SLC: 1989 Zinno coupe. Superlight, Super Functional *6spd swap inside*

[mitchlikesbikes]

i was out of town over the weekend and it was cold as balls today so i didn't get anything big done. i was able to set up a workspace inside and make my dash delete block offs today though. i made one for the radio, OBC, and climate control sliders. i also drilled holes in the radio one to mount my 12v outlet and USB outlet. the obc one is also a perfect candidate for a gauge but i don't need any more gauges at the moment, so maybe sometime in the future it will get one.

i used 1/16" thick ABS plastic for the plates. it is pretty easy to work with, cheap, and looks great.

i marked first with a sharpie, then scored my lines with a razor blade to give a bit of a guide while cutting. i made the cuts with a hacksaw, which seems weird but actually worked pretty well. then i fine tuned them and rounded the corners where necessary with sandpaper. i used a holesaw for the plugs and then glued all the plates in with epoxy.



marked and scored:



before:



first dry fit:



plugs mounted:





dry fit with plugs:



epoxy on and ready to dry out and be reinstalled



as far as the fuel pump goes, i pulled shit apart and was able to determine that i have power at the pump. which means i think the pump itself must have gotten messed up by the short that was causing the fuse to blow. either that or the pump was just junk, which is possible since it was a cheap chinese unit (that did at least get good reviews). i decided to just bite the bullet and got a walbro 255lph with an install kit. they are proven to be very reliable but still a fair bit cheaper than an oem pump. so once that gets here i will install it, taking a bit more time with the wiring this time to make sure nothing shorts out or goes wrong.

also planning on bleeding the brakes/clutch tomorrow with fresh ATE fluid.

current to do list before driving:

-install new pump upon arrival
-weld up rust hole
-bolt exhaust back on
-bleed brakes/clutch
-torque halfshaft nuts and lock
-reassemble dash
-pound the rear fenders for a little extra tire clearance
-maybe alignment

[eduTechnic]

Great job, the texture looks good on that ABS. I didn't know the window switches fit in those spaces on the HVAC plate, I'll have to fit all 4 in mine somehow.

[mitchlikesbikes]

Great job, the texture looks good on that ABS. I didn't know the window switches fit in those spaces on the HVAC plate, I'll have to fit all 4 in mine somehow.

Yeah they aren't an exact fit like the other switches but they do work without modification

[bruner]

Lookin good! I can't wait to see you get this baby on the road!!

[mitchlikesbikes]

i received my new fuel pump in the mail the other day so i installed that. i am running a 10amp fuse rather than 7.5 for a little extra juice since i'm worried it'll pop a 7.5. probably not the ideal solution but oh well, its not really much of an increase in amperage anyway. car runs fine now with the new quality pump and a second better wiring job.

made more progress after work today too. my roommates helped me out and i got the brakes and clutch bled with fresh ATE fluid. once that was done i put the bottlecaps back on and dropped the car to the ground. then i installed my new lock rings and torqued the fuck out of my halfshaft nuts. i will be checking them again with my bigboy breaker bar after a little driving, because i really really don't want them to back off on me. i also cleaned my air filter and recharged it with oil, as well as spent some time cleaning my washer bottle, hoses, and nozzles. they were really dirty and plugged up. they are better now but i'm going to buy some vinegar tonight to run through the system and hopefully clean it out some more so i get a good stream from both nozzles.

i drove to the end of the driveway and back a few times tonight to make sure everything felt tight at low speed, and it does. i'm stoked.

some pictures:

completed dash







on the ground for the first time since novemberish



bonus paper towel holder i made at work:




current to do list before driving(getting pretty short now):

-weld up rust hole
-bolt exhaust back on
-pound the rear fenders for a little extra tire clearance
-maybe alignment

[mitchlikesbikes]

put some nice new bosch icon wiper blades on today, and tinkered with the wiper washer system some more. i realized that all 3 of my tubing sections are pretty shitty and i've been using a shaved brass t fitting from the hardware store because that's all i could find, so i decided it was time to get everything done up right. i just ordered a new plastic t fitting in the proper size, a bunch of new tubing to replace everything, and a new pump. i am going to soak my nozzles in vinegar and try to reuse them, since they are a ripoff at $15 a piece new and i don't wanna buy them unless i have to.

[kingston]

Awesome build, man! Did you just paint the shift knob, or is that another one you bought in a different color?

Keep it up!!

[mitchlikesbikes]

Awesome build, man! Did you just paint the shift knob, or is that another one you bought in a different color?

Keep it up!!

thanks man! the knob has been the same one the whole time. it started out as plain white delrin, but i didn't like the color so i plastidipped it black for a couple weeks, but i didn't like the texture of plastidip so i peeled it off. when i painted the sunroof delete panel i had some extra paint in the gun so i gave the shiftknob a quick coat of red.

[deutschman]

While I still had my track rat, I ran my GoPro from a USB charge port like that one. I just drilled a small hole in the GoPro case where the charge plug is and always had it hooked up during events. No annoying battery changes ever 10 minutes. The down side is that if you run an external mike it uses the same USB port on the GoPro so you cant charge and record sound at the same time :(
GoPro should add a separate sound input point on their cameras.

[mitchlikesbikes]

While I still had my track rat, I ran my GoPro from a USB charge port like that one. I just drilled a small hole in the GoPro case where the charge plug is and always had it hooked up during events. No annoying battery changes ever 10 minutes. The down side is that if you run an external mike it uses the same USB port on the GoPro so you cant charge and record sound at the same time :(
GoPro should add a separate sound input point on their cameras.

i actually installed the usb for charging phones and what not since i don't have a go pro, but i guess now if i ever get one i have the option to do it that way. thanks for the idea!

[mitchlikesbikes]

I've been waiting for some good weekend weather to do my welding, so I've been killing time by sorting out some of the small stuff that bugged me on the car last year. Windshield washer, door seals, heater core leak, surging idle, etc.

Windshield washer parts should be here this week, and the vinegar soak cleaned my nozzles well so I should be all set there.

I got a new passenger door seal at the junkyard yesterday since my current one didn't fit well. The new one is Mint so that's good.

I also got a new heater core at the junkyard since my plug I made for the heater valve wasn't sealed very well. I decided to just leave the valve alone on the new setup to make sure I don't have any leaks. I also replaced the two o rings where the lines meet the heater core to make sure everything is sealed well.

And lastly I pulled my idle control valve and air flow meter to clean up and hopefully get my throttle response a bit better and stop my annoying surging idle. I think I have a couple vacuum leaks too so I might try to find those and fix them soon

Current to do list

Welding/rust fix
Exhaust
Half shaft nuts
Tire clearance
Clean icv and afm
Air filter
Trailing arm plugs
Windshield washer
Double check heater core

[mitchlikesbikes]

still doing a little tinkering to get things running better before this year. even though i hope to get rid of the m20 by next winter i'm just trying to do some small cheap stuff that will make it run better this year.

i had a sound coming from under the intake manifold that sounded like a vacuum leak all of last year, but i never got around to checking it out too heavily or anything. while i had all of the intake stuff off i decided to unbolt the throttle body and check out underneath it to see if i could figure out what was going wrong. it turns out that the weird fin shaped vacuum hose that connects the bottom of the throttle body to the charcoal canister vent valve was totally toast. it was splitting and barely attached near the throttle body, as well as completely split right down the middle for like half of its length. it was a weird hose and i was bummed because i thought i'd have to order it but luckily it can just be replaced with a normal piece of vacuum hose. the hose in question is seen at the top of the photo here:



basically the hose is tapered but the valve thing it attaches to just uses a normal size vacuum port that is covered by the weird stock hose. so once the stock hose is removed you can just use a 4 or 5 inch long piece of standard vacuum line and some clamps to get everything all sealed up.

i also noticed a while ago that the ground from my frame to oil pan looked really shitty, so i decided to finally replace it. i used much bigger wire and lugs, and it should be reusable even when i swap so i didn't feel bad about replacing it.

here are a couple pictures

AFM and ICV out:



old vs new ground cable:






i started the car up for a minute after getting everything installed and the idle was a lot lower than before but still fluctuating quite a bit. i'm hoping it will make adjustments and run a bit better after more runtime in warmer weather. i didn't even get a chance to let it warm up and relearn the idle tonight because the car doesn't have any catback bolted on to it right now and my neighbors got all butthurt about how loud it was on sunday afternoon when i had to run it up to operating temp to bleed my new heater core. the neighbor was a pretty big douche about it though so maybe i'll just run the car anyway haha


anyway, current to do list:

Welding/rust fix
Exhaust
Double check torque on half shaft nuts
Tire clearance
Windshield washer
Double check heater core
Clean the bitch

[brainfood]

How heavy is the Herculiner tend to be? I'm putting new floorpans in and I planned on doing POR15 at least top and bottom to prevent any more rust, put I'd like a litte more on the interior, I'm just not trying to get the car overly heavy haha

[mitchlikesbikes]

How heavy is the Herculiner tend to be? I'm putting new floorpans in and I planned on doing POR15 at least top and bottom to prevent any more rust, put I'd like a litte more on the interior, I'm just not trying to get the car overly heavy haha

I used about a quart to do two coats on my floor pans. It's pretty durable even with only two coats. I would say before drying the quart weight like 3 or 4 pounds at the VERY most. It's not very heavy.

[mitchlikesbikes]

bigtime progress over the last few days. my hose, pump, and t fitting all got here for my washer system so that is assembled and done. the vinegar soak worked magic on my nozzles. they're not perfect but they'll do.

i also ended up cutting out an even bigger chunk of my trunk because i had rust around the weird tie down bracket thing that i didn't like. once cut out i just had to box it in with 4 pieces of sheet metal. i tacked the metal in place and then used a panel bonding epoxy to finish the hold and seal the seams. then i used por15 over that and an undercoating to finish. no pics of the finished product, only after the epoxy was applied.

workstation:



extra chunk i cut out:



this rust was right under where the OEM jack bracket is located on the driver side.



the hole:







the puzzle pieces:




welding and epoxy done:











after i finished that up i bolted the exhaust back on and got ready to drive the car. it was still running weird but i figured some driving would sort it out. it didn't. the idle would plummet whenever i gave it gas, and overall it wouldn't rev up for shit and was ultra slow. i knew it had to be something related to my air meter and icv since those were the only things i messed with on the engine since it was running perfect last fall. i pulled the plug back out on the air meter and discovered that i didn't plug one of my spade connectors back in when i reassembled it after cleaning. so i plugged that back in, reassembled, and bingo. car runs pretty much as it should now. idle is below 1000 rpms and steady, whereas last year it would fluctuate from 1500-2000 at all times. i can't hear any vacuum leaks anymore either which is awesome.

the only real issue i'm having is that my exhaust fits like shit and is full of holes. i wanted to wait until my 24v swap to do a new exhaust, but it may get pushed up so i can pass safety this summer when the car is due again. but for now it is good enough to drive on.

current short term to do list:
Exhaust
Double check torque on half shaft nuts
more cleaning
make my door panels