vegie Posted November 24, 2013 Author Share Posted November 24, 2013 pic's as promised of my slow progress... . I had to slot the thermo housing to fit the FJ20, so I made an adapter plate to suit the different gasket sizes. I fitted a Camry overflow bottle as the original one was perished, and far to big to fit in there. I still have to fit a battery in there too. it "should" just fit. bit of a waste as my current battery is slightly too big, and not very old. oh well show-off valve in its new position. intake hose looks a bit funky now, but it's the only way it'll fit in there. how the intake pipe and filter are going to fit in there. still have to make a mounting bracket. still need to drop the radiator down about 1" in the radiator mount to clear the bonnet, but shouldn't be an issue. . 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted November 29, 2013 Author Share Posted November 29, 2013 ITS ALIVE! 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted December 8, 2013 Author Share Posted December 8, 2013 finished sorting out all the fiddly bits today. fitted a smaller battery and clamps. got the speedo working after 2 hours searching the dashboard for the lost piece off the end of the cable. mounted airfilter and plumbing up securely. refitted the last of the dashboard too. I had a bit of an attempt at setting the boost up to around 12 psi, as it should be safe around there, but managed to hit 25 psi by mistake. no detonation thankfully, but fuck it went hard! cool story.....dyno time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted December 22, 2013 Author Share Posted December 22, 2013 I need to get the car certed, and one thing i know needed sorting was the slip on front spacers. They dont meet LVVTA requirements, so i had to make a set that would. I ended up using the "face" of a set of old worn toyota front rotors. I had to slightly enlarge the centre bores, and machine off the old rotor. Cleaned them up a bit, and countersink screwed them onto the new rotors i'm using. Hopefully this meets the standard for when i get the cert sorted.. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted March 9, 2014 Author Share Posted March 9, 2014 another pictureless update. had to modify my spare rear crossmember to allow me to reduce the rear camber a bit. who would have though 4.5 degrees negative was excessive!? went and got cert inspection done. managed to get the camber back to a reasonable figure for cert purposes. and an alignment made a world of difference to how it drives. my eye-ometer must be broken. waiting on the cert plate to arrive (or the men in white coats to take me away)... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted April 22, 2014 Author Share Posted April 22, 2014 so i got one of these... all legal again now, wofed and reged. mucked around a bit with the microtech, and got it running and idling better but still needs to see some dyno time. p.s. big thanks to Cletus for the cert. would highly recommend him to anyone (that doesnt have cut springs) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted October 4, 2014 Author Share Posted October 4, 2014 the saga continues... had a lot of issues with the engine not getting above 70 deg C. simple replace the thermostat. in doing so, found that the antifreeze i used seems to have "gone off". leaving what looks like green corrosion in spots, mainly the thermostat area. also it blocked up the fitting from the rad to the overflow bottle too. got all that cleaned up, and put a new genuine thermostat in, but still getting odd temperature readings. below is a pic showing the levels of the radiator/hose/ and sensors. looks like it may be getting an airlock in the top hose, around the EFI coolant sensor (the blue one beside the rocker cover) which is giving it false reading and probably way the antifreeze went all nasty too. i'll try relocating it first to see if this helps the issue first. the gauge sensor just below it seems to be working fine. looks like i'm going to have to redesign the top hose again... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted October 28, 2014 Author Share Posted October 28, 2014 got the top hose issue sorted by running a new hose under the intake pipe. no more temperature issues! after avoiding it for so long, decided to have a too-too with the tune in the computer. i got myself an innovate MTX wideband to monitor the exhaust (which i rate highly BTW), and installed using only the best quality insulation tape. i initially did a seat of the pants tune, using the hand set to set what "felt" best. the results were far from ideal, and i ended up with a flatspot in the load map once i hooked the laptop up so did it again, and smoothed the curve out. i ended up dialling quite a lot of fuel out right through the range, especially under vacuum. the vacuum AFR's are all now around 13.5 where they should be, but ive left the boost AFR's at around 11.5. they should be around 12. still a bit nervous about leaning it out under boost! the change was amazing, smoother, crisper and faster too. no more black spark plugs either... here's how it ended up after a weekend stuffing around getting it right. doesnt look much, but took a looong time to get right! so all in all, its running heaps better, and i still need to go through the ignition timing yet too. and to prove its not just a garage ornament, i took it to Caffeine and Classics on sunday too. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted November 2, 2015 Author Share Posted November 2, 2015 been a while since an update... For no better reason than I already have it, I've decided to fit a bigger turbo. It was built up for years ago, using a water cooled core as the early garrett/air-research nissan turbo's weren't. It's basically a T03 exhaust wheel (upgraded and cant remember the trim now) and 0.63 T03 housing, and a T04 inlet with a larger trim wheel. By today's standards its probably an old slug, but surely better than the original 30+ year old factory one i'm running now. original turbo is on the left, new on the right: and after removing the old turbo, trial fitting the new one. its sits extremely close to the engine mount bracket, but just clears it luckily. now i'll have to source some water feed lines to supply it with. i have somewhere to tap it into the engine, but i need to find a M14 X 1.5 mm banjo type fitting to connect to the turbo with. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted November 14, 2015 Author Share Posted November 14, 2015 So after a lot of trying to figure what thread this turbo core has, i got these heinous looking things... -8AN M16 X 1.5mm to 1/2 inch hose fittings. Unfortunately i got the straight ones (at about a quarter of the cost) of the 90 degree elbow ones. As i found out, they aint gonna fit... So it looks like i've to got to fork out for the 90 degree ones. At least they are available in black anodized finish. Also got new gaskets to mount it, but still got to modify the actuator to suit the TO4 inlet bolt spacing. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted November 19, 2015 Author Share Posted November 19, 2015 Sorted a few more bits out. drilled and tapped a fitting for the actuator boost feed into the turbo front cover as this turbo never had one. New water line fittings arrived for the turbo today. These ones are 90 degree and seem to clear everything in the way... I've had to use push lock 1/2 inch hose. I was planning on hard piping or braided hose, but have run out of time cos drag day. It will have to do in the meantime until i can sort it properly. I'm going to have run the lines in front of the rocker cover as there's too much stuff in the way elsewhere. I'll make up some support brackets for the lines soon. and lastly i still need to connect into these two lines under the thermostat housing. Not really an ideal spot, but i have no other option for now. Still a PITA to get to, with the distributor, manifold and power steering pump in the way. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted December 15, 2015 Author Share Posted December 15, 2015 Ok, so i completed fitting the turbo, and got it running. FAIL. No matter what i tried, it was getting really bad compressor surge in top gear at high load and low revs. So i pulled it all out again, and refitted the original setup to get it running for drag day. I did swap the exhaust housing with my spare, as i found a tiny crack in the one i was using. For some reason this supposedly identical part seems to be boosting and running better than it did before!? Ah well. ran it on drag day, and overall pretty happy with the results. Run 12 passes all day, and the difference between my slowest pass and fastest pass were a mere 0.27 of a second. Also managed to win the DYO competition again this year too. Best run was 14.26s @ 102 MPH which bettered last years attempt at 14.4s. I guess lesson learnt, if it aint broke, dont fuck with it! 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted December 19, 2015 Author Share Posted December 19, 2015 Not very good video (from my phone jammed in the headrest), but here's one of the DYO against azzuro's Fiat 125. Only just pipped him at the line... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vegie Posted August 6, 2016 Author Share Posted August 6, 2016 So i noticed a bit of a bubbling in the paint in front of the rear wheel arch. What fell out wasn't ideal...hrmph. So i had a bit of a scratch around. At least its only surface rust underneath, no holes. looks like the last owner just bogged over a dent rather than try to fix it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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