altezzaclub

I never did run into the guy again who had the AE86 I found in the supermarket carpark in Cairns. He bought it new and has owned it ever since, but seeing he and his wife have 4WDs it never gets used nowdays, and he was my age (60+) He was driving it that day as his 4WD was in getting serviced. So, they are still out there!!

Hit up your local exhaust shop- they should be able to source a 4-1, 2" set for between $200-$300, they are still being made new. 4-2-1 are much harder to find, I don't think anyone is making them commercially.

Yeah, that doesn't look good. There is tremendous rotational force on the diff when you drop the clutch, so the diff will try to spin inside the U-bolts, and you have given it a lot of leverage with such long bolts. I suppose if it crushes a lowering box it will sway around and you'll feel the car move all over the road. Should be quite a wild ride! Many years ago I converted the 4link in a Stanza rally car to a 5link, and it didn't tear out the rear floor as I worried it would. The rotation torque pushed the lower arms forward and ripped the mounts off the floor. Rob & I took a spare leaf from another leafpack and cut it off just behind the u-bolts, then fitted it upside down in his leafpack. We took out the bottom leaf to keep the leafpack the same height so we didn't change any bolts etc. . It forced the other leaves to sit flatter and acted as an anti-tramp link by stopping them winding up, but his lady gave up motorsport soon after nad we never really sorted it out.

About $50 for an adjustable regulator that gives you 1psi to 6psi. SUs are running on 1.5psi, so it doesn't take much to fuel a 4K.

I wouldn't swear to that, the motors vary so much over their production run as ant-pollution stuff gets added and they vary according to which country they're sold it. I am sure that the bigger the capacity the more torque you get, that seems pretty fixed over many motors, but power depends on how many revs you can make. Either would keep up with traffic in that gokart, once you have a decent carb or injectors on it. You're only pushing about 700kg aren't you?

Old stickers-- I have a 1984 Lombard RAC one I've never stuck onto anything! It turns up now and then when I'm sorting shit out to move house then vanishes again...

It looks like a Stromberg to me, similar to the SU but with a diaphram instead of a floating piston. With all the non-important bits cleared away it has the same layout as the SU. You're right, the spring will give initial richening until the diaphram lifts the needle to match the airflow. SUs are actually amazingly complex in operation for such a machanically simple device. I suppose all variable jet carbs are, the mixture doesn't just depend on the needle & jet size, it depends on the velocity of air flowing over the venturi that sucks the fuel out. Even then, I'm not sure if its just velocity or if density is involved too... I'll start a new topic!

Yes, I have longer studs. Whipped partly out of Ford 4WD Ranger rear axles and partly out of Toyota Landcruiser I think it was, whatever the wrecker had with the right pitch and diameter. They're about 10mm longer and bring the free stud length back to stock, and the stock wheels still fit on them as well. I checked the tightness every stop for the first couple of days, but they have never given a problem and have been well pounded about on NSW's crappy roads.

The minuature Mustang! Should be good fun, and will attract attention when you take it out. Everyone loves these things!

Broken ring.. you're right though Twinky, motor has to come out.

Good point- how do bikes get around the lack of a pump jet? The SUs have the oil dashpot delay the piston rising so it immediately richens for a second or two when you boot it, but I haven't seen those on bike carbs. Surely max air flow should be- max revs X 1500=12000 X 600.... so max revs=12000X600/1500 or about 4800rpm on your 5K will suck the same air flow as that Honda pulling 12000rpm. Those carbs could be a bit small.

After finishing the Cairns house it was South again, down the coast this time as I had to go to Kingaroy and sort out another rental there. This time it was tear down the pergola, take off the gutter along one side of the house, reposition all the hangars to get good fall then reassemble everything in a better way that caught more water for the tank. Its on 10acres out of town, so the only service is rubbish and water/sewerage is a private affair. Luckily the tenant has a boyfriend who is a tree-lopper and he is scoring points by clearing the 10acres with chainsaws and a tractor-slasher, so I'm rapt! A few more jobs inside and a week later I headed out to meet my brother in Coolangatta, then back to Orange. I kept fuel figures on the way up, but then got keen and kept more data on the way back. You can see which fuel I used for each section just before I filled up. I will say that 640Km is a stretch, and 44.1L into a 45L tank is a worry! Still, all that was at 100kph, which is 3300rpm with the tall tyres I was using, and the car was loaded to busting! It's cheapest along the coast as hills make a difference, and getting into Kingaroy is uphill on winding roads. Surprisingly, the octane didn't seem to matter, I suppose you have to carefully tune the timing to get the most out of each fuel. That "done on" column shows the fuel in the tank before I filled up, so it is the fuel that I had already used for that day's run. The 32.94litres in the first line coming back is the United 91 I put in after running down from Cairns on 98, I didn't full up with Shell 98 at Ayr. So, the Girl's KE ran without a problem and after an oil change its set to go anywhere again. A rebuild on the 5speed would be nice to get rid of the whines, but not crucial. It hasn't got a radio at all, so maybe some sort of sounds would solve it! Now to fit the little 13" rims back on and get some round-town acceleration again!

I'd taken the passenger's seat out to fit in a fridge and a stack of house-building tools & gear as I knew I'd be camping out in an empty house, and after the photo was taken I started adding kitchen equipment, food, clothes, a bed & sleeping gear... it just filled right up! Then in early April I headed off at 750km a day. The Rolla ran perfectly and the SUs ran at 18 to 1 on the fuel mixture display, even squeezing the accelerator down and going up slight hills before richening up to 14.7 to 1 when the accelerator went down further. After a couple of days of starting driving at 6am you realise how big Aussie is! Luckily I'd taken the metal plate out from the base of the driver's seat and actually fixed the seat suspension with webbing before I left. I was fooling around with the laptop and the webcam getting up through the emptyness of Clermont to Townsville, and I came across a couple of young girls standing beside a Barina with the bonnet up. After 20minutes I'd figured the head gasket was custard and it was not going anywhere fast, so I left them to crawl back to T'ville putting water into it while I went on up to Cairns. Ever since I've wondered why I didn't volunteer to change the head at their flat.... I only noticed the camera running when I got back in the car and ran off a commentary, I'll see if I can upload it, it amused me at the time! Ah no, I can't load .wmv, shame- they were hot girls!

Well, back again! Three months in Cairns with no internet except the local library was very trying! It took that long to strip out the rental house I have up there, a typical 1980s concrete (Besser) block home that I've never touched, then start by painting ceilings and then walls. New lights throughout, new kitchen, new shower, new tiles here and there, fake wood on the lounge floor, new carpets in the bedrooms, new wardrobe doors and even some repairs.. Then some outside stuff. Waterblasted the roof and house, re-did stormwater drains, painted some walls, cut out 5 trees and enough greenery to full three large trailers and replanted the back lawn and the flower gardens. Its currently up for sale on here if you're a house freak, although it will vanish in a month- (hopefully SOLD!! )

I think a ream is the better tool to make the hole, rather than relying on a drill bit. Either borrow one from an obliging engineer or buy one and hire it out to everyone else on here... expensive, but it makes a far more accurate round hole than a drill bit. ..or though, thinking about that, maybe you need a crappy shaped hole to have little pockets of grease in there to keep it lubricated. LoveKE's hardened bolts will work fine for the next 30years.

Do more reading! You need to have both compression & extention distances correct so you are not relying on the shock to stop the diff travel unless its meant to. Having a lack of either will destroy grip on the road in milliseconds and likely smash the foot valve. If that second ring is welded on OK I can't see anything wrong with it, the original rings have a shitty little spotweld holding them on. Take the springs out, put the shocks on and measure the maximum travel in each direction. Then see where the shock sits in its travel when you put the springs back in.

Anyone got wheel alignment figures? My Corona arms on stock spring with one coil cut off gave me- Camber -15' (1/4deg negative) Toe in 2.2mm Castor 3deg

Does it have a fuel cut-off solenoid? ..or was 'cutting off the fuel to the carb' done some other way? Timing can do it, or a really high compression, or hotspots in the combustion chamber. Does it over-run forwards or backwards?? Mine did it a couple of times in Cairns when fully warmed up on a hot day, but never does it up here in Orange.

Yep- before you start it one morning take the rad cap off and fill the rad right up. Then start it and leave it idling. if water expands up and starts to pour over the rad top, then bubbles suddenly appear, the head gasket is leaking compression into the water jackets. When it cools it sucks a little water back into the cyl and that causes a misfire when you start it in the morning for a couple of seconds until the plug fires and dries. If you get a small stream of bubbles all the time its pretty bad. It will lose water every time you fill it up, but only the top litre or so. Does it use water. The block water jackets may be getting full of rust, but really you've pretty well sorted everything except the gasket.

Yes- & do Volvo have an LSD option?

Much too dangerous, it was killing everyone! Except you will find as many death certificates listing "Died from lead in petrol" as you will find "Died from second-hand cigarette smoke"....

Just drove it, like usual... without seeing any other RWD Corollas at all, which is also usual. Haven't seen one in Cairns in three months except one AE86. The last thing was to use a couple of insulation blanket spikes to hold my underbonnet blanket up above the airbox flap. Might add that to the build topic.

Yes, pinking is the fuel mix exploding instead of burning, and is initiated by the spark plug. Usually on wide throttle and low revs, so you can overcome it by changing down a gear. Different to that is the pre-ignition from the mix actually dieseling without the spark plug being needed, which it what a motor will do when you turn it off and it runs on. You can fix both with raising the octane, and fix pinking by retarding the timing. Having just gone from 95 down to 91octane to see what happens, I get a touch of running on after switching off, although I haven't had it pinking on acceleration.

damm! those quads and trumpets are pure sex! This will be a great machine!

I've used E10 95octane from the independent station nearby for the last few years. Currently I'm in Cairns for a few months, so from2500ft down to sea level, and I've just tried $20 of 91 this week. It doesn't pink, which I expected, but does run-on a little when turned off, just a couple of coughs. I'll probably go back to 95 for the 2500km trip back South next week. That's on a skimmed head for compression in the high 9s, carbs and a cam.