Roman

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

There are a few tricky bits to getting the factory ECU going. You need to keep the electronic throttle body working, or you get an error code. Which means you need to fit an accellerator pedal angle sensor. Should be able to get one from an Altezza wreck for next to nothing. You also need an electronic speedo signal setup and a few other bits and pieces or you get error codes and possibly limp mode. It's not as straight forward as earlier engines, but doable! Getting the MAF sensor signal to be correct is by far the most critical part of getting these engines working well on factory ECU. There's a powerfc available for the Altezza, cheap and easy plug and play option if you can find one. Not the most elegant ECU option but cheap and as simple as it could possibly be to set it up.

Ahhh yep, oil temps would be helped a bit by having a lot more oil in the system compared to normal? Yeah that's the best feeling, being able to drive back home or load a car on trailer without any breakages hahaha. Look forward to seeing how things come along, will definitely try scab a passenger ride next time.

Rookie your car (with a long wheelbase and narrow track width) is the least affected by the downsides of a locked diff. Mine sledged the front heaps on corner entry, and mid corner or corner exit if you went over a small bump at the front the diff would push the car forwards. Night and day difference after changing away from that. All of this would be even worse in a starlet which has a proportionally wider track / shorter wheelbase. A $400 torsen is well worth the trouble of fitting. My experiences with a variety of diff types agrees pretty much exactly with the sentiments here. http://www.taylor-race.com/pdf/understanding_differentials.pdf

Yeah I definitely agree, but dont want to spend any more money on the car for a while. What's next for yours? How much was the rev limiter on the straight holding you up, might be a few more seconds in it just with a final drive change or 5 speed box perhaps?

Heh yeah car's slowly getting faster as I iron out handling quirks etc. Surely there's a straight through type of muffler that isnt going to rob you of any power? Dave Sentra muffler'd his Mazda now and it's a hell of a lot quieter for no real loss, as there's nothing to impede the flow of gas. Nice! The closest thing I can see which is somewhat comparable to my car: "The quick E30 series cars, which are around 96 rwkw, 1180 kg, and running on R888s do high 1:22s to low 1:23s" So my car's a bit lighter, has a little bit more power but a lot less grip compared to R888s... and less practice So tires and driving practice are likely the areas that will make my car faster for the least amount of money. Happy with the motor and everything else at the moment.

Yeah that sucks, always cool to see your Escort out there giving it death! There's plenty more coming up over summer, would definitely be cool to get a bit of an OS trackday crowd going on

Yeah it was awesome! Great turnout and we had it pretty sweet in terms of timing for the weather. It was a pity we were all in the same group though, was keen to watch some of the other OS cars doorting around too. If anyone's got GPS laptimes or whatever, chuck them up here: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/36418-bragging-rights-laptimes-baby/page-1

Dear Rookie Dave, Happy Birthday. P.S. Great to see this car out there today, hope it all went well for you. P.P.S. I did not run any bearings with my lousy wet sump. P.P.P.S. Have you considered putting a muffler on your car, it is very noisy.

Went to a Twilight session at Hampton Downs this afternoon with a few OSers... A++ would attend the shit out of more of those! Got an awesome amount of tracktime for only $75, definitely worthwhile. Unfortunately though the clutch slipping issue came back, but again only after two stints in reasonably quick succession and lots of ruthless gear changes haha. The brakes were fantastic though, new pads worked well. When the car cooled down again the clutch came back right and it drove home fine. So I think I'll stick to road driving for the next while, as I CBF pulling the motor out again just quite yet. The clutch is perfectly fine for the road, just not up to track spec continuous beatdowns. I got about 5 good laps with no traffic or clutch slipping, managed a 1:26.38 as best lap time. Pretty happy with that for starters, there will be a few more seconds to chop away at that with some more practice, better lines and a better clutch!

Bankruptcy and Masochism are two words that come to mind for boat restoration! Even by OS standards! haha