yoeddynz

So happy to see some updates with the as usual awesome zac levels of attention to detail. I'm still insanely jealous of your fd - I'd happily have one just to look at and sit in even if I couldn't afford to run it. Hence I'd be going over board to make it nice too.

Nothing wrong at all with your welding efforts. Good on you for having a go and learning new skills

Don't forget the big savings to be had by not using genuine mazda housing seals but instead use appropriate sized electric cable. Not kidding. I've seen it done.

I didn't really know these were a thing. Very cool. Very dinky.

I'll just put the old springs back in then. Save a lot of hassle. Then sort the height issues out later on.

Yeah that's another idea, although even without knowing the cost of custom springs, i bet they are more expensive then making wire rope retainers (but much cleaner looking....) Currently I have something like 30mm, maybe a bit more, of droop before the straps got tight.

Sweeeet. Mine are made from quality strop but I could easily whip up some wire rope items as per above link suggests. @cletus @KKtrips does this sound OK?

Coil over on the front. Divorced (never actually heard that term used before now) at the back. The back end is fine - the coils there remain captive. Just these loose front springs to sort. I'd love it if I could swap the guts out and put in shorter inserts but I cant as they have non-servicable rolled over ends. If there was enough meat in the wall I'd cut the tops off the dampers, internally thread them and machine up some caps to retain some inserts.

Are keeper/helper springs OK for certification? Like these sort of things.. https://www.nzperformance.co.nz/bc-adjustable-suspension-keeper-helper-spring-pa-2 One of the things I'll have to deal with in the future is loose front springs (makita one ways) when the car jacked jacked off the ground. Iirc it's about 20mm gap. Currently the car has some very well secured straps, as is done extensively in the UK with imps wearing shorter springs. But I'm guessing this fix would not pass a cert? So if my 'strap ons' are not good enough then it's some keeper springs or start looking into making some coilovers with shorter insert etc etc but that's a whole new set of questions.

Oh - I've not actually watched the first vid. Hmmmm, not sure if I should? It sounds like it could be like stepping straight into the second season of walking dead, or the handmaids tale, having missed the best bits from season one and it generally all goes painfully downhill very quickly from there to the point that you wish they'd just fuck off and finish already, you've smashed the telly in and gone back to the shed.

but still very entertaining

Oh trust me - I've been looking on Ali. Still yet to decide what bend/filter in using anyway.

While I'm here.. would a 63mm silicone hose stretch to 64mm to fit my throttle body? https://stealthride.co.nz/collections/silicon-joiners/products/gloss-black-45-silicone-reducer-expander-hose5mm-wall-thickness-140mm-leg?variant=41522154864811

I'm going to acquire said Estima from @Sparkynz strip it completely out, remove the front drive so its RWD only, upsize the crank pulley so its sees supercharging boost that would make even @RUNAMUCK sweat and build an Estima Q car. Might change the name too. Seems like a crime to miss out the opportunity to not re-badge it... 'Hot Emina'

It's been on the back burner for ages. Looking forward to painting it next and have removed the guards to clean them up. Most recently it's been used for pulling flaxes from the ground, stashing old posts on the deck and putting seedlings out in the sun on the deck away from the reach of wekas. Very useful..

I'm a self proclaimed expert in this field. If Monsieur Chapman was still about he'd be popping round mine for regular cups of tea over discussions about weight bias and its effects on handling. I'm not normally the sort of bloke who likes to boast about my talents but I am quite proud about my very scientific approach to modifying a small cars weight balance for testing purposes. I'll be more than happy to give you some sage advice on the subject when you need it...

Hey thanks man. Hopefully it wont get too dusty or the Mandalorians will have to get little wipers on their spaceship window.

Continuing on with cleaning bits and fitting them. I gave the inlet runners a tidy up with a wire wheel. I was tempted to paint them but decided I like the raw alloy look and they should be easy enough to keep free of any oxidation. Bolted together and fitted.. Happy with them. Next up was to finish off the filler tube. I had five of these arrive from the land of Ali. I took one apart and studied it and after a stiff coffee eventually came up with a plan on how to cobble it into a unit that would fit the cap, be easy to remove if needed and really easy to change the batteries. Split apart all the bits look like this.. The light unit together.. machined a recessed hole in the cap. No going back now.. Switch in place.. Switch pushed down... light does its thing... Well. That's that done. It'll no doubt get stolen by some little light fingered shit at the first car show the engine cover is up at.. Now back to the topside. The Honda civic throttle body needed some modifications and add ons to suit its new application. The first thing was to sort out a inlet stub to suit the vacuum line that will run to the ECUs map sensor. The Honda had originally been fitted with an external map sensor that goes here... I machined up a plate, machined a little pipe with a flange, bent pipe in vise with a bit of old air rifle barrel, recessed plate to suit flange, epoxied it in place and bolted the assembly on. In pictures... I also needed to make a fitting for the idle control valve hose. The area under the throttle body where it fits is very tight so I had to really whittle down a lump of alloy until it fitted and press a custom pipe in place. Again in pics.. Not a lot of room.. Now a cable pulley to suit the imp throttle pedal. I measured the pulley I'd previously made to suit the Hitachi carb that's fitted to the Datsun A12 currently in the imp. Double checked the cable pull offered by the throttle pedal. Drew up a sketch and started machining. I offset the centre just like I had done on my second iteration for the V6 Viva, so gearing down the first bit of cable pull and making for a nicer smoother throttle opening. Fitted in place. Had to add a stainless stop to the pulley so I can manually adjust the initial opening as per the original pulley fitted. Luckily this throttle body has 2 return springs (another large one is hidden behind the TPS sensor. I need two springs to satisfy the certification process later on. Now I needed to make a bracket to suit the throttle outer cable. More alloy swarf was pinged about the mill... resulting in this... Mounted in place. Note the slotted mount holes so I could fine tune the cable exit to suit the offset pulley. I made a gasket to suit the TB and with that I am pretty much finished with the fabrication of the engine parts.. (exhaust system beyond the headers is still to be made but I consider that's kind of separate to the engine) EFI wiring next. I did a quick measure up of things. I needed to know the length of loom I'd require to suit my ecu location which will be under the front of the rear seat. I also wanted to get some sort of idea as to where best to run the loom so its hidden from view but still easy enough to remove. I cleared the big mobile table and started sussing out the loom requirements... I have a DIY autotune megasquirt ms1 loom to use but since I'm using a ms3x I'll need a few extra wires not offered on the loom. Luckily I have my collection of Mazda and Nissan wires... I've also had this turn up yesterday. Its a 14pointseven Spartan 3 canbus wideband, along with a very nifty looking digital gauge, from the very friendly and helpful team at Justraceparts.com in Oz. So that's where I'm at now. I'll be playing about with lots of wires, sensors, crimp fittings, heat shrink etc etc I'm in no rush to get through this stage either because I enjoy wiring and its at its most fun when I can take my time in order to do a neat job.

They all have the sane feed wire size that can either branch off from one or be in series. But whether branched off or in serious the feed is alot shorter then the earth returns which have to make their way back to the ecu. I'm wondering if it's something to do with the injectors needing to open quick (big low resistance feed to the injector coil) and shut quick (smaller earth returns can disipate the risidual energy quicker/hold less of it) #imnotanelectroniczspecialist

Why is it that oem injector wiring features a smaller (20~22 awg) wire for the return to earth via the ECU compared to the larger 'feed' wire from the ignition supply. I'd always the amperage rating would need to be the same on both sides of a powered device? I've been searching Google for an answer to this question but no luck so far.

So cool. Congrats on first start.

Furrymuff. Those are all good valid reasons. Looking forward to the V6 jetboat thread

What was the reason for not continuing on with this? You were so close. Great thread anyway and cheers for the entertainment

Map based tune so fpr it is. Worked fine on the V6

Ahhhhhh. I've never really thought if its needed or not? I figure there must be some sound reasoning as to why they are fitted to many N/A japanese cars?