d.p.n.s

immediately thought of you when i seen this.

wellllllll how's life after 13 months with a problematic st170. to be honest.....its not that bad... the engine check light is on all the time and the car has no issues... every now and then it feels like it loses some power...and when I check the code it's usually timing has advanced.... I've been clearing the codes and off we go again...it fucking hates 91 and seems better on 95/98 more than NPD 100. flew through a WOF in August that was the year ownership mark.. not as bad on fuel as all the brits complain about. just gave her a service today..new oil ,filter, air filter, some fuel system cleaner... see how the next tear goes... I fucking hate the dual mass flywheel....may do something about that.. apart from that ..I would love to get back to work on the mk3s....but I have my nephews mk5 here that needed a replacement motor....thats been a bitch and still not running ..need to swap another head on.... and I actually have mates that aren't into cars....( fuck I know....strange ay)..but those men have teenage boys now with cars aswell so I find my self pretty popular with shit cars living in my driveway .....makes me feel like I should apologize to my dad for some reason......and I get more contact from them than I do there dads now lol.... but 1 day I will get back to it........also had to work through this past lockdown.... hmmmmmmm next year maybe

or even cut the bottom of the gaurds off and move them out ....Zak speed styles.

yes to the 2 door and yes to the mk1 bubbles.............DO IT

also had a go at 3d printing a drill guide with stanless inserts 4x108 to 4x114.3

next was to finish off the dizzy/trigger 2/home signal . so the shaft is pinto with pinto cog... the dizzy housing is xf falcon with a home made bush and the small tab on the side drilled and slotted so i can bolt it down to the block.. made and welded a mount on for the 63mm 36-1 trigger wheel i had cut. (i have also had a mate test this for me and the signal works well.. so i made a small bracket for the cheer hall effect sensor to hold it and brace it. all the parts bracket screwed on made a alloy mount for the sensor (thanks browncorona for the tap to thread it) all mounted in place having a few beers with nismo_capri and he designed and printed me a 3d cap for it. all complete and finished and bolted on another off the list

next up was the thermostat housing replacement because i don't have a thermostat and i wasn't sure what rad i would end up using i thought i would just grab a Davies Craig 90 bend and just make the base out of 10mm alloy. ..i drilled all the holes about and tapped them all so i can have adjustment if needed.......didnt drill all the way through....lol but thats that done and the top hose should nice and easy ....apart from needed the turbo water out runnig into it as well.

i made a list today of what needs doing and its huge....man its huge. so i decide to try and finalize each part as i go... so 1st up was the fuel supply . i finished welding the pump mount face up. the tank needs to sit lower in the car so the pump has room under the floor and doesn't get squashed ...i worked out it need to sit about 40mm lower.and lucky for me i have some 40x40 so i cut some the length's of the rubber tank pads and welded them on and then glued the pads onto them. the filler neck needed to be extended as well the end of the filler is stuffed so i cut from a spare tank.......yes 40mm longer that was welded on and even tho i trust my welds i also learn from my mistakes so i took the time to seal all welded areas and check for pump clearance ..i also put the factory sender unit back in with the feed pipe cut and bent over the tank straps needed to be made longer . so did the tank strap bolts. fuel pump back in for the last time..breather run to the filler neck.. fuel feed and external filter added and a short fuel return....these will go to the hard pipes once they turn up and are made. and the tank all mounted

so you know when you think its going to be a nice easy straightforward job..... oil cooler was mounted...all i had to o was put the oil sandwich plate on and run the lines.. i center bolt for the sandwich plate must have been put in a real safe place as i cant find it.....so after over nighting parts from Auckland i bolted the sandwich plate on ran the hoses and cut them to lengh...........then i put the inlet manifold on and it seems that all the IACV stuff is in the way and then so is the dizzy...there is next to no room under there now and also noticed that the dizzy housing is also touching the IACV ( will clearance that with the flapper disc) and it seems that if i turn the sandwich plate down it hits the block and no room..turn it to the back and the engine mount is in the way. so i thought about cutting and shutting the engine mount and then i remembered the rusty old parts wagon had some pinto mounts i had never seen before ...so out came the mount box and these are that mounts that came on the rusty wagon the problem area mount mount comparison and bingo......problem sorted......well that problem..i need to get ne hoses now as the ones i cut dont fit. on another note i made mounts for the radiator 9thats a 70mm dual pass rx2 rotary radiator). then pulled the oil cooler , intercooler and radiator and mounts out and gave them a nice clean paint. oil cooler in intercooler in radiator mounts in radiator in made a shroud for the 14" fan shroud and fan in now tha battary tray hits the inlet manifold no matter where i put it ..and luckily enough these came in right and left hand drive and the sides of the engine bay are the same ....so i moved it to the drivers side...trimmed a corner off to move it back a bit (dont worry about the booster as i dont have brakes yet but i am planning on cylinder bolted to the fire wall and run a remote booster) and the air filter.....i made a head shelf hole cut for filter adapter filter in had to trim the light bracket also had to clearance the grill for the filter and oil cooler works well ......cant see much at all unless you look hard intake pipe for the turbo and the engine bay is starting to look much fuller..just got to mount over flow tank and washer bottle and breather tank on the passneger side.

decided it may pay to run a oil cooler and i had one sitting on the shelf (may be bigger than i needed but it was there) i struggled to find somewhere for it ..i am trying my hardest not to just cut the shell up and remake stuff...so i removed the inter cooler trimmed 2 tabs off the oil cooler an mounted it on its side. remounted the intercooler for the 3rd time ...even had room to just snake the oil cooler hoses out by the intercooler outlet. i remove one of the grill mounting plates an decided to mount the airfliter there ..by the headlight an under the slam panel.. should get plenty of col air an i can make a shield to block it off from the engine bay heat.. the filter is a k&n with a 6"inlet lol....i knoe its over kill but i ha 6 filter adapters (6" - 2.25" )from the 6 cylinder cortina (was going to make trumpets out of them.......lo dint work) also may need to move the battary tray to the rivers side so ecided to use some heat ducting for the turbo to filter .....should work well.

small job done as i start finalizing things as it goes back together in the car getting ready for wiring. IACV idle air control valve ...this is something i wanted in place ..so i found a factory GTIR one but it wasnt working so i pulled it a part and cleaned it and now its good...nice and simple 2 wire on off job. it has another like pressure switch on it as well that i dont need but when i removed it it allowed air to bleed ...so i just put it back in. it has 3 pipes and1 is just a constant air flow so i cut it off ..jammed a bolt in the hold ..cut the head off and added a bolt through the side to keep it all in place....works fine. and just using stuff i have around the garage i got it all together ..its not the prettiest . ..but it is on the underside of the manifold .

i did a few things. the 3 little gauge set have this real nice clean white back light and the dash is pretty crap..so i did some searching and found some T10 wedge LEDs. lovely clean light i tried them and it was much better but still pretty dark so i removed these things as well made heaps of difference.........lights before and after i also uncover the white mk3 as i wanted to take the subframe out and use it as it saves me having to strip clean and rebuild another subframe just yet. i left the motor in place and just pulled it at least i know this has new bushes,ball joint,tierods and wheel bearings with a rebuilt rack. and with the same springs i used in the back and even without a motor in it it lowered the front of the black one by 60mm. i also dug out the gearbox ...replaced the out put shaft seal put a new clutch fork with new thrust bearing in,,cleaned up an old flywheel and used a clutch and pressure plate iv had here for w while and bolted it all up to the motor and put it in the hole.......and it fits 9the tightest part is the inlet plenum to top of the subframe......but it should be fine. and some pics i got even have room for a 70mm thick rad and fan.

ive had a issues with the wiring from time to time....sometimes it all works .others just some of it.... it doesnt really help that most of the loom is from the rusty old wagon and the rest is made up of 2 other part looms. it doesnt help that its old and sat in a car unused since 1984 .but i need to know the wiring is all good and up to the job before i go any further .. so im going to get rid of these. and replace it with a hot rod /universal wiring kit (its not really its just a fuse box with wires) so i pulled it all out again....removed the engine bay side of it for now and started to focus on the just the main loom. once i started peeling all the old loom tape off it started to show some treats so ive been doing this over the past couple of weekends trying to get it all sorted and see what's what and how it all works before i remove all the old fuse boxs and label what i need . while i was making sure it all worked and going through each wire i couldnt get the fuel gauge to work at all..tried 3 senders and jumping the wire and nothing...pulled the gauge itself out to clean it and found the small needle was stuck behind the small screw at empty lol.......few hours of my life i will never get back. all sorted and working 100%before i add fuse box i left it over night and thought about it somemore ....then in the morning i ripped all the wires from the fuse box and made it work. and then went through it all from the 100th time...made sure i had added extr wiers for all the extras and removed all the stuff un needed.. added wire to move fuse box into glove box (as i will with ecu and wide band gauge....and the wrapped it 70m of loom tape and last bit found some oldschool 3 gauge set for 15 bucks and bought them.....sanded the chrome and painted it matt black......and all wires are in the new loom.

few things done today. god the old diff out and rebuild LSD aussie diff in with rear swaybar..just need to sort some shocks and get the drums and rear shoes done.. l decided to put the springs in that came in the white mk3 in as they seemed lower ...not sure what make they are bur not cut and totally different to standard spring way harder and as it turn out 55mm-60mm lower i also thought i would try the wheels i have. now these rims arnt normally the sort of thing i would buy buuuuuut i wanted 15x7 .4x108 and 0 offset and these are just one of those .....but blood cheap and brand new..so i bought them as they are 15x7 but have fwd offset and 4x100 stud pattern so with some adapters could make the fit perfect ...and they were so cheap. and as a mate is finding out there may be a lot of 15x7 rims in 4x108 with0 offest about ...but no one has stock....so i tried them and to be honest i like it. and made a start on the fuel tank.....just basically did what i did with my other mk3 but no drop tank and i keep the wheel well BA rx6t intank pump...some plate with welded nuts on the back....made sure it wouldnt stuff with factory sender and cut a hole...,tank looks to be in good condition just has to bash some dents out...got a few small parts to cut and weld in and tack some spaceres to the top of the tank so the fuel pump doesnt hit the floor

had a few bits turn up...wastegate actuator .. could find a good 2nd hand evo actuator so i just bought a universal one with a differant spring for alllllllll the boost the only real problem i had was the evo actuator must be mounted real low judging buy the flap arm movement.. so i just cut the arm off locked the flap shut and the welded the arm back on in a better place...then made a bracket for the actuator . the gauge for the FPR turned up so got that sorted. and the injectors i was told that evo injectors will fit the gtir fuel rale and work in the manifold well. so i found a set of denso 800cc injectors for an evo 1-8. they are 2nd hand but have been cleaned tested and flow matched and come with new plugs and was less than a 2nd hand set of untested factpry gtir injectors.