Rhyscar's Toyota Levin - 2zzge Touring car - finished*

[Rhyscar]

@Honda Ass Dragger where'd you find that pic?? Great colour choice obv. 

 

 

[Honda Ass Dragger]

2 hours ago, Rhyscar said:

@Honda Ass Dragger where'd you find that pic?? Great colour choice obv. 

 

 

TBH can't remember the page was just one of those random pictures that appears on my Facebook feed and I instantly thought of yours

[Rhyscar]

@Honda Ass Dragger the algorithm must recognize your fine taste in automobiles. Couldn't find it anywhere on the net though. 

 

Lots of background progress still. Had V0.3 of the airbox test printed which showed me I'd overlooked a few items so money well spent. This was a fairly big change, so only 2-3 issues feels pretty good. Bonnet clearance still looks good. 

 

Alternator clearance is the most problematic and also the hardest to properly measure! 

 

Anyway, drawing updated to revision V0.4 and STEP files have been sent off to Lithuania for printing!! Split the airbox into 4 parts to get price down to around $400 which seems reasonable if it's good enough to take a mold from. Fingers crossed these will be here early March!

 

Carbon tube for strut brace showed up the other day. Super cool material 25mm OD and 21mm ID - not as light as I expected due to thick wall (prob a bit lighter than alloy, but not by heaps), but it sure is a rigid shaft! Aint no bending will be happening. Makes me excited for the finished product. 

 

Locally printing a few test pieces for the strut brace ends to test geometry/fit before printing in aluminum. Already discovered a few tweaks that may required so will be another valuable prototyping exercise. 

 

 

Onwards and upwards. Car is off to the dyno next week. Will be interesting to see what we discover. 

 

[sentra]

wow some good work fella

[xsspeed]

+1 love the work man

[Rhyscar]

Cheers guys!
 

This stuff is way easier than the tedious years of piecing everything else together. Kinda feels like cheating to go from idea to finished part in only a few months 😂

 

In other news… test fitted the prototype pieces for strut brace. Didn’t get slip on sizes correct so can’t assemble properly but you get the idea. Few tweaks to make for bonnet clearance etc but design work is close to being finished. 
even printed in PLA the part is super strong in all the right directions. Confident it will be strong enough once printed in aluminium.

[mjrstar]

Awesome,  it's like you are living in the future whilst I'm a caveman hand carving blocks on my manual mill.

 

Interestingly the carbon fibre driveshafts I have, (ex nissan) are made with a fine spline on the yokes and are pressed together with what looks like nothing in the way of adhesive. They are supposed to be good for pretty decent hp/ torque numbers.

So I imagine a well planned fit with room for some adhesive to reside is going to make an extremely strong part.

[Rhyscar]

22 hours ago, mjrstar said:

Awesome,  it's like you are living in the future whilst I'm a caveman hand carving blocks on my manual mill.

 

Interestingly the carbon fibre driveshafts I have, (ex nissan) are made with a fine spline on the yokes and are pressed together with what looks like nothing in the way of adhesive. They are supposed to be good for pretty decent hp/ torque numbers.

So I imagine a well planned fit with room for some adhesive to reside is going to make an extremely strong part.

That’s super interesting! I guess carbon has lots of resistance to expanding so a shrink makes a pretty strong bond.

My plan is to allow 0.5mm of clearance to take up a bit of slop in the angles as I’m not 100% confident I’ve got them perfect - but they are close at least. Also I’m unsure how accurate tolerances will work out after printing as I’ve heard aluminium can shrink in weird ways during sintering.  Another thought was any bonding material needs so room as it won’t penetrate either the carbon or aluminium

Yeah it’s a useful tool for this stage of the project - but I’ve struggled to find useful applications for it until now. I’m also very lucky I’ve got an engineering degree in design and spent 5yrs designing bespoke machines in solidworks. If it wasn’t for that experience these little projects would be about 1000x harder to do. 

 

[Rhyscar]

In preparation for the Dyno, I made a heat shield to keep radiator air away from intake. it's a bit crude, but does the job. Even got the AIT in the right spot. Will go in the bin as soon as Airbox is sorted.  

  

 

 

Also had my 3D printed bonnet ducts show up. These will exit the air above the Oil and PS cooler ducts. Very happy with the aesthetics. Will need to cut holes and glue them in at some point. 

 

Rough placement of where they'll sit.

 

So this happened this week. Been a journey. Some days I thought it would never come... hard to know what emotions to feel - relief, anxiousness, excitment and pessimism all rolled into one. 

 

And it made the good DOORTY noises!! Exhaust and intake note are something else I could feel it through my whole body when lift comes on!

 

Only basic tune so far, got through RPM range, low revs sorted and lift coming in. Some weird things were happening so decided to pull pin and resolve them before trying to go any further. It was a massive day of trouble shooting all the issues you have a with a ground-up built like this, so the results aren't really worth sharing at this stage, I guess biggest takeaway is it wants to rev to the moon! Power still happily climbing at 8500rpms.. 

Issues we came across and worked through;

• Ran-in engine medium load and then changed oil and filter. After speaking with a friend in the know, I went with a 10w50 4 stroke motorbike oil from Total. 

 

• Fuel pressure reading 70psi. Need to check sensor range & for airlocks. Will change to adjustable FPR anyway just to rule out regulator issues as C5 corvette filter/reg has no adjustment. 

 

• Running rich on #1 - injectors need to be checked. checked/changed plugs, coils and even compression tested - 200psi on all 4, valve lash seemed OK to rule out mechanical issue. 

 

• Rollover fitting in top of fuel tank leaking - bitch of a job to do (almost need to remove whole tank). Hadn't filled the fuel tank all the way up previous to this. 

 

• Found #1 coil spring was weirdly jammed in. Wasn't sparking properly for run-in but managed to sort it out. Still can't explain how this happened. 

 

• Oil pressure dropping off at high made us not want to push it any further. Doing some research, MWR say this is normal https://www.monkeywrenchracing.com/tech-2zz-race-track-prep/. Further research says likely cause it backing plate warping at relieving some pressure. Unsure if I'll do this change this, may just limit the RPM's within a safe limit. Also need to pull apart oil filter relocation housing and port it to reduce any pressure drops. 

 

• Lift turning on very late at 6200rpm (same as factory ecu). Didn't want to come on earlier, but this was without VVTI turned on, so most likely not an accurate representation of what it will look like after a bit more tuning. But, we did have a thought that the exhaust manifold or megaphone is causing excess backpressure which makes everything want to go backwards when lift turned on. Want to double check megaphone calcs first as this will cause a negative effect before the timing required for it to arrive at the valve at the correct time for everything to work as it should. Would be a bit weird, but my extractors ended up a little longer than anticipated and it's been years since I've visited the megaphone calcs so it's worth a check. 

 

• We found some metal chunks in oil filter approx 2-3mm dia. Came to conclusion these mustn't have been cleaned out after motor failure in previous life, as there's no way these could of gone through the pick or oil filter without exploding everything. Other likely source is cam chain teeth/vvti pulley so will do an inspection to double check nothing is amiss. 

 

• Inner CV boot shat the bed - not suprising as were using 5th gear which is over 200kph.. need to rebuild and add some of the special NEO grease. 

 

Positives to take away;

1. Engine isn't completely f^%ked after sitting for 10yrs since rebuilding it in a mates shed, with the help of 8% diesels. 

2. Cooling system worked well. We had to add another small fan to front as Dyno was made for RWD cars, but we repeatedly beat on it for an hour at a time and it held 87deg. Oil cooler duct also worked great - maintaining 87deg oil temp with very little airflow over it. 

3. General car stuff worked good. Fuel pump and filter is well setup, no issues with supply. Gearbox, shifter and clutch worked mint. 

4. It didn't catch on fire with exhaust being so close to everything - this was a genuine concern of mine after making everything so custom!!

5. Good god it sounds amazing!!

6. I took for a quick drive down the street and it feels a lot quicker than I thought it would. Pulls very well into the next gear (lands right where peak torque is). Waaay better than a 4age thats for sure! This also made me think the chassis may be lighter than I expect (900ish KG). Need to put it on the scales at the dump next time I take it out for a drive. 

At this point, I’m also super grateful for the OS and other peps who have reached out and helped out with advice, I’m not much of a tuning person so it’s much appreciated! 

 

Eager to make more progress, but now have to spend multiple nights inside with 9-month pregnant wife to regain all brownie points the effort this exercise burned!! I'm sure many can relate. 

 

[shrike]

Sounds like good teething issues and nothing insurmountable.

It's pretty much a Lotus now right? 2zz and add lightness

[Rhyscar]

15 hours ago, shrike said:

It's pretty much a Lotus now right? 2zz and add lightness

Has about the same level of creature comforts  but Toms racing blue instead of British racing green?? 

[Roman]

Absolutely awesome milestone man! So stoked. 
Cant wait to see how it goes once VVT is sorted.
At the very least I can assure you the intake will get a LOT louder yet when you start bringing in some overlap. Haha.

What do these weigh when stock? I would have thought a rollcaged one would be kinda in the 1000-1100kg range. 
Will be absolutely wild to drive once motor is sorted, if its in the 900s. 

[mjrstar]

My caged EK is 990kg, this might be a  bit less depending on wheel and tyre combo?

[Rhyscar]

Thanks man, it’s been a long time coming. Wow I can’t even imagine a louder intake noise at this point. Going to be off the chain. 
 

This one was 1050kg factory, but there’s a lot that isn’t in this car now, so expecting 900s but would be nice to confirm the numbers. They tend to be a bit lighter than the Hondas due to no over-complicated double wishbone suspension 🤣

 

[Roman]

Also full alloy engine now.

Probably a bit lighter than B series.

[mjrstar]

B series honda is open deck die cast aluminum, but my car has still has some door glass, and the electric windows, carpet, engine driven power steer/ spam.

 

I reckon the body will be less than my ek, but not as light as an ef, my mates caged ef came in at 935, but he also still has electric windows, and the stock heater matrix and blower etc.

 

Sub 1000kg and around 200hp will be great, any better power to weight improvement over will be pretty sweet!

[GARDRB]

On 09/02/2025 at 19:39, Rhyscar said:

Strut brace design complete, just need to double check a few dimensions and then it's off to the printers. Tried to design in a few features that would be impossible to fabricate just because I can... Stoked with how the carbon/alloy combo will look when complete too. 

As an internet engineer can I request that these strut top mounts pick up the third bolt so you have something to top the load along the carbon pushing the coilover studs outwards. Especially with them not sitting down onto the panel, they feel like you're introducing a lever effect to them.

[Rhyscar]

@GARDRB I knew someone would mention that... I'd considered it, but it makes the part a lot more expensive as the dimensions increase significantly, along with signficant increase in material weight for only a slight increase in strength. So I decided not to. 

In reality, a 22mm OD boss with a M8 bolt through the middle of it is grunty as all buggery and will happily transfer as much load as I like, until it rips the thread from the aluminium tophat (this is probably my weakest link tbh). 

[Roman]

Have seen some aftermarket braces that are only 2 point. 

Then the there is the Vitz RS with its bluetooth strut bar. Has the end plates but nothing in between...

Some of the 2ZZ cars have a super wacky one from factory...
Just how much are they expecting the struts to flex?! 

[mjrstar]

Surely the lower arm deals with the majority of the load, and the top won't get that much of a workout, more load through a Mac strut than the superb handling double wishbone of course.