My EX Lancer Build

[Chaos]

Discussion thread > viewtopic.php?f=18&t=32876

Hello all, and welcome to my EXtraordinary build thread (see what I did thur? Hur, hur)

I come from a background of front wheel drive, naturally aspirated, CV smashing Hondas. I'm still not sure how this happened, but Damien (Damien! on here) showed me this 1981 EX Lancer on Trademe and I ended up buying it. So we missioned down to Hawkes Bay a couple weekends ago and picked up the car! It's very tidy, and I have some cool plans for it. Here are some pics... sorry for the shit quality.

The parcel tray was cracked and sun damaged, so I pulled the seat belts off and flipped it over.. win.

It needs to go through compliance to get back on the road. Need to fix a couple of things up - will be swapping in new radius bushes, sway bar link bushes, a left rear shock and getting some tires as these ones are too old and cracked to be re complied. Also have to fix up a hole in the rear muffler, but apart from that the car is in awesome condition!

Am going to write to the Transport Registry tomorrow to apply to keep the silver on black plates too. If anyone has any tips for this, let me know...

Thanks for reading.

[Chaos]

Got the new radius rod bushes and swaybar end link bushes in yesterday. Had a good look around underneath the car, it's very tidy. Small oil leak from the motor but I'm not worried as that will be coming out soon. Got some new brake pads too, as the other ones looked like their time had come.

As you would expect with a 1.2 litre car, the brakes are really small so they are the first area I'll be looking at once I swap a new heart in, so will see what I can do as far as Mitsi lego goes for now.

Just some pics for shits and gigs, all going well I can take it for compliance this week.

[Chaos]

Update. Got a letter back from the transport registry confirming I can retain my silver on black plates! Woooo... now I know there are going to be a few people interested in this, it was actually a very easy process.

You basically have to write to them and ask them to approve it, and convince them the plates were always on the vehicle. Relevant links:

http://www.vcc.org.nz/images2/pdfs/numberplates.pdf

http://www.oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewto ... ack+plates

So what I did was send them a few pics of the car, with pics showing rusted bolts holding the plates on. I also sent them a couple pics of the same number etched into the windows, this probably helped. For future reference, this is what I sent them:

28 March 2012

The Transport Registry Centre

Private Bag 11777

Palmerston North 4442

Attention: Team Leader Business Administration

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to you to request that I may keep the original silver-on-black license plates when I take my recently acquired 1981 Mitsubishi Lancer through compliance in the near future.

I recently purchased the car from the Trademe website, and the previous owner had let the registration lapse and it now needs to be re-complied. The car is in very good condition.

I would love to keep the original plates. The car is a NZ new model, number plate KF673. The plates have been on there since new. I have pictures of the car with the plates on it, and the same plate number is etched onto all the windows.

I plan on taking the car for compliance in the near future. If you could get back to me about this matter it would be much appreciated.

My contact details are below.

Kind Regards,

-Details-

Feel free to use that as a template if you wanted, haha

They sent me back a letter telling me it had been authorized, with a reference number for the agent processing the registration.

Wicked! Now to take the car for compliance, I'll do that next week

[Chaos]

Time for an update on progress. Took the car for compliance and it flew through. Got royally raped over new-car-on-the-road rego charges, $250 odd for 6 months...!!!

So I've been driving it around, and the more I do so the more I realize this 1200cc 4 speed just will not do. So Damien spied a SOHC 4G63 out of a Sigma with a supposed blown head gasket down south and we got it send up here with the help of DJZ on here, thanks again mate!

I also sourced an L200 2.0L 5 speed gearbox from Hamilton which will be making its way up this weekend.

Anyway, the motor arrived and we started pulling it apart. It is veeery milky indeed, so to play it safe I'm going to get the head checked for cracks and possibly get it resurfaced if it needs it.

On the lookout for a 1600 cross member, and a couple other bits and pieces. Then I'll clean everything, put it all back together and we'll throw it all in.

Going to be doing something in the suspension department soon too, on the lookout for a couple bits and pieces to lego together to give the car a nice drop for the meantime. Once wheels make their way on to the car I can put the height exactly where I want it.

[Chaos]

Haven't had an update in a while...

I had a whole heap of pics, but then I had a remarkably large night a couple of weekends ago and lost my phone, so I lost all the pics. Gutted. Oh well, shit happens...

With regards to the 4G63, I tossed away the old head in favor of one that I found on Trademe for a good price. It has been resurfaced and checked already, so I'm going to use that on the new motor. Thanks to DJZ for his help in getting it up here.

New head going on the motor, with a new head gasket of course.

Damien and I got bored so we got a couple of different colors in spray cans and dust coated the valve cover, looks like a bit of a turd but it's awesome in it's own very special way.

Cleaned up heaps of the parts which were covered in 30 years of shit

Cut a new gasket for the fuel pump, which tends to leak quite a bit apparently.

Put the timing belt side of things back together, I am needing a fan and spacer plate as well as some other parts, if you can help out there's a thread here - viewtopic.php?f=15&t=33263

Everything on the intake side back on, not that there is much to do. If you're going to do this, I'd definitely recommend installing the fuel pump before the manifold, especially if it's in the car, it can be a cunt.

Also got a bad arse exhaust manifold from Trademe, am going to have to match this up to the pea shooter when it's in the car... looking forward to running open headers on the way to the exhaust shop (I don't have a welder)

Complete set of replacement springs and front struts, cheers to Tank. Will be getting the shortening treatment, am going to use Tredia shocks in the rear to give it a decent drop (cheers to the Mrs for grabbing them from Pick A Part for me, good girl..!)

Also masked up the window trims and gave them a respray as they were quite faded. Came out quite well!

That will be all for now... please check this thread (not just the first post either) if you have any of the parts I'm looking for. - viewtopic.php?f=15&t=33263

Thanks also has to go to RB Drifter on here for sending me some free mounts, GC!

[Chaos]

No update in a long time, I've been acquiring bits and pieces over time and also been unable to do anything other than have a gentle masty since I royally wrecked my wrist.

But we finally ticked all the boxes on the list of what's needed for the SOHC 4G63 swap, and set out to do it. Checked everything the night before, checked the car started as I had to make a trip in the morning to where we were doing the swap.

Had a right cunt of a day to start with, the car wouldn't start, then I rolled it down the road to clutch start it which ended up in me beaching the whore in a cul de sac, twice. Then ran out of petrol, followed by it not starting because the slut was flooded. ANYWAY,

I'm accustomed to working with Hondas, messing around with axles, multiple engine mounts, piles of loom, ball joints, and the rest. So pulling the 4G11 out of this EX was easily the easiest swap I'd ever done, so much room to work with and nothing to it! Bliss.

We started off with the usual stuff, disconnecting everything

New engine ready to go

Ready for the new donk

We gave the new cross member the same treatment as the valve cover, standing back and having at it with about 5 different cans of paint. For shits and gigs really

Old motor, so small. Going to use it to make one of other Damien's shells moveable

Flywheel on, torqued up to spec

Clutch ready to go on, using the eye-crometer aligning tool

Bad ass cross member in place

We found the aftermarket exhaust manifold that I bought wouldn't fit (the pipe went straight into the floor) so some hacksaw action saw to that, open headers will be fun

We were about 90% done and bolting up the drive shaft when we noticed it wouldn't fit. We had switched the ends of the gearboxes around in order to make the gearbox work with the drive shaft, but in the process fucked up and put the end piece on the wrong gearbox, so the output shaft OD was the wrong size. #%@^@)^#^&@)_(&^^#%%%#, box had to come out again.

We pulled it out quickly, went around swapping the bits over but rain set in and we were outside, so we called it off until next weekend.

Got some wheels too. Bathurst Globes, should look good

[OSM Garage]

Criticise here

viewtopic.php?f=18&t=32876&hilit=damian

[Chaos]

Finished everything off today, we welded the exhaust up, checked the timing on the dizzy, and wired up the coil.

Fluids in, go to start it, no deal. After much ado and Richy pointing out the obvious, we corrected the finger tight earth bolt and gave it another go. Turns over now, we have fuel and spark, but won't run. With the dizzy held all the way to the left it semi runs, but only with the help of the starter. If we stop cranking it, it dies.

Timing a tooth out maybe?

[Chaos]

Car is running, Damien insisted on playing with it after we parked it up and found that the coil wasn't wired in correctly and the dizzy was one tooth out, doh! Thanks for the help in the other thread by the way guys. Runs pretty well now apparently, I haven't seen it yet but apparently all is well aside from a little smoke. Most likely valve stem seals, will get around to changing them at some stage.

[Chaos]

Another update, lowered it a bit. Thanks to my good friend Shane @ Autolign, we fitted some lowering springs for a Ford Escort or Cortina into the spare front struts I had, and shortened the shocks to suit. Gave an 80mm drop, the car was super 4WD spec to start with so it doesn't look like it's come down much but these things can be tended to later. Shortened the rear springs and tried to put the rear Tredia shocks in, but the eye size was wrong and they wouldn't fit in the bracket. Have put the standard shocks back in for now.

Added another ground to the block as it's been having trouble starting too. Seems to have fixed it (apart from one random instance), but we'll see.. sometimes it was randomly acting as if it had a flat battery, thought it might have skipped a tooth but everything's all hunky dory there so I'm out of ideas.

I've got some 185/60/14's that came with the steelies on my other car, will chuck those on the Bathursts next weekend. Tyre size isn't ideal, but the car isn't slammed anyway so it might look OK.

Also bought some Enkei Mesh 14's, once they get up to Auckland I'll whack those on, should look good!

Next little mission will be trying to fit a head unit in to the stock dash and get some good speakers.

[Chaos]

So I was looking round the garage and found some 175/60/14's that were sitting on some steelies I had, decided to get those on the Globes and get them on to the car. Needed to use thin spline nuts to get them on because there was bugger all clearance.

I quite like the look, it looks better in person. Ideally I'd like the car a little lower but it isn't a massive priority right now. Chassis is just 100mm off the ground. My pet hate with these cars is that they always look lower in the rear because of the guards even though there is no rake.

A pic of it with my other car

[Chaos]

Flushed the car and put new coolant in it. Still running well, I've started noticing a slight knock when steering, pretty sure it's a ball joint I spied as being sketchy a few weeks ago. Need to sort it when funds and time allow.

This is the current state of the car, ideally it would be a little lower but I'm happy with how it is at the moment. The enkeis need some attention but I want to drive around and enjoy the summer days we're having right now first before it returns to Auckland weather...