Austarion

Freaking awesome work Zak! That is all

Looks great mate, the wheels and the height are perfect. :D

Holy Smokes, Batman. :)

Kind of a boring update, because I've been doing nothing but drive this car, and I still love it :).

Even when it breaks down, it has the good grace to do it in my driveway... But more on this in a moment.

To make these:

fit properly, I had to do some more of this:

Which was a bit of a learning experience. The guard roller from trademe seem pretty cheap and nasty, but it got the job done. However, not suitable for vehicle with coil-overs and reduced suspension droop. I had to wind the coil-overs to max+ extension to get enough of a gap between the hub and the guard lip to get the roller in there. Will probably cut and shorten the roller for future use I think, as you can extend it while your using it, but its just a tad too long for older cars with smalled arches.

Reading through the factory service manual for an american 2.6 1983 starion, there is mention of a spare terminal being put in the loom for fog-lights. I though I'd have a hunt for it on my japper, just to see if it was the same. I found one end of it by the parklight/indicator plug on the drivers side. Its a lone, unconnected bullet terminal on the end of a red wire with white trace.

While hunting under the dash, I found this plug:

It seemed to have never been plugged into anything. Testing revealed that the red wire with white trace coming front it was the same as the one found by the parklight/indicator plug, score! There is also a ground wire, a constant hot 12v wire, and a wire that supplies 12v only when the lights are turned on. The manual says these wires can support up to 10A, so will be fine for powering the later model fog-lights my car has without a relay. Ahhhhh, I love it when the factory does most of the work for me! Thankyou for your foresight, Mitsubishi! No ugly added wiring for me! Its even the same plug style as commonly available Narve stuff, so all I have to do it make up a loom, put a switch on the end of it, and I have factory wiring goodness. Will try to find a factory fog light switch, probably from the US, because I like shit like that.

Now, the breaking down... Car made a funny smell the other night (I checked, it was definitely the car, not me). As nothing was smoking/hot/funny on gauges, I kept driving as I was close to home. Once home I shut the car off. I then tried to turn the car back on, and naada, zip, nothing, no dash lights, door lights, or anything.

Had a good chance to have a gander today, and spotted this:

I'm pretty sure they don't look like that from the factory. Must have had a corrosion problem, high resistance = heat, heat = melted plug, plus now and open circuit. When and bought the same style of fusible link connected, put a new one in, and its now good as gold. Do love an easy fix :)

Guard roller looks good man, does everything fit better now? Can I please please borrow it at some point? This is exactly what im looking for :D

A mate and I went halves in it, and we made a deal to not loan it out to anyone... But you are absolutely more than welcome to bring your car over and we can have a go? Failing that I'm always looking for excuses to take my Staz for a drive, so can come to where you have your car stored :). I'll PM you my number, as its uni holidays at the moment, so I have a little spare time up my sleeve (Once this damn programming assignment is done with....).

There is a heap of clearance now for the 9" wheels. The company making my spacers was a bit backed up, but they've told me I should have them early this week... 15mm front and 20mm rear. I've done some measurements and there should still be clearance... But things might get interesting...

Will look awesome though :)

I'm real keen to see what spacers you end up running...
When you sort it out let us know so I can update the offset guide as my clearances need a tweek with the D2's now on the front...

http://forums.austarion.com/viewtopic.php?t=11010

Check your details are right... :beer

Hope to get the spacers fitted tomorrow, have to trim the factory wheel studs back to fit within the recess in the wheels.

Only one thing on those details, read spacers are 20mm, no 25, everything else is correct though, cheers!

I'm taking the Starion to the oldschool.co.nz national meet later this week... leaving very early thursday morning... Though I'd tidy a few things up.

First job is installing an alarm / keyless entry. I puzzled it over for ages as to how to mount the door locking motors, but found a really good spot eventually:



The unit is spaced back into the door cavity around 10mm, I used two m5 bolts with the threads drilled out for this, as they were the first thing about the right size with a hole in the middle that came to hand :).



Then bent up the connecting rod, and jobs a good-un. Having a really short connecting rod should mean less flex in the system, so more reliability also.



I bought a set of electric door mirrors off Lunacy a while back. Ive fitted them, and am trying (with little success) to wire them up to the early model factory control. With the addition of the door lock motors, electric mirrors, and more powerful speakers, the door wiring looms needed looking at. I took them apart, cleaned all the bits and pieces, added the extra wires I'll need, and taped them all back together. Put new nylon sleeving on the bits that will be exposed when the doors are open too. I'll put new plugs on for the extra wires, so they can still be removed like the factory items.


Factory one on top, re-made one on the bottom.

Whilst inside last night I pulled out the wet-vac and gave all the interior bits and pieces a good going over. Man, what a difference!



Just check out the colour of the water I was getting out of these bits, eugh. Smelt pretty nasty too, like old Japanese smoke.



State of play as of a wee while ago:



Ive done a heap more that I didn't take photos of because I was too busy... Coming together nicely all in all. Hope to finish off all the mods tomorrow, and get everything back together wednesday.

This is a really nice project, certainly put your own stamp on it.

Prozac, contact me about the light switch

Central locking ftw! Good work, I did this too, usable mod everyday

Yeah, Ive got Central locking in my Gold starion. Hooked it up to my alarm so the doors lock and unlock with the alarm turning on and off. Then removed the door locks so it can't be broken into as easly. If the battery ever goes flat I can still get in through the boot :) But (touch wood) I haven't had to do that yet... :D

Looking great zac :beer
Can't wait to see it again. You got much in the way of performance mods linned up for it?

Ive got a nice clean un-bored starion block sitting on the engine stand. I need to find a complete NA twin-cam motor, but they seem to be a little thin on the ground? Want something complete so I know i have all the bolts, plastic covers, etc.. Would like to use the later alternator and multi rib belts too.

Link, stronger internals, gt3540 or similar, intercooler and exhaust. Goal is 300hp at the wheels :). But I'm in my last year of uni, so along with money being tightish, time is the real problem! I have next to none of it alas.

That's the reason I haven't put a big effort into tidying the engine bay up, most of it will be gone in a year or two anyway.

One day though :)

The car just made a ~1800km trip, with not a single hitch! It was even pretty economical, I did the figures today, accounting for the 7% speedo error it now has due to smaller rolling diameter tyres, I averaged 9l/100k's (30MPG) for the entire trip! There was some serious spanking going on too, so many passing lanes to make use of in the north island :).

gt35 would be much much too large and laggy for just 300rwhp?

On a twin cam I believe you can get close to if not more than 300 with a disco potato