kiwi303

Nice to see another Rhys around Sounds fixable to me from the description, I'd need some pics for confirmation, but it sounds from what you describe that a drift hammer and blanking plate would fix it.

Wood fire... F*k all propane fires in NZ, and no-one freezes to death because their gas tank runs low when there's the axe and the trees in the lawn/garden if the shed runs empty in the winter. Edit, there are LPG fires, but they're 99% run off city supply pipe, not tanks, I beleive you chaps call propane, what we call Liquefied Petroleum Gas, which contains propane as a major part of the mix of petroleum gaseous fractions compressed until they condense to a pumpable liquid.

http://www.driftweblog.com/2009/03/rb30-guide-1.html theres 6 or 7 parts to this series.

JATO units bolted on the rear end? Just don't aim at a cliff or Snopes will have to change their "car hits cliff half way up" entry on the darwin awards hoaxes.

This may get me flamed, but while I like Hybrid Zeds, Hybrid Boobs just aren't my thing... Keeping boobies Stock, is far nicer IMHO.

Actually I don't think it could show more then 399. Theres a bar on the left hand numeral display that is missing. so 1, 2 and 3 can display along with 7, but not 4, 5, 6, 8, or 9, which need a bar at the top left.

It's a conspiracy I tell ya! A Conspiracy! I'll just put my tin foil hat on and go hide in the cellar....

The russian expandafoam, when coated with bondo, can be pretty versatile Have you seen the cars made from that combination?

TBH, I saw the "Mustard" and thoght "Mustard-O, someone thinks it's a bit spicy" GT40 on the cheap?

Given bore spacing and head bolt location, I'm surprised someone hasn't gotten busy welding up and re-drilling water and oil routes to stick a DOHC RB head on the L block... must be some serious water jacket differences if people would rather chop and weld KA heads than use the RB. It can't JUST be the Cambelt pulley vs Chain sprocket timing mechanism issues,

probably the best Idea, But seeing you're in california, where the sun always shines why not just pull the existing skin the rest of the way off and drive a convertible for a while

Why bother with sheet metal then? Just use cardboard to hold the fiberglass in shape while it cures. Wet up some glass matting with resin, lay it on some cardboard and press the mess to the inside of the roof covering the hole, the resin will make it all stick there like glue. Next lay a layer of wetted glass matt over the roof on the outside. use heavy 400 or 450 Gram standed matting on the inside for strength and thinner woven glass weave like 200 gram or 120 gram on the outsidefor smoothness. Leave enough outside overlap to sand and feather the edges into the roof so with a coat of primer theres no big bump at the edge of the sheet that makes it look imeddiately obvious there's a sheet of fibreglass thrown over your roof. That shouldn't crack for a month or two.

Like this pic of Joels from the "RIPS pan arrived" thread? http://img241.imageshack.us/img241/7471/kodac0052232604.th.jpg this is a rear view of Joels (J. Soileau RB26zcar, Cor, what a long username! ) RIPS baffled welded pan with 2 oil returns and an external oil pick up on the short side, oil drain on the right side? I was thinking of leaving a thickened section of pan wall to allow the drilling and tapping for the installation of an oil return from a turbo, where Joels has 2. It shouldn't be any extra work to leave enough area for 3 taps, one pickup and two returns, to enable fitment to a RB26DETT, through my initial plans were as a simple unbaffled cheap(ish) simple replacement for an unbaffled stock front sump RB20/25 pan with a single turbo return location. Now I'm thinking about baffles and other embellishments... Can some members of the military-industrial complex please repeat after me "Mission Creep" The DDX and the LCS suffered mission creep, so did the FCS, ATF, and so many other things Extending the single turbo return location to sufficent area for 2 returns and an external pick up to be installed wont change much. I'll focus on getting the base unbaffled pan working first for stock-ish performance levels. Then once it's done and proven, I can look at having baffles made which can be slipped in, even retrofitted to existing pans I would hope, for mildly tuned or lightly modified systems. Franckly, I'm not even thinking about high performance batwing or widened pans like the RIPS pan for seriously modified or hardcore racing applications. If someone has the budget for that sort of build, RIPS is available already. I'm aiming for like the Arizona Z pan, http://www.arizonazcar.com/pan.html but where the AZCar L-series pan is sitting straight up and down in the car, the baffles are easy to cast in as part of the base pan. On the other hand, RB sitting on the angle it does, doesn't lend itself so well to cast-in-place baffles. So much easier to make an unbaffled angled RB entry level pan.

I've seen some of the US tax rates once, don't US taxes top out at something like 60% in the upper echelons of income by the time federal and state taxes add together in some states? Here NZ's top tax bracket is 33% I'd have to dig out last years tax returns to check by I think I'm in the around 24% bracket. NZ has a graduated tax system for employees, with tax bands attracting different tax percentages, I think the band thresholds are around 9K, 25K, 40K and 60K a year (Not swearing to those numbers, but they'll do for the purposes). Say you have a blue collar welders job at the shop that grosses you $36K a year, sou you'd pay X% on the first $9K, Y% on the $16K between 9K and $25K, and Z% on the final $11K above the second tax band. Much nicer than some countries where I gather it's if you earn 36K on a income threshold system, ALL the income is taxed at the percentage of the tax band the income lies in.

my base income, no tax refund, fixed income, tax calculated and paid each week as PAYE (Pay As You Earn) which matches the tax rate to income... no deductions there. But the magazine articles I write sometimes, they are done by Withholding Tax, a whole different kettle of fish so I'm figuring probably $200 back once expenses are claimed for. Probably use $100 of that towards machine shop work, and the rest on other stuff.

Yikes! He's a Mutant? What happened to having 4 fingers and a thumb?

I was going to keep my progress secret until I come out with a ready-to-go pan so I could show off and brag But decided, hell, PAT1 has a pan in production and fast-datsun/Mickkiney motorsport has a shop fabbing some up. I may as well show off now, Who's going to bother to spend the time, effort and money copying what I am doing Nickel and Diming is a pain, currently up to NZ$246.5 spent on this project not including labour, with most of the stuff still shipping and due to start arriving tomorrow (Monday) After that things should speed up until I run out of materials again. Base for the female half of the primary mould made, but it still needs coating and final smoothing. The wax for that was expected in fridays mail, but since it wasn't there, Monday should bring it. Epoxy and 450 gram glassfiber mat should be either monday or wednesday mail. The base mould, coated in wax to make a nice smooth surface, unlike the shaved expandafoam bulks surface, will form the outside dimensions of the eventual pan. Step one, of making the expandafoam base substrate is finished. I filled an apple box with offcuts of expandafoam making it Step two will start when the wax arrives, in making the base mould smooth and to the final shape with a coating of wax. Step 3 will wait on the epoxy and matting, and will be a case of making a splash mould of the wax pan sculpture. Step 4 will be using sheets of wax to line the inside of the splash mould and forming such details as thicker spots for oil temp sender mount locations, oil drain plug location, stuff like that. The wax will be the final shape of the eventual pan. Step 5 will be to make another splash mould of the interior of the pan. Step 6 will be to clean the wax out and clean the splash moulds thoroughly. Followed by using the male and female, inner and outer moulds to make a solid fibreglass model of the eventual pan. Step 7 is to take the copy of the desired pan to a local aluminum jobbing foundry and have them run off copies in cast aluminium. Green sand casting is the most likely method of manufacture. If there is sufficient demand and people want these pans, I could take the master copy or the splash moulds to a iron foundry and have cast iron dies cast of the moulds, to enable die cast pans to be made. But I'm not really expecting that much demand. I am thinking about baffles, if I make the baffle walls parallel to the sides of the pan so dies can be used in casting, they will lean inside at a 10 degree angle when the pan and motor are installed in the car, If I make them perpendicular to the floor of the pan, they will lean relative to the wall at a 10 degree angle, meaning dies cannot be used. I may, once the pan is compete, look at making externally cast baffles as a separate piece, allowing the trapdoors to be installed out of the pan with plenty of work room, then which can be slipped into the pan as a unit and tigged in place.

Cheapo arc welder on food grade stainless connecting to high carbon steel base plate, with mild steel rods... not the neatest or most air tight of fixes... My first try at sealing was to PAINT the whole join with RTV liquid gasket... didn't work, so I did the plumbers braze trick, that sealed the leak After all, if they can fix water pipes dry and leak free, they should be able to manage airtight or they wouldn't be in a business where they can cause leaks in homes

2 weeks will be considerately earlier than mine. Good news is a magazine bought an article of mine so I'll have some unbudgeted for money coming in soon that will help putter around developing the pan

Sigline

Air tight welds? Just hit it with a MIG and when it's congealed solid, take it to any plumber and coat the lumps with braze to fill any holes and cracks

for the NICS, you'd need a custom made intake, no-one makes an aftermarket DET intake for the NICS, just for the ECCS RB20DET since they are far more common. Frankly, I would just find an ECCS RB20 head, I have a RB20DE head in the shed now, but shipping to the US is simply not economical, I looked into that for someone else who wanted my head cheaper to find a RB20DE/T ECCS head local to you.

The NICS is a 12 runner system, at low revs, onlyone set of runners (6) opens, as your foot goes down, the other six open, much like primary and secondaries on carbs. It's an early attempt at variable intake tracts. The head surface where it meets the block is the same, using the same head gasket, but everything from the head face upwards is different.

I hope to make it to panhandler soon the raw materials to make my master casting die for the cast ali RB pan have just been ordered. Depends on the process, Yup, organic enzyme based high flexibility skins is a nasty smelly business, the dog crap and long soaks in brews of bark stew is not fun... But chromium tans with commercial home kits, while expensive, is very fuss and muss free.