Malcolm's 3SGTE AW11

[Benckj]

Thanks for sharing your project and new toys. I did something similar to your gauge display but went down a different route using an Android touch screen that is connected directly to my EMS. It can display all engine data plus GPS info.

[Benckj]

See how this compares to what your doing.

[Malcolm]

Yeah I have seen you post pictures of that before - it looks like a useful product that I presume is pretty low cost compared to a proper motorsport dash display. Like I said earlier though, the goal here was to make something myself for the learning experience, and I don't really fancy the look of a large tablet in the dash - I'm trying to keep things looking somewhat 80's in there.

[Benckj]

Fair enough, I look forward to following your project. Keep the thread alive.

[Kipp]

I like the old school look of this in an AW's interior

[Malcolm]

So if someone is flicking through this thread and notices all the missing images...sorry! As I'm sure will become clear to any forum user over the next few weeks, the image hosting website Photobucket decided to update their terms of service and basically prevent people from linking to images hosted on their servers unless you get a premium account for $400US/yr (!!!!!!!). I had used Photobucket exclusively because it allowed me to easily cross-post to multiple different forums, but since I don't really do that anymore I'll just be directly uploading images on this forum now (which, fortuitously I had done on my last post anyway).

You can still view some of the images by right-clicking and choosing "open in new tab", and if someone is dying for photos from one post in particular then just let me know and I'll go through and update the images.

[mickeyduck]

Major bummer, that.

But seeing as you can edit your posts Malcolm, feel free to biff a few of the more strategic pics back by drag-dropping them onto your old posts when in edit mode...

Totally up to you mate but it'd be AWesome if your extremely interesting thread had enough imagery to make proper sense... So much great information that suddenly becomes much harder for anyone bumping into it to make sense of, without the pics.

I hate it when this happens cos it stuffs up so many great reads like yours. That's why I've put thousands of dollars of my own money into hosting this thing over the last 7 years so we can have content that sticks, for the sake of folk that find it years later. After all, info on classic cars is as timeless and as valuable as the cars themselves. Especially if it helps you keep yours going!

Before I took this over, ALL images were just linked and it was far too common for things to disappear and threads to turn to mush. Now we have thousands of pics that will never disappear, thank goodness.

Maybe I need to take a serious look at how to prevent linked images being used here in the first place, so they all get safely uploaded here instead...? Inconvenience current posters for the sake of all future readers? Hmmm... A tough call...

Anyhooo... Onwards and upwards.

[Malcolm]

I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to prevent images being embedded from third party hosts - I used to administer a PHP forum and there were hundreds of modifications available to allow you to do that sort of thing, and of course you could modify the code yourself too. I think you could just basically eliminate the [img] tags? Or a more useful approach would be if you could automatically grab any images posted using [img] tags and host them locally

[Malcolm]

Hey look, I did something! Sitting in the garage being neglected has meant the to-do list grows faster than it shrinks as more things go wrong. Earlier this year (or was it last year?) I decided to go back to the standard bootlid + spoiler + engine lid, so I did so and had them painted along with finally finishing the bumpers.

Unfortunately as I said - the list grows as it sits there; the front brake calipers had seized and I've found it nearly impossible to source rebuild kits for them, so in the end I bought remanufactured units from the USA. I finally fitted those last night, along with some HEL braided lines (only fitted in the front so far). I've also discovered that I need to bleed the clutch now, or possibly even rebuild or replace the master and/or slave cylinder. Yet another battery has died too!

Oh well, here's a photo

[GDII]

4 years later!! Good to see this is still around!

[Malcolm]

I hadn't realised it had been so long! I think in the first lockdown last year I started looking into the issue with the seized calipers so it's taken me over a year to get that issue about 80% sorted.

This probably highlights that I only really have time for one hobby at a time; most of the time I had for the MR2 last week has been because I'm self-isolating so couldn't go out running. Small human #3 is due in a couple of months too, so I don't see the situation improving much in the next couple of years!

[flying_wedge]

Nice to see you're still making progress.
When the small humans grow up a bit more you may get some more time in the weekends and weeknights - with our youngest of 3 kids about to turn 4 there has been time in our family for personal interests to get some time now too.

What was the reasoning behind the change from your custom bootlid setup? Just age and stage?

On a small hijack - i FINALLY got round to fixing my aerotech front lip to the valence pieces in the factory holes in the way you did years ago - some brackets with welded countersunk nuts MA-300'd to the lip and a bit of silicon for the rubbing. Been meaning to do this for years since I saw what you did:

[Malcolm]

You forgot the speedholes! Nice job, how was it held on before? Or were you not running it? I thought I remembered you having one.

The change from the one-piece lid was for 2 reasons
- 1. it didn't turn out that well; looked fine from a distance but I sanded the outer layer of fibreglass too thinly and I think it wasn't well enough bonded to the foam core, so it bubbled up in a few areas the first time I had it out in the sun
- 2. something about the look never quite looked right to me. I thought about adding a factory spoiler onto it but it still wouldn't have addressed issue #1. In the end I decided it was the simplest way to get to something I would be happy with. It's pretty easy to swap between the two so I could change back if for some reason I thought the situation warranted it, but for now I can leave it alone and move onto the next thing on my to do list!

[flying_wedge]

Yeah the speed holes... shoulda drilled some. I just cut multiple lines in the steel strip and the fibreglass for MA300 to grip too - its very strongly held and with decent elbow grease there is no movement. If it seperates I'll just make them again and add some speed holes
Before it was just held in by 2 screws each end, and 2 x brackets in the middle riveted to the bottom of the lip middle section that bolt to the radiator support bracket. I don't have any pics, but it held well enough but just a little bit too much flex
Adding in the brackets I have has made it much more solid mounted, but now I've a bigger gap between the where the front guard meets the lip. Will look for something there sometime to suit.