Maru-So

Well had a go a rolling the guards today. Now rolling with 25mm spacers on the rear. compared to this... I think its a visual improvement. After a short test drive there's no sign of rubbing.

Its uni holidays time once again time and im back home with some time to muck around with the car. I got some 25mm wheel spacers for the back. I tried them on today to see how much needs to be done to the guard. Any rolling/flaring advice would be appreciated! The car is still jacked up in the pictures but you can see the guard definatly needs to be rolled out My plan for today is to hammer the inside lip flat then use a bit of pipe in the gap and drive the car back and forward. Cheers Grant

not a bad idea at all!

Intercoolers are heat exchangers. Transfering the heat energy from the hot intake air to the cool air passing though it. They act as a heat sink to some degree aswell, like after short bursts of hard driving. The metal of the intercooler will absorb the heat from the intake air and dissipating it into the atmosphere later. Colour affects radiative cooling. As long as the paint isnt any form of insulator it shouldnt have any negatitive effects on the ability for the heat to dissipate.

My steering wheel turned up today. Its a wooded momo. I think it suits the car well. A little rough but still nice. Its smaller diameter than the factory wheel and a fair bit lighter too. Feels much better to drive with, although you do feel more vibrations. Im think im going to have to drive it around on the factory suspension so that i can at least get 3rd party insureance. Not worth the risk of crashing in to a 20k plus car without insurance. Just till i can figure out a legit way to lower the rear/find some adjustable shocks. Grant

Update time. Since ive been studing in canterbury i havnt been able to work on the whale for a while. In febuary the car failed its warrent for rust in the passenger side doors, front and rear, and a crack in the boot and a leaky exhaust manifold and finally cuts springs . I got some doors from a white gx60 in a pick a part in gore as well as a full set of factory suspension. In the mid semester holidays i welded the exhust manifold and the boot and fitted the new doors. The car was left parked up on the factory suspension all ready to go for a warrent. Uni's finished for the first semester now its time to get back to work on the car. I took it for a warrent today. To my surprise it passed! (not the first time though ) Now its all legal i swapped the suspension over again. Now i can start sorting wheel spacers/new engine/repaint. The old horn arrangement was draining the battery at odd times so i re mounted the horns behind the grill. bannars gone. 25mm bolt on spacers please! Cheers Grant

Im planning to build a 1gge on R1 or similar bike carbs. Ive been researching the topic for a while now. R1 carbs come in 38mm 40mm and rare 42mm. Seems to be lots people running 38mm tb and carbs on 2L.

please dont go for the up high stz. Would look stupid.

Im/the cars in christchurch. I will check the points if not. Do you have any garages you recomend? Thanks

the wee metro got a new gear box as per the last question i asked about it. However now the car is bucking and banging loudly just after take off after 5-10 drive. Some times its just wont start. Its died in traffic twice now. I thought maybe a fuel starvation problem. I had trouble locating the fuel pump is it located behind the block under the carb? could this be the problem? any sugestions as to what the problem could be. Its 1275cc metro. Thanks

Cheers Guys. Yeh its just a image resizer. Im on a mac so no microsoft software.

And DONE

Second stage of suspension/lowering complete. Rear: Ae86 shocks, Cut down falcon springs hose clamped to the lower mounts. Front: Cut standard springs, sw20 rear shocks, Cut and shortened struts done so well you cant even see it was done.

little update. The engineer didnt like just cutting my struts and removing 40mm from the middle then re welding with a sleve. He wanted to remove the weld from the bottom hub bit then remove the strut tube and cut 40mm off then press it back in again. Well its not looking good. as the Id Od difference in like 1.5mm which is heaps even if you heated the hub up and then tried to press it it. So thats pretty anoying as he had to cut them up to find this out. Hes going to try get them back together but yea ill probably have to source some more. I guess thats the price you pay for lowness! Good news tho i got some falcon springs Cheap too they are far fatter and stiffer. Should be good

i was wondering if there was a thread about this car. I live up the hill from where the new owner works and get to see it every other day. Its a beauty for sure. Looking at the first pictures of it and seeing it in person you did a great job with the body. The wheels are a great fit as well. Ive been and had a chat to him a few times. Nice guy. Hes got a ke prroject aswell. Should intrroduce him to os.

little update. Got a window bannar. I couldnt decied wether i really wanted one but im happy with how it looks. Unfortunatly my installation skills are pretty lacking. 3m rule ftw. It says "Low way" Some how my hang ring fell off so i have to sort a better one like zebs. Here's my zust tip. Hasnt really changed the exhust note much. My struts are being shortened at the moment. 40mm is being taken out witch will be pretty sweet. Also ive got the line on some falcon springs for the rear witch i will run un captive. Cheerrs

Ah.. yea no your right. you effectivly remove twice as much from the stroke from standard with a spacer.

in theory it shouldnt bottom out the shock more than normal. But if you add thicker oil it would help that. Cutting springs they become stiffer but standard springs are still too soft for extreme lowness.

sweet those were the responses i was looking for. The way this parrticular shock goes even if the welds didnt hold its still inside the strut so cant really catostrofically fail. To me this method is easier than getting them machined and you get the added bonus of making them stiffer. Is there a way to shorrten rear gas shocks?

My other hobbie is mountain biking and though rebuilding my bike suspension ive learnt a bit about how suspension works. How they shorten mountain bike shocks is with a topout spacer. since i replaced the shocks in my car i have the old ones to play with. I wanted to see if the stroke of the shocks could be reduced in the same way. I just looking to see people opinion and if its safe or not. This method would only be used for lowness and not really preformance. Firstly cut the shock like so... I was scared it was going to blow up so i had all the safety gear on and periced the shock first to let any pressure off. There was no pressure to speak of really. no bang no big hiss nothing. Take care to only cut the outer part of the shock then this inner piece just pulls out. This is full with oil so hold it right way up over a cup or bucket and cycle the shock through to get most of the oil out Give the shaft a few sharp tugs and the shaft and the piston/shim stack comes out These are shims replacing these with thicker ones or different id holes will change rebound and compression characteristics of the shock. they can just be left alone tho. this bit is the factory top out spacer this is what the assembly looks like when the shock is at full extension this is the stroke of the shock with factory assembly add a spacer between the seal and the top out spacer. this can be any size and dictates how much the stroke of the shock is reduced Excuse the red spacer its just temorary until i get some proper pvc spacer. increasing the distance between the red lines decreases the stroke of the shock. reassembled with the spacer inplace you can see the shock has been shortened. fill the inershock with 300mls of shock oil 10wt or so im not sure what the oem oil weight is so it might take some experimenting. but by changing the oil weights you can adjust the rebound speed of the shock. slide the iner inside the outer and weld up along the red line and it should be golden. advantages over just getting the threads machined. Cost, more overlap as the shaft is permantly half in the shock(stiffer). and the ability to change oil. any comments on how safe it is or if it would even work would be apreciated.

more work on this today. After new shocks on the front the car was unbalanced and had too much bounce in the back for my liking so i decided to get some new shocks for the rear. I ended up with these for $183 for two. not too bad. I measured the origionals 595mm eye to where the bottom washer sits. Heres a shot of them installed. We also did some more tiding up of the overspray and masking. Zeb ripped my arial off, i managed to find a tidy solution tho. I didnt get the drop i was hoping for as these new shocks are much stiffer with far less sag. We removed another half a coil as the ae86 shocks arre about 30mm shorter. its all captive again and i hope it comes down abit as the shock wears in. Driving impressions, it handles mint now! Tidy'd the grille up again also replaced the front crank seal and no more oil leak from there. Cheers Grant

yuh got it painted. Its the first car ive ever done so yea. Still alot of tiding up to do but after a cut and polish i hope it comes up good.

I got onto the suspension today... Found some of theses picked up some new sw20 short travel kybs I had to use a 40mm spacer so theres potential to go lower just by cutting and rewelding the strut. I cleaned up all the parts then just hit it with a light satin black to tidy it up a bit. I ended up removing 2 coils from the front and 1.5 in the rear. Its sitting much nicer now but still needs/will be lower in the future.

OK now the projects starting to get ontop of me... I learnt a bit of panel beating today i manages to straighten out a few things but overall the bodies in good nick. Both passenger side doors are stuffed. But nothing a little bog wont fix. I plan to get some fine filler and some bondo and have this thing ready for paint by next week! Cheers