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filling number 1 up with chocolate and handing him over to the mother-in-law for the afternoon.

Looks like I'll be cleaning seats this week/end... 2 x Recaro SR3's with fold forward leavers on the backrests.

Not many of these around... http://www.trademe.co.nz/motors/specialist-cars/competition-cars/auction-912094540.htm

All in the interest of doing it once, doing it right - I'm a raging perfectionist. Bloody expensive personality trait, hopefully pays off!

don't get me started on cat deletes; catalytic converters are the good things that convert the carcinoegenic output of our modern unleaded fuel into 'safe' polutants. deleting them from the emissions controls systems certainly gives a quick power gain. it's the low-brow approach; take the road less travelled! For something we drive daily, adding uncontrolled emissions of carcinogens into the atmosphere that our families/friends/colleagues/countrymen breath is questionable. Race cars - sure, go ahead. /rant

Yep i am

I think a modest 500-600bhp would suffice for the school run.

Made a bit of progress on weekend. Mezzanine / clean room for engines and parts

Okay bitch. Feel guilty!

Will be doing the same again tomorrow whilst most people are at work ?

Dont happen to have a spare set of those do ya? Haha

Passenger side just about don, just sanding and under coating,

^^^^ Yep not sure why the powers that be haven't made it manditory to maintain them if OEM fitted by now - considering the emissions requirements on vehicle imports now. And yes - there will be a drone when deleting cats with a piece of pipe in place of.

Make it solid so you start cracking the subframe, that is always fun.

Will be on the phone tomorrow morning to Ron Enrights, hopefully they can sort me out. Being a proper indy shop they don't open weekends so I've been in limbo until they open in the morning Don't know if Enrights are a distributor in their own right or just a reseller of Apex. Given they're a standalone outfit thats been around since Adam was a sperm I'm hoping they import their stock themselves. My biggest issue is lack of purchase documentation - I've shifted house twice since I bought it and have not the faintest idea where the receipt might have gone. Have had impeccable after sales support from them in the past though - with a little luck they can match the serial to their paperwork The Digitech one from jay car really is horrible, I can only liken it to trying to solder with a heated sledgehammer. Have burnt myself three times already, never even scorched hairs with the Pyropen!

That kind of power is only useful for doing burnouts Then again I could see you doing such when out for coffee in Ponsonby DO IT

Apex Tool Group are the Australasian distributors represented by Digi-Key here in NZ. Apex Au have a Warranty statement (pdf) on their web site. Perhaps you could try one of those leads if you haven't already? I know your pain, I love my Weller.

I have no idea what this guy is saying , but I can understand his excitement. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5eDq2PWF1E he near shits himself when it starts up

Yep, I think I phrased badly in the earlier post. It's designed to disengage the compressor if the RPM is more than 20% out from engine to stop it f***ing the engine if the compressor seizes (and therefore stops the water pump working).

For street use I'd advise against solid bushes. Great for the track, but that's about it. Uprated bushes will transmit more road vibration into the car... Perhaps not enough to matter but that's a personal taste thing. Poly bushes - yes, but perhaps stay with stock or marginally increased hardness. Poly bushes won't wear as quickly as stock rubber.

So i had a radiator re-cored for the e21 about 15 years ago, been in storage since, i install it this morning and it @#$/^& leaks! Why cant sh1t just last forever!!!

Ohhh, nice work bud! Coming along just fine. Must pop out and see you and the E30 again soon!

Might have cost you $15 at a machine shop but at least you'll have two units now. And, as you now understand, VANOS parts are hard to come by in NZ and now you have a near complete second unit to part out to other lost souls!

Might just be the car battery getting old. These cars start turning features off when the battery gets weaker so that the car remains drive-able. I think the region thing is just coding, not hardware. Look up how to change it, might not be as bad as you think. Getting NZ maps will be more work through.

New gearbox in the e30. Even got the reverse lights to work. Gearbox is smooth as butter, I used redline shockproof gear oil and changed my diff oil too. Used castrol axle 90 for lsd diffs. That lsd goodness. Took the e30 for a long drive. After almost two months of no driving the battery was actually gone with the wind. 8 year old battery too so not bad. Rang my old man up and he brought me a new battery from the shop so I could get going. Nothing like a cruise with the top down on a hot summers night

And installed...................

VTNZ passed my old E36 that had badly flogged lower arm bushes and front balljoints. They also passed my Prelude which had its front crossmember lower than 100mm and no cert. I dont have much faith in their inspections.

I think my main concern is to find someone that actually knows what the tolerance for wear and play are on older vehicles. As the VIRM states, all these items are vehicle specific and as a result also age specific. For example a car from 2015 may have a worn steering rack if there is play of more than 5 degrees in the steering wheel as this may be outside of the manufactures tolerances, meanwhile a car for the 1980's may have play of 15 degrees in the steering wheel but may be acceptable as this is still within manufactures tolerances. If the tech. were to hold everything to the same standards and was not aware of the vehicle specific tolerances than a perfectly safe car would fail.

Went to take it for a burn up the drive the other week and with any revs it would die and stop, and get worse the warmer it got. Found an intermittent cam shaft sensor issue, found the cam sensor wire had partially come out when I had been doing the wheel sensors. All running sweet again, time for more tinkering and get out on the track more often

in a parallel universe, friendly beers are asking on the forums if they are fans of dave...