Firehawk's N2 racecar project

[firehawk]

Phew, spent the whole sunday at the garage working on the AE86 now that the CRX is working again. And what a day it was.

I decided that it's about time to try to start up the engine to see if it works at all. There still isn't a fuel tank in the car - just a big gaping hole instead of the boot floor but I just left the fuel pump dangling at the end of the fuel line and placed a jerry can to the ground. At first try, all I managed to get was a few really loud bangs (and I do mean LOUD) and about half meter worth of flame from the exhaust. After investigating a bit, I noticed that although the zenki AE92 cap fits to the distributor, it has the plug leads marked 180 degrees late. I rearranged the leads, primed the engine by pumping the throttle twice and tried again, this time getting about a second worth of erratic popping. Ah yes - I grabbed a screwdriver and took each pilot screw a few turns out, then tried again and BOOM, the engine roared into life with a sweet, ear-piercing rumble.

YES, YES, YES! IT RUNS!

Since the ECU was running in "limp" mode, I added a bit more static ignition advance as the carbs were backfiring when the throttle plates were opened just slightly. I let the engine warm up while observing for any leaks or other problems. Everything seemed to work like a charm and I carefully tried to rev it up to about 4500rpm - what an awesome noise! With a big grin on my face, I switched off the main power.

"Aren't you going to drive it?", my friend asked after I'd shut off the engine. "What do you mean drive it - it doesn't have brakes, a windscreen or even a seat! Not to mention the 'fuel tank' which sits on the ground!" I mean sure, I wouldn't mind driving it but it didn't seem very plausible at the moment. "Well, just lift the jerry can to the rear seat area and move the fuel line there. You can use an inverted water bucket as a seat (bucket seat, haha) and just drive slowly and you won't need brakes." Even before I had managed to reply, he had already placed the bucket behind the steering wheel. "This is crazy", I thought but decided to give it a try anyway.

With the jerry can lifted up and me setting on the bucket behind the steering wheel, I fired up the engine again and listened to the magnificent rumble for a while again, then pushed down the clutch, selected first gear and carefully started to lift the clutch. At first, nothing seemed to happen, then suddenly the car bucked like crazy as the metallic TRD clutch bit into the flywheel. It felt unbelievable - after owning the car for almost two years without even sitting behind the wheel once (I started to dismantle the interior the same day I got it back to Finland), I was actually driving it!

I carefully drove the car about 50 meters to the end of the road, did three point turn and drove back. Everything worked exactly as it should - unbelievable. I let the car come to a stop, turned it off and stepped back out. Wow.

Anyway, I was too excited by all this so that I even forgot to take photos but here's a few I took on saturday, after I had fixed the distributor and some wiring glitches. The alternator isn't yet charging the battery so I'll need to look into it but other than that, it was a pretty successful day.