James' Panda Levin Notchy

[Jimmee1990]

So I've finally managed to source the last two parts I needed to get this running again, and have a few days off over Christmas/new years so hopefully I'll have it running again early in the new year. Got a brand new genuine rear water outlet from SamQ, and finally managed to locate a RWD balancer as I had three separate people try and sell me FWD as a RWD part.

Still waiting on the materials to come in for my bolt in harness bar setup and to finish the new seat rail, then just a little bit of welding and it's finally finished.

[Jimmee1990]

I decided the only reason I wasn't cleaning and polishing the 13's I have was laziness, so got started on cleaning and painting them over the weekend. My masking wasn't the greatest, but i'll clean all that up later after they get polished. While I waiting for them to dry I painted up my wiper arms too, as they were pretty sand-blasted and looking pretty rough. A few thick coats of paint to cover all the imperfections and they look nearly as good as new now.

From this;


To this;


Bought some Tomei ladder caps for the next engine too to put in my parts stash, was originally just going to make my own from plate but the mill I had access to is now sold and I get some extra JDM points this way too.

[dove grey 64]

*exhale* I like your bike, ever take it off any sweet jumps?
Rims are coming up nice, what process have you done so far?

[Jimmee1990]

Just a really good clean, hit them with 1200 grit and then hand polished them. There's a minor pits and imperfections all over them, and a heap of marks from tyre machines on the lips too so not really worth going any further than that with them.

I've been playing around with making a flat undertray for the front of this, and after heaps of chopping and changing I've finalised a design I'm happy with and will get it laser cut from 3mm aluminium. It'll slip inside the bottom edge of the Runfree front bumper and has a bunch of U brackets to attach it to the cross-member and chassis rails to stop it from flapping.

Eventually I'll get around to doing the same at the rear to cover the gap between the fuel tank and rear bar as it catches a lot of air and creates a bit of turbulence. Probably won't do all that much, but at least it'll look race car.

[Tally]

Interested to see what you have come up with re undertray, I have been looking into this myself recently, good fun researching all about aerodynamics, drag coefficient, lift etc

The AE86 sure does have a lot of room for improvement underneath thats for sure...

Ive got a beatrush engine undertray which has helped significantly, stability improved at high speed, cooling has improved and noise has been reduced.

Only Issue with these cars is the solid rear axle and fuel tank area.

For highway driving and racing of course you will see a definite improvement by smoothing out the flow of air under the car and minimising the amount of turbulent air.

[Jimmee1990]

I decided against using alloy, the place I got a quote from decided when I went back to re-quote me three times the agreed price. Going to make it from 5mm Corflute with aluminium braces all over it. Corflute will be heaps easier, can just cut it with a sharp stanley knife at home.

I decided I better pull my finger out and get the engine back in, got some TRD engine mounts of Geoff and some new 8.8mm leads (Red = race car) and started putting it all back together. Was a mission to get the input shaft to slip into the clutch plates as the splines are very tight and I was doing it on my own with a dodgy engine crane, but I got there in the end.

I also got a nice surprise, Geoff had a disc with all the photos that got taken for the car of the month feature on here a while back and there's some great ones.




I hate working on cars, need a gearbox back in the car? Get Geoff to do it!

[Jimmee1990]

A few more photos of thing's I've been working on, I finally finished off the majority of the porting on the TVIS plate. Had to get dad to finish it off as I was running short on time. Also finally have the motor in on some TRD mounts, the Earls remote filter set-up plumbed in and heat shielded and wrapped the extractors so I could do away with the ugly temporary heat shield I made for the distributor cap as well.

I've had it running for short periods just to check for leaks and any noises, and so far so good. All it needs now to be drivable is a few vacuum fittings, decided to make a new lobster-back stainless intake pipe, need some more flat bar to finish the seat rail for the Velo and harness bar mounts. Should drive a bit nicer with all new everything in the front end and the new valve code in the Shockworks.

The next mods will be a good LSD centre (Either Kaaz or Tomei are the best price wise, and both are quite good to drive with in my experience), and possibly a J160 conversion later on down the track. Then it'll just be maintenance and cleaning up a few small blemishes on the paint and interior and it'll be finished.




Also made a radiator fill in panel behind the grill with some left-over corflute I had, doesn't look sensational but it will work well and you can't see it with the bonnet closed anyway.

[Otaku]

Very nice Levin mate, do you mind if I post pics of your Levin on HR page?

[Jimmee1990]

More than welcome to Harley, might motivate me to pull my finger out and finish it.

Having some strange issues with wiring, probably a broken wire somewhere as I did remove and refit the loom a heap of times while I was test fitting things. Going to get my uncle around (Auto electrician) and see if he can figure it out as I'm stumped.

On the plus side as it's now basically complete I refitted the bonnet, and wheeled it our for it's first wash in months.

[dove grey 64]

Spoiler looks the goods