altezzaclub

The disc pistons have to be SCREWED back into the calipers against the handbrake actuation thread to fit the new pads in. They've been there for years and years, are filthy and jammed, and it must do funny thngs to the seals in the cylinder. They still don't make a decent handbrake when brand new! I think they're the sort that Mk4 Zephyrs had when the handbrake would jam on after sitting overnight and you couldn't move the car! The Altezza has tiny brake shoes inside the disc hub, which means they're self-adjusting and just as complicated as your old Commode ones.

...aaaaaannd... Google maps says- So, when did they take this photo?? Rolls Royce bought out Armstrong Siddeley (my first car, and first project!) and when they closed the plant some years later the Armstrong car club were donated all the spares.. Seem we will have to do that ourselves in a few years, take all the left-over KE series cars from the wreckers before they crush them and stack them somewhere dry!

Lol! I understand that perfectly! I shut the hallway door here and live in the computer/sunroom, dining room & kitchen. The smallest bedroom (which I use) is along the North face too. The lounge is junk storage, the second bedroom a project room and the master bedroom/ensuite is empty for guests... Now, a bigger WORKSHOP under the house I can appreciate, or a 4th car garage... Now according to these figures we are building fewer houses per head of population than we were. This means we're living in older and older homes, as it is so expensive/difficult to build new places. It came from here- http://pc.blogspot.co.nz/2012/10/the-political-destruction-of-nzs.html

Easy! Hard! There's probably plenty of IRS diff you could use, the Datsun 1600 springs to mind instanly as you can get clutch-pack LSDs for them. Take the whole Datsun rear suspension and make it fit. Its not the best design, very similar to early BMWs & it has a lot of camber change with ride-height. or how about other small sportcars.. early MX5? or Suzuki Jimny and those small 4WDs. Third option would be the many 4WD saloons from the 1980s/90s that never came to Aussie. I had a Nissan Wingroad wagon that had a lovely IRS. Toyota Corollas, Honda Civics, Nissans.. they all had 4WD versions. Transplant the whole rear end. The hardest thing will be cutting out the whole rear pan and making the suspension mounts fit. A great challenge!

So.. if you guys did the conversion, what difference did it make?? Better handbrake-turns?? More rear brake bias?? Was it worth doing or is it just more bling... having just changed the rear pads on the Pntara I reckon they're a pain is the ass!

Also someone in the States was selling them for KP61 Starlets.

A good read Philbey- it linked eventually to FarNorthRacing, where I haven't been for ages but he has great practical setups on there. Here's the shock bit, all re-written. http://farnorthracing.com/autocross_secrets6.html

Some people are onto it! ..and here are the American figures for house price comapred to average income. This does point out the corrosive effects of any inflation, even if it is targeted at 3% (and then usually exceeded or the definition changed!!)

Have no fear, it is no different to running any household! You have money coming in and spending demands, you can borrow and go into debt which you will have to pay off and also sustain a borrowing rating. The only extra is that you can print more money and devalue the money already out there, which is what most politicians use to plaster over the gap between income & spending... Without political parties active, one voice would mean nothing amongst 250 or however many people you want in there. You would end up with 'the average Aussie" holding sway, influenced by the most persuasive speakers of the time. So... do the TV ratings give you an idea of what "the average Aussie" would be like in power?? :rolls:

Is there a distributor there at all?? What is wired up to it if there is?? I can't picture "blanked off" You need the intake air temp for the ECU to calculate the air mass which gives it the amount of oxygen going in. It needs air temp and air velocity through a fixed cross-section of intake. Then it factors that into the amount of fuel to add and cross-checks it against the oxy senosr in the exhaust. It might be hard to pin down, the misfire could be too little fuel, too much fuel, spark at the wrong time or no spark at all. A dyno session with a gas meter up the exhaust and an oscilloscope for spark would be the answer.

All we are talking about here is the gas pressure, which is not related to the "shock absorbing" properties due to valves inside. The gas pressure stops the oil from foaming and adds to the load-carrying capacity or ride height. So you can run lower springs to maintain the same ride height, or fit those shocks on stock springs and raise the ride height. However, how "stiff" they are to ride on is entirely different. Measuring the shock piston speed, there are 'slow speed' valves for resisting droop and lift in cornering, and there are "high-speed" valves for resistance to movement over bumps and potholes. I'm about to try and find a shock absorber testing machine around Orange, as I want the shocks on the RA40 rally car measured, then I can look for better ones. They seem too soft when going down (compression) and too slow in going up (extension). In other words they are road shocks and designed to keep the car low, while in rallying you want to keep the car high. In the end you have to drive on them and try them.

They could be fine- Twin-tube gas shocks for a Pajero, they ahve to control more weight than a T18. I had Atsugi on the rally car and I couldn't compress them with my weight.

Yeah they know all those overseas investments they hold aren't worth fkall and are trying to build up some cash to cover the inevitable time when they have to declare all the pieces of paper worthless and take it on the chin. They used to pass the rate cuts on religiously, but recently they've been taking them as profit. Its up to your generation to get rid of fractional reserve banking, an experiment that failed! Go back to a gold currency or one where you can only loan out whatever is deposited in your bank.

Nice!! Should look smart, sound great and go well, a really cool sleeper!

Soo... How good is the 4K motor?? Rings good, compressions up around 150psi?? Bearings great?? If its a bit wornout then get it sonic tested & bored out to 1500cc using 5K flat top pistons. Get the crank lightened and the flywheel lightened, and get the whole lot balanced. Head ported to suit the manifold. If you don't go to 5K pistons then skim the head to raise the compression. Has it got extractors and a 2" or one & 3/4" all the way through? Get that organised. Get your cam cut to suit what you want to do with it. Street use, say 280deg.. more or less as you want. That's the main gains, but make sure the air filter system pulls in cold air and doesn't inhibit airflow, maybe electronic dizzy, and quad carbs off a bike. The bottom end will haul 9000rpm according to Philfrederick's build, so here's nothing wrong with a K motor, its just that the head/cam is not efficient. You could of course just buy his motor, the simplest conversion possible! http://www.rollaclub.com/board/topic/51097-4k-twin-cam-now-for-sale/

Well, you can buy a house now, the Reserve Bank has just cut the interest rate! This will allow people to go further into debt and give the appearance of getting richer.. bigger loans for bigger houses, bigger TVs, bigger utes, bigger lounge suites... but really they are just lining up to be debt slaves for the rest of their lives. There must be an election on the horizon and the Prme Minister can't afford to have the econmy collapsing, so throwing new-printed money at it is always the answer. Eventually when the Govt debt worldwide is reduced by all this inflation, people will start to accumulate a little wealth and the economy will grow, straight back into the usual bomm & bust cycle caused by the Reseve Bank being the only source of currency. There is no doubt a monopoly is a bad thing, and the Govt having it makes it no better. $4 of deposit in the banks for every $100 of loans out, could you run your business like that? If you do have a job at the moment, don't give it up!

Cut him some slack Jono, it was just a figure he took a punt at. Sure aa hell its a big lump of iron hanging out the front. Anyway, the original comments stand, with that much weight in the nose it will be quite understeery. Then when you get the power on it will be quite oversteery! Stiffening the front will make it understeer more, but it all depends on what you want to do with it and what you're used to. If you're a Commodore man then the 'rolla will still seem quite nimble. The worst thing I can think of is the body twisting and flexing. Not only does it have extra weight jumping around in the nose, a much heavier gearbox behind that, it will also have a much heavier diff at the back and no doubt a bigger, heavier fuel tank. You've probably exceeded the GVM for the car before you start adding torque twist! So expect to have to strengthen quite a bit of the body mounting points, but there's no reason why not. I think nearly everyone on here would go 4AGE, then turbo 4cyl, then maybe a few with a V6, a couple with the 1UZ or any alloy V8, but you will struggle to find someone who has done what you're planning! Good luck! Don't forget a build thread.

More likely, but either way I don't reckon Asirike will get it going.

Politics is easy to discuss... findng solutions to Govt-caused problems is hard! Housing- The problem is that the Govt is involved! If you want cheaper housing get The State out of it. They decide who and who can't split up land, so that's the first bottleneck. Then they charge developers big bucks to divide their own land AND set out many onnerous and expensive conditions on how to do the earthworks, and on how big the sections must be. So you pay $180,000 for a 700sqM bit of ex-farmland way out in the country in Orange before you have even laid a brick. The next bit is no better, you pay thousands more to The State to get 'approval' for your home, and then have to build something that the town planners, code-writers, safety inspectors and a thousand other bureaucrats use to keep their miserable bums in a meaningless job. Once you have them sign the final 'approval' then you will pay taxes for the privilege of living there for the rest of your life. If you want cheap housing wipe out all Council, State Govt and Federal Govt involvement in it!! Build a plywood shanty on your land and live in it as you will. It would have been impossible for this country was civilised by the pioneers if they had this level of State regulation. The country will soon re-organise itself on lines of 'who can afford what' and the efficiency gains will be enormous. The incentive to move out of the slums will be great too, and THAT is what drives people ahead! Other than that, if you're young you're ʞ©$ɟed! You are going to pay for baby-boomers to retire and soak up all your taxes in medical treatments, you will spend you life in debt as your bank pays off Govt borrowing and your student loan will cripple you! Never mind the amount you will pay to subsidise Holden & Ford and a thousand stupid expensive Govt boondoggles like wind power and desalination plants! Your parents gave away your freedoms and your future by voting for Socialism!

Yeah, but I don't see a drive belt.... Reckon the dizzy is locked?

Emailed Rob, seeing he's a professional mechanic and I'm an amateur, and he said- So, definately no weights, and the electronics probably aren't talking to each other properly. Seeing Rob is building a Megasquirt from a kit atm, he can help you convert to one of those!

Can't argue with those observations! These days we should be able to have the population voting on all laws, we have internet and phone banking that works country-wide. Even a couple of million people voting would be better than those we have at the moment! Run a TV channel on what is coming up, talkback radio, websites/blogs/twitter/and stuff for debate and arguments, then vote over a 24hr period. That way we don't need anyone in Parliament! So, who's watching "Yes Minister" these days... "Good grief, you mustn't tell Ministers everything, they might start to think for themselves.." As for poor Alan Jones, everyone is shooting the messenger and ignoring the message!

Ya gotta love the bush mechanics! cheers

yep, the "0" is at top dead center, and you should be firing the spark plugs at the '10' at idle. Get a timing light and check it, the biggest thing you can do for performance. The hoses are part of the crankcase ventilation system, it picks up fumes from blow-by getting down past the rings and feeds them back into the aircleaner to be burned, and it takes vapour from the fuel tank and catches it to be burned. If the car runs nicely and idles fine then that system is working just right.

Ok, no weights then. I can just lift the dizzy cap on the KE70 and turn the rotor a little each way, maybe 20deg.. So.. any ideas on what causes the motor to advance at all?? That is assuming its not a locked dizzy! Does it advance out to over 30deg when you rev it? I'm sure the starter doesn't affect it, and if it did it should be the same every time you start it. If the dizzy is fine, which I'm suspicious about, the other option would be some other sensor the car uses for timing ignition. The Altezza runs a crank and two cam timng sensors, puts all that together & directly fires a coil, but you can't be doing that or you wouldn't need that star wheel in the dizzy. If your ECU was determining the timing and firing it, they would just hook it up to the coil & just use the dizzy to carry the rotor.. So I think its is meant to advance with weights... Someone on here later tonight is bound to know.