Category: Cars

Ok, as i said before, too many Edo spec photos in this thread. Hence here are some clear ones to even out the ratio.

Fully assembled engine:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27794-1/IMG_2662.JPG[/IMG]
With gratuitious toyota flag:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27797-1/IMG_2663.JPG[/IMG]

Remounted kill switch:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27803-1/IMG_2665.JPG[/img]

Where the brake bias valve will go:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27802-2/IMG_2664.JPG[/IMG]

And finally some of the floorpan around the seat area:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27806-1/IMG_2666.JPG[/IMG]
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27809-1/IMG_2667.JPG[/IMG]
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27812-1/IMG_2668.JPG[/IMG]
Including the cutoff bracketry.
Now looking at it again, rationally, i think ill end up mounting the sidemounts on the left side (tunnel side) straight to the floor, with some reinforcement, but also see if i can get the “nose” of the seat up over the crossbar in the floor, because that keeps my knees in the best location. I think ill end up welding SHS to the floor on the right (outboard) side though, so im not sure how that will go.

I went out and jigged everything up and made a hell of a lot of measurements tonight.
First i got the seat in the right place:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27815-1/IMG_2669.JPG[/IMG]
Right there its comfortable, i can reach the pedals, it fits (snug between cage and trans tunnel) and i dont think ill have issues with my knee being dicky at that angle (i had serious issues in our FormulaSAE car where my knee was at about 10* bent).

Then i got out my little friend/new toy:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27818-1/IMG_2679.JPG[/img]

Basically a digital inclinometer, or spirit level. But it does bucket loads of stuff and you can set it to a base reference other than horizontal (gravity) etc.

Checked on the block of wood ontop of the seat:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27821-1/IMG_2682.JPG[/IMG]
0.1deg, good enough, if that tiny angle is much of an issue i can adjust it out with the seat in place.

Got out the trusty paint pen, and made stacks of markings:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27824-1/IMG_2671.JPG[/img]

And now im left with this:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27827-1/IMG_2688.JPG[/IMG]
The horizontal mark at the top is the angle of the seat rails (as they arnt perfectly square, almost but not quite), the vertical tick marks are where the holes in the rails are. In this configuration the rails are butting up hard against the cross brace, so i cant really go any further forward, and i cant go further back due to the cage. Just perfect.
The front mark with the F above it is the frontmost of the front 3 holes, 25mm from the brace. Each of the holes in the rail is 20mm apart.
At the back i have the 2 rearward most holes marked out of which im thinking ill use the rearmost as the front one will be VERY tight on the stock mount. Plus im considering keeping the stock mounts so i can mount a stock seat in for tuners to use (the seat is custom for me, and quite narrow).

Now the real thing i have to decide is whether to mount rails across the car or down the length of the car. I could do a combination of the two, but its not going to be pretty. At the front i could do just tabs off the brace, but im not convinced of the strength of that, so it will be either all the way across or all the way down.
Ideas?

Well between Vista dying on my work machine, and a supplier calling to say that the swaybar for the Cressy was in i packed up early today and came home.
After i put the swaybar on the Cressy i had a bit under an hour before dinner to get some work on the Spoonter done.

So ive made a start on shifting the battery and isolator switch, and started thinking about making new rails for the seat. Thinking about it anyway.

On with the Edo spec pics:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27762-1/Image219.jpg[/IMG]
Relocated isolator switch. Used to be behind the handbrake hole on the trans tunnel, but it really wasnt a very intuitive spot to reach for, so its going in plain sight.

[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27765-1/Image220.jpg[/IMG]
Started installing battery box, and then realised that i dont have any plate/bar steel to put into it for a base, and so its just tek screwed in. Relocated the main fuses near there now and cleaned up some of the wiring.

[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27768-1/Image221.jpg[/IMG]
Bling bling waterpump underdrive pulley arrived the other day from the US. Cheaper than sourcing one locally, and relatively blingy. Hopefully it will help with the cavitation problem i was having going through the kink at 8900rpm.

Thats about it for now, hoping to get some more work done this weekend.

I got some more work done on the car this weekend. Firstly rebuilding 4As is like riding a bike, you never really forget how to do it. So i popped the head on, and started tensioning up everything, but to put the timing belt back on i had to take off the alternator belt:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27773-1/Image222.jpg[/IMG]
And then the alternator basically fell off.

Found that at some point in the past the bolt holding the custom alternator bracket had sheared off the block leaving the alternator held on by only 1 bolt at the bottom.

So in the vein of Babs’ hako thread, and Edos camerawork, i put together a little howto on removing a sheared bolt.

Firstly, find a bolt that has sheared off, like this alternator bolt, soak it with penetrene/rp7/wd40.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27776-1/Image224.jpg[/IMG]
And pop a nice little punch mark into the center of it.

Then take your drilling tool of choice, in my case a re-cased Bluepoint air drill:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27779-1/Image226.jpg[/IMG]
Internals by bluepoint, casing by supercrap.

Drill a hole down the center of the bolt, carefully. I chose a 3mm bit for this task:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27782-1/Image225.jpg[/img]

I blame edo for the crap photo.

Then source an appropriate torx bit (i buy them up when they are going cheap at bunnings) and hammer it into the bolt.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27785-1/Image227.jpg[/IMG]

Take one shifter with a 1/4″ socket on the end and slowly and gently wind it out:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27788-1/Image228.jpg[/img]

Voila, one removed bolt:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/27791-1/Image230.jpg[/img]

So other than that, i went and picked up my 4.77 ratio diff, and new door cards for the rear. I did end up redoing the timing belt and finishing off assembly but no pics of that for now. I need to go see a bolt store to buy a whole stack of stainless capscrews to replace the mild ones which are rusting up.

I also did some work on relocating the brake bias valve incabin just infront of the handbrake hole in the trans tunnel.

Plus i got around to drilling off the brackets for the seat rails, so i can build up some custom ones, to hopefully mount this new seat a bit lower than the old one.

Which brings me to two questions (which ill probably repost in General or somewhere).
Firstly, for the distance between the trans tunnel and the valve would people use braided lines, or just run hardlines all the way?
Secondly, what gauge steel would people use for the seat rails? Im thinking 4 or 5mm thick bar. Anyone else?

From when i got it in there it was on like donkey kong.

Built a new plenum, after it looked like the old one wasnt going to fit:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/4983-1/IMG_0071_001.jpg[/IMG]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5494-1/IMG_0014_002.JPG[/img]

[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5485-1/IMG_0011_002.JPG[/IMG]

New fueling system:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5033-1/DSC00181.jpg[/img]

Shimless bucket setup:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5125-1/DSC00245.JPG[/img]

Put the interior back together and finished off the wiring (yes, all the red wires are fused +B feeds)
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5103-1/IMG_0067_002.jpg[/IMG]

Got it all back together and sent it off to be caged:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5457-2/IMG_0001_004.JPG[/img]

Cage:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5461-1/IMG_0003_006.JPG[/IMG]

Came back and got an exhaust:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6087-2/DSC00280.jpg[/IMG]

Went off to be tuned, blew up an ignitor:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6135-2/IMG_0002_006.JPG[/img]

Plus the coil over plug setup was excessively hard to get readings for timing, so i cracked it and redid the ignition system:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6157-1/IMG_0015_003.JPG[/IMG]

From there on it was back to my house to finish off the little things for scrutineering:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6168-2/IMG_0019_003.JPG[/IMG]
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6177-2/IMG_0021_003.JPG[/IMG]

Tailshaft loops:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6189-2/IMG_0025_002.JPG[/IMG]

Killswitch:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6183-2/IMG_0023_003.JPG[/IMG]

Fuel firewall:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6180-2/IMG_0022_004.JPG[/IMG]

Scrutineering happened, and then it was off to my first meet:
Night before:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6214-1/IMG_0033.JPG[/IMG]

Out there:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6220-1/IMG_0035.JPG[/IMG]
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6226-1/IMG_0037.JPG[/IMG]

Thats not supposed to happen:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6243-2/IMG_0042.JPG[/IMG]

Turns out that the booster diaphragm had busted during the fire, so i had buggerall front brakes and all rears. Lead to spinning a hell of a lot. So i only just qualified, and had race 1 then packed up and went home. Good learning experience.

Out came the booster and boosted MC, and in went of all things an unboosted 240K master:
Mounting plate:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6345-2/IMG_0003_007.JPG[/IMG]
Mocked up:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6368-2/IMG_0003_008.JPG[/IMG]
Setting pushrod throw:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6392-2/IMG_0014_004.JPG[/img]

All back together:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/6405-2/IMG_0023_004.JPG[/img]

The season that year had a bit of a break between August and November, so i took it out to a couple of practice days. At one of them my one of my bonnet pins snapped and the other came loose and the bonnet popped up at 140km/h into Turn1. Cracked the windscreen, and smashed the sunroof. Sunroof wasnt the end of the world, as i wanted to replace it anyway:

All done.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/7086-2/IMG_0186.JPG[/IMG]

I then did the last two events of the year, including the twilight meet. At the twilight meet i was unlucky enough to be pulling in at the end of Qualifying only to have the car in front run out of fuel in the pit lane entrance. I couldnt go anywhere, and couldnt go back out onto track, the marshalls wouldnt let me turn off the car (probably for fear of it not staritng again) so i had to sit there idling with no thermofan. Hit 110* before i got moving again, and so i had to do a few laps of the pits at <20km/h to try and get the temps down before parking it.
Surely enough, i had blown the head gasket. I managed to do R1 and R2 before putting it back on the trailer and calling it a day. Best times out there to date in that car too, 1:27.2 with a BHG.

When i got it home i parked the car, and ended up buying a house under a week after that event. From there on until now its been pretty busy getting the house sorted, and getting married. However, now im ready to get back into it. Parts are coming together, and work is beginning….

Stay tuned…

Ok, a touch bored at work, so where was i.

Oh thats right, the entire thing blew up on me, and so i had to rebuild it.

That year was pretty busy, being my final year at uni and all, but i ended up bringing the car back to my little flat in North Adelaide and working on it when i could.

Looked roughly like this when i started:
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/554-3/IMG_0001.jpg[/IMG]

Proof that heat shielding stuff actually works.
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/527-3/IMG_0574.jpg[/IMG]

So i started cleaning things up, and since i had to rebuild the rack anyway, i thought i would get a Quaife rack… which failed.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/581-3/IMG_0007_001.jpg[/img]

Got one of the batch which needed to be returned, took almost 18 months.

Got started pulling the engine out, and at this point i decided what the hell, lets go racing seriously.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/614-3/IMG_0018.jpg[/img]

Grinding down for seam welding
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/617-3/IMG_0019.jpg[/IMG]

Got a new C’s short shifter
[IMG]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/629-3/IMG_0023.jpg[/IMG]

Kept cleaning stuff up

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/785-2/IMG_0002_003.jpg[/img]

Stitch welded, and then painted the engine bay in POR15

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/794-2/IMG_0005_004.jpg[/img]

JDM 4A bellhousing for fewer clutch slave issues

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/791-2/IMG_0004_003.jpg[/img]

With some of the wiring issues i had before, i went a bit OTT on wiring up the new loom.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/809-2/IMG_0010_001.jpg[/img]

Crimps, solder and heatshrink.
Wired all to a 20pin quickrelease ATX style connector

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/842-2/IMG_0007_1.jpg[/img]

New dash cluster

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5278-2/IMG_0015_001.jpg[/img]

Working out on the balcony:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3789-2/IMG_0016_001.jpg[/img]

with the blue tarp to keep the rain out.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3792-2/IMG_0017_001.jpg[/img]

Junk everywhere

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3795-2/IMG_0018_001.jpg[/img]

Car outside underneath the deck.

Decided while i was at it that i would rewire the entire car

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5282-2/IMG_0019_001.jpg[/img]

Rebuilt the struts incase of heat damage

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5287-2/IMG_0024_001.jpg[/img]

Dash cluster

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5309-2/IMG_0050_002.jpg[/img]

Started work on the airbox

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/4811-2/IMG_0051_001.jpg[/img]

New brake lines

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5311-2/DSCF0055.jpg[/img]

Coil over plugs

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5313-2/IMG_0051_003.jpg[/img]

That about took me until December when i finished up my exams. Pretty hard getting much done with 6 subjects at uni, and other committments.

That summer though, i got heaps done. First of all a mate opened a workshop, and in exchange for the use of my engine crane and trolley jack i got free storage/workspace out there:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5314-2/IMG_0050_003.jpg[/img]

Where the real fun started.

More on that soon, post limit stuff.

Ok, i figure that for this update ill document up to the next phase of its life.
When i came back from the Philippines i went to get it engineered in Canberra, but before that Ben told me about a Khana which BMSC was running, i duly entered and this is how it looked:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3650-2/dsc_0428_sized.jpg[/img]

Thanks to whoever took that pic.

Subsequently i got the car engineered, and it passed over the pits second time (first one was still a touch loud).

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5188-2/IMG_0566.jpg[/img]

Anyway, i moved to Adelaide to finish off my uni degrees, and left it in my parents garage for 3 months until Easter as i didnt have anywhere to store it down in Adelaide.

Courtesy of Mr 1JZ i was able to store it in his back yard for a while so i had it trucked down (the only transport i actually had to pay for), and it arrived on a Friday. Now i found out that on the Monday of the next week (Anzac Day) there was a drift practice day, and seeing as i really wanted to get track time in the thing i decided to head along.

So off we went out to Mallala, and i found that i had a couple of issues with the clutch heating up along the way, but that was ok, and I got there eventually.
Out i went onto the track and im hammering around for a couple of laps, completely sucking at drifting, until im coming through the kink (driving more like its a Supersprint than a drift day) and the throttle jams wide open going into Northern hairpin. So without being able to use gears to slow im pretty damn screwed so i pulled the electrical kill switch and threw the car around 180deg because i figured that if i was going to hit the wall i would prefer to hit it backwards (or the sand for that matter), but as i rolled to a stop i heard a small pop come from the engine bay, and very quickly found that smoke was pouring out from the drivers side.
Out i hopped damn quickly and peeked in to find fire lapping around.

Now im sure everyone will remember this photo:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3532-2/DSCF0018_002.jpg[/img]

Which is the fuel surge tank, which i REALLY didnt want to go pop. So i emptied 1kg of dry powder into the bay, half onto that and half onto the quads where the fire was. Soon i also found out the strange fact that drifters dont carry extinguishers, plus i was “around the corner” out of sight of the fire marshalls. Luckily someone alerted them, and one of the local rally drivers was out mucking around in the rally car, and he was able to dump 2kg of AFFF onto it, before the fireys dumped another couple of kg of AFFF onto it.

I cant find the photo which was taken in the pits (Mr1JZ could probably find that, it was on NS somewhere) but here are a few of what it looked like as i started stripping it down:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5192-2/IMG_0570.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5194-2/IMG_0572.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5189-2/IMG_0567.jpg[/img]

I’m still grateful that the surge tank didnt go pop.

And that was the end of the first phase of my AE86’s life.

P.s. ill update this again later, this is enough for today.

Right, so where was i?
I think by this time it was about September, and i had put a fair bit of stuff into the car. Managed to source some wheels for it:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3472-2/DSCF0004_017.jpg[/img]

Which were supposed to be my track wheels

And it was running a Microleb at this stage:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3498-2/DSCF0010_010.jpg[/img]

Add one reasonably dodgy harness bar too:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3602-2/DSCF0006_015.jpg[/img]

Anyway, i slapped it all together at this point, as i was moving back up to Canberra for a while.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3554-2/DSCF0004_019.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3560-2/DSCF0006_013.jpg[/img]

And off it went to Canberra courtesy of a mate who worked for TNT and slapped it on his truck for a case.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3564-2/DSCF0001_014.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3578-2/DSCF0008_011.jpg[/img]

Up in Canberra it was stored outside my parents house for a night, before it was going into their garage. Anyway, within a night some prick had knocked off the Microleb. Plus the prick smashed the good sunroof i had in there 🙁 Not happy jan.

Anyway, insurance came to the party and replaced the Microleb with a Haltech E6X and i wasnt too sad about the whole ordeal apart from it taking an extra month of wrangling.

While it was up in Canberra it got “tuned” with the Haltech by some cocksmokers (more on that later), and the neg camber RCAs were added:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3584-2/Image058.jpg[/img]

Also while it was there i put a freshened head on it (no porting, only smoothing) and the 308* GroupA copy cams, with the TODA cam gears, and unfortunately completely forgot to take any photos (camera batterys were probably flat).

After that it went on another journey back down to Melbourne after the 3 months of contract were up.
Here it is back home:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3586-2/DSCF0023_003.jpg[/img]

It got new boots:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3588-2/DSCF0024_003.jpg[/img]

And the now infamous socks:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3590-2/DSCF0025_001.jpg[/img]

While it was down there it went into Brown Davis for a half cage to be installed as per my original weekend racer intentions.
Upon coming back, the roof and sides were touched up with paint:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3614-2/DSCF0004_022.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3648-2/DSCF0002_021.jpg[/img]

And it looked pretty damn good, if i may say so myself.

This however is where things started on a bit of a downwards spiral.
Firstly i took it back up to Canberra over Christmas (cheers to old mate again) and it started having a few issues with randomly stalling, and not cranking again. So after consulting with Ben Wilson and Mark i took it to Peter (i think its Peter) at AlfaTune in Fyshwick where we started finding a stack of problems. When it was originally tuned they had put the dizzy in 180* out, and had hooked up the signal trigger to the TDC+180 amplifier (which is meant to just amplify the trigger signal).

[img]http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/7029/004ga9.jpg[/img]

So here you can see the CAS within the dizzy, it should have been hooked up to the trigger on the upper right, but instead it was hooked up to the lower left one, which is a much weaker signal. Explained the crappy ignition i was having. Plus they had used scotchlocks to join the ECU wiring to the dizzy wiring, and these kept coming undone.

Anyway, after this i took it out to Wakefield which was great, had three laps pushing 1m14s before disaster struck. On turn 2 i was coming around the outside of a mini, which was doing signficantly lower lap times, anyway as the nose of my car is about in line with the B pillar of the mini, a guy in a 911 decides to try to go around the outside of both of us. Anyway what with the corner tightening, and the mini understeering a bit i got squeezed and the passenger corner of the mini hit one guard and the drivers wheel arch on the 911 hit the other guard… Not happy jan. Was only a light touchup though, and we got on with it. Later on the same lap i put the foot down slightly hard out of Turn 10, and heard a nice clunking and thunking from the rear. Turns out i had cracked one or many of the teeth off the nice 4.3 crownwheel and they had promptly jammed into the LSD center and messed the whole thing up. Flatspotted one of my tyres too when the entire mess locked up.

After a courtesy tow home, i replaced the diff with a 3.9 open center i had lying around and flew off to the Philippines for three weeks to help build a community center there. Thus ended 2004. More in another post. [size=1]too scared about the forums screwing up and losing it all[/size]

Ok, time to continue this, despite the broken wrist, and stupid arse being able to type.

So about September 2004 i ended up in Canberra to visit my olds for the holidays and to generally chill out for a bit. While i was there i managed to catch up with a mate of mine from when i first got into cars. One certain indigoid. While i was there he thought i should meet up with mate of his who has a race car. A week or so later im standing in Tim Button’s shed looking at his 1600 race car sitting there.

Somehow about 2 weeks later i started thinking about this strange thing called IPRA.

I put it off for a while in order to complete the car, but it was still on the back of my mind.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3402-2/DSCF0003_014.jpg[/img]

The junkyard called my workshop.

Had a few issues about how close the water outlet sat to the quads….

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3486-2/DSCF0004_018.jpg[/img]

And fixed them:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3482-2/DSCF0002_016.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3508-2/DSCF0006_012.jpg[/img]

Had suspension issues, and fixed them too

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3510-2/DSCF0007_012.jpg[/img]

Got new gauges, and a bit of black drift bling.

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3520-2/DSCF0012_005.jpg[/img]

It was tons better than the original black that was on there

Did the battery, fuel and struts:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3538-2/DSCF0021_002.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3532-2/DSCF0018_002.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3528-2/DSCF0016_004.jpg[/img]

And then the camera broke.

More updates when my wrist stops hurting from this batch of typing.

Ok, im slightly bored at work, so i thought i would start a compendium of the IPRA car which i have and run.

I bought this old AE86 Sprinter thing in 2004 when i was living in Melbourne, because i remember seeing them run at Bathurst in the late 80s, and always thought they were pretty damn cool.
It started off looking like this:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3033-2/Picture_002.jpg[/img]

With more things wrong with it than you could poke a stick at. Nevertheless, it didnt have much rust in it, and was going to make a good little weekend racer/club car, which i was originally going to keep rego on.

As 2004 wore on it started looking less and less like the old road car it used to be:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3060-2/DSCF0001.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3078-2/DSCF0005_1.jpg[/img]

But i was still going to put a good interior back in it, and maybe a half cage and just use it as a weekend racer.
So i took the 4AGE out of my old FWD Corolla and started to work at RWDing it:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3114-2/DSCF0017.jpg[/img]

Meanwhile, coilover bits came, and more suspension and driveline parts:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/5272-2/DSCF0004_002.jpg[/img]

Engines went:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3129-2/DSCF0007_002.jpg[/img]

And then half of the car went:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3149-2/DSCF0007_1.jpg[/img]

New Diffs came:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3173-2/DSCF0003_002.jpg[/img]

And then i decided that the stock sound deadening was too heavy:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3190-2/DSCF0002_002.jpg[/img]

Note the quality tools used in this photo cough

A bit later in the year i was up in Canberra for the snow, and picked up some trick bits from Ben Wilson (cheers mate), as well as my new suspension, and throttle bodies:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3249-2/DSCF0006_003.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3265-2/DSCF0004_009.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3263-2/DSCF0003_006.jpg[/img]

Later still i started shovelling it all into the car:

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3302-2/DSCF0009_005.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3324-2/DSCF0011_004.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3326-2/DSCF0013_003.jpg[/img]

[img]http://gallery2.plebeians.net/d/3466-2/DSCF0001_011.jpg[/img]

And thats where all my nice little plans went wrong…….