ProZac Posted January 27, 2012 Share Posted January 27, 2012 Driving DJZ's quite insane 280zx around, and being part of the Japanese Nostalgic Car cruise the other day made me realise I need something old, japanese, and RWD in my life. Starions were the first car I ever saw and though, 'Shit, I WANT one'... And at 18 I bought my first car, a Starion, a red and primer monstrosity that I ended up crashing into a curb and selling to pay various debts. I've had two others since then, a silver one that both myself and my father drove for 3 years with it never missing a beat, and a white one which was fairly quick, but had a bit of a shitter body. Skip forward many years and its time to own another, but now that I'm not quite so young and stupid, own it right. Spent all week chasing down starions for sale, checking out what was available. This black one held the best hope for me, as I wanted something that was fairly original and un-played with. The pictures on TradeMe made it look pretty weird. At the last minute a guys project starion came up for sale again on trademe in auckland, and it is an absolutely mint body, with all the good running gear, but no motor or loom... This put me on the fence about which way to go... However, when i started really poking around this black starion, it turned out to be much more honest and tidy than I had thought it was going to be... After some negotiation, and me paying a bit too much in all honesty, the deal was done, and it was towed home. Wait, TOWED? Yeah. Cant drive it at the moment. The engine goes (and actually sounds really smooth and nice), but the clutch master was buggered. Its 12:14am now, so a little late to change it, but I have a new one sitting there ready to be installed first thing tomorrow morning. So it begins. The best news? If you spin one rear wheel, the other spins the same way 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted January 27, 2012 Author Share Posted January 27, 2012 Waiting for repco to open... Need battery terminal and a clutch slave. I ordered the clutch slave yesterday in anticipation of needing it, hope the saturday freight comes in! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted January 28, 2012 Author Share Posted January 28, 2012 Bored before work... Will update thread. Passenger side headlight was really dim on either full or low beam, usually points to a grounding issue. Had a poke around and noticed a whole bunch of extra wiring in the area. Someone had installed some cibie kit that used the factory H4 plug as a signal, and switched two extra relays that were added on, which then powered the headlights... Why I ask? The factory system uses a relay already... Its not like your really protecting any wiring, or allowing yourself to draw more current for higher power bulbs or anything... I removed it all, plugged the factory plugs back into the headlight, and voila, works perfectly. Also in the aftermarket wiring arena, someone had added a PIAA kit also to power the factory later model driving lights... Didn't work. I removed it all and will wire it with a three position switch, so I can have them off, on all the time, or on automatically with the high-beams. Last couple of bits of non-factory wiring to remove are the averagely installed stereo wiring (will see if the speakers are useable though, coz they're pretty cool), the ugly ass boost gauge, and the high stop lights. The high stops are mounted to the underwside of the perspex wing on the boot hatch, and its actually a really good place for them... Pity whoever did it made a hash of it. Need to wire up properly and actually install them in the middle of the car, not skewed 100mm to the passengers side like they are at the moment. Tested the headlight washers, they work! Never had a set that do before . Unfortnately when DJZ and I towed it home, the front spoiler got broken... I was a bit excited and didnt quite think properly, should have removed the bumper to tow it, as thats really easy to do. Its a nice clean break, but has meant I've had to remove the bumper and spoiler. A mate is going to sort out plastic welding it up for me on monday . Its been repaired in one of the corners before, and looks like whoever did it did quite a nice job. It's still strong, but also flexible. Right, time for my one soul crushing day per week at the House Of Rippie, wooyeah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted February 1, 2012 Author Share Posted February 1, 2012 Have been doing plenty of wee tidying up jobs. The wiring fairy has had a go at this car, so all that had to be pulled out and rectified. Looks like a professional job. Made up some new beefy leads. DJZ is going to crimp them for me tomorrow, should get it cranking over a bit faster and just be a bit nicer all round. The extra wiring I've removed so far. Need to remove the extra speaker wiring still, then run all my own stuff properly. Have been thinking of adding fender mirrors to it. I have had these sitting in a box for years, they're off a turbo sigma, but are missing the mounts. I'm considering chopping the stalks down a little and making my own spring mounts for them... Still undecided. However, poking around the engine bay revealed one of these on each side. No way could I be *that* lucky I thought... Plugged the sigma mirrors in, and hey presto, they work! Factory controls are still wired up and good to go The first clue as the to LSD being fitted... I'd seen a similar orange sticker in english on NZ new models. Translated this reads something along the lines of "CAUTION! Never drive vehicle fitted with limited slip differential with only one wheel jacked in air" Oscar approves. In general the engine looks pretty un-molested, seems to go really well, doesnt seem to blow any odd smoke, boosts very smoothly and is quite torquey. Getting there . Took it for a warrent. Need to wire up the driving lights and put a high stop on it. Score . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted February 16, 2012 Author Share Posted February 16, 2012 Had a win today. Got the tank out, fuel level sender fixed (i really hope) and back in. With a sizeable break in the middle to chat to a mate about mini's. Took care of a whole bunch of other jobs at the same time. Seems to be spending a bit of time like this at the moment... Got the tail light housings all painted up, looking good. And sealed back together. Gave the lenses a polish while they were off. Didn't go overboard because I've got some later model tails on the way anyway, but they look pretty good. Some careless sod has backed into something at some stage, grrr. Its double skinned here aswell, do not going to be an easy fix. Will leave this for another time. All looks pretty good under here. Obviously quite dirty, but not rusty or bent, so thats a plus What the inside of your fuel level sender looks like. What had happened is that they've never had the tank full, and the car was sitting for quite a bit, so the swiper and wire got a little corroded. I cleaned it all up, bent the swiper for a little more pressure, and it now seems to work. Has an interesting shape to the swiper contact to account for the shape of the fuel tank, hah. Priced up a new one from mitsy, ex japan, $160 odd. Not actually to expensive I didn't think. The inside of the tank looked pretty damn good, no corrosion evident, nice and clean. These cars can't be quite as bad on gas as i remember, I thought the tank would be about empty, from the amount of driving I've been doing, but it was still half full! (thus, it was also pretty heavy). While i was having a poke around under the back end (oooh errr), I noticed something had fallen down the inner rear guard, under the rear washer bottle. Popped the washer bottle out to retrieve it, and its the funnel for refilling it! Hah, score. Twas a good day today Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted February 20, 2012 Author Share Posted February 20, 2012 Trying to insure this thing was looking to be tricky. I've been with AMI for ages, had several cars with them, and my home and contents also. They wanted $1500 a year for an agreed value of $3500, full cover, with myself and my partner as the only allowed drivers (both over 25 with spotless driving records). They would do 3rd party for much much less, but wouldnt offer glass or theft insurance at all! Wankers. I called Classic Cover insurance. $370 per year, for an agreed value of $6000, with full cover, and they really do mean EVERYTHING. Thats for any driver over 25, garaged when not in use, and 8000k's per year. Easy and simple, bloody awesome! Modifications are allowed, but they obviously have to be informed, and the vehicle must be legal at all times. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted February 23, 2012 Author Share Posted February 23, 2012 Insurance came through. Its insured, reg'd and warranted. So what to do... I know, pull it apart! I wrote this: http://prozac.orconhosting.net.nz/eciguide/rebuild.html around 8 years ago when I had my 3rd starion... Hopefully I'm not too full of shit... I went and bought all the o-rings listed today, and the seals. My intake manifold is in a million pieces on the bench at the moment. Will slap it back together tomorrow and hope for the best. My radiator is also a bit past its best, pretty rotten really. Sized up an S13 SR20 radiator, and it looks like it'll be a good fit, with the same inlet and outlet positions. Will pop an electric fan on aswell, should be better than the clutch one it's been running. Will also put the undertray back on when it goes back together, should help. Not that it actually had an overheating problem.... But better safe than sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted March 7, 2012 Author Share Posted March 7, 2012 EXCITED MUCH!? Wheels are on my lounge floor. Tyres are hopefully going to be sorted tomorrow, because I'm having CUL8R's manbabies. D2 adjustable coil-overs are welded, painted and ready to be fitted, also sitting on the lounge floor at the moment. Ive rebuilt the injection unit, and refitted so it doesn't cause fiery explosion/death. Need to fit the s13 alloy radiator, but shouldnt be too tricky/alloy welding practice. Big day tomorrow . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted March 13, 2012 Author Share Posted March 13, 2012 Got some new shoes They look pretty nice from the rear. Toyo T1R's, 225/50/15's. They're around 7% smaller rolling diameter than stock. Will get interesting to see if i can recalibrate the digital dash, i think i saw a pot back there somewhere, might be what it's for. Cheers heaps to Chris (CUL8R) for hooking these up, scholar and gentleman you are sir Got the D2's in. With full thread engagement, but set to maximum height, it was around 10mm higher than stock. I've wound them down around 60mm from there, so around a 50mm drop from stock. Looks really good at this height, and has plenty of clearance, should be nice and driveable. Wheels are TE37v copies, 15x9, ET0. The fronts need a slight spacing out, as the tyre bead just happens to be in the same place as the top of the threaded section on the hub, and *just* rubs. I bought a guard roller when i bought the wheels thinking I'd definately need it, but they clear fine as it is. Oscar agrees that it looks pretty damn sweet . Could go down atleast 50mm from here, but I'll wait till its driving again before altering it again. Would really like to get on some corner weight scales and balance it up nicely. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted March 21, 2012 Author Share Posted March 21, 2012 Uni has been kicking my ass the last week or so, many many hours spent there. But some spent on the Starion too Fitted a cheapy alloy radiator originally destined for an SR20 powered S13. Had to weld on a couple of brackets and use cap-head screws as it was a pretty tight fit. Ended up looking quite sweet though. Found a top radiator hose that fit perfectly (89-90 V6 Pajero apparently) and made an alloy bend to meet up to the stock lower hose. Just need to bead it and weld it to the outlet. Replicated the stock lower support setup, but to fit this radiator. Covered the section that touches the radiator in rubber-foam to allow for expansion and what-not. All in all its a good swap to do to a Starion, and was cheaper than getting the factory radiator re-cored. There is a 14" thermofan to go on aswell. Got my draglink back from HBI all rebuilt. Installed with new inner and outer tie-rods too. Will take for a wheel alignment very soon. Replaced the lower ball joints while I was at it as one was shagged. The thermofan and the fog-lights need relays. Made a little tree for them that sits away nice and tidy. I like this style or relay with an in-built fuse, makes things super-easy. Left space for another to be added later for future modding goodness. I gave it a touch more slam, just to see how it looks. While I had the wheels off I fitted the hub-centric rings and wheel-nuts the supplier finally came through with. Also noticed that the wheel flanges do have cut-outs offset to the four stud holes, so I can run 15mm bolt on spacers on the front. This will certainly require some guard rolling action, but will mean the tyre now completely clears the strut (it *just* touches at the moment, like by 0.1mm.) Will run 25mm spacers on the rear to make it match the front, and should look pretty sweet. Will order those tomorrow as they'll have to be custom made for the mitsy 67.1 hub locator and the wheels 73.1 inner bore. The rear still needs to settle, that's straight off the jack. Will see if its drive-able like this, otherwise I'll put it back up to where it was. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted March 24, 2012 Author Share Posted March 24, 2012 Its alive! 100k's so far today, and counting. Seems water and oil-tight. teething issues: Tyre/Guard clearance. Have rolled the fronts this afternoon, and seems to have sorted that. The rear isn't as bad, but will roll those as well. Will certainly be interesting once I have the spacers on there... The thermo switch I used is too low of a temperature. Its before the thermostat (not ideal), in the 3/8gas threaded hole right under the thermostat, pointing out of the bottom of the intake manifold. Thus the thermofan is constantly on once the car is up to temperature. I'll either try a higher temp switch if one is available, or find another thermostat housing and build up and alloy lug with weld, then tap it for a thermo switch. Anyone know what the switching temps of the factory ones are? The good: All the gauges now work properly! With the right oil pressure sender in there, and actually having a thermostat installed, its showing good oil pressure and temp on the gauges . Ammeter and Fuel gauge are doing their thing too . The D2's are fricken awesome to drive on. Just a little firmer than factory stuff, and no bounce at all. Did a bit of open road driving today and it was a real pleasure, just smooooooth sailing . The steering is much better with all the new bits. Still has that vague power assisted box feeling, but has much less slop. The box is pretty leaky, but hopefully it wont be staying around too long. The slight miss is used to have when cruising along at 2.5-3.5k rpms is gone. I suspect it was a leaky 'something' in the emissions system. All the emissions stuff is in the bin now, and it does a heap better. Returns to idle much faster, and idles a lot smoother also. I love this car, I don't think I've ever enjoyed owning a car as much! Must hold on to this feeling and remember it when something just isnt going right with it, hah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted March 29, 2012 Author Share Posted March 29, 2012 Rolled the rear arches today. Took quite a bit of force as it's double skinned, but made a nice job of it in the end. Lowered it some more, gave it a wash, and went for a drive. No scrubbing at all now, drives really nicely, feels awesome. Apologies for the phone pics. Didn't actually mean to go for a drive up the hills, but it just happened to be where I ended up, hah. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted April 2, 2012 Author Share Posted April 2, 2012 Kind of a boring update, because I've been doing nothing but drive this car, and I still love it . Even when it breaks down, it has the good grace to do it in my driveway... But more on this in a moment. To make these: fit properly, I had to do some of this: Which was a bit of a learning experience. The guard roller from trademe seems pretty cheap and nasty, but it got the job done. However, not suitable for vehicle with coil-overs and reduced suspension droop. I had to wind the coil-overs to max+ extension to get enough of a gap between the hub and the guard lip to get the roller in there. Will probably cut and shorten the roller for future use I think, as you can extend it while your using it, but its just a tad too long for older cars with smaller arches. Reading through the factory service manual for an american 2.6 1983 starion, there is mention of a spare terminal being put in the loom for fog-lights. I thought I'd have a hunt for it on my japper, just to see if it was the same. I found one end of it by the parklight/indicator plug on the drivers side. Its a lone, unconnected bullet terminal on the end of a red wire with white trace. While hunting under the dash, I found this plug: It seemed to have never been plugged into anything. Testing revealed that the red wire with white trace coming front it was the same as the one found by the parklight/indicator plug, score! There is also a ground wire, a constant hot 12v wire, and a wire that supplies 12v only when the lights are turned on. The manual says these wires can support up to 10A, so will be fine for powering the later model fog-lights my car has without a relay. Ahhhhh, I love it when the factory does most of the work for me! Thankyou for your foresight, Mitsubishi! No ugly added wiring for me! Its even the same plug style as commonly available Narva stuff, so all I have to do it make up a loom, put a switch on the end of it, and I have factory wiring goodness. Will try to find a factory fog light switch, probably from the US, because I like shit like that. Now, the breaking down... Car made a funny smell the other night (I checked, it was definitely the car, not me). As nothing was smoking/hot/funny on gauges, I kept driving as I was close to home. Once home I shut the car off. I then tried to turn the car back on, and naada, zip, nothing, no dash lights, door lights, or anything. Had a good chance to have a gander today, and spotted this: I'm pretty sure they don't look like that from the factory. Must have had a corrosion problem, high resistance = heat, heat = melted plug, plus now and open circuit. When and bought the same style of 'fusible link connector', put a new one in, and its now good as gold. Do love an easy fix (edited because half of what I wrote made no sense) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted April 9, 2012 Author Share Posted April 9, 2012 Tidying stuff up for nats. First job is installing an alarm / keyless entry. I puzzled it over for ages as to how to mount the door locking motors, but found a really good spot eventually: The unit is spaced back into the door cavity around 10mm, I used two m5 bolts with the threads drilled out for this, as they were the first thing about the right size with a hole in the middle that came to hand . Then bent up the connecting rod, and jobs a good-un. Having a really short connecting rod should mean less flex in the system, so more reliability also. I bought a set of electric door mirrors off Lunacy a while back. Ive fitted them, and am trying (with little success) to wire them up to the early model factory control. With the addition of the door lock motors, electric mirrors, and more powerful speakers, the door wiring looms needed looking at. I took them apart, cleaned all the bits and pieces, added the extra wires I'll need, and taped them all back together. Put new nylon sleeving on the bits that will be exposed when the doors are open too. I'll put new plugs on for the extra wires, so they can still be removed like the factory items. Factory one on top, re-made one on the bottom. Whilst inside last night I pulled out the wet-vac and gave all the interior bits and pieces a good going over. Man, what a difference! Just check out the colour of the water I was getting out of these bits, eugh. Smelt pretty nasty too, like old Japanese smoke. State of play as of a wee while ago: Ive done a heap more that I didn't take photos of because I was too busy... Coming together nicely all in all. Hope to finish off all the mods tomorrow, and get everything back together wednesday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted April 10, 2012 Author Share Posted April 10, 2012 Its 6:30am, my car is still in a million pieces. This time tomorrow we'll be on the road. Oh, and its pissing down. Fun day ahead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted June 5, 2012 Author Share Posted June 5, 2012 Starions do camping. Incidentally, why did my car end up way dirtier than everyone elses? Seriously, I washed it the night before we left ChCh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted June 5, 2012 Author Share Posted June 5, 2012 So I've been given this: which has this: Let the games begin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted June 7, 2012 Author Share Posted June 7, 2012 I'm going to have a go at getting a bit more out of my Starion as it is, just for shits and giggles. First step will be an intercooler and a wideband o2 sensor/controller/gauge, to keep an eye on things. I had a play with MAF's today, just for fun. The Galant I've been given has a 7 pin MAF on it, which is apparently swappable into Starions, so I gave it a quick go. First step was trying to start the car without a MAF. It starts, and seems to idle okay, but has a big dead spot right off idle. Flooring the throttle from idle causes it to have a big stumble, and then pickup. Good, there is some different between having the MAF plugged in and not. First step was a scope the output of the factory starion MAF at idle (approx 800rpm) After that, I made up a huckery loom and popped the MAF from that galant on, and it had a remarkably similar output: Interesting. Also, with either MAF plugged in, the big dead spot just off idle was gone. I'll wait till I've made up a proper adaptor loom before I go driving it with the galant MAF onboard, but it looks promising so far. The proof will be in seeing if they're even marginally similar in frequency vs airflow calibration... One data point does not a graph make, hah. Also, I have to wait till all the snow clears... I dont like the chances of getting my car out of the driveway, hah! Then i can do some rpm/airflow signal logging and see whats what. I should be studying for exams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted June 9, 2012 Author Share Posted June 9, 2012 This is a bullshit update, its just photos, no actual work. Was out at the inlaws today, nicked a fancy camera and had a play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProZac Posted June 11, 2012 Author Share Posted June 11, 2012 Presents from England arrived! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.