chris r

Mine didn't come with the Scandinavian option so I'm a bit disappointed there. It is a really nice place to be and quite nice to drive (even in Auckland traffic) had it a hour out of town and it's so comfortable for touring Secondary de cat and possibly center resonator delete and replace with a x pipe is on the cards. Seems like I've got the quiet taxi spec mufflers as can't even hear it. I don't want it super loud but no point in having a v8 and not being able to hear the exhaust note

@Raizer is going look at making some links for his au so if they work out I'll get him to make me a set. Will wait until the tyres are more worn before they get sacrificed as I'm a tight arse I'm aware it'll potientally be expensive for now the comfort is worth it/ it'll be future me problem and when it breaks down I'll have a nice leather seat to nap in I felt a bit bad loading this lot into it but wagons are for hauling stuff at the end of the day

Spark plugs are not often changed on these and there are 16 of them so they don't often get changed and cause issues. I found a couple of write ups saying they are a mission but they weren't too bad, if engine was hot it'd suck as your arm needs to go along the manifold. It turns out a previous owner had changed them which is good to know Rock auto ftw Broke a couple of coil plugs but new genuine are cheaper than a aftermarket pigtail so I've orderd a replacement set. Yes the air suspension is going to fail at some point. Rock auto have struts for a small fortune and it's easy enough to change.

After picking up @Raizer new au and falling for the power and lush air suspension I wanted something similar. Criteria was German v8 wagon because wagons are awesome. Had a nosey around and saw this E 500 on trademe. Went and had a look and a deal was done. M113 v8 and 7 speed auto so goes hard for what it is Had some tints installed Previous owner just had a $6k service done. Engine mounts and rocker cover gaskets, rear tyres and a alignment. It's come with a stack of receipts and barry notes from a past owner

Orthia has been sold and will be on its way to the new owner at some point this week. New daily has been acquired (E500 merc wagon)

The orthia is now on marketplace. I've got my eye on another car which is most likely a stupid daily and a liability but where's the fun in that

Boring daily maintenance update. Replaced the trans fluid with liquid moly stuff and found the crush washer I ordered and forgot to install last time. That hopefully had fixed the weep I thought was a axle seal on the trans. I've noticed a small bit of oil sitting on the transmission and corner of the head gasket and kept cleaning and ignoring it. Finally had a look and it was distributor o ring. Finally got around to replacing it so that should be fixed now

Saw zebra had a ef Civic so grabbed a spare bonnet slam panel and lower rad support to replace the one that's on the car and slightly sad. Also got a battery tray incase making a sealed enclosure in the boot ends up in the too hard basket And did a couple of things on the orthia. Finally got around to replacing the broken door handle Saw someone parting out a prelude and it didn't have the ugly cruise control buttons so grabbed a spare steering wheel for the shroud Much cleaner now without the buttons

Am I able to replace that lower bumper support section with a bit of box section? Or does it have to be oem? And what's the deal with trimming /making existing holes bigger. And would using intercooler to replace the vertical bonnet catch section be okay

Unbuilt mk1 manifold Did what I thought about the first time and made some brackets to hold the flange in position where the turbo (just) clears everything Fitted to the other motor as its easier to work on Sat the nice sinco collector on and there's no way that's fitting without lots of butchery Figured I'd try a little mini ram style manifold I'll need to make bit of a ugly collector but if log manifolds work and make power a less than perfect collector will also be okay Realised at the end of the day there's no rocker cover gasket so I've probably filled the head with schmutz Intercooler arrived and mostly fits. I'll have to stop being precious and will need to trim a bit of the bumper. One end tank will need to be modified but I'll see what angle I can get away with clocking the housing

That's still a option tbh

I'm away with work again but threw the bumper back on to check clearance for intercooler before I left. Found a 460x230x52 cire. Overall 600 ish wide but I can tuck in one tank in a bit and might have to chop/trim the other side. Any taller and I'll have to re make or trim the bumper support or have it poking through the bumper which I'm not a fan of. Once it arrives I'll test fit it along with radiator/condenser and have another crack at the manifold

And cut a hole in the bonnet and solve all the exhaust clearance issues

Turbo could sit there and look cool But doesn't leave enough space for a intercooler, or down pipe and it'll roast the ac compressor pretty quickly I may have to spin the turbo so the inlet is on the radiator side. Will make charge piping interesting. Couple of people in the states have made it work that way

The barry in me thinks that mishimoto stuff is bs and that cooler is too small. @Raizer hot metal glued the shroud together and made some nice mounts for it Unsurprisingly tacking up the manifold without the radiator present means they both want to be in the same place. Turbo also wants to share that same space so back to the drawing board with the manifold. I expected there would be a few iterations of the manifold as space is quite limited

No it won't.

I had grand plans for a 3" dump pipe snaking around but that's not going to work or fit The Vr4 intercooler I've had kicking around will also not work Had it modded years ago with a 90 inlet. most of the fins are pretty mashed up so probably best to cut my losses on that I did a bunch of reading on inter-cooler sizing and found Mishimoto has a guide here which i'll use as a rule of thumb. There are calculations to work sizing out correctly but I'm not smart enough for that and don't have the data needed to do that accurately anyway Rule of thumb for charge piping And intercooler core size I've only got 500x300 of space to mount a intercooler without butchering the bumper or hitting the bonnet I'm looking at a 326x145x50 72.69 in sq (420x145 overall) bar and plate or a 330x140x50 71.4 sq in (480x140 overall) tube and fin according to Mishimoto chart they both should be big enough, I'm allowing a safety factor of 2 as the cheaper inter-coolers won't be high efficiency I'm leaning towards the tube and fin option but will over think it some more

Made some progess on the manifold, got three runners done Then number 3 runner wasn't playing nice/everything was too tight Got everything tacked up and test fitted it. Don't have the rad at the moment so knowing my luck the manifold will be too close Carefully marked the flange with a vivid and tacked it in the wrong place so the inlet is hitting the ac compressor I'll hold off redoing the flange as I suspect I'll have to redo the runners to clear the rad but will wait until that's back in to know for certain But on a positive note it clears the bonnet

All electric motors will have a huge inrush when they start (compared to running) but when running under load it can still use a bunch of current

Absoutly. For one pass maybe. The disco tato should be good for about 200kw at 20ish psi. Hopefully it should be fairly responsive

Engine is fairly standard recipe. Big rods, vitara pistons. I've gone a bit exta and chucked a bigger cam/valve springs in it too. Coil on plug stuff is later model stuff so honda lego there If I wanted to ditch ac there are a few manifold options but as I want to keep it (and not have a hole in the bonnet) best option is to make one

Spent longer than I expected playing around with bends today It won't be anywhere near equal length but turbo won't care Sat the turbo on a bit of wood so the oil drain was high enough and it cleared ac stuff Tacked stuff together Had a brain fart with the third runner and will cut it off and move it. I'll need to make a brace or couple of brackets to hold the flange where I wantb so I can square the tuning up a bit better as everything is quite precarious at the moment

If it was pre Facelift I would but I kinda like the Facelift front

Spent some time on the shroud today. Gave one side a trim And the other side Flipped it over so the fan had more clearance to the top hose and did a bit of clearance work for the top hose Found a bit of aluminum in my hoard and trimmed it to cover the rest of the rad Will get it welded together and will recycle the old tabs and use them to mount it to the tanks

Found some draft stopper stuff in the drawer of miscellaneous stuff Stuck it on not very straight And it seals the gap