chris r

Both rear cv boots I replaced have split in the exact same place which is annoying. It'll wait until next year 

The rear exhaust flange was leaking and the multitude of 'lobster cuts' were annoying me. 

Grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't 

Leaky flange sorted now 

Headers look great!

If you want to go full dairy spec just splash some acid on the welds and hit it with scotchbrite and it'll look mint.

I've had the speaker box thingy on site for the last two days and it's been going for a 9 hr shift and not drained the battery. Wasn't mega loud but the sound traveled surprisingly far.

I orderd another Bluetooth board off alix which has a different amp chip. 

It's the same Bluetooth receiver module/Id but doesn't have as loud of a Chinese voice saying Bluetooth has been activated. 

And more importantly its louder than the old one so I can win the site noise pissing contest. (I'm not that petty/a dick normally) 

Will mount it in and test it out next week. 

It also has a volume control and aux in if I want to use it. 

Had it cranked up high and hit some safety/cut offs so it'll be set to a safe level and left that way 

Battery holder is on. Brackets are barry af but who cares 

Even closes with the battery fitted 

Another year of oil burning ahead of me. 

I'll need to look at the speedo input into the ecu as it'll intermettently have no vtec as ecu won't see the signal. The speedo works 100% of the time so I'm guessing it's in the adapory harness. 

I checked continuity between the ecu and gearbox sensor and it was fine (and worked at the time). 

I'll have to spend more time on it 

Pending location I can have a looksie if you want. Flicked you a pm 

Alix battery adaptor arrived. 

I gave the box a quick sand and slapped the first cost of polyurethane sealer on 

Lid handles sorted. I found a quick release bumper thingy in the shed which turned out to be just what I needed. Bit of careful holesaw and chisel action and it was in

Hopefully that little bracket is strong enough 

It's as finished as it'll get for now. Need to varnish it and wait for the battery holder to arrive from aliexpress. I've got varnish at the lockup so will try and remember to grab it next time 

Picture less update. 

Did the rest and drivers lower engine mounts today, old ones were pretty soft and I could rock the engine by hand.

Threw another set of spark plugs at it, I'll clean this set and just rotate them if/when they get dirty again. 

I thought about getting another head gasket and pulling it all apart again but I think I'll just go grab another bottom end from pick a part and get that freshened up when money allows. For now it can keep eating oil. 

Also Wanged in some narva led H4 headlight bulbs which are lush. 

Yes so glad to see you found a motor! Looking forward to seeing more updates 

Top side bits on and everything just fits. I'll mount the battery slider to the lid so it's easy to use 

Found the hinges I knew I had hoarded when I was cleaning out the car 

Wanged one grill cover on. I'll find and fit the other one tomorrow 

I've found a quick release bumper faster thing I had hoarded which will work perfectly for the catch for the lid. 

I'll drill/mount that along with the handle tomorrow. Will also grind the screws down so they are less stabby.

I had to going all day on the drill battery and no sign of it going flat yet which is good. I'm happy just to get a day out of it tbh 

Vero board amp didn't go according to plan. Didn't let the magic smoke out but its not 100% either. I'll have another look at it when I've got more mental capacity. 

Doug was inspecting my progress 

I only had thinish mdf in stock and free hand cut it with a skilly so things aren't perfectly square and there were a few internal gaps. It's screwed and glued but not overkill it with some sound deadening 

I probably should have made box bigger but I'll somehow make everything fit

One idea is I'll make a hinged lid and have battery socket/slider thing there so it's easy to access but I'll need to work out how to not have it rattle and be annoying 

Thanks letterbox. 

Overnight parts from jaycar (caps and resistors) barry spec vero board and heat sink were in stock. Hopefully the heat sink is enough. If not ill raid a graphics card or something 

Amp will now be running on 50v dc and according to the datasheet be about 20-30w per channel which should be plenty to drown out the other radios. I'm not usually a cunt like that but am being petty in this case. 

Worked out the box dimms and doubled the length for both speakers 

Cut the wood and needed a couple of days rest  roughly assembled it to see how square it isn't 

Measured and marked the speaker cutouts

Dear santa can I plz have a jigsaw 

Gave the holes a quick rasp and everything fits flush

I Wanged a bunch of no more nails on all the joins as that's what I had in stock, that and screws held my sub box together so should do the job on this as well. 

I've run out of mdf (only have enough to seal in the woofers) so will use some other timber for the rest/case. Plan is to have the amplifiers and voltage booster (hopefully it doesn't create a shit load of noise) up top under/around the tweeters. 

I've got a power supply on the way from aliexpress so ill make provision to mount that so it can also be plugged in. If I feel super fancy I'll work out a battery charge function. 

I'll also have to think about where to mount the heat sink for the amps and if I make a lid/compartment to store the 18v drill battery 

The makita/dewalt radios sound shit and I don't want to pay heaps for the Hitachi one to match the rest of my stuff. So I'm making one when I have energy (caught covid and isolating). 

Ordered some speakers and "100w" bluetooth amp from surplustronics. They turned up pretty quickly but it wasn't quite 100w when running on 18v and feeding the 8 ohm speakers. I should have read the data sheet first but it was $20 so I'm happy it works and doesn't sound too bad. 

You can use winisd if your on pc to work out enclosure size but because covid I had my phone only so used the app and to play with sizes etc https://www.diyaudioandvideo.com/Calculator/SpeakerBoxVolume/

I initially thought I'd gone a bit overkill on the teeters 

Tested the amp on a freshly charged battery and it's a bit on the quiet side I later found out the volume buttons on the board are not the same as when you change the volume on your phone, but it's still too quiet 

So time for this little amp to move onto its 3rd project. I started that amp like 16 years ago. I've got a voltage booster on the way and higher voltage components so I'll replace/redo the circuit board (strip board for msx barry spec) 

Airbag light came on again. Couldn't get codes out of it and the reset procedure wouldn't work. 

Grabbed another ecu from zebra and got lucky and grabbed a prelude steering wheel at same time. 

Airbag light now does what it should. 

The cheap blue shocks ended up feeling worse than the original 300 thousand olld shocks so I swapped the stock springs onto my mugen damper adjustable shocks and fitted them on the front 

Even fixed the hazard light bulb by accident. It was the same as the fog light switch. It's nice knowing I won't need to pull it apart again for a long time yet 

I'm happy happy with that. Just worked like it should which was a pleasant surprise. Will reassemble and hopefully that's the last time I have to pull the cluster/dash apart in a while 

Boot bolted up. Super barry with nuts and bolts and loctite but it's in

Yes the bolt holes aren't square etc but they are on the piss on the crv surround too 

I needed to trim the wider piece a bit so it fitted in the console but it's in now 

My amayama package finally arrived with the lamps and the cam belt cover

So it's been using a bit of oil. I had hoped it was still running in but not so lucky. 

No external leaks and catch can is doing its job but isn't massively full so I figured it's probably burning it. 

Yup. Cyl 3 is sad. I don't have the money time or energy to pull it apart again and throw another set of rings and hope so I'll keep feeding it oil until it gets really bad. 

Part of me wants to get another block and get it properly build but thatll be even more time and money. 

On a nicer note the aliexpress speedo corrector seems to power up nicely which is better than the jaycar option. Let's hope it works

Instructions are super helpful 

Google translate says there is a up and down button. So I'll go for a drive and see how it goes 

Did some barrying today

Finally installed the O2 port bung 

Put some silver and clear onto the seam seal on boot

Cut out/ welded/ painted the shifter plate

I'll have to carefully drill the mounting screw holes for the shift boot tomorrow.

This popped up in my youtoob feed this morning. Just to add more variables and confusion to the mix 

Yup they look like they'll fit. 

And fitted 

Took it for a quick spin around the block and it feels better, will see how it feels with a decent drive. 

Will probably need to do the bushes and dust boots on the ball joints for next wof but I think I'll just give the mechanic everything and get them to do it all at once 

@Raizer turned me up a anti doort delete bung

And turned/polished up a knob for me 

Ordered some new front shocks as stock ones are pretty soft. Clearance deal on trademe of 90 for the pair so we'll see how good /bad they are 

Rears are eye type/same (smaller eye) as the shuttle's so not many aftermarket options available. 

I'll try and refit my stock springs onto the damper adjustable mugen shocks as I ground the bush to suit the shuttle arm and they fitted the orthia but were miles too low with the lowering springs

And it's silver. Only one coat and hopefully it sets enough before it starts raining 

It's not perfect but it's not rust now and it'll be covered by the seal and the glass so shouldn't draw any attention come wof time. 

Finally made a start with making the shifter boot work. 

Did some cad work with the crv and orthia shifter surrounds 

Traced it onto some metal 

I'll need to bend/make some brackets for the wider section as the screw holes are a different height.