Cus' NA6

[Cus]

I was strongly considering putting little red on H-Plates, because rego was due, and I was spending all of my time in the work car.

Well, I quit my job*, and didn't pay rego. Luckily I remembered last saturday (8 days over-due), paid it online, emailed the receipt to myself and got pulled over not even 10 minutes later due to unpaid rego...

I told Mr Policeman I'd just paid it, and he didn't sound like he believed me (I wonder how many times people have tried the 'I just paid it' line?), so I pulled up the receipt on my phone, and he was much less skeptical. Saved myself $600! Hooray!

Then autobarn had a 20% off sale. And I bought car parts. Not performance ones, but you know, ones I "need": A teeny-weeny little Alpine 4x45W amp. I bridged it into 2x90W and put it in the car.

Behold! Awesome installation skills!



...OK, that wasn't final installation, that was everything sitting in the car with temproary wiring to see if it worked. It does.

The amp is currently zip-tied to the bottom of the glove box, because I don't actually have anywhere to put it. Sounds good, up until the 50W speakers get cranky about a 90W amp driving them. I'll turn the gain down and fiddle with the EQ tomorrow when it's not the middle of the night.....


*I did get another job, which is 7 minutes total travel time from my back door to my desk. Much better than 50 minutes. No work car though, but way less stress, and slightly more money! The plan is to get the VVT engine in "over summer sometime" ... because my new job is at a school, which means school holidays are .. like, a thing. All up i have 7 weeks a year of holidays. What will I do with myself? Hopefully work on the bloody car!

[Okibi]

Congrats on the new job

[Cus]

Thanks Okibi, I'm on holidays for a week, because working at a school means I get an insane amount of holidays apparently... I'm not complaining!

This is 2/3rds of yesterday's drive. I call it "The return of the road trip"



Took the roof off, because I haven't had a sunburn yet this spring, only to put it on and discover the driver's side latch has developed a new trick:



I'll need to fix that one sooner rather than later. The new amp makes the speakers get up and boogie, but it's right next to my head, and not easy to simply drown out. (and I'm going deaf anyway, no need to expidate the process)

I'm taking all suggestions that don't include the phrase "part-out"

[speed]

Saw your post on FB.
Does it still have adequate tension? If no then you can adjust it by flipping the platic clip back and using a 10mm spanner rotate a little and flip the plastic clip back in place.
If it does have tension then it's the stop. I've not done it but did watch a utube video where they drill out and screw in a self tapper which acts as the stop.
Check it out for yourself and see if it's worthwhile.
Worst case your up for another latch

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Cus]

I realised this is why the soft top latches rattle too ... I'd solved that by leaving them open all the time

I'll give them a go first, if I screw up, it's just the soft top

[StanTheMan]

just he latches themselves?

[Cus]

Yeah, the handle/flap/thingos are loose and rattle up and down in time with bumps in the road.

The actual tops are adjusted to within an inch of their lives, and only move when going through gutters and stuff

[hks_kansei]

This is why I never removed my Sun visors.

They stop the latches from rattling.
Well, and opening, since neither of the clip things at the back work on mine.

[Cus]

What are you looking at? the last 2 and a bit years of fuel usage data,plotted as L/100km. Yellow line is average, year-to-date. Orange is 3-fill average, and blue is per-fill.

The hump in 2016 is about when I put the MS3 in. And then it was good for a while, and it's been getting worse ever since.... hmm..

[Cus]

Last weekend I put purple the injectors out of my 1.8 engine into little red. I figured the old injectors may have been the cause of my progressively worse fuel consumption ... so far, it's no worse. The other option is fuel pump, I did the filter about 9 months ago.

I jumped in the passenger seat (after changing the req'd fuel) and had a driver take me around the block, TS was saying I was hitting AFR targets almost dead-on, across the board. Further logging indicated the EGO Correction was pulling fuel everywhere like crazy. Some VEAL'n later, and I'm back to EGO Correction doing minimal work - but I am quite impressed with how well EGO Correction was actually hitting targets. The first time I turned it on it oscillated wildly all over the place, so I turned it off for a while. Then I turned it on and made it stable at idle, then forgot about it. Turns out making it correct at idle makes it pretty correct across the board. I'm impressed with the MS.

It does idle better though (it used to randomly "bm-bm-blm-bm" instead of "bm-bm-bm-bm"), so antecdotally, it's "better" .. we'll see how it goes on the next few fills. Living so close to work I don't even get up to temp driving to work a the moment. Probably time to dust off the deadly treadly, for both of our health.

Tonight I finally managed to log my occasional stall. Sometimes coasting to a stop and putting the clutch in at low RPMs would just let the engine die, but it was only ever very rarely, and didn't seem to matter how it happened - slow, fast, uphill, downhill, no difference. Well, now i've logged it! it turns out my over-run fuel-cut return (yes) is set too low, so if I clutch-in at exactly the right RPM, it transitions straight from over-run to stalled. I can see in the logs where the ECU is trying to put fuel back in, but the engine is already down around 400RPM, and no amount of fuel is going to save it by that stage. I originally lowered it because I'm running batch injection, and it was jerky when returning to fuel from over-run. I'll pop it up a couple of hundred RPM and see if I can find a balance of jerkiness/not-stalling i'm happy with. Wiring up sequential injection is also an option. But that requires doing .. you know .. stuff. (I'll do it when it's ID-time)



The night I swapped my injectors I also noticed my low beams had become more terrible than normal, closer inspection revealed the passenger side light had about 20mm of play, and it made a "clunk" when i closed the lights.

It turns out the nylon cup had come completely out of the push rod for the lights.... queue some brake cleaner, degreaser and a rag, a little bit of fibreglass resin (it was either that or PVA) and it's back in and seems to be holding up to the rigors of me mashing my pop-up button. If it fails again I'll throw down the $10 or so for a new one.

While I was pulling the injectors out of the 1.8 I noticed the intake manifold on the 1.8 had a fair amount of oil residue in it, and it seems to be leaking from the seals on both ends, so I need to get the motor closer to home (I'd prefer the kitchen, but apparently I'm not allowed to rebuild motors in there...) and give it a bit of a freshen-up. Then I should be right to throw it in over christmas (hopefully) and then ... VVT POWAR!

[speed]

Is good to see that you've found the time to play with lil red.
Looking forward to seeing the 1.8 swap

Sent from my SM-A520F using Tapatalk

[Cus]

Injector replacement report: slight improvement.

I took the car over to the grampians for the weekend, managed 8.3L/100km, which is the best it's been in 7 months, but still a long way from the low-7's to high-6's of previous.

I also discovered a car with no clutch fluid does not select gears..... I need to add that to my list of things to periodically check/change. Making my own service schedule has it's downfalls apparently.

[Cus]

So, in prep for the 1.8 swap....

I need a new altinator (ie: i don't want to run extra wires to the MS to make it regulate for me) so, I think this will fit:
ebay link ... if for some reason someone wants to swap an internally regulated 1.8 altinator for a 2001 one, I've got one...

As far as A/C compressor goes, does anyone have any clue of the 1.6 compressor will line up with the 1.8 engine, or will I need a new compressor too?
...not having A/C is not an option. I dont like being hot, and the girlfriend likes it even less. Side question, will a newer 1.8 compressor be "better" than the old 1.6 one?

COPs / setups - does anyone know of a coil-on-plug setup that fits in the VVT rocker cover? the COPs I have dont fit by about 3/5ths of f$#kall, and the engine I have didn't come with the coils. There's the beavis motorsports LS kit for stupid amounts of money, which I'd rather not spend right now... the other option is to file the holes a bit bigger, i'm sure it only needs to grow by 1mm or so to fit the toyota COPs.

As far as TPS/VVT Solenoid/Cam/crank Sensors, once I'm done procrastinating, I should have the correct connectors ordered by the end of next week, sensor are all in the new engine, and hopefully, work.

I plan on re-using my existing 1.6 clutch/flywheel, logic dictates I upgrade now, but I don't see the point just yet (unless it looks like crap when i pull it)

I've also got a stock 1.8 exhaust header, which ... will do the job for now, but I'll miss my 4-1 RS*R ones.

Also, what air filters are people using? I want to put it over behind the passenger side light, and make a box to go around it (like the nitrodann one, but out of fibreglass, or maybe carbon if I get adventurous)




let me know if there's anything I've missed, or plan on doing in an extremely drain-bamaged way!

[Cus]

Santa always knows what I want!

Mania el-cheapo SSK (because it has all the bushes i need, plus SSK), Upper and Lower Shift boots, 949 re-route, VVT Gasket kit, Lollies, Stickers, Key ring.



Currently on the kitchen bench is a (Repco) Timing Belt Kit, EOX Starter motor. I've got some bits coming from amayama, expected .... no time soon - clutch bump stop, 2x headlight rods, my amazing fix failed yesterday afternoon, along with - randomly - the fans. Started overheating in bendigo yesterday, pulled it over, popped the bonnet, no fans. Got home yesterday evening, fans were working again. I might need to investigate that (or remove the light bar, or both)

I still need to source an NA8 Alternator, and acctually order some plugs... oops. Forgot all about that one!

The landlord has kindly agreed to let me rebuild the motor in the house (air-con, yay!) worst case scenario it will cost me having the floor re-sanded/polished, best case scenario it will cost a kiddie pool and a tarp. (I've seen enough roadkill to know that stuff always drops out of an engine)

Bring on the holidays!

[hks_kansei]

Yeah, tarp the hell out of that floor.

No amount of sanding will get engine oil stains out of timber.


But, it will mean that timber won't rot.... So you know, silver lining.