Had a pretty big one on the RS today. Last week I was swapping the rear LHS driveshaft as it’s got a split boot. I ended up pulling the whole knuckle out with the driveshaft stuck in it. Hopefully a press does the job.
Earlier in the day I got stuck into stripping down a GT series 2 foz EJ205 engine. I’ve got some V1/2 heads to go on so I can run the stock engine management and avoid more wiring stuff. This in my mind was going to be a straight job of pull GT head off, put V1/2 head on, roll engine over and repeat... until I found this - different style piston! Left is stock EJ205, right is what was used with the V1/2 heads:
After an initial flip out about valves possibly hitting pistons, I started a thread on the USMB as the RS lib site is about as busy as a graveyard... I ended up coming around to the fact I’ll have to swap pistons over. Fun fun. I’ll speak with the engine shop and see what they reckon. If they need to be swapped I’ll see if they can put the pistons in - the cost is what that decision will swing off!
While doing an inventory on pistons, I stumbled/found this issue on cylinder 2 on the engine that came in the car, it barely ran back then:
That would explain the smoke screen this thing produced when the engine was under load! Cylinder 1 had ZERO big end bearing left (main issue!), so much so that the piston slapped the head and there wasn’t any knocking noises at the crank, just upper cylinder noise like a really bad lifter from an EA82 was in there. Anyone remember this?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mEExLcobeHs
After dinner I got the instrument cluster back lighting sorted with some LEDs from Jaycar. Apparently you can’t/it’s really hard to find incandescent globes for cluster back lights etc. wasn’t overly happy with this but went with it anyway. I forgot to grab a pic of the final product - here’s one when I test fitted two LEDs to see if it was going to work LEDs on the left, old globes on the right:
Got some hot spots as you can see at 4000rpm and at 0rpm area. I played around with roughing up the dome curve section of the LED - it didn’t really work. Some white paint (industrial texta) on the same area toned them down nicely so I went ahead and did the rest of them. I’m quite happy with the results even though they’re not a warm white, they’re a little on the cool white side for me but it’s better than no back lights!
I pulled the dodgy HID kit the RS came with. So bad - super blue! In the process of doing this I had a freak out moment after I put the old skool and power hungry halogen lights back in. I tested them out and EVERYTHING died as soon as I flicked the lights on. Now, to do this testing, I had the RS jerry-rigged to power up the dash lights. The battery I have that fits the small terminal clamps had very poor charge left, so I ran the jumper cables from our Pajero to the RS - I made sure the starter and alternator ends of the positive cables were isolated so there weren’t any fireworks.
So I went through all the fuses including the one fusible link (why did they keep one of these?? Is it a throw back tribute to the MY and L series?), all checked out good. Racking my brains I wiggled the jumper cable clamps, no change. I also pulled the LHS light’s wiring as the factory plug was removed to fit the HID kit, three loose wires with aftermarket spade terminals, I was guessing the wiring of the light when I put the halogen globe in. While there I moved the negative jumper cable from a bracket that holds the fuse panel to the body mount for the earth strap. Bingo, everything worked and the RHS light worked as it should. I cross referenced the light’s wiring and both now work. I reckon the instant load of the lights created a high resistance point at the negative clamp. Moving the clamp location did the trick.
Homage to Barbachello over at Subyclub (he often posts pics like this on his builds a he pulls bits he doesn’t want/like/need):
I decided to pull the ECU to check it out while I was in the driver’s area too. This is what I found, RS’s ECU on the right, a spare RS ECU on the left:
The RS’s ECU has some dodgy looking twin wire setup hanging out one corner, nothing on the other end other than a pair of cleanly clipped wires cut on the same angle as each other. A good mate of mine threw a couple of these pics on facestalk and got a quick reply saying that it’s got an aftermarket VOS chip and that the twin wires (which one end has snapped off at the ECU motherboard) was for a switch for a high boost setting. Not knowing what the VOS entails, I won’t be using it until I understand it better.
A good day/night on the RS. I now know that all my lights except one side indicator are working. I’ll grab a replacement at some point. I’m having fun finding screws and things that I removed/packed up almost five years ago now. I’m glad a mate let me strip out a GX that he got for the engine last year. I kind of wish I went harder with more screws now!
Cheers
Bennie