License plate holder

Maladar built me a license plate holder!

I bought some aluminium and Maladar (using magic, I don't think there is any other way) put together a really beautiful plate holder.

We had to saw my license plate slightly, it was full 2cm too tall to fit nicely in the right spot, so now I have a modified (modified = illegal => I will get 2 years of electric chair if I get caught) license plate (letters and numbers still intact) and constant fear of police figuring out what we have done. The point in the modifying was to make it look like the lower part is behind some plastic, and I think we succeeded well, because I did a random blind test with a friend of mine. He thought it really was behind the plastic thingy, until I showed him.

Consequences are easy to get around. I just need to tell the police, that I didn't know it was illegal to modify the plate and promise to get a new one, it costs something like 20 euros.

We saw some hares. :)

Suspension, bushings, swaybars and motor mounts

Took some pictures from the underside. My biggest suspect this time was the front motor bushing which looks a bit tired. It might be the source of this weird boiling kind of noise I've had for some time. (It might be the exhaust seal between header and downpipe, but I'm not a automotive engineer...)

While at it, I took some measures of the sway bars. Rear one was 14,5mm and front sway bar was 18mm. Measures taken, because I saw thicker ones on Whiteline's web page. Whiteline has 20mm front and 18mm rear.

I think I need to replace every bushing in the car. The AW11 has about three bushings in the whole car, so its not that expensive. (actually, its more like 12 bushings in the whole car... now, on the other hand, Nissan Silvia S13 has something like two thousand) :D

Also, I took pictures of suspension links and everything, even catalysator and that mystery connector, which I think is the catalysator warning light wire. Its on the second picture from the top, the green connector near the sway bar.

I ordered brake rebuild kits and some supercharger oil directly from Toyota, but haven't heard anything from that direction since, and it was TWO WEEKS AGO!

Waaaah, do I need to call them again?

AEM EMS

I got the AEM EMS. The connectors are exactly as they should be.

Also, I've been checking the wiring and it seems that I only need to move 3 wires to get this work with AW11.

Random pictures

Nighttime excursion to the old oil harbour and a beauty shot of MR2

Installing Pivot Gauges

I was looking the wires behind the gauge cluster when I suddenly realized that the wires behind cd player had everything for the Pivot gauges.

I took the cd player off the console and removed the car <-> iso adapter. Then I cut the wires and soldered the first Pivot "server" to the adapter wires and daisychained the second "server".

Electricity part worked, but what about the pressure tube? The package had a short tube, but obiviously it was for a car with front engine. I had some old rubber tube in the engine compartment from the previous Defi installation, and I managed to connect the old tubing to the Pivot's.

The water temp sensor was bit harder one. Maladar suggested that we should take a part (I forgot which one) to the metal works shop and get it drilled and threaded. I'm still looking for a blocked hole or something from the engine, but it is starting to look that there isn't any.

Drilling the coolant tubing (the idiot install) is out of the question, but I'm considering one of these

Oil Change

Oil change at 96848km.

This time, Maladar recommended using some engine flush, so I bought a bottle of STP's. I had no idea whatsoever what to expect of this stuff, so I read the instructions through multiple times before pouring the liquid in.

Instructions were very specific that the engine flush stayed only 15 minutes inside the engine, so I was looking my watch just about every other minute.

Seconds before the 15 minutes was full, the engine made a squealing sound, exactly like supercharger belt slipping. Maladar said that I should check the belt tension and tighten everything.

Well, after I got the new oil in the engine (Valvoline MAX LIFE 10W-40), everything ran smoothly. No belt noise or anything. No idea where the noise came. Later I tried to push the car a bit, but nothing.

Yeah, now I'm running one of those MagPower oil filters. The old Blitz one I had, was stuck. Oil filter key set to the rescue!

Maladar's picture

Pretty nice picture, taken with cell phone!

Maladar took this while we were checking out the old oil harbour area.