BIG UPDATE!

OK, so I have been really lazy with updating this blog, I have done a lot of work to the Celica since the last update.

The first thing I had done since it went in and got repaired was a full 3" mandrel bent stainless exhaust system, from the custom dump pipe back, from Brian at Exhaust Innovations. This consists of a new high flow cat and single rear muffler, and sounds fantastic! I also got Brian to put a burnt tip effect on the pipe


I have also been freshening up the bushes throughout with Whiteline Plus chassis control bushes, and have removed the steering rack mounts to replace those bushes as well.

I have also fitted a new Alpine head unit, Infinity Reference speakers (4" front, 6.5" rear) and Sony amplifier.


I installed a fire extinguisher on a bracket in front of the passenger seat, using aluminium that I polished up to a mirror finish


I have also had the distributer reconditioned as it was leaking oil.

Last but not least, I have fitted up a set of 17" SSR Professor SP1s, in Super Black Coat. These are 8" wide, with an offset of +37 and are normal disc up the front and Super Low Disc at the rear (super low gives more lip, these could have fitted the front too but I wanted to leave room for a big brake kit). Tires are 215/45 Dunlop Sportmaxx TTs

So the car is currently sitting on stands in the garage getting the rear bushes done, I am also replacing the brake lines with braided and repainting the calipers, hubs and spacers black.
The work continues...

Break down on Christmas Day

Travelling on the busy Gateway Motorway in Brisbane on Christmas Day on my way to visit some friends the car simply slowed down and stopped. No spluttering, no bangs, just a complete loss of power.

After checking the basics it was clear I wasn't going to get it started again, so I got a tow truck. I have since had the car towed back to APC, where it was compression tested and the results were very bad, turns out the cam belt was all but shreaded and had spun, putting the cars timing out. This is indeed weird - the engine was only supposed to be assembled roughly 10,000 kms ago. The belt looked like it had a groove worn in to the back of it, so thats the cause. Tensioner looks to have played a part in that - that should have been replaced with the belt.

Off came the head, which was sent away to get tests. I was discussing on my options to take. Obviously more power down the track is always on the cards, so while the engine was apart I wanted to make sure we performed any necessary work so we wouldn't be repeating the process. Upon inspection of the block, the pistons looked to be in good condition, and all the modifications that had been described to me when I bought the car had been performed, so at least I wasn't lied to!

Another couple of things I thought might as well get addressed while the engine was half out were the gearbox syncros, the whining coming from the front (diff I think) and the leaking power steering.

The head results came back good - no bent valves. Also was noted it was indeed ported as I had been told when I bought it, and already had a different set of cams, and APR head studs, also as I had been told. The problem was that it hadn't been assembled correctly, so would require a complete strip down, machining and re-assembly. It was deemed that for the power figures I'm after, once re-assembled the head will be more than capable.

So, that brings me to here. I'm still waiting to get it back, but when I do it will have a freshly assembled head, reconditioned gearbox, diff and power steering system.

UPDATE: I picked the car up today, finally (Feb 15). The head has been pressure tested, wet blasted and rebuilt, with the valves and seats getting buffed and faced, new valve guides and seals. Also, the gearbox recieved new bearings and seals, new 3rd and 2nd gear syncro rings and a new 2nd gear syncro hub. The power steering rack and pump were both reconditioned, new CV boots were applied and the seals in the distributor replaced. Also, a wheel alignment was performed.

Gear changes are beautiful now, and the steering feel is vastly improved with the new rack and wheel alignment, before the steering felt like it was off to one side, easy to turn one way, harder the other way - no such problem now.

Lowering and Dyno

With the new pipe fitted, the car went back on the dyno at APC to get tuned, and now, finally running alright, its making 130.6 awkW, which is ok for now...

I ordered a Whiteline adjustable rear sway bar (these cars are prone to understeer, a stiffer rear sway bar helps to eliminate this) and a set of TEIN Super Street coilovers. Pictured below is a shot of the car before the new suspension went in:


Here you can see the new sway bar up against the old one. The three holes are to adjust the stiffness of the bar.


Notice the ends of the bar are straight as opposed to bent - this increases the effectiveness of it, but caused a major problem, it hits the brake line bracket on the coilovers. I am going to cut the bracket off leaving enough to drill a hole to attach the brake line to. I was going to get a new bracket welded on but the strut would need stripped and then regassed - its a brand new strut so I'm not doing that just yet.



Anyway, with the new struts in and the sway bar in, I adjusted the height and it looks much better. Also, the front pillowball uppermounts allow for camber adjustment. Whilst changing the shocks I found a few suspension bushes that need replaced, so I'm in the process of ordering new ones. Once fitted I'll get an alignment.


Pre-alignment it feels good, rigidity wise its not too hard, obviously it is a lot firmer and you can feel more bumps than before but it is not uncomfortable, and body roll has been vastly reduced, when cornering the turn in is much better, the car just feels much more alive. Very happy with the result.

Hoses

The vacuum line I used to connect my BOV vacuum line and my boost control lines turned out to be nasty crap, it would flatten and warp in the heat. I bought some Samco 6mm vacuum line instead as I found a place who sells it here in Brisbane (Williams Race Services, in Coomera, Mike was very helpful) along with proper clips. (I had previously used ugly cable ties as I couldn't find clips small enough). Also, I found my intake hose was split where the PCV line connects to it. I patched this up temporarily so I could drive it home and searched for a replacement.

Samco also do an ST185 kit, although the rights to sell it are held by a company called Fensport in the UK, as they would have paid for the tooling to make them. So, after paying via International Money Transfer and waiting a couple of weeks delivery I finally had new intake hoses. I had to re-run my PCV line too, as it was too short. The only one I could get was red, I was worried it would look horrible and I'd need to track down some black stuff, but I think it actually looks alright.

So, the car is back off to APC as soon as I get a chance to take it there for a dyno tune and to get boost, timing and mixture all tuned nicely, it was there last week and it had a compression test - 180psi dead even across all cylinders.

More work and dodgy stuff

This is a bit of a large post, as I'm catching up on all the work I''ve done basically since buying it.
The car was fine like that for a while, I did some more little tidy up work and maintenance, like an oil change (Castrol Edge fully synthetic) with new filter (genuine Toyota), painting the window wiper arms matt black with Kill Rust paint (they had surface rust) and, as I had a headlight out, replacing the standard lamps with a couple of Hella H4 conversion lenses, with Phillips Crystalview lamps, which also came with the 5W park lamps in the same icy blue colour - heres a pic at night


Much better. Shortly after that however, when checking the fuse box, I found this (picture was taken after removing the fuse, which was still intact, but all the plactic had melted off it and the metal was soft) - its where the EFI fuse goes, by the way


After spraying the contacts liberally, I was hoping the contacts underneith weren't too badly damaged and would be fine until I could source a new fuse box. I put in a new fuse, started the car, and it just couldn't seem to hold idle, and would missfire and backfire. So, I checked the spark plugs (requiring removal of the intercooler) and found some worse for wear Champion plugs. I replaced those with a set of NGK Iridiums, and the problem remained. Also, the car was getting very hard to start, and the radio was kind of flickering, when the key was in the off position. In short, I had some electrical gremlins. Fuse box out.

So, the car is now in the garage, and I've been tidying up the electrical systems whilst ordering a new fuse box (its been a real pain to find one) and a new "Thermo Switch Coupling" (I found the wire was broken off while I had been looking around the engine bay). Also, replacing the thermostat (it wasn't flowing) and the alternator belt (to all those buying replacement thermostats for a 3GGTE, DO NOT buy the ones from Repco, Autobarn etc. They are crap, have no jiggle valve, or the jiggle valve is facing the wrong way, and on top of that, the genuine item is actually CHEAPER).


Along with that, the left and right engine mounts have been replaced with new high performance items (they have rubber fully bonded around the mount). I will also replace the front and rear mounts, along with a new heavy duty diff mount, but that will be after I get the car on the road again. Did the left and right first as I have the battery removed along with the intake piping and intercooler, so heaps of room.

So, this brings me to the dodgy stuff I've found. I'll start with electrical first. There was an alarm system installed previously, the harness was unplugged, and some of the wiring cut to remove some components, and the cables just dangling even though the main looms were still wired in. A relay interupting ignition wires was still wired into the alarm, which was redundant. A harness for a turbo timer still wired into the ignition system, cut, left dangling no protection. The wire for the handbrake had been tapped into, the new wire cut, left dangling.


The wire that goes to the solenoid on the starter motor, it had been re-routed via a dodgy crimp join, to feed one side of a relay coil, the other side of the coil taken straight to the negative terminal on the battery. This relay was then switching an unfused wire from the battery to the solenoid. Now, I for the life of me can not understand why someone would do this, and I'm an industrial electrician. So, I've ripped all that out, and also the starter motor, seen as its been hard to start and the battery was fine (load tested) and I'll take it to an auto electrician to get checked out / reconditioned.

ECU wiring had a piggyback harness wired into it. This was not dodgy, was done very tidy, but my aim is to run with the factory ECU until I can afford a Power FC or similar, as the piggyback is a very old, obsolete piece of crap which required someone with a knowledge of both it and DOS to tune. Not worth it. So I sold it on eBay!

The other dodgy thing was on the pressure line from the turbo housing to the wastegate actuator. I'm sure many will recognize this as a simple boost tap to modify boost levels, however the T-VSV valve (the other line coming from the wastegate actuator, you can't see it in the following photo) hadn't been blocked, which means that there is another form of boost control as well once in 3rd, 4th and 5th gears - not good. (The vacuum line heading to the boost sensor had been tapped and now had been blocked off, so I'm really hoping the person who installed it also had a boost guage set up and wasn't trying to run sky high boost - it wasn't hitting fuel cut though, and no defender is installed).


To remedy this, I've ordered a spring and ball type manual boost controller (better than bleed type as it allows for faster spool up and has better control), along with an Autometer Ultra Lite Vacuum / Boost guage with mounting cup. I've bought some silicone hosing, and replaced the vacuum line going to the BOV, and am extending the wastegate actuator line to position the boost controller somewhere more accessable, and just to generally help tidy up the engine bay. I've also bought an Apexi turbo timer, which can display AF ratio (although not very accurate, will at least display rich / lean conditions), battery voltage, O2 sensor voltage and can be configured for either full auto timing (using the 02 sensor to determine run on time) or preset timing. I also blanked off the T-VSV lines (below). Once all fitted, I should be able to safely set boost in all gears to a safe 10 - 11 psi.


That's it for now, once I get all the parts delivered and the fuse box replaced I'll update with the details and pictures. If I get a chance too I'll get around to installing the heat wrap I bought for the turbo dump pipe, in an attempt to lower under bonnet temperatures, but that is going to be a real pain of a job!

Can't wait to drive it again!

Spending money

Two weeks after purchasing the vehicle, I took it into a Gearbox and Diff specialist, the problem with the shift turning out to be split linkage cables. These were ordered, and while the car was in there I had all the gearbox, diff and transfer case lubricants changed. Also, bought a TWM Performance short shift kit and had this installed along with the linkage cables. Everything installed, the shift feels perfect again. Nice and tight, however because the shift is much shorter it requires noticeably more effort to change gears.
Another thing to happen at around the same time, was after driving the car, I heard a hissing sound from the engine bay, which was coolant spraying from one of the radiator hoses. After it cooled down, I saw why - when the AFM had been moved (for the custom intake pipe and K&N air filter) an old bracket had been left on and was rubbing


So I removed the bracket and replaced the hose, also the other hose that comes from the top of the radiator had the blow off valve rubbing up against it, and felt very weak in that place, so I replaced that hose too. To save the damage happening again I went for a smaller (and much better anyway) BOV, a Turbosmart Vee Port


Mounted it using some hosing, to angle it for more space.

The Car

Bought the GT Four early in 2010, looking like this:

I knew the car had a sloppy gearshift upon buying, thinking it would just be the bushes, and the owner had given me details of what was done to it - the engine had been rebuilt around 8000kms prior, and had the following modifications:

• ARP head studs, rod bolts and flywheel bolts
• Arias forged pistions
• Shot peened rods
• Knife edged crank
• Lightened flywheel with EXEDY heavy duty single plate clutch
• Head has been flowed, port matched and polished with shaved valves
• Ceramic coated pistions, exhaust manifold and turbo housing
• Custom 2.75" turbo dump pipe
• K&N filter
• Group A computer
• IFT piggyback engine management
• Monza blow off valve
• PWR radiator

I was pretty happy with the presentation, had a test drive and everything drove fine.