2009 summary
Time to catch the topic, haven't been updating here for a long time.
Since this summer was the first time street-driving this car for a years, it was pretty much test driving and figuring out how my modifications work, lets take a list of issues i found out:
Chronological order:
- Burned turn signal fuse
= Wire was disconnect, fixed
- Speedometer did not work
= Bad connection, fixed
- Some misfire
= Bought all new ignition parts, fixed
- Brake noice on corners
= Filed bit of the calipers to give room for wheel bearing play with the rotor, fixed
- Didn't want to crank over when engine was warm
= Bought new batter, thought it fixed
- Code 43
= Sensor had a bad contact, fixed
- Odometer got stuck often
= Something wrong in the mechanical parts, need to replace it, NOT fixed yet
- Hood scoop vibrated a lot @ high speeds
= Needed more mounting points, i developed a better mounting method, too bad i already drilled those holes for the old mounts.. so now it got some of both on it. = Fixed for now
- Impossible to start the car when engine is warm, had to wait 15 minutes for it to cool after managed to stall it while reversing on to tight spot.
= Bought new mini/high torque starter, fixed it i think.
- Camshaft gasket blew away after some shift_7400 action, spraying oil all over the engine bay and that cause some smoke to raise from the hood scoop, waking up my attention.
= I traced it down to possible overpressure in crankcase, did major re-work to the external breather tank piping to triple the volume of it, my own design flaw right there...
Off course i did not own one of those pulley removal tools that fit the power steering pulley @ Quad, so i had to take my top end apart to have the pulley rammed off @ shop, and then new gasket installed, as you can figure out, this is not a very fast way to handle it...
- Human error when putting engine back together
= Ooops. Timed the engine totally wrong so it didn't want to run.. so taking the top-end apart again to adjust the camshafts (yes with belt drive conversion you can actually time this thing wrong when not paying attention)
- Another human engine when putting it back together second time
=
"&)"/)" You should not Never rush things like this up, i had too much to do then with the road trip around the corner and both cars needing attention. Anyhow managed to hit one or 2 exhaust valves what lead into smaller compression on cylinder 2 after putting it together, got like 275-240-270-275 on compression test now. The car has not been driven since, except into the garage where it waits to be fixed up.
So that totals to around 3-4 thousand kilometers driven for this summer. Would had been more without the black car + road trip taking all the time and money..
Picture of the oily engine after the camshaft gasket exploded off.
So what I've been up to lately.
Well since the black car needed attention before and definitely after the Europe road trip, no time was to use for fixing up the white car, i decided that will be done this winter instead.
Since the Sprint rear springs failed on my black car, i decided I'm just going to use the (way) too soft Eibach rear springs from the white car to replace the even crappier Sprints.
Off course the white car needed replacements, so i had custom ones made to order.
I took the Eibach spring into the spring shop, and asked them to copy it, but without the progressive setup and with 50% higher spring ratio, and making all that couple centimeters lower than the Eibach setup.
Custom springs #1. Well i guess my needs were too much for the spring shop, since what i ended up getting was a copy of Eibach, but without the progressive setup.. So this still was way too soft setup for my use, so these had to be returned to the shop with clarification that i am NOT looking for any wobbly bobbly comfort ride setup.
So here is the custom springs #2, made of notice able stiffer steel and shorter design to make it work. Now Much stiffer than the soft Eibach ones. But again these were still not as stiff i wanted them to be (i can still move the rear end of the car some
). But since the customer service on that spring shop sucks, i decided that I'm going to run with these instead returning them, maybe they are not too far away from what i want. Also i have other plans to stiffen up that loose rear axle for the task.
Installed, height was pretty the same as with Eibach, but it should settle down, let's see how it ends up.
After the black car was @ one piece again for a while, we decided to do a floor coating on my garage, the unpainted concrete from 1962 was on horrible condition and it got some first-aid in form off filling up the cracks, and couple barrels off expensive garage floor coating. Now i can actually find a bolt or nut that drops on the floor...
Here is the car sitting on the garage with it's new floor coating.
I spared one weekend with my friend to claybar + hand wax the car completely with Autoglym premium HD wax.. It got some shine on it but the white is so damn faded, original plan was to get it buffed but could not do that this year.
For the past weeks i have been working with the black car again, did some lightning improvements and all.. And finally moved my 91 GTZ pars car into the car tent so it does not have to sit completely outside anymore.. i should have done that couple years ago when the garage was done for the white car.
So, now the white car waits me to collect all the parts for it, what i have planned for next year should happen this winter, but as i was informed lately, i might be losing my job really soon, what would cause some serious financing and timetable issues for this car project, so we will just have to see what will actually get done for summer.
