Wi RoZ

I wish.
Nissan SUV just suddenly appeared overnight with an absolutely shredded R/R tire. Just a key. No note, not call, no information at all in the vehicle. They called at noon "is it done?" Is what done? "my car" Which car? "the nissan?" Which Nissan? "the one with the tire!" ...No it's not done, who are you? "I'm the owner, it's supposed to be done this morning!" We open at 9, you called at noon "No you're 24 hours!" No no we are not open 24 hours "The tow was taking it to a 24 hours for my tire" Even if we were open 24 hours we would have had no way to get a hold of you to approve repairs or tell you if the wheel is bent. "My wheel is bent?!?" We haven't looked at it yet. "why not! It's been there all night!" We weren't open, we had no contact information, we don't touch anything without owner permission. "so I gotta pay another hunded n fifty to tow it somewhere 24 hours!" We can look at it but we need your information and we do charge a diag fee to look at it. "look at what? it's just a tire you can see that" Sir the tire is shredded and bare wheel is touching the ground, you drove on it flat we don't know if you damaged the wheel, tire pressure sensor, suspension, etc. "I DID NOT DROVE ON IT FLAT"
 
On and on like that. As she's wrapping up the call like 15 minutes later "so how much the warranty pay for it?" Excuse me? "my warranty, I got warranty on it" Ok which company, what's your contract number, and what's the claim dept number? "I don't know just tell me how much they gonna pay" *she explains how a warranty claim works* "so its gonna be done before you close?"
At this point she's getting a little red in the face with this guy. Told him that it would take up to 48 hours for the claims process with the warranty company to go through and we couldn't start until we had the needed information. Guy hangs up but we had permission to at least look at the car.
 
So onto fuck up #2. Tell newbie to pull it in, take the wheel off, spin it on the balancer by hand to check for bends and make sure all 4 TPMS work. New guy dismounts the shredded tire. We need that rack for an alignment. I ask him if anyone told him to take the tire off the rim and after a long pause "uhhhh....no?" We have exactly ONE 18" tire, it's a low profile with a VERY hard sidewall we use to set engines and transmissions on. I help newbie mount it on the wheel so we can clear the rack. Car looks like when you put the tiniest wheels on in Mario Kart.
 
It's now several hours later after lunch. Owner calls in with warranty info, call claims, claims needs tread depth on the shredded tire, depth is acceptable, they pay for one tire. Won't pay for the two bald tires up front at I shit you now 2/32nds. Told front desk if they want to be a dick call the cops to ticket him for bald tires, that's illegal in our state. Front desk says they'll see how the guy is when he picks up. Guy of course only gets the single tire that warranty pays for. Fuck it, Nissan AWD can handle 3 tires with different tread depths, not my problem.

On your own? Youtube has some great channels.
 
As a profession? Do something else.

Not the prettiest car around, but I'm proud of it. Apart from the tint, wheels, and lights, I haven't done much to it (yet)

Not car related but a 5 hour hike with a view is so rewarding
 

Engine swap comin along nicely. Still workin on wiring and things like AC. Couple more pics in spoiler below to not spam. Also Rims came out lookin NICE.
 

 

My grandad has been working on his Ford Starliner for 5 years, he's finally done! Not sure of the year. 
 

DreamBike:
Britten V1000
Actual Work Car:
French is all I will say here.
Hobby car: Silver 1991 Nissan 300ZX Twin Turbo Euro version (I live in Holland).
Dream car: Light Car Company (no, Jay is not part of the dream package here, if only 😉

 

I had to do some investigating to find out who made the 53 engine but I knew it wasnt PSA haha

She aint much, but she's mine 💙

That is a nice looking ST 🙂

So after four years running an OTS tune that came with the tuner, I finally went out and bought a specific tune for the ST. Highway cruises have been plagued recently with persistent BOV pressure releases once every second while going uphill, so I figured it's time to get something specific to the exact setup I have 

So, the last weekend was a whirlwind of activity for me. I did the following to my Baja turbo:
 
Oil change
Checked my exhaust bolts
New wiper blades
Pulled the gauge cluster 7 times and replaced every bulb in the cluster with LED's, except for the Battery Charge lamp and Brake lamp (they require incandescent bulbs)
Pulled the Cruise, Fog light, and Bed Light switches (next to the cluster), and replaced all 5 bulbs in it
Installed a new to me fog light housing on the driver's side, and put 3,500k Halogen bulbs in both housings
Removed the trim from the lift gate and replaced both running light bulbs with LED's in the lift gate
Replaced both rear license plate light bulbs with LED's
Replaced all 4 front turn signal bulbs (I don't know why there's 4 bulbs)
And finally, I rotated my tires.
 
I'm hopefully ready for my trip, now. Every bulb in this thing has been replaced except the low and high beam bulbs, and the third brake light/bed lights, since they apparently are not removable. I think in order to replace one bulb (there's actually only 3 there), you have to replace it as a unit. One thing I hate is that Subaru used Zip Ties when they put a lot of the bulbs in, especially in the rear. I don't think they're necessary... And they make replacing bulbs incredibly difficult. It's almost impossible to even cut the zip ties without damaging the wiring...
 
The next things on my list: Take it to Subaru and have the valve cover gaskets, the oil filter sandwich plate gaskets, the oil softline from the sandwich plate, the oil pan gaskets, crank seal, cam seals, oil pump, and any other misc seals on the front of the motor replaced. After that will be a full 3" turbo back exhaust, a skid plate (the stock plastic skid plate ate shit and died), and a set of A/T tires. I'll probably be grabbing some 17" Crosstrek or Impreza wheels, and putting some UHP summer tires on... Then there's the 'major surgery', where I will be removing the TGV's, intake manifold, intercooler, turbo, turbo inlet, turbo Elbow, fuel injectors, fuel rails, and other misc crap on top of the engine, and replacing most, if not all, of it with better stuff. TGV's will be deleted, and the 535cc side feed injectors replaced with 565cc top feed injectors and matching fuel rails, and the turbo inlet will be replaced with an aluminum aftermarket unit. I'm not sure about the turbo itself... I'll probably be running a Mishimoto intercooler. And uh... Throttle body will remain stock.
 
And finally: It needs a repaint. >_> No more two tone!

@techswededont forget 😛

@RTX 3090 Because they're more or less forced upon us. I like em, but nothing beats a RWD lightweight manual for me

@RTX 3090 Because they're more or less forced upon us. I like em, but nothing beats a RWD lightweight manual for me

Woow, fantastic pic !!!1 Great !!

How about a job so you could pay for it yourself? 😜

You are correct! Yesterday I chose to keep the bike. I wasn't worried about rewiring it but the unknown of not knowing what else got fried during the overload. The main trick to this bike now is the wiring harness is discontinued. So that leaves me getting an aftermarket wiring harness kit or finding a used online. I figured its going to cost in the 1200-1500 range to get this back to normal conditions and seeing what else needs to be replaced. We shall see!

I just..... 

K20 weighs 124 kg / 275 lbs dry, while the 18K4K weighs 97 kg / 214 lbs wet, with clutch and flywheel. If I recall correctly the K20 with clutch, flywheel and fluids weighs 150-something kg. That would a be 50-60 kg difference.
 
The VVC mechanism is indeed prone to rattle IF the wrong oil is used. The only oil that the mechanism feels happy with is 10W40 semi-synth. Long story short it's because of the alleged better hydraulic capabilities of semi-synth and the correct thickness of 10W40. Non VVC engines run just as happy on 5W30 full synthetic. 
 
Other problems of earlier K-series are the reverse layout of the cooling system and plastic dowels to keep the head in place. Other engines where torqued down with the wrong torque settings in the factory. My current engine is a 2004 which has all of these problems addressed. 
 
The liners are of the floating type (open deck) and should be machine pressed into their sealing. Steel liners can handle 3x the stress that the OEM iron ones can but have slightly different expansion rates if I'm correct. 
 
Another thing that is important is the way the engine supports itself. It has a block and ladder frame to support the crank and a bolt-through design, meaning that the bolts go straight through the cam-carriers, the head, the block and the ladder, locking them together. These bolts have a very specific metallurgy and should be torqued down to exactly 64 Nm, bringing them to their yield point. That is because at that point they will stretch along with the heat cycles of the block thus having less mechanical stress. 
 
That is Formula 1 engineering, and that's one of the reasons the K is so special. 
 
It's just a widely misunderstood jewel of an engine haunted by budget cuts and stupid engineering decisions (mainly by tuners). 
 
End of K-series 101, class dismissed 😋
 
EDIT
 
The factory liners are pretty freaking strong already. Some journalist in England managed to overspin a K-series in a Caterham to a data-logged 16.000 RPM. One liner split. Most of the time liner (and headgasket) problems come from a wrong stand-proud, plastic head dowels or non-OEM head bolts.
 
Also a lot of tuned engines are kinda rough. Most of the time it is due to bad balancing. A while back a factory 5.0 L V8 was tested on a dyno, then balanced and blueprinted to race-tolerance and tested again. The result was a 12 bhp increase due to minimizing the internal stress and friction. 
 
Bad balancing is probably also why the dude you mentioned needed a fully forged bottom end. It was necessary to keep up with the vibrations. If he'd just balanced it out he could've just used the stock bottom.
 
In short the K-series was the first truly optimized mass-produced engine that even companies like Caterham and Lotus didn't have the knowledge or experience to properly modify. Lotus for example used a lighter flywheel but kept the original crank pulley. That pulley has an anti-vibration rubber ring in it, carefully designed to work well with the crank and the original flywheel. Add a lighter flywheel, and that rubber might actually start doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

K20 weighs 124 kg / 275 lbs dry, while the 18K4K weighs 97 kg / 214 lbs wet, with clutch and flywheel. If I recall correctly the K20 with clutch, flywheel and fluids weighs 150-something kg. That would a be 50-60 kg difference.
 
The VVC mechanism is indeed prone to rattle IF the wrong oil is used. The only oil that the mechanism feels happy with is 10W40 semi-synth. Long story short it's because of the alleged better hydraulic capabilities of semi-synth and the correct thickness of 10W40. Non VVC engines run just as happy on 5W30 full synthetic. 
 
Other problems of earlier K-series are the reverse layout of the cooling system and plastic dowels to keep the head in place. Other engines where torqued down with the wrong torque settings in the factory. My current engine is a 2004 which has all of these problems addressed. 
 
The liners are of the floating type (open deck) and should be machine pressed into their sealing. Steel liners can handle 3x the stress that the OEM iron ones can but have slightly different expansion rates if I'm correct. 
 
Another thing that is important is the way the engine supports itself. It has a block and ladder frame to support the crank and a bolt-through design, meaning that the bolts go straight through the cam-carriers, the head, the block and the ladder, locking them together. These bolts have a very specific metallurgy and should be torqued down to exactly 64 Nm, bringing them to their yield point. That is because at that point they will stretch along with the heat cycles of the block thus having less mechanical stress. 
 
That is Formula 1 engineering, and that's one of the reasons the K is so special. 
 
It's just a widely misunderstood jewel of an engine haunted by budget cuts and stupid engineering decisions (mainly by tuners). 
 
End of K-series 101, class dismissed 😋
 
EDIT
 
The factory liners are pretty freaking strong already. Some journalist in England managed to overspin a K-series in a Caterham to a data-logged 16.000 RPM. One liner split. Most of the time liner (and headgasket) problems come from a wrong stand-proud, plastic head dowels or non-OEM head bolts.
 
Also a lot of tuned engines are kinda rough. Most of the time it is due to bad balancing. A while back a factory 5.0 L V8 was tested on a dyno, then balanced and blueprinted to race-tolerance and tested again. The result was a 12 bhp increase due to minimizing the internal stress and friction. 
 
Bad balancing is probably also why the dude you mentioned needed a fully forged bottom end. It was necessary to keep up with the vibrations. If he'd just balanced it out he could've just used the stock bottom.
 
In short the K-series was the first truly optimized mass-produced engine that even companies like Caterham and Lotus didn't have the knowledge or experience to properly modify. Lotus for example used a lighter flywheel but kept the original crank pulley. That pulley has an anti-vibration rubber ring in it, carefully designed to work well with the crank and the original flywheel. Add a lighter flywheel, and that rubber might actually start doing the opposite of what it's supposed to do.

Ah yes, don't forget your cabin filter. Those weird smells I sometimes experience in customers' cars...

With the softtop:

 
Got a lot of plans for it as well 😋, doubt it will ever come to it though. Dream big right? Here's a list of things I ultimately want to do to it:
 
Buy a second engine and make that as strong as possible without increasing the weight too much.  Forged or milled crankshaft Lightweight forged pistons, somewhat lower compression More aggressive cams Uprated bearings Uprated liners/sleeves Uprated oil rail Uprated MLS headgasket Uprated bolts and other fittings Lighter flywheel Reflowed head  Some other things Rebalance the built engine to F1 tolerances Different intake Bigger exhaust system with a sportscat Aftermarket ECU Increase rev-limit to about 9000 or maybe even 10.000 RPM Better fuel pump, injectors, etc. Add a Rotrex centrifugal supercharger Tune the VVC mechanism (continuously variable valve timing on the intake) to keep driving the car comfortable at low RPM while maintaining torque at high RPM Quaife 6-speed manual gearbox with Torsen LSD (they also got a 6-speed dog ring, but I doubt that'll be comfy while cruising on a sunny sunday afternoon) Uprated clutch At that point also fatter tyres with wider rims. That should give it around 350-400 BHP on civilized boost levels with a slight weight increase.
 
If dreams come true I'll lose my license. And my savings. And my car if it ever decides to snap-oversteer again...

I think the best way of making 350-400bhp without increasing weight would probably entail swapping the K-Series for something a bit burlier. Plenty of people do hot Cosworth Duratecs, VW 2.0Ts or supercharged K20s in the Elise or Exige, you could always go that way.
 
I know a couple of people who have built hot K-Series for various uses and they've always been lengthy tales of heartache. One guy has just finished rebuild 3 with a fully forged short block and a twin-scroll Garrett turbo, it's making circa 340bhp and 300lb/ft in its current tune and by all accounts running great but it's been a very long and extremely expensive journey there...