gibbon

I last owned a starion almost a decade ago and it didn't end well. Since then I've gone on to be a bad owner of a number of other cars, and I can't say I ever kept an eye out for another one, or really even thought about them. Doesn't help when you literally never ever see one on the road ever ever ever.

I was doing the obligatory "old coupe under x amount" search on Trademe and this one came up. I actually knew a guy who owned it for YEARS back in Hamilton, and he'd always taken good care of it. As it turned out it was also advertised for sale here on OS. Anyway I chucked a bid on it for fun and never thought about it again. I'd had a bit to drink and somehow didn't see the red flag come up. Fast forward to when I got an email late at night a couple days later, my blood ran cold lol. The missus was fucking furious

The seller was a good fella, straight up about the issues with the car, he'd bought it off the previous owner that I knew but didn't get far before having to get rid of it. It had a cracked windscreen but he arranged to get it replaced - didn't get that far unfortunately as the rot around the lower part of the screen would have to be dealt with first. So it came up with the screen taped on, workmate had to collect it for me as the missus was still too angry. 

In the garage, starting to strip it down for an assessment. Didn't get far before the list started growing. The good news is that the motor had been rebuilt a few years prior (with receipts), Vr4 pistons, balance shafts removed etc. Couple of grand spent there. Oh and a serious crapload of spare parts. I have a pic somewhere but can't find it right now. The car was running, but not great. No handbrake, offset by the fact that all the brakes were frozen. Power steering pump noisy but that's so far down the priority list I could barely care

THIS was the bigger issue. Where the car was straight, it was bloody straight. And where it was rusty, it was bloody rusty. I'd written off my last starion over corrosion like this and I'd be damned if I'd let it happen again. Plus pride was on the line for my accidental purchase, I couldn't just write it off.

I've got a 12 valve 4g63 head, it has 8 inlet ports in a very similar pattern to the ca18det. The engines only came with a garbage single point injection, and the 12 valve heads cant be fitted with a magna MPI inlet like the 8 valves can. Since starting this thread I've picked up a 4age silvertop ITB inlet I'll try and fit up to the other side of your 8 port section, that'll face the right way at least. Shoot me a PM, cheers 

Yeah that's the other odd thing I noticed, the offset injectors. So once those butterflies open, you get pure air coming out of the "secondary", and an air/fuel mix from the primary.. I wonder how well it actually mixed at high RPM 

Any chance I could convince you to part with that 8 port manifold? Not fussed about the missing butterflies 

My centre gap is 35mm, and an 11mm overall discrepancy just means 5.5mm each side, I need an adapter plate anyway so can incorporate that, so still pretty keen, if the spacing is the same on the later manifolds. I need a fwd manifold to get the tb on the right end, what does that leave me looking for... turbo bluebird engines? 

Oh and the distance between the centres of the two outermost ports, if its anything near 310mm I'll be a happy man indeed 

That's actually looking pretty promising, the only measurement missing is the size of the center gap... what the heck are those elongated ports for?

Interested to see if the later manifolds share the same spacing, I'd prefer a throttle body on the end rather than a top-loader 

Thanks guys, I'll take the measurements of anything that's available

Wondering if anyone could help me out here, looking for the port size and spacing for an 8 port ca18det inlet manifold? For a project, alrwady tried a TVIS 4age but too small overall... 

Heat soak on the starter terminal wire perhaps? 

Thanks for that, ideally I'd like something showing the eight individual ports but yeah I can extrapolate from that

I'm dicking around with possibly fitting MPI to my 12v 4g63, which has a similar port design (2 pairs, gap, 2 pairs) to the tvis 4age. I suspect that the whole thing may be physically so much smaller as to be useless though 

Anyone got one of these in bits? I'm looking for the port spacing measurement for the 8 ports of the inlet manifold... thought about buying a gasket to measure but it's even cheaper just to ask... 

Just now, AllTorque said:

Only the 91 price is on the big sign out front. Most people won’t pay attention to the price at the pump. Sneaky bastards.

I believe theres something in the works about making servos list all prices on the main board thank god. Experts already predicting massive price decreases 

How about regular insulation batts? They're fireproof, deaden noise, and would stay in place if theres the inner skin to sandwich them 

Just now, tortron said:

https://www.classiccaraccessories.co.nz/products/lucas-type-dynamator-c39-c40?variant=20563314376792

Hard to beat this though 

Theres a variant of the rotax 912 that has a tiny tiny alternator, I'm trying to find it

Just now, mjrstar said:

I would weld a 1/3 piece of tube in the dump pipe to separate the turbine exit from the wastegate exit up to where it flanges to the exhaust housing. 

I am going to go with not clever as its going to lack adhesion. 

 

Thatd be an easy way to do it except the turbine exit is now divergent due to being ported... it's still doable but a bit trickier. Other option I thought of is a plate blocking the wastegate path on either side of it (one in the turbine outlet and one in the wastegate outlet) with a bolt running between them to clamp them in place 

Just now, yetchh said:

Might last a wee while but eventually will blow out potentially blocking up downstream.. Too much vibration and hot cold cycling I reckon

I did wonder about whether it'd be acceptably resistant to erosion. Heat cycling I'm less concerned about, theres hundred year old fireplaces made out of the stuff which seem to hold up ok. Just hope it doesn't break up one day and pepper someone behind me with red hot terracotta 

The car is in a trillion bits and pending welding surgery so dont expect results for a while unfortunately 

Recently I've become fixated on trying to improve the flow through my turbo (td05). I've made a new dump pipe with a separate discharge turbo for the internal wastegate, and now I'd like to block the original path from the wastegate back into the turbine outlet. I've spent a lot of time porting out the housing and it burns my ass that the now-defunct wastegate passage is still there mucking up the flow directly downstream of the exducer

Normally I guess you'd just buy a housing with no wastegate provision, or plate over the hole. But I've devised a solution that would make Rangimods proud; how about refractory cement/fire brick?

It's good for around 1000c, is as easy to work with as clay (because it pretty much is), has a slightly lower thermal expansion than the cast steel so wont crack the housing, but not so much less that itll rattle out, and the wastegate passage is coarse and irregular enough that it should be able to key into it ok. I could slap a glob of it in the wastegate passage and itd end up with a nice unobstructive finish in the turbine outlet passage 

Stupid or stupid-clever?

1 hour ago, kws said:

*don't do this. 

Correct, the dirt needs to be mixed with PVA first so that it can better withstand the suspicious prodding of the techie 

36 minutes ago, Transom said:

Yeah some garages are passing fully smashed in rails and some are failing them with a minor dent - it’s so inconsistent 

It seems like the main discrepancy is over what's considered "structural" - certainly the wee diagram supplied by the WOF guidelines seems to indicate that practically anything in, on or near the car's body is structural, which isn't helping

Just now, Nominal said:

Quite a bit...

 

https://vehicleinspection.nzta.govt.nz/virms/entry-certification/reference-materials/eg-structural-damage-corrosion/under-body-damage-crushing-of-floor-pan-stiffening-members

Ah sweet mine is nowhere near that bad... thought about getting it repaired but didn't want to draw any more attention to it. And yeah in retrospect it's a floor stiffener not a chassis rail... be a bit of a shit chassis rail if it folded up like that... even the sills are thicker 

Is there any way to access previous WOF check results for a car? If significant faults are logged against the plate to prevent you from bodgying the car up then going around the corner to the next mechanic, is there any way to access that info, as a new owner of the car?

On a completely separate note, some wonderful previous owner appears to have jacked a vehicle of mine by the frame rails (unibody car). How much rail damage might I reasonably get away with?

Pics up, a little hard to get in there but you get the idea. Correct that the "TD" wasn't embossed, whether it was etched at the factory or after the fact I have no idea. I think from the shape of the compressor wheel (uniform blades) we have ascertained that it's a 14b wheel, the turbine side is the real mystery, I'm not sure what turbo it came with originally, is the tc05 exhaust housing the same as a td05?

Car is a factory sirius dash intercooled model, so worth playing with I reckon. Previous owner rebuilt the engine, VR4 internals, balance shafts out etc. I used to play with starions a decade ago but I've forgotten pretty much everything. Went to the Starquest forums after buying it, the scene sure has changed. Starions used to always seem to be a but of a poor cousin to the popular cars, not anymore, some serious love and attention going into these things nowadays

There's a small 16g complete item on Trademe at the moment, I was thinking of swapping the compressor wheel and housing onto what I already have, just not too sure if it'll end up being a bit choked up, 060 is that little bit smaller. Then again the whole thing may be moot, if I'm aiming for under 300hp I wonder if the 14b wheel wouldn't be a better option anyway.

I dont think you can really say for sure, even the "fresh" gas you got yesterday might have sat in the servo tank for months, and some storage tank for months before that 

Righto so stuck at home for another week. Thought the car was looking a bit sad. I haven't got any actual polishing compound on hand and can't get any.

I've heard that coke and tin foil literally works as well as a proper polish on chrome, is there any similar old-timey trick that works on mags? Toothpaste and an old sock?