The Sergeant

Cheers for the kind words guys.



Its out, and tbh iv been enjoying the hell out of it!

Started ordering parts for it left right and centre, One of the first things i done were split the 2 9j sterns to refurb, i wanted 9j wheels all around and i thought these looked similar to the veilsides so they wouldn't stand apart to much.




I then got abit of a bargain on ebay and got a greddy spec 2 boost controller for fairly cheap.



Im still to wire this in though as i forgot it this weekend.

I then fitted my new sterns and they fill the arches quite nicely, i need a 10mm slip on spacer on both sides and it seems like ill be there, i also tried to roll the rear arches but the design on the inside means you have to flat out quite abit of the inner arch before you even reach the outer lip so i need to figure out a way to do that!




The front came down another 10mm each side but i have no pictures of that.

I also bought 2 14" electric fans as the viscous had to be trimmed quite dramatically to miss hitting anything, so i removed the viscous (big mistake) and fitted one of these.




After wiring that in i let it get upto temp to see if it worked ok, it did, but then yesterday the weather got alot hotter and so did the car, the one fan just didnt cut it, so this weekend ill be removing it to place on the front of the radiator and put the neatened up viscous back on, the other fan will be placed on the back of the intercooler.

 

Cheers neil, much appreciated! Iv read through your thread with great interest too, i love the fab work you put into making the coilovers and the shear dedication to custom work for these old girls, love everything about them!

 

So after a week of running with no viscous and just one slimline electric fan not being man enough, i got to my unit, timmed the viscous up neatly, gave it a paint with satin black and re installed it. I never had any problems with cooling before with the viscous, but it felt a shame to pull of the electric fan, so i took it out, mounted it to the front of the rad and changed the polarity so the fan blows instead of sucks.

I then thought id get the front suspension evened out some more while fitting the 10mm slip on spacers.



I then lowered the rear 10 - 15mm to have all arches even.



While doing this though i realised how disastrous my downpipe is, it has at best 3/4" clearance from the floor, so at work this week ill be fabricating up a new one to tuck away.

I then did various bits and pieces of maintenance and tidying up like re installing the timing belt and spark plug covers.



That's it for today guys, i still have to wire in the boost controller i bought as i just plain couldn't be bothered on Sunday so its still on the to-do list.

 

Cheers guys, yeh as chris said its in banzai this month, yeh man they're veilside splits.

So started on the cage today, basically just wanted to see if i could do it, as a apprentice mechanical engineer i had all the tools, formulas and materials for the job, also im c and g qualified in welding so i thought id go for it.

Only wanted to do the rear half of the cage to start with so i messaged a mate who gave me the BDC regulations for cages, i might not be competing but i just figured if im gonna do it i may as well do it right.

So i measured the rear half of the car and calculated how much pipe i would need plus some extra and ordered that in, i got 1 1/2" OD with a 5mm wall thickeness for the central hoop and 1 1/4" OD with a 5mm wall thickness for the support bars.

I then made a cardboard template of the cage by measuring the height and angles on the bends required following the contours of the car, once i got one half made i mirrored it and cut it out and took it to the car to see how it fitted.

Once i was happy with that i started to bend the pipe.



I basically took every measurement from the template and placed it on the straight bit of pipe, i then put a center line on the pipe bender sleeve and once they were in line started to bend.

I also put a center line on the full length of the pipe (4m) so that if any mistakes happened this one end then i could plus or minus on the other end so they were even.

Anyway after getting the bends all even and square i was left with this.



Maesured it all again to make sure everything was fine and compared it to the template and everything was within the tolerance i set so i was happy!

I then marked it out for cutting and took it to the saw shop.

Came back trimmed down like this.



We then put it in the car to see how it fitted, like a glove, same distances on both sides and its nice and straight!
After that we took it out again so it could be painted and i worked on the support plates but iv got no photos of this!

Ill have more next week guys as ill be welding it in over the week as well as making the support bars!

Cheers guys!

 

Cheers dude.

Well i kinda got caught up in the moment and made the thing without taking pictures during the process

But basically after i made the initial hoop i cut some 5mm thick 5 square inch plates and welded them into position behind the drivers and passengers seat, i then welded the hoop into position.

After that i took measurements for the support bars that lead into the boot and the degrees to bend them too, then when those were in i made a bracing bar to support them.

After that and the plates were welded in and to the main hoop i decided i on what type of diagonal bar i wanted bracing the sides, i did want a cross but with wanting to get things into the boot it would be to impractical so i decided to make a removable bar.

I started by making the taps and 2 bungs to place into the end of the pipe to weld up, after one side was done i put the bar in place inside the cage to see where the tabs could be placed, once i had it in a rough position i tacked it into place and made final alterations before welding it.

This is where im at now.








It still needs painting and a couple of touch up welds but im fairly proud of it.

I need to make a bracing bar to support both sides of the main hoop and a bar between both suspension turrets but thats for when i have some more free time as work has gotten extremely busy yet again.

Ill be at the snetterton test day next week so hopefully i WONT get to test this out, but who knows.

Cheers guys.

 

So, its been a while since I updated this so I'll show you where I'm at right now.

I had my first track day at the Snetterton drift practise day back in October while i loved every minute of it i realised i was way out of my depth and so was the car. The steering lock was standard and on a MA70 its poor at best so that went on the list of things to do.

Power wise it seemed good, it had enough power to maintain a slide but every time i tried a little bit more of an angle it spun out, some of this was also down to the drivers lack of experience.

I also needed to get a oil cooler badly as the oil turned to the same density as water after a few times around the track.

That day really motivated me and lit a fire under my arse to get better and bring my car up to a much better spec.

So i started on the engine mounts.

During the track day the engine sagged fairly badly, so when i put it away a for the winter a few weeks later i checked them out, i discovered 2 destroyed OEM rubber mounts so these needed to be replaced.

I ordered a pair of Vibra-technics drift/road engine mounts as i heard very good things about them.



I started by unbolting the usual rubbish from the engine them gently raising it up enough to slot the new mounts in.



It all went extremely smoothly and the engine settled down on the new mounts nicely.



Its nice to see a even 1jz again.

The next thing on the list was the oil cooler kit, i ordered one with a thermostatic sandwich plate from driftworks and set about fitting it.



This also went fairly smoothly even though access to the fittings on the plate we're fairly restricted but that was due to the tight area near the turrets.





All fitted and plumbed in.

The next main thing on the list is the steering lock, first i machined up some 7mm steering rack spacers but that did'nt seem to be enough so i started to do some research into other ways, the main way i found was the re drill the track rod end receivers on the hubs.

So i ordered a spare pair of hubs and set about re drilling them.



I made the fixture so that i could be sure to get both holes on each hubs even within a couple of thousandths.



Job done, now i'v just got to replace the bearings and get everything put back into place and painted and then i can test them out this weekend.

 

I used a tapered ream mate! I drilled the hole out the same size OD as the top of the original hole and then marked the distance the hand ream fed into the original tapered hole side, i then clamped the hub in a vice and reamed until it got to the mark!

It worked really well and left a beautiful surface finish!