First up, I have to make an apology.

Clearly, not everyone stumbles onto this site expecting the ramblings of someone with a few really shit cars. To those who stumbled here by Google, I am sorry. I don't stock battery powered penis pumps, and you'll find no frottage videos here, gay or otherwise. I also don't know much about stolen race horses from the late 19th century. However, let it never be said that I'm not open minded and I'm keen to try anything once.

For everyone else, I'm sorry its taken two whole weeks to post this. In fact I've been inundated with one request to post something. You know who you are.

The biggest thing to happen was somehow the Skyline returned from the dead. And what a huge anti-climax it was too. In the end it was the crank angle sensor. Yeah, that thing. The thing I had replaced months ago. Here comes the broken logic. There are two different part numbers listed for RB20 crank angle sensors. 23731-O2U00 and 23731-O2U10. One is a Mitsubishi part, one is a Hitachi part. I had the Mitsu one (probably why it broke), and some months back I bought one from a wrecker which was the Hitachi part. Fitting it didn't fix anything. In fact it made it worse. So I moved onto the other potential problems, of which most I had already looked at. Covering the same ground all over again. Then the other week, it occurred to me that it might have been the different part numbers, despite the fact they seem to have been used interchangeably by Nissan. So I went searching both wreckers and on the internet to see if there was, for a start, any difference between the two and, secondly, if anyone had a Mitsu one. Both drew a blank.

So, yeah, I didn't think much more of it. The Paj was still broken at this stage, fuel pump issues galore (I'll get to that in a minute), then out of the inconvenient blue the Gemini threw in the towel. Blown head gasket. Perhaps it was the constant overheating, perhaps it was the dodgy timing, perhaps it was the fact that I didn't machine the head last time it blew a gasket or re-torque the head bolts. Either way, I had a choice of 3 cars to fix, none of which I wanted to do. The Gemini head gasket is like an afternoons work to replace, but this time I think I ruined the motor. The issues with the Pajero and Skyline were mysteries, that appeared unsolvable. So... I caught the train. In fact I caught two. And then walked. A ten minute drive to work becomes a two hour mission when no cars are involved.

Public transport is shit. To arrive at work using it entirely (two trains and a loop bus), takes 2 hours or more. To Burke and Wills the same distance takes two hours. As best I can tell, the only advantage of the first one is you don't have to wear comfortable shoes.

After a week of that, I was over it. I had to fix something. It rained that weekend so the Skyline, being garaged, won. In the end it was the CAS that was broken. I bought a 3rd CAS (of the Hitachi type, as I couldn't find a Mitsu one), plugged it in, and it worked. They are apparently, completely interchangeable. As logically they should be. The replacement I had originally bought was clearly just as broken as the one on the car, and had thrown me off the scent. Never trust a Leb. Those dodgy cunts.

Having the Skyline back on the road was a bit of a change of pace. Literally. Not everything works right, one of the indicators has packed it in as has a brake light. The dash is still missing from when I had to rewire electrics, so every now and then the permanently disabled turbo timer lands in my lap. There is also no A/C, blower or a stereo. The boost controller doesn't work at all, so the engine never makes more than 5 or 6psi. The freshest fuel in the tank is at least 9 months old. Perhaps from a better time, but its Octanes have long since left, and full noise generates some pretty high knock readings. Probably best I don't have full boost. Even so, having driven 3 (or 4) other hilariously fun but slow shitboxes for the last 12 to 18 months, its a blast to hop into something that's quick. Compared to them, it moves faster than a reheated kebab.

Its not all great though, I'm already sick of not being able to drive out of car parks, when I'm used to just driving over rocks, traffic islands or gardens to get where I want to be. Its also incredibly bouncy, but I'll live. The other thing which was also probably always there, but I never noticed is how terrible it drives at cruise on very low throttle inputs. Cruising at 60km/h injectors are at like 2-3% duty cycle and the car runs terrible. I'm always knew the injectors were way too big, but I'd just never noticed it. Other than that, and the occasional white cloud of oil smoke, its running great.

The Pajero of course, isn't. The saga of failing fuel pumps has continued unabated. Only high pressure pumps though. I think the problem is the result of striving for simplicity out of sheer laziness. Trying to mount things in the places which involve the least fabrication (JB Weld) or modification (grinding). Mounting the surge tank in the engine bay was stupid. Great in theory, but once the fuel heated up it would boil and cavitate at the pump. Over time the pumps would destroy themselves and you'd get less and less fuel pressure, and so have less and less throttle to play with.

We got creative coming up with solutions to the problem, none of which worked. One involved placing the two pumps in parallel, in the hope that if they didn't work so hard they might not cavitate. That didn't work. Greg took it a step further and ran the two pumps in-line, that worked slightly better, some how. In the end it looked more like a robot-themed frottage party held at Robert Bosch's house. And just like his parties, it ended in tears.

So the surge tank in the engine bay idea was scrapped, an in-tank pump can't work because the fuel tank access hole is pathetically small. The tank is also apparently designed with fuel surge in mind, by which I mean that's all it would do. Its completely unbaffled, and as flat as can be. I think the natural tail heavy stance the car has would run pumps dry, its that bad. The new plan is to mount a pump inside the surge tank, mount the tank inside the car in the very back corner where it likely won't be hit by fridges, outboards or cartons of beer, and run steel lines everywhere through the cavity in the rear quarter panels and shit. It probably won't work, but it looks pretty good. This whole EFI conversion isn't all its cracked up to be. It certainly isn't more reliable.

There was a tight timespan on getting it fixed. There was supposed to be a Fraser Island trip in mid November, but it looks to have been postponed. Oddly enough, because an ex-gf is getting married that weekend. Obviously, not a wedding my friends could miss. Naturally, I'm not invited though, as she has seen Four Weddings and a Funeral.

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