(Above, my 1996 (KV3, ECVT) Subaru Sambar Dias Classic with the factory installed (!) hydraulic wheelchair lift. I think I was flushing the coolant that day.)
At this point in the program, I had really hoped to have the site “live.” Unfortunately, life happens, and this wasn’t as important as some other stuff that needed to get handled. For the time being, Projekt EN07 is a passion project. I want it to become more than that, but that’s going to take time.
(I made a small change to the home page of the project, which the eagle-eyed viewer will have noticed lets them in to check out the blog and the rest of this dusty warehouse that is my absolutely-not-complete website.)
For the moment, we shall be the site without a cool logo.
I’ve been dallying my ‘97 KS3 (the 2WD truck, 5MT) since about mid July. I’ve been keeping track of gas mileage (and how many km/l) for the last few fillups. Yes, there’s a spreadsheet that I will share at some point, but it’s not pretty enough yet. :) So far this is what I’ve seen:
(Mid July) 31.81 MPG (13.53 km/l) 31July2024 29.97 MPG (12.75 km/l) 10August 2024 22.20 MPG (9.45 km/l) - this tank included a trip to Honolulu via the H-3. From the Windward side at the Kamehameha Hwy overpass to the end of the “long” portion of the Tetsuo Harano tunnels at the top, it was a lot of full throttle driving. I kept the truck at 60mph on the flat, and then when the climb started, I went to WOT (wide open throttle). Coming from the Honolulu side back to the Windward side, I think the hill is even longer.
17August2024 34.76 MPG (14.79 km/l)
Right now we’re averaging 29.7 MPG over 667.82 miles of mixed driving. I’ll take it. I’m interested to see how the mileage is affected when I start modifying things. I’ve got a call out to the local street rod group to find out how much dynomometer time costs here. I mean, if we’re going to do silly things to a 38.8 hp engine, we’re going to measure the output and make pretty graphs. In the immortal words of one of my favorite TV personalities, Adam Savage of Mythbusters fame - “Remember, kids. The only difference between screwing around and science is writing things down!” No truer words have been spoken, my man. We’re going to control conditions, repeat tests, and write shit down. We’re gonna make Adam proud. Oh, and spreadsheets and graphs. Love those.
So not too awfully long ago I decided that I wanted to duplicate the muffler setup that was detailed here in this post over at the Facebook Group “Sambar Squad.” They give a nice list of parts needed and convenient links to them. The setup is designed to bolt right up to the stock exhaust manifold “log.” I had some folks at Hawaiian Hotrod - Team GKR weld up the stainless 2” ID (50.8 mm) exhaust flange half to the (for me) 440mm “Type C” motorcycle exhaust from eBay. They do really good work, but they are by no means inexpensive. I sure as hell am not a certified welder, so I don’t have any place to judge - but I think the welds look pretty good.
Something interesting arrived a week or two ago. Actually, many interesting things, but I’m only going to show you two of them for now. The first is an exhaust header for the truck! 4-into-one, baby.
This exhaust manifold comes to me from Ipunkz Exhaust in Purbalingga, Central Java, Indonesia. I don’t know how big of a shop they are, but man do they make a lot of mufflers and manifolds and just…all kinds of cool stuff. They know that I’m going to review their product, and I’m excited to get to that. There are a few steps before that though, so you’ll have to be patient. Oh, measurements relative to that photo: Length (left to right), 18.25” (463.55mm), Width(depth front to back), 8.25” (209.55mm), and Height 4.25” (107.95mm) The collector has an outside diameter of 2” (50.8mm).
The other really neat thing that showed up was THIS:
The “single vent” Akabou valve cover in I believe the same “crinkle red” that you’ll find the WRX STI Intake manifolds are done in. In the Sambar it denoted the Akabou, which was a special engine devloped for the Akabou (courier company?) in Japan. These engines had special parts, and were rated to 500,000km without a rebuild! What do we want? Red. Because race car. 🤣 A while back, I started trying to learn more about these valve covers (or tappet covers as they may be called in Japan). I got the part number (which I now cannot find), and I sent a part request to the team at Amayama.com. If you’ve not heard of them and you’ve got a Kei vehicle, you need to head over there and check it out. If you plop in your VIN, you can get the correct online parts catalogs for all the sub-groups of your vehicle! As for ordering from them, I haven’t done it yet - I heard their prices are fair, and shipping is slow. I’m sure I’ll order from them at some point, even if just to test it out.
So - back to the red thingy. Amayama said it’s a NLA (No Longer Available). When it WAS available, it looks like it was a roughly $92USD part. Add a little shipping from Japan, etc. Now if you want to indulge in the red goodness, and you head to eBay, you’re going to see them in the $330 - 350 range, and that’s before shipping. That really pisses me off. I think it’s acceptable for someone who has a business to sell something and make a profit. No problem with that. What really grinds my gears though is these jackasses who have stuff like this, see a rising demand, and buy up any available stock. They then turn around, jack the prices up like 3x, and laugh as people have to pay their prices if they want the part. Ok, so if you look at that last photo, you’ll see my bidding page from 500YenShop.com. If you’ve never used it, it’s a proxy bidding site that lets you bid on stuff at Yahoo Japan, Rakuten (japan version I’m guessing) and Yahoo Shopping in Japan. How it works is that you “load” your account with Yen in roughly blocks of $100USD, and they take a percentage. Then you use that “bank” to bid on things like very cool Akabou tappet covers for your EN07 that you don’t need but very much want. Assuming you win your auction, the item(s) then get shipped to the 500YenShop warehouse. Once all your stuff has hit the warehouse, you can order a package to be sent to you. Shipping from Japan is never inexpensive, but it helps when you can have them chuck a few things in a box rather than just one piece at a time. Oh, and they usually send you cool Japanese candies and gum! Shoutout to Yuichi Murakami and Derek MKT for helping the community out. (I’ve had lots of chats with Yuichi, and I can certify him as a “Good car guy.”
But apparently, I digress even further. 😊 You’re used to this by now, I hope you’re ok with it, because this is the norm! Ok- so we’ve now got in our possession what looks to be either a freakin’ brand new, or cleaned-very-well, single vent version of the Akabou valve cover. They came in 2-vent versions also. I’ve got some big plans for this valve cover and the community, but I’m not ready to release that info to the wild. You’ll just have to stay tuned. BAM. Cliffhanger. ;)
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