Alistair's 1973 7AGTE KE20 Corolla

[Alistair]

Here goes! Ever since I sold the RT40 I have had a yearning for another high powered old Toyota. Two years of grinding away at renovating a shitty house and I finally have the time & money to enjoy an OS car again. Priorities changed somewhat however and the idea of starting a project like that from the beginning after this house renovation scared me and my bank balance. So after some arm twisting and dinner cooking for the mrs it was decided to go and search for something "finished". This little car was mentioned to me by some Oldschoolers and I had followed the build thread of it over on Toyspeed since it's inception.

 

I guess I'll start with some specifications from the previous owner (because I'm lazy) and pictures from today after I had given it a wash, machine polish & wax to a level I was happy with!

Discussion Fred

 

Engine:

 

Model: 7A-GTE

 

Block Internal Spec: Factory crank shaft, Forged ross racing pistons and top seal rings, H-beam rods, ARP bolts throughout, toga race bearings and oil pump

 

Cylinder Head Spec: Rebuilt Factory 4a-ge 20v blacktop vvti head with Supertech Valve springs and TRD steel headgasket and ARP headstuds

 

Intake system: Factory 4a-ge 20v Blacktop ITB’s and MRP 2-peice plenum with 3” intake

 

Turbo system: New Holset turbo supplied by steve murch, x2 Tial 38mm MVS wastegates, MAXfab custom thickwall stainless steel manifold, HKS ssqv bov,

 

Fuel System: 60L Jazz fuel cell, carter lift pump, surgetank, bosch 044 fuel pump, full braided Teflon lines through to 800cc SARD injectors, turbosmart FPR-800 regulator

 

Ignition System: x4 1nz individual coils mounted to a CNC’d made-to-suit aluminium adaptor plate

 

Exhaust System: MAXfab Full 3” stainless steel exhaust system, x2 inline mufflers through to custom dump tip

 

Cooling: 3 Core custom aluminium realdeal radiator with electric fan, setrab oil cooler and 500x250x56 tube & fin intercooler with 3” inlet/outlet

 

Engine Management: Link G3 ECU (upgraded to g4 Firmware) with 4-bar MAP sensor and  electronic boost solenoid

 

Engine Bay: de-loomed engine bay, custom aluminium oil catch can, custom aluminium overflow bottle

 

Other: gilmer drive pulley kit, remote oil filter kit

 

Driveline:

 

Gearbox: W55 supra 5 speed gearbox

 

Flywheel/Clutch: Quartermaster twin plate clutch with billet flywheel to suit with ARP flywheel bolts, willwood reverse cylinder mount pedal box with remote reserviors

 

Differential: 4.1 ratio LSD shortened hilux rear end

 

Other: custom 1 piece driveshaft with custom driveshaft hoop

 

Suspension:

 

Shocks: Front – shortened shocks and modified OEM struts fitted with coilover sleeve kits and custom CNC’d camber tops

Rear – adjustable shocks and reset and stiffened leaf springs with custom made anti-tramp bar setup with chromoly rods and QA1 rod ends

 

Others: Cusco TE27 front strut brace, custom made swaybar to suit engine position and nolathane bushes allround

 

Brakes:

 

Front: 4-pot FD3s s6 RX7 front callipers and sloted rotors with steel braided brake lines

 

Rear: s13 single pot claipers and rear sloted rotors

 

Wheels and Tyres:

 

Wheels: 17x7” (F) and 17x8” ® genuine work meister s1’s

 

Tyres: Pirenza 205/40/R17 all round

 

Exterior:

 

Panel & Paint: Prep and paint done by Jason price, finished in a custom holden green

 

Other: New indicators, park lights and headlights, all new window and door rubbers/channel, straightened and rechromed front and rear bumpers, doors and boot fitted with solex locks

 

Interior:

 

Seats: x2 Racetech 1000 bucket seats and factory rear seat

 

Steering Wheel & Gear Knob: woodgrain steering wheel and stainless/bronze gearknob

 

Gauges/Meters: Autometer cobalt digital boost gauge and autometer cobalt oil temp water temp and oil pressure gauge

 

Audio:

Pioneer Bluetooth headunit mounted in glovebox and alpine typr-R 6x9s in rear parcel tray

 

Performance:

 

Dyno Power: 320kw @ the rear wheels on 23psi with previous masterpower turbo setup, have since gone to a smaller holset unit for more response, currently making 280kw on 20 psi and full boost at around 4000rpm

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alistair]

Basically all I have done so far is change out the diff fluid for some new LSX90, put some Redline HD Shockproof oil in the box as it was a bit noisy (this helped heaps) and oil change. 

 

I need to get a fuel sender for the Jaz cell as I currently have no idea how much I have in there and need to mount the wiper motor on the passenger side (normally up under the pedal box) so I can drive and see when raining!

 

I have raised the front coilovers slightly as the roadtrip back from Whakatane was harsh as balls on the front as it kept bottoming out. Need to check level and see if the back needs to come up to suit. Wheels are quite big, main issue with changing wheels are the FD3s front brakes as the calipers are huge on them. 

 

Other than that, enjoy, do drags, track and cruise the hell out of it!

[Alistair]

Yawn update. Drive this thing every weekend basically rain or shine. Rain is lols. Made burger meet (in the rain as above), went to caffeine & classics etc

Got new rear tyres and found one of the rear wheels is buckled hence the slight motorway wobbles I've had so going to drop both in to Arrow Wheels soon to get sorted. 4th & 5th are pretty noisy but not notchy or anything so just keeping an eye out for a w57/58 to have as a replacement if/when this lets go.

Changed the blocks out today for 38mm (had 50mm's) just to get some more clearance in the rear, makes it nicer to cruise now, can hit bumps without worrying about peeling tread off in the arches. Carpark picture shows height as it sits now. Still haven't done the fuel sender or wipers. Will get to that lol.

Pretty sure the tune has been locked so can't do launch control or anything without starting from scratch. Might do this as the valve springs were shimmed super tight because it was dropping valves due to harsh limiter and I think this has been changed now so could go to smaller shims so the motors not so noisy.

[Alistair]

Carrying on from the above, tune was unlocked through...methods...

 

I bought a W58 getting ready to replace the W55 and glass bead blasted it while I was at a customers servicing the room

 

 

Drove it to work one day about a month ago and got nearly all the way home. Stopped on the motorway offramp and  couldn't get back into gear. Managed to smash into second so drove it home like that and parked it up to get the box out.

 

Clutch slave body and pin had seen better days

 

 

 

Then took all the bellhousing bolts off and found no matter what levering I did I couldn't get it to pop off and it seemed to always spring back into place which indicated something was catching the pressure plate. Had Chris/EURON8 around again tonight and decided to holesaw the bellhousing to be able to undo the pressure plate bolts. Got that off and suddenly the box popped off without even levering and found the clutch plates looking like so...

 

This disc was free but had pretty fucked splines

 

 

 

This disc however has twisted and locked onto the input shaft. Even some hefty hammering hasn't freed it to allow the pressure plate and this disc to come off.

 

 

Both clutch discs have cracks and the plates inbetween have some pretty good gouges so need discs and plates at a minimum. Hopefully the flywheel section and pressure plate are salvageable.

 

So likely a bit more money to be spent to get it mobile again!

 

Did buy this lush gearknob in the interim from http://www.nostalgic-grains.com/ Laser engraved Rosewood

 

 

[Alistair]

Lame update time...

 

Started off with trying to put the w55 tail section onto the w58 box. That didn't work because the shifter didn't line up in the hole and the bearings were wrong (not that big a deal but the aforementioned problem was the main one). So I put the 58 tail section back onto the w58 box and thought I could put the w55 selector shaft into the w58, nope has a way fatter bottom section which grabs the forks so wouldn't fit into the 58 as you can see below:

 

 

So spoke to Brendon at Convert who had only had it once before, and easiest way is to drill and tap the w58 selector lower down at the same height as the w55 (thanks to Chris/EURON8 & Strange's drillpress) then put the w55 selector bush onto the shaft and mash it all back together. So the mishmash gearbox ended up looking like this:

 

 

As before, both plates of the twinplate were fucked, also had to buy a new floater plate, fingers for the pressure plate and the flywheel got a skim. Also discovered when I sent the stuff back to MRP for skim and parts that it had an 800hp spring in the pressure plate. This has been replaced with something more in my realm of power now so it shouldn't be a leg press to use the clutch now...

 

 

Nearly all back together now, gearbox in, driveshaft etc etc. Changed out all the fluids again and also changed rear main, rear gearbox and diff snout seals while it was all apart. Need to fap around with the slave cylinder as it has been mounted at a strange angle both vertically and horizontally and not pushing straight on the fork.

 

Got sidetracked today and my need to bling things took over so gave things a bit of a polish up to look fresh again

 

 

 

Thats all for now, might get to drive it again this week!

[Alistair]

Back cruising this thing again. W58 seems a bit nicer ratio and the clutch is a shitload nicer to drive now. Found that the bracket holding the clutch slave is super off centre and means the rod pushes up at an angle so going to see Chris/EURON8/Strange to either fab new one or modify this so it pushes straight.

 

Also noted when digging around it has 3/4 master cylinders on the Wilwood pedal setup which is likely some of the problem with the brake pedal being so hard to push so will investigate 5/8 cylinders when I can be bothered digging in around there to get them out as they're right up under the dash.

 

Drags this weekend, will be interesting to see what it can do on street tyres, not overly fussed in going to hard out in making it drag spec but if it is super shit on traction will look at some radials for next time out.

 

Also, I always polish my stuff....

 

[Alistair]

Went to the Oldschool Drags and it was farkin sweet

 

Best run was a 13.583@108.63mph(174kmh) which I was pretty happy with for the first time out. Cheers to Simon for suggesting some of my nuganuga engine noise could be VVT pulley, gave the solenoid 12v at idle and 70% of the noise went away so I haven't had working VVT for a while it would seem, new pulley ordered anyway. 

 

Tried to flick across to high boost on one run in 3rd but motor was pretty warm and coils may have been to hot as it seemed to break up a little and didn't go any faster. So yeah traction, high boost, some vvt and me not being a shit driver should get me into 12's ezpz.

 

Pics from the day from Dorian, always good shots!

 

 

 

Right before Sheepers freight-trained me in the top end

 

 

And a little video Ricardo snapped between his tower duties!

 

 

Cheers to all who made it a neat as day. Can't wait to do more drags & trackdays now that I've broken the hymen of properly giving this thing the beans!

[Alistair]

New VVT pulley did the business. Super quiet now compared to before can hear all the other rattles and squeaks I was missing haha.

 

 

Also put one of these fandangled MRP Belt stabilizers on:

 

 

And have ordered wideband and Link G4+ Storm to replace the haggard G3 trying to keep up with G4 software.

 

Lol how I said I wasn't going to do much to this car when I bought it.

[Alistair]

Went to New Year OS Japs eye meet and Dorian papped me

 

Went to leadfoot and had the worst time getting there, overheating, fouling plugs etc etc but got to hang with all these jokers and many more

 

The KE20's new G4+ storm sitting at Stu's with a few other Link's!

And some goodies I have picked up to go in around the same time, 4x NZEFI High Energy Single Inductive Ignition Coil with built in Ignitor, MTX-L Wideband, a new fuel filter and the pièce de résistance, Ethanol sensor for running flex fuel!

 

Still need to do a couple more things like mount up a clutch switch for launch control and then when Stu gets time he can have it for wiring then off somewhere for a retune on 98 and tune on some corn juice E85!