Don't see why Al wouldn't be strong enough, loads on the alternator aren't THAT high afaik??? you've got belt tension and the weight of the thing itself.

Yep I think the Al and Fe would react but can't remember enough chemistry to know how serious it would be.

Carbon fibre would be excellent, now all we need is a composites guru and an autoclave

Really should give up TV and internet and take the time to try all this cool stuff!

The "unpleasant noise" turned out to be just the silencer in my exhaust. *phew*

Did a bit of research about the alternator bracket, and spoke with Tristan about it actually, and he reckons that the weight saving would be on the order of 3kg... Kinda makes it not quite worthwhile...

On another note, I have to admit that my head is swelling right now from having had my car ranked as "The best handling MR2 Tristan's ever driven.". Ok ok...it's not much of a honour...but hey, I'll take it.

Been a while since the last update, mainly because there haven't been any nice pictures since then. But I have some more information/experience to relate that others down the track might find useful:

Car Transportation
Car transportation within Australia is expensive. It cost about half as much as it cost me to ship my car from Japan. Go figure. I guess it just comes down to the fact that labour in Australia is expensive.

Anywho, since TOLL was the company who transported my car from Brisbane (where it landed from Japan) to Perth, I figured I'd use them to transport my car from Perth to Sydney. Logical yeah? So I ring them up and they say "yup cool". Then I tell them that my car is low. And they ask me, "how low"? I say exactly 10cm. They tell me that the lowest they take is 15cm or something crazy like that.

I then tell them that they managed to do it the first time round (i.e. from Brisband to Perth), so why can't they do it now? I was told to call the Perth Depot Manager and speak to him and see if he would do it. So I call the Perth depot and speak to some lady. I fully explained the situation and she said "Well, if we did it the first time round, we'll do it again." So I say "sweet" and proceed to make the necessary arrangements.

Tristan delivers the car on the appointed date, and the depot manager comes out and says "We're not taking that car, it's too low." So Tristan says "It's been pre-arranged, it's all good". And the depot managers says "No I dont think so". So then Tristan explains the whole situation about how this lady said it was okay, and the depot manager says that this lady did not have the authority to make that kind of decision [xo]. Tristan had to drive the car back.

I wasn't terribly impressed with TOLL. Next, I rang TNT. The sales consultant at TNT sounded a lot more professional I have to say. She said that TNT could do transport my car. THen I said my car was 10cm off the ground. And she said "Oh. No worries, we have a special transport that does low cars, but you'll have to pay $200 more" I'm like "sweet, no worries. let's do it".

So my car comes over on TNT for a price of around $1400 or something like that.

Registration
To register a personal import in NSW, you need:

1) Blue slip
2) Green slip

The green slip is just 3rd party insurance. You can get that easy. The blue slip is a different story. To get a blue slip, you have to go to a blue slip authorized workshop. Personal Imports come under "RULE 341", which means that the grounds on rejecting your car are as follows:

a) Vehicle is not RHD.
b) Eng. certificate required, but not available. (* see note later)
c) Lap-sash seat belts not fitted to all front outer seats.
d)
e) No lap-sash belt for centre front passenger seat
f) No lap-sash belt for centre rear passenger seat.
g) No lap-sash belt for rear outer seats.
h) Seat belts don't bear any of the approved markings:
-----1) Standard Association of Australia
-----2) British Standards Institution
-----3) ECE Regulation No. 16
-----4) EEC Directive 77/541
-----5) Manufacturer's name, date and number.
i) All rear seats do not carry child restraint anchorages.
j) All glazing used in windscreen, windows, and internal partitions are not approved safety glass and lack appropriate identifying mark such as LP, LS, LF, TP, TS, TF, WHP, ASI, AS2, or AS2080
k) Rear vision mirrors convex over entire surface.
l) Front outer seats do not carry head restraints.
m) Head restraints are "clip-on" type
n) Wedighbridge ticket not available, and vehicle is not a vechile that was manufacturered in Australia in full volume.
o) Vehicle dimensions exceed those given in Appendix F.
p) Lighting is not in accordance with lighting table in Appendix G.


For a Jap imported MR2, you can see that only rejections b) and j) may be applicable.

(*) Regarding rejection b), this is applicable if you have any aftermarket parts. All aftermarket modifications require and engineer's certificate certifying that it is safe, etc. If you put back all your stock parts, you are fine.

If none of the above rejections apply, the blue slip workshop will send one of your import certificates. You then have to send this off to a compliance plate maker who will make you a compliance plate. You then return this compliance plate to the blue slip workshop who will tack it onto your car. You will then get your "blue slip".

Once you have your blue slip, buy a green slip, go to the RTA and register your car. Done.

--End Update.

So is it all sorted out and rego'd B?

It's all regoed, but not quite ready to go. The engine's broken in now, but I still have a four things to do before it is in a stage of what I would call "complete". The four things being:

1) Final oil change from dinosaur oil to full synth
2) Final tuning
3) Fix a puncture in my tyre
4) Paint the car

With the way the global economy is at the moment however, the spending for the MR2 has taken a very back seat...So yeah... Maybe soon, but not quite yet.

Lazy @rse, even i beat you.

29 November 2008... finally.

Only just came across this thread... how are you going with the car?
I hope all is well.

Such a blast from the past seeing all those old pictures! :D

Haha, heya Tristan! Thanks for checking in.

Car's doing good actually. It's still not "done", but getting close. I should be getting back my dump pipe and heat shield from HP Coatings in Vic this week sometime, and then it's back for a retune.

The last retune came up a bit short due to a blocked fuel filter, which has also since been replaced. So...a couple of months and I should have a mechanically "finished" car. :) Finally.

Those old pictures are treasured memories. :)

Hurry up.