BlownCorona

how confident are you that the ecu isnt fried?

Blocking is taking forever, but on the bright side I'm not finding any major dents that need remedial work, couple of depressions that another layer of primer filler will take care of. The rear half of the car and roof are done. Have yet to even lay primer on the doors and bumpers, hats off to the people that do this for a living. I need to get a move on cause the warm days are rapidly running out.

thats just preventing the engine starting while you check for spark? im with KPR it sounds like the ecu isnt seeing RPMs

i dont think they are meant to, but dont quote me on that. reason i say that is, on my megasquirted car, i wired the injectors to constant 12v, and then discovered that when the ecu shut off it pulled down to negative, and i was jamming my injectors on and dumping the fuel rail into the cylinders. i probably need to get those injectors checked... but that may not be how the toyota is wired. if you get stuck i can drag the crown out tomorow and poke around it, but its 1ggze. probably the same?

also confirm everything is still getting power while cranking, and its not wired to a circuit that cuts off during crank over ect

got a good earth from the engine to the body/battery earth

Yeah agreed on the rear wheel fitment. It looks even more dumb square on from the back cause the are only 185s on about 500mm of guard. They are also super super heavy, on one hand they are the original chevron wheels, but on the other hand Im pretty keen to drop the ~80kg I rekon I'm carrying extra.

Took Friday off to get a 4 day weekend and make a serious push on the crown. Some rain and some socialising took a chuck out of my time but still managed to get the shell, hood, boot and gaurds in fill primer. Found a few spots of rust on the bottom of the rear doors so will drop them round to the panel beater to have that sorted, then the doors will get the same treatment. For now, here's way too many photos of a car in primer, but given its never been this straight or single colour in my ownership, I'm getting excited. Blocking back will take a while, but the end is in sight! Then I can start on the manual conversion which I've been slowly gathering parts for and aside from a driveshaft (will get mine modded to suit hopefull) I've got all the bits there. Including a hand brake centre console which is sitting in Japan still and I really need to pay for the shipping to get it here for when I need it...

More just driving! The fuel line banjo bolt came slightly loose and I could smell fuel while driving, pulled over to see it spraying fuel everywhere. Not ideal. Tightened it back up and problem free for the rest of the drive. Drill the bolt and lock wire? Loctite? A different kind of fitting? What's the go to for these? (weber dcoe)

Was recommended this stuff by Burnside radiators for rusty coolant system, stays in the coolant for life of the coolant and keeps dissolving the rusty shit into inert solubleness. I got it from butlers automart. Seems to be working well, coolant in the lotus isn't rusty despite the condition of the gallery's. Not even expensive Sorry pic is sideways, was straight on Google.

2nd drive with the prototype deflectors. this time a reasonably sedate cruise into work through 50/60kmh zones. previously this would have been semi uncomfortable and left me with an unpleasant wind blast feeling in my ears that lingered. today it was awesome, no different than driving a normal car with the window open. ill definitely proceed to making some nicer more refined parts.

I probably look like a dickhead with any accessories

I ordered 2x pairs of ear warmers. 20 bucks. If they don't work or I look like a dickhead my wife and daughter can have them to keep their ears warm in winter.

thats effectively whats happening behind my windscreen. my head is in that swirling area you see you dust in and my torso and lap is in the dead still air. leaving my head taking a hammering. i expect its definitely a tune able aspect of the cockpit. ive even seen seven type cars with a perpex blade on the top of the screen. i may give that a go, but im pretty sure most of the problem is on the side of the screen the stone guards on trucks are meant to create an airflow over the cab that blows the stones up and over yeah? like when you see a bird coming straight at your car windshield but it gets swept over the roof by the airflow.

Ill hopefully be dragging the Crown out this weekend to make a start on sanding it for paint so will hook the doors and roof out while i can. i much much prefer the car with no doors as its a far more fun experience, so if i can make it livable with the deflectors or another way then thats what ill do. currently with the quick thrown together deflectors i think its pretty good. just need to either make it slightly better or sus something to cover my ears, the beanie is a good ideal, though in the sun i wear a cap to keep the sun out of my eyes. an old workmate used to wear some dorky ear warmers in the winter that might be a solid option. he never seemed to have problems hearing us, but im sure they would cut out the wind rush. im interested to take it for a drive with the windsheild removed, though as you say face protection or a helmet would be required, which would also fix the wind blast issue anyway. i forget if i mentioned it in the build thread post, but a workmate also suggested lifting the screen slightly to create a gap between the glass and the screen to help equalsize the pressures and stop the turbulance. this is also something i can easily try, but will take some considerations to make sure the roof works. perhaps even putting together a new shorter screen to make up for the gap, if it works really well. i was out for a run a couple night ago and ran past a super cool vintage morgan so stopped to have a look at how it may combat this issue and i noticed it had both a large windsheild and also aero screens fitted at the same time. but with a hinge mechanism that would alow the full screen to lay flat, i wondered if this was done for when travelling at highway speeds. whod have thought a 60s style lotus rep would be so impractical

Ive been driving this a bunch and im really beginning to remember why i love old cars so much. it so much fun. except at above 75kmh.... then its a windswept hellscape. 100kmh and its borderline undrivable. there is such a huge amount of turbulent wind blast that i knew id have to do something. first port of call probably should have been to test drive it with the full doors on, but they are now burred in the back of my shed behind the crown. so i threw together some basic deflectors at work today, and figured if they showed promise then ill pretty them up, make them adjustable and removable ect. well turns out they work pretty bloody well. its still windy, but not unbearable, and i may be able to tune them better once i make them angle adjustable. after all its still an open top car with the flat windshield. another suggestion from someone at work has been to lift the screen up creating a gap at the bottom to hopefully equalize out the low pressure zone behind the window, i may give this a go, but will cause problems with fitting the roof. i think some form of ear protection may be a good idea as the wind rush can get quite loud, if anyone has any suggestions for something that can sheild my ears from the wind, but wont mean i cant hear surrounding traffic ect making it dangerous id love to see them. i tried some old ear phones but they blocked out too much surrounding noise for my liking. ive driven with a hoodie over my heat and its much better, but often not practical.

Got the crown back from the panel man today looking good! The rear gaurds are especially awesome and look so much better than the haggard flared fenders the previous owners did. Now I have to face the mammoth task of actually sanding this yacht down..

Dynasaur is great. Would look semi normal as a badge untill you looked closed

Finally got a chance to take this on a real drive. 50km round trip this morning, out to governors bay hotel for a coffee and some wedges and back through lyttleton and through the tunnel back towards home. The drive was awesome and the car performed beautifully. Only issue was the steering doesn't want to return to centre very well, probably just an alighnment needed but will check over the uni joints and the rack. Wasn't pushing it hard at all because it's very early days, but it seemed far far too easy to keep up with normal cars through the hills, I suspect it just eats the road up better than anything I've ever driven.

Legal! So stoked. A tentative 2 months rego incase it all goes sideways haha.

Spoke to Evan Fray from Chevron Engineering today. he said they were only ever intended to run a lap belt from factory, and the laws support this configuration so ive got some lap belts to put in tonight. that should see it wofd. but we all know how dangerous that would be. even the wof guys agree the harness is much safer, so ill probably put the harness back in for actual driving, but fingers crossed itll be wofed tomorow.

It was produced as a commercial kit, but home built. Proving it was always a 4 point may be tricky, but not impossible. I'll swing past tomorrow morning and see what he thinks of the above posted rule, I'll also see if I can get ahold of some photos of my car back in the day.

No cert plate either, or declaration papers, the way I understand it and the way the wof man did too is that's its not a modified vehicle. So would only have been complied by what ever means that was in the late 80s It does have a stamped serial number on a chevron branded plate and a land transport 7Axxxx... Vin number on another chevron branded plate.

thats exactly what i was looking for and was semi certain existed. Cheers Clint! hopefully i can get some form of confirmation that these belts are all it ever had, perhaps they will even simply accept it. Edit cheers @AllTorque too since you actually posted the answer and I missed it!