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


Rhyscar

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Cool will be good to see a few more of these conversions out there. Is fantastic value for money these engine have come down in price so much

Mr2 non turbo driveshafts work with both ends of this swap.

I've had a look at the driver's side mount but haven't made anything to suit yet. I was looking at milling the mount on the engine down by 10mm and then making an adaptor plate so the engine doesn't get lifted on the one end.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...

Back to racecar updates.. Daily is currently being certed ready for daily thrashing..

This thing is back to being rolling yuss!

Paint turned out really good in the end

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Subframes back in - still need to tidy up the arms and steering rack with a fresh lick of paint.

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Forklifts come in handy..

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Has now made the move with me to Hamilton. Good to have it in the shed again.

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  • 1 month later...

Test fitted the front bumper the other day on the daily. Wanted to see if it's going to be suitable for racecar and if looked OK.

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Looks a bit drift kit ish but changes the look of the car quite a bit.

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This is now the daily struggle. My driveway isnt even steep and it scrapes. Also 3 wheels going over the driveway.

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Since kit has indicators blanked I did some Andrew-spec wiring alterations to the park lights to make them into indicators. Which means I don't have Park lights now but meh won't be an issue.. Looks pretty good i reckon.

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Looking into options for painting bumper. Will keep it mint and change it to the stock one if I'm driving any backroads. Should be mint for smooth roads/track use

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  • 5 months later...

So in absence of doing any actual work on my racecar, I've been doing a few events in my daily Levin testbed/hack around car in the aim of knowing exactly what suspension setup I want in my racecar. 

 

The two things I wanted to determine were;

1. What springrates to run on track to eliminate my previous tyre outside edge scrubbing issue and crippling understeer?

2. How does front swaybar go on the track and on the road + how does this effect spring rate required?

3. Is their a happy medium between a track/road/targa setup I could achieve?

 

 

So in order to scientifically prove this I entered a trackday at taupo and booked myself in for an epic tarmac hillclimb. I had the same Tein coilovers in the car I ran in the racecar previous to rebuild so had a decent reference for how it drove. Used 400lb springs front and rear with Cusco swaybars front and rear along with the same old Semi slicks that have been sitting in the shed for the last 3 years.. 

 

Things went well. Lapped around the 1.46 mark on Track one in the afternoon. 

 

 

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In summary from trackday;

1. Front swaybar was awesome. No understeer at all and perfect front/rear balance with rear stepping out when I wanted it to. Spring rates were perfect albeit a lack of suspension travel probably helped me out

2. open diff was painful but wheelspin not as bad as expected. They are shit and effect handling SOO much in a fwd car. 

3. People who drive Skylines and GTR's are a bunch of pansies. Come on people if my 100kw POS road car can beat your uber power car around the track you're doing something wrong!

 

All in all lots of fun and doorty noises were had

 

 

 

 

Next up was the Tarmac hillclimb - 9km's of epic targa road on Pekanui rd (by Ngutunui school)

 

Raised the car 20mm to try get some suspension stroke/stop the shocks from bottoming out. Other than this did nothing. Made some good noises 

 

 

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Ended up 4th in class and doing pretty well. Everyone was impressed by it for a cheap/low cost basic car. Enjoyed tarmac driving a lot and gave me heaps of motivation for racecar doorty things. 

 

 

 

Things I learnt from Tarmac Hillclimb;

1. 80mm suspension travel in each direction is not enough even with stiff springs - bottoming out unsettles the car something chronic and makes it want to crash into the scenery

2. Spring rate was slightly too hard, need to aim for 350lb front springs and standard front swaybar

3. Damping is KING. controlling bump and rebound settles the car and makes it feel like you are driving on a cloud. I used a lot of left foot brake to settle the car as much as possible but it still wasn't enough to really push the car or be comfortable when something unexpected comes up. Tein's are not up to Targa driving style and epic MCA's are required. Considered Bilsteins but thing won't be cloud-like enough for a light car. 

 

 

 

So now I've done my testing with this car it is for sale so I can focus on doing gravel stuff in rally car and making progress on racecar. All proceeds will go towards buying some shocks for racecar. If anyone wants a really cheap quick road legal track/club car let me know. Keen to get around $5k for it. 

 

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  • 1 month later...

So daily has been sold to Boxed who will hopefully have heaps of fun and learn lots in it. For me its good to close another chapter in my ae101 life. 

 

Also finished moving into new garage finally getting rid of some furniture to make room for racecar. Time for some progress. 

 

 

All my wheels went with the daily so time to buy some new wheels and tyres. These will be my road tyres. Went for a dunlop DZII which was unfortunately only available in a 195 but the tread pattern is pretty cool which looks like the footprint on the road will be more like a bigger tyre with a conventional tread pattern. Will see how they go. 

 

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Wheels are a Lenso PDJ 15x8 +20. Relatively lightweight. Bit too much bling but brake dust should solve that.. pretty happy so far. 

 

Ride height sorted:

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Pretty happy with finding a modern wheel in a 15x8 that looks pretty good on the car. 

 

 

Next up is organising rollcage re-homologation and mods and ordering a set of these:

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Can't wait!!!

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Literally just been reading through your build thread, the race car looks absolutely epic man, good to see my money is going to be well spent! Haha.

 

Counting down the days to the first track day in your old/my new 101, I'll have to start a thread once I've done some stuff worth sharing.

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 3 weeks later...

Been busy organizing things and trying to keep progress happening with this on the side of preparing the rally car for tauranga rally and all the other hectic life tasks. 

 

 

I drew up the heights for the shocks so it sits at the current ride height. Want to allow plenty of adjustment as I'll run it higher for road events. I'll have to invest in some pretty tough underbody protection also I think! Haven't got a delivery date for the shocks yet but I'm getting pretty excited. 

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Engine is back in the hole also. After the rally I'll put some money towards urethane-ing engine mounts so I can bolt it up properly and start making exhaust manifolds etc. 

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This is currently my biggest issue now that I'm actually in a position where I need to confront the bonnet clearance issues. I know the rocker cover clears the bonnet so looks might be a bit deceiving. 

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Going to go for a curved set of fibreglass trumpets from Glen I think. Either that or try 3D print some of these.. Pretty cool huh?

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I kind of have to concede that I need them and I'll have to make everything else fit around them. Even if it means still doing a bonnet bulge it will be 30-40mm smaller than if I used straight trumpets so still worth doing. 

 

I've got a few ideas to disguise the bulge so it doesn't look too hideous. Once this rally is gone I'll have some spare cash to start buying things for this again =)

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Could you not offset and relocate the intake from one of the similar doo-dadery's

eg. one of these

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..but cut and moved to the position you require, being only slightly offset from centre it might still appear stock to the untrained eye.

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