KZJonny

Huh. Well, since I am also doing a new diff cover tomorrow, I will keep that in mind. I’ll be sure to take the fill and drain plugs out before install to make sure they are removable. Easier to do on a workbench where I can hit them with the big dog impact if needed.

DONE!! DONE!! 1/2 Done. Sending unit installed and professionally zip tied in place. Just needs wiring. It will probably not get mounted in any kind of proper holder for a while, just sneak the wiring under the dash and have the gauge hang out somewhere for a while. But I will at least be able to keep an eye on oil pressure after the refresh. Jeeez. 20 days until June, and I still need to put insurance on the car and... like, wash it. Yikes. I suspect that the list will not be completed this year either, but there is chance I can get the rear diff sorted out before the meet anyway. I have all day this Saturday. If I can just get that done, I'll take the car off the lift and out of the garage and start breaking in this new clutch. (Which has an incredibly light pedal, despite having more torque holding capacity than OE.) I wonder if I should have gone with the heavier clutch, since I kind of like a little more pedal. Too late now....

GT-B like from JDM? Or do you mean a domestic USDM Spec B? In either case, the answer is probably no, because of the seatbelt and occupancy sensors. If the donor seats have all the same sensors and airbags, then it shouldn’t be too bad. There are workarounds for the sensors as well, do a site search and you should find some answers.

The answer is yes. Remove tmic and slave cylinder. Rip rubber clutch fork cover in frustration. Get hold of the fork and yank up with some pliers. Visually inspect. Success. Reinstall parts. You can now engage gears. I nearly shit a brick when it wouldn’t engage, after all that work.

That is enormously helpful... I took a look and it did seem like the slave cylinder piston was pointing downwards a little. Can this be remedied by pulling up on the clutch fork? I sort of think it aught to be.....? I would LOVE to not have to drop the trans right now, but I suppose if it comes to that.... Pehaps worst case I can just slide the trans back a little and not have to remove the DP and everything. I was sure I double checked that before install, but all it takes is a little nudge while wrestling the engine into place to knock the fork off I suppose.

Where are you getting these theoretical custom gears made up anyhow, and do you have a feeling about price? This whole thing has me thinking about the 5th gear in my 5MT. I use it exclusively for highway cruising, as I am sure most do, and there is no reason not to make it taller than it is currently. I mean it's cool that I am fully spooled and ready to race someone in 5th, but.... cool story bro? I would be very happy to change fifth out for something that would drop like a thousand RPM at 120 km/h for example. I really don't care if I need to rev just a little higher into 4th to get there. If the cost of a custom 5th gearset is not insane, it would be a thing to think about. Manual transmissions are easy enough to work on, and there is some preventative stuff in there like new differential bearings that could benefit from pre-emptive replacement.... This would be a problem for another day, but something worth considering. I am sure there is somewhere around me that does this, but I couldn't name a place than does miuch work with specifically Subaru/Nissan transmissions for example, and surely it would be cheap enough to ship a couple of gears.

Engine idles great tho. Cylinder roughness was zero across the board while warming up and burping the coolant. DAM dropped because the battery was out for months, but I am sure a drive or two will remedy that quickly enought. Once I rebuild the drivetrain of course... I'll start tonight. Should be able to get everything that needs to be out of the way off the car and stacked neatly away before the trans jack arrives. I would think an afternoon should be enough to remove and service the diff + reinstall. Trans may be a little longer while I figure out which seals need changing and clean up the shifter + wait for plates. I still the end of the month is within reach. Now, getting 500kms on the new clutch before giving it hell may be the challenging part. I know I've used the words 'just keep it out of boost' when trying to help others, but that is definitely not how I drive my car....

Previous problem solved. Tighten banjo fitting and clean up oily mess. Lots of Simple Green later, and one piece of wire heat sleeve cleaned up in a TSP bath, and nothing should be waiting ot catch fire now. There is always a "but" however, and I can't get the car to go into gear.... *sigh* I'll try just fiddling with the fork, and see if maybe it got bumped off of it's pivot during engine install, or some such, and maybe the throwout bearing is just hung up.... Ordering a trans jack right now becuase it seems like I never get things that are the easy fix. There is also a leaking seal on top of the trans that I might as well fix, and the short shifter could use a coat of spraypaint too. Oh, and might as well throw on a set of 'blast plates' while it's out. Be a good time to drop the diff and replace the broken cover plate too, I would think. It'll be ready by ECM.... for sure.

Yup, 15 years old or you have to pay a fee to the Registrar of Imported Vehicles. Which, for vehicles originally BUILT FOR, but not necassarily BUILT IN the USDM, is only $325 CAD. So, we can get all the odd vehicles that you get that we do not. They just come with a freedom speedometer and no daytime lights. Mexico is in a different category, apparently. I'll need to dig more, but one would assume it is more expensive. They've set things up for it to easy to buy vehicles from the US up here in Canada..... I don't think there are many people trying to export from Mexico. Information isn't readily available on the gov't website.

Probably not very much. The up pipe cat is tiny…. But I have one somewhere you can have for the cost of shipping and some beer or whatever. Cat in it was fine…. @ 142k kms got swapped out for a catless one. EDIT for clarity: I have an up pipe with cat. The DP I sold for like $700 when the market was good a couple years ago. But again, it was very low kms and in perfect health.

Gotcha, so it would be the equivalent of importing a car from Japan, for example. Which means in a few years (I think Canada has a 5 year limit on importing vehicles from abroad...) buying one of these out of Mexico would be markedly easier than getting a Levorg from Japan into the country. And it would already be LHD which is a big win in my books. Plus, I could more than likely just fly down, and drive it back up, the paperwork for this stuff is remarkably easy. The guy I am working with for another car charged something like $100 to do all the licenceing/import and send it to the computer people at Customs Canada. Hm.... The reason I more or less gave up on the JDM import thing for my next car was the cost and annoyance of having to LHD swap it....

Well, that isn’t what is meant to happen. Hah. missed the passenger OCV banjo while installing everything and during the nut and bolt check. Puked a couple litres of oil, but I was watching for something like this and shut it down right away. Worst part is the mess and having to clean the floors now. As long as I didn’t get too much on a blanket or anything like that, it should be fine. Lesson learned: do not install all blankets + heat sheilding until you’ve ruled out oil leaks. You won’t cook the engine bay idling the car and burping the coolant. But if this had been the turbo oil supply banjo, it would have meant taking a lot of junk off to get at it.

That touchscreen tho… this is why I’ll never have a newish car now. Or not until they stop being built with a monitor in the dash…. I have heard they’re fun to drive tho. Good to hear confirmation of that.

Dang. That is compelling. Guess in a few years I'll have to start looking in Mexico for used cars. One of those (kept stock) + my 4th Gen would cover all my car needs. Is there something keeping the average American from just going and buying on in Mexico and importing it into the country? I am 98% sure I can do that in Canada because of NAFTA, but I know you guys have different rules about these things.

It's posted elsewhere but as good a time as any to mention it here if you haven't been through the thread of "Places to get useful stuff" If, like me, you've gone from hating CT clamps because they get mangled and fling themselves recklessly into your eyes, or the farthest corner of the garage, to using worm clamps, to hating worm clamps becuase they suck, then back around to CT clamps..... www.belmetric.com Has a great selection of metric CT clamps. Just got an order in from them to replace a pile of the tired, rusty ones in my engine bay. Prices are FAR better than dealer, and quality is great. Lots of flashy SS metric thread bolts as well if you have gnarly, tired old fasteners everywhere too.

Cirling back around to this. If anyone else has any great ideas, then kick in, but I'll plan also making/freezing a few batches of dough, and I'll start shopping sales to stock up on some basic toppings and some canadian cheese. Pizza night Friday. Or every night, I don't care. There is no such thing as too much pizza. Happy to help with whatever, but as pointed out last year, there are a few limitations on what you can bring across the border, so probably burgers or a cooler full of ground meat is likely to cause problems.

+1 to that. I don't know how I got anything done before having hose pliers. Equally: https://www.amazon.ca/Powerbuilt-Multi-Directional-Hose-Clamp-Pliers/dp/B08TH864JL/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3N2I3O3NGPLRV&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.hBtp0LzpyuOSd5W4wKkrKw.WoGW_2vKjsx_vfWy5ForDzCu1u8KH_U156aF9wUbNqY&dib_tag=se&keywords=647868M&qid=1715005835&sprefix=647868m%2Caps%2C191&sr=8-1 Ridiculously better than normal pliers for constant tensions clamps. Far fewer of them get either mangled or flung across the room when applying and removing. I also picked up some Clic-R clamp pliers while doing the refresh, and while they are super helpful (practically necassary) to reinstall clic-r clamps, I wouldn't say you have to have them, by any means.

Cool. First I have heard of that. And I know others have had their issues with the company around here, but I have had zero issues with NGK/NTK stuff in the past, so that interesting in term of having a more reasonably priced option in future, if needing a pair of VVT actuators. Maybe not super surprising tho. Look like the NTK and OE are the only 'made in Japan' ones on the list at Rockauto...

Ugh. Oh man, when I did a complete header to exhaust tip ‘replace everything’ job, that stupid drain hose was the worst part. Any chance you can go back with some photos and lodge a complaint at the shop that did the work? It’s an annoying part of the job, but selling a botched job as done for high dollars is not okay.

Won’t hurt to get some sensor cleaner and do the MAF while you’re in there. Not likely the cause if that particular problem, but it never hurts to have it good and clean anyway. It can hurt idle if it’s dirty.

The Moogs are pretty good. Be sure and cover them in anti seize, and grease the hell outta them once in a while. I’ve cut a bunch of those out, and it’s not much fun.

No more misfires?

How good is having a ride that doesn’t clunk or make noise! Hah! Enjoy! UV dye is really cheap and may help you narrow down what the problem is? Tho aside from the rear main seal, non of those jobs are terribly difficult and are replacing regular wear items anyway.

I rolled the dice and just took a lot of photos, then filled the trench. It was almost a year between that and actually getting an inspection, so I didn’t feel like waiting on it, and breaking my leg one night in the dark hah!

Been done mate: