Roman

Oh also, trackday made my diff whine mostly go away! Great success //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/21625-romans-cod-piece/page-6

Sooooo I went down to Taupo on Friday, and me and the old man put some beatdowns on the Carina. It was pretty spectacularly rainy at some point, on the first and second stint 4-5 cars hit the wall! Madness. My Dad only got in one run, because it was so rainy he didnt really want to take it out again after that. It was never quite dry on the day, my fastest laptime on this track is a 1:57 which I did in an SW20 MR2 with a beams motor many years ago. This time around I managed a 2.03 with some pretty sloppy lines, a damp track and old tires. So a bit more practice and some better tires I reckon I'll be in the high/mid 1:50s no sweat Just prior to trackday I made a bracket that holds my laptop and GPS unit (tells me laptimes in realtime, soooooo useful) a fire extinguisher and camera tripod. So the idea is that it all bolts to the normal 4 seat mounts, so when I want to switch back to 'normal' I just unbolt the whole thing and put the passenger seat back in. Easy! Next on the to-do list is to get my failspec exhaust replaced, with something that flows and sounds better. Get some better tires, and increase the front camber a tad. As it's currently deeeestroying the outer edges of my tires, as I needed to have 0 degrees camber to pass cert... Silly rule that one. Millions of fun was had though! Track day is best day.

Is this in a carpark with lots of high speed bumps? Will come along if there are no big speed bumps and I havent blown up my car at trackday on Friday haha.

battery is in the boot but runs a dedicated sense wire all the wsy to the back. ive got another battery exactly the same in the sw20 so will swap them over and see what happens. otherwise will run a seperate voltage sense wire and see if it helps. thinking probably the battery now though as its been run completely flat a few times and left for a few days/weeks/forever/coupelife before realising.

Sooooo I bought a new voltage regulator, and swapped it over and reinstalled and I'm still gettting 14.7 volts at the alternator during idle. Bugger. What else could cause this? There are two wires on the alternator plug that return a voltage, with the engine off one was 12.8 volts and the other 12.5. (Or something like that, but one was .3 volts less than the other anyway) If the lower reading one was the voltage sense wire, could explain the overcharging? Possible broken/damaged wire still perhaps. Or is there anything else in the alternator being worn out etc that could cause that problem? I guess I'll need to try run an external voltage sense wire and see if anything changes.

Looks good, is there ever much rust to contend with on cars in 'Straya? I'm pretty sure all of the A40 series of cars have dissolved by now in New Zealand haha. Hmmm 2.4 litre beams sounds interesting, starting out with a 5S block?

Engine is as far back as you would want it to go. Current plan is: 1. Order a new voltage regulator, reassemble and refit alternator. 2. See if that made any difference to idle etc 3. Install hks wizard box airflow meter / idle adjuster. 4. Fiddle with it till car idles better 5. Adjust maf signal at rpm thats pinking to reduce ignition timing 6. Hopefully problems sorted / probably not.

thanks guys. Im going to try sort the alternator first as the overcharging could be causing half the problem. looks like the voltage regulator might be stuffed Glenn haha, not sure how much the big bus weighs but somewhere just under or over a tonne id imagine.

Argh, some time out with the OBD unit unveiled a few unexpected clues/issues. Set up some displays for rpm, ignition advance, MAF reading, intake temp, throttle position. For shits and giggles I thought I'd put a OBD unit voltage meter in there as well... 15.3 volts. shit. Get back home and see that my voltage sense wire on the battery terminal had kinda broken. Stripped it off and connected it back on to test, still reporting 15+ volts. It showed a peak of 17 volts when driving around, this could be what blew up my speedo sender unit! Lucky no other damage? A multimeter across the battery terminals and/or from the alternator output to an earth point on the chassis gives about 14.7 volts at idle which is still too high right? I havent driven it again since reconnecting the voltage sense wire properly. I hope the voltage regulator in the alternator hasnt crapped itself. Although given the frayed end on the wire it's probably just an issue with that somewhere. So might have to trace the wire back and check for breaks or whatever. I'll get some hired help on this one (Dad) as wiring does my head in! I guess it's a plausible theory that the excessive load from the alternator wringing its guts out was causing the idle to drop off / dunno yet. Although at low load cruising I was still seeing 45 degrees ignition advance which seems way too much. The echo remains in the 20ish degree advance area under similar load/rpm conditions. So the HKS wizard box might still earn it's keep once I've figured this one out.

Hey people. Thanks for the replies, hard to reply to multiple people on this forum now though in a single post! So to answer some queries - -No, I cant make the 'old' throttle body fit with an adaptor plate. This was the first thing I attempted, but there simply isnt the room to space the throttle body that much further forward and retain the necessary piping etc without hitting the radiator. -It is not possible to fit a TPS running the other way, not for wiring reasons but physical ones. The return spring only works one way and there's no way to push the TPS arms from the 'back' if that makes any sense. IT would need to be opposite hand, not mirror image for that to work. Or vice versa! -The OBD scanner is effectively read only, apart from clearing fault codes. There's no possibility to hard set TPS values, although the ECU effectively does this automatically to some extent. -Pickapart for correct TPS that turns the right way – non existant. -Adjusting the idle stopper so the ISCV works 'up' instead of 'down' – Spent some time going through this the other day, already done. Warmed the car up to a hot idle, then kept increasing the screw until it could no longer maintain a 900rpm idle after it settled. However in good news, I've got my tablet back so I can do some more diagnosis tonight, and comparisons of engine load values / tps etc / to my daily and see how they compare. Also, picked up one of these for super cheap and it's in the mail: http://www.hks-power.co.jp/usa/products/Pid=811_more.html I dont like how it adjusts MAF signal based on RPM alone, (As per every piggyback device, it would work better if it was more simply designed!) but it's specifically got provisions for fixing up a TPS signal. And it's really the 3ish thousand rpm zone where I'd need to increase the maf signal to pull out some ignition/vvti timing so I'm not relying on it too heavily to bodge things around. Will see how it goes, seems like it should possibly maybe help with both issues. I wouldnt use something like this if I didnt have the OBD unit for feedback loop though!

The throttle body that I am using is from an Altezza beams engine, which normally runs the electronic throttle body. I've disabled that so it's just completely actuated by the cable. But on account of the wizard magic that's normally in the throttle body housing, the TPS needs to be on the other side so it rotates in the opposite direction to usual. The FWD beams motor throttle body (to suit my ECU) is a little bit smaller and wont bolt to my plenum, and I cant swap the TPS over as it rotates in the opposite direction. (As per every other Toyota TPS that I've found...)

I dont want a bigger throttle body - but I have a bigger than standard one fitted, as it's a requirement of changing to a RWD plenum for my engine. The TPS on this throttle body runs counter clockwise (or the otherway compared to other Toyota TPS's) and seems to run across a lower voltage/resistance range than the factory one. As according to my OBD scanner the ECU thinks the throttle is only opening between 8% and 50%, checking with a multimeter confirms it looks to have a different resistance range. So the easiest solution seems to be to 'spread out' the voltage a bit so the OBD reads closer to correct. With a larger throttle body the accelleration enrichment isnt quite correct anymore, so ideally you need to add more air (voltage)at lower throttle angles. So changing from a linear angle vs voltage to non linear so it ramps up the voltage quicker (But stops at the same peak) would effectively simulate the standard throttle body as far as the ECU is concerned. Not a huge deal for the TPS and accelleration enrichment, but the first scenario, I dont know any other ways around it apart from bumping up the low load voltage. At the moment when my car is at very low load, (say cruising 80kph) the motor starts pinking. Also the car doesnt idle well currently, after cleaning and inspecting the ISCV it's all fine. But if I check in my OBD program, the ECU thinks that less than HALF the amount of air is coming in at idle, compared to what my Toyota Echo idles at. (5grams/sec in Echo, 2grams/sec in Carina) I've checked for post MAF air leaks and done some troubleshooting, but cannot seem to pinpoint it to anything. So whatever the MAF output voltage is when there's that miniscule amount of air coming through, I'd like to bump it up a bit so it's reading the correct signal which would correct the idle issues and also reduce ignition advance at low load to stop the pinking. Normally I'd expect the knock sensor to take care of that, but perhaps it's a harmonic deadzone knock sensor wise on account of some modifications to the engine etc. And it seems to point back to the MAF being the cause of the issue regardless.

Hey people, I've found a few instances where it would be handy to have a programmable magic box which can take an input 0-5v signal, and output a modified one. In the instance of installing a larger throttle body, since more air comes in at lower throttle openings you would want to change the linear 0-5v signal to start showing higher voltages quicker, so the ECU tips in the correct amount of fuel prior to the MAF or MAP sensor catching up. Also for my airflow meter, I would want to slightly bump up the signal when it's reading very low load, as it's advancing the ignition timing too far. I figure the easiest way to 'tune' such a thing would be to have two graphs side by side on a GUI on a laptop or something which could plug in via USB, and you can just drag a line on a graph for how you'd like both the input and output voltages to relate to each other. Or maybe select if the input vs output is linear, exponential, etc. Does anything similar to this, exist off the shelf already? Before anyone says "Get an aftermarket ECU you cheapskate" I could fix up minor issues with such a device for pretty damn cheap, compared to $3000+ for an installed and tuned ECU that acheives not much over the factory ECU apart from getting an extra 500rpm before my engine runs out of puff. Suggestions go!

Nice work! In my mind it makes sense to leave the camber tops for just camber though. There are already adjustable castor arms down the bottom, may as well keep the two adjustments seperate? It would make fine tuning a pain the ass if you just want to adjust camber and then end up removing/adding castor as well I reckon.

Hey people, We've got this towbar mount for my Dad's truck, that bolts onto the back of the chassis. However the problem is, that it's between 3-6mm too narrow to fit over chassis, as it was made for a *slightly* different model of truck. Bugger! We've been thinking about what might be the best thing to do, to get it modified to fit. In my mind the best option would be to cut the SHS on one side, and FWAR an oversized square piece of plate that's the thickness of how much it needs to widen by. However, it would offset the towbar position ever so slightly (meh) and perhaps look too modified/rangy to pass inspection (more of a problem) I guess it could square/butt weld an undersized plate in the same way so it looks more discrete, but it wouldnt be as strong. The rest of it is gussetted up pretty good, so dont see too many other easy options. What say you, talented fabricators of oldschool!? Also, anyone keen on a job for a few boxes of beer? lol.

Disagree with this bit, for an AFM car. Tuning via TPS or Alpha-N for big cams is your best option if you previously ran a map sensor. As with big cams you're not necessarily generating useful variations in vaccum anymore. However an airflow meter is placed ahead of vaccum, so it doesnt care what's downstream of it, it just measures the airflow coming into the engine. Which may be why some cams list as being fine for use with an aftermarket ECU. More air = more air measured, more fuel dumped in and less ignition advance. A map sensor runs calculations where the known VE of the motor with stock cams is part of the equation to ascertain the volume of air coming through, so changing cams can mess things up to a larger extent. Tuning by TPS / Alpha-N is a last resort if there arent any other options (like open quads)

Good to still see this car is still alive and well! That two tone paint though is... aaahhh... hmmm. Should paint the lower half black as well, will look awesome

Yep, definitely bringing mine! I'm booked in for an April trackday at Taupo, should be fun. Keen to hit up Hampton as well at some point

Good progress man! Will be good to see this out and about some time.

Just saw this thread, this thing is super sweet! Keep at it.

Hey man, I'd be super keen to see this thing out on track again! Was stoked that you gave me a ride along on the orientation lap for last years nats, still grinning when I think about how fun this car was. Should get a few guys together and hit up a Hampton trackday!

Seeing this turn up to the Display in Nelson, full of girls, with Rap music blaring out the windows... Holy shit that was amazing!

Nah fuck that. Low cars are unfun to drive, this is smiles per mile dialed to max.