mjrstar

I have one, the build quality is pretty good (it has been apart and looked at) and size wise they are closely based on early garrets. You won't see any fancy lightweight titanium aluminide turbine wheels but if you plan to run less than 2 bar / 28 psi boost they will work just fine. PM Barry (BAZDA) on Toyspeed, he may do you a sharp deal as he is an agent for them.

I very much doubt there would be enough temp compensation in the system to cope with running the AFM after the turbo, you should be fine with a good quality vent to atmosphere BOV so long as it's not leaking at idle.. (it may run a tiny bit rich when changing gears). also the transient back/forward air flow may well damage it the AFM. I'd suggest you leave it pre turbo for best results. Chuck a multimeter on the injectors, somewhere around 2 ohms is low imp and high imp will be nearer 11 ohms. I'm not even going to comment on power, other than the fact that a drop in 255 l/hr walbro fuel pump will be more than enough fuel unless you are chasing 300+ kw.

My original plan for twin rails on my starlet involved half a dozen bosses that look like the ones in the top of this pic.. Pretty sure i still have a couple of them floating around..

I have the same model, but red.. It will be fine for panel steel, struts and a bit of exhaust work.. It will overheat on long runs on setting D. the gun and feed system seem ok for the money.. mine has had a reasonable amount of use and has not failed me. I'd suggest the accessories like the wire brush and welding mask/shield should go straight in the bin. Probably a pretty sharp price as I think I paid nearer to 400 with the gas regulator

So i got the car back out of the garage and took it for a trip up the road, gentle throttle still shoes the surge/wastegate flutter or whatever at around 13 odd psi.. i decided to lean on the loud pedal at around 120 in 4th (around 3800rpm)... this was not such a smart idea, the boost instantly swung around to about 24 psi before I backed off.. This left 2 sizable black lines on the road and almost gave me a heart attack, thankfully the car kept pretty straight and I was on a nice dry flat bit of road... Needless to say it's making what feels like some pretty decent power at around 1.4 -1.5 bar, it was a bit hard to tell for sure but at around 18psi (using toe style boost control) it seemed to be behaving itself, so what I'm thinking is the tune is out of wack in this area as it's making it not want to behave... Oh and the reason for the extra boost?? Well I had put the top and bottom hoses on the wastegate around the wrong way... On the plus side it was a pretty sweet adrenalin hit for the day.

depending on how good the baffling is in the new aluminium tank you may not need to run a surge tank.. If you are looking for that extra safety margin to prevent surge, a carter lift pump would do the trick... http://www.greenbrothers.co.nz/Products.html No point in melting a piston or 2 because you ran the tank a bit low...

Yeah.. I may even bring something OS if it wants to go..

^^ seems like there hasn't been one of these for a while?? Any thoughts on the Hamiltonians getting together for a beer/feed at the cock-n-bull or whatever...

So I removed and striped the wastegate.. it looked pretty good inside, so I jammed that back on and pulled off the BOV. It has a screw on seat for the valve, which was slightly loose, it didn't look like it had been sealing properly.. Roads are still a bit wet for my liking... smooth semi slicks make for a unpredictable/dangerous adventure.. I'll wait for a dry day before i take it out for a test run..

Nice Writeup, Could you just use the shorter insert with the factory length strut and put a spacer down the inside of the strut tube to save having to cut the threaded portion of the strut off and weld it back on? Or would you run out of downwards travel in the shock? EDIT: loos to have been covered above... (I think)

I used a 2 pot resene on my starlet, I was pretty happy with it although I am a bit of a noob painter..

Least fuel usage has to be a 7M it will have constant BHG's so you'll never drive it.. on a serious note you may well be going down the wrong path chasing an economy improvement of 1 or 2 liters / 100km unless you are doing 80,000k's a year.

^^ no doubt.. Although for less description and more pictures.. try this. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=3 ... =577680700

Fiat club seems like the go.. Although do you need to know someone who knows someone (ie do you have to be nominated by a current member?)

Fiat club looks to be a bit cheaper also.. My e-nets browsing has also turned up a mini club but no metion if it's msnz affiliated..

Cool.. Sounds like i'll need to hit up Hamilton Car Club to get a membership...

next question.. how does the paperwork side of things happen.. ie: do i need a MSNZ License to make it all happen? is this the correct sequence? Car Club Membership => Clubsport MSNZ License => Cage Homologation + Logbook.

semi unkeen to have too much fxxk around factor, if I can get something reasonable for around 2k roll in roll out i'll be happy enough.. this fully welded deal could make life a bit difficult to run the bars close to the bodywork i suspect.

Looking for someone who is up to speed to build me a decent cage for my starlet and supply all paperwork etc.. Has anyone here had dealings with someone they would reccomend? Cheers Matt

Sounds like an interesting plan.. I'll have to whip out the tape measure, as things are getting a little tight in the front already with the 205/50/15's. Also I have found my spare swaybar which appears to be a bit thicker than the one on the car, may have to measure it up in case my eyes are playing tricks on me...

have pretty much just been hooning around in the car since wof time, it's all going pretty well, i replaced the top engine stay mounts which were in the same state as the castor arm bushes.. The only annoying habit it has at present is it's unwillingness to start when hot, it just floods straight away, it will however fire into life straight away if I pull a vacuum hose off the inlet manifold to give it some fresh air.. I think I'll lean it out some more as it fires up straight away with no choke even if it's been sitting for 10 days?

I reckon the 7.5's won't fit all that easily... I'd suggest a trial fit if you decide to go that width before you hand over the cash...

I found my car had great turn-in with a wider track at the front (20mm spacers) but it did look a bit sad with the rear guards having less offset..Agreed some 15x7 0p would be ideal on there, preferably with a set of 195 R888's for good measure. Nice looking machine which should be good fun (once you fit a turbo).

A bit of extra castor does sound like a nice idea... I was thinking of machining a longer shank on the swaybar and getting it threaded to pull the bottom arm forward, but brackets could well be an easier/cheaper option... Is this likely to cause destruction of the lower arm inner bush where it mounts to the crossmember ??

Time will tell.. It's cost me a $116 so I'm not too phased.. I believe the total weight removed would be around 1/2 a gram (a lot less than the carbon build-up from a used turbo) and this was removed from all the blades.. Sure I could have left it on there and seen how it went. The other option was to get it fully rebuilt with all new parts which would set me back around $1200. A mate of mine damaged his turbo in the 2009 targa, which he happily finished the event on. And another one from a different mate... This one came a a surprise when he was removing the intake piping and apparently was like this for quite some time.. Having worked on jet engines for a little over 10 years it was standard practice to file turbine blades which showed evidence of tip rub so long as the overall diameter was within limits, sure the RPM is a lot slower compared to a turbo but the percentage of weight removed would still be far greater..