Roman

Cool yep, that's pretty much exactly the plan! But you can buy the same thing from somewhere without having to yank an ECU apart. I just forget where at the moment. But in my mind it's the best option - Toyota factory wiring is good, plugs are good, etc etc. So may as well keep as much of it as I can. It means I can design and assemble and test the loom out of the car, as it will only be ~300mm or so long if that, and all just goes between one thing and the other. Any wiring faults are contained within that area, rather than spread across the whole thing... And I dont have to change a single thing in the engine bay.

Twisting wires + masking tape wont cause problems for a wideband signal right? Or does it need shielding? I've got some tinfoil here too.

My engine loom is staying as is, no need to reinvent the wheel when it's all already there. I cant remember where from, but you can get an adaptor board that has the plug shapes of the standard ECU. So I only need to make an adaptor that goes between the link ECU and that adaptor board, then the standard engine loom plugs into that. Keeps it simple / can revert to factory ECU if need be for whatever reason / wiring loom ends up very short with all connections in the same location which makes troubleshooting anything easy. There's a bunch of spare pins on the factory ECU plugs too, and I've got an Altezza loom here which has unique wire colours which I can use. So if I add any other stuff it's mostly a case of pushing already crimped connections into the plugs.

Factory ECU is pretty awesome for most things, but just cant get around the rev limit. So yeah, if going aftermarket definitely no reason not to setup launch control etc There's a basemap for the link already for my engine that sets up VVTI, coilpacks and all that other junk. I havent found anyone who's running MS on a beams motor, so dunno what to do if I get stuck. Vs lots of link installs by heaps of people already. I dont have the electronic smarts or the patience to spend ages figuring things out with an oscilliscope or whatever. If I converted my engine to an Altezza loom there's a version of the Link where you can just open up the factory ECU case, replace the guts with a link and then it plugs into factory loom. Was considering this but it doesnt have as many inputs and outputs as the 'normal' one. So went with that, as the wiring looks easy enough.

Okay so I've been giving ECU choice a bit of thought over the last while. As there are a still a few niggling issues with using the factory ECU, and then if I went to an aftermarket one I'd want to get something with a lot of extra scope for nerdy datalogging, extra features etc. So the Megasquirt V3 or whatever with heaps of inputs and outputs looked like a good option. But before diving into that I downloaded the MS tuning software on my PC, and got familiar with it. Seems all good. But then I upgraded my PC, and I cant get the fecking thing working again. Also doing a bit more reading it seems about 50/50 odds between getting things running alright with megasquirt, or having a complete nightmare of a time and being out in the cold in terms of any support. The fact that the tuning software doesnt want to work anymore didnt inspire confidence in the rest of it. I tried reinstalling JRE etc but no luck. I dont really want to assemble anything myself either, so looked into the cost of a preassembled one... $1600 or so by the time it gets here. Cant remember if that was with or without tax. So looking at the difference between that and a link, it's not that much more of a stretch to get something that's going to give me so much less of a ball ache. So decided to bite the bullet and have forked out for a G4+ Xtreme and an LC2 wideband. I cry when I think about the cost vs potential HP / rpm gain, but it's more that it's something interesting for me to setup and tinker with. Factory ECU tries to run on stoich at cruising too for sake of Catalytic converter, so will be able to lean it out a bit more and make it a bit more thrifty to drive perhaps too. It's got so many inputs and outputs, good datalogging etc which will keep my nerdy tendencies satisfied for a long time yet! Something new for me to learn about in this coming year. Should be here some time next week.

The point of coilovers is usually that they use a generic sized spring. So you can usually just find the measurements and then get generic coilover springs in whatever rate you want. A coilover setup that uses an oddball sized spring diameter probably isnt a good choice when you're likely going to tinkering with it as you go. but if you can only buy the kit with 6kg then yeah it's a more useful starting point than 8! Speak with some local spring shops and see what diameter coilover springs they can get and how much for. Then see if this matches the size used in the package you are getting.

I've still got all of the interior out so took the car. So for curiosity's sake I took it to the weighbridge with a near empty tank of gas. 970kg with all seat belts and a few other things still in. Pretty chuffed to get it under a tonne, didnt think it would be that light as it is. The new exhaust is a bit lighter than before. Still has heavy wheels, full glass, heavy drivers seat and a few other things so you could likely get a beams Carina down to low 900s or high 800s if it was a race car. But taking all the interior junk out looks to be the way to go for next time at the drags, could help a bit.

Have you played around with fitting a rear swaybar or not, on any of your cars KPR? I've got the option to fit one on mine. On one hand though the current feel of the car doesnt seem to need or want one. But on the other hand quite a few live axle cars of the era came with one. the GT Celica I got my diff from had a swaybar from factory. But all of these cars had very soft springs to start with. If you've increased the spring stiffness you get more roll resistance anyway... And the roll centre distance to CoG reduces when you lower the car a bit too. So seems like it becomes redundant anyway. I guess I should just bolt it up and see haha.

What is your starlet going to do / going to be for? 6 or 8kg is fecking stiff for a rear spring for a street car or track car of that size/weight I reckon. My car is bigger and heavier than yours, but everyone told me to start at about those rates. (TRD AE86 springs are 8kg front 6kg rear, so seemed like a good starting point) Ended up lowering spring rates 3 different times and picked up stability, and speed each time. and lowered laptimes by a big margin. Ended up about 3.5kg in the rear and probably 6 or so in the front. With the hard springs, under braking any tiny bump in the track would cause wheels to lock up because the car bounced. And cutting over ripple strips (the most fun thing about trackdays) was impossible. It was scary and not very fast! But it depends on what you're wanting to do, drift cars generally seem to run much harder springs all round... I'm guessing these are what the TRD springs etc with the high rates are designed for. Or if you're running 13s or 14s with a big sidewall on the tires then maybe it's a bit nicer.

Just in case my blathering above didnt make sense, here's some more nonsense to ruin the pictorial part of your brain also: Basically... there are 6 axes of movement rotation which a joint potentially needs to do. Rotation on XY, XZ, and YZ planes. Then movement in the X, Y, and Z directions. Rubber pretty much allows all of the above to occur. When the bushes get more worn out, they allow even more XYZ movement. Generally when replacing rubber the idea is to reduce the 'slop' (X Y and Z movement, which makes it feel like the car wobbles on the diff) Different 4 link ends restrict different axes in different ways, a Rosejoint restricts down to the three rotational axes and removes all XYZ movement. On my car, the upper 4 links (non triangulated) have cutouts in the rubber bushes to allow increased movement in the X axis but keep the Y and Z axes stiff. However the point of contention is whether or not the end of a 4 link arm needs to allow for X axis movement on a triangulated 4 link. Theoretically the answer is yes, and some peoples broken floors and worn out rosejoints say yes as well.

In my opinion / dont own a starlet / grain of salt / etc Rosejointing all links on a 4 link whether triangulated or parallel is a bad idea. Imagine that you had 3 out of your 4 links connected. These are triangulating the position of the diff to the body so that it moves through a particular arc, where ever it is moved to. If you moved the diff through different arcs and measured the length that the 4th link would need to be, it would lengthen or shorten slightly depending on the position of the diff at the time you measured it. As since the diff is already triangulated, a 4th link causes problems. Hence some race cars going to a single upper link on one side of the diff head. The rubber bushes allow movement as needed - so does urethane - but rose joints do not. Since the 4 link arms can no longer lengthen or shorten at all through travel the end result is usually a combination of cracking the floor mounts, wearing out rosejoints quickly, or causing everything to flex to account for that difference instead. I'm sure it would be possible to sketch up a cad model to show how much 4 links need to grow or shrink by, it might only be a few mm or less. But it's bad idea in theory / in my opinion. I'm not much a fan of urethane replacements either, where the factory rubber usually has a steel pin through the middle which accounts for side to side movement of the arm, urethane normally have like a big 'washer' type shape which stops movement in this direction too. Which can cause binding as well, in some cases. Out of those options I'd go for urethane one end, with the urethane trimmed down so it looks like factory rubber (no washer type shape on outside) and rosejoints at other end. Maybe with a hole or two drilled in the urethane on the upper links to allow slight growing/shrinking of length.

Awwww yeah cut dem holes

It's the only throttle with an air filter

In other news, those "Jet plane vs car quarter mile race" type things are so stupid. How about a 0-600mph race instead... Or race against a tomcat with an aircraft carrier style launch hook thing starting it off

Yeah I can see the HPC stuff being worthwhile if you fork out for the fancy one and get it dipped or whatever so it coats the inside as well. So it reflects a fair amount of heat before it gets into the metal to start with. But just spraying on the outside seems a bit meh, and as people have said it still seems to radiate heaps of heat anyway. But, I've also had an engine bay full of nasty fibre stuff from crumbling wrap, which in terms of automotive horribleness is about on par with the smell of old diff oil.

My stupid front seats weigh about 10 billion billion kilograms (well, about 15-20kg each) I pulled one apart to see if there were any hidden gold bars, but alas. There's about 4-5kg worth of complete junk in there for adjusting every little seat thing possible though. Think I'll just weld the adjuster thingies all solid except for the seat angle and headrest height and biff all of the stupid shit in there. I didnt even know some of the things in it were even adjustable. Saving ~5kg per seat though is pretty swish. My usual welding technique is: 1. Stick weld it 2. horrible failure 3. Sentra Dave tells me off 4. Drink his beer while he fixes my blunders Oooorrr I might try get the argon bottle refilled this week so I can make blobs and holes with tig instead.

Hey so people use fibreglass a lot for insulation (as in, pink batts etc) But is the air gap between the fibres etc the main reason its a good insulator? So fibreglass + epoxy or whatever, for building stuff. Is that a good insulator against heat as well? Also, I'm torn between heat wrapping my exhaust manifold or not. I want to lower engine bay temps but it makes such a grisly mess when it starts to come off. Looks as though the 'lava rock' type stuff might be a bit more resilient than the fibreglass wrap which I've had some pretty terrible experiences with.

Yeah it's the next logical thing to do really. I dont think I really want to do any other physical mods to the motor. I'm quite happy that I can get 7l per 100km but also have a fun car to drive. Going to bigger cams or whatever is probably going to throw the economy out the window. If this motor blows up then I'll try find a low kms manual Altezza engine with the exhaust side VVTI as well, 10hp for 'free' and should get same or better mileage too. They're cheap now, but were impossible to find when I first bought the MR2 beams motor (And it was originally meant to go into an MR2, haha)

Stripping out an S2k would be an easier and cheaper option. They came with heaps of junk like electric folding roof etc that make them heavier. Can get them under 1000kg. And better looking, S2k with hardtop hnnngg

Haha. Yeah that old civic thing with the K motor rules my face. Honda guys seem to have no love for the older stuff! So it's cool seeing such a pristine example of an old Civic,(or whatever it is) with an awesome motor etc.

Nah it's noisy enough without blowing out all of the muffler packing too. When I get a different ECU for it, playing around with launch control stuff will be on the cards for sure. Although I'm not overly keen on hitting the drags too much as it's a bit hard on the drivetrain compared to other things.

Easiest way is to just import the drawing into draftsight (free download) get the picture to scale then just draw dimensions on it. Dont even worry about drawing the object. Then just select the whole lot and scale up or down and the dimensions will self adjust. if you scale it to be 1mm long to start with then for your new scale you just type in how many mm long you want it to be . Solidworks is really good for this sort of thing with its 'smart dimensions' but they can screw you over if youre not mindful. I hate any type of automatic part sizing etc though. As an example used to have a structural steel program that could automatically plonk things together with correct plate sizes bolt grades etc. A few times i used the auto function to add a stiffener to both sides of an i beam, but dragged the edge of one out longer to be a cleat, added some holes. Job done. But then later the model rechecks itself and changes the cleat back to a stiffener and im getting angry phone calls from guys on site trying to hang a beam on invisible cleats haha.

At taupo or hampton i never use 1st so 2 lights would probably do. One for the 2nd to 3rd gearchange and other for the rest. But at the drags the 1st gear change is critical as well as launch rpm. So could set one to 3k rpm or whatever so i know what to aim for. If it turns out that using just 1 is just as good as anything then ill stick with that. But they were cheap enough that buying a few extra wasnt the end of the world! But yeah the idea would be that all 4 light up. Same as those progressive shift lights that start lighting up approaching redline. But this way i can set each light as i please.

Yeah that sounds feasible and a more elegant solution! but im not smart enough with electronics to figure that out and it would be a bit spendier than using a few $11 shift lights. Will see how it goes when they turn up

Yeah OBD2 setup is easy, cant remember the specifics but when you get to that part let me know and I'll dig up some info. Just need the signal from the SIL pin from the ECU (this blurts out the info), 12v and an earth to get it working. I hate electronics too, I get a cold sweat when I see a big wiring loom!