Roman

Also if you want it to handle well (by which I mean the best it can on a reasonable budget) then super low is not the answer. Even my car which isn't really low is too low for the standard 4 link to give me good traction, without traction brackets. Which is half of a fix. When you look at the 4 links they will slope down towards either the body or the diff. If it slopes down towards the body you are going to have bad traction. But yeah probably the best thing is just set the ride height to what you think looks cool then make it work from there haha.

Yeah keep it 4 link + panhard rod if you want to keep things simple. IRS would be complicated to get right / doesnt share the rear floorpan with liveaxle model. If you've got vented discs on your struts then there's zero point in going to x7 stuff. AE86 stuff has smaller wheelbearings/calipers/discs/etc. There are a few options for big brakes, but pretty much all of them involve running spacers and/or wheels with good spoke clearance. If not driving on the track then good pads and fluid is by far the simplest option that will work well... The big single pot setup works pretty well.

I think he's meaning just for the sake of bench testing the valve clearances with cam advance, not running the car that way.

The problem that he has in this case is that VVT makes it more complex. When he winds it over by hand the intake valves will be in the retarded position. But when the VVT advances the cam, it brings the valve timing forward by 20(?) degrees or so, and it might be during this advance that there are piston to valve contact. A good example - a while back someone turbocharged a beams motor, using low compression pistons from an engine that had the valve cutouts on a different angle to the beams head. Checked the clearances with plasticine, all good. However got the motor running and started tuning it... Advanced the cam timing and boom. pistons ate all of the intake valves.

The valve cutouts in the piston arent necessarily there to make sure that you can rotate the valves 360 degrees without hitting the pistons. As at TDC your valves will normally not be fully open so the cam timing keeps the two things out of phase even if they hit together if there isnt a cambelt. If you've got higher lift/duration than standard, it will likely be an interference engine now anyway. (assuming it wasnt already) Many motors are like this from factory... These are the ones where cambelt failure means an exploded engine, rather than a car that stops running haha. Probably the best way is to setup the cambelt and timing as you're intending, then lock the crank angle in place while at TDC on #1 then turn the cam with a cresent through its range of motion for VVT. (assuming this doesnt do anything bad to the pulley) Then check the clearance based on that.

Holy moly this is hardcore! Awesome resto

I'll come along for a nosey even if car isnt finished yet.

That's awesome about the lead plugs! It's gone from... a very complicated problem that only has work arounds at best. To.... a simple problem that was easily fixed. Gotta love it when that happens, because most of the time it's the other way around!

#3 cylinder on a straight 4cyl is often the first to blow up. Depending on coolant flow #4 cylinder is the last to get coolant, but #3 is sandwiched between 2 other cylinders smashing out lots of heat. So it naturally runs the hottest and is first to say YEAH NAH.

For 2D stuff it's just a case of holding a big sheet in place with no amazing accuracy and zapping around the inside with water/laser/whatever. So it's easy in terms of cad and machine setup, the end user can likely supply a cad file and it doesnt require as much of a skilled operator and there's much less chance of fucking it up. So there's low labour cost/materials cost/skill required/etc. Which is why it's popular for people making flanges etc that way, as it can be done cheaply and it saves you a heap of time, However with 3D stuff the operator needs to find/use an appropriate block of material, set up cutting routines, etc etc which it's impossible for the end user to know how to do. So there's always going to be that additional labour cost, which IMO is why it's always going to be a prohibitively expensive option for one off car stuff. Especially if it doesnt fit first time! So regardless of how they work the costs it's going to be spendy and difficult to quantify that cost before doing the actual work. If you were making one of something prior to smashing out 1000 then it's cheap(er) for each part. But all of the setup costs get soaked up in the first piece if it's a one off. It will be cool when the 3D printers gain momentum though as most of those overheads will likely dissapear as theres 'free' complexity to shapes rather than becoming increasingly costly.

Not me... But I might get one if I've got a fuel pump before it sells out haha.

Feck yeah! Great work

I asked around a few local suppliers, prices for a fuel pump were between $180-300 for OEM equivilent but not Toyota Genuine. No one really wanted to give me any confirmation on what brand or whatever, so there's no way to know that I'm not just buying a $20 Ebay one anyway So I did just that haha, Aliexpress $50 shipped. Cheers for the steer in the right direction Rookie. It looks as though fuel pumps from the 90s model Toyotas will fit up fine too, so might look for an ST202 or similar equivilent at Zebra or wherever and keep that as a spare for long trips incase my Ali special shits the bed.

Yeah i have been thinking about it! but i dont think it would be possible. Partially because of where its located but also its a mission to get in or out even when the tank is on the ground. Needs to do a cork screw to get past the baffles and id probably need to cut half the floor out haha.

And a surge tank setup!

Cool that's a pretty sweet price for an external setup! These days my patience wears thin pretty quickly when it's off the road though. Downtime minimum, tracktime/funtime maximum. I'm trying to compensate for the too many years that this car has been off the road already haha. So a brand new in tank pump replacement seems quickest/easiest/most reliable way to go from here.

For whatever reason the early carinas/celicas had external pump tanks then later went to internal. Maybe for noise or simplicity reasons perhaps. Since this car had a carb with a non baffled tank for starters I think I intentionally went for an internal pump tank as it seemed simpler to setup EFI with. But in hindsight the external pump tank might have been the better pick... Ahh well no drama. It just takes an hour or three longer to do a pump swap job that hopefully only happens once ever But yeah for now I'll find an OEM replacement that just bangs straight in and hopefully lasts longer than it needs to.

Aahhh it looks as though the factory fuel pump is horrifically generic: So there are good odds I'll be able to get a Toyota or aftermarket one for a decent price hopefully. When it was working fine it had more than enough gumption for the motor so I'll stick with that.

Cool cheers... I'm 99% sure I've got a spare pump that will fit to get my car going again in the short term. But I'll definitely be looking to get a brand new pump in there in coming weeks so I dont have this same thing again, pickapart specials seems to be how I get into these sorts of situations to start with hahaha. But having a cradle etc to go with it that's easy to fit will be handy! Although I'll probably just be lazy and replace with another intake pump rather than reinvent the wheel. I've found a few places online that sell replacement MA61 pumps so might try one of these as it'll be plug and play.

Oh yeah? I dont know much about fuel pump options as I've never used anything apart from standard ones before. What are the downsides of an external pump? Extra noise? It seems a lot easier to fix any issues that way. It's a pain the ass dropping the gas tank to get to the pump currently.

Yeah there's plenty of time to Nats, so it's no drama to get it changed before then if need be. It's only slipped a few times in total, any time after the first I've been super wary and backed off straight away... It's probably taken a lot less abuse from that, than a clutch gets with a learner driver hahaha. So hopefully there's plenty more life in it as 7-8000kms is a pretty stink run for a clutch I guess. Nats hoons for sure!

Checked the clutch pushrod - way too long! Trimmed maybe 5 or 10mm off it, before it had a little bit of free movement. Thought I'd go for a drive, just to be sure... High rpms good, up hills good, high load low rpm up hills good... Clutch slip gone! Awesome! But of course, owning an old car isnt that straight forward is it I get to the furthest part of my journey away from Auckland (Kaiaua) to have the fuel pump crap itself. Argh! Serves me right for thinking that using a 30+ year old fuel pump would be a good plan. While diagnosing the issue, I managed to lock myself out of the car. While it was starting to rain So I then went on a mission to get back in, managed to open a door, hard wired the fuel pump to 12v and took the fuel return line off - nothing coming out. Also noticed that the fuel pump sounded fucked as well so wrote off the idea of the filter being the issue. Ended up getting towed with a rope, all the way back to Howick which was pretty scary at night time in the pouring rain! On the bright side though I'm stoked not to have to change the clutch over just quite yet. I am also stoked that the pump didnt fail at the Leadfoot weekend, or at a Hampton trackday! Or at Nats coming up. I've got a spare MA61 fuel pump somewhere that should get it back up and running, but I get the feeling that fitting something brand new is going to be the best plan from here. Any suggestions on a fuel pump for 200ish hp that will be an easy fit? Thinking about finding something factory fitting that's available brand new if possible. Not interested in future proofing for 500hp or whatever as this car will never have much more power than it currently does.

I went to Gaspex in Penrose to get a custom gasket made for the exhaust, awesome service and price! $27 for a custom made gasket copper lined on both sides that should hold up to some trackday punishment. Tonight I went for a drive with the exhaust fixed up... 7.7l per 100km on a trip to West Auckland and back, pretty damn happy with that! My last daily driver could never manage below 10l per 100 so it's pretty awesome to have a weekend car that I dont feel guilty about driving haha. My clutch turned up today, and it's damn pretty! If anyone buys an ORC 309D clutch and gets stuck for info: (309D is the 'up to 300hp' generic clutch that they sell for everything basically) Standard clutch plate thickness is 4.7mm (Mine is 3.5, so will replace) and it looks as though the best place for replacement parts is the website rhdjapan.com. For comparison's sake when I take the other clutch out eventually, approximate comparison of weights: Clutch cover plate ~2kg Clutch cover friction plate ~1kg clutch plate 1kg flywheel - 5.5kg total: ~9.5 - 10kg assembled So not bad considering now the entire clutch assembly is less than the weight of the standard Altezza flywheel by itself. I had a retard moment tonight though, when I realised it's possible that my clutch fork is being preloaded by the pushrod from the slave cylinder... The slipping issue might be caused by the clutch being ever so slightly depressed, when your foot is off the clutch. D'oh! So great news if this is the case, as it means I might not actually need to change the clutch just yet. I can go do some more Hampton twilight testing for slippage before committing to a Taupo trackday where it's a lot more of a waste of a day if something goes wrong. My existing clutch has only done about 8,000kms since new, so it would be nice to save changing the clutch over after at least getting a bit more life out of it. Fingers crossed!

And have a car that goes out of tune when you're half way up Takaka hill?