Rhyscar's Toyota Levin - ‘fab it all from scratch’ project

[mjrstar]

1 hour ago, Rhyscar said:

That’s a good idea. Doesn’t need to be a full shroud just a piece of decently strong stuff to absorb any impact.

Yeah don't make it too heavy, additional weight is the enemy of an n/a racecar.

[Rhyscar]

18 hours ago, shrike said:

No plans to convert to electric power steering? Ie from a newer corolla, echo , vitz, prius or GT86/BRZ?

Yes but no for a few reasons. I've gone with a MR2 electric PS pump because they've proven to be very reliable in different racecar applications. 

On-the-column electric powersteer units are good, but are tricky to get feeling right and typically involve welding/replacing the steering column (difficult to get road legal). On the AP4 rally cars they use a Woodward column and mount and have some technical document with LVVTA on how they get them through the cert process.

I pretty much wanted to avoid this level of complexity so have stuck with a tried and trusted electric-hydraulic system. 

[Rhyscar]

Little bit of progress over the last little while. Got chassis loom back from Drew and got it fitted to the car. Super happy with the fit up and quality. 
 

[Rhyscar]

Bought a cheap dereg shell to steal a windscreen out of it as they don’t make them anymore for these cars. Could of got one custom made but was real spendy. 
 

so now I’ve got a windscreen, mirrors, wipers, bonnet pins and all the trim back together, it’s starting to look like a car again! 
 

Hoarded heaps of Levin parts from the shell for future Rhys also. 
 

 

 

this is starting to look great

 

 

 

 

 

[Rhyscar]

Thanks to @Guypie for machining my intake manifold on a 7deg angle. This netted me 16mm of additional bonnet clearance so I'm happy. 

 

 

This should be enough to design some funky-shaped trumpets to fit under the bonnet. Very interesting seeing @kpr testing results, it seems shape doesn't matter too much, as long as length is correct. IIRC 130-160mm trumpet (330-360mm total) is what I was aiming for. 

 

Lots of wiring progress lately. A bit more on that soon, but for now here's some satisfying pictures of general tidyness/not being hory. 

 

Made a sweet bracket for the speedo sensor pickup off rear hub. This will drive the Monit (for wof purposes), but also allows ECU to do some launch/traction control things (compare front vs rear wheel speed etc)

 

Sweet bracket for clutch and brake pedal switches. Included clutch to do launch control/flat shift at some stage. Lots of holes because aluminum isn't lightweight enough I guess? 

[Rhyscar]

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... 

[Rhyscar]

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! 

 

 

[Rhyscar]

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. 

[Rhyscar]

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  

 

[Rhyscar]

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. 
 

 

[Rhyscar]

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!!

 

[Rhyscar]

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..

 

[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

[Rhyscar]

Quick update. Been busy over the past month so this has taken a bit of a backseat. 
 

Got some stickers made for steering wheel/dash. Makes it feel a lot more finished. I’m not 100% happy with them yet but they’ll do for now

also tidied up the curly cord mounting. Looks legit now.  

So the set of pulleys I brought back from the states didn’t fit my alternator (which turns out is from a 1zz fielder). So jeffy came to the rescue and made a bush to suit. 
 

For future reference..1445mm belt works with no PS, and underdrive alternator and water pump pulleys. This took quite some time to figure out 

 

found a wee molded hose to finish up the heater piping. Still need to 3d print an airflow thing for the dash heater ducts. 
 

Cooling system is now sealed and ready for a pressure test (pending a few extra hose clamps!)

Also replaced gearbox axle seals and filled with oil for first time in 10yrs. Hope not too much damage has been done from sitting around. 

 

Bought and sold another Levin to pay for Link Storm g4x and engine wiring loom. Loom worked out great looks very hidden away. Some small mods to make but all simple enough. 

 

 

next up;

1. fix stripped thread in engine mount 

2. replace sump with baffled version

3. remount expansion chamber 

4. make headers

5. first start??

[Rhyscar]

Not much progress to report but lots of technical stuff going on with the design/fab of my headers, so sorry but this will be a nerdy post.. not claiming to be an expert, just figuring out how to make stuff work.. 

 

So here's my scratching for re-checking my length. Unfortunately I need to run 4-2-1 header as I can't fit 4x runners under the steering rack. The expansion chamber clashes with the swaybar (wasn't in the car when I mounted it argh!), meaning I've needed to push it back another 100mm. I'll need to incorporate the slip joins into the '2' section (because bottom section will be permanently attached to exp. chamber) as this is the easiest place to get the runners parallel where they'll slow into place.. This means my 9" secondaries are going to look more like 12", which by keeping overall length the same, will mean my primaries are getting close to 15-16" (which is the minimum as I understand it). In summary its complicated..... 

 

With restrictions in tube sizes available (above calcs is inches ID), I've had to go for 44OD primaries (works out well as is the same size as exhaust port) and 57OD secondaries. Secondaries in particular will be a little larger than optimum considering it's only a 30" long pipe, so it will likely favour higher RPM's. As long its making solid power from 5-6krpm I'll be happy. 2zz's have a massive torque hole at 4krpm so I'll be bringing the high cam in as soon as possible. Might also push me to add a big cam sooner rather than later.. 

 

Found this super interesting paper on the development of the 2zzge. Pretty much says they designed this awesome high-revving engine and then proceeded to put a terrible exhaust manifold on it to reduce noise emissions and wasted all the hard work they put into the head etc. https://www.lotustalk.com/attachments/toyota2zz-ge-technical-data-pdf.1297134/

 

For the header design, I'm following the theory laid out in Graham Bell's Four stroke performance tuning book. Main examples are based on 2L touring car engines, which is pretty comparable to what I'm doing (12:1 comp, itbs & 9000rpm). All my sizing/calcs are firmly in what he defines as purely 'racecar' realm... I also think engine & ecu technology has moved on since early 00's which has proven you can get away with a lot bigger tubes than the 'old' rules of thumb. 

I'm using an adaption of a venturi collector design with a centre divider plate. Apparently the venturi and divider plate should be equal-sided triangle 1/2" bigger than the primary tube. Nailed the fabrication on the secondaries in particular which I'm proud of. Will be interesting to see if these work as it does essentially create 2x venturi effects in the same collector - 1 where the pipes join, then a second as it expands to secondary. Who knows if this will work as intended? 

 

So this is my crossmember conundrum... I ended up needing a small bend between the collector and expansion chamber which is another compromise.. 

 

Primaries are roughed-out in Kinex blocks. These are a bit of a spaghetti junction as the 2-3 cylinder runners need to go the furthest so need to take the 'under' route.

No doubt these will be refined a few more times as I confirm the position of the secondaries. I plan on tacking secondaries up to slip join, then start back at the top and work my way down. Wish me luck!!

 

All this learning has taught me is everything is a small compromise when it won't fit in the car. Exactly how the power band will work out is yet to be seen, I won't be surprised if I end up making a few variations as I test these.. just got to keep putting in the effort and one day this damn car will be finished!

 

[Rhyscar]

Faaarq this is hard. Too many constraints and me wanting to do everything properly are making my life difficult. Anyway heres some quick pics of progress. Been hitting my head against a wall trying to get the primaries to where the secondaries join. I think I need to hit it with a fresh mindset and box-load of creativity to come up with a workable solution. 

 

2" to 2.25 through a 90deg bend @10deg divergence... 

 

Slip joints in place. I was worried about the secondaries being slightly too big so decided to gradually transition from 2" to 2.25. Worked out perfectly with the size of collector outlet. 

 

Megaphone all mounted for 2nd time... 

 

Ended up removing the subframe for easier access. Long-term plan is to make a tubular subframe to correct roll centre which would also solve this header clearance issue... but got to get car running/road legal first because that won't be a 5min job!

[Rhyscar]

Exhausting progress report. Got the secondaries where they need to be & mounted up. Ended up removing subframe for easy access (this is the only way secondaries will come in/out so hoping it won't become a regular job!). 

Moved from slip joint to v-bands. Hoping I don't regret it in the future with leaks/cracks. Main benefit is it saves 30mm in height. With the slip joints, I found I didn't have enough primary length to get the tubes where they needed to be.
Another benefit is I can have the secondaries at different angles (slip joints need to be parallel) which makes the drivers-side secondary a lot simpler. 

 

Now comes the fun process of cut-tack-cut-tack-fit up-cut-tack-throw in bin...  A little bit of jiggery-pokery needs to get 1 & 4 fitting well but I'll be able to make it work. But will need all of my patience to see this through. 

@Roman got me thinking about metal printing/CNC forming the primary tubes to reduce amount of welds to crack in the future.. Anyone tried this and have input on process/cost to do so? The non-straight section of primaries are 12" so 300mm each. 

 

 

In non-exhausting news, we filled the coolant system with water yesterday... it only had 3x leaks in 3x seperate parts of the system. Fun! time to pull it all apart. 

Good news is system is approx 8L and bled up no problem at all. Fill point is highest in system and air bleeds on heater hoses was a stroke of genius. Only thing I need to add is a radiator drain bung. 

 

All part of the process. Rome wasn't built in a day. 

[Roman]

Yeah I've always wondered what it would cost to get one of the local places that cnc bends up pipe to do a job for extractors. 
However much like metal 3d printing I've always assumed it would be massively too expensive for a one off car project type thing.
So maybe it would actually be a pleasant surprise to find out.
One problem though is you are probably limited to what you can do with a single piece, in the same way that you cant use a sheet metal folder to fold over on itself so it gets stuck in the machine. 


Sometimes I've thought it would be fun to buy a big enough induction heater ring to be able to sand pack and bend extractors with induction heating rather than using a torch.
Easy way to make sure they are equal length, just start with the same length straight pieces.
However I'd probably end up with half finished extractors and zero fingerprints left.

Thats an awesome milestone getting some water into the motor, pity about the leaks but there's always something like that! 

[Rhyscar]

Thanks Dave. I’ll do some enquiring since Hamilton is the centre of the stainless tube  manufacturing industry in NZ 

[Mitch.W]

I’ve worked on afew cnc tube benders in the past. You are limited with them to do longer radius bends Depending on which die you have and also not being able to do compound bends and also distance between bends usually needs to have a small straight between them. 
great for making exhausts though!