Spencer

Glad this conversation has moved on from costs of EFI or the merits of soldering some garbage together. Tuning is the good bit.

Anyone done any fuel economy tuning with a cat converter involved? Old cars I have fucked with with EFI had no cat so you can tune lean at cruise for some pretty decent economy gains. With the cat involved you are meant to aim for 14.7 at cruise so you don't cook it. I wouldn't trade off removing a cat as cars are smelly as fuck without em, but its interesting that modern cars don't use the lean cruise thing as it fucks emissions/cats. Guess they get better economy numbers though more efficient engine design etc.

Off topicish but the hondata for K24 shit is super cool, keep all factory features but open up the ECU to full live tuning. Car even has built in wideband which makes shit so easy. Learning curve is steep to learn how Honda does the knock control and to make sure it isnt fucking with your changes. That and tuning 5 fuel tables for the variable cam timing is interesting.

A great resource for all sorts of ECU tuning is this Evan guy:

https://evansperformanceacademy.vhx.tv/

Sign up for a month and rip the videos you need, has full series of him live tuning all sorts of cool shit. Certainly gets you up to speed fast.

Ah yeah you shouldnt have plugged all that in and just hoped it works. The ECU's and body looms will have different ways of powering things, you could be poking 12V into things that shouldn't have it and fry them. Really should have done a full forensic check of how the existing all works and what wires do what and then match that to pin-outs for the 1gge. I figure the main relay shit will be different which is always a trap on this era of Toyotas, the ECU switches power for a bunch of things (idle control, maybe injectors etc) its not switched off the key.

Generally with modern shit the coolant lasts forever (200,000km) so usually put OEM in there because that is what is already in 90% of post say 2005 shit. Depending on brand of vehicle its pretty much same price as chain parts stores.

MIx up like 4mm of paint and see how long until its hard. I have used clear in the past that you can sand super quick, it all depends.

Yeah you can save it, watch some youtube videos if needed of how pros tackle fixing clear. I have made a mess of clear in the past and wet sanded it back and put more clear down a few days later, its not ideal but its not a sin. I mean really all the hard work is done getting it flat and in paint, whats a few more days of work in lock down to get it super slick.

I love that he has some plates on it and drove it to maccas, mad man.

Yeah man that's it! he sold it to some keen as Bogan type 6-8 months back. Good to see it lifting a wheel and doing shit.

Yeah in honda land people tend to run urethane mounts and maybe a torque damper, has a little give but engine cannot tilt forward and back f-all.

A bunch of torque dampers for thought below.

https://www.swapshopracing.com/contents/en-us/d1425_Ingalls_Engine_Dampers.html

For FWD shit it makes a amazing difference to gear shifts having solid mounts, everything just feels better mechanically. IN the honda factory k24 world factory things have pretty floppy engine mounts, common mod is a engine damper which I have messed around with (you can wind them up to solid spec), makes shifting and throttle feel (engine not flopping around with throttle input) way better. Downside is more vibration (NVH), if you solid mount it all then possibly crack some things depending on the setup. You could probably bang one of the many dampers out there to your setup very easily, they are like $150ish, you get no rocking back and forward plus don't have to make new mounts yet.

6 years ain't shit on a car. You can get zinc 2 part epoxy if you wants the zinc.

No single stage paints allowed son.

Agree, as I said earlier if It was my car I would spend the money on custom shocks. Fucked around too many times with off the shelf ghetto swaps and you get what you pay for.

Shocks that are short enough for a lowered live axle car plus have the valving and end types you want are not that common TBH IRL.

Probably 98% chance of yes. From memory the hilux spring rate is something like 12kg/mm, what do you think the spring in there now is? 4-6kg maybe? the adjustment usually wont cover that kind of range.

You start with the least abraisive and then move up if the scratches are too deep. So start with the basic brand name glass polish and a microfibre pad, you can't go wrong. Its generally used to remove water marks and make a windscreen look 10/10. But can work on some scratches, then you beef up the abrasive as needed (stronger car polish maybe) no need for weird remedies when you can watch car detailers do it the right way on youtube 100 times over. But yeah good advise to practice on something if you can.

32 minutes ago, zep said:

Good advice. I don't have a compressor, would an orbital sander do a similar thing?

You want a dual action cutting/polishing tool they are the most forgiving to use, electric ones are the way to go. I have a couple (3" & 5") of these knock off SPTA ones and they work great.

https://www.amazon.com.au/SPTA-Variable-Polishing-Detailing-Microfiber/dp/B07BK29XRG

I have polished glass with a microfibre cutting pad on a DA with glass polish, I would do that if possible. Could probably get a china spec DA and polish for under 200, bonus you can polish your paint with the DA also.

OR drill based setup.

Yeah just eyeballing them the body is much longer than that hilux shock, stock 86 shocks were too long for lowering most things (crown or waka). Just get someone with a lathe to shorten them up and keep it on the DL for a cheapish solution (I have no idea on legality).

For the buick I tried all the shocks but never got the valving right for the 2" dropped springs. I was lucky that you could get custom adjustable fox shocks for the impala off the shelf that worked, boom problem solved every bump is soaked up and caught no bounce. I would be shelling out big coin these days and getting fancy shocks for anything old I owned as cars that ride like shit make me hate them eventually. (can get fox shocks made for any combo)

For toyota shit the only off the shelf winner combo was MR2 rear shocks in the front struts, I could never make other fitment rear shocks work and stay captive (on live axle things). I ended up getting stock or fancy ae86 shocks shortened for like 3 different cars in the end, just did a dodgy with old mate vvega and chopped the shaft down and welded on a new end, just don't tell anyone.

Dude the hilux shocks always seem good on paper as they are short and have the right ends for heaps of applications. But every-single-time they ride like shit, they are valved for real high truck spring rates so behave like concrete shocks on normal cars. Think there was recently a GX60 guy on here who had hilux shocks, bounced down the road doing fuck all suspension things until he changed them, I tried them back in the day and they are toilet.

Yeah as the guys above were saying, even for a skilled electronics type person making something like that dakota box would be insane. Like hundreds of hours, hundreds in parts then it would break. Gotta pay the boss costs to have nice new trans in your old whip.

I have got 3-4 different dakota bits for fans, cruise control etc over the years and they are top notch.

Yeah the Dakota digital one I have seen in action and seems pretty good. Was like $300US last time I looked which seems pretty reasonable to just make shit work