Roman

And a surge tank setup!

Cool that's a pretty sweet price for an external setup! These days my patience wears thin pretty quickly when it's off the road though. Downtime minimum, tracktime/funtime maximum. I'm trying to compensate for the too many years that this car has been off the road already haha. So a brand new in tank pump replacement seems quickest/easiest/most reliable way to go from here.

For whatever reason the early carinas/celicas had external pump tanks then later went to internal. Maybe for noise or simplicity reasons perhaps. Since this car had a carb with a non baffled tank for starters I think I intentionally went for an internal pump tank as it seemed simpler to setup EFI with. But in hindsight the external pump tank might have been the better pick... Ahh well no drama. It just takes an hour or three longer to do a pump swap job that hopefully only happens once ever But yeah for now I'll find an OEM replacement that just bangs straight in and hopefully lasts longer than it needs to.

Aahhh it looks as though the factory fuel pump is horrifically generic: So there are good odds I'll be able to get a Toyota or aftermarket one for a decent price hopefully. When it was working fine it had more than enough gumption for the motor so I'll stick with that.

Cool cheers... I'm 99% sure I've got a spare pump that will fit to get my car going again in the short term. But I'll definitely be looking to get a brand new pump in there in coming weeks so I dont have this same thing again, pickapart specials seems to be how I get into these sorts of situations to start with hahaha. But having a cradle etc to go with it that's easy to fit will be handy! Although I'll probably just be lazy and replace with another intake pump rather than reinvent the wheel. I've found a few places online that sell replacement MA61 pumps so might try one of these as it'll be plug and play.

Oh yeah? I dont know much about fuel pump options as I've never used anything apart from standard ones before. What are the downsides of an external pump? Extra noise? It seems a lot easier to fix any issues that way. It's a pain the ass dropping the gas tank to get to the pump currently.

Yeah there's plenty of time to Nats, so it's no drama to get it changed before then if need be. It's only slipped a few times in total, any time after the first I've been super wary and backed off straight away... It's probably taken a lot less abuse from that, than a clutch gets with a learner driver hahaha. So hopefully there's plenty more life in it as 7-8000kms is a pretty stink run for a clutch I guess. Nats hoons for sure!

Checked the clutch pushrod - way too long! Trimmed maybe 5 or 10mm off it, before it had a little bit of free movement. Thought I'd go for a drive, just to be sure... High rpms good, up hills good, high load low rpm up hills good... Clutch slip gone! Awesome! But of course, owning an old car isnt that straight forward is it I get to the furthest part of my journey away from Auckland (Kaiaua) to have the fuel pump crap itself. Argh! Serves me right for thinking that using a 30+ year old fuel pump would be a good plan. While diagnosing the issue, I managed to lock myself out of the car. While it was starting to rain So I then went on a mission to get back in, managed to open a door, hard wired the fuel pump to 12v and took the fuel return line off - nothing coming out. Also noticed that the fuel pump sounded fucked as well so wrote off the idea of the filter being the issue. Ended up getting towed with a rope, all the way back to Howick which was pretty scary at night time in the pouring rain! On the bright side though I'm stoked not to have to change the clutch over just quite yet. I am also stoked that the pump didnt fail at the Leadfoot weekend, or at a Hampton trackday! Or at Nats coming up. I've got a spare MA61 fuel pump somewhere that should get it back up and running, but I get the feeling that fitting something brand new is going to be the best plan from here. Any suggestions on a fuel pump for 200ish hp that will be an easy fit? Thinking about finding something factory fitting that's available brand new if possible. Not interested in future proofing for 500hp or whatever as this car will never have much more power than it currently does.

I went to Gaspex in Penrose to get a custom gasket made for the exhaust, awesome service and price! $27 for a custom made gasket copper lined on both sides that should hold up to some trackday punishment. Tonight I went for a drive with the exhaust fixed up... 7.7l per 100km on a trip to West Auckland and back, pretty damn happy with that! My last daily driver could never manage below 10l per 100 so it's pretty awesome to have a weekend car that I dont feel guilty about driving haha. My clutch turned up today, and it's damn pretty! If anyone buys an ORC 309D clutch and gets stuck for info: (309D is the 'up to 300hp' generic clutch that they sell for everything basically) Standard clutch plate thickness is 4.7mm (Mine is 3.5, so will replace) and it looks as though the best place for replacement parts is the website rhdjapan.com. For comparison's sake when I take the other clutch out eventually, approximate comparison of weights: Clutch cover plate ~2kg Clutch cover friction plate ~1kg clutch plate 1kg flywheel - 5.5kg total: ~9.5 - 10kg assembled So not bad considering now the entire clutch assembly is less than the weight of the standard Altezza flywheel by itself. I had a retard moment tonight though, when I realised it's possible that my clutch fork is being preloaded by the pushrod from the slave cylinder... The slipping issue might be caused by the clutch being ever so slightly depressed, when your foot is off the clutch. D'oh! So great news if this is the case, as it means I might not actually need to change the clutch just yet. I can go do some more Hampton twilight testing for slippage before committing to a Taupo trackday where it's a lot more of a waste of a day if something goes wrong. My existing clutch has only done about 8,000kms since new, so it would be nice to save changing the clutch over after at least getting a bit more life out of it. Fingers crossed!

And have a car that goes out of tune when you're half way up Takaka hill?

I dont think there's any way you could have a backfire out the intake based solely on being too lean or rich, as the spark should only ever be happening when intake valves are shut anyway. I'm thinking either: -Physical problem such as a jammed valve (unlikely?) -A combination of wasted spark on cylinders that arent 360 apart, and/or batch firing injectors giving the possibility of unburnt fuel in the 'wasted' spark cylinder while cranking causing a spark back out the intake -some weird combo of settings causing mega ignition advance. Thinking about it I doubt that it would be possible to have the wasted spark working unless there were properly paired cylinders, or it would give you all sorts of grief from day one.

Sucks about your plenum! Does this run wasted spark / is that even possible with a V6?

oh man its amazing what a difference it makes now with no leaks pre oxy sensor. took it for a drive around 50 zones and motorway and was getting high 6/low 7l per 100k. it was back up to 11-12 for leadfoot with the leaky 2-1 section. so gasket will pay itself off in saved fuel pretty quick! fingers crossed this one does the trick will hopefully have clutch sorted in time for the late november twilight session.

I took my 2-1 section down to Gaspex and explained the situation, they are coming up with a solution that they say should stop the leaking and be reusable too. But not copper as they said it would likely leak for this application. Should have it in the car later today, will see how it goes! EDIT: Picked it up, damn looks good! And not too spendy @ $27... I've probably spent twice than that already, and lots of time trying to bodge solutions together. Aahh well lesson learned for next time, A++ would trade again

EDIT: Sorry realised you're talking about front shocks not rear. A good starting point for measurement/test fit would be AE92 front shock inserts (for not super low) or rear SW20 shock inserts (for lots of low) If you end up with a shock that's too short you can put spacers in the bottom of the tube under the insert. But you will likely need to cut down the struts in order to have some travel without just banging the bumpstops all day. Also, it'll handle like utter crap with already soft springs compressed to a very low ride height. Possibly better off cutting the springs then having the ends reshaped so they are captive instead. But another way is that you could just put your new springs in, and then check how much gap there is. Then look for shock inserts which are that much shorter than the standard ones. Which would likely end up as AE92 fronts or SW20 rears.

Ahhh looks like MT90 is fine, just not the shock proof http://www.ingearperformance.com/archives/607 Although I remember I had a different redline oil in my diff compared to gearbox, maybe it was MT90 in the diff... hmmm...

I've got MT90 in my gearbox and have found that over the last few months it's been a little harder to select some gears when changing in a hurry. I'm not sure if this is because I've been expecting too much with gearshifts and wearing the synchros or the gearbox oil has been contributing. But I do remember someone saying something about the redline oils being unfriendly with synchros over the long term? Not sure if it's a myth / not sure on specifics though. But I have been considering looking into it further and perhaps switching to something else.

Hey yeah that sounds exactly like what I'm after! Ive found out that there's a place around the corner from my work though that can lasercut .5mm stainless steel, so I'm going to whip up a cad file and get them to cut 10 or so (5 or 6 layers per gasket) Because if this works alright I'll probably end up getting a few other things cut the same way, as multilayer stainless is reusable compared to ones that crush up. But thanks I'll PM you if I end up needing to go down that road.

Yeah you could be right. Another option could be machining grooves into one of the flanges so that it uses the O ring type gaskets as per the standard Altezza manifold. Although I dont think I'd be able to fit either piece of my manifold into the milling machine so probably not an option either. I think I'll see how I go with copper unless I can get some sharp pricing on lasercut super thin stainless to make an MLS one.

Not sure if I'll be able to make it to race, but sounds good to me!

Just a bit of an update on the aero situation... and why you cant trust just a 2d profile! I was down in Coromandel this weekend, woke up at 6.30am and the car was completely covered in dew/frost. So, the interesting thing about this is that the dew clears quicker when it has airflow over it. So the areas that are in dead air will keep dew on them, and vice versa. Ordinarily I'd avoid this situation, because 80s Toyotas are made out of dehydrated rust. After going for a bit of a drive, I could see that the dew down the centreline of the car it looked to be the same as the simulation. BUT the air coming from the side of the car wraps around the rear of the hatch too, which left this V shape on the rear hatch because the air must flow around it: So it may very well turn out that the rear hatch area DOES have useful airspeed over it... Just not directly down the centre of the car. Clearly more over analyses of a non existent problem is required. In other news though the clutch was slipping a bit more, which is a bit of a bummer. The current setup is something like this: A really nice TODA CNC'd flywheel, with the worlds shittiest clutch and cover plate. Lesson learned! So I'd been considering what my options are, because it's the same sort of problem as the front brake pads... It doesnt need higher clamping pressure or whatever, it just needs more resistance to heat. While looking for some options, a good deal came up on an ORC single plate setup! Same as Truenotch's. These are a bit strange, because it's in more seperate parts than a standard single plate clutch: Basically because it's a racing oriented unit, instead of having a cover plate that's a big single hunk of metal that you throw away when it's worn out... The upper friction material ring is seperate to the cover plate. The clutch plate is cut into quarters to stop it from warping and let it dissipate heat better. Also the clutch fingers are removable, so if any one part craps itself then you just order/replace just those parts. Overnight parts from Japan, job done haha. The downside to this setup though, is that because the inner parts are floating they get a bit of a rattle going on when you've got the clutch in... Which is exactly why I picked this up for cheap, previous owner would have either been sick of it or thought there was something wrong. Same way I got my cusco LSD haha. Hopefully it's not tooooo annoying. Since this design allows the coverplate to be a hell of a lot lighter than the pressed steel designs, as well as that the flywheel itself is lighter than the TODA one... It could be a few KGs of rotating mass lost. fingers crossed that my idle speed will still be fine. But I'm looking forward to doing another trackday once this is swapped across and not having to worry about cooking it. Another heat related problem that I've been having is that I cant get any sort of gasket to hold together for the join between the 4-2 section and 2-1 section of the extractors. There's no correct gasket available, I've tried a few different things which are all fine for the road but I blow a gasket every trackday which is annoying. So next thing I might try is either annealed copper or see if I can get thin stainless sheets lasercut or something and make a multilayer steel gasket similar to what holds the manifold on to the head. Any suggestions on what works/doesnt work appreciated!

The Austin trucked along pretty well I thought! Awesome weekend, just spend the day driving from Pauanui, Coro township, back down the coast, then back home to Auckland via Kaiua/Clevedon. Although I've been there a million times... Fuck! We live in such an amazing country and Coromandel is just gorgeous. Nats is going to be friggen amazing. Thanks to all involved for making this happen, best weekend in ages

They're all manual.

Ahh that makes sense! You've wired one up with Altezza engine/loom yeah? I cant comment too much further as the redtop loom is quite different.

Oh really? Heh. An optical illusion of having no overhangs and being an open wheeler I guess