'86 TX3 turbo of front tuggularness

[0R10N]

so I guess bishes don't know about my nosewheel drive.

simply put, it's the polar opposite of my other TX3, which is the immaculately kept, road-going weekend cruiser. This one is the bashed up track hack that never got enough love for the first few years of being in my possession

Bought it in 2004 off the flatmate of a girl I knew in Hamilton, for the sum of $720 with wof and rego. It was ridiculously cheap because "it blows lots of blue smoke bro, and doesn't idle", and because some moron had whacked the driver's side door and guard into a stump or something, and because the rear shocks were seized in the "hilux position", and because the clearcoat on the roof was (and is) pretty much rooted, and and and...

But on the flip side, it was a Jap import version (even rarer than my other one) and the interior and electrics were still mint (not that it ultimately mattered, in the end), it was front-tugs so the gearbox wouldn't blow up every 200km, and did I mention the wof and rego were still live?

managed to score a new door, replacement panels and other various parts for next to nothing after my mate's useless idiot neighbour (known affectionately as "fat fuck") wrote off his TX3, which just so happened to be the same colour. Neat.

Yeah, the wheels were pretty lame. So I bought some 15" O.Z Rallyracing Compes for it

I fixed all the issues it had, built a VF10 hybrid turbo for it, and let my old man use it as a daily for a year (after his company downsized their fleet and took away his ute). During this year it blew the headgasket TWICE. First time due to a ruptured radiator hose and having the wrong radiator fitted, and the second time due to some shoddy workmanship by a shady mechanic who tried to fix the first headgasket mishap.

After the second headgasket failure I took the car to my mechanic (whom I've known for years) and we ended up rebuilding the engine. At the same time I bought a BFMP Familia parts car with some goodies, namely a Link V1, Mazdaspeed LSD gearbox, Franklin stage 1 cams, 6-puck clutch and some suspension mods. The Link eventually ended up in my other TX3 after a few years of collecting dust, but the LSD 'box, cams, clutch and suspension went straight into front-tugs.

the holy grail of Laser/Familia drivetrains

Third time lucky, right? wrong. the car finally came out of the workshop in early 2005. Things were looking good for a while, I even managed to dyno it at a healthy 138kW at the front treads... until one night when I completely stripped 3rd gear while accelerating onto the motorway. Turns out the clutch was way too lethal for the drivetrain, so out went the puck, and in went an organic heavy duty Exedy which is still in there to this day.

My old man kept using the front-tugs until the end of 2005, when he finally got given another company car to use. By this time my DR30 coupe had arrived, and I was now dailying an AW11 MR2 instead, so the track car got parked up "for a while".

"a while" turned out to be two years

fast forward to 2007. the front-tugs was growing moss in the driveway by this time (I was actually using it as storage). I'd run out of things to do on any of my other cars, and one day I found some KYB coilovers on Trademe "to suit BFMP Familia or Laser". Ended up scoring them for far less than I thought I'd have to pay and suddenly decided that it was time to turn the good old front-tugs into a track hack.

so from there, the motley collection of parts began to grow. Rummaged around in the crap I'd accumulated over the years and found this. anyone remember SCi Performance? they were big in the late '90s-early '00s apparently

What they'd done was enlarged the intake on the plenum to 2.5" (from stock 2.0")

and hey presto they'd also supplied a matching throttle body with standard dashpot and TPS adapted.

put all together with a bit of portmatching resulted in a slightly more responsive intake setup.

I kept collecting and fitting parts over the course of 2007 and into 2008 - bigger front brakes, swaybars and a strut brace all went on, and out came the interior for weight savings of around 50kg. The brake upgrade paid off, as these cars have ABSOLUTELY CRAP fronts from factory.

...as well as a useless little factory intercooler. Hmm which one would make a nice upgrade - GTi-R? or VR-4?

Ended up going with VR-4.

with the brakes, intercooler upgrade, and suspension fitted my car was finally starting to get more competitive. Managed 2:02 around Taupo track 1 on road tyres, which I thought was pretty good. I'm not much of a lap time person to be honest - I just go out there to try and improve on my own lines, what other people are cutting around the track doesn't really faze me.

Then, disaster cooked the headgasket for the THIRD time. Going round Taupo in June 2008 the damn thing decided to let go between cylinder #4 and a water gallery, prior to this I'd noticed the temperature gauge rising above 3/4 after about lap three of each 5-lap stint around the full circuit. Got the car back to Hamilton (where it was being stored) and pulled the engine out and apart again with the help of my mate Brendan.

in addition to the BHG we found bad detonation and pitting on piston #2 and #3 and decided to scrap this engine completely and start again (incidentally I still have the bottom end sitting around if I ever feel the urge to raid it for parts). A friend of mine on the AMAZD forum was selling a complete B6T GT-Ae engine so I quickly bought it. The only special thing about the GT-Ae engine is its alloy sump with fittings for an external oil cooler, which I may add in the future.

While the engine was out I replaced the stock B6T injectors with some 390cc 4G93t ones - direct plug in, matching impedance and 30% more flow per min allowing me to run a bit richer at high boost and rpm. Unfortunately this made my idle and low-end drivability turn into a bag of utter shit and has resulted in more fouled spark plugs than I can count.

to solve the cooling issue I bought a gigantic alloy PWR radiator off the one and only oldschool forum user sentra.

The VR-4 cooler was only temporary, so I ended up fitting one of these instead:

...on a lean.

Then I bought some semi-slicks. Dunlop D01J soft compound 205/50/15s.

turns out they were too soft...

At the start of this year one of the front tyres completely delaminated due to heat stress. Turns out 5 laps is a bit too much for soft compound D01Js, and combined with summer heat and track temps they end up melting after a while Hopefully the set of medium compound 03G Direzzas I've replaced them with will be much more endurant.

After the success of fitting a Link V5 to my other TX3 and getting sick of going through two sets of spark plugs in the front-tugs each trackday I sold my Microtech and used the money to purchase a second V5 (plus all the associated junk for running wasted spark etc). Took it to Glenn B (ezy10s) to get installed and as of this week the car is now running (much betterer I might add). unfortunately I won't be racing at flawless trackday but there's a GP event at the end of the month which I'll be attending.

so that's where I'm at with the good old front-tugs. It may not be a looker by any means, but it's provided me with a hell of a lot of fun (and more than a few nightmares) over the last few years. The best part is that if I had to tally up all the money I've spent on this hack I doubt it'd be much more than about $5k

[mixmasterlex]

I love these things. Orange dials crack me up. So 80's. Good writeup of current progress too.

Vids of boostings?

[NicT]

Mean car dude, the picture of ur car with the white gt4 in the background, is that at hampton downs? That looks like my old mans car.

[Insani-T]

This is totally sweet, we be so sweet to have a track hack along these lines.

[0R10N]

one of my mates rode shotgun in the car around Taupo at the last trackday and got about three laps' worth of footage on his camera but I'm not sure what he did with it.

I've never bothered to take any vids of boostings in this car, or any of my cars for that matter. Mainly because I think my cars are all slow, and who'd want to watch a video of a slow car anyway?

Mean car dude, the picture of ur car with the white gt4 in the background, is that at hampton downs? That looks like my old mans car.

chur. Nah that was taken at Taupo, and the celica belongs to a guy I know called Dave.

took the car down at lunchtime to get my 'new' set of semis fitted to the Rallyracings, and swapped my road tyres onto a set of O.Z Crono Evos - can now sell the integra type R rims that were supposed to be temporary rolling stock (all proceeds go towards the banana compliance fund and painting my watanabes)

just went and tidied up some wiring around the link before, and stuck it in a safe place up under the centre console so it doesn't go flying. Rear brakes are starting to grind so it's time for a pad change, will also put fresh fluid in and bleed at the same time. Still got a bit of werk to do before the next trackday... may be tiem to compile another list

the type R rims in question WERE on the other TX3 prior to ending up on this one, lol

[Testament]

Well the white one goes quite fast, so science dictates the black one should be faster as it can dodge the suns rays/it's a bunch lighter.

[Roman]

I have driven the aforementioned front tug goodness, and it's friggen sweet.

Heaps of fun.

[0R10N]

eheh yeah, the damn thing takes a lot of people by surprise. Some have even scoffed at how it drives the wrong wheels (bla bla bla) and how hatchbacks are totally lame - then they get into it, go for a quick cane themselves, and come back amazed, saying it's changed their opinion of FWD (at least for 20 minutes).

I guess it's all to do with perception, after all to most people it looks like a disgusting hacked up Laser so one wouldn't expect it to accelerate or handle the way it does.

which was kinda the point...

might be time to put on the p-plate I bought for it all those years ago

[DB8-TypeR]

Love these cars,

Do you have any laptimes on Semi Slicks for Taupo Track 1? Only ask as last time I was out I got 1min56 on street tyres and am trying to find what sorta times everyone is doing

[0R10N]

my only recorded laptime for Track 1 was 2 minutes flat, with passenger. Dunlop D01J-S semis.

I'm actually quite dubious of the current wheel alignment - swear I can see a shit-ton of positive camber on the front from that photo. given that my other TX3 (which is 4WD) ended up with wildly positive front camber after its big brake conversion, I'm sure it will be in the same boat... although FWD TX3s have slightly different front geometry so maybe not to the same degree

the wear pattern on my semis didn't seem to indicate any major alignment issues, however I did eventually chew out the outside edges of my old set of front road tyres after about 8000km. Typically I went and lost the alignment sheet/didn't pay any attention to the operator way back when it was done.

Camber bolts and a fresh alignment should take care of that. Autolign supplied some 'ideal' street/race settings so I just need to find an operator willing to use them, and not go "herr durr THE COMPUTER KNOWS BEST"

[escortman]

ha saw this at glenns when he was putting my old stinger into a mates hilux

[DodgySam]

holy crap!

This is my mate Paul's old car.

If im not mistaken this is even taken in his driveway in Papakura!

[Truenotch]

turns out they were too soft...

At the start of this year one of the front tyres completely delaminated due to heat stress. Turns out 5 laps is a bit too much for soft compound D01Js, and combined with summer heat and track temps they end up melting after a while

That doesn't look like the tyres fault man... I would say you have definite alignment issues and the soft compound accentuated your issues. For macpherson strut type suspension you want at least 2' negative camber (insert die grinder here) and probably a couple of mm of toe out. From the pics is appears you had the opposite going on? Even soft semis should last 5 laps + around Taupo...

[fuel]

yeah that's exactly what happened with one of the tyres on my VR-4 and it wasn't even a soft compound tyre. I put it down to the fully stock suspension settings with less than -1deg of camber up front and not a very agressive toe-out at all. that combined with me throwing the thing into corners at almost full throttle and quite a bit of lock with sledging til africa

[0R10N]

ha saw this at glenns when he was putting my old stinger into a mates hilux

Yeah Glenn does a mint job. He wired up the Link in my road going TX3, and i plan to take my Skyline to him once it's ready

Paul's old car.

correct! I knew Paul from the very early days when he used to hang out on the old 323/AMAZD forums (as the alien probe). His cousin Carl is a big ford laser nutter as well

most of the parts from his white BFMP lives on in both my TX3s, and the shell ended up in the possession of another friend of mine who got it back on the road and then sold it to a guy down the line, but we're not sure what happened to it after that.

That doesn't look like the tyres fault man... I would say you have definite alignment issues and the soft compound accentuated your issues. For macpherson strut type suspension you want at least 2' negative camber (insert die grinder here) and probably a couple of mm of toe out. From the pics is appears you had the opposite going on? Even soft semis should last 5 laps + around Taupo...

oh I'm not complaining... those semis lasted me six trackdays so probably a good 100+ laps, and honestly, I was real sloppy with my heat cycling. They were also 2nd hand and not in stellar condition either. (as sprak will tell you, the seller wasn't exactly forthcoming with details) but you are right, I'm definitely reviewing the alignment settings this weekend. Camber bolts on all four corners will allow me up to +/-3 degrees of adjustment, and the toe is adjustable from factory. I just hope they arrive by then.

the Autolign recommended values were F: -2deg camber/-1mm toe and R: -1.75deg camber/-0.5mm toe. Whiteline have similar adjustments on their site except with less aggressive toe. I'm loath to run too extreme settings given that I have to drive the car on road tyres nearly 600km to and from taupo every trackday.

there's not much else I plan to do to the engine so the suspension will probably continue to be the biggest area of experimentation/improvement. i'm still waiting for the chance to fit the coilovers I have stashed away for it.

[0R10N]

holy shit the coilovers are in and all before 2am. Thanks to my mate Stefan and his engnearing prowess, all that werking for Air New Zealand paid off for him. Looks like the beers are on me

i was a bit apprehensive of the ride comfort with the coilovers installed but they are pleasantly tolerable. A bit more crash-bangy than what used to be in there, but not bone-jarring.

tomorrow is turbo swap day, and fitting of camber bolts. With the coilovers installed I actually need to DECREASE the camber on the front nowe. Let's not mention the comical amounts of toe-in that we had to dial out

werkmate and I are getting LVVTA certs at the same time on our respective whips, so should be done sometime before August.

[0R10N]

well the B6T decided to throw a leg out of bed at trackday. got smokier and smokier as the day went on and finally no longer wished to rev out, let alone idle, and blew enough blue out the back to make a mitsi proud.

Ran well enough up until then, dialed boost back to 0.55bar (standard) after Glenn mentioned that the tune was a bit lean for any more than 0.75bar.

suspect a cracked ringland on piston #3 as a whole heap of oil smoke came out of that particular plug hole when I removed the spark plugs to see what was going on. Managed to limp it back to Tom's in the afternoon where it now rests until I head down in a couple weeks' on a retrieval mission.

The GT-Ae engine I'd dropped in there had been rather smoky on overrun to begin with - B6Ts tend to do that if they've been sitting for a while - and it's my own fault for not rebuilding it at the time, instead opting to drop it in whole. either way I'm not too fussed, still got plenty of bits for a rebuild including a shiny new HKS-Cometic metal head gasket but the project can now go on the back burner for a while as i'll be shifting focus to the banana and squid.

But the real test was seeing how the suspension setup would perform and basically once I pick up from where I leave off I'll be needing to find a way to compensate for having nearly NO weight over the rear wheels as the damn thing is now prone to a shitload of lift-off oversteer