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+1 for comical "GT-DIESEL" decals. Good jerb man! I told my mate that someone in the South Island was building an Iron Mask diesel R30 sedan and he got faux-stroppy because that was always going to be his pet project, hah. This is a neat car. Drove it at Hanmer and somehow found enough restraint not to buy it on the spot, such an easy thing to drive and with a surprising amount of oomph for an oilburner. Brought back fond memories of punting around in my DR30 sedan, which @Brdflu keeps telling me I should really stop neglecting and start working on again. As old man KY says, there's a bit of surgery involved to fit the nose, also you may need to buy some facelift bumpers and tail lights to complete the look.

Gonna be in Wellington this Saturday 16th of September at pretty short notice. Looks like I have some of the evening free - any OS boes keen for a catchup, coffee, beer? Giz a PM or reply if so! cheers Ed

That is neat. ...are we driving this to Highlands?

Now that Hanmer has passed I've had a yarn to a few peeps and they have expressed some interest in attending, so I'm bumping this up again for posterity. @kiwi808 Highlands is definitely NOT on the same weekend as 4&R Champs, correct? Just so I have my facts straight.

You can thank old mate bugalugs with the "insomniac" child for that. Someone suggested last night that we could park in the section further away from the Warehouse and food places (roughly in front of the Reduced to Clear store) as that whole area remained fairly empty all evening. Sure it's not right next to Burgerfuel, but as mentioned neither was the top carpark at Ellerslie nor Countdown Manukau.

I'm all set. Flights booked (to Christchurch), leave approved etc. Any Chch folks going? @- i5oogt - @427carguy @SamBam @Cullen @Brdflu @76rolla_gurl @RWB etc

That sounds... safe, haha. Registering it as a 2-seater has been discussed with one of the compliance places, but the back seat and belts must be permanently removed, and they warned me that any dodginess around re-fitting it would be upon my head if I somehow got caught driving around with people in the back. Also it would look a bit ugly with no back seat, ha. Anyway, an update on progress: A seatbelt specialist in Tauranga is currently looking into the front belts - if there are drop-in dual sensitive replacements that can be fitted in place of the existing ones, that should pass. The problem is finding a drop-in seatbelt that conforms to the weird as fuck Starion setup. As for the rear belts - if I fit factory 3-point ones using the factory mounts before compliance, due to a loophole that I didn't bother asking for more clarification about, the inspectors will use those factory mounts and simply fit new dual sensitive belts in their place. However, if the car just turns up with 2-point belts fitted, the inspectors will not bother looking for a factory mount but will instead ask for scratch-built mounts to be fitted and certed. Confused? I still am, sort of.

All good! Was gonna have a chat to old mate Ant to see if he could help out.

How much are you happy to pay for outside "parking"?

Should be possible, say if I had access to the car in between its arrival in NZ and its departure for compliance @fuel. A guy on the Starion FB page offered me some maroon 3-point rear belts so the option is there. My compliance guy has already seen the photo of the back seat with the lap belts, haha. But I'm sure he wouldn't mind. They only seem to get upset if you fix things like rust/damage before they get a chance to inspect it. Yeah I was just thinking that. Could be worth a shot. They might be able to spin me a sharn about the queer door-mounted front seatbelts as well, hahaha. Been trying to get my head around all the techno-babble in this link: https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/entry-certification/i-and-c/vehicle-interior/seatbelts-and-seatbelt-anchorages

Thanks @Firebrand, that helps greatly! You'd think so, but there are apparently a few oddball rules around retrofitting rear seatbelts. Proving the factory points are there is only the first step, next is to convince the compliance people that they are suitable for mounting a modern seatbelt. Otherwise new anchor points have to be scratch built, which requires a LVV cert and around $4k worth of fabrication.

At this rate it's not looking favourable

Any Starion owners here happen to have a Japanese import model? If so, how have your rear seatbelts been fitted - are you aware of any factory anchor points in the boot/rear C-pillar area? Reason I ask is that the NZ-new ones obviously have three point retractable shoulder belts that anchor somewhere behind the seats, but Jap ones only have two point lap belts from factory and therefore any examples already here would have been changed to three point once they arrived in the '90s. I'm interested in finding out whether these had anchor points made, or if they have the same anchor points as the NZ models... and if so, whether these would still be suitable for compliance today. Cheers!

How about aim to be at Stoddard after 8:30am, leave at 9am. Should get us to Smales before it gets too busy, we might even be able to score some prime real estate in the top carpark for once.

Bring that catalogue with you on Sunday Steeb! Old barrys love catalogues.

Cheers for the offer! Yeah last year was the perfect storm of prior commitment clashes all round... My leave's been preapproved and I'm about to book some flights to Christchurch, so at least I'll be committed to getting to the South Island for the appropriate dates. I'll rent an econobox to get to Cromwell if I have to. Or buy something oldschool and find an OSGC's house to leave it at for South Island Nats 2018, haha.

Calling all regular attendees and new - time to start thinking about this year's Highlands 101... Fri 10th thru Sun 12th November 2017 in Cromwell, Central Otago. Jonny/@kiwi808 has kindly volunteered his house, situated halfway between Cromwell and Wanaka, as a possible base of operations, stay posted for more details to come. In 2015 we ended up doing a heap of exploring/sightseeing in addition to spending time at the track, which worked out pretty lush. Perhaps for 2017 we should check out Wanaka? In the meantime, post general event discussion and itinerary ideas here. https://www.highlands.co.nz/events/highlands-501/

Meet at Stoddard Burgerboes at some point, cruise through the tunnel and over the bridge?

Keen to meet up someplace beforehand and head in together Steeb?

Yeah, I wasn't going to look at the car again for another 9-12 months, but peer pressure (and a repair quote that came in well under what I initially thought) made me do it. Engine builder recommended 1.1mm or thicker headgasket so will see what Toyota can supply. The crank from the donor AE101 GZE was in better condition, so ended up using it, and the rods from that motor instead. Hmmmmm. Guessing these are N/A suited? Let me do some research and get back to you Richy. @Firetruck I don't really want to go too extreme to be honest, keen on having a tidy looking car externally with a couple of small mods to give it more shove. I keep telling myself (maybe poorly judged) that if I wanted to build a foooooly siiiiick MR2 I should have started with a rusty high-km $3000 shell instead of a low-km tidy $12,000 one out of Japan, and then it would be ripe to chuck in a 7A-GTE and Link. As it stands, it still feels a bit sacrilegious going down the path I already have...

Because everyone likes laughing at my misfortune, let's have another look at those big-end bearings. Yeah. The crank was also scored seven ways from Sunday, and the machinists next door were reluctant to skim it, so now it's a big ole paperweight. These were the worst ones but pretty much every single journal was rooted. We did work out the root cause of all this pain - the factory oil pump had eaten itself, apparently a common thing with the 1st gen motors. I never realized the 4A-GE also suffered from this weak point - it's a common thing to occur on the old Mazda B6Ts as well, although those tend to blow the relief valve and spring first. Lots of deep scoring against the cover: Take note of the area around the vivid mark: In the meantime, things got busy... and my wallet got empty. We acquired a donor 4A-GZE bottom end (from an AE101 this time) and Karl attempted to make a good one out of two. The end result: my block, pistons and sump + donor crank and rods = this. He also sourced a brand new oil pump from Toyota and a couple of other bits and pieces. Head has been sent for a skim, as there was a 0.004" bow in the face (eek). Toyota purists may note the AE101 4A-GZE rods are actually weaker than the preceding AW11/AE92 4A-GZE rods, but I was assured that for my application it wouldn't make a shred of difference. Different story if I was planning to go 7A and/or turbo I suppose. The first photo below should answer the age-old question of whether 1st gen 4A-GZE (AW11) blocks were 7-rib or 3-rib. Generic oil filter for the running in period. Better get more than 100,000km out of this shiny new TGP pump! Thanks to fellow oldschool member @Dell'orto I now have a SC12 from an AE101. They look very similar at first glance to the one that came off the AW11 but note the radius of each pulley face; AE101's is slightly smaller. If this translates into a slight boost increase, it won't be a bad thing I'm sure. When I next go back to the workshop I'll dig the verniers out and compare the inner diameter of each pulley, but I'm pretty confident they are different sizes, and the Toyota wizards on the internet also seem to indicate the same. This clutch also arrived. Sadly, Toyota no longer stocks a genuine clutch kit for the AW11 SC Next step is to speak to Mark at Toyota to see if I can find a suitable 1.1mm or thicker MLS head gasket before the engine can be fully reassembled. And do some more overtime in the mines to pay for all this faffing about. Discuss the colossal fail here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49412-80s-kid-part-ii-eds-aw11-sc-chit-chat/

@xsspeed is dis us g? You can brace yourself for all the people asking why the Fairlady has a RFB in it, and I can brace myself for all the people asking why the Skyline doesn't

A mate of mine just sold one recently after owning one for several years (Sean in Wellington - Al, I think you might know him). I originally picked it up in Auckland and stored it for a few weeks before he came to grab it. They are quite economical, which is great for around town, but are a bit ungainly when cornering due to being taller than they are wide. Also the shittier the tyres, the more sledging that occurs. I remember experiencing a bad lockup coming down the Ngauranga gorge in the wet in his one. It was auto as well which did take some of the fun factor out of driving it. But yeah, they have a responsive little 4 cylinder 1.3 turbo and a surprising amount of room inside, easy to park too which is good. They share a platform with a bunch of other Toyotas and Daihatsus so parts are cheap and plentiful and in the time he had it not much went wrong except for a bit of paint fade and an accessory belt needed to be replaced. Get one! ...or if you can wait a few months while I try and source a windscreen for this blasted Alto you could eventually buy that instead. Lawl!

Yeah should be there. I'll pack me gumboots.