why i havent been posting so frequently...

to start, i will continue to be an active member of this community and still love computers and unix based operating systems.

ive been busy recently with a pretty big project, not involving unix

one of my other hobbies is automobiles. i have a 1986.5 toyota supra, now if anyone here has knowledge of mkiii's (the generation designation for the toyota supra model from 1986.5 to 1992) they would know that the 1986.5 did NOT come with the 7mgte engine. (that is an inline 6, three liter turbo charged engine.) instead it came with the 7mge (non turbo). turbo charging is where its at. the level of materials we have today (since the 80s) are advanced enough to warrant the use of turbo chargers. they have been proven effective methods of creating more power time and time again, for many years now.

a few months ago i bought a used 7mgte engine to transfer into my car.

if it were only that simple, not only does the engine have to be replaced, but many of the electronics that control the engine as well.

well long story short, after bringing the head from the engine in to get a valve job, i have it back and am just finishing putting the motor back together. ihave began the process of transplanting the engine.

leaving me with no car and no transportation to work !! (my bike has a flat tire )

anyway, i have been taking pictures of much of the process that i will be putting up on my server for people from the forums dealing with mkiiis to see.

if anyone here is interested, id be happy to provide a link to the pictures, when they go up when i am finished with the swap.

wish me luck!

Best of luck with the car. Look forward to seeing your pics of the transformation

My pre-occupation lately has been my now 20week young baby girl. Mum and bub are doing fine.

cool

wow congratulation! parenting must be an amazing experience.

I can second that!

My little girl is 17 months old tomorrow.

She's walking, running, and is starting to string sentences together.

She can even say "google", "awk", and "grep"

Cheers
ZB

She'll go far

to anyone interested, i got the engine in and the car is running. here are some pictures of the swap, some pics of the new engine in the car will go up soon.

Thanks for the pics.

Must admit, open engine bay's and engine's sitting on the ground don't do it for me

But I will be looking forward to seeing the whole box-and-dice when it's all done.

Best of luck with your project.

That's impressive, coming from a car "newbie" who knows practically nothing about the internals.

Which reminds me, is there a site one would recommend to learn more about cars (engines, barke systems, transmissions, etc.).

I would really like to know more.

yeah howstuffworks.com (i think thats the place :)) is actually great, for almost anything. ive spent hours reading there.

also, to really get into automobiles start with your own car. what kind of car do you have? pick up a factory (not chiltons or something else) repair manual for your car. they are about 50 to 80 dollars depending..

do a general tune up, change the belts, spark plugs, replace the fluids your self. check the timing. basic stuff like that. when something breaks, figure out what broke, check out what the repair manual says on how to fix it, then fix it! youll save your self lots of money on repairs, and at the same time youll learn alot about your car, and automobiles in general.

everything on a car is really very straightforward. its the actual trouble shooting when something goes wrong that can be tough.

for instance, i just completely replaced my engine and almost all electronic components. its hard to find all the little electrical "gremelins" (bugs!) that are causing my car not to run right.

for example, the car ran a little (poorly) but it ran, however the engine stalled out. upon restart the check engine light came on. (thats a good thing, now i have a place to start trouble shooting) i pulled the error code from the ECU, which told me that there was some problem with the air flow meter.

now of course the computer could be wrong, and it could a different, but technically related problem, like a vacuum leak. but now i have a place to start trouble shooting.

some people say they learn just by doing, and not by reading, but thats bull. those people will never gain full knowledge over what they are doing, unless they have a master mechanic teaching them.

read as much as you can. thats really the most important advice. this also applies to computers!