Austarion

Modifying the crossmember and actually bolting the rack in will be the easy part i reckon, It'll be modifying the steering column, gettig it connected to the rack, and leaving enough clearance for exhaust components that'll be the hard part...

When I do start work on it in earnest I'll put all the info I gather up on the interwebz for people to try and make sense of.

Got my drag link back this evening, got new ignition leads today. Have finished mounting the s13 alloy radiator. Will make up alloy radiator pipes tomorrow, find a thermo-fan switch with a 3/8 gas thread (hmmm, hope i will anyway). That should be everything to have it running again all nice and (hopefully) reliably for the trip to the OS nats :)

Epic work going here Zac good stuff. Wheels look amazing!

Cheers bro.

Uni has kicked into high gear now, so I've lost all my starion time, will have to wait a week or so till I can finish off a few wee jobs and get it going again. S13 radiator fits awesomely though, even found an easily available top radiator hose that fits perfectly, and the bottom hose was easy to make an adaptor for. Will get that beaded tomorrow and weld to the radiator on the weekend. Found a thermo switch with a 3/8 gas thread too that fits where the vacuum switch goes on some starions. Being before the thermostat is less than ideal, but should still work. I've chosen a slightly higher temp range to account.

ProZac wrote:Cheers bro.

Uni has kicked into high gear now, so I've lost all my starion time, will have to wait a week or so till I can finish off a few wee jobs and get it going again. S13 radiator fits awesomely though, even found an easily available top radiator hose that fits perfectly, and the bottom hose was easy to make an adaptor for. Will get that beaded tomorrow and weld to the radiator on the weekend. Found a thermo switch with a 3/8 gas thread too that fits where the vacuum switch goes on some starions. Being before the thermostat is less than ideal, but should still work. I've chosen a slightly temp range to account.

Yeah man I'm hearing you there haha! Very cool to hear your upgrading the radiator, when I first drove mine back from Taurunga when I got it even on low load and the AC cranking the needle went well up. Like I said when we had the meetup, the starion has very little opening for cooling at the front and when you add a intercooler, oil cooler, AC radiator and then the engine radiator, its starting to get a bit tight for cold air haha. Have you still got your AC? I would love to get rid of mine but it works so well. Do you have any pics of the fitments and what it looks like in general?

Nah, the AC had been removed before I got it alas, would have been nice to have it working, but I can live without it.

Will get some pics up for sure.

Uni has been kicking my ass the last week or so, many many hours spent there.

But some spent on the Starion too :)

Fitted a cheapy alloy radiator originally destined for an SR20 powered S13. Had to weld on a couple of brackets and use cap-head screws as it was a pretty tight fit. Ended up looking quite sweet though. Found a top radiator hose that fit perfectly (89-90 V6 Pajero apparently) and made an alloy bend to meet up to the stock lower hose. Just need to bead it and weld it to the outlet. Replicated the stock lower support setup, but to fit this radiator. Covered the section that touches the radiator in rubber-foam to allow for expansion and what-not. All in all its a good swap to do to a Starion, and was cheaper than getting the factory radiator re-cored. There is a 14" thermofan to go on aswell.







Got my draglink back from HBI all rebuilt. Installed with new inner and outer tie-rods too. Will take for a wheel alignment very soon. Replaced the lower ball joints while I was at it as one was shagged.



The thermofan and the fog-lights need relays. Made a little tree for them that sits away nice and tidy. I like this style or relay with an in-built fuse, makes things super-easy. Left space for another to be added later for future modding goodness.



I gave it a touch more slam, just to see how it looks. While I had the wheels off I fitted the hub-centric rings and wheel-nuts the supplier finally came through with. Also noticed that the wheel flanges do have cut-outs offset to the four stud holes, so I can run 15mm bolt on spacers on the front. This will certainly require some guard rolling action, but will mean the tyre now completely clears the strut (it *just* touches at the moment, like by 0.1mm.) Will run 25mm spacers on the rear to make it match the front, and should look pretty sweet. Will order those tomorrow as they'll have to be custom made for the mitsy 67.1 hub locator and the wheels 73.1 inner bore.



The rear still needs to settle, that's straight off the jack. Will see if its drive-able like this, otherwise I'll put it back up to where it was.

You still going to put the factory 3 piece spoiler on it? Would look super sweet!

Yup, for sure, I do love them 3 pieces.

I've got one sitting in the garage at the moment that I bought from someone off here, via trademe... The rear section has been cut in half though, to make the shipping from america bearable apparently. It has the central stop light though, which is what I really wanted, as the one I have coming form the UK doesn't.

As a note to anyone fitting a three piece spoiler with the stop light, the rear hatch struts each have 3 electrical contacts. Two of these are grounds, so what I plan to do is beef up the ground wiring and just run one contact as a ground, then re-appropriate the spare contact for the signal wire for the spoiler stop light.

Nice work man :beer Ive got similar radiator in mine with 2x12" fans, and a draglink rebuilt by HBI. Was super stoked with the drag link esp the price!

Yeah man. They did my a cashy deal, so I wont put up the price here, but it made it well-worth it!

Got the engine bay back together enough after uni today to try starting it, started right up first pop! Sweet! I typically get the dizzy out a tooth first try, but all was good this time :) Will set idle and timing tomorrow, remove the splash guards and take it for a wee drive to see how the suspension is.

Its alive! :)

100k's so far today, and counting. Seems water and oil-tight.

teething issues:

Tyre/Guard clearance. Have rolled the fronts this afternoon, and seems to have sorted that. The rear isn't as bad, but will roll those as well. Will certainly be interesting once I have the spacers on there...

The thermo switch I used is too low of a temperature. Its before the thermostat (not ideal), in the 3/8gas threaded hole right under the thermostat, pointing out of the bottom of the intake manifold. Thus the thermofan is constantly on once the car is up to temperature. I'll either try a higher temp switch if one is available, or find another thermostat housing and build up and alloy lug with weld, then tap it for a thermo switch. Anyone know what the switching temps of the factory ones are?

The good:

All the gauges now work properly! With the right oil pressure sender in there, and actually having a thermostat installed, its showing good oil pressure and temp on the gauges :). Ammeter and Fuel gauge are doing their thing too :).

The D2's are fricken awesome to drive on. Just a little firmer than factory stuff, and no bounce at all. Did a bit of open road driving today and it was a real pleasure, just smooooooth sailing :).

The steering is much better with all the new bits. Still has that vague power assisted box feeling, but has much less slop. The box is pretty leaky, but hopefully it wont be staying around too long.

The slight miss is used to have when cruising along at 2.5-3.5k rpms is gone. I suspect it was a leaky 'something' in the emissions system. All the emissions stuff is in the bin now, and it does a heap better. Returns to idle much faster, and idles a lot smoother also.

I love this car, I don't think I've ever enjoyed owning a car as much! Must hold on to this feeling and remember it when something just isnt going right with it, hah.

Rolled the rear arches today. Took quite a bit of force as it's double skinned, but made a nice job of it in the end. Lowered it some more, gave it a wash, and went for a drive. No scrubbing at all now, drives really nicely, feels awesome.

Apologies for the phone pics. Didn't actually mean to go for a drive up the hills, but it just happened to be where I ended up, hah.

hmm I may be upgrading my radiator to one of those cheapy ones soon as well. How much yours set you back?

Just on $200. Was $220 to have the factory one re-cored. This one seems to do a great job though. Doesn't have as much thermal mass as a stock one, but can scrub off heat much quicker. Meaning that as long as you have a fan it's fine, but if you don't have adequate airflow, it'll overheat pretty quickly, as there is no extra thermal mass to give any head-room.

It looks pretty though.