Rogl Doctor MkIV - '87 AW11 SC x-wing daily

[0R10N]

so after selling my third AW11 (a two-tone green and gold one) to Camel back at the end of 2008 I vowed never to buy another one again... unless it was manual, supercharged and hardtop.

Well two out of three ain't bad!

This is AW11 number four, '87 5spd supercharged t-top in Super White II. Bought it on valentine's day last year off a pleasant fellow in Pukekohe who also happened to be a cop, and part of the Manukau-Counties Serious Crash unit. His parting words to me as I drove off (in that super deadpan serious cop voice that all of them seem to have) were: "I hope never to come across you nor this car upside down in a ditch one rainy night..." and fair enough too!

yes I realize it's not wearing the ROGLDR plates anymore. I got bored one day and stuck the banana's plates on instead.

the Good:

- 10psi pulley kit

- Extractors

- TRD LSD!

- super lightweight bronze rims. Can pick up with pinky finger

- engine rebuilt at 160,000km

- most of the rust was repaired and treated by a previous owner

the Not So Good:

- notice how I said "most" of the rust?

- front lip, bonnet and bumper really need a respray

- exhaust manifold had a leak when I got it, but a genuine toyota 4A-GZE gasket (for $13!) soon cured that

- it's a t-top and yes, the damn things leak

- the paint isn't thaaaat flash, but hey it's a daily

- only dynoed @ 92kW at perfect power with the ECU throttling power above 5500rpm. Ah well

When I got the AW11 it pretty much had a piece of straight pipe off the extractors and out the back, and as you can imagine it sounded like a very very angry wookiee holding a belt sander against a wall. So to appease the warrant man (and to keep my sanity intact) that got binned in favour of something MUCH quieter. the car was also rolling on Firestone 960s (with a mismatched Enduro GR2000 on the left rear 4lols) and pretty much did a skid everywhere it went. Replaced those straightaway with some brand new Bridgestone Potenza G-IIIs for max grip action.

for a while it kept blowing SC belts, but I changed to a slightly larger diameter one (no more A/C) and adjusted the pulley and that seemed to fix it.

then bought some mint t-top covers off YAJ via Ewan from ha-ya-ton-ka, because the car didn't have any and I was getting tired of frying in the sun. Nearly had a heart attack when I found out how much they cost brand new from Toyota ($925 per side), not to mention how much one of the greedy gouging bastards from the MR2 club wanted for his tatty ones ($300). The ones from Japan only cost me $120 incl shipping!

Also discovered that Permatex black rubber sealant ($9.50 from BNT) works wonders for t-top leaks, AND it still allows you to take them off and drive around like a shameless '80s throwback. Fucking stoked az.

other than that, I haven't actually done much else to the AW11. Always gives me a big grin when I drive it, does 600km a week without missing a beat, and has the mean acceleration around town. Best part is the fuel economy, I can thrash the nuts off it and still get 12km/litre (8.33l/100km)! Oh, and the supercharger whine is epic

the plan is to just keep it for a while longer, possibly get the rest of the rust fixed and tidy up the paint, but I'm holding off for now because I'm still hoping maybe one day I'll import a mint hardtop one from Japan and swap over all the good bits.

moar photagonals:

[0R10N]

Agent in Japan emailed me last night with this hot little number: http://www.goo-net.com/usedcar/spread/g ... 13003.html

in the meantime I'm keeping on keeping with the current one. Performed the half yearly application of "t-top leak-stop" today. Basically you apply some of this

to each corner of the t-top rubber bit, with a bit of glad wrap or petroleum jelly where it meets the chassis to keep the sealant crap from making a mess everywhere.

Sit in place with the t-tops unlocked for an hour, then remove the glad wrap, lock down the t-tops, and leave for a further hour. Then remove t-tops again, trim off excess sealant (which should have hardened by now), re-attach and voila, hopefully no more drips for another few months

also helps immensely if you've got the eccentric guides.