Highs and Lows

Oh my, Splitfires and new plugs made my car a dream! So smooth. Ripped skids to work and back 5 days a week. Spectacularly blew up a powersteering pump, reco'd it, and added a cooler. Went down coast to work on bikes and my boost gauge was trying for high scores. Defi's are dumb, I would turf the whole lot for Greddy meters in a heartbeat.


Got front brake rotor drilled on Triumph, so it actually stops in the rain. Also got a new set of K70's for it, all mounted on Borrani rims. Didnt even think of taking photos till it was too dark.

Also dusted off the C90 DELUXE. Id say it'd be a fair bit quicker than the Ruckus, 3speed auto! but it really needs a new headbearing to ride safely. I think parts are easy to come by on these things though? I havent even checked.

Then the motor in brown Cef started making an odd noise. Not a horribly bad noise, just one that was enough to annoy me, which doesnt take much. Initially I thought it was just timing chain rattle? So I took it apart to check, but that seemed ok. Was the first time in ages I'd been able to say hello to my Tomei cams and timing gear as well, so that was nice.

Anyway, its turned out my shithead PE1420 turbo has broken. I'd say bearings or something gone out of balance, as it tries to shake itself to bits at ~2900rpm, but earlier and after that it is fine. It's a bit of a bummer, but now I can't decide what to buy for xmas, a TD06-L2, or a plain jane HKS GT-RS. Brain tells me to go HKS, but my heart says the TD06, and its looking more and more like TD06 every minute.

A Real Hero

Saw this.



I loved it.

Finally got around to buying a new set of splitfires.



Rear wheels are already grubby again. How could that be?

Did 50 on my 50



Still fun stock, which is just as well, coz getting stuff for it from the states is a pain.

Also I had to call the fire brigade during the week to save some house in the street that was burning up. 3 minute response time. But more amazing is the dispatch officer knew where I was calling from pretty much straight away. I thought I had to stay on the line for exactly 90 seconds like in the movies for them to trace my location.

Fun month.

Peruvian Snowflakes

Shoe Shine

MotoGP, F1 Canada and Lemans meant all I did over the weekend was sit in front of the telly. The F1 was prob the most entertaining race in a long time, more than made up for the 2hour odd wait for the restart. Even the qualifying was pretty exciting.



Anyway rather than write the whole long weekend off, I decided to swap wheels and effectively wheelclamp the brown Cef with my old Model 5s. Even with every slip-on spacer I could find and borrow, the stupid things still foul on the calipers. Ugliest anti-theft device ever.
The old shields were lookin pretty ugly...



After a few hours I was pretty much done with the first one. Looks heaps better.




Though my arm is aching and I've really started to hate those stupid little bolts. I'm sure if I took em out to make things easier, then I'd bust the seal and I'd need to completely reassemble the things so I'm not doing that. So my home will remain looking rather ghetto while I finish off the set in the lounge room. Too cold to be done in the garage.

Elusive Exclusive

Earlier this year, my 4wding skills came into question when i had to negotiate a water crossing trying to get home during the brisbane floods. It was apparent I didnt have any skills at all when I blew apart my front bar into pieces and mangled the associated ducting on some submerged flood debris. I collected all the bits, bar one large corner piece, which meant home repairing wasnt a possibility.

I couldnt replace it, cause no-one makes that White aero anymore, so I decided on a Wonder Shadow front bar from Japan. However Wonder I guess is kinda low volume so I had to wait an unspecified time before they'd even make any. Heart broken. Then a few days later, I got a line on some 2nd hand ex-demo Wonder aero. Put the money on that, and over the next week or so it avoided the earthquakes and a tsunami and unfortunately a boatride home. Finally its arrived and clinging to my car with a double ziptie embrace.

Its in great condition, and somehow pretty much matches my paint? What are the odds? If I'm being picky theres probably a shade more silver in it, but I'm not. The long wait made me doubt my decision many times, but now that its on the car, Im glad I got it. So aggressive I love it. The clear indicators that came with it are a nice touch too. Totally gunna clown the speedbumps at work.

I measured up the front opening for the new ducting which I'll make up (looks gross without ducting), and as much as Im bored of those wheels, I should really polish them up again, they need a new lease of life. I still have to get new coilpacks for this thing too. Why do splitfires still cost the same since forever?

As a sidenote, I took these photos on my phone, whilst I had Matt's old DSLR in my bag beside me. Pretty much confirmed to myself that I shouldn't bother getting a fancy camera, they're just too annoying to use.

One for my buddy Matt

just cant overlook that one in the middle pegleggin tho :/

Double Life

Been slowly finishing up the swap in the rx7. Height has been the main problem, even with the motor pushed into the firewall, and the bottom of the motor sitting on the steering rack, theres not much margin before the tappet covers start becoming higher than the bonnet. This isnt an option, and neither is dropping the rack.


Can't get it any closer. I thought about notching the firewall, but then I'd have to relocate brake booster, and this is all supposed to be reversable.


Shifter comes up ~120mm too short. New linkage and entension made up.


Again, so its reversable, I wanted to use orginal crossmember mounts. Box crossmember was made out of a battleship hull instead. One piece alloy tailshaft not shown.


The cutest little header tank.


Needed because I had the radiator slung underneath the support. Mounting points for twin SPALs. Unfortunately there was no way of keeping the clutch fan.


I have some sheet to enclose this box section from cooler to rad, and an underfloor that runs from the nosecone, to the gearbox. The floor is 1.2 alloy, and needs a couple of ribs.


The reason for tucking the radiator under the support, was so I can still run the factory bonnet latch. Dumb reason, but I really hate bonnet pins.


Charge piping. Around an FC in 80 days. So convoluted. Kind of annoying because..


I have an oil cooler to sit on one side, and a steering cooler to stick on the other. Was going to box some ducting for those, but seems pointless with piping smack bang in the centre.

In anycase, it fits so snug. Waiting on some mil-spec connectors so I can finally ditch that wiring thats sitting all goof on top of the motor. Single turbo, cams and retainers to be thrown on after the first run. As soon as I get this at least running, means I can put the big ol 13b in the coupe. Dont know which one I'm more excited about.