Your car is an amazing peice of work KWIKXR.. but I cannot stand those wheels :\ they make the car look really funny. It might just be the paint colour though.

Hahaha cheers mate! Yeah the wheels are a bit of a love/hate thing, I didn't think they'd suit it well at first but they've definitely grown on me.

I'll probably get some decent wheels for it eventually though, the price for decent 16" tyres is quite ridiculous

brakes/suspension looks the good's. nice ride height too. well the front, back needs to go down and invest in jack. cam/head next? been real nice here, high 20's. but bloody hot in garage

16" tyres are rediculous. 17's 18's are a better price, but i kinda like 50 profile

Cheers Troy. Yeah, the rear will be getting sorted no doubt about it. Cam and head swap will be happening soon, probably not tomorrow as we're due for some heavy rain according to the weather forecast. The wind is really starting to pick up now so I'd say the forecast is fairly accurate this time

I think 18's would be the biggest I'd go, mainly because it makes the brakes look stupidly small with anything bigger. Not really too keen on big a** wheels anyways and would like to have some sidewall. I've seen a few decent 17"/18" wheels in e-series offset, so depending on how things go next year, new wheels may be on the cards

I wouldn't recommend going over 18's. The ride comfort on mine has already dropped a bit from switching from 15's and any more would just be damn uncomfortable.

Bro those rotors look slick man, so tough looking... I think my mont just went a little greener

I hardly ever see dimpled finish, or atleast usually is the case with most Jap Imports im used too hahaha always drilled which compromise rotor strength/life Iv heard? or maybe thats just the home job drilled?

I do have a love and hate thing when I view your thread, whilst its always an enjoyable read and full of good ideas/innovation it also makes it harder for me to not mod my car lol.

Hey bro - You got my brake rotors after all. They're primo man.... Good luck with them.

First time I ever had to use them was doing about 140km/h when I decided I should have taken the turn off the highway after all (at about 2am near Napier). I was thinking I'd stop and reverse (rather than stop and three point turn as I would have before fitment...) Not only did I slow fast enough to actually take the 90 degree corner, but I had time to think that if there was anything up my butt they just would have so lost their radiator to my tow ball.....


Glad to see you got the DDS over the crude variation I am fitting now mine are worn to nothing... Photos soon. Have a laugh.



Good stuff matey, as per normal.

Hey Fiend, cheers mate!!

Yeah those DDS rotors work pretty well! Not that I've tested them that thoroughly but the initial bite they have when you put your foot on the brake pedal is miles ahead compared to the Bendix pads I had in there before - not the fairest of comparison's, but the CT general's were horrid to say the least. In normal driving conditions, the new Znoelli brakes work mint


Hahahahahaha!! Hearing something like that is very re-assuring though, especially when you drive on South Auckland roads. I'm constantly on the brake pedal trying to avoid accident's all the time with idiots pulling out in front of each other, changing lane without bothering to indicate or check if there is someone beside them in the lane they are swerving over to etc.

Well, seems the ride height has dropped a tad more overnight.. It's ever so slightly tucking tread now without me in the car, thank god the suspension is pretty stiff so it doesn't drop too much when I hop in lol..


This is my ground clearance up front.. Not a lot! Currently the bottom of the secondary pipes on the extractors are measuring in at almost bang on 100mm from the ground. The swaybar is measuring in at about 95mm from the ground.


Got one quote today for King Ultralow's, $260 rear pair delivered to my door. Wasn't expecting to pay that much, but the upside is this guy has them in stock so I might have to give in, unless someone can better that. Anyways, hopefully once the rear end gets lowered more, the front will raise up a touch and bring me back to legal ride height

Managed to get the head assembled today, so it's all ready to go now.



Looks like the rain is slowly starting to move away and the skies are clearing up

Started working on another rocker cover yesterday, yes another one

My AU one has a fairly decent chip in the front corner thanks to me and a mishap with a 3/8 drive ratchet . Was just going to repaint it with VHT gloss black, but I'm kinda over it, thought I leave it off and maybe try colour matching it in Heritage green later on down the track.

Was putting away some stuff in the garage and stumbled upon my old green powdercoated cover from way back . It was supposedly heritage green according to the colour chart I chose it from, but it's clearly not, looks more like the factory LPG green rocker covers that Ford use The powdercoat was still mint, but it wasn't sanded smooth after being sandblasted/before coating so there was a few casting imperfections visible.

Thought I'd lightly sand the powdercoat back and make use of it.


Decided to try blue since I've used almost every other decent colour (green, red, black). I've had good success with Duplicolor Metalcast so I went that route again. This time I tried to get a bit more a smoother finish happening, and did a very light sand after every coat of groundcoat and after laying down the first 2 light coats of colour.

Duplicolor Metalcast Groundcoat (about 3 full coats all up)


After 4 or 5 coats of the Duplicolor Metalcast Blue (did 2 very light coats, wet sanded, followed up by one medium coat, then 2 heavy coats). Finished it off with 2 quick coats of Duplicolor clear enamel just for a bit more shine.



Seemed to get a pretty decent finish, not perfect, but a lot smoother than the other covers I've done previously. The colour isn't too bad either, it almost looks like a typical gloss blue at first, but once a bit of light hits it, the metal flake in the groundcoat comes through.


Just need to wait for the paint to cure (will probably hit it with the heatgun from underneath the cover to try help this), sand back the lettering, then give it a quick once over with some wax to give it a bit more protection and shine.

Not sure how well it'll contrast with heritage green bay, but it should brighten the place up a bit. Should go well with the rest of the blue highlights anyways. Might end up doing the throttlebody to match, and possibly the lower intake manifold if I have enough left in the can, although I'll probably just spray it in aluminium paint.

___________________________________________________________________________

Happy New Year to all!! All the best for 2012

Got home and block sanded the lettering back. What a f**k mission after you've spent an afternoon putting back more than a few cold ones lol. Turned out okay, but forgot that I also had to sand through powdercoat to get back to bare alloy so it took a while.

Overall, it turned out pretty nice, fairly smooth and has heaps of shine. Not bad for a spray can jobbie. Just wish I spent more time with the prep work, filing down the dags around the lower edges of the cover, and getting the surface dead smooth instead of trying to use the groundcoat to high fill the small marks. Oh well, maybe next time..

The duplicolor metalcast stuff is pretty awesome to work with. With this particular blue, it looks like a deep greeny-blue under low light, then really pop's as soon as the light hits it and looks almost like electric blue. Gave it a once over with some Meguiars Deep Crystal wax, looks much better, still hard to photograph though.

The finish on that rocker cover is fantastic mate ! I am very impressed !

(Your disks in 100,000km...!)

Anyways - What valve springs did you put on the new head? I've been finding the XR6 springs a bit slack with the ground 1673 cam at high revs. Makes nice flames out exhuast, but that's not really what I am aiming for. Sister sent me $100 MTA vouchers, and the DYNO place out the Hutt has an MTA MEMBER sign up.... Chortle......



Want to go halves in one of Jasons (T.I.Performance) programmers for the computer?
Seriously.


Is that really a 30mm swaybar in the front? In the photos it looks smaller than mine - mine have no nolathane between bar and clamp... Well... It does have some. Paper thin most of the way around and totally worn to metal on metal in places. Unless, of course, you have aftermarket clamps holding the sway bar on (of course!)



And hey - I was just up at mates Butlers and he's been dropping me hints again. Like the half cleaned back to alloy rocker cover that was down the back of his garage under cover is now trashed as he's thrown it out in the rain in the metal recycling pile.

a**.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =436710045

Hey dude, the picture doesn't seem to be showing up?

Those springs and retainers were some Crower items from the USA. Part number is Crower '68315' for the springs and Crower '87049' for the matching retainers which you need as the standard items are too loose. The retainers are chromoly so are heaps stronger and the springs are about 30lb heavier than stock springs, this shows with how much more effort it takes trying to compress them when fitting them .

http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CRO-68315-16/
http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CRO-87049-16/

^^ These are in sets of 16 but I think you can buy them in sets of 12 and 8 IIRC according to the Crower website.

I replaced the valve locks at the same time for peace of mind. They are just a replacement multigroove lock designed for 351 cleveland from memory. Pioneer Performance 'PIOPF620' is the part number I have for the valve locks. Cost me like $10 for a set of 24 (2 per valve obviously) through STA Parts.
http://www4.eaccounts.co.nz/eOrder_v1.a ... num=184769

I managed to get everything through STA Parts up here in Auckland - cost was around $260-$270 from memory for the springs, retainers and locks all up. Sad thing is they only had one set of springs and retainers left on the shelf and I went back to grab another set of each for my other ported head, they said it'll have to order them in specially and the cost would be more. Thought it might be cheaper to just buy direct from US and save having to pay the mark up etc.

Unfortunately there's not a lot of valve spring options available locally for us Kiwi's. The above Crower combo was just something I came up with after doing a s**t of research with measurements and comparing spring rates, installed height, coil bind heights etc.

There's a few other places in NZ that can get Crow springs in from Aussie such as Kiwi Cam's down in Palmerston North and Kelford Cam's down in Christchurch. Kelford Cam's has a set of the XR6 spec springs in stock when I enquired about the late last year. Price was $170+gst for the set of 12 and they work with the standard retainers, but I wanted something a little more uprated so I have a bit of headroom when it comes to higher lift cam options.

Yep, it's definitely a 30mm bar up front . These bushes have a thick locating lip on the outer ends where the bracket sits in between. The actual nolathane material that sits around the bar however would be about 2 or 3mm thick from memory. The factory brackets barely fit around the bushes so I bought some aftermarket Nolathane brackets which are wider and slightly bigger, but are a nice snug fit around the bush.

Hey, those $100 MTA vouchers sound like they'd be best used at the dyno place lol. Do it! Hahaha. Regarding the programmer, yeah mate, I'll be pretty keen to go halves. Although, that would be a fair bit of time away, I'm so strapped for cash at the moment it's not funny. I think I'll be finding myself asking for a lot of overtime at work when I got back in a few weeks time

Bit of progress..

Installed the J3 chip onto the ECU last night, fitted it back in the car, fired her up and everything seems to be running as per normal so that's good. All set for when the cam goes in


Sun decided to come out today so wasted no time starting surgery on the Fairmont..



So far, the top end is all off. Have cleaned up the block and blew out all the head bolt holes so it's pretty much all good to go. Took the old head off complete with rockers, cam etc still attached so just unbolting all that at the moment so I can get it ready to transfer to the new head.

CBF factor has set in quite quickly and I'm already thinking of just leaving the lower intake manifold untouched for now. CBF taking it out, CBF cleaning it up and giving a quick port job, CBF painting it, haha.. We'll see how it goes anyways, might just end up ripping it out tonight..

If everything goes to plan, it'll all be back together tomorrow