ke70dave

Day 1 of driving started well, ended very poorly. At kilometer 51 of my journey, which was less than 2km from home. My timing belt snapped. Yes it is an interference engine. My nightmares will now be filled with the sounds of bending valves. Anyone got an engine crane I can borrow?

Success! Drives super nice. But man does it need the exhaust fixed!

Thanks mate I'll check it out. Got some number plates today!!! So I'll put them on when I get home and will take it for it's maiden voyage. Complete with holy exhaust.

Very nicely done. Great to see the progress. I'll have to come have a catch-up one of these days Matt. The lovely people at department of transport gave me some number plates for the beema today ;)

yup! Just did a bit more tinkering. changed over my high pressure fuel filter, dunno when it was changed, looked relatively new, but $20 is cheap to know its done. Rubber fuel lines have been replaced quite recently so they are all good. Still getting misfiring issues when engine is cold. definitely cylinder 5 playing up when cold, but comes good when engine heats up. See how it goes when i start driving it. Possibly might come good with some driving, or it might slowly get worse..... Going to start purchasing parts to get the other head i have installed. just need me a VRS kit and a timing belt. Then get the other head cleaned up and have it ready to go on at some stage. Probably need to buy some pads and rotors all round at some stage too..... Onwards and upwards!

RWC aquired! It's rego time.

Haha thanks mate. Got a guy coming tomorrow for rwc, all going well we might be hooning this week!

Alrighty, updates! It has been a rather trying month..... Long story....er.....long, Put that new gearbox in, and annoyingly the clutch didn't work because the flywheel was too thick. turns out the gearboxes that suit the dual mass flywheel the throwout bearing sits further away form the flywheel, so when i put the single mass flywheel gearbox in the throwout bearing sat too close to the clutch and was particlaly disengaging it without touching the clutch pedal.... So i packed up the tools and left it for a week in disgust. Decided to bite the bullet and ordered a brand new clutch to suit single mass flywheel, ended up having to get mine reconditioned by NPC clutches because exedy didn't have any clutches to suit my engine in the whole country and weren't looking to get any for months. every other brand was far too expensive......$320 later I had a reconditioned clutch and new throwout bearing, which was quite reasonable i thought. essentially a new clutch disc and pressure plate recod. So in went the nicely machined singel mass flywheel (pretty happy to get that dual mass out) and brand new clutch. Gearbox in 2 weeks ago. all going well, then discovered a leaking master cylinder! so managed to track one of those down and installed it today. Including some "smooth shift" penrite gbox oil. and so today it went on its maiden voyage as a manual car with a new clutch and new leaks. it actually drives super nice, only driven it around the coulder sack (how do you even spell coulder sack?). So i gave it a celebratory wash and a very quick cut and polish to remove my dirty hand marks. Drives super nice, and the engine has a bit of go to it. certainly has some punch down load and sounds nice. Hopefully get the RWC this week and we should be motoring soon! Just need to get an exhaust made up as this one is full of holes. Gave it a celebratory wash and quick cut and polish and dug out the SLR for some quick pics. not the best light... pics!

Don't they cost like $4k? That would put me off. It's going to be a completely custom install.

You need to start calculating your litres per 100km. So fill it up, reset the trip meter, drive around until you've done say half a tank. Full it up again, not the kms travelled and litres to fill it up. And do the math. Better to give the engine a once over if you suspect bad fuel economy. Check spark plug gap, reset timing, give the carby a clean with carby cleaner, check air cleaner etc. You don't have a sump full of fuel do you?

Those bumper things look super cool. Nice one.

You've got it. Although I think the "kits" use the standard headlight wiring as the trigger for the new relay. It just allows the lights to get power directly from the battery, not via 40yr old wires with loose connections.

Anything you can bolt to the standard gearbox, unless you get it really cheap, is not worth bothering with. In my opinion. It's just too old and slow! A 4age and t50 bolts in with the correct combination of parts and will transform the car dramatically.

Alrighty whats wrong with young kids? I put e30 bmw automatic gearbox on gumtree weeks ago, kinda forgot about it. guy messages me on friday (just gone) about 1030am, wants to come get it....right now. i said I'm at work ill be home at 6pm. asked me continuously across about 10 messages if it was all possible for someone to be home so he can come get it right now, i kept saying no, noone is home, kept asking, almost got the the point where i was going to ignore him. Guy finally agrees to come at 6pm friday. I race home from work, meet him at 6, gave him a bunch of parts i didnt need that were all automatic related, but werent advertised (flywheel, torque convertor, shifter, few other things). No worries, everyone is happy. i got some money for stuff i was going to bin, he gets a gearbox for quite cheap ($200), and a heap of other junk. Guy messages me last night (sunday), asked if i had the automatic transmission fluid hardlines (that go to the radiator) out of the car and could he come get them asap as he "really needed them". I said i was out, but i hadnt got them out of my car yet, and i would try and get them out monday after work (after 6pm), never hear anything from him. He tries to call me around 5pm this arvo, I'm driving home so don't answer. I sort of forget about that as i litterally raced into the house, changed clothes, jumped under the car to remove stupid hard lines. which was a real pain to do. Messaged the guy a photo about 630 and said is what he was after, and if so come and get it. oh and i asked for $20 for my effort in pulling them out. Never heard from him again. its now 8pm, worked my ass off for 40mins to get the pipes out cause he "Really needed them", now wont answer messages or phone calls. jerk? or maybe there is a good reason, hopefully. upside is, my car has no automatic junk in it now, i really should have pulled those hardlines out weeks ago:P

Ive had 2sets of the 595rsr. It's hard to argue with them for the price. Sticky tyre. Low tread wear so they wear as expected. But I think I only paid like 140each for 20550r16s for the wrx and less for the 19550r15s for the ke70.

Buy $10 multi meter, put it on battery. Try and start it and watch the volts. It should be over 12v not cranking and anything lower than 11 means the battery isn't charged up or its cactus. If you get it going also check the voltage and it should be about 13.5v.

Yup. Rotary engine no good unless you can get a hold of some new housings, which Mazda don't make anymore. Someone is cutting down 13b housings to use in 12as and re cutting the o-ring. Apparently it works, I'm not convinced it's the best idea. You can still buy 13b housings as they made the 13b until like 2002 or so, much better option.

Thanks mate. In my search for a gearbox i messaged everyone on gumtree who was selling e30 stuff and eventually found a guy who was selling a complete m20b23 engine who also had a gearbox that was not advertised. I ended up having to help remove the gearbox, but for $200 that was fine. I ended up grabbing the m20b23 as well as a heap of other parts for a total of $500. Not too bad. Other parts include a solid flywheel, ecu loom and ecu, starter motor, brand new intake rubber boot (mine is not lookin great). Engine is "apparently" a good runner, but it has been sitting about a year. So plan is to throw this gearbox in behind my current engine, and then see how my engine goes. I'm going to leave my dual mass flywheel and clutch on for the moment as it does seem to work quite well. this single mass flywheel is WAAYY lighter, but the clutch is cactus, so ill get a new clutch at some stage then swap the flywheel and clutch in. If it does turn out my compression issue is either headgasket or valve related i will get this spare head overhauled and swap it on. Will start the gearbox swap this week and hopefully get it done on Saturday! pics of towing contraption and gearbox loot, as well as one of the car just for fun.

5th gear at 100kmh with the standard tyres is about 2500rpm. Which isn't so bad I guess. Car isn't registered yet so I haven't driven it properly. It might be ok with the 3.45.

MOAR updates. The car is now manual! Took me quite a bit of effort to get the old auto out. Put the manual gearbox in that i bought, and it turns out i was sold a gearbox that is missing 3rd gear.......very much feels like the synchro is completely stuffed or the shifter fork is stuffed not pulling the synchroniser back enough to get onto 3rd gear. It goes into gear if you force it but it immediately jumps out unless you really hold it in gear. 4th also has issues, but not as bad. 3rd and 4th use the same shifter fork mechanism, so i reckon thats the issue. That is the risk i guess with 2nd hand parts. So i am on the hunt for another gearbox. Quite frustrating to be sold something as "known good condition". The seller bought the car specifically to part it out, so its possible he never really drove it enough to know that 3rd gear was stuffed. But i reckon he knew...... I am pricing up a full gearbox rebuild, but its not going to be much change from about $2000....which is....alot. anyway, clutch all seems to work fine (also second hand from that guy, but has alot of meat on the clutch plate, i think its fairly new). It is a dual mass flywheel, which is fairly cool for an 80s car. I am unsure how long it will last. seemed ok when i put it in. but who knows. I am going to track down a single mass flywheel and keep my eyes out for good prices on new single mass flywheel clutch. Dual mass flywheels actually use a solid centre on their clutch plate, where as the single mass flywheels have a spring centre. I do need to bleed the clutch again i think, the pick up point is very low in the pedal travel. might have to take the slave cylinder off the gearbox and bleed it "upright". bit of an odd design. I probably should have bench blead it... the car runs a 3.45 rear diff, and just driving it up and down my driveway i can tell that it is a rather long ratio.....So once i get all this gearbox business sorted a 3.9 or 4.1 is on the cards. The sporty models came with 3.9 or 4.1 LSD which will bolt into this car, so hopefully i can find one of those easy enough. anyway, car sits in complete manual working condition....with no 3rd gear awaiting me to pull it apart again! ah cars are fun.

looks like i made some assumptions! appologies. Very cool car mate. I too love the two doors. The sr20 has been put into ke70s numerous times. If you have a bit of a search around on the google, you will find stacks of info. Fingerlickin - nope never got 2door in australia. Closest we got was the two door panel vans. pretty rare though.

P-plater? Check your states laws. I'd bet you can't do any of those mods legally as a p-plater.

Welcome. I see much research in your future.

To test your starter in the car, bolt it in properly, hook up the main 12v power, then gey a short bit of wire and go straight from positive battery terminal to the solenoid. If it goes you have wiring issues!

Why do you want an aftermarket plenum?