Obelisk's Garage - Daihatsu Midget II, Mazda MX5 (NC2), Suzuki Alto Works (HB11S)

[Chris30]

Another check-in, another frustrating back and forth situation.

Midget
The new wheels are stuck in customs right now. Once they arrive, I'll be able to just pull the tires off the other 12" set and toss these on. Still debating painting them or not.
Clutch cable: I got one that was 2.5 feet too long (intended for a Hijet), and could not resolve the mounting and internal friction issues I was experiencing. I ended up ordering the exact cable I need from a German retailer, and the lead time is really long on that - 14-21 days if not longer.

The things I do for this little glorious truck.

bonus picture tax: midget is in air jail as of right now
View attachment 1490659

Alto
Engine is alive and they are running it through initial break-in/cycling + the initial oil change.
However, the rear brakes and entire exhaust are rotted and useless.
The shop has gotten the go ahead to fix both, which will add to the lead time on the Alto coming back plus add to my expenses I still owe on that bill. The things I do for this turbo box.

Good luck Obelisk. Update us again when you get the Alto fixed. Yes, taking care of a car is stressful, but it's important to have reliable transportation now to get to places around the world.

 

[Korza]

Clutch cable: I got one that was 2.5 feet too long (intended for a Hijet), and could not resolve the mounting and internal friction issues I was experiencing. I ended up ordering the exact cable I need from a German retailer, and the lead time is really long on that - 14-21 days if not longer.

Take the cable to a local bicycle shop, they should be able to shorten to the correct length.

 

[Chris30]

@Obelisk good luck with getting your cars fixed, when you do give us another update. Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

 

[Obelisk]

I was supposed to bring the Alto Works home from the shop on Saturday (two days ago), and everything was looking excellent.
A bearing in the transfer case failed 15 miles from the shop.

The shop already has the car, already found the issue, already knows what parts they need.
So between now and their estimated completion date of "early December", they're going to do the following:

• Replace all of the bearings in the transfer case, as well as the ring gear.
• Resurface the front brake rotors (I had an issue with the car feeling weak on the brakes)
• Check/tighten the parking brake/e-brake
• take the car on an extended test drive to be absolutely certain that nothing else is going to cause a disaster.

---

And end of november - only have an update on the Midget:

• I've been stifled by DHL on my attempt to get a shifter cable from Germany for the Midget; contacted a broker to try and help me get the cable here.
• I spent last week fighting with FedEx about the Hijet pull-offs I ordered. I turned the forms back over but they still have yet to release the wheels. We'll see.
• Finally pulled the dash off... mostly. I was defeated by a stubborn PCB connector on the speedometer, and I'll be trying to get it off tomorrow. I need to do all of this so I can access the wiper motor, which is very unhelpfully placed directly behind the defroster tubing:

I will gush all day about the economy of space in kei cars, but dear god they don't spare a thought for the mechanics.

 

[Chris30]

I was supposed to bring the Alto Works home from the shop on Saturday (two days ago), and everything was looking excellent.
A bearing in the transfer case failed 15 miles from the shop.

The shop already has the car, already found the issue, already knows what parts they need.
So between now and their estimated completion date of "early December", they're going to do the following:

• Replace all of the bearings in the transfer case, as well as the ring gear.
• Resurface the front brake rotors (I had an issue with the car feeling weak on the brakes)
• Check/tighten the parking brake/e-brake
• take the car on an extended test drive to be absolutely certain that nothing else is going to cause a disaster.

---

And end of november - only have an update on the Midget:

• I've been stifled by DHL on my attempt to get a shifter cable from Germany for the Midget; contacted a broker to try and help me get the cable here.
• I spent last week fighting with FedEx about the Hijet pull-offs I ordered. I turned the forms back over but they still have yet to release the wheels. We'll see.
• Finally pulled the dash off... mostly. I was defeated by a stubborn PCB connector on the speedometer, and I'll be trying to get it off tomorrow. I need to do all of this so I can access the wiper motor, which is very unhelpfully placed directly behind the defroster tubing:

View attachment 1494234

I will gush all day about the economy of space in kei cars, but dear god they don't spare a thought for the mechanics.

Good luck, I hope they can think critically on how to properly fix the Midget and your other special cars. Hope everything works out for you. So bad this is all happening around the Thanksgiving holiday. The mail might be slow depending on how many people are ordering Christmas gifts and packages early this year. Take care.

 

[Obelisk]

I hope they can think critically on how to properly fix the Midget and your other special cars.

It's only the Alto that "they" are working on right now. None of us (the shop guys and I) were expecting the bearings to be complete trash in the transfer case, but it is what it is.

The Midget is sitting in my garage right now on a set of jackstands because of the delay on the wheels.

 

[Chris30]

Oh, ok. Sorry. I tend to overlook at the information sometimes. Great progress on the Midget. I'll check back here in a few days. Enjoy your holidays this week.

 

[wfooshee]

There always seems to be a part somewhere that seem to be what the rest of the car was built around. I had an '88 Crown Vic that ate headlight switches, and the switch was all but impossible to access. From the factory, there is no headlight relay, so the full load of the headlamps passes thrugh the switch. For a while. On the second replacement, I figured that out by actually examining the circuit diagram, and added a relay.

 

[Chris30]

@Obelisk I hope you, your family and all your cars had a wonderful Christmas and holiday this year(2025). If you all got snow, hopefully it made the cars feel comfortable and in the Christmas spirit. Ready for 2026? It's right around the corner coming soon, in three days.

 

[Obelisk]

So...

My mechanic just contacted me regarding the Alto Works' most recent issue. First, a clarifying note: The chewed up gear in the transfer case is the pinion gear (to the best of my understanding), but I'm not sure about the ring gear in the equation either. Anyways, the pinion is the relevant one for this:

The mechanic's supplier has marked the pinion gear as No Longer Available. The shop is investigating options, but they're leaning towards a weld/grind down on the existing pinion gear. I'm aware that it needs a number of specific things beyond just welding and grinding down (heat treating, backlash, etc.) - so I'll sit down and talk with the mechanic to make 100% sure that if they go this route, they do a proper restoration of the pinion gear. The other options (from independent research) are to convert the Alto from AWD to FWD, or getting a new ring/pinion custom cut instead of trying to source vaporware hardware.

It took a while to actually find this out because the supplier took a very long time to respond to the mechanic, then silently cancelled the order over this past weekend.

This sucks, man.

 

[homeforsummer]

Not to belittle your latest bad luck with the Alto, but enjoyed catching up on this thread as I'd not dipped in for a while. Owning a Midget II is still on the bucket list, so it's interesting to hear how you're getting on with the little jobs.

 

[Obelisk]

Huge shout-out to JDM Imports CT in Coventry, CT, for the hard work they've dumped into my Alto...

...Because it just came home under its own power!

That 84 mile return trip was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done in my life - I was fully expecting another problem to suddenly rear up and even brought an emergency kit with me to prepare for the worst.

The car just shrugged it off and even averaged somewhere over 32 MPG.

I also, by complete accident, got my hands on the old piston and valve (the boxes holding them were left behind in the car) and...
😬

Adding to that, since the car got converted down to FWD, the shop had the transfer case guts out to show me the problem:

When the bearing blew, this gear fell out of alignment with the larger gear in the transfer case. I think the results are self explanatory.

For now, I'm still tenatively getting the rebuilt engine broken in by doing errand runs, etc. and have ~ 1,000 km before the shop's recommended oil change.

 

[wfooshee]

Finally, some good news on that thing!

 

[Chris30]

Huge shout-out to JDM Imports CT in Coventry, CT, for the hard work they've dumped into my Alto...

...Because it just came home under its own power!
View attachment 1516672View attachment 1516673View attachment 1516674

That 84 mile return trip was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done in my life - I was fully expecting another problem to suddenly rear up and even brought an emergency kit with me to prepare for the worst.

The car just shrugged it off and even averaged somewhere over 32 MPG.

I also, by complete accident, got my hands on the old piston and valve (the boxes holding them were left behind in the car) and...
😬

View attachment 1516675
View attachment 1516676
View attachment 1516677
View attachment 1516678

Adding to that, since the car got converted down to FWD, the shop had the transfer case guts out to show me the problem:
View attachment 1516679
View attachment 1516680
View attachment 1516681

When the bearing blew, this gear fell out of alignment with the larger gear in the transfer case. I think the results are self explanatory.

For now, I'm still tenatively getting the rebuilt engine broken in by doing errand runs, etc. and have ~ 1,000 km before the shop's recommended oil change.

That is tremendous progress. I'm glad everything worked out for you mate and they were able to fix your car/Alto. Hope you're doing well this new year(2026).

 

[Jordan]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

Buying a Real-Life Gran Turismo Legend: the Suzuki Alto Works​

Back in 2024, GTPlanet member Obelisk did something that a lot of Gran Turismo fans dream about: he went out and bought a real-life version of a car he’d fallen in love with through the series...

 

[bduddy]

Funny coincidence, I just saw one of these on the road in the Seattle area. And right now I'm in Japan and haven't seen any! But yeah, I'm not sure I'd buy something like this unless it was already on a lot in the US (something which does exist in a couple places in Seattle).

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Review unclear. Is the car horrifically pixelated IRL too? Seems bad for aerodynamics (and health).

​

 

[Chris30]

This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

Buying a Real-Life Gran Turismo Legend: the Suzuki Alto Works​

Back in 2024, GTPlanet member Obelisk did something that a lot of Gran Turismo fans dream about: he went out and bought a real-life version of a car he’d fallen in love with through the series...

Wow, that was nice of you to make an article about Obelisk's Alto car. Very nice, I read the whole thing Monday night. Wow...

 

[Skv012a]

Very nicely done! Revisiting GT4,5, and the better P(ortable) after many, many year I lasered in on AW11 now that I have one and honestly my IRL auto journey has always been tied to gaming roots which is usually fairly backwards for most folk (not around here though, haha).

 

[Obelisk]

Yo!

I have really, really been off the radar. I didn't mean to poof, just got tangled up in life.

Quick touch-base, since I can't write brick walls of text very well:
Mimi (MX5):
My Miata popped a check engine light after an alignment was done at the end of... circa june-july. Not related, I want to be clear, but just annoying timing. The car's been sitting in storage for a bit. The CEL has cleared out today, which I'm interpreting as the memory having been wiped by the battery going dead. I'm gonna monitor and see if it kicks off again.

Hakoga (Alto Works)
The little turbo brick's survived its break-in period. I've since then had to keep it in storage because the front windshield (likely the original glass) cracked, and my connections at JDM CT are waiting for a windscreen to actually survive crossing the Pacific...

Daishō (Midget II)
I took the Midge to a local-ish shop to assess whether the carburetor was failing or not, and it turns out that when I had the distributor replaced as part of an earlier repair documented here, the timing advance was set all the way to the very late position. The car'd been running very out of time. They reset the distributor timing and the car's been much happier. I'm gonna be taking it to a big car show on the 27th.


And now, introducing my new (actual) project car:
"Pony" - 1997 Ford Mustang (SN95)

Picked it up for roughly 4k, deal of the century imo: garage kept, very extensive service records, and a clean history. Only a little cosmetic wear, and the underside is in great shape for a '97.

It's the 3.8L Essex V6 with the 4spd. automatic.

This car has some issues, but marginal ones - mostly tiny old things failing like the electric controls for the passenger mirror. I'm taking it in for new tires (has dry rotted Primewell PS830s right now) and a proper alignment check. It has passed inspection, so it's cleared the biggest hurdle.

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Fulfilling my civic duty and moral obligation to post this song here:

​

 

[Chris30]

Yo!

I have really, really been off the radar. I didn't mean to poof, just got tangled up in life.

Quick touch-base, since I can't write brick walls of text very well:
Mimi (MX5):
My Miata popped a check engine light after an alignment was done at the end of... circa june-july. Not related, I want to be clear, but just annoying timing. The car's been sitting in storage for a bit. The CEL has cleared out today, which I'm interpreting as the memory having been wiped by the battery going dead. I'm gonna monitor and see if it kicks off again.

Hakoga (Alto Works)
The little turbo brick's survived its break-in period. I've since then had to keep it in storage because the front windshield (likely the original glass) cracked, and my connections at JDM CT are waiting for a windscreen to actually survive crossing the Pacific...

Daishō (Midget II)
I took the Midge to a local-ish shop to assess whether the carburetor was failing or not, and it turns out that when I had the distributor replaced as part of an earlier repair documented here, the timing advance was set all the way to the very late position. The car'd been running very out of time. They reset the distributor timing and the car's been much happier. I'm gonna be taking it to a big car show on the 27th.


And now, introducing my new (actual) project car:
"Pony" - 1997 Ford Mustang (SN95)
View attachment 1566925
View attachment 1566926
View attachment 1566927
View attachment 1566928
View attachment 1566929
Picked it up for roughly 4k, deal of the century imo: garage kept, very extensive service records, and a clean history. Only a little cosmetic wear, and the underside is in great shape for a '97.

It's the 3.8L Essex V6 with the 4spd. automatic.

This car has some issues, but marginal ones - mostly tiny old things failing like the electric controls for the passenger mirror. I'm taking it in for new tires (has dry rotted Primewell PS830s right now) and a proper alignment check. It has passed inspection, so it's cleared the biggest hurdle.

Wow, thank you for the long update. It looks like things are going smoothly for you. Can't believe 2026 is almost over pretty much. I like the looks of your new project car. That wasn't such a bad deal for a ride like that. I hope you have a good day, my birthday is today too, so I'll turn 35 tonight.

And don't worry about being inactive for a while. We figured you were probably busy with other important things.

 

[homeforsummer]

Congrats on the new project car. Real variety with that, the kei cars and the MX-5 in the garage!