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I'm putting the inlet manifold project on hold for now. I looked at my ridiculous stack up, adaptor plate, ca lower manifold, another adapter plate, quad throttles, then giant 4age plenum and realised it wasn't likely to clear the strut tower. I could try to bolt up a fwd ca upper manifold, but the money and time I'd spend on an aftermarket ecu and tuning would probably be enough to get the paint job finished, which is a higher priority The 35 year old mitsi electronics will do what they do eventually, maybe I'll look at an upgrade then...

I hadn't heard that one... interesting because my triumph is like that, I just assumed that it was in the ballpark at that point... seems to idle down low enough

He was pretty upbeat about it actually, but perhaps that was because it was leaving. I protected his hard work last night by blasting two litres of LPS3 into it via a fogger gun, followed by a can of fish oil. Now the car has corrosion protection to rival a seaplane and smells like the business end of a wharf, just how I like 'em. I'll start putting the interior back together once the fish stank subsides I wrecked my last starion by being a young idiot, I'm keen as to make amends with this one. Keen to see build threads from you other starion owners, sounds like theres a few still kicking around

Just a couple of little basic things, have you done the drop test on your pistons? You can have identical spec carbs tuned perfectly at idle that immediately go up the shit under load if one piston rises faster than the other or jams up

I've just spent the last hour looking at various mirage engines but cant see anything that looks like itd bolt up... it doesn't help that the mirage had something like twenty different engine fit outs. If you can think of any other distinguishing features of the engine that this manifold is from, I'd love to hear about it, thanks

This thread is still warm so I don't mind bringing it back from the dead. Just a theory question, does the throttle plate position make any difference to the function of an inlet runner? Say you have two identical intakes of 10" length, from inlet port to bellmouth. One has the throttle butterfly right up against the head, and one has it right up against the bellmouth. So one has a 9" stack, and one has a .5" stack, but the total lengths are the same. Would there be a theoretical difference?

got absolutely shat on by the weather over the weekend, garage had a bit of flooding but I was ready for that from experience so everything was already up off the ground. Poor old triumph took a bit of a bath from a leaky roof but no damage done. I went on another sikk modz tangent because the CA18DET inlet manifold arrived. Port spacing is unnaturally similar, both Mitsi and Nissan even decided to go with the same PSSP PSSP layout so I get the injector bosses in the correct ports. It's quite a strange design, the primary ports get ALL the fuel, the secondary is air only. The DASH engine opens it's secondary inlet valves around 2500 rpm if I recall, things might get a bit strange for a millisecond there as the injector has to double it's output, and God only knows how the charge will mix. Lucky the injectors are so close to the head that the air won't have much of a head start. In retrospect the factory setup is even worse with the injectors way upstream where Mitsubishi originally lazily wedged them in a hollowed out carburetor back in '82 and called it a day. The DASH engine activates the valves at the rockers a la VTEC, the Nissan deactivation system is a bit more agricultural with a TVIS style butterfly which had already been removed from this manifold. The old butterfly shaft bearing hole might be a good place for a vacuum signal. The coolant port was never going to work so that got trimmed off and went into the bin. Unfortunately the mount hole positions are a bit shit, there's only about 4 studs along the top of the manifold, and two of them are DIRECTLY under the injector bosses. I thought I had a solution by flipping the manifold upside down but that ended up misaligning the other ones even more. Decided in the end I'll pull those studs and countersink those holes on the flange. That'll allow it to be secure, and prevent it from fouling on the injector bosses. The only real downside is that that means the flange will have to go on first, then the rest of the manifold be assembled up against it, rather than it being a nice complete unit. The injector slots in the top of the port may be a problem too, right now they'd effectively be firing into a wall, I only have the thickness of the 7mm flange to try and relieve that. Might end up making a second flange to double the thickness and give me some more room to play with. Drilled and tapped the flange to suit, couldn't find my tap handle amongst the mess so did the bugger in the vice. The manifold spacing is extremely close to how it wouldve been on the Nissan engine. I could've just about used the factory upper manifold too. The flange will require a little bit more reshaping and probably some hysol/devcon to help build up the larger CA primary ports to match the smaller mitsi ones. The secondary ports are pretty bloody good and will only need a tickle. Instead I went with quad throttles for the cool factor, they line up so well, the width is perfect, I could've actually just shaved the eyebrows and gotten away without an adaptor plate, if not for (again) the unfortunate position of the mount lugs, one of the three hanging out in the middle of nowhere, and a second one over an existing, larger threaded hole. Thought about back drilling and tapping the throttle bodies so I could bolt them up however I liked but don't actually want to permanently modify them - as we all know they're the second most overpriced engine component on earth (after the RFB 300zx airflow meter) so if the whole thing comes to naught I'd like to be able to on-sell them Offered the throttle bodies up, became vaguely aware that it was beginning to look like a bit of a tower of shit tbh. I'll give it a clean up and a paint perhaps. By the time the (outlandishly large) 4AGE plenum goes on it'll be quite a big unit hanging off the side, I wonder if I can brace it a bit better. This is assuming I even use it. The 4AGE inlet I bought didn't come with a TPS but the starion one bolted up perfectly after a minute with a flat file lolol. I believe they work opposite the factory toyota ones but it looks like Tunerstudio has provisions for that. Next project might be cleaning up the bench

Thanks mate that's what I wanted to hear. I was just aware that every manufacturer had them the usual way around, guess it's a maintenance/access thing for them

Hi all, I'm building the most amazing inlet manifold ever, and because I have zero fabrication skills, its all preexisting parts and adapter plates The problem I've run into is that an existing mount stud fouls directly on an injector boss. If I flip everything 180 degrees, it clears ok. The downside is that the injectors will be effectively upside down. Is this going to cause a problem? It's a cross flow engine at least, so leaking seals wont mean fuel on the exhaust manifold

asking because my project came with an autometer AFR gauge, I assumed it was narrowband, it's labelled "rich" and "lean" but there's about a dozen LEDs on either side of stoich which presumably light up individually, allowing it to display some kind of degree of deviation from stoich... does that mean it's probably a wideband?

slightly hijacking the topic, will a narrowband AFR gauge work with a wideband sensor?

I vaguely remember a red one with a blown head gasket being for sale sometime before lockdown, was that you?

I dropped the bonnet on my bare feet today lads, edge first. I dont think my feet are broken but they're fucking murdering me Bonnet is doing great

just read your project thread, which starion are you doing up now? the first one or the second one Also I guess what I call a scuttle you call a cowl... you have A SPARE ONE? Tell me you wouldn't have sold it to me anyway, so I'll feel better about spending a fortune fixing mine

She calmed down a bit when the car left for the panelbeaters, and we got a bit of garage space back. Then it came back and she's grouchy again. Firebrand cool to hear of another starion getting the treatment, let me know if there's anything I can help you with. Seen a couple of other cheap starions pop up on trademe right now, that fucking scuttle rust is a killer alright. My car had one bonnet hinge integral to the firewall, and one was bolted in, I wasn't sure if that was normal, and if not, how it was supposed to actually go. But I see now that the original setup is both of them integral... both of mine are bolt-in now, I'm actually happy about that, means I can get in there again if I need to. My hinges were rooted, thought about going with bonnet pins for a bit but then found some good ones in my parts heap