Spac’s adventures in Magna

Spac · 2022-10-21T11:59:51+00:00

Today was spent on the maroon one, dodging the rain, and sometimes in the rain. Apart from the terrible paint, it is actually quite a nice car. Clutch master...

Spac

Confused myself with clutches today.

First, non-confusing part is that I confirmed that a second generation RX7 (FC, aka Series4 & 5) turbo clutch plate fits a Magna box/clutch.

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So the gamble of buying a nearly new RX7 button plate paid off - it was less than 2/3rds of the cost of a new plate for a Magna.

Then… despite the 3.0 Magnas having 225mm clutches, the 3.0 pressure plate is actually designed for a 240mm driven plate. Image description

And despite the 3.5 clutch being described as 240mm, the spare 3.5 plate I had is 230mm?!
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Then onto my pile of old clutches…

Long story short, is that if I can find a source of the pucks and rivets, I’m feeling confident that I can make my own button plates.

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The star bit in the lower middle is the splined section from the worn out 230mm plate in the earlier photo. This can be riveted/bolted to a disc like the plate in the bottom left.

I’ve found a Chinese seller of the parts, but I assume they will want to sell me 10,000 at a time.

And after all that, Google spat up a good spec Lancer Evolution button clutch for about the same I paid for the standard clutch that went into the red wagon…
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All of the brain melting wasn’t worthless, because I can still use the knowledge to make something for the blue 2.4 Mirage.

Spac

Overdue update.

Blue car sold back to the previous owner, but he decided that he was making a poor life choice and brought it back to me a couple of hours later… 😆

Red wagon and blue Magna both making me happy as my alternative daily drivers, although I need to get serious about tidying up the blue one and selling it.
The wagon goes quite well, but Blagna feels super fast when I get back into it after a couple of days of driving the wagon.

Bigger news is that I bought two Veradas and a Magna from one of my vintage dirt bike mates.
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This is the first one I’ve picked up.
It’s an AWD Verada that is pretty decent overall.

The other Verada is also an AWD but has a decent exhaust, some lowered suspension and a 3.8 engine swap. And a few other niceties like a strut brace and aftermarket head unit.

The Magna has been my mate’s car for years. Its a dual fuel FWD auto with a blown head gasket.

There’s also a boot load of new parts and oils which is a bonus.

Plans are like usual: Ummm?!

Currently thinking that the Magna will be fixed and sold, the gold Verada will be reshelled in the Whagon, and the white Verada will be used for khanacross.

Alternative idea is to make the white Verada look like an older, less ugly model using Candi’s panels and having a laugh with it.

The idea of a 3.8 AWD wagon is very appealing, but it is NOT an easy or straightforward conversion.
The sedans are all IRS, but the wagons have a live axle. I’m sort of hoping that I can find a live axle diff with the right ratio and go down that path.
But this train of thought might be highly optimistic.

Spac

Tidying up the white Verada… Image description

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… was interrupted by the arrival of this: Image description

It’s a KJ Verada with a dead automatic and no rego. The previous owner of the blue Magna found it but had nowhere to pull it apart, so we went halvies … and it ended up at my place.

Hopefully it we’ll get everything we need off it tomorrow, and it will end up at the scrap yard on Thursday.

The white Verada looks like it will be a reasonable car once it is sorted.
Still blathering on what to do with it, but if I can get it running properly, it should be worth a reasonable amount and worth selling.

MLB

I enjoyed this Maga post.

I recently had a 99 EI Verada and it was a fantastic car. It was originally the seller's in-laws that dumped it one day and then thn he overhauled it.

Anywho, I sold it to a nice family that seemed like they were going to love it (was nice to see it a couple of weeks ago still clean).

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Spac

I haven’t been doing nothing Magna related for the last few months… but I haven’t done a lot either.

Brief update is:
Black Magna (Batman) was stripped and the remains scrapped;
White AWD Verada is sold;
White LPG FWD Magna is sold.

Still have the red wagon (currently on loan to a mate), green wagon (still dead auto), white wagon (untouched since last mentioned in this thread), Narry, Stinky, Candi, and the gold AWD Verada.
I also have another mate’s shabby, badly neglected black Xi Verada in the backyard. He’s just bought it because he’s in love with all the luxury crud and is going to try to resurrect it.

My main Magna project is to rebuild the engine from the grey Verada wreck to put into Stinky.
I began stripping it down today in anticipation of taking it in for a rebore during the week.

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I’ve taken a gamble on buying pistons and bearing without knowing what sizes are in there/how much wear there is…
My logic is that if I have guessed wrong, I will probably have another block/crank that the parts will suit.

Parts total cost was about $1200, which I thought was pretty reasonable. Pistons are on the cheaper end of the spectrum, but appear to be not-junk.

I have balanced the pistons. No photos because I forgot to take them.
The rods will come out of the engine soon and I will balance them too.

This is all in anticipation of getting Stinky registered with a manual gearbox and then turning it into a rally car.

Spac

This was the AWD Verada yesterday at Pheasant Wood Circuit, after 5 laps… wasn’t hot on the gauge, and the plastic didn’t look old… but here we are.
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Managed a 67.2 second lap before the radiator exploded, with a lot more to come. I am confident that I can get a 64.x second lap from it, and a 63 wouldn’t be out of the question.
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Although the leather seats weren’t good - I had to put in a lot of effort to hold myself in the seat…

The 67.2 was good enough to keep me in 12th place for most of the day but a few people (including The Boy) improved late in the day and pushed me back to 16th(?) outright from 31 entries.

I was totally unsure what place this car has in my life, now I am even less sure. I could see an argument for it being a fantastic shit-stir track car if the automatic was more co-operative.
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It would be an excellent road car for lots of reasons, but I don’t think any of those reasons apply to me… 🫤
It’s also worth a lot more in parts than it is as a car.

Procrastination will continue!

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