Snoozin

The following day (Those were Saturday's updates above), I set about getting my Hayashis out and giving them a wee spritz with the metal polish to bring back the brightness. Then, fit them up

I needed some slip on spacers for these (and some other 13s) to clear the calipers, on wheels with very flat spoke faces and 3-piece bolts it JUST tags the edge of the caliper. No biggy, John van Beek (he with the badassiest Cedric of ever) whipped up some hubcentric spacers for me, I will organise a grub screw and threaded hole in the hub to secure these, just in case I wish to cert later. For now they're perfectly safe, and fit like a glove.

20210919_114316-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

On with the Streets! 13x7 -6 offset for those playing at home. So with the spacer on the front, we are effectively a 7J -11 offset, pretty hefty for a standard Starlet guard but with the 175/60 it  just covers the tread.

20210919_131430-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Realistically it's probably a little tight, although with a test drive it showed no serious signs of rubbing. But to be sure I found some +7 offset 13x7s on Yahoo for next to nothing (rare to find these days with the way prices have gone) so used buy now through Jesse Streeter to get the ball rolling on those.

But here's how it's looking on the Streets. I reckon it just looks so good on 13s, they visually lower and lengthen the proportions of the car. Really enjoy just looking at it, at the mo.

20210919_114754-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210919_115151-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210919_130445-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Last job on Sunday was securely mounting the rear speakers. The TS-X9 are one of the top-end Pioneer units of the day, these and the TS-X11 both used cast alloy housings are are absolute nuggets. They sound amazing too - I've had these hooked up to my home amp inside, and for their tiny size, the results are unbelievable. These ones I've had stashed away for a while now, so I knocked up some large plates to bolt through the parcel tray to the speaker to prevent them going anywhere, and also spread the load across the old wooden parcel tray material. It's some sort of almost cardboard crap - I should really make something more sturdy. This still flexes and bounces around a little bit when driving so it may need some sort of additional bracing moving forward. Looks hot though/

20210919_151048-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

None of it is wired yet - although that won't be too long.

Thanks for looking. Even though we're locked at home I'm very chuffed with the car and it's got me in a good mood.

Well then, I've been tinkering away.

The car was booked in for a WOF check on 19/08, and cert inspection on 27/08. As we all know, everything got fucked up again cos of the Cov, so none of that even happened.

What I did do prior, was get the engine bay in a state ready to cert. Basically, LVVTA rules require the crankcase vent to be routed back into the intake, and my catch can setup/open trumpets was not going to work I'd always intended to run my big ITG filter over top of the trumpets, and the cert man confirmed it was OK to run a cam cover vent straight into the filter backing plate.

I have spare cam covers to allow for this, and the net result was as below. Unfortunately, some bad measuring on my part meant the filter won't fit around the trumpets in situ - meaning I either need to put 50mm trumpets in, or just run without. For the cert purpose I chose to just run without.

20210918_105417-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Anyway, I never got a cert, or a check, or fucking anything because diseases and shit. I'm still at home, not working, not earning, not happy. But I went and got the car anyway, and made some changes with a view to heading out and finally taking some proper photos with my real camera instead of the phone.

First thing I did was install the Pioneer tape deck with the mounting kit. This thing is wonderful, it's hands down the rarest, weirdest most interesting 'off the shelf' part this car has on it, in my view. Everything fit perfectly, clipped and bolted in to where it needed to.

20210918_131215-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

For the most aesthetic photos, I figured it was best with the blue cam covers, open trumpets and catch can lines reinstated.

I'd ordered some TecArts trumpets way back in March, these finally arrived in June from Japan and I took the opportunity to fit them up.

20210918_164209-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210918_165815-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210918_165822-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

These are 100mm long vs the 75mm we tuned on, have that great looking 'merged' bellmouth look to them. I'm smitten. It's also louder.

Gave the interior a bit of a spruce up. Painted the kick panels and some other plastic trim, using an SEM product specifically designed for refinishing plastics. Custom matched by Carcolors on the shore. It's epic stuff! Overall the interior has come up well, it's a really nice light, airy place to be, kind of the vibe I wanted it to have. Black interiors are dime a dozen - it's nice to choose something different and actually have it come together.

20210918_170929-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210918_170940 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

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Final wipe down, and it was ready to tuck under its cover for the night. Nice to just have a cold drink and stare at it for a bit. 

20210918_175516-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

A few things have happened since the above post, like reassembling and putting the engine and box back in the car.

That happened maybe 3 weeks ago, and this weekend we tuned it.

Long story short, it made 148hp at the hubs, it peaks then holds flat until limiter at just over 8k. Feels great in car.

Here's some videos.

This is on the local test track

A quick 3rd gear motorway pulll from about 90km/h.

Huge huge thanks must go to @Lithfor making the trip up to fastidiously tune the car, it drives really nicely, behaves well at all loads/conditions encountered so far and is just generally a pleasure to hoon around in.

Chch Matsuri Saturday Track-768-Edit by Richard Opie, on Flickr

How good's an FD doing a wheel burn?

Well, we haven't managed to realise the promise of the previous post, but here's the state of play regardless.

First up, gearbox.

The remainder of my spiffy new internals showed up from the motherland, and I trundled up to the sunny Hibiscus Coast to finish assembly under the watchful eye and guiding hands of Mr. McFarlane the T50 whisperer. This is what we ended up with.

20210515_113825-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

All shiny and clean and new! The only things NOT new in this, are the gearsets, main shaft and shifter rods.

20210515_113843-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Pretty neat learning exactly how this all works in a practical sense. Otherwise the gearsets are all in pretty good order, given the hiding this thing appears to have taken over its life.

20210515_113836-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Little bit of a close up of the nice new shift forks and shifter hub/sleeve things

Then we tackled the head. Well, Alan at Harris Performance did. For those that don't know, Harris Performance is what was formerly Lynn Rogers and Alan knows his way around a 4AG head a bit. Pics of head below for perusal.

20210511_115253-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Chambers tidied up, valves deshrouded.

20210511_115249-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210511_115244-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Inlets all looking a bit spiffy!

20210511_153023-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

This is the transition from the T3 ITB manifold to the head. Out of the box, it was super shithouse. Now it isn't, plus the manifold/head have been doweled so it's always fitted up in the right place. Not even sausage hands Richy can fuck this one up (too much, anyway).

20210513_124014-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

20210513_124023-01 by Richard Opie, on Flickr

Cams and supertech valvetrain all installed. We ended up going 1mm oversized valves, as the ones in the head were past their best before and the extra cost wasn't going to be a big deal over replacing them with stock sized ones.

It's in the final stages now, prior to head assembly I dropped the long block off, and Alan measured the valve to piston clearances to ensure nothing was going to clash and end in tears. Will have a number on CR shortly (expect it'll be around 12:1 or slightly more) and the head will rejoin the block.

Next update, we should have a built long block and I'll be putting all the ancillaries back on it, prepping to put it back in the car hopefully for the last time for the forseeable.

Tell me how it's a fuck up and it's going to explode, here;