Avenga

Yes. It is sealed into the cabin by that box around it and draws air in the vent under the window. The same way the heater used to.

So, small car update, big life update! I am going in to have Gastric Bypass Surgery tomorrow. It was going to be in August but they last minute moved the date forward. I only had 6 days notice so I have been rushing around getting ready for that. I was planning to get the car finished by the surgery date in August but since they moved the date forward then I will have to finish the car after I have recovered. So, expect less progress photos for a while. I will post a little update when I am out of surgery and back online. Here is a few little progress shots of the interior all painted. And I also got some track rods from a friend on the Avenger forum

You and me both!! Can't wait!

Another update. Went down to the panel beaters and we matched the paint colour. It turns out that it is still it's factory colour. I always assumed that it was repainted a different colour at some stage. The body tags have the paint code PM which is a Mitsubishi colour named Phantom Mist. Love the name. Installed the new alternator only tensioner. Also cleaned up and painted the engine block. Took the rocker covers off to check the condition of the cams. Looks immaculate, lovely golden colour. Got all the bushes I need. Got the vehicle speed sensor from Recon Electronics in Christchurch. Got a really good deal on this. My local Toyota dealership wanted $470 but I got an aftermarket one from Recon for around $180 I got another great deal on Trademe. A set of 8 remanufactured injectors for $110. Brought them from a cool guy who has a superchanged 1UZ in a Ford Courier Ute. They are unused, he brought them and then decided to go bigger because of the supercharger, but they are perfect for my NA motor. Drove my other Avenger to pick them up on Saturday. Had a good chat about 1UZ etc. While I was up there I also picked up a Lexus front engine cover which will hid the spark plug leads at the front of the engine. My 1UZ is a Toyota so it had that big ugly cover that covers the whole engine. The Lexus ones only cover the front and side so I have been looking for this part for a while.

Big milestone today!!! Off to the panelbeaters. Loaded the car on the trailer. We just lifted the body on to the trailer. The body shop is only 350 meter down the road so I was tempted to just carry it the whole way Body is safely down at the panel beaters now. They say it will be about 2 weeks. While waiting on the body we stripped the engine down to replace the water pump and cam belt etc. We also found that who ever did the cam belt last set the cams wrong, they were both out by a tooth, one was advanced and the other was retarded so it is a good thing we redid the cam belt. Also found that the track rods had a big bend in them so I will replace them. Started work on the new fuse box. Here is the diagram. I'm installing a couple of relays for the headlights so I brought the relays, main fuse box, and a bigger inline for the feed to the headlights. Labelled the fuse box.

Yeah, I don't know. I just brought it off trademe and chucked up the link in case anyone else doing a similar engine swap wanted to do the same thing and run only the alternator. He did say that he lived and worked on a family farm. He wasn't promoting the website, other than his email address was at that website and he sent a business card with that URL in the package. It's the only bit that I have brought from them and I saw it, and it fits my needs so I brought it. I'll let you know how it goes when I get the engine running but it looks nicely made and the service was quick and the communications was good.

I brought it from Kelvin at Cartune. Been chatting to him via emails. He was really quick, brought it on Trademe on Wednesday, arrived today. I don't know anything about their history other than they have done a lot of 1UZ conversions.

Started work on the fuel system. I am keeping the original fuel tank and the fuel pump and filter are sitting between the old tank and the side of the car. Then there is a surge tank behind the original tank, there will be a lift pump on the other side of the original tank which will fill this tank. Then the surge tank will go off to the main pump. Finished off the transmission tunnel Stripped the car down ready for panel and paint on Monday Engine bay and transmission tunnel from below. Rear end fully stripped Finished stripping the body loom. Removed about half of the wires. Still need to make a new fuse box and a few connectors for where the engine loom and dash needs to connect. Traced and labelled all of the wires on the old loom. Big box of wires that I cut off the old loom This is the old wiring diagram. Everything with a cross through it has been removed. Brought an alternator only pulley tensioner from http://www.thecartunecompany.co.nz/ I am not running AC, Power Steering or the hydraulic cooling fan, only running the alternator.

Created the inlet for the air filter Looking down in to the air filter The air filter comes out the hole for the old heater and sucks air in through the vent up by the window. Created a box around the air filter. Created the mount for the ECU. Tack welded all the seams in the engine bay Also tack welded and gusseted the suspension strut mounts New custom drive shaft and hoop. Finished off the transmission tunnel. While I was taking out the demister duct I saw this cool sticker. It looks like it is the ID tag for an order of 50 left hand demister ducts. This one must have been at the top of a stack of them.

Hey Cam!!! Yeah, it has been way too long! I'll send you a PM.

I like induction noise so it should sound pretty cool. I am going to build a little enclosure around it so it will suck air in through the plenum. Haha, good idea. I have already brought my new heater. Using this electric one https://dcthermal.com/product/sa12-4000-12-volt-brushless-cab-heater/

Designed an Avenger Hydra logo and 3D printed a couple of different sizes and colours Tested them on the tailgate of the wagon. Not quite happy with the H so modified it a bit. Still not happy so gave it another tweak but I may go back to the drawing board. If any one know a font with a cool looking H then let me know Pulled out a collection of old badges sitting around to see if any of them suit the car. Ended up quite liking this pentastar on the front of the air cleaner. Here is a view from further back Also tried the Chrysler badge on the other rocker cover. Looks pretty cool. I might design and print something more in the same font as the other side. I will probably leave the Quad Cam V8 on the other rocker cover so it might look nice if they both match. Ordered the air cleaner. It is freaking massive. K&N RD-1450. 7 in (178 mm) Diameter, 6 in (152 mm) Height, 4 in (102 mm) Flange It is actually going to sit inside the cabin. Where the heater used to be.

Yeah, they do on the hotwires. I like the first one better anyway. I used to have hotwires on my old Avenger race car so I sort of wanted something different and have always liked the look of those first ones.

Damn, these look nice, They say they can make them to order with any offset http://www.performancewheels.com.au/product/challenger-forged/ Or they also do hotwires

Awesome. Thanks for those links. I will check them out now. I am running 5x114.3 all round.

Started work on the air cleaner It is going to seal on the bonnet, so the top will be open so you can see the trumpets when I open the bonnet and then the actual air cleaner will be in the firewall at the back of the engine bay. Still need to design the front plate, Not sure if I am just going to just use plain ali or do a logo or something else cool Also test fitted some wheels to see what kind of offset I will need. It is actually a lot less they I thought. I and going to use 15X7 wheels with around a -25 or -30 offset. I think I am still going to have to go steel wheels because I can't find any alloy rims at that offset. If anyone know of any alloys with that much negative offset then let me know. Next up I finished off my dash. I had to recreate this little lip around the bottom of the cluster. So I drew it in CAD And then printed it out Fits perfectly when installed It just closes up this little gap at the back of the dash.

Tested the fit of the bonnet, and it closes!!!! I won't need to do a power bugle or anything. Stoked that we could squeeze the big V8 and trumpets under the bonnet. It is going to be such a sleeper. It is pretty tight under the bonnet so I am probably going to go for some slightly smaller trumpets and maybe drop the crossmember and engine down an inch Added even more strengthening, this time on the panhard rod mount And made a gusset for the other side. Ran the rear brake lines. The flex hose connects up to the standard mounting location so I can use the existing brake lines from there. And the other side. You can also see the new upper arms and strengthened lower arms installed

Same here. It was nice to catch up with the EX guys. Pretty awesome turnout and it was pretty cool rocking up to the hotel and seeing the Lancers. I snapped my clutch cable on the way back up so I had to get it fixed in Taupo. The little clip on the end that connects to the clutch pedal broke off. Took it to a local workshop and took the cable out of the firewall Then welded the clip back on Didn't get home until about 8-9pm so it was a long drive for me.

Yeah. I will need to do all that sort of stuff when it comes to cert time. We are checking as we go with the certifier, so it should be all good for the cert when it is finished.

Finished the lower arms. We did some more strengthening by adding a gusset over the top of the lower arm. Painted the Diff Finished all the mounting brackets And the other side Some more progress on the exhaust. Did more of the Y pipe. Started designing my new dashboard. I designed it all in Fusion 360 Then printed it out on one of my 3D printers Did a little test fit. Fits perfectly. I had to print it in 2 parts because it was too large of my 3D printer so I made a little joining plate on the back on the dash. Also those little square bit up the top fit in to where the indicator and other lights used to be so I can screw it in from the back. Installed the carbon fibre wrap. I will see how it looks in the car, might swap it out for just a matte black wrap. Installed it back in to the old housing Cut a whole in the back for all my data and power cables, you can also up the top see my where I screw the front panel on, the old dash was held in by screws on the back of all of the gauges that went in to the old PCB. Tested it with the surround in place, there is still one more part that I need to design for it, which just goes around the side of the surround, where you can see a bit of light coming through

Started work on the exhaust. I am running dual pipe down to just after the gearbox, then single pipe out the back. Had to modify the factory exhaust headers on the drivers side so it goes around the steering column. One runner sits on the left of the steering column and the other is to the right of the steering column The passenger side is easier. Still got some room between the exhaust and the body. Mounted the diff Fits in there quite nicely Just have it tacked in at the moment. Also made up the new upper arms to replace the old broken arms. You can see the old one at the front, and the new ones at the back.

There was about 150 cars. Here are some photos. We all parked up outside the old Admin building, which is now the headquarters of MMC NZ. There was another big field of car but I got there early so I could park in front of the admin building itself There was this nice Avenger GLS Auto And Miles with his Tiger After that we went in the admin building for a presentation about Todd motors history by Mike Todd and Neil O'Callaghan (Service manager for Todd motors who has worked there for 45 years and retired at the Heritage day) I have always wanted to see inside the Admin building because it has the funkiest 70's style roof. Each of these panels are 2.5x2.5m fibreglass panels made specially for the Admin building. They had a whole table full of old service manuals I loved the 50's cartoons on them. After that we cruised up to the Southward car museum. Followed a Charger for a bit At the meet up outside the museum I talked to the owner of this sweet single owner Valiant wagon. He ordered it custom from Todd Motors with a 318 V8 way back in 1973. And also Mike Todd had his genuine E49 Charger there *Drool* They put on a nice lunch there and then we got to look around the museum After the museum everyone went their separate ways but as my hotel was literally right next door to the old factory I figured I would drive up to the factory itself and have a look around. It is truly massive, at the time it was NZ's biggest factory. Now it is used as a distribution centre for tons of places like Big Save furniture, and is also home to a few freight companies, and a NZ post depot. But the one that I was interested in was the Placemakers because I saw they had a drive-through, it was just for timber but I drove inside the actual factory and got some photos of where my car was built 43 years ago. Pretty damn awesome bringing my car back to where it was built, a homecoming of sorts. And then took a photo outside. You can see how long the factory is. Then a rainy start to the drive back up to Auckland the next day

Some more photos of the clutch and brake setup. Little clutch reservoir mounted on the firewall Brake master cylinder next to it. We will be running a remote brake booster under the dash The final mounting location

Yup. I do still have the bellhousing. PM me for details. Not sure if it is 1JZ but it is the bellhousing that came on the R154. Here are some photos

Yeah. I think I do. I'll go check my spare parts stash tomorrow.