Rhyscar

A few snaps from Toyotafest. If anyone got some feel free to share as well.
 

Great to get the car out and chat to lots of people about it. Lots of motivation to finish it now! 
 

Trailer queen for first and last time hopefully 

Finley loved it too

Also quite excited about purchasing alternator and water pump undersized pulleys from Monkeywrench racing. Interestingly, they claim a 3-4HP gain on a factory motor, which combined with my lack of belt-driven powersteering, higher compression, ITB's and exhaust could potentially add up to 5-8hp total. Might even get close to K20 power?

This few HP is probably the cheapest $$/kw I'll ever make so stoked to have this piece of the puzzle coming together. These are waiting to make it into our suitcases when we visit the states in a few weeks..

Lots of finishing details taking lots of effort with this project. Stuff that's been sitting on the shelf 'finished' for a few years always needs adjustments or I need to remember how it was supposed to be installed... 

Final adjustments made to the gear shifter. Locked skateboard bearings in place with Loctite (they are a gentle press fit). Also replaced axle seals and got driveshafts in place. Gearbox is ready to roll once I add some oil... 

Polished up the headlights finally. Look great, but could be better still. 

Repainted mirrors in repco 'trim black'. Turned out great!

Decided to paint gurney flap black as well. Not sold on it but unsure what other options would look any good? Also, its amazing to see how unlike this car looks like a factory Levin... Dropping a car 4" will do that!

Pulled the front apart to do final welds on headlight frames. All comes apart in less than 30mins which is great. Wasn't stoked to need to remove radiator again though (it's a bitch of a job!)

And because I hate AN fittings & braided hose.... I sourced some Continental heater hose for breathers (not rated for oil but is no pressure and has 150deg C temp rating so should be fine). Bonus that it comes in almost an exact colour match to my car. Still one more hose end to fabricate for the final breather. 2zz has an obscene amount of breather ports so why not use them all!? Less crank pressure = more power. 

Last night Drew popped around to do a final measure up on engine loom. Added a few things and adjusted the factory loom to suit. 

He also brought some goodies with him. This is probably the biggest financial piece of the puzzle left so happy to make this step. 

Assembling the car and touching things up for Toyotafest at Hampton this saturday. Entered show in 'under construction' category. It's bittersweet because it feels good to finally have something worth showing/sharing with people for my 10+yrs of effort, but still so much work in the finishing touches. Next year I'll be driving it!!

Been driving this bit lately for a few events/occasions. Maybe a bit much - watching the kms. 

Perhaps two of the finest cars built in Japan in 1996?? Prove me wrong. 

Got out to watch some Targa in North Waikato over the weekend. Did a quick reece over one of the roads and wow when you get in it, this thing is a beast. Wound the diff up and it just glues to the road and clunks at low speed. Steering is super precise, gearbox is perfect which makes for a lot of fun carrying speed through corners. Very impressive for 1996, a modern car would need 450-500+ hp to keep up with the 1180kgs of 90's engineering. 

Unsurprisingly, the brakes suck but that's a later issue (has a slightly leaky master cylinder and rusty booster). Its done 240kms so its to be expected. 

New exhaust makes it a pleasure to drive on all occasions. Can hear BOV & wastegate doing their thing now which is cool. 

Car feels at home in the service park. All the old Targa geezers were fizzing. 

Found a gravel road to test out some launches. Goes better on gravel than tarmac 

Going in the shed for a while now. Need to give it a clean/wax and get the Speedlines repainted. 

End of weekend engine bay shot. Made a nifty heat shield for the firewall to keep the important stuff like brake masters and fuel hoses from melting.

Rocker cover is off getting a parts wash to get all the swarf out from drilling breather holes out. Sump needs to same treatment after I added an oil temp sensor hole. 
 

Getting a few loose ends of jobs tidied up before I tackle the last big job - extractors.
 

Starting to look like a complete car. 

Catch can finished up. Internal baffle, tiny K&N filter from a BMW bike, drain tap in bottom so you don’t need to remove to empty!! Fits very well in the allotted space 

finished up radiator and swirl pot pipework (pending rubber hose)

also finally finished the front bumper side ducting (radiator to come but that’s  big job/non important to start the thing) 

Keep moving forward  

On 16/01/2024 at 18:52, CaMpylobacter said:

I'll flick you a couple of pics on the Facebook messenger machine

 

 Dude this looks so good. Mounts were perfect already. Just need to find a bit of 3” exhaust bend and I’ll glue the bits together. Keen to hear what it sounds like. 
 

Suits the car perfectly. forever grateful!
 

Did some exploring while at home over xmas break. Current fleet is probably 10+ AG200's with a few TF125's hanging on. This one was my brothers so pretty much new (they run a fleet of 10+ for workers, buy a few every year). 

Went all over the place, all 3 of us on same bike (me, wife on back and daughter in front), including down some of the more knarly tracks and through the gorge. 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/iWce9tEvEr6uWHURA

All in all, it was a lovely experience. Don't like the AG as much as the TF125's we ran for years though. It pretends to be a torquey 4 stroke but is really quite weak in that department so you always end up in wrong gear. And the controls aren't as refined/user friendly as a TF125 (why can't I lock the front brake on when I park on a friggin hill!). Brakes are very off/on too. TF125 for the win, even though they're underpowered, they are way more fun to hoon. 

Who needs adventure bikes when you've got a farm bike, 2500 acres, 2x rivers, a swamp, gorge/stream and 40kms of tracks to explore.. 

Found a tidy Ae82 in one of the sheds on the farm over the break. Was an old man's weekend driver for years until Bluetop seized but otherwise a very tidy car. Just waiting on a price from dad to see if it's worth resurrecting and getting back on the road.. It's pretty tidy would come up mint with a clean. 

Done a few summer drives. Speedo cable broke again, replaced the whole thing this time. Clutch is starting to slip a little more, need to give it a bleed (starts slipping after a period of driving so thinking old fluid/leaky cylinders losing their ability to hydraulic things). Clutch is probably near end of life too, but a good condition hydraulic system is the first step... 

Had a mare with trying some new wheel cleaner. It stripped all the clear off the Speedlines and ruined a centre cap. Supplier was good about it and we'll look to get these repainted soon (they weren't in great condition anyway). 

So now we're back to factory wheels. 

Finley loves this car. Every time it gets kicked out on the driveway she has to go and sit in at and tell me all about it.

We had a dad-daughter date out to raglan which was an awesome memory to create with the car. Also it's fucking fast on the divvy... 

Getting sick of dumpy big bore life. Any suggestions on where to purchase a good value 3" chambered muffler? Mild steel will be fine, I'll hide it away and put a 2.5" stainless tip on it to replicate the group A look. 

Doesn't need to be anything flash, but would like quieter and more refined boxer rumble. 

Got radiator side mounts, fans and pipework all sorted over the holidays. These had been holding me up until as their location determines a lot of other engine bay related constraints so was great to get it ticked off. 

Without a radiator cross-member mounting the top of the radiator was tricky. I ended up welding a boss on each end and finding a shackle bush to mount to the headlight frames. I bloody hope I never bend the front end cause everything will get damaged..... Might need a good crash bar post-cert for bumper-to-bumper racing!

Made a shroud for the fans (which are the wrong direction currently due to a brain-fart on my part), mounted 15mm from core so hopefully enough to draw air from whole radiator surface. Have included rivnuts for future addition of bonnet ducting. 

Now I'm in the process of moving the header tank over to the guard to make the bonnet duct simpler. Should be a great layout when header tank, catch can, rad overflow, bonnet duct and airbox are all finished up. These may take a while to finalise as I'm focusing on jobs that get the car started.. ]

This is a HUGE step for me. And super happy with how it worked out. The end is feeling a lot closer and achievable now! Just got to keep moving forward. 

some more detailed shots of the wiring loom

front loom is very tucked up against the bottom rad support. Very minimal 

most of this area will end up getting covered by a catch can so won’t see most of it.

Nice and tidy through the firewall. Tight space so stoked I could make this work. Power steering pump still needs wiring from nearby relay. 

super happy with how it all fits under the dash

Gauge lights all working. All the steering wheel buttons and control panel are working mint. Just another plug needed for the rear part of the loom. 

This makes me happy. So stoked we wired up the yellow fog lights they look great! 

Loving the slam on this car. Can't wait to slay some backroads in this (at a bit higher height)

@vk327 cranking into the wiring. Body loom is 98% complete and working. Very exciting to see lights flashing and wiper going. Starting to feel like a real car, not just a collection of parts thats been sitting in my shed for too long...