ProZac

No, and Yes. Starions had a separate external igniter box mounted to the LH inner guard, which took the VR signals from the dizzy and did the coil current handling. They had a timing curve programmed into them. There was also mechanical advance inside the dizzy, and the vacuum advance / retard dashpot... The combination of all three of these systems gave the final timing curve. Fucking malarky to get working properly when you don't have the original parts! Awesome project Tomble, you're in for a fun time. I've got lots and lots of parts, make sure to hit me up... Unfortunately I don't have any dizzies, but I'll ask around down this way. Chances of finding the exact model for your car are slim, but something that will get it running should be kicking about. I'd just retard the static timing a couple of degrees and it'll be safe :-). You might find this interesting, I wrote it around 20 years ago: https://web.archive.org/web/20130504232342/http://prozac.orconhosting.net.nz/eciguide/rebuild.html Once you remove the EGR (it'll be blocked up anyway), the vacuum plumbing becomes much simpler, can help there :-). Being a GSR-X yours will have auto climate control (So cool ) where all the blend actuators on the heater box are vacuum controlled. Also jealous of the Auto. I'm old now, and autos appeal :-).

Also, I managed to find the JDM factory service manuals for these, (not the USDM ones). They're in japanese, but can still be handy. Hit me up on a message / faeboes if you want em :-).

Epic to see you've got yourself another one of these, looks like you're well down the rabbit hole with it! With the way prices have gone though, its easier to justify the outlay, hah. On the list of cars I regret selling, EEM46 is at the top of the list, but at the time I was working away from home and it was just sitting, somewhat brokenly in the garage, never getting touched. HPA are doing epic things with it, and they're promised to let me drive it when I'm down there doing work for them :-). I've seen the graphs from its new setup, makes a solid 400hp to the rears on the stock port motor (they havent opened it), and has boost in by 3000, so has pretty epic response too. The quote I have on it is that it is 'fast as fuck' :-). I'll always have the memories of dailying it to Waiau and back and hacking it around the track up there. Back before kids when I could afford a $300 a week fuel bill, lol ;-).

Good labour weekend job: fitting Starion seats to the L200 :-). I was happy with the test mounts I printed to check fitment and how easy things would be to assemble, so I went ahead and profile cut all the bits. Bent them up and you have a kit to fit Starion seats to your L200, some assembly required :-). Gave them a blast to get rid of all the scale, and did a test fit. Everything seemed in the right place, so I marked where everything was sitting and tacked everything together. Fitting them isn't as easy as the bench, but its totally dooable. I cut and bent some gussets for the front mounts to put the weight of the driver on top of the crossmember, but they're not quite right. I'll do some more and get them in place though, pretty important. Then finish weld, powdercoat, and job jobbed. These seats are pretty tatty, but they're just for testing purposes, I'll use a nice set of grey fabric Starion seats I have. The driving position is a bit different, but certainly feels more like a sport truck and less like a farm truck :-). New black seatbelts are sitting in the garage, and new black carpet should be here early next week. Will be nice to have that and some good underlay in there. Will feel a bit warmer and certainly be a bit quieter. Starting to get a good picture of how I want the interior of this to come together now. There is good space in between the front seats for a center console with a couple of coffee cup holders. Finally, no more burning my legs on hot coffee!

Cam trigger chronicles, update 976. Back to, well not the original original idea, but a previous idea. Decided not to go with the trigger disc on the very back of the cam, as it didn't leave any room for the sensor cable to exit the half-moon seal, and getting it out through a drilled hole bugged me. Anton had a good idea about sticking the sensor out of the front of the cam cover and picking up on a tooth on the back of the cam wheel, but the length the sensor needed to stick out made it impossible to assemble (well, easily anyway, I don't want to have to take the cam pulley off to remove the rocker cover). So back to my Dad's idea of picking up off the wee cast nubbin on the cam. I modeled up a mount, and released it from the piece of 6061 bar stock it was hiding in. Which mounts like this: Noice. Need to sort the wiring though. In a past life I built a lot of high-end motorsport wiring harnesses, so I've got some skills in the arena. However, I no longer have access to the unlimited budgets I used to... So I've got to do things a bit different when it's my own coin ;-). I used some small open barrel splices and a molex crimp tool to extend the existing wires. If you do this, stagger the splices as it avoids a big bulky point in the harness and help ensure nothing can short. My standard colour code is orange = sensor supply, green = sensor ground and white = sensor signal. I obviously need to keep all these wires away from any moving parts and, I had the idea of using a piece of 2.4mm stainless welding rod as a wiring guide Wrapped and laced everything, not doing it for the gram, so didn't put any filler wires in ;-). Then sheathed it all in some 1/4" DR25. It should stand up to the oil and heat just fine. The wire is only TXL stuff, not ETFE, but it'll be totally seal away from the oil once I pot the alloy boss where the wiring exits it. Shiiiiiiittttttyyyy photo, but shows the nubbin and how the sensor picks up on it Baby steps. Work had been mega busy the last few weeks, and I've taken on some new contract work which also eats up garage time... Worth it though :-).

Yeah man, no worries, hit me up in this thread, or PM me :-). I miss the HPA guys, hope to be doing some work with them again in the new year :-).

The missus will be even more on side when you tell her you're heading out to the garage for some Dual Action Super Head. I was wondering who picked this up, looks like it's in good hands! I've been doing a little bit of work on my Starion recently while waiting for bits for my truck, I really should make a thread about it.

Small update, but this actually took me most of the day to get done... Well, after I was done with daddy duty this morning. The majority of the day was reminding myself how the tool and work coordinate offsets are setup on the mill I'm using. Prototrack controller, would not recommend. I'm not a machinist by any stretch of the imagination, but managed to get the crank trigger wheel carved out without too much bother and nothing broken. I still wish the 32 tooth balance shaft pulley would have worked. If I didn't already have a Link Fury ECU for this thing I would have purchased a Life Racing one just so I could have used it, much cleaner solution. The new one weighs within a bee's dick of the original. I could have made it lighter, but I already had an 8mm drill setup, so that's the size speedholes it got. I set the clearance on the sensor. These hall effect ones aren't as sensitive to the gap as VR sensors, as the ASIC's inside them which convert the VR signal to a square wave have auto calibration logic built in. This is why they don't work well with missing tooth setups, as they calibrate to the big signal spike after the missing tooth, and then miss all the regular teeth. Secured the cable with some ties and it's pretty much job jobbed. I've got yet another idea for the cam sync, I think it could work pretty well, but I need to check the rocker cover clearance. I'll put an IP68 cable gland on the back of the head casting and pot / sheath the wiring to make sure it'll live inside the rocker cover. There are a few diesel vehicles out there that have wiring inside the rocker cover, so I reckon it'll be okay :-). It'd be great if I could pass the wiring out of the half-moon seal, but that space is now occupied by the spinny single toothy thing, which would not end well if the two interacted with the motor running. I'll change the wiring on the sensor to some nice ETFE insulated stuff, twist and sheath it in DR25, pass it out the cable gland (which will be sealed in with something... I think maybe threebond?). Then I can set the clearance, loctite the shit out of it and its jam-nut, pot the top and it should be good. Probably. At least till I'm driving it in the pouring rain one evening in a rush on the way home from work because I'm in trouble for staying late to work on cool shit... and then it's bound to shit out... But that's a bridge to look forward to in the future!

I'm so sick of that HPA wiring guy's voice though! ;-).

Oh you bastard, that machine better be spotless! ;-).

Well, that too, but I'm too old to be embarrassed easily these days ;-).

Lovely! The saloons are cool, great colour too. Yeah, the engine cover on mine is an aftermarket one. Apparently the factory ones are all broken / really hard to find.

Alas, its all photo magic. The bonnet, passengers front guard and front bumper have all been repainted and its not the best job. Almost like its just the basecoat with no clear. I'll attack them with the buffer at some stage and see what they come up like. Managed to find a facelift front gill (it's had a facelift front bumper put on it, but not the grill) in the right colour, so that'd on the way. Really I'd like a non-face-lift bumper for it, as I reckon they look better. If one pops up cheap in the right colour I'll grab it. Agree on cleaning up the engine bay. Once it's warranted and I know it'll be a going thing for atleast 6 months I'll give it some more love. Will do the valve stem seals and lifters, replace the valve cover gaskets, etc, so will give it a good clean while I'm in there. The amount of smoke it generates is truly hilarious :-).

Lol, looks like a bit of fun. Will do the valve stem seals first Anton, then if its still a smoke machine I'll think about rekitting the turbos. If I highflowed them I'd need to do other things like fuel pumps and ECU's... It spirals, not keen :-).

Alas the little lady is sick today, so am home with her. Took the opportunity to snap a couple more pics. I spent about three hours cleaning it on Sunday, and I'm not even 10% of the way there, hah. Booked in for a warrent on Friday. Probably less of a warrent, more of a plan of what to sort. I've replaced the blown bulbs and everything seems to be working. I'll have a diddle with the drivers side seatbelt as its pretty slow to retract and hard to buckle. I'm hoping the low, the exhaust and the wheels wont cause me any issues. The place I'm taking it to purports to be a mitsy / evo specialist, so hopefully they'll like it. Once the other half is home to take over care of wee miss I'll shoot into pick-a-part and get a couple of things. Needs windscreen squirters. One of the trims that goes up the side of the windscreen and over the roof flew off on the motorway, so will see if there is a tidy pair of those there, and if its possible to get them off without fucking them too badly... Need to pull the tape 'eyelids' off the headlights too, but I think I'll just get another set, give them a polish and chuck them in. It's _weird_ having a car you can just buy parts for easily. The interior is pretty nice really. Would have had the tan leather from factory, but has had black carpets put in which I quite like. When the manual was put in it the cluster was swapped aswell, so it's a pretty seamless conversion, no sign that it was an auto basically. The headunit is super dated and wont talk to my phone, so I'll replace that at some stage. I've been wanting to play with a double din android based one, so will likely head that route. Apparently its a thing to swap to evo flywheels and clutches in these? I wonder if its just a parts availability thing. Its got a heavy duty evo clutch in it apparently, and it certainly feels like it on your leg. Getting the muscle memory in place to drive it smoothly and efficiently is taking a bit of time, as the turbo's respond so quickly you're in boost before you know it. I suppose that's a good thing though. They're tiny TD03's... With some larger internals fitted to them I bet they would go really well. Not going down that path though! The FMIC kit looks pretty decent really. Nice welding on the BOV flange. I suspect the BOV causes a couple of issues though, venting to atmosphere on an air flow metered car is a bit of a no-no. Fun Fun.

Yeah, it certainly feels nice and solid on the road, reminds me a lot of the audi a6 diesel I had for a year or so, certainly very different to my truck. 180k on the odo, which I'm sure is accurate :-).

You are quite possibly the most negative person I've ever met, Anton.

This is going to become a familiar site I'm sure. Scored a retractable parcel shade cover, noice.

Yeap, this thing smoke screens pretty good on decel too. I reckon it'll be the valve stem seals. It came with a spare set, as all mitsies should ;-).

I can imagine getting any work done on one would be expensive, labor costs on pulling bits off to get access to what you need to fix would be extreme, she's TOIGHT in there. I dont think I'll be engaging in any sideways shenanigans.... Stuffing a diff or gearbox would be pretty annoying! I think much of the running gear is the same as an EVO, so not glass-fragile, but not bulletproof for sure.

I got a really good deal on it TBH, I could probably sell the front brakes for what I paid for the whole thing, way too good of a deal to turn down, that's for sure.

My truck will need to come off the road sometime soon for the engine swap and body tidy up, before it starts rusting into oblivion. Another daily is needed. Was on the hunt for something reliable and family orientated with good resale on the other side on the truck can resume daily duties.... Somehow I veered hard left and bought this instead. Hadn't been driven in 4 years, and only started occasionally. Bit of malarky with the battery, some fresh fuel and it started up just fine though. Idles nice and smooth with far less lifter tick than expected. I'm sure that'll change once its driven a bit more (for the worse, lol). The valve-stem seals / turbo seals are SHOT. Its a smoke generator on decel. It's got an FMIC, skank whistle, manual trans, evo bembos and is allowing me to live out my mid 2000's bogan dreams again. Are the diesels and lumbo runs still a thing? I'm going to need to buy a baseball cap. It's pretty decently optioned, has AYC and the moonroof sunroof too, so that's nice. I know nothing about the trim levels / models and such, but I'll be researching with glee infront of the fire this evening I'm sure! Ahead is a day of cleaning, detailing, and 'getting to know you' :-).

Quoted for truth. It's a slippery slope!

cheap too, chch metal refinishers do good work

For the throttlebodies I'd strip them completely last part. The media will get everywhere. It's worth it though. Get all the steel bits zinc plated and gold chromated, they'll look better than brand new :-). Hit me up on the ol faebos and we'll sort it :-).