0R10N

Does anyone else think this logo looks uncomfortably similar to a certain famous movie franchise set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"?

Picked up the spare Starion radiator from the shop yesterday morning ready to go. It was 70% sludged up, and had a bunch of badly bent cooling fins, but cleaned up quite well and the guys even re-attached the mounting bracket running down the middle. Here it is all shiny with the OEM fans. This will help greatly when I get around to re-fitting the factory air conditioning - the smaller fan on the left is controlled by the HVAC system and engages with the A/C compressor.

Trevor French Radiators - look them up, they do a good jerb. I failed to get a photo of the Skyline one but it was even more impressively clean.

I should probably throw these fucked tyres in the garbage, and refurbish the standard 5-stud narrowbody wheels. As if I didn't already have a thousand other things to do

Also, if people paid more attention to the caution label back in the day, we probably wouldn't have all the old barrys today still whinging "mayte, those turbo Jappas mayte, they're god damn unreliable pieces of junk, mayte. Get a FORD/HOLDEN mayte," before jumping into their Great Wall utes and peeling off in a plume of oil smoke.

Finally, to round out this blabbering update of not much usefulness, here's a neat little time capsule of NZDM goodness that the previous owner generously included with the purchase of the car: the factory MMNZ first aid kit. I showed it to Ant and he reckons it's from 1989, as the logo on the top post-dates the Todd era. The kit comes complete with these glorious late '80s versions of Pamol and "Curity" brand bandage tape, along with a bunch of bandages, plasters and other triage-related items, all similarly decades-old and a bit dog-eared.

One of the previous owners must have had the lurgy (or a hangover) at some point, because one of the capsules is gone The rest of the packet is still there, but given the expiry date on the side it's most likely all turned toxic by now, so I doubt anyone will want some to cure their headache in any great hurry! I'll inventorize the contents of the kit and pop down to St. John to have it all updated.

If we assume a five-year expiry on all the items in the kit then the 1989 production date makes sense.

Wow, this newfangled phone of mine actually takes a decent shot. Too used to shitty budget phones with potato quality output! (compare the photo in the second post above)

Now that I've got the radiator back, and daylight savings has kicked in, the plan for this coming week is to spend time in the shed after work doing some investigation on the cooling system.

Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54171-ted-huangs-starorion-0r10ns-1988-mitsuhishi-starion/

Received a new TGP "Caution Plate" decal through a contact in Japan. The one on my driver's door is a bit ratty looking and some of the lettering has rubbed off. Fucking annoying.

Didn't think you could still get genuine ones and was originally searching around for reproductions, so this is handy.

It basically tells you not to do stupid shit like park on long dry grass, stop driving the car if the catalytic converter overheats or the check engine light comes on, and make sure to read the owners' manual before operation! There's no caution against burnouts though, so I guess those are allowed.

Hashtag: jaydeem-az-fvkk.

Discuss: http://oldschool.co....1-sc-chit-chat/

Shall investigate. As mentioned it's not a direct swap is it? The freshly rebuilt TC06 on there could benefit from being squirreled away for safekeeping.

Hopefully I'll be able to sell my spare TD04 soon, the guy who has been interested for months is finally getting around to rebuilding his 4E-FTE.

Wow that's harsh. I was only replying to Alex's question and a couple of other folks.

If you knew my demeanour you would know that I'm the harshest critic of my cars, so this is par for the course.

Better equipped, better diff ratio, DASH 3x2 engine, and overall it keeps within the theme of having 100% Jap import cars in my collection.

Haven't noticed any bad reflections from the dashboard (yet) but it hasn't been overly sunny recently so maybe I'm in for a treat...

Ordered a thermostat and will be dropping the legit Starion radiator off today for inspection, so we'll see how we go from there.

After driving the car for the better part of a week now I can safely say that it feels very GT-car like, "pudgy" with a bit of steering input lag, and the lazy turbo and tall diff take a lot of getting used to. It even tramlines and bump steers a bit with the 16s unfortunately. But other than that, it looks mad while driving around, and the cockpit is a nice place to be, so I can't fault it too much.

Hoping to take it on an out of town roadtrip soon.

It's probably too nice a car to wreck with a speedo swap TBH. And the big red flag in Carjam/WOF database that says "inconsistent odometer" might put some people off.

Oh and then there's the miles vs. kilometres thing to contend with, lawl.

Facelift Starion digi dashes are dope though. The central part is very similar to the one in my friend's V3000.

Cheers all. Yeah still learning the ropes with this Mitsubishi sorcery, but so far apart from the cooling system it's a pearler, mayte.

I'm surprised at how sweet it looks with the widebody wheels, smart move by whoever thought about doing that originally.

Oh man I'd fizz for a digital dash Cam, but that'd play havoc with the WOF and I can't be bothered swapping it out every 6 months I noticed the Japanese go nuts over the mph speedo, funny guys!

Good point about the temp sender Kicker - didn't even think about that. Assume it's the original one or at least the same type. And Phil, the car definitely isn't mixing its fluids nor chuffing/steaming, so I guess that's good peace of mind for now. Might also see if the thermostat was replaced along with the other sundries recently.

When I shut the car off (temp gauge reading normal) there isn't any odd gurgling or whooshing that would indicate a pressure problem either. It's a strange one, that's for sure.

I already managed to pick up a Starion radiator and fans Daryll, but I could consider a swap with cash my way for the L200 and custom setup. At least with the standard fans I can put the A/C back in and have the secondary fan turn on when the compressor is engaged.

Oh it actually climbed a bit higher than that - to between 2/3 and 3/4 of the way up (5/7? lol). Didn't make that very clear in the original post.

Running around town it sits at about 1/3, and I've seen it rise to halfway then slowly go back down once the fans kick in when sitting at traffic lights, but today was the first time I'd seen it actually above what I'd consider a "safe" temperature.

Time for a proper water temp gauge? Most cars have a pretty arbitrary scale from factory

When I originally checked the car out, Mike, the previous owner, warned me that the original Starion radiator had at some point been replaced with one out of a L200 (possibly with fewer cores). As a result the replacement may not have been 100% up to scratch and he'd noticed the temp gauge rise above halfway a handful of times, but it wasn't really an issue as he hardly ever drove in stop start traffic and the fans had been upgraded as well.

Now luckily I generally drive against the flow of traffic every day, and didn't think it would be much of an issue for me either, but today I had to head to Penrose on an errand after starting and finishing work early.

As soon as I hit gridlock at Market Road I noticed the temp gauge starting to climb...

You could blame it on parallax error perhaps, but that needle definitely looks like it's sitting above halfway to me

It got a bit higher than that, but I managed to get off the motorway at Greenlane with windows down and heater on max (OS car lyfe)... and continued on to my destination at 50km/h urban speeds with no further issues.

Fortunately I've already thrown caution to the wind, and picked up a spare original Starion radiator with fan setup, so will drop that off to get inspected and possibly reconditioned as soon as I can. The guys at the shop are going to chortle heartily as they currently have my DR30 Skyline radiator which is in for a de-sludge and general clean.

I'm not much of a cooling system guru so I have no idea if I'm heading down the right path - but surely two less cores wouldn't make that much of a difference unless the radiator's really gunked up? I've already replaced the radiator cap as a precaution, there's still plenty of proper coolant in the system and overflow bottle, and none of it has escaped at all. Pretty sure the water pump was replaced not long ago as well, when the cambelt was done.

Discuss... the imminent BHG? //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54171-ted-huangs-starorion-0r10ns-1988-mitsuhishi-starion/

Hoping sooner or later Phil the Mitsi Whisperer will pipe up with some tips and tricks, dos and don'ts, and random trivia

So cool, screw JDM, you just know if you sold itmto import one that the new one would have secret chassis damage found during compliance or something annoying.

Buy a shitty Demio or Vitz or somethig for a daily

I know, I know. Just that its non-JDMness won't sting so bad if I keep telling myself it can go out the door if I ever get the chance to buy a GSR-V.

Was thinking of buying a cheaper, Kei-like runabout but I'll give it a few months first. I used to drive between 600-1000km a week as a jerb, and boring cars like Demios and Vitzes send me to sleep. Possibly a Colt Ralliart to keep the Mitsi theme going? Such a pity they look like a running shoe.

Problem is, a small car feels like a deathtrap, I was dailying an automatic mid '90s BH Familia up until recently and even that felt more rattly and unsafe than all of my '80s cars!

Link back to build thread: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/54169-death-star-of-orion-1988-mitsubishi-starion-ex-blue-smoke-machine/

Plate is perfect on this too

"You are required to maneuver straight down this trench..."

I sort of want a Kei (or Kei-like) daily now that I've gone and scuppered my own plans for some other form of daily driver.

Not sure what though, modern or '80s? Either way it has to be turbo and manual, and will have to live outside, so that narrows my options down.

And it needs somewhat sensible gearing for motorways and open roads...

I thought that was the Spirit R's that had huge $$ associated with them?

What John said. Spirit Rs are moonbeams everywhere, but the SPs are really only worth good coin in Straya.

Shall be there.

My mate Ant will also be in attendance, he's the Mitsubishi foamer friend that came with me to view the Starion (in lieu of not being able to take Phil along) so y'all can give him a bit of friendly shit for not being an effective enough voice of reason (to convince me NOT to buy the car)

This is my not-so-closet Kei car pine. Came close to importing one but the fact it screams at 5,500rpm in top gear at 100km/h sort of limited its options as a daily.

Dat twin cam turbo 3 cylinder sound though.

Keenbeans. Have the Friday off too due to Opeth gig the night before so will meander my way down.

Thread dig as this seems the most recent covering importing an 80s car from japan

Re necessary documentation/dereg etc will stacked sort that out if i get Ewan to buy via a dealer on goonet? Will ship with autohub

Once landed and going through compliance what docs are needed this end? Does it come with the car/sent separately/emailed.

What do compliance guys actually look at? If you go for a check and somethings up is there a window you need to fix it in (like wof)?

Yup.

Dereg certificate (export certificate) and bill of shipping/lading are the absolute minimum required for compliance, this is sent separately to you via courier. You can look at the papers I received with the AW11 if you like.

Compliance in a nutshell is like a really strict and invasive WOF (almost, if not the same as a re-VIN), they also check for things like structural and underbody rust, non-standard mounting points for things like seat rails and seatbelts, and will usually pull apart the interior trim to get to areas like the pillars and floor. If anything minor needs repair they can fix it (think things like shocks, brake pads and lightbulbs), anything seriously rusty or structurally damaged will require a repair cert, and anything that needs LVV certification (e.g. coilovers that you want to keep on the car) will need inspection and signoff by Clint or someone like him.

Friend of mine picked this up for a song off an old lady who was moving to the Gold Coast. 1989 Mitsubishi V3000 SEi, two owners from new, both from the same family.

it was literally on the side of the road with a FOR SALE sign in the window and if it hadn't been sold that day, it would have been shipped off to the car fair, followed by the wreckers. So pretty much the essence of "oldschool spotted"/saved.

Ah, right. Could tee up to have a look but it's probably too hard to manage as I'm looking at buying a new daily right now. Therefore no new toys for me*!

*I'm so going to eat those words

Hmmm...

http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/used-cars/mazda/auction-1156349863.htm

I know the auction states "no WOF, no rego, no cert", no worries, auto converted to manual, dodgy photos, etc but why do I get the feeling there is something else problematic in the mix for it to "only" be $5500?

Either way my interest level is high enough for it to be saved to my watchlist.

Your car should be fine to bring back as it's >20 years old, but can't be on-sold within two years otherwise it will attract some sort of Customs tariff.

Guessing it will undergo LVV certification as part of compliance once it gets here. I'd give John (S124AB) and/or Clint a holler and see what they think.

Personally I'd budget $2000 for shipping/fees and $2500 for compliance/certification and maybe a bit extra to cover any "surprises" found during the process...

Also check these three links out:

http://www.customs.govt.nz/inprivate/sendingitemstonz/motorvehicles/pages/default.aspx

http://www.customs.govt.nz/news/resources/factsheets/Documents/Fact%20Sheet%2029.pdf

https://www.nzta.govt.nz/resources/factsheets/44/

Yeah that's true, lol. Could be a cheap fix for now if you get the ECUs looked at.

My coupe had blown caps and dry solder joins in the original fuel pump controller as well, took ages before I discovered the pesky thing hiding in the boot. Fortunately L20ETs don't have them.

I approve of Link (and big turbo), solves a lot of problems!

Still has 5 cylinder moments, Will be starting over with the fuel system soon

plan is to get all 3 sets of injectors flow tested and use the best 6, fit all new seals and the stupid plastic spaces they have.

 

Should of just kept KY happy and gone JZ 

Not sure if I asked last time, but have you checked your ECU for any blown capacitors?

Shit yes, heartily concur.

Still keeping an eye out for vintage audio stz for you too.