're quite easy to fit. The Alto requires replacement screws for the strikers (or removing the star washers from the existing screws), but all you do is remove the striker And replace it with the stabilizer striker This has a spring-loaded wedge thing on it, hiding the screws The other half of the deal goes on the door itself. You need to remove two screws from the catch and fit this little bracket And these little plastic wedges slide onto it The doors do have a slightly more reassuring "thud" when closing, and coming in and out of my driveway the body seems to creak a little less, but time will tell if I can notice any difference when driving. They're probably just a gimmick, but I'm willing to give them a fair try. Other HA36S owners in Japan have sworn there are good results when fitting these, so who knows. That's all for now. A new SWK intercooler is on the way, so that, and reinstating the IC water spray, are probably next on the list of things to do.

Yeah i suspected as much. Looking at my photos it appears the gauge did work when i first got the car, and hasn't worked since, so probably bumped it at some point.

I'm still slowly ticking off jobs on the whiteboard, and although this wasn't a "pre-wof" job, I wanted to get it done before a couple of other jobs in the queue that were. Back in Feb I reinstalled the refurbished and tested heater box, but I never actually connected the heater core to anything, presuming that I would do it later. I'll tell you now, I wish I had at least fit a pair of 90 degree hoses off the heater core when it was out and easy to access, instead of doing it in the car. The plan here to was get the heater connected and working, before installing the carpet into the car, just in case it did decide to spring a leak, it won't damage the carpet. A while ago I ordered 1 meter of 51mm flexible ducting from Aliexpress to run from the outlets on the bottom of the heater box and up to the windscreen vents, this will allow me to direct air to the windscreen to demist it. This fits inside the plastic 90 degree joints on the bottom of the heater box, and on the outside of the dash vents, as per factory. I installed the vents into the dash first. These were a real pain in the backside to get into place, and work out which one went on which side. I got there in the end, and then cut some ducting and slipped it into place, using duct tape to seal and secure it. The driver's side is a bit less fun as there is less space to work and more wires in the way Unfortunately, after all the faffing about getting the dash vent in place, for whatever reason, it turns out the vent doesn't clear the speedo on the three-dial cluster and no amount of forcing it was going to allow them to share the limited space available. I don't know if this is because the car originally had two dials and the vent is different, or if I was doing something wrong, but in the end, I removed the dash vent, and zip-tied the duct to the dash structure. This still blows out through the slot in the dash, it's just not as directed as it should be. It's better than nothing. Speaking of the dash cluster, once I refitted it, and the steering wheel (since I removed it to give me more space to work under the dash), I refitted the steering wheel center pad for the first time since I got the car. This wheel is only until the car is on the road and then I have a nice aftermarket one to fit, but it's a milestone nonetheless. Who doesn't love a good plughole of despair? Testing the vents with the functional two-speed blower showed ample air being blown in the general direction of the windscreen. The next step was to actually hook up the heater core to the cooling circuit. This required me to obtain a couple (2-3) meters of 1/2" heater hose, and a pair of "Z" hoses (universal hoses that have a 90 and a 45 degree bend with a couple of straights, for cutting to fit). I also obtained a brass joiner, and brass "ball" valve. The Z hoses are to give me a pair of 90 degree fittings out of the heater core. I'm not running the standard heater valve that mounts to the box and is controlled with the cable, as I don't have a good one, and replacements are expensive. I don't care much for needing to change the temp often, so I chose to regulate the temperature with a ball valve in the hose instead. Winter mode, and summer mode. Because I'm not running the standard heater valve, I needed the hoses to clear the brackets immediately in front of the heater core outlets and then exit through the hole in the firewall. A normal hose would kink when trying to bend that sharp, so it had to be a 90 degree moulded bend. The upper heater core pipe is above the one visible, completely blocked by the bracket Z hoses are perfect for this sort of thing. I found these Aeroflow silicone ones locally at a reasonable price I cut the 45 off and shortened the 90 so it would fit I then proceeded to fight with the hose for the next half hour or so, trying to get it fully onto the upper pipe. The space is limited, and the visibility is zero, so it was all done by feel, and I sure felt the sharp bits digging into me. I was very close to just giving up on fitting the heater, it was fighting me that hard, but eventually, with both hands up under the dash, my head on the trans tunnel and my legs hanging out of the car, it finally slipped into place. The next fight was the hose clamp, getting that into place and tightening it, but we won't go into that. The lower hose was much easier to fit, it more or less pressed into place and the clamp went on without much fuss. Now that I had both stubs of hose poking through the firewall, I sprayed some silicone spray on the rubber grommet and pressed it onto the hoses and into the firewall. I had previously looped the heater hoses at the engine, as the previous owners had too (albeit their loop was a lot longer and had a joiner in the middle of it) A bit of research showed that the top heater hose was the one that went to the standard heater valve, so that's the one I fit the tap into I had also seen in photos that the hoses are usually secured to the inner wing by a pair of P clamps. I located a hole that would've been where a self-tapper went into I hate using coarse threaded screws to secure things, so drilled it out a bit further After coating it with some Rover Zircon Blue paint, I whacked an M5 Rivnut into it This allowed me to use a pair of P clamps to secure the hoses in place, keeping them tucked up nicely I then quickly juggled the old loop hose, spilled some coolant, and connected the two heater hoses It's quite a nice tidy setup, and I'm quite proud of how well it has worked out. When the red lever on the valve is in line with the hose, the coolant is flowing in that direction, turn it 90 degrees and it's closed. While I was there, spilling coolant on the floor, I also removed and swapped the coolant temp sender. I had never seen the coolant temp gauge rise, even when the coolant was warm enough to cycle the fan, so I wanted to see if replacing the sender helped. I believe the old one was original and is marked Smiths. The terminal was wiggly, which I'm not sure if it's meant to be The replacement went straight in without issue. Before firing the car up to take it outside and bleed the cooling system, I quickly filled the hole in the floor for the shifter. Originally this would've had a lump of foam around the shifter shaft and covered by a nice "leather" shift boot with a metal ring I have all these parts, but the boot is so manky you wouldn't want to touch it, let alone install it in the car. I plan to remake the shifter and handbrake boots in the same tan vinyl as the door cards, but in the meantime I just wanted to block it off so the WOF man wouldn't be looking at the road during its test. I bought a MK2 boot from a nice fellow Marina owner, and figured I could make it work. This is the less attractive once-piece rubber deal, which was also used on some UK MK1 cars I removed the surround plate from the floor and inserted the rubber boot. It turned out that almost all the holes in the boot lined up with the surround, so it screwed in nice and easy It's not perfect, I suspect cars that are meant to have this boot will have a larger opening in the surround plate, that locates in a ridge on the bottom of the boot, but mine has a smaller opening to support the metal ring of the standard boot. It still works though, and seals the cabin from the outside world. And with that done, I topped the radiator and expansion tank up and started the car. It really needs some nice new fuel, the old stale fuel makes it really hard to start, but the replacement starter is bliss to use and the engine turns over quickly every time. Eventually the engine fired up on all cylinders and settled into a nice fast idle. I jumped in, popped it into gear and headed for the garage exit. I didn't quite make it the first time before the cold engine bogged down, so I rolled back and gave it another go, with more revs, and a bit of a run-up to get up my steep driveway. Apparently, this also meant that I did a nice unintentional single-wheel burnout in the garage Just can't harness all that OHC power! But make it we did. Once outside I got the hose out and gave the engine bay a quick hose down to wash out all the coolant I had spilled (and all the dirt and muck from years of sitting). This little burst of "cleaning" ended up in the Marina finally seeing the first "wash" of my ownership. Yes, it was only a hose down, but already it's a lot cleaner. It's crazy how much dirt was washed away, after 20+ years of sitting and 3 years of me cutting, grinding, and sanding. It's no show car, or even clean, by any stretch of the imagination, but at least I can touch the panels without getting filthy now. Even with me blasting the car with the hose, the interior was reasonably leak-free, except where expected. The front windscreen leaks like a sieve (expected, the seal is wrong and doesn't fit), the rear windscreen has a tiny leak in the bottom corner, and the front quarterlight windows leaked a little too. Once the windscreen seal is replaced, the others should be fine to handle a little rain if I happen to get caught out. The whole time it was outside the engine was just happily ticking over at idle, with the fan cutting in and out as needed. On a huge plus, the temp gauge now works. So what of the heater? well, I can confirm it blows nice warm air around the car, and if you leave it idling with the heater on, the blower on fast, and with the windows up, it becomes uncomfortably warm inside the car. Great success. As far as I can see, there are no coolant leaks and everything is doing as it should. Next, sound deadening and then carpet.

I agree with you, and seeing the terrifying shite that Clint gets presented with, I'm glad some of that can be taken off the road and/or fixed. But it does still suck that you're locked into everything at the time of cert, even for something like a manual conversion. Changed pedal box, nope, can't use lowering springs or different wheels now.

I thought they used the most current to start up and then used feck all, or is that a myth?

Try owning a Marina, you'll hear every man and his dogs opinions on them. But also,I did almost die in my AW11 when it decided to lock the front brakes at an intersection and scoot forward from the sheer power of the 4age and auto trans. Thus, they're all killers. Also, snap oversteer lololol.

Have you considered Plasti-dip or equivalent? Paint them matty B, but (in theory) reversible if you get bored Im a big "fuck black wheels they look shit" kinda person, really hate the trend of it in modern cars, they just end up getting lost in arches and the silver looks so good, but at the end of the day, as others have said, chase your own dopamine and do what feels good to you. Lifes too short to do things just to satisfy other weirdos on the internet.

Seeing heaps of this shit these days. Red, pink, green or blue forward facing DRL/Park lights. Even saw a car with flashing blue led tyre valve cap things. And here I am, getting told by the police that my cold white Park lights are too blue and to remove them.

Hello. It's part number 09922-46010, which you should be able to buy online or maybe order from your local dealer.

The handling getting extra murdery prompted me to open my wallet and replace some more parts. I know I have mentioned it before, "Murdery Handling", but this is both part of the nature of the car, something I was used to, and something I didn't like when it got worse. Due to the super aggressive plate LSD, when on power, the LSD will lock and the Alto will want to turn both wheels together at the same speed. This goes against what the wheels want to do when going around a corner, where normally the inside and outside wheels turn at slightly different speeds. This causes "murdery handling" as when taking a corner, if you come off the throttle and the LSD suddenly unlocks and allows the differential in speed that the wheels want to have, the car will instantly dart to the inside of the corner, which is usually pushing you towards the centerline and oncoming traffic. This is great for when you want to hit them apexes hard, but not so great when just tootling to work and back. It's a feature that the Japanese owner made note of after installing the LSD, and one that I was getting reasonably used to, until the other day. It's not possible with a 1.5-way, but the tuck-in that occurs when you release the accelerator in a corner that is unique to FF cars with a 1-way system works well. The traction from zero start is 4WD-like acceleration, and you can drive safely even in the rain. Japanese Previous Owner I was driving back from work and suddenly noticed that even the slightest throttle caused the car to want to go towards the outside of the corner, and when you came off throttle the steering would suddenly react like the steering wheel was joined to the rack by a rubberband. This wasn't the usual murdery handing, this was something more concerning. When I made it safely home I jacked the car up and had a look for anything wrong. It didn't take long. Everything seemed nice and tight until I grabbed the front springs and wiggled. The whole front struts were loose, with the LH in particular moving a lot. The top mounts were no longer holding the struts in place and they were moving about. This was likely causing a change in alignment when coming on and off throttle and then turning. I don't know why it suddenly got worse, but I needed to fix it. The first plan was to just replace the top mounts and reuse the rest of the suspension. I already have some Tanabe lowering springs to fit, and decided that since the shocks weren't original to the car (they're from a donor Works that had 50,000km more than my car as I didn't want to deal with the adjustable suspension this car had when it was imported) and they visibly looked pretty average, I would replace them too as I didn't want to find they were blown when I fit the new springs, and have to do the job twice. It all snowballed from there. If I'm replacing the shocks, I may as well do the lower arm bushes too. But bushes won't get me a new balljoint, so that means new arms. If I'm doing the arms I should do Ignis arms to get more camber. I don't want to fit new standard mounts, I'll get some uprated ones. Oh, the price of a pair of genuine shocks is about that of a full set of aftermarket uprated KYB shocks, well Man-Maths says I should do the set then. This led to a whole lot of new parts being shipped from Japan. It all arrived the other day, so I got cracking. I brought the Alto in out of the cold. It had been a long month of not driving it. The tape measure was brought out to give me a baseline for ride height Front - 62.5cm Rear - 63.3CM The QuickJacks were slid under and up we went I started with the lower arms as I wanted to be able to remove the shocks and not have to remove the knuckles, or pull the axles out. I removed the wheels and started by popping the outer balljoint. I removed the clip, took off the nut and using a hammer hit the knuckle on the side, which popped the joint out. The arm won't drop down so check it's popped by pushing the arm down with a pry bar. I then removed the two inner bolts from the arm and removed it. Do note, that the rear bush actually slides into a C-shaped slot, so needs to be removed and fitted from the front, sliding the arm backwards into place. Excuse the blur... During my hours upon hours of research I came across a piece of information that was interesting to me; The lower arms from a current shape Ignis are the same as the Altos, but are 10mm longer, pushing the ball joint out slightly. This results in an extra 1 degree of negative camber, without having to mess with camber bolts. Part Numbers 45201-62R00 and 45202-62R00 These bolted straight up with no issues I used my bottle jack to lift the knuckle to ride height, so I could torque the bolts up to spec This process was then repeated on the other side Next up was the main job, the front struts. These looked rough, with surface rust peeling the paint off, and the rubber boots falling to bits. The car they were from had obviously been undersealed at some point, as the shocks were covered in overspray. I used some bungee cords to hold the hub in place so it wouldn't drop down and pull the axle out of the gearbox. This is looped around the subframe mount. The top nuts had been soaked in WD40 to make sure I had no issues removing them. These top nuts only hold the mount together and the strut in the car, it's safe to undo them as they aren't compressing the spring (that nut is below this one). You really do need an offset ring spanner for these as the shock shaft needs to be held with a hex key too. With the top nut removed, the brake hose, ABS wiring and swaybar link removed from the strut, the two lower bolts were removed and the strut can be wiggled free This is the big nut that has all the spring tension on it And this big rubber thing on the top is what has compressed and no longer holds the strut in place On this strut, the top nut was so loose I could undo it by spinning the top mount rubber. This nut should be about 50NM, so that wasn't right. As there is still a bit of tension on the spring, I employed a single compressor to let me safely remove the nut (by hand with no tools...) And the bare shock. As it turns out, the shocks aren't that bad. They still rebound when compressed, albeit a bit lazily. I was expecting them to be dead, like the rears I replaced previously. The only reason to strip the shock down was to remove the top spring plate, which I forgot to order replacements for. A bit of a waste of time, but hey. This is all the new goodies going in. R's Racing Service Reinforced top mounts (P/N S36-120) KYB New SR MS (Works spec - P/N MS-5628BZ1267Z) Tanabe FunToRide springs (P/N HA36SFK) Oh and of course, the Project Mu stainless braided brake hoses (P/N BLS-020AG) All other parts were genuine Suzuki items, which for interests sake, all superseded to Type 2 parts, which have small changes over the Type 1 parts from my car. I put the two top mounts side by side and you can see just how compressed the old one on the right is compared to the new one I had read that when lowering an Alto you should cut the bump stop down accordingly, so I whacked the bottom off it The beautiful new shocks were then built up The blue is such a nice colour The newly built strut was then refitted to the car, including the new top mounts and plates. Part of the Type 2 changes was the difference in the top plate for the mount. It's been completely redesigned. Type 2 on the left. They're also fitted with cute little caps that the car was previously missing Before wrapping this side up I also did the brake hose. The clips are a real pain, but a small pry bar managed to get them out. The banjo fitting in the brake caliper was a surprise to me. I haven't seen this style before. The bolt is solid, but has these ridges down the side that allow fluid to travel along its length. The new stainless hose fit perfectly. I'm glad I went with the iconic teal instead of a boring colour. Yes, the ABS wire should be in front of the strut, I corrected this later The LH side is more of the same, with one small difference, the ECU needs to be moved out of the way. There are two bolts on the front edge of the ECU that allow you to slide the ECU off its mounting pin on the firewall, and rotate it up and away Of course the bracket is still in the way to swinging spanners, so remove the two bolts holding that in place Just as crusty as the other side (featuring correctly routed ABS wire) All fresh newness Hidden by the ECU And again, nice fresh blue shock with teal hose Both sides also got new tie rod ends, since I had to get the car aligned anyway, it was just a smart thing to do They took a bit of tweaking. The change in camber had upset the toe, so when I first put the car on the ground again both wheels were pointing outwards. A quick eyelignment got them pointing somewhat straight again. That was all the excitement for the front, so I moved to the back where I promptly removed my nice clean 2000km old genuine shocks and springs And fit new pretty new shocks and springs. I covered rear suspension replacement in a previous post. It is a shame to be replacing the genuine parts since they're brand new, but needs must The rear brake hoses got replaced too. It turns out that the rears were still fitted with the previous owners Navic stainless hoses It's gotta be a matching set though My wife gave me a hand to bleed the brakes and that was all the undercar work done. Before lowering the car down, there were a couple of quick jobs I wanted to complete. The first was replacing the ZC33S Swift Sport coils with some "High Spark" coils. I've had a slight surge under boost since I got the car, and wanted to eliminate the coils, and a few people in Japan are running these High Spark coils with success (and to be fair, plenty run the ZC33S coils too). I whipped the ZC33S coils out I also removed a plug to check and all looked pretty good there The High Spark coils bolt straight in And lastly, I had a Blitz BOV that I finally wanted to fit I got it cheap from Yahoo Japan because it's missing the trumpet. I'm not bothered by that The Japanese owner deleted the stock BOV when he had the CADCARS tune loaded, using an Rs Racing Service blank, as the standard BOV can't handle more than the stock boost before leaking. This worked, there are no leaks, and the turbo compressor surge noise it makes sounds great, but I'm both a child and want whooshy noises, and concerned about the longevity of the turbo. The instructions say to remove the bumper to fit the BOV. I'm lazy, so I did keyhole surgery through the TakeOff vent I ran a new genuine hose from the BOV to the intake The solenoids had already been modified when the blank was fitted, so it wasn't too hard to plumb in the vacuum line This solenoid has to be moved from the turbo outlet pipe, to here, with the bracket that comes in the kit. This solenoid is left connected to power but has no vac lines going to it So, with the BOV fitted, it was finally time to drop the car to the ground. Immediately, I loved it. It looks incredible. Dropping the height has really pumped up the attitude; it looks so tough now. Can't miss the extra camber in the front either I tweaked the alignment so the wheels were straight, and then took it for a quick shakedown drive The BOV sounds great, a good solid PSSSHHHH. It's like having a 90s turbo car again. I'm in my mid-30s, I shouldn't find it so amusing to drive around going psshhh psssh. Upon returning home, I checked the heights again Front - Now 60cm Rear- now 60.5cm So we've lost about 30mm all around, give or take. It's right in the middle of the 25-35mm spec Tanabe lists, which to my eyes is bang on perfect. To wrap the job up I had an alignment done. My eyelignment wasn't too bad, it was a lot closer than when I first got the car and had it aligned. It was amusing though, the guy that did the alignment pulled me aside when I went to pick the car up and was concerned that maybe the car had really bad CV joints or axles as the car knocked and shook when taking corners slowly "nah, that's normal, it has an overly aggressive plate LSD and the oil is cold". He also mentioned that the camber is out of spec and that they can fit camber bolts to bring it back in, but I let him know I added that camber intentionally. I commend them for their thoroughness though. All that was left to do was take the car to work today. I didn't get a clean run around the fun twisty bits, but did my best. So far I'm really happy with the suspension. The ride is nicer than with the OEM suspension. It's less harsh on bumps (a point that often comes up when others replace the stock suspension), but is stiffer so there is less roll. It rides really well, so I'd say the Tanabe springs and KYB shocks are really well matched. Most importantly though, we're back to normal levels of murdery handling, and if anything it's more controllable in corners as it feels more stable. I can't wait to see what it does at the next track day; I'm expecting to smash those times. I'm not sure if the coils fixed the surge under boost, I need to test that more and do some logging. I can't get over how the Alto looks now though, cutting the wheel arch gap down really improves its looks a lot. Before After Before After And finally, a couple of photos I took on lunch today The new cluster lens and center console trim really helped to bring the level of the interior up too The seatbelt extenders are a game changer for lowered seats. I guess I didn't realise how annoying it was to have the belt rub the side of your neck, but now it's gone it's much more comfortable. Right, now I can finally get some more Ks on the car. I've really missed driving the silly little thing. It's such a good laugh to drive.

BMW bois have been doing it for years

It's been a big weekend of work on the Alto, but before I detail the main lot of work, today I did some upgrades in the interior. One upgrade I had been looking forward to was the seatbelt extenders. Since lowering the seats I noticed that the seatbelt, since it cannot be height adjusted, cuts across the base of my neck which can be uncomfortable. I would've just lived with it, but when my wife commented on it, I knew I should fix it. Happy wife and all that. It's a common thing in Altos, so the hard work had been done already and it's well known that you can use a Honda part to bring the belt out slightly. P/N 81415-SH3-004 I bought a pair. They are only for one side, since I guess in the Honda they're from (Old Civics and CRX) they're only fitted to the passengers side, but I used a heat gun to gently bend the drivers side one back the other way (in hindsight, I may order another one and try it flipped upside down instead). The belt cuts quite high up Remove this bolt The hole in the Honda part is smaller, so use a step drill to open it up so the bolt slides freely through (but not so loose it rattles around) And refit with the extender between the belt bracket and the B pillar. Slip the belt through, and you're done. I repeated on the drivers side too I bent it to change the angle. I'm not 100% happy with the fit on this side as the belt rubs the arm as it recoils. You can clearly see the change in angle of the belt though. The difference was immediate. The belt now comes up just by my shoulder and doesn't cut along my neck anymore. A+ would do again. Next on my upgrades list was to downgrade my interior trim. The Works comes with this nice glossy black plastic around the heater controls. Probably looks nice when it's new, but when your car has had a life, it starts to look real shitey. Mmm fingerprints and scratches I hate glossy black plastic in interiors anyway, so I was stoked when I found a lower-spec trim on Yahoo Japan, with digital climate control (rare, lower-spec cars often have manual controls). This is an unpainted textured plastic instead of gloss. It actually matches the dash pocket better. Removing the trim is easy, it's just clipped in around the perimeter. I stuck a finger in one of the many holes cut out of my dash pocket and just pulled it free. There is a wire harness plugged in behind the climate control, so disconnect that. There is also a white tube for the climate control This was dangling free on my car, so I don't know where it's meant to sit, but I disconnected it from the back of the unit. It's just a "fresh air" intake so the climate control knows the interior temp, it won't actually connect to anything on the other end. I also had to remove the EVC unit since the wire went through the opening for the dash pocket. I'm still finding random pockets of panel beater dust from when it went through compliance. The inside of the dash was covered in it. I gave it a quick wipe out with some APC. I swapped the dash pocket over to the new trim, and refitted it to the dash. Nice. Looks much better from the drivers seat. All the climate control options worked out of the box too, so I didn't even need to swap that unit over. Winning. Next up was the main job. The clutch switch canceller. Now, I had originally rejected this idea as the risk of starting the car by accident, whilst its in gear, was too great. I park the car in gear on my drive, so I couldn't risk it backing its way up the drive and across the road into a fence. In modern cars, instead of turning a key two times to turn the car to "on", you press the start button twice. If you have your foot on the clutch (or the switch bypassed), pressing it twice will start the car instead. See the problem? I still wanted to see what could be done though. I hate the idea of starting the car cold, with no oil pressure, and having my foot planted firmly on the clutch and all that force on my newly replaced crank thrust bearings. While surfing Yahoo Auctions Japan I came across a kit that added a toggle switch to disable the clutch switch. This was still a big no-go. If the switch was left in the "disable" position, instead of getting the "on" position when pressing the start button twice, it would start the car. Thinking more on it though, if there is a switch, it could be replaced with a button. So I went shopping. On the left is a new genuine dash switch blank, so I can mount the button in it, in the middle is the wiring kit and toggle switch from Yahoo, and on the right is my JDMYO momentary push button. Using a momentary button means it does not lock in place and resets once you release it. This means I can hold the button down and press the start button and the car will start, otherwise it reverts to the normal state of either pressing the clutch down to start, or going to the "on" position with two presses. Perfect. I broke out all the reinforcing from the back of the switch blank and drilled a hole through it for the button. The button had just wires out of the back of it, so I cut them shorter and added terminals The clutch switches (there are two, one for pedal up, one for pedal down) are an absolute arse to get to. I contorted myself up under the dash for ages trying to get to them, but the power steering motor was always in the way and my hands were too big. They live up here, right up the top Then I had a brain wave. Drop the column. Two bolts at the front and one at the back supporting the motor and the column will drop down. You might need to unclip the harness from the dash bar first And there they are, the two switches. Real easy to get to now! I used a tiny screwdriver to pop the black and white plugs out, and connected the harness up between the plugs. The wires just go inline with the plugs. I then ran the wiring up over the dash frame to the other side. Where I pulled it through the hole and connected it to the button I reinstalled the column, and pressed the button to test. The little green "LETS GOOO" start indicator lit up on the dash So after checking I wasn't in gear, I held the button down, and pressed the start button at the same time. The engine fired into life. Great success. It's quite easy to press both with one hand too. Because the red button is pronounced and has a large contact area, I could probably just palm the button as I press the start button too. Science to be done. That angle showed me just how horrible the cluster looked too, so many scratches. I preempted this and had bought a new cluster lens from Suzuki. I pulled the surround off and carefully removed the plastic lens. This is held on with a series of clips around the perimeter that I just used my finger to push down as I pulled the lens rearwards. the new lens just clipped into place. And wow what a difference! It's crazy how a little change like that makes such a difference. The cluster looks brighter now and like new. The old one was pretty had it Finally, as a bonus, I replaced the column shrouds. They didn't fit together well, and had a couple of extra holes drilled in them for functions no longer present on the car (IC water spray and rear window wiper canceller) Fresh That wraps up the changes to the interior for now. I still need to remove and wrap the steering wheel, but otherwise it's pretty well where I want it. A big update is coming soon regarding the suspension repairs, I just want to align the car first and get some decent photos. I can't wait to drive it again, it's been a month!

I was more worried about weakening it and losing a wheel or something, but yeah vibrations are a no go.

I could, but by the time I buy some hubs, put new bearings in them, and buy some new rotors I'll be in it for as much as a Silkroad bolt on kit

I briefly considered that but I won't be altering the car to make it work, the plan was for a bolt on setup. I presume there's a reason for the step too, Suzuki didn't waste money or weight where they didn't need to on the Alto.

Not 100% happy >_< one of the reasons its back on the drawing board. I'm sure there is a better way to do it without resorting to making anything. When I do revisit it, it might end up just being 3mm spacers behind the rotors as that should keep the rotors just centric on the hub, and allow wheels to also be hubcentric, the only issue is that the rotor won't be centered in the caliper bracket anymore. I'm think the main issue with the rotor not being centred would be that new pads may not fit on one side, the difference shouldn't be enough that a pad could fall out or anything I could also have the center bore machined out of a pair of Cynos rotors....

Correct, the bracket bolts to the front of the hub flange. I could mill down the bracket but I believe that's a big no-no and makes me even more uncomfortable than the un-centric rotors.

I think I follow; I considered something like this, basically a hubcentric spacer behind the rotor? The problem i came up against was the clearance from the back of the rotor isn't enough to get anything through from behind (because of the 60mm step just behind the rotor), so i'd need to insert a hub centering ring (like you use on aftermarket wheels) from the front of the rotor to take up the space.

Because I can't leave anything well enough alone, I wanted to do some science and see if I could make a low-cost big brake kit for the Alto. I know there are a few options from Japan, which in the big scheme of things, aren't badly priced, like the Silkroad Big Rotor kit, which takes you from 230mm to 255mm rotors, but they aren't off-the-shelf parts, and after shipping its around $500NZD for the kit. Any time I needed replacement rotors I would have to buy them from Silkroad in Japan, with the associated freight costs. There was some info online about people using the "14V" caliper brackets from a Suzuki Swift/Ignis/Kei and the rotors from the same car, which give you a 257mm rotor. So, I found a wrecker that had an HT51S first-gen Swift in stock, which after checking the parts catalogue, had the brakes I needed. I snaffled these up; A pair of calipers with 14V brackets and a pair of used rotors. I knew off the bat that the rotors wouldn't work without some work, but the brackets should fit the standard calipers. The theory here is although it's still using the standard Alto calipers and pads, it moves the caliper further from the center, giving it more leverage on the rotor, and more stopping power. I guess more metal would also aid in cooling too. It's a shame the car lost its fancy 4-pot Blitz brake setup. That used massive 286x22mm rotors, although they don't fit under stock wheels. It's been a long month or so of not being able to drive the Alto. The last time I took it to work the steering was more murdery than usual, with the car all over the place depending on if I was on throttle or not, so something wasn't right. I got home and jacked the car up to have a look, and found the top mount on the LH front strut had a ton of play in it, so I went down a rabbit hole of throwing money at the problem. Now I'm waiting on the parts to do a full refurb of the front suspension, including new bushes, arms, shocks etc. It did happen to tick over the big 100k on that drive home though In the meantime, other than a quick jaunt out to a friend's place to help with their Alto rebuild (always handy to have a second car to know how it goes back together), it's been parked up feeling sad. So with the big brakes in hand, I jumped in, pressed the start button and nothing. It seems three weeks was a smidge too long for the ODB2 adaptor to be left in the connector and it had flattened the battery. A quick jump with my jump pack, and into the garage it went. I jacked the front corner up, and removed the wheel, exposing the cute little brakes That's the stock 230mm rotor. It's 17mm thick and has a hat height of 45.1mm. Ignore the rust, that's just buildup from sitting outside. I removed the caliper and bracket. This shows the difference in the brackets "14V" for the big rotors The stock rotors were a little stuck on, so I used the removal holes and a bolt to push it off. It's interesting to note that the removal holes are very close to the studs, this is due to the design of the hub, which unlike most, isn't a complete circular face. And with the rotor removed, this is the hub. See what I mean about the lightweight minimalist hub? The rotor dust shield is a bit of a joke too. The rotor size difference is noticeable when you put them together The problem with the big rotor, is although the thickness is the same at 17mm, the hat height is different. Instead of 45.1mm like the Alto, it uses a 49mm hat height. This pushes the face of the rotor back towards the hub by almost 5mm. I tried without any spacers behind the rotor first The 14V brackets are in the same location as the Alto brackets, so of course the rotor now hits the brackets (and dust shield). I had really hoped 3mm would be enough, and it's what a couple of people in Japan running this setup are running, but the rotor still wasn't centred in the bracket. It's probably not an issue, but I really wanted it to be centered. I stacked 5mm worth of washers behind the rotor and checked again (because 4mm spacers don't exist) Looked pretty darn good to me. The stock caliper bolts on without issue. The only real problem I have is that now the center bore of the rotor isn't on the center ring of the hub anymore, because the hub tapers from 60mm down to 54mm (so it needs a 60mm CB rotor and 54mm CB wheel... whhhhyyyy) When I did the same work to the Corolla, using 3mm spacers behind the rotors, the rotor was still hubcentric because the rotor was on the hub-centering ring as it didn't taper. It's probably OK, everything is clamped together by the wheel and nuts, but something doesn't feel right about not having the rotor hubcentric. It did look pretty good behind the wheel. You can see how far the caliper is pushed out and how much the rotor fills the wheel Stock Big Boi I've been through catalogue after catalogue and I can't find anything off the shelf that has a similar hat height, thickness and in a diameter similar to the big brakes. There was a Toyota one that was almost perfect and wouldn't need a spacer, but the CB on the rotor was only 54mm, because they don't use a stupid step-up on the hub. There are options for having the center bored out of a Toyota rotor, or another rotor machined to work, but at the end of the day I'm trying to find an off-the-shelf option that doesn't need extra work, is available locally and most importantly, is cheaper than buying a kit from Japan. The Suzuki rotor with a 5mm spacer behind it is the best option so far, but it needs to be hubcentric. I'm wondering if I could fit a 54-60mm centering ring in there, but for now, I've shelved the idea of big rotors. I have plenty of other things to sort out first. I may end up buying the bolt-on Silkroad kit, we'll see.

I feel like a WOF inspector wouldn't look kindly upon a car like the Marina failing to start, so I needed to address that. The Marina has always been a real pig to start, right from the first start (back in 2021, woah). I would need a 100% fully charged battery (on charge at least overnight), and often still needed a boost from a jump pack, and then it would turn just fast enough to start. This was a huge problem when I still ran the original mechanical fuel pump as I could not crank it long and fast enough to draw fuel and still start. The electric fuel pump helps a lot, but nothing will make it cold start when it cranks that slowly. I bought a brand-new battery for it and still had issues. I thought the battery might be faulty, so had it replaced under warranty, still had issues. I messed with grounds, adding new ones, grounding it with jumper leads, and it helped a little but still cranked slow. One thing I noticed in my efforts was that the main lead from the solenoid to the starter would get hot, indicating a huge amount of current draw. I tried shorting the solenoid terminals together, effectively bypassing it and connecting the starter directly to the battery, and it still turned slowly (all the while welding my screwdriver to the terminals). So the solenoid was fine, it had to be the starter. I had a brainwave the other day, in my spares, didn't I remember seeing a spare starter? Yes, yes I did. It looks a bit worse for wear, but other than oiling the bearings on each end and cleaning the Bendix so it returned with a snap, it worked flawlessly when given 12V. It's a 4.5" (bolt centres) Lucas M35AK (Aus local content copy). I reconnected the battery, which had been on charge for a couple of days, and this is how it cranked That was pretty good for it, often it doesn't speed up after a few turns. If I kept trying it might have started, but chances are the voltage would drop and the starter would slow down again. Removing the starter on the Marina was pretty easy. Two bolts hold it in, both accessible from up top I removed the power feed from the back, removed the two bolts holding it to the bellhousing and then realised I couldn't get the motor out. I had to also remove the bolt securing the strap for the dipstick tube I cleaned up the mounting face on the replacement starter, and the face on the bellhousing too, as this is where the starter grounds (or did, it should ground through the extra braided ground strap I added to the top bolt). I slipped the replacement starter in and bolted it into place. It could've done with a coat of black paint, but oh well, it joins the rest of the car in also needing paint. I reconnected the battery, and with no other changes at all, this is how it cranked It cranks like a new car! Well, an old new car anyway. The Bendix kicks in and out nicely and it cranks so fast. It would've started right then, but with 2+ year old fuel in the tank, that's lost all its octane, it's pretty grumpy to start at the moment, but despite having to crank it a few times to get it to start, the starter never slowed down. It's also interesting to note that the feed wires are no longer noticeably warm to the touch after cranking. Draining the tank and giving it a belly of fresh fuel should make a big difference to how reliably it starts now. Maybe, just maybe, we might be at a point where it'll start each time when cold. I was meant to be sound deadening the car ready for the new carpet to go down, but having come down with the man flu, replacing the starter was all I could muster. As a laugh, here is the old starter when being given 12V. The beeping is from the "1200amp" fully charged jump pack warning it's drawing too much current, and the squealing noise is probably from failing bearings in the starter. The starter is noticeably harder to spin by hand than the replacement.

I have plastic sheeting but in this case all the holes in the shell behind the door cards have been sealed off with tape. I forgot to tape off the holes in the A pillar too, but that'll happen when they come off next