altezzaclub

...and you are running on the battery, so soon it will just not start for you! Put a voltmeter on it, should be pumping 13.8volts or thereabouts when running. Expect to need a new alternator or voltage regulator... Time for an auto sparkie, as Medicine Man said.

I made ours 6kg, cost $100- easy to drive with but I can't tell how much quicker as it was an auto and its MUCH quicker with a manual, the flywheel being part of that. When I fitted a lightweight flywheel to my Altezza I was surprised at how much quicker it was in first and second, right from the time I picked it up. That went from 14kg down to 7kg, so it was very different.

The engine won't use any more fuel at idle than a single carb, so fuel pressure is fine. Has to be blocked jets or air leak...

That's quite unusual, how about a sound clip of it... It won't be clutch plate, as that is gripped tight when decelerating. Probably a loose panel or cable as the only thing that moves when you decelerate is the engine/g'box/exhaust tilting.

Did you do bearings when you did the rings? Big ends and mains? The oil light flickering is oil pressure getting down to 7psi, which is when it comes on. The lack of oil pressure can be three things, faulty sender (unlikely), bearings worn badly, or oil pump wornout. The rattle could be bearings or timing chain, but I'd say bearings seeing its with the oil light if you didn't change them. Does it rattle badly for the first 20seconds on startup, with the light on?

You could skim the 4k head to up the compression to match the 3k, but you would need to know the volume of both combustion chambers. Someone might know the 3K volume and you can measure the 4k with a burette, then calculate how much to skim off..

..and its a common problem in various guises, ours turns the dash lights out but not the headlights, so expect a stalk from the wreckers to give trouble unless you're lucky!

I cleaned it all up and put it together dry. We've only used it once, and the chuff has ALMOST gone. I'll run it for a couple of days and see if I can pinpoint it, and if I have to I'll pop it off and seal around the leaking bit. I assume it will be in the middle, but a bit of RTV should fix that. Certainly 90% better than it was!

Throw the oil filter away and buy one with a non-return valve in!! or "non-draining valve" A plain filter drains nearly a litre of oil back into the sump every night, and the engine gets no oil until the pump has filled the filter every morning. I had the same problem ever since we bought the car, 20seconds of bearing rattle in the morning with the oil light on. Changed the filter and made sure the new one was valved and the problem vanished. Tappets- do them cold first, inlet 0.2mm, exhaust 0.3mm- Myles has a typo there! Take the spark plugs out & use a spanner on the front pulley. With the tappet cover off turn the engine until the timing mark is on top dead centre on the front pulley, watching cyls one & four to see which rockers are moving. The cylinder firing is the one with no rocker movement, the twin cylinder is on exhaust stroke with exhaust valve closing and inlet opening. Turn the pulley until 1 is not moving and 4 has the rockers equal- ie number one is firing. Set the tappets on number one cyl. Firing order is 1 3 4 2, so turn the pulley again until cyl 2 has the rockers equal in their overlap, and set cyl 3. That should be half a turn. Turn the pulley again until the mark comes up to TDC, at which time cyl one is overlapping on exhaust stroke and cyl 4 is firing. Set cyl 4. Turn finally to get cyl 3 overlapping and set cyl 2. Fire it up and hopefully but unlikely they are quiet. There's usually one or two that are worn noisy, and you can chase them with a screwdriver handle against your ear and pressing the point against the tappet cover above each cyl. See if you can pinpoint where the tapping is loudest and pull that one down a thou more. Good luck

Convert to manual! We bought an auto early last year and it crawled around OK while my daughter learnt to drive, then we converted it to manual over Xmas and the difference is stunning. We also modified the vacuum hosing slightly and piled on the advance, seeing we live at 2500ft up! There's a how-to on KE70.com It went to Benalla and back from Orange at 90kph up hill & down dale, running at 6.4L/100km. She's not allowed to go 100! if not, dyno run it and see if you're getting stock power.

Ah- when I ph'd Toyota they said they were 2-piece... and $104!! I've since decided that was a complete headset, seeing we paid $10 for this one-

ooohh Taz that does look lovely! Measure the flange thicknesses Rundall, on exhaust and inlet. If they're the same that's fine, but my Datto extractors were thinner so I welded half-washers on the washers I used to make up the difference. How much were the extractors?? ...and let us know what difference they make!

I took the middle studs out & found some bolts the right length. Lacking a die tap for that size I took an old bolt, screwed a nut on it then hacksawed a couple of grooves up the thread. A wirebrush and a working of the nut up and down gave me a cleaning bolt that I spun into each hole. This picked up all bits of dirt into the grooves and let me check the absolute depth of the holes. Its amazing how much crap can be in a hole on a head. I don't know if you young guys do these tricks- We will see how this goes this weekend...

and a look at the head showed- The front stud of the middle ones had too long a shoulder... It was over 14mm from the head, while the manifold is 12mm and a compressed gasket is 1mm The rearmost stud came out with the nut, so the nut had bottomed on the stud before it tightened right up

but a steel block with sandpaper showed that the inlets had good sealing while the exhausts were not flat in line- hardly touching the middle exhaust properly. We could slide a 6 or 8thou feeler gauge under a steel rule across the middle, so the exhaust is recessed on the front face and even worse, the inlet flanges are a bit thicker than the iron ones! Also less than a mm, but it all adds up.

Permaseal here by the end of the week- Gasket shows blow-through in the middle, as expected.

Ah- thanks guys, I'll get onto those!! You just can't beat 'the interwebs.... ' :P

Ok, I've phoned the 6 or so parts suppliers here in Mid-West NSW and they can supply 4K manifold gasket in 2 pieces, I assume all from ACL. However one piece ones do exist, they come if you buy a full head set for over $100... So, does anyone know where to get the one piece gaskets from?? ..and I've never seen a worse bit of engineering design as when I pulled the manifolds off!! Fking rubbish ideas, tilted motor, manifolds underneath, blocked by starter and alty, covered in anti-pollution crap, not enough manifold bolts and the ones they have are too big...

Q20 or CRC 556 for the dizzy, coil and leads... The reason it revved from under the bonnet was that it wasn't under load so the spark plugs could fire easily. Once you tried to drive it the electricity leaked around the cap or jumped off the coil head through the damp surface. Might be slight cracks in either of those components, you might be able to see dark tracking lines on them. Helps to clean all dirt and oil off the coil head and dizzy cap occasionally. When rallying we used an underbody spray to put a thick insulating layer on those parts as we drove through rivers occasionally.

Broken ring won't stop it running, at least not until it shatters into tiny bits, jams in the piston and causes a hole down the side! It will make a definate little clicking knock as the piston won't be held tight and will slap. More like head gasket... or something quite serious.. :cool:

OK, all you home mechs can no doubt do this easily, but for those who are starting with their first KE70 they will need this! When I was looking for one to buy all the manuals were well-thrashed by young hoons, and all the excellent ones were autos driven by little old ladies... I've posted it all up at our sister-club here http://www.ke70.com/forum/index.php?showto...entry9550

Yeah, forget iron sixes, they weigh a ton and would ruin the turn-in. All those Sylvias out there are what you want, turboed 2litre 4cyls... Unless you want to do a Mos and use the all-alloy Lexus V8! :D

Spray some WD40 or CRC along the manifold gasket top and unfortunately underneath as well. It will momentarily block the leak and the engine will suddenly run smooth. Do it when its cold so you can get under the exhaust manifold. I suppose you could try undoing all the manifold bolts a turn and re-tightening them to pull it up straight first. Good luck, mine chuffs out the exhaust port somewhere...

Tricky- one time we had that was when the condensor had broken off and was hanging on its wire- it fired or missed depending on when it lay on the engine! But yeah, replace the condensor as a starting point. Check all the wires leading to the dizzy & coil with a voltmeter as you wiggle them. An internal break will cause intermittent missing as the wire moves. Check the wire inside the dizzy as it leads to the points too. You might have a carb problem, dirt under the float valve will flood it to misfire, or does it lean out from something under a valve in the fuel pump & low fuel pressure. The fuel filter should stop any fibres getting into those places, but funny things happen. Good luck, it will be interesting to hear the outcome.

Foam-filling the rails adds stiffness, we used to do it to the rally cars. They never lasted long enough to see if it caused rust after 10years... If you want to see how the rails flex, cut the roof off!