Damien's 83 Mitsubishi Sigma Wagon

[OSM Garage]

So this happened

 

 

Apparently not everyone knows the term "Merge like a zip". Ended up bump'n and grind'n up against a truck.

Needless to say, I was fairly pissed when this happened. 

 

So, off to the panel beater it went. Whilst it was there I decided to get a few things done that ive been holding off.

This rust in my roof has been getting worse and worse

 

 

And have these fender mirrors colour matched

 

 

The hoodlining also started to sag badly. You'll have to use your imagination for that.

[OSM Garage]

I enlisted the expert services of Grant at GT Refinishers

 

 

I knew the quarter had been repaired in the past but apparently there was 10mm thick bog in some sections.

Dent pushed out pretty good

 

 

As for the rust, as usually, it was much worse than expected. Thank god I didnt tackle this myself. (Sorry Grant)

 

 

Looks like water may have leaked into the roof from the roof rack mount and settled in between the skins.

 

Hoodlining out

 

[OSM Garage]

So I got a message today from Grant that my car is ready to be picked up. I shot over in my Mazda Demio courtesy car (blasting Mai FM because jap import) and had a look at the finished product.

 

(Insert David Freiburger "BAM!")

 

 

I am so happy that I decided to get the rust done because its mint, and its done right. 

 

 

No more hoodlining touching my head.

 

 

And finally my fender mirrors

 

 

Having the car painted highlights how many different golds there are on the car. So im going to save a bit of coin and have the entire car painted. But thats WAY way in the future.

I would like to thank (and also apologise to) Grant and the team at GT Refinishers. 

 

So, there kinda was a silver lining to getting hit by a truck!

[OSM Garage]

Scored a short shifter for the KM132

 

 

This is the measurement from 3rd to 4th with the standard shifter

 

 

 

Roughly 110mm of travel.

Here are the measurements of the short shifter from 3rd to 4th

 

 

 

Roughly 90mm of travel

 

The shifter is in a different position to the standard one. Took a little getting use to. When its in 4th, it looks like its in neutral.

 

That is all

[OSM Garage]

So, ever since I lowered the wagon ive never been happy with how the front sits. Theres an awful amount of guard gap but I cant go any lower with the standard struts without it resting on the bump stops.

I needed to make "JUDDIES" or "JUSTIES" or how ever you young-ens say adjustable suspension.

 

So, with a lot of research and referring to Seedy Als guide I decided to hack up a pair of Sigma struts.

I purchased adjustable platforms and top hats from George Stocks. I also purchased a pair of SW20 (i think) rear inserts that were about 50mm shorter which meant I needed to cut the strut tube.

 

Strut tube cut and ready to be welded back together

 

 

A test fit to see how everything sits.

 

 

With the different shaft size of the insert I couldnt use the factory top hat. I purchased some adjustable camber plates to suit. A little spacer was made to sit between the top spring perch and the top hat.

The top spring perches didnt have a locating indent in them. I got a quote to have this machined fro $200! So I get my maori ingenuity on

 

 

DONE

 

 

Ordered some springs with keepers.

 

 

And all fitted up

 

 

I trial fitted one strut and found that the spring rate was way too aggressive. At the lowest setting the car was higher than before and was solid.

I bought some more springs that have a friendlier spring rate

 

 

So here are a bunch of pics showing the height before installing the new struts, new struts at max height and new struts at max low (actually could go down another 15mm)

 

 

 

New struts - Max height

 

 

 

New struts - Max low

 

 

 

Measurements taken from top of arch to centre of stub axle

Obligatory chassis rail comparison 

 

 

As it sits at max low, im sad to say, its too low. But, I can easily raise it to the perfect height. I had to use my roller blade wheels as the wheels I was using wont fit the new struts.

Pics

 

 

 

 

Thanks

[OSM Garage]

The N/A 4G63 DOHC has been going great guns and has never let me down at all but it was time to upgrade.

I had been looking over Fuels and Yoeddynzs V6 builds and thought I like the way the V6 looks mounted North/South. Plus, I wanted to do something else other than the 4G63T swap.

 

So I got a 6G72 N/A from a GTO (thanks DJZ) and scored a GTO for the wiring loom, ECU and sensors.

 

 

As I slowly (and I mean slowly) plotted along with this I realised that this is going to take a while and with the OS Drag Day coming up I decided to bail on this swap and took the easy option of the 4G63T

 

I had stripped an E39A VR4 earlier this year and hung on to the motor. My original goal has to put this motor into another Sigma wagon I have and turn it into some sort of drift thing, much like Kelvins Corona wagon.

So I slapped the motor on an engine stand to give it a good clean and to replace all the serviceable parts.

 

"Mota and box good"

 

 

When I removed the front cover I found the balance shaft belt had snapped. Took a gamble and decided to continue fixing this motor.

 

 

For the turbo side of things I am using the turbo setup that was in my EX Lancer. I scored another manifold off Tank that I will eventually use on the Lancer.

 

 

So, out with the trusty N/A 4G63

 

 

 

 

I had to convert back to manual steering box as the powersteering pump sits right where the turbo inlet will be. No biggie as the powersteering sucked.

 

VR4 use a different AFM so my modified AFM housing wont work. Had to find a VR4 airbox and cut it up again to fit inside the filter

 

 

CUT

 

 

FIT

 

 

[OSM Garage]

Im using a Starion sump on the VR4 motor so had to relieve a section of the sump. 

 

 

 

Whilst the motor was out I attacked the wastegate and plumbed it into the exhaust system. 

 

 

 

Next up was to shoehorn an intercooler in the front of the car. I really wanted to run A/C but its a bit too tight for 3 coolers up front so ditched the A/C idea.

Front of the car off

 

 

Managed to grab an intercooler from an EVO 5? Looks like an aftermarket replacement. Seemed to be the right size for what I want to do.

The mocking up stages

 

 

I had Daniel (DJZ) weld on some brackets and I went trawling thru Zebra Car Parts for rubber bushes to fit in the brackets. Like the weirdo that I am I gravitated to the Mitsubishi section and found the perfect bushes on the airbox of a Cedia.

 

 

 

 

I managed to get a whole bunch of replacement parts (cambelt kit, valve stem seals, water pump etc, thanks shandawg) and bribed my ol man to fit said parts.

Was another opportunity to put my homemade valve tool to work

 

 

 

All fitted up

 

 

[OSM Garage]

Now normally I get my ol man to tackle the wiring because, well, wiring scares me. But with the drag day looming closer and my ol man busy with other things it left me no choice but to do it myself.

 

As the Mitsubishi wiring is heavily documented on the internet it wasnt that hard. I had a few questions that were either answered by my ol man or by Fuel.

 

The wiring loom I had was damaged. It looked like the previous owner of the VR4 was running an aftermarket computer and had cut all the wires right at the plug making it impossible to repair. Going thru my ol mans garage (which has been nick named the "Mark-muda Triangle") I managed to find a VR4 wiring loom that I thought I gave away. Problem with this loom is that it was missing a lot of the plugs on the engine bay side.

 

So I decided to make 1 good loom from the 2

 

Starting to repair

 

 

Somewhat organised

 

 

Back to the car itself, I made a bracket that the oilcooler bolts to. I had some lines made by ENZED (highly recommend)

 

 

So with everything on the motor it was time to slam it in the hole

 

 

This is where things started to go pear shaped.......

[OSM Garage]

[OSM Garage]

As you may or may not see in the video above there was oil on the cambelt. It was a bitter/sweet moment as I was wrapped that my wiring was good and the motor kinda ran, but theres an issue.
This video was taken on the Monday before the OS Drag Day.
At a quick glance it looked like one of the tensioner bearings was releasing oil/grease past its shield. So we gave up that night.
 
I returned the next day and found a big pool of oil on the ground. There was a pinhole in a weld where the sump was modified. Unable to fix this in place, the motor had to come out. This was the Tuesday before the OS Drag Day.
 
I was unable to work on it on the Tuesday or Wednesday due to work Christmas dinner and looking after kids.
 
The Thursday before the OS Drag Day I had my good cousin Ants (owns the noisy VK Commodore) come round to help. He zapped and fitted the sump up, replaced a front caliper and fitted the motor back in the hole whilst I did the important stuff like fit the locked diff and fender mirrors. We fired it up again and still was spraying oil from somewhere on the front of the motor.
 
I had the ol man help out on the Friday before the OS Drag Day and have one more crack. I bought some more oil seals (crank, oil pump and balance shaft). I say more because we had already replaced these during the cambelt replacement. As he started to unbolt items he found that on of the hydraulic tensioner bolts were loose. He bolted everything back up and sure enough, no more oil spray.....whoops.
 
9:30pm rolls around and he has the car running as best as he could. At this stage I havent even got it on the ground let alone taken it for a test drive.
10:00pm I take it for a drive around the carpark. I give it a mouthful in 1st gear and felt good. I get braver and hoon from 1st to 2nd and then it bogs and runs like balls! Like its in limp mode (no power, over fuelling) I then realise that I didnt hear the external wastegate open. I found that I didnt hook it up and the motor saw full boost which at this stage I think ive cooked the motor already......
11:00pm I wash the car then load it on the trailer hoping that someone may be able to help me out at the strip.
12:00am Tow car home pissed off that I wont be racing. Managed to get home at 1:00am Saturday, the day of the OS Drag Day
 
I dragged the car down to Meremere and try to start it to drive it off the trailer and it wouldnt start. We push it off and im thinking we should have kept it on.
As I inspected the engine bay in daylight the problem was evident. An intercooler pipe had blown off. We clamped that back on and it fired up and ran good. Took it for a little test drive and all was ok.

 

 
I managed to pass scruitineering and took it out on the strip to help dry it out which was a good opportunity to test it further. It was running great
 
Photo credit - MichaelJFox

 

 
I took it out for its first run and managed to get a 15.25 taken it somewhat easy
2nd run I ran a 14.39 - I was over the moon at this point. All I wanted was to get in the 14s. The car was running awesome.
 
As the day went on the car performed very well. A massive contrast to how the car was running less than 12 hours prior.
So all in all an awesome day. A lot of late nights payed off and I met the deadline.
Many awesome people to thank
 
Heres a vid of the fast time i managed

Now to tidy it up and drive it over the summer

[OSM Garage]

Now to tidy it up and drive it over the summer

 

^ Well that never happened......

 

After the drag day I drove the car to work, which is roughly a 50km journey. 6km into that journey my clutch pedal went straight to the floor and never came back which meant I had to turn the car off when I came to a complete stop and start off in 1st gear and shift without a clutch. This was extremely difficult with the usual shit traffic.

 

Finally made it to work and put the car up on axle stands. Found the issue was a broken clutch cable mount.

 

 

It stayed in this state for 3 months.......

 

I decided to do something about it and get it running again. If you watch the video in my last post you can hear my gearbox protesting between gear changes. It was so hard to get into gear.

With this in mind I decided to replace the clutch setup. The clutch setup was the same equipment that was on the original SOHC 4G63 when I got the car.

 

Had the flywheel machined

 

 

New clutch kit

 

 

Whilst the gearbox was out I decided to wire brush and paint it. Cos you know, painting something you never see is a good idea.

I also put a new rear seal in the box as it leaked quite bad.

 

 

Slapped it all together and the clutch still wasnt the best. Wasnt till I compared clutch cables with a few I had and noticed that there was a rubber spacer/grommet that had perished causing the pedal to run out of adjustment. Replaced the grommet with a good one and shes a runner!

 

Out of hibernation 

 

 

Theres still a few things to fix up. Tacho and check engine light dont work, no heater fan etc. Small stuff.

Will take it for a WOF and see if it passes with out a cert, but I think cert time is near.

[OSM Garage]

Havent done too much to the wagon. Was using it as my daily for a while whilst the Mirage was WOF-less. This car is no longer a suitable daily driver with the cams that are in it. Makes for horrid peak hour driving.

 

Added a boost gauge to the dash. 

 

 

Was a bit surprised as I thought the wastegate had a 12psi spring. The gauge was bang on 10psi (probably +/- 2 psi accuracy)

Wanted to fit a boost gauge as I had a drag meet and wanted to raise the boost to around 14psi

 

Took the car to said drag meet. 

 

 

 

Track was slippery. Didnt set any ET records but did finally crack the ton. 102 MPH with a crap time. If I had traction I may have got a PB. Oh well.

 

And I made the wagon unofficially official 

 

 

 

It now has no WOF and the little shop I used to go to have got their act together. Which is good for me because it forces me to get this certified.

That is all

[OSM Garage]

Getting excited for Oldschool Christmas Tree Drag Day Mark 4

Heres a vid that my brother made of a drag day I attended earlier this year