well it's been an exciting few weeks since Xmas and we have now have Club Plates and had some opportunity do some runs out to Healesville/Yarra Glen area for a bit of a shake down. And yeah we still had 3rd popping out and an rattle left front suspension, both have been sorted. Sadly the LSD has come out and we've replaced it with the 915 that was originally in this. The LSD is mounted on the engine stand in the spare room ready for tear down and repair - good project for me for next six months or so. Lucky we pulled it out as it has input shaft seal leak too and was just about to start impacting the clutch.
I've also been doing some cosmetic changes, making a cover for holes in the door panels left after removing the door speakers, shifting the accelerator pedal slightly to the right, it was very close to the brake pedal, making a mesh cover for the rear wing. It's all a big experiment really. I need to get a radio Blanking plate and something to fill the gap where the ash tray was, that was packed with a heap of stereo crap removed a long time ago.
So we are just about ready for bigger test at Phillip Island later this month, I am preparing second set of wheels and will probably get the Dunlop DZ03G or Bridgestone RE11S semi slicks. I've got Toyo R888's on the Sporto but according to the tyre guys they are no longer being made otherwise I would probably just have gone for them. For the type of stuff we are doing on the track the R888's are good, reportedly the Dunlops are way better so it will be interesting to see.
While there was a lull in proceedings I completed the tear down of the original 2.7 that was in the Targa. Successfully removed all the head studs without any issues and separated the case easily. I had read of many cases where this can turn horrible, but I had not one problem. I took my time and used a head stud removal tool like that shown below, this made the job real easy as you can get a good grip on the studs close to the case and prevent twisting the stud as happens with the 2 nut removal method. So that engine is now in pieces and boxed up in the spare room. I'll get the major components like crank and heads inspected and see what options we have for a hot rod 2.7 rebuild.
I reckon in the next week to 10 days I will have this Targa done and dusted to a point where I can say I've completed what I set out to do - looking forward to that!
cheers
Shane