This was originally my fathers car, and he bought it brand new. He passed it down to me when I got my license in 2003. Of course I was 16 at the time and thought it would be great to paint it blue (original color was grey), and add the Racing beat intake, carb, and exhaust. When I went to college in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan I put it in a storage unit. To make a long story short I have a house now with a garage and was able to get it shipped. I want to restore her to glory.

The interior is definitely worn and the shop that installed the carb did questionable work (random vacuum hose just left dangling), but she does run.

So the first thing I want to do is an engine rebuild. I would like to stay with the 12A. As far as the intake goes, what do you guys think? I could try to source a Nikki, a rat's nest, and an air conditioner unit, or stay with the current set up. The wildest option would be to go EFI.

I will get some more pictures tomorrow and upload them.

 

Alright here are some pictures. Pretty after the fact.

This is a nice one





I drained out all the fluids. Some looked better than others. My big concern right now is all the rust in the oil fill tube.

 

not a big deal, its just condensation. the heating and cooling of the oil removes the water from the air, and makes it steam, and the steam gets trapped at the high point, which is the oil filler neck.

you might check the PCV system, although changing the oil will fix it

 

Good point! Thank you.

This is probably going to be a silly question, but what is this?

It has a cable coming from it which was just hanging and not connected to anything. I tried to activate it but I couldn't get it to move.

 

Cruise controller.

 

Makes sense why I couldn't activate it then. Thank you.

 

What's the best way to clean these puppies?

Taking apart the windshield connectors and they started crumbling in my hands.


This maybe the alarm system, but I am only guessing.


Clearing the engine bay, that leveler was awesome!


Now she waits until I can get a good way to get that flywheel nut off

 

Well here the heart of Betsey sits torn apart. I have to say that eccentric shaft bolt sucked worse than the flywheel nut.



Now on to the bad news

This is the front rotor housing, the chrome has flaked up pretty good on the bottom and the top of the housing too.





Here is the rear rotor housing




So I'm guessing the housings are toast? The spec is 2mm of chrome flaking and this is past that. Also I was able to fit a .006 mm feeler gauge in between the apex seal and the apex seal groove, so those are toast as well?

 

They are still usable depending on your budget and goal. If you just want to reuse everything and put new soft seals in it theyre fine, but if your spending $500 on new seals,springs,and gaskets id say at least replace the worst one. I would strongly suggest new ones though.

 

Nice 12a housings run about $200 a piece.

 

Post a close up of the apex grooves. What your looking for is warpage. Or flaring out at the tip.

 

Here is the front rotor



And here is the rear rotor


I know it's not all of the apex seal grooves, but these were the worse looking ones.

 

Show one from the side. That seems excessive. Typical damage is when it flares out at the top.

 

The front rotor:








The rear rotor:








What do you think ncross?

 

I hate to say it but those are out of spec. I would not use them unless this was a budget build (clean it and slap it back together with new soft seals). The tips are almost V shaped. They should be straight even with the lines around the corner seal groove. The apex seal should just barely fit in the groove, but move freely with a springs and oil.

 

Yea I was afraid of that, but I had a feeling it was true when I used the feeler gauge. I think my build plans are going to go the route of a TII swap. My end goal for this car is to make it back into a comfortable daily driver.

 

It has been a while since I have updated this, and I will upload some pictures later tonight of it running.

I do have a question though and perhaps Jeff20b or peejay can help me out. I currently have a RB full intake and exhaust on, and I am getting really tired of the lack of cruise and smell of gas. I recently acquired the stock intake and rats nest and I want to put them back on, is there any information on doing a reverse swap?

I imagine that I will keep the RB exhaust, but I was thinking of going to the stock Nikki and (after reading about it a lot more) following Jeff20b's info on hogging out the Nikki.

 

Do you want the rats nest?

Vacuum secondaries are cool if you are N/A, but its not impossible to daily drive a mechanical secondary car, I do.

If you go mechanical secondary its as simple as bolting the carb up and feeding it 2.5#s of fuel pressure.


Did you end up with a 4 port FC engine?

 

I looked pretty hard for about 6 months to find a 4 port FC in Western Washington and I could not find a single one. It was really kind of sad too because I had purchased a MS 3 Pro to switch the car to fuel injection and I had tried to return it to DIY autotune still in the box, but since I had it for longer than 60 days they would not accept it. Oh well, such is life.

After doing some more research the only things that I want from the rats nest are to be able to use the cruise control. Other than that it appears that I don't need the solenoid for the A/C system to work, and I can use the stock choke just as long as I keep the water temperature sensor on the water pump and use the fast idle linkage.

Currently I have a fuel pump that delivers about 3.7 psi. Is that too much?

 

poo poo on going fuel injection ; I just thought it was easier to find a 13B over 12A.


Is there some way to wire the A/C power source to the fast idle linkage? Like activate it when the A/C kicks on? I just set the idle higher in the summer cause I kinda prematurely tossed my fast idle linkage when I built my nikki.


I've had mine up to 5 pounds, but 2.5 is recommended I think. I keep it as low as possible.

 

After re-reading my post I realize I used an incorrect comma.

I can use the fast idle linkage for the choke system to work

I am just going to make the curb idle faster in the summer like you for the A/C system.

Also I agree on your sentiment for the "fail injection"