Popular Post yoeddynz Posted November 17, 2013 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 17, 2013 Exhaust pipe was still knocking on hard runs. I thought I had adjusted it but obviously not. On thursday night I decided on a fix.Fix in photos..Rattle be gone!Then we took Viva on a drive over the hill to Takaka in Golden bay for the weekend so we could check out places and times etc for next years nationals. The hill was great fun- first time in ages I have driven in something other than our slow old Hiace.We then drove on to Farewell spit and over to Wharariki beach for the night. Took body boards and had a sweet weekend at a lush beach. No one else there and water was so warm. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted January 24, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted January 24, 2014 Update time. For the last couple of years I have been intending to make a new instrument layout. I love the look of the original Viva strip speedo but not having a rev counter in view is annoying. I have to look off down towards the tunnel to see what revsI'mdoing and this does not make for relaxed fast driving. I had nowhere else to mount a rev counter without touching the dash. The speedo also reads 15% too high and was not going to be super easy to fix. So for ages I have wanted to fix all these areas.Initially I was going to order some posh aftermarket gauges but they all seemed to expensive or not quite what I wanted. So I thought I'll make some. Sometime last year I went to the wreckers and bought a early 90's Toyota celica instrument cluster and the required electronic speedo pickup. These pickups have exactly the same thread size as the Mazda gearboxes. Which is nice.I took the lot home and stripped the cluster down till I had a speedo by itself sitting in front of me. I tried a few different combinations of wiring up with a spare battery until I had a setup that worked. The pickup only requires three wires- 12volt feed, earth and a signal wire. Same goes for the speedo head.For a 6 cylinder rev counter I still had the cluster left over from the Mazda Eunos we split ages ago when first embarking on the V6 route. I was not sure what sort of signal it would need- ie a simple pulse from one coil or a different signal from the ECU. I just had to try it. Luckily it was an older style and worked a treat. So I now had my required main gauges. I swapped the needle off the toyota rev counter onto the mazda one and the fonts almost look the same. All these bits then sat about in a shoe box till last week.So last week I though I best get it sorted before the oldschool nats [] There is a particular sort of look I wanted. A touch modern with an art deco/steam punk style. Sort of.So last week I bought some thick walled alloy stock and machined out some housings for speedo, revs, temp and fuel gauges. I set the gubbins/faces into these sandwiching some 2.5mm lexan spaced apart by thin strips of alloy.Then Saturday I made a new instrument binnacle out of thin steel. This was tricky as the Viva item is molded into a complex shape. Complex enough to make fabricating the steel item more time consuming than I thought it might be. I didnt want to vinyl cover it so it had to be a good neat fit to be just painted.Then over the last few nights I have been wiring and setting it all up. I cut a suitable multi pin plug from car the wreckers and cut the old viva plug off. I clambered under the car, disconnected the speedo cable and mounted the new sender. Ran some shielded wire, left over from the Eunos, and routed it into the cabin via the tunnel.Then assembly time. It all took a bit longer than I thought it might (doesn't it always..) and I had to stop and rethink a few things. There is not a lot of room in the Viva dash area and the Toyota speedo is quite big. Initially I was going to have seperatly mounted warning lights but then went a neater way (well I think) by using some cool little screw in 12v LEDs that Jaycar sell. These I mounted into the speedo face. I made the fuel and temp gauge faces from thin modellers plastic which I painted. But this went messy. In a panic I found an old excercise book that had a cover in thicker black plastic. Forgot to take photo though.The painter at work painted the back plate and binacle in Durapox black. Nice and hard wearing. I got up early and finished wiring it up this morning before work thinking it would all be plug and play. Sadly a few things played up. I ended up not getting it working till just before lunchtime today. First problem was it constantly blowing a fuse. I worked out that the problem was the temp gauge casing was live and shorting out when screwed into place. Traced it back and insulated the gauge face inside the housing.. Then the ignition light needed another bulb in the circuit as wattage drawn by the LED wasn't enough to excite the alternator into action.. I think... anyway I added another bulb in parallel and that started working. Eventually I got it all sorted and drove to work. But the speedo was not working!!!curse word But then about 2kms from work the speedo needle 'pinged' into life. Cool. So out with the GPS and I tested the speedo. It reads just under 10% too fast. So better than the old one and I can try to locate a particular Jaycar kit I can then calibrate it. Having the rev counter in place is great! Its so much better to see whats happening with the revs when fanging the car about.I am not 100% totally happy with the look yet. It works really well but the font on the gauges is just not quite right. Maybe its just me as Its quite a different thing to be staring at. I think I need to add some silver around the binnacle or do something to make it look a little more original/older/retro. Any ideas welcome.Otherwise I'm happy and it was fun building it. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted February 8, 2014 Author Share Posted February 8, 2014 Well now I have somewhere to sit the ipod, phone and wallet plus I cant see all the wires coming out from the tunnel. This job I have been meaning to do for ages as well as the new dash. I added a little Vauxhall badge I had removed from the centre of one of my old original steering wheels. Worked a treat at hiding some roughness at the bottom of the console.imgurNot many photos. Here it is finished..Wow- that's like two jobs ticked off. One day I might just get around to fitting a boot light, the wiring is already there- posh(er) Vivas had them fitted. But I am slowly building up to such a big task by doing all these little jobs.For some reason the fuel gauge now reads well above super full ( the tank is full but it used to read bang on full. I have not altered the wiring to or from the gauge as such but have made the wires longer. Weird. So I fitted a variable resistor inline to see if I can fine tune where the needle sits like I have done on the temp gauge. But it doesnt make any difference. If anything it makes it worse ie reads even higher unless the knob is turned right back..then it reads where it did previous to fitting the VR.So maybe having extended the wiring to the gauge has added resistance to the point where it reads fuller? I need to look into the circuit further, get my head around it and see whats going on.On another note-I did some adding up and we have now clocked up 5837 miles since fitting the V6. Over this time it has returned an average of 29.3 MPG. This is pretty bloody good- I'm happy with that especially as much of that is town driving and or fast driving I could only ever dream about that sort of mileage with the rotary and this is a much more usable engine. I still love rotaries though and will surely have another but in something even smaller. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted February 19, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 19, 2014 So tonight I decided to just go out for a drive. I only just got back 1/2 hour or so ago. I wanted to check out some routes for the nats plus meet the previous property owner who is leaving us some stuff behind on our land so it all tied in nicely. I was not sure how the Viva was going to be on our freshly scrub cut drive way as its not been used much last two years and needs smoothing down. But it was fine and I was all happy to have the Viva out on the land for the first time. Driveway is about 350m long with bush along the sides. Car looked cool in its soon to be new surroundings I thought. Car went so well- its been a while since I have been out for a night time country blast. Fuel gauge still reads a bit high- I thought I had it sussed. I had somehow bent the needle on the fuel gauge while mucking about modifying it. I checked all the wiring, removed the variable resistor, shortened and fitted heavier wire for less resistance and still no better. So I tried a spare old manky fuel gauge and it worked spot on. I compared the two and the old one had a needle that stopped further back with the power off. I looked at the base of the needle on the one fitted and i could just make out a tiny bend/crease. So I bent it back and then fitted it. Took some photos on my phone, sadly a bit poor quality in the low light. 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted July 10, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted July 10, 2014 Wow. Been ages since I've done anything to this car. Maybe a record for me? I did clean the windows the other day..still dusty all over from oldschool nats grasskhana. It ran out of warrant couple of weeks ago and passed fine when tested but it's noted that the drivers seat belt is a bit fluffy. I did try melting it but really needs a new webbing. Drove it over to Blenheim last Friday night. Still so fun on hills. Still comfy as in them seats. Loved it. Hannah drove back and pushed me into finally getting sorted for engine swap back to the 2.5. She wants to build it herself and learn so tonight we started on replacing the valve stem seals. Much easier now I have the home made tool for removing the old ones and the other tool for placing the collects easily. Discovered/noticed the heads have 3 angle valve seat grinds. Not sure if factory? looks like the ports have been cleaned up too. Not going to get carried away with it. Just assemble it. 200+bhp will be plenty for now and if we want more in the future once that wagon becomes the daily then I'd like to charge it. Axle would cry anyway. So cold outside and warm in the truck. Cleared the bench and got started on swapping them seals. Cosy..better than cold shed. 3 angles? Might be worth half a medium sized pony. Efforts could have been put into cleaning back the guides. But not for me. Will leave as is. Oh and found a photo of gauges at night that I think looks cool. 11 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted July 23, 2014 Author Share Posted July 23, 2014 Got stuck in on the block last night. Gave it a quick clean first- a touch dusty. Now this particular block was one from the bulk load of engines and bits I bought off trademe from a seller in Auckland. He had this block fitted in his Fraser cars Lotus 7 replica. It has been rebuilt at some point but I think it was only due to it being painted. It looks to still have the factory hone marks in the bores. I split it in half last night (funky split crankcase design) so I could check out the condition of the bearings. They have very fine scores suggesting a bit of dirt/filings have been through it. The crank is pretty mint though. The previous owner had ground down the web that sits between the inlet and outlet side of the oil filter pedestal maounting point in order to fit a remote filter. My guess is that some tiny alloy filings have gone through the system. If I had not split it down and just used it the bearing would probably be fine. But now I know I will measure the crank today at work and order some new bearings. Once apart Hannah noticed how heavy the bottom crankcase 'cradle' was. We then noticed that it actually has steel main bearing supports cast in place. Man these engines are a sweet little build- pretty tough eh. I need to pop off a rod end and have a check of big ends too. When looking up bearing prices on line I found this bit about an inspection from an oil company on a higher mileage engine from a MX6.. A USA oil company researched engine longevity using their own oil: "After 300,950 miles the Mazda MX6-V6 passed an IM 240 Exhaust Emission Test in Aurora, Colorado, with results well within new car limits. At more than 310,000 miles, the test engine was disassembled for inspection and measurement. No wear was evident on valve stems and guides, main and rod bearings, crankshaft main and rod journals, or cylinder walls. The cylinder hone marks from original factory machining were all clearly evident. While piston skirts showed no wear, piston rings showed an average of only 0.0015" of face wear." The V6 rivals the Lexus V8 for longevity, which is unsurprising considering the original application was a Xedos6-2.0V6, Xedos9-2.25/2.5V6 & Sentia rotary luxury lines. Many V6s & I4s have exceeded 350,000 miles, the only failures on one was a Mitsubishi alternator at over 200,000 miles and the pre-Jan-1995 rear calipers on another. Cool. I'll get back to you all on this one in about 300000 miles then.... We have finished doing all the valve stem seals on both heads the other night and they now wait to be fitted to the block once I have sorted the bearings. Im hoping to do the engine swap next weekend and hopefully if all goes well we can get this new engine to the Hanmer PIE meet 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted August 1, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 1, 2014 Today the Viva gets it 2 litre heart replaced with this..image hosting over 2mbI was hoping to have it all complete with cambelt attached so I could just swap the flywheel/sump and sling it in. But thecooling outlet casting cant be swapped with belt and back plate in place. I'll just have to make another modified castingin the future so I can have another engine just waiting complete. What for? I dont know... but just having a v6 sitting inthe stand in the corner of the workshop would be nice.So earlier in the week I replaced the missing bit of alloy from under the oil pedestal. The previous owner had ground itaway for something to do with a dry sump setup this engine had when it was in his Fraser lotus 7 replica. I carefully filed a new peice of alloy and then drilled, tapped the old web stub and bolted new piece to it. Then sealed any gaps with JB Weld. jpg images Thank you JB Weld for you have saved the day again. Such good epoxy- best I have ever used. Takes a full day or two to set super rockhard.. and tough but then files so nicely. free image hosting The engine block then found its way back onto the bench in warm housetruck (bench now sports engine spec marks on bench)and I fitted new bearings. The old ones looked almost new but with tiny scratches from I figure some alloy shavings whenhe ground away that web. image sharing At work I machined up a 3mm shim for the oil pump regulator. Its well known mod for these engines and very similar to what I did with the 12A rotary pump. This will help up the oil pressure. image hosting over 10mbBack into the shed yesterday. I have finished most of the work on the bedford cf so took friday off and played with enginebits. Heads back on but not till I had to make a bloody trip into town for two tiny O rings! The full gasket set I gotfrom the states was missing these vital little buggers which seal the feeds to the heads. But I got to rag the Viva abouttown, the last time with a 2 litre. Heads on and time to clean all the followers out. Most were pretty sticky and had plenty of gunk build up. Only way to doit properly- screw that lifter clean stuff. No way it would have clean followers as well has stripping them. Quitesatisfying. One big cup of coffee and two hours later I was getting pretty quick at doing them by number 24. 20mb image hosting The mucky crap. This was crystal clear thinners before... images hostingCams back in place and then sling engine into back of van. Wasnt as quick and easy as that though.... I asked theneighbour (old bearded man in jandles) to help me lift it and we carried it by hanging from a big steel bar. He slippedbackwards on the wet bricks outside shed and as the engine dropped towards him he did the best slow mo backwards cart rollfinishing off by smacking his head on the Viva bumper. 9.8 from the Russian judge. It was then that I realised he waspretty drunk. Fun times.Today we will be using a mates large shed to keep us covered while we swap the engines across. Hannah has made cake forthe occasion. So it will be a good day!... 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted August 3, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 3, 2014 Wow. Rapid! Very rapid. Thanks to a very shitty internet connection tonight I cant put up any photos. But I can tell you all now that the 2.5 lives and sounds cool. I need to re-tune the ecu as expected but the engine started up straight away. Everything is just a bit lean on the table which is understandable. The whole swap took a lot longer than I was expecting. A few hiccups saw to that. First one was the exhaust 'Y' pipe not sliding off the down pipes as nice as usual. A bit of mild corrosion and me jamming them when trying to remove it made it a prick of a job without a hoist. Then, at about 10.30pm last night Hannah and I were still only just slinging the new engine in place. The bloody input shaft wouldnt slide in place easily as I was using a engine hoist rather than my favoured chainblock. Hard to adjust the engine angle. Finally it slide home and we called it a day. Today I had to remove the knock sensor adaptor from the 2.0litre as it was missing from the new one. Never noticed this earlier. Did it wind out easily from the alloy block where it had been covered with scum in the depths of the vee? No it bloody well didn't! I ended up taking the old block over to work and attacked it with the rattle gun. Still nothing. So attacked the block with the gas torch and finally it came loose. Its a 30mm long plug about 25mm wide with a fine thread so easy to corrode in place. Phew. So all to day it was clean and assembly time. All went ok today and finally turned the engine over to build up oil pressure with the plugs removed about 4.30. I cranked and cranked- engine spinning away fast and fine but still the light wouldnt go out!!!? Huh? weird. A bit worried...! Should I prime the pump?... hmmmm Then Hannah spotted I hadnt connected the wire to the oil switch. Ahhhhhhhh. Whoops. So yeah. It started first turn. A happy non- event there. It revs up so much quicker and harder. Fuck yeah! Gonna be fun. We couldnt really rag it too much tonight as tuning the leanness out (that'll be more fuel being burned damn it...mr scottish me, a Davidson, not happy about that...but hey) and it was raining hard enough I couldnt really see well...( lovely old pommie cars with wipers made for a desert location and a fan that more just agitates the air trying to prompt it in a polite British way to move along towards the vents if you dont mind, terribly sorry old air molecules, hope Im not upsetting you.....) But I still gave it some squirts and had a giggle. I'll post up some boring photos of engines on stands, engines on hoists and engines in bits tommorrow. For now its movie and chill time 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted August 5, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 5, 2014 Some photos from Sunday. Didnt end up taking many as just plain forgot.Two engines, an old army Dodge, some old British bike..image sharingMe not very happy with the engine not sliding inplace onto the input shaft. I threatened it with a hammer (or a Hannah..) and it finally fitted in place..photo sharing websitesNext thing that has happened since I parked it up and has kept me entertained off and on for the last two days. Some of you will know about my woes from the tech thread I started. So I went to start it on Monday morning and adjust the warmup settings. But when I connected to the ecu and opened up the starting/warmup part of tunerstudio something threw its toys from the cot. Turns out that because I had updated my TS program a while back it didnt want to play ball with my older firmware on the ecu. So yesterday and today I have been sorting it all out. Luckily I am between jobs right now so have a few days off. I just managed to load the new latest code on this morning and the latest TS as well then spent the morning leearning my way around the new setup. The car started straight away but needs a bit of time to sort out the VE table.While it was running I noticed that the cam covers were leaking past the new seals (because British..) so I went back to my old work and grabbed the old mazda seals which I think work better. Maybe softer. I dont know. Time will tell.uploading picturesVery much looking forward to driving it tomorrow and seeing what the extra 50~60 ponies will be like in the hills! 14 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted August 8, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted August 8, 2014 So this happened this morning on the way to work... adult image hosting Yep- I am truly fucked off. It was a young fella who had no idea about the two second rule and was not looking out at an intersection. Ran right into the back of me. Luckily he has insurance but its not something I wanted to happen ever. His car, a pug 306, looks way way worse- the whole front end is smashed. Next week it will get assessed and then repaired. Will need to get bumper straightened and re-chromed. Ive never seen a mint Viva rear bumper going spare. yeah.. pissed off. Not a happy chappy. Why the fuck do people tailgate. Its not gonna get them there any quicker. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted August 28, 2014 Author Share Posted August 28, 2014 So latest on the Viva.. Its been repaired under insurance. Was really weird not doing the job myself but I did 'check in' a couple of times to inspect. Repair is good. Then Shane primed it last week and on Monday it got its top coat. Here is shane giving its bum a coat of high build (or something painty ish)picture uploadThe bumper is away getting straightened and rechromed. Ooooooh that will be flashy. I do hope they can straighten it out as it was quite bent.On Sunday we took it out and did some more tuning. Its running really well now. Just need to fine tune a few little areas to get the idle even smoother and remove the mild hunting at light throttle openings when on cruise. I have not been able to get the fan to switch on however. I have checked all the wiring and removed the main chip/daughter board to check the circuit there and all good. So maybe a software issue otherwise I have somehow blown a transistor? Luckily its really easy to get to the ecu and work on it!!! I really do like my roll out ecu drawer...WE decided to take it out to our land and get some photos of it while sunny. The parking area seems huge when its just a little Viva parked up...We went to the first OS Nelson area meet last Thursday night. The car was dwarfed by this big old girl...After getting some snaps I gave it a good hard caning and boy its quick on the hills! Sadly the extra power is showing up all the other 'old car' design faults. I think under really hard acceleration the back squats down and the 1800 magnum axle is possibly hitting the tunnel. The trailing arm bolts move/bang back and forth in the holes too. I really would like to fit an IRS setup into this car. I measured the track- from across the outer faces of the tyres and it came up at 1545mm so I need to look at something off a smaller rwd car. I think the mx5 setups I was thinking of using are 80mm wider and I want to avoid using front wheel drive offset rims. I need dish... I will continue to do some research on what might fit. Otherwise I keen to cut/chop/adapt/build my own setup. But If I can find a setup that is close to working it will save a big ball ache when it comes to re-cert time. I've lots of other things I want to make/modify as well but cant really start until we have our shed all built. Currently waiting on plans and then the whole consent application so it will be a while yet. I might pop the car up on the hoist and remove the springs. Then I can jack up the axle up until it hits and squeezes the bump stops. I can then spot what might be hitting. Anyway- I am very much looking forward to the drive to Hanmer tomorrow. Always a fantastic drive with great scenery. Gonna be good! 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted November 9, 2014 Author Share Posted November 9, 2014 So this happened this morning... Engine backfired at start up. Bang! Vrooooooom! Ooooh big air leak....what have I bust?! So I can fix it but just a pain. Big question is.. what's causing a back fire in my tune? It's only backfired once before this. Maybe too much advance at start? Too much cranking pulse? Once home from work tonight I'll post up my settings for those ms gurus on here. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted November 19, 2014 Author Popular Post Share Posted November 19, 2014 Sooooooooooo. Bloody backfire! Creating all extra work and at the end of it all I am just back to square one..although I have made safety valve. Took ages to try and get the plenum box square again and bend the lid to suit its new not so straight shape. Amazing the power of a backfire and the damage it can do!!! Yep- I dont really want to go through all this hassle again so I spent a couple of hours using the a school lathe and machined up this. I shall call it the 'anti backfire blow lid off plenum chamber valve' or 'ABBLOCV' for short which I think is quite catchy. and it bolts up hidden away on the back of the plenum chamber like this.. I spent some time in the sun while out at land sanding and prepping the box for re-painting with more wrinkle finish paint but annoyingly it didn't go off as well and my poor finish (not enough care sanding) shows through. Oh well.. another time. Reassembled the lot yesterday after work.. While I had the lid off here's a photo I took of straight down one of the runners at the inlet valves... So started car up last night.. but not before checking the cranking ignition timing. That was set at 10 degrees so nothing too bad there but just to be safe I set it at 5 degrees btdc. The car started fine- just turned over a few more times before catching and without the strong start up rev. There was a mad loud hissing sound because the strong vacuum was sucking air past the valve so I added some self adhesive foam on the valve disc. All good then and out for a drive to check it was OK. Took it to work today. So nice after driving the van about! I had a play against a 735i m series bimmer on the bypass although Im sure he was barely idling along.. Hopefully all is OK now 12 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted February 1, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted February 1, 2015 Well a few months ago I got an email saying that Matt Farah from 'The Smoking Tire' was coming to NZ and wanted to drive the Viva. Fast forward and on Thursday we had a film crew turn up and spend the day filming us, the truck, the Viva and Kevin the cat. The were gobsmacked with the truck and will be doing a seperate episode on that So the day started with them getting shown about our new workshop, the Viva and Triumph within, a tour of the truck, meet/cuddle kevin who was quite a happy kitty with all the attention. Then interview me, interview Hannah, more kevin time, lunch, hannah drives Viva and gets interviewd whilst doing so. Matt then spends the afternoon caning several shades of poo from the car with lots of camera angle changes, cars chasing him, him chasing cars for shots. They had a drome they sent up to film the viva from up high. Lots of hopefully great footage.Then back to our pad to chill out and inhale nature whilst looking out over the view talking bullshit about cars. Then Pizza and beer at our local cafe. They filled the tank back up and Im promised the use of Matts car if we come over and stay at his in LA. Fair enough- I think we might just as I do have a soft spot for the mountain biking around the back of LA All in all a really great day. Viva didn't use any oil which was nice. Matt really enjoyed driving it and likes the overall build of the car even though he is used to cars with usually way way more grunt and speed. I think he appreciated that it was all done on a tight wads scottish blooded moth ridden wallet budget.He reckons on them hopefully the episode coming out within a couple of months or less. They are here filming several other cars so will have quite a bit of editing to do.Some photos from the day...Kevin getting much attention.Matt became quite smitten with him and is very keen on getting a Ragdoll cat now..The crew getting setup for some filming..Hannah about to drive while being interviewed.Matt about to go up for first run while getting footage taken by Tom. Then he would spend the rest of the afternoon in the the car by himself with other cameras in different positions. They did most of the filming on the Takaka hill which was great because the Viva is a really fun car up there- ideal bends and surface. Great views. Sadly lots of other cars/motorhomes/slow old vans about as there was a hippy dance festival starting up the top which made for some annoying times.Getting the camera setup. Quite heavy cameras and lots of very expensive looking mounting hardware.More camera changes...Typical lush bermed corner on Takaka hill. Was very hot up there and luckily we found a good shady parking area to use as a turnaround/camera change point.Now for me to check over the car and make sure all is good for the Nats !!! 45 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted February 6, 2015 Author Share Posted February 6, 2015 Someone on RR just posted a link up to THe smoking tires latest video posted on YTube. Its of driving Andrews Mazda Lantis on some sweet looking road near Wainuiamata? Anyway- interesting seeing how he likes the smaller 2.0litre JDM spec KFZE V6. They mention the Viva, take out a cicada at 10min in and I reckon they pass a speed camera van parked up in on the right at 16min. I'll message Andrew and find out if he gets a ticket... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted March 2, 2015 Author Share Posted March 2, 2015 That cat... he is invaluable. Like today he hung about assisting me with the Viva. He watched over me to make sure I did things right.For ages now I have been intending to sort out my throttle pedal cable attachment. When I built the inlet manifold and used the mazda throttle body I had intended to have the cable run through from the pulley end so it was nice and clean. But time was running out to get the car on the road for the oldschool nats so I just used a solderless nipple. I have always wanted to fix this but it was one of those little jobs I never got around to. Until today.So the uglyness I dont like is this...I started by chopping off a chunk of alloy in our new toy- $100 secondhand saw. Saw worked well but I already have plans to modify it.With the chunk of alloy and some steel and some little stainless bolts I wittled away until I had this...That fits into the HC pedal like this...I made it like that so when the cable is clamped it remains straight and kink free. Every time I had to remove the cable from the old pinch bolt it would be all kinked and a bit frayed making it a sod to get back through the outer at re-assembly. Now its clean and straight. A simple little thing that will make a big difference.I forgot to take a photo of the pulley end but will get one in the morning. It looks heaps better. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted March 12, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted March 12, 2015 The first Smoking tire NZ episode is finally up on Youtube. Watch as Viva prices soar..... The Incredible Mazda-Swapped Vauxhall Viva -TST i…: 51 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted April 30, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 30, 2015 Update time post nats 2015. The rush is over...Actually running up to the nats there was not really any rush. I was lucky this time round that there were no real jobs to do but for a quick clean and a few little tidy up things. Then it was just a case of biffing Kevin cat into the Viva and head off on the nats roadtrip,dropping him off at my parents place for his weeks holiday. Onwards to the ferry and slowly in a very chilled fashion we made our way north. I always love the part over the central plateau..Then down off the plateau and into Taupo for late afternoon sarnies with a lake view.A few casualties on the way so far. Windscreen 4. Flies 0.That night we stayed at a free camp near Taupo where in the following morning we walked to a free hotpool/waterfall we had been told about by one of the other campers. Such a cool spot. Its a seriously hot waterfall down into some hotpools that then flow out into the river. As you swim out to the river the water slowly gets colder. Its pretty amazing standing under a hot waterfall!!!. It was not far along a walkway from the Huka falls which always impress..The following day we continued north. On the way we passed this old bus. Poor old Seedy Al with a broken fanbelt. He did have a spare but that broke too! So we went on and got him a new belt then returned to them. Luckily at least it was not raining.As we got into the Coromandel area the roads got pretty darn choice.Found a pretty big Kauri tree.. We got to the Nats eventually and well- enough has been written about that. Just to say again it was bloody awesome as usual. What a cool location too. Great swimming river right in the campground. Many sweet drives over the weekend.However we sadly missed the big Oldschool group photo after waiting around with some others while Shane replaced a broken valve spring in his Ford ltd and straight afterwards on way back to groupshot area we sneaked a quick surf in on our bodyboards.. I will fast forward onto the Sunday where we finished with the nats we cruised to Hahei beach with a few of the others. I got to drive Bardies V12 bimmer 850 again. Wow- I love it. So smooth, so sexy sounding. I want a V12!!!! We all had a swim in the nice hot sunshine and then everyone left for their respective homeward journeys. Hannah and I were still on holiday having taken the week off so we drove over to Coromandel town to visit the driving creek railway. Its a really cool narrow gauge railway that an old bloke has built pretty much by himself over several decades starting with a small section he built to gain easier access to the potting clay on his land. We had been looking forward to this all week and luckily it was not too busy so we got a spot on the next train. Simply amazing as it climbs steadily up through the bush for about 20 minutes to a fantastic viewing platform. Well worth a visit! You can visit the website here..http://www.drivingcreekrailway.co.nz/ Then we cruised on north up to Waikawau beach. This is such a sweet as beach and campsite. Very peaceful too because it was late summer and no holiday crowds. Over summer it swells to 1200 in peak seaon. There were 12 other people when we turned up. Lots of great gravel roads which are immense fun if you can see ahead. Sadly most are so tight and many blind coreners I took it pretty safe like because the locals certainly dont! We had many near collisions where they seem to just play Russian roulette as to if someone might be coming round the corner!On the Monday we tiki toured up the west coast and then back and up the east coast to the further most point on Coromandel peninsula. More amazing roads and stunning scenary. Love it. The Viva was going well and as it was now a weekday the roads were so much quieter. Port Jackson and Fletcher bay at the very top was very nice indeed and such a sweet road to get there- espeicially just north of Colville along the coast which is lined with huge Pohutikawa trees. Stunning.We headed back south taking the road we did in the nats to Waihi. I love that road! Wow!!! Such an awesome driving road made better when clear. Sadly it was never fully clear and just as I would be really getting into Id come round a corner and there would be another bloody Nissan Tilda!!! FFS - these Tildas seem to be made for one thing and that is driving slowly on perfect fast roads. Not really many safe places to pass on this road so often I would just pull over and let the cars pull away so I can then rag it again.We swam/body boarded at many beaches and the sea was very warm. No need at all for the wetsuits we had packed in the boot. Waihi was awesome and we bumped into who else but Sparkle!When we went to leave the beach car park the bootlid wouldn't close properly? Discovered this..Broken boot hinge mount! Bugger. We went to the supermarket and while Hannah bought supplies I looked online on my phone for a classic friendly garage. Found one, went to ring them and just as I was about to ring spotted the building over the road from the carpark. Well how bloody handy!!! The owner was well cool and lent me the tools I needed to drill and rivet the bracket back in place. Sweet! Top bloke. Annoyingly a big chunk of paint was removed from the bodywork above the boot lid where the dropped lid had caught the edge That night we camped with Sparkles and Jo at a cool Doc campsite called Dickies flat. Wicked swimming hole there. Water so warm!The following day we drove to Tauranga for nothing other than to check it out. Never been to any of these places before so I was enjoying the whole 'new country' thing going on. Tauranga was bigger than I expected. Well from what we could see from the motorway as we cruised past Tauranga onto Mt Manganui. M M was not at all what I was expecting! I never realised it would be so busy and upmarket. Its like some Hawiian beach with massive hotel buildings.Nice beach. We didn't stay long though as a long drive today to get to Wellington. Anyway- a friends sister stayed a M M a few weeks before. They stayed at a campsite there and got fleeced to the tune of $50 each to park their little van on a spot of grass!!! Faaaark that.The trip south was a non event but for surprising some 'faster modern' cars by flying up the Kaimai hills? south of Tauranga. Glad for all the passing lanes because man them hills certainly slow the trucks down to a grind. I can see them hills also taking their toll on many old cars with dicky cooling systems eh.A stay near Upperhutt late that night and then went for a trash in a friends Lantis 2 litre JDM spc V6. Fun. Back on the ferry and stayed at my parents in Blenheim that night. Washed so much dirt from under the car from many gravel roads. Back home the next day and one more fill up of the tank had me out with my calculator for a final accurate reading of petrol usage. We managed to get 31.4 mpg which is not much worse than the 2.0 litre engine we did the last two nats with. Happy with that considering there was soooooooo much trashing of the little car. Only fault was one of the rubber seals between a rear stack and the plenum chamber giving up its seal and creating an annoying vacuum leak. Fixed on the first day with some epoxy putty. Otherwise just filled the tank and drive.However a few weeks later I had another fuel vapour buildup related explosion this time blowing the plenum chamber apart on the other side from last time. This was a huuuuuge bang! One bolt popped out from the lid with enough force to dent the bonnet! It happened right at start up after the car had sat a week and only an hour before we were to head off to our local Nelson area meet with a run planned that night. Bugger! So into the workshop I pushed the car- wondering if the sudden explosion created 'throttle opening' causing the cold engine to race from zero to 8000 rpm would have done any harm...The car sat inside for a couple of weeks Finally however, after driving either our slow old van or the almost as slow Sentra, I decided enough was enough and wanted my fast fun car back. So I set to not just fixing the bust plenum but making a better thicker stronger item. Plus check the injectors and see if or how bad they might be leaking. With the old lid removed I could smell strong petrol whiffs from one port in particular. Possibly the culprit?We had found a big pile of 5mm alloy plate on our land as we cleared it a few months ago. Perfect for what I wanted to build. This time I fully seam welded it. No more silly little barely penetrating plug welds! My welding improved heaps plus I learned a few tricks so really happy with the welds on the one. Should be goodunstrong.Pictures=1000 worlds etc etc...We have now got a nice old Colchester MK1 master lathe from 1960s. Works sweet. We had to give it a going over and strip down all the skirt, slides etc for a decent clean out of built up swarth. Hannah is enjoying having a lathe so any chance she has to use she takes it. Facing off some alloy tube for corner pieces.Then my turn. Chopped the teeth off an old worn holesaw, ground it sharp in the lathe and created a perfect sized hole punch to punch out gaskets from self adhesive foam.Once plenum was finished I took the injector rails off and we tested the injectors with a battery, switch, jam jars of equal size, an in tank pump sitting in a container of petrol. First to check were the ones out of the Viva. They all worked well and all pretty much matched in output. The spray patterns were even and consistent.We then tested the other three sets I have spare- none of which were very good. They all flowed about the same but quite spluttery and uneven in spray patterns.Then I re-rigged the first set and left it running at full pressure for quite a while, injectors closed. Kept going back and checking for leaks but nothing. So if one is dripping it must be as I feared- very slowly over the space of a week or so. I will add a dash mounted switch to my ecu feed and for first start up of the day I'll turn off the ECU, turn the engine over at WOT and clear the inlet tracts of any vapor buildup. OK- sort of a bit faffy but for a piece of mind I think its worth this extra few seconds of bother.Back to the new manifold which I was building. I thought id keep it in raw alloy finish but it just didn't look right so I painted it. Sadly it was not warm enough to really set off the wrinkle finish paint but still looks heaps better. I had a quick clean up of the throttle body because the butterfly has been sticking shut randomly and can make gentle pulling away tricky. Bolted it all back together on late Monday night and started the car up, after having removed the ecu fuse for a bit of clearing...Started fine and warmed up. Cinched down the bolts again the lids sealing foam settled and went to bed happy. Drove it to work the following day. Wow! Soooo much nicer to be back in my Viva! Hills are such a laugh again. Effortless giggly fun. The throttle body is still a little sticky so I need to look at that. Its butterfly closes fully without any stop screw and I think its just getting wedged ever so slightly into the alloy. Maybe I might fit some sort of stop with a screw adjustment and rely on that to set the idle rather than the stock idle bled screw. Also will fit that switch and have to tend to the little bolt head shaped dent on the bonnet Otherwise just enjoy the car for now and just tinker away with some little ideas- things like funky interior lighting and get around to fitting the intermittent wiper control kit I have bought. 18 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted December 20, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted December 20, 2015 Wow! Six months or so since I last wrote about the Viva. This is not because nothing has happened. Things have happened but nothing big. Lots of little jobs, some of which have made a huge improvement.First off. The brake master cylinder started weeping out the back and down the front of the servo taking all my carefully applied spray can finish with it. Damn. So I ordered another seal kit and stripped the master. Right in the very first bit of the bore was a little bit of surface rust. enough that it had been wearing away at the last seal and it lost its edge. I gave the bore a hone, fitted new seals and applied rubber grease inside the bore at the end after it was assembled. Hopefully no more wearing.So that was exciting.Here's some photos of the excitement...see that seal edge all rounded off...Next up was to replace the front control arm bushes. The original ones were knackered. All squishy and deformed out of shape. These take all the loading when the brakes are applied. They stop the wheels ending up in footwells under hard braking plus they set the amount of castor. Quite important things. I should have replaced them years ago. I had the bush kit sitting in the boot for ages but it was just one of those jobs... always on the back of my mind, knowing full well it will be easy and make a difference. Instead I did an engine swap or two. Oh well.. better replace them then.The decision to finally get around to replacing them was made much easier by finally having a hoist. So up the car went and fueled with a cup of tea and a big dose of enthusiasm it was off with the control arms.The state of these!... But the new bushes were the wrong size!!! Listed for an Viva HB but blatantly much bigger in all dimensions. Not even a chance of fitting.So back on with the old ones and ring the suspension place I got them from, then the distributors. The bushes are for a Torana! Same designed front end but bigger to take more weight. Oh. But they located a set the right size internally and I'll have to turn down the outers. They can send them and I just swap the bits over. Off the phone, car off the hoist and my tea was cold A week or two later I finally picked up the bushes. Country life now dictates I don't go to the big smoke that is Nelson as often. Once home I hoisted the Viva up again, off with the arms, another cup of tea and remove the dust sheet from the old colchester lathe. I have not machined poly for maybe 20 years since doing my apprenticeship. Very sharp tooling was needed. I had to use some old thing called HSS! I even had to grind the edge on this oldschool tooling. The result was smooth and the size was now right.Here's some soft swarf..Then in with the new bushes. Down with the tea. Still warm. Yay!While the car was up I noticed the front tyres were unevenly worn beyond salvage (Actually noticed ages ago but was ignoring due to $$$). So with car now armed with a lovely new pair of bushes I drove to Nelson, had some lovely new Falken tyres in 185/60 13 size installed and then got a full wheel alignment done. The fella at the new place I took it is well known through the Nelson car club for knowing his onions and he spotted as I turned up an excessive amount of toe out. That will be the cause of the scrubbing. I was also running a touch too much negative camber on the front. I couldnt get it any less so before I took the car out I took another mm out of the slots on the top arm allowing him to adjust it. Also a bit less castor was ordered as I felt I wanted nicer turn in, less weighty steering and I would deal with the old car/side wind float. When I picked the car up it was instantly better! He said the wheels needed 20-30mm of pulling in via the tierods to correct the Toe out!!! I could tell when I lifted off the accelerator in town and the car would roll further that there was a heck load less drag now. Sweet. This will equal better economy- not only fuel but tyre wear!Job two I have been putting off...This..Doesnt look so bad and Ive happily ignored it. But no longer. I did this..Then it was all gone. This made me happy.Third job I have put off. This one has been bugging me, and Hannah even more, for a long time. Self cancelling indicators. Or lack of. Ever since I fitted a new steering wheel boss for my uncles old Motolita wheel I have not had self cancelling indicators. Because I never did that 20 minutes extra work in fitting a little ring.I had kept the ring from an old Viva steering wheel. I cut it down, drilled two holes in the current wheel boss then glued the ring in place with JJ quickweld epoxy. Just in case. Hey wow. A throughly modern car. No more telling every single person who jumps in to drive the Viva that the indicators don't self cancel.Its often those little things in life eh.Here's some photos of the proceedings..Oh and I did this too. I gt sick of the slightly sticky throttle body. The butterfly gets sort of jammed shut and makes it hard to squeeze the throttle open gently when pulling away. I added an adjustable stop to the pulley so I could crack the butterfly open ever so slightly avoiding the jam..That is all for now. Im going to have a play with the ignition timing table that I had retarded a while back trying to chase that low speed vibration which I now know is the long single piece driveshaft.With the ignition timing back to where it should be my quest for better economy will improve. I did an oil change last month and went through the my Scottish book of mileage and fuel usage. I have some stats here..7374 miles I drove with the 2.0 litre KF V6. Over those miles it had averaged 29.14 MPG. Not bad at all considering how much of a thrashing that engine has had.Then I swapped in the 2.5 litre KL v6. I have since done 5689 miles with this engine and overall it has averaged 28,1 MPG!!! So with the extra 50 or 60 bhp that bigger engine offers I was pleasantly surprised at that. I figure it being its not having to work so hard to shift the car.I am still chasing more economy from the engine but realise it will never be modern car amazing when I am trying to push a brick through the air. But its fun trying.. 17 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted April 17, 2016 Author Share Posted April 17, 2016 Not actually much to report right now except the trial fitting of the Cheviot Turbo mags from the wagon. They were off the wagon while I have it up on the hoist and I just couldnt resist fitting them... I like them heaps but I think the 185/65 are a bit too tall compared to my 185/60 I have fitted to the steels. Plus that extra height means they are very close to rubbing the back of the wheel well at half lock. I thought they might have more offset but they are identical to the steels in that respect. I still really want some Hustlers or what ever they are called- like what Greg has on his Valiant. More of a 60's style that would suit the Viva better I reckon. Anyway- have another couple of photos. Not really much else to talk about. Oh I did get a shiny new windscreen. I have been intending to do so for bloody ages now and had bought a proper decent silicone screen rubber custom made for Vivas by some Viva fan in the UK. Tight fitting but really good. Whilst it was out I cleaned up the aperture and luckily there was no rust. Lovely new screen is amazing to look through- I wish I had replaced it ages ago ! For now the car is being used heaps as our daily and has needed nothing but fuel. Clocking up a fair few fun kms 8 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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