The rebirth

Since the last post a lot has happened but unfortunately, I did not document everything, but I shall try my hardest to take you on the journey with me. 

After replacing my loom in the MR2, I got tires fitted to the Impuls and put them on the car and rolled like that for a while before removing them again. 

I then managed to find another set of Sebrings in Japan and promptly got them shipped over. A full set at 16x7 +33 meaning I would have a decent staggered setup for my other Sebrings. A quick test fit to the front of the SW proved my suspicions and confirmed the look I had in mind would come to fruition. 

After a bit of horsing around and a very expensive WOF (thanks to the previous owners moments of brilliance.....) I then got another daily at a price I could definitely not pass up! A 1990 Toyota Crown in all its glory. GS130 in standard condition that had been sitting on someone's front yard for a long time. 

As with any new acquisition, you start with basics first. Gave it an almightly clean to get rid of the scunge, and in this pic you can see the wheels I had lined up for the Crown already. Cheviots in an ideal setup of 14x7 and 0 offset would be perfect for the look I was going for. 

Fluid change and topup as well as engine bay cleaning. 

Naturally as any self respecting wheel whore knows, a quick test fit was deemed necessary. 

Fast forward a few more weeks, and I had gotten a wof for it and tires and the wheels all fitted up. Cruise mode was well and truly engaged, and smiles and high fives all around.

Many incredibly slow but fun miles were then covered as I fell in love with this car and all its thirsty glory. 

With this extremely reliable albeit uneconomical mode of transport I racked up the miles in the MR2. 

I also swapped all the bushes in the MR2 for some polyurethane bushes but discovered more things I would like to change on it (much like every car person ever). After a while I decided to part ways with the Crown, but thankfully it didn't stray too far and stayed within the friend circle. 

After a couple months of antsyness of not having a cheap project, I managed to pick up a car that I had always wanted again as part of my first dream garage. It was cheap (but in hindsight mildly annoying due to some of its issues), had a sunroof, and harked back to my youth so I jumped at the chance. But that will be covered in the next post. Here's to a new look LG, and more frequent updates. Till next time. 

The Test of Faith

So some of you may notice that it has been 4 months since I last posted, and no I have not sold W00T, nor have I stopped buying wheels. Unfortunately after 23 kms of my turbo conversion to a CT20b being completed, my whole engine loom melted due to a fuel pump wiring failure. 

However, before I cooked the car's wiring, I managed to put the Impuls together and have a test fit of them in typical wheel whore action, on the jack in the air. 

Token fitment picture sans tires.

Back when the car was driveable and clean! Much dustier now. 

The next incarnation of the car once I get some tires on these badboys

And one last overexposed by accident shot for that instagram-esque sheen.

However, despite the initial elation of having the wheels back together again, the car gods/Toyota's shitty original wiring had other plans and disaster struck!

After completing my CT20 conversion (which will be detailed in the next post as my SD card is AWOL atm), my EFI fuse melted and surged all the excess electricity and black magic to cook my engine and fusebox looms. 

No that is not an illusion, those used to be plastic coated wires....

The looms were both toast, and then the hunt began for a Gen 2 engine loom as the current one was way beyond salvation. Unfortunately, MR2s being as rare as they are, what seemed like the most basic of searching proved to be a 3 month long hair pulling exercise of constant forum trawling and TradeMe (NZ's version of eBay) hunting to find a loom. Thankfully 3 months later, I found one that was missing the temp sensor plug and wasn't gold plated in price. 

This has been the main reason for not posting. I had lost all motivation due to the project being stagnant. Thankfully, with the discovery and subsequent purchase of this loom, the motivation returned with fervor and I began the long process of replacing the loom and with the help of friends, the rewiring of the fuel pump and power circuits. 

Not exactly the easiest of work spaces. Made me miss Hondas so much!

Try squeezing your mitts into there to remove plugs....I had to.

And a token picture of the "new" turbo setup.

Thankfully the car is now running, but unfortunately, the previous owner has destroyed the threads for the front bracket mount to the gbox, and as a result this will need helicoiling, which is the only thing I can spot that would make it fail a wof. 

So in an attempt to cheer me up after the loom debacle and finally getting the car running, I decided to purchase some wheels. They currently have a couple of fitment issues but they will be fixed in due time once the Impuls are on and the Panasports are in the process of being refurbed. 

Can anyone guess the wheels?

The picture synonymous with wheel whores the world over. Sprint Hart CP-G. Sadly the fitment isn't ideal, but nothing a bit of messing around can't fix :)

Should be an interesting look when it is finally on the car. 

In addition to the wheels, I also purchased some winglets for the mad JDM rice factor. They will serve nothing but a cosmetic purpose to tide me over while I save up for my final body kit setup. 

A parting shot of the amazing Japlish on this wonderful bit of rice! The stickers have seen better days but I shall leave them as is. 

This weekend comes the initial try to obtain a wof, and some attention shall be paid to wrecking the other MR2. I have a few more interesting bits left for W00T, so stay tuned for that plus the beginning of my Panasport refurb. Hope everyone has stayed well, and their projects still ticking away!

The never ending saga

Long time no write people, but thankfully I haven't stopped playing with the car or wheels for that matter. After a recent spat of selling quite a few sets of my wheels, I had been confronted if I was getting out of the wheel hoarding arena....fat chance of that happening. 

So a couple weeks ago, when my car finally cracked 3,000ks under my ownership, I decided to give it a full service with decent oil, plugs and a filter. Spot the new acquisition too ;)

After that, went for a bit of a drive to take some pictures of the car with its new wheels and the new presence it got from said wheels. Please don't use the words stance, or fitment. Grrr.

As you can see, my foray into painting my Autopista wing leaves alot to be desired, so I will be redoing that in the not to distant future. 

After months of flawless ownership, the car started showing the shoddy handiwork of the previous owner and mechanics who toyed around with this car, leaving me with a broken engine mount, and a front mount that needed to be fixed. Some shady character then rolled over for some yarns and slave labour. Cheers bro!

We then proceeded to fill my mounts with urethane for max ghetto stiffness, and keeping with the ghetto theme, we decided to use Mat's engine bay as a makeshift oven to speed up the curing process. Behold, ghetto service tools for life!

Mounted securely, we then proceeded to go for a drive in the new ride in order to heat up the mounts a little. 

Can anyone guess the Lush new ride?

Installed.

After all of this, I still need to fix the front mount, but that shall be done in the not to distant future. To keep my mind off rage quitting on the car with its niggly issues, I decided the only option was to have some therapy and get high off paint fumes. You may remember my Impuls that I had begun to refurb. Well I decided to prime them, put a base coat, and a few initial layers of paint on them, just to keep me occupied, and to give me tangible progress and motivation. And you know what, it worked!

While waiting for the primer to cure, I went for a drive to take more pictures!

Silver base coats on.

Then whack on the first couple of coats of the new colour scheme. Bear in mind, frequent readers of this blog will get a preview of the colour scheme, as this has yet to be revealed to the rest. This should turn some heads haha.

And a couple coats later with a barrel that needs to be polished completely.

There will be a few more subtle changes to the final product, but it's great to see progress, and it's great to see the vision I had in my mind is coming to fruition and doesn't look too stupid haha. Insert the token wheel whore test .

I then got bored waiting for the paint to dry, and went a bit wild with the paint. And then this happened.....

The best thing about this, is that now that I'm stripping my other MR2, I effectively have a parts car, so if I get bored of the purple, I can always revert back to the standard black. I was also tossing up doing the wing mirrors in purple and black, as both pairs are faded. All in due time though. The car's WOF is coming up soon, so I will be focusing on that. 

After the WOF test, I will be wiring in my EMS, and swapping over to a CT20 (when I have the time to do so). Then comes the new territory of learning how to road tune, as once I have a base map loaded, I will be chucking in some 800cc injectors and time to shoot for some power figures. The aim is a nice reliable upgrade on nothing but stock parts. I have to add some scheduled maintenance into the foray as well as I really want to tighten up the car's shifting abilities. God I hate cable shifters. Nonetheless, a long way to go, and as with any car enthusiast, the build never really is ever, complete. Till next time, stay safe and keep wrenching. 

Hangover cure

What better way to cure a hangover after spending last night YOLOing it up, than to play wheels. I finally got my Sebrings tired up and with valve stems thanks to Andrew and the team at Firestone and chucked them on the car. 

Big tire and small rim win!

The placement of the tree was very convenient as it obscures the front of the car which is still on the poo spec Windom wheels. But after having these on, I'm amazed at how well they turned out, and will definitely be painting my other set this same colour scheme as it contrasts amazingly with the red paint. I will be taking some better pictures on flat ground soon and will hopefully if time permits try and get the rear spoiler ready for paint.

While I was at Matt's, we also got cracking on getting my Impuls split apart. Spot the hangover glass of water haha.

Excellent safety gear like always. Turns out old frying pans are particularly useful as bolt collection units!

Much like the Rays, a swift heel kick is enough to drop the centers out once the bolts have been removed.

You can see in this picture our shortcut for removing the bolts. A drill, a 10mm hex bit, and an 8mm ring spanner! Excellent idea from Matt and much much faster than just doing them individually with a ratchet.

However, with the speed we were removing bolts with, we somehow ended up losing a nut on the grass somewhere. Patting the lawn down didn't yield results, and a quick brain wave (which was surprising considering how hungover he was), led us to adopt this now patented idea for finding the stubborn nut lol.

Hopefully over the break I should be able to make considerable progress on the Impuls and the car in general as I'll have some spare time and am super excited to work on it again. I've got a colour scheme in my head already decided for these wheels and if it turns out the way I imagine it, it's gonna be f-ing brilliant! Then I can move on to the Panasports! Exciting times ahead.