Technology troubles

Long time no post friends. Alas, my phone and my PC have been having bitch fights between themselves which has stopped me from sharing with you the progress made over the past few weeks.

So how about we start this new post off with a nice giggle? I've racked up a fair bit of mileage in the red car currently as its my daily with wof and rego, and its my only mode of fun transportation as my green car is currently with Jono as he works on his Subaru. 

Alas, with cheap cars, said mileage was not trouble free. On Sunday after a strenous training session, I proceeded to fire up the car and begin the drive home. Unfortunately, it was at this exact moment that my return spring decided to pack a sad and not work. So there I was idling at 3k rpm and looking like more like a menace to society than my usual self. A frantic text later and I was at Matt's place, the right place for a quick bodging. After much mulling around in which the words duct tape, condoms and cable ties were banded around wantonly, we settled on a dishwashing glove as a return "spring" of sorts.

Talk about ghetto right? I love ingenious solutions to common problems

Look at us, basking in our sheer brilliance and excellent problem solving skills haha. 

Onto the updates, lets start with Jono's progress on the aforementioned (in a previous post) Party Wagon Turbo Conversion!

Here she is in her previous glory. After much patience and rummaging, we took her sanctity and honour and proceeded to then create what will eventually being a boost swilling, terror inducing wagon with a banshee howl to make even the most experienced campaigner smile. Or at least make it faster than it was......or something along those lines....

Garage of beginners! It's always a refreshing change when a build actually involves the owner of the car and not a workshop. Jono thankfully is upholding the proud tradition of "Built, not Bought" which I swear by.

Here's the donk that's going to fill the Party Wagon's receptive bowels. At this stage, the block was awaiting a twisted manifold setup, the flywheel and associated ancilliaries to be reunited with it. 

Much like any engine out procedure, a fair bit of tidying up was done to certain parts which were now accessible without a decent lump of metal in the way.

God I love Hammerite Black. It makes anything look good. Hell I could spray myself in hammerite black and look good. Also, note my ode to safety with my appropriate standard of safety boots.

*Insert generic empty engine bay pic here* I love empty engine bay pics personally. They always fill me with a warming feeling and a sense of anticipation for the future internal combustion motor that will inhabit its cavernous regions. I tried to get Jono to pose in his empty engine bay, but obviously I wasn't trying hard enough so I'll have to keep bugging him. Also, if you look closely enough, you'll spot another mod that was done to improve the overall driving feel of the car. Top marks to the smart cookie who spotted the master cylinder stopper :) I will continually update Jono's build with progress as and when I can get photos of it. Currently its in the wiring stage where a minor wire tuck is being done, as well as lines and fittings being fitted *hurr hurr* to the transaxle. 

Progress on the personal car has hit a bit of a plateau as unfortunately I'm broke once again, and its coming up to legalise the car point so money is now being redirected to the legalise and repair fund, rather than the make faster and look better fund. Thanks to my good mate Bryce, I finally managed to steal my 15x10 back for a bit of test fitting shenanigans for a weekend. So without a jack, I decided to do the token side on test.

Talk about hippari right?

For the uninitiated, hippari is a Japanese term loosely translated as "stretched tire".

After a bit of fervent giggling, I decided to head over to Jono's to wax lyrical as well as test fit these badboys.

Without further adieu, check out the pure ridiculousness/awesomeness of this. Albeit, I'm pretty sure I'm failing this wheel fitment thing....

Hippari, shakotan, and tsuriachi all in one. I can now die happy. 

Alas, there were a few niggly issues to be resolved. But this will all be done in due time. The wheels are currently back at the tire shop for the boys to work their magic and hopefully fit on a 195/55/15 on them. I've got to do a massive shout out to the boys at Firestone Adelaide Road for their skills and general good nature. If you ever need anything tire related done, please go see them and they will definitely see you right :D.

A really terrible picture as I had got my camera settings wrong....as you can tell, photography is another area of my life which needs a lot of polishing.

It's now waaay past my bedtime and its back to the daily rat race for me in the morning, so we shall have to cut this post here. Stay tuned for more progress on things including more Party Wagon progress, a very special Honda, and a 180SX with a rather upset heart. Till next time pals, stay out of trouble!

Previews

Hey friends, long time no speak. Things have been mighty hectic atm, but progress has been made to the whip. However, before we get onto car stuff, check this vid out.

Greddy R35 GTR doing a top speed run at Fuji. This vid has been doing the rounds here for the past 2 days.

I will put up a more in depth post about the latest progress but in the mean time here's a few teasers to whet your appetite and pique your interest.

 

 

 Time to boogie ya'll

First drive in months

Well as per the previous post, my red car is finally running. So with a combination of getting paid, a whole lot of motivation, and the eagerness to go boosting again, I decided to drop some dough on a partial service so that the car could have a long awaited loving. 

With Wellington finally producing a summer day in what seems like the first time in months, I decided to do some shopping. Managed to score myself 6 cans of degreaser for 14 dollars (total steal!), some standard plugs (BKR6s, was going to run 7s, but I had no patience and they only had 3 of em, so went standard fitment), some oil, and a brand new fuel and oil filter. On the to do list is also some Redline Shockproof lightweight and a new dizzy cap and rotor (but they will take time).

I didn't take any photos of me doing the service (and lets face it, an oil change is bloody boring anyway. Oil goes in here, and comes out here, you get the gist of it). However, what I did do is purchase myself a set of 15x8 and 15x10 SSR MK1 copies. Yeah I know, I hate the fact that they are copies too, but they look good, and trying to find a genuine set in this fitment is going to be reeeeeal hard. So what else was a wheel whore to do but try em on while bleeding my coolant.

 Front looking back.

Rear looking forwards.

 Looking down at the wheel from the top. I'm pretty sure I'm failing this wheel fitment thing.....

And finally, a side on shot. I know its currently rusted as hell, but I will be refurbing this set too. And I have a colour scheme hidden up my sleeve. One thing is for sure, it's gonna be completely off the hook/look retarded. 

Alas, I had no tires on the 10s, so I could not run em. A quick rummage through my treasure chest churned up these bad boys that had tires and were wide enough to let me run a staggered fitment front and rear. For the uninitiated, running the same width wheel front and rear on an MR2 causes it to tramline horrendeously and just becomes an absolute pig to drive. Turn in is compromised, and corner exit is frankly frightening as the car struggles to cope with the limited rear grip. 

Stern 16x6.5 +32 front, and Impul R5 17x8 +35 on the rear. If you look closely, you'll notice that my left rear wheel has positive camber. Unfortunately the strut is bent. However, this issue will be rectified when I finally obtain a set of Bilsteins to go with my Tein springs.

All that was left was to let the coolant system to repressurise and let the oil settle. I decided to then shoot down to my old hood of Naenae and drop some oil off and talk some smack. In typical fashion when I turned up, my mates were part way through flipping the leaves on a Bongo van that had choppies on the front. Sadly no pics, as due to having a touch screen phone now, I'm afraid to use it as my hands are always grubby/greasy etc. Was an ex mob van, and had all the evidence to prove it. With a bit of swearing and 5 of us, we finished it in record time and celebrated in typical hood style. We did skids in the driveway and a few handbrakies on the road. 

I figured about then it was enough time spent horsing around and I had better get cracking. I shot off home and decided to go see my mate Bryce to talk some shit, decide on our gym timetable and get some tires removed. Didn't take photos of tires getting removed but its batshit boring anyway. I'll end this post with a few pics of the bits I have hoarded away. Will be going into the lockup soon I think as I'm just running out of space atm. 

Stern 16x7.5 +32. Surprisingly enough for a hoarder like me, these have actually sold. Sold them to a friend of mine and they will be going on his EK9 after a refurb to get the curbing out and paint fixed. 

 3 piece Panasport G7 17x8 +35 and 17x9 +38. I was so stoked to find out that these are 3 piece. Will mean that I will just extend the front lip rather than rebarreling or flipping the centres on these. Will also make painting a piece of cake! And it just adds to the rarity. :)

SSR MK1 copy 15x8 looks to be -10 offset. Will have to check that! Lol. 

Impul R5 17x9 +38. These are the rear half to the 8s that are currently on the turbo.

Now that the car is running, I will have to focus on ironing out all the bugs, and then make sure both the NA and turbo are wofable (stupid NZ invention that states that your car is roadworthy). I could have a whinge about it, but that'd be boring. Nonetheless, next on the cards is getting rego, getting the cars roadworthy, and then paying off my silly fine for tailgating! 

Stay tuned as things are just beginning to get fun. If I can source some tires, I will hopefully be getting rubber on my other set of 10s next Saturday and will run them for shits and giggles till I cbfed/crash/get fined. Till next time, don't do anything I wouldn't do, or if you do, name it after me.

Fuji heavy Industries

Today being my last day off before going back to work, naturally, what else was I to do but invite a few mates round to play cars? And then, with the all too familiar rumble of boxer engines, these two beasties turned up.

Jono's aptly named "Party Wagon" and Matt's STi coupe. The tasks for the day were simple, get some underbody bracing on the coupe, cut my bootlid open and try get my car started, and bounce ideas for the looming turbo conversion in the wagon.

Genuine meshies that will be relipped soon. 

The coupe was then jacked up, and work began while we were motivated and rearing to go.

Behold, the plethora of bracing that was installed into the coupe. 

Check out these pretty looking headers, definitely made an improvement to the car, and completely changed the tone of the engine.

Would definitely have to recommend these, makes the car sound so angry in the top end. Look for a feature on both these cars in the near future (well, after the turbo conversion for the Legacy anyway).

On a side note, we cut my boot open, swapped my spare lid on and managed to get my car running (like a pig initially I might add). I was freaking out as it was idling roughly and there was a CEL. Turns out in our rush to try and start the car, we'd left the AFM off and the cloth I had inserted into the intake pipe had now sucked itself inwards. What a cock up....After a quick bodging, the AFM was on and the car was then cranked into life. Great success! 

No CEL and a relatively smooth idle meant that I was almost there. Time to wait till the next paycheck before I can give the car its long overdue service. In the mean time, tidying up more wiring and removing sound deadening should keep me occupied. Stage 1 is almost done. Then its time for performance work! 

Stay tuned!

Sneak peek

Happy New Years to all! Here's hoping 2012 is a better year for everyone. During the hols, I managed to scrounge up enough money to go on a bit of a shopping spree and took advantage of the cheap stuff on sale. So here's the new bits, fresh lick of paints, degreasers and misc products.

 Cheeky pic of the 2 smoke as well haha.

While doing some more wiring and general tidying up of the engine bay, I figured I'd see if the idea in my head would actually look good in real life. Although it looks completely horrible, I now know how the idea in my head will turn out.

Don't worry folks, the wheels are due for a nice birthday where they will be refurbed. However this will take forever as I don't have a money pit but here's hoping my mates come to the party so I can get these things back to their former glory. Here's another teaser of the colour scheme just to give both you and me an idea of what it will look like soon.

 Yes it's patchy and yes it's not very smooth either but heh, why do a good job and waste paint (well more paint...) if it's gonna come off again right?

I'll end tonight with a final dry pic of my rear brace all riced up.

 Nice safety boots right?

Happy 2012 all!