Super Jamie

There is a separate Wanted To Buy forum.

Yes, cut springs are illegal. It is against light vehicle modification rules to cut or weld any cast or otherwise one-piece suspension component.

Better suspension geometry. More options for suspension tuning. The cars I suggested have more bolt-on parts available. If someone wants to be mad dorifto king then they don't want a cruddy old set of leaf springs.

Sell your car and buy something with IRS like an S13 or FC3S. There are practically no aftermarket parts which bolt on. You'll need to know what you want and either make it, cobble it together out of different parts you gather at the wreckers, or get it custom made which is hell expensive. KE30s are not drift cars.

Because racecar :thumbsup:

Rack and pinion into a steering box car would be a huge task. Custom/shorten many things. These parts are supposed to be pressed/cast/billet one-piece here in Australia so cutting and welding them is illegal here. Jonny Rochester put a KE70 rack into a KE25, though he got a few of the steering angles wrong so it wasn't as good as it could have been. In the end he suggested it wasn't worth doing.

Hells yeah! I had one of these on my KE25. I tried every 2" muffler at the exhaust shop and this was the best sounding by far!

Yeah I know they came with a shroud, I have a KE55 plastic one on my KE30, and had a KE30 metal one on my KE35, I've just never seen a KE Corolla one in the shape of the above before. Oh well. Check auto trans fluid while the car is running, and at normal operating temperature. Take it for a drive around the block. If there is a warm/cold meter on the dipstick, make sure the fluid is correct at the "warm" point.

That's a good question, and I don't quite remember. I know he had one throw a leg out of bed but I don't remember why other engines got replaced. From what I remember of Stephen's builds, he just bolted his existing manifold (T2 and blowthru SU) onto a new motor and that was it. I should ask him to tell us more if he still remembers it.

Good man, your engine looks great with that new head and fancy tappet cover too :) Also what radiator fan shroud is that? I've never seen one like it on a K motor before.

That's surprising to hear! What have you done to your motor? Are you running anything like dished pistons with a flat-piston head, thick copper head gasket, strengthened rods, late model 4K block with extra ribbing, etc? My knowledge of turbo K engines comes from the guy Shaddow's Edge on oldcorollas Yahoo Group back in the early 00s. He had a small turbo (IIRC it was the stock T2 off an ET Pulsar) on a steampipe manifold that he'd bolt to stock K engines from the wreckers and drive them until they popped. He couldn't put more than 10psi into them without shortening their lifespan to mere months.

This is what I was going to say, but you've already done it. Thank the guy who replaced the studs with bolts, otherwise it would have been a full sump removal. Best mod you can do to a K motor after shimming the oil pump spring.

Sounds like a good deal to me. You can do all that stuff, but expect to significantly shorten the life of the motor once you get over 6psi. I don't think it's necessary to J-pipe under the engine, though that was popular for a while. You'll need to convert to an EFI fuel pump.

155/80/13 or anything which matches that profile. I use this website to check - http://www.rimsntires.com/rt_specs.jsp

I like your stereo. And your sunglasses golder. And your gauge holder. This is cool. Where did you get the vinyl?

Tuning 4 carbs sounds like a real pain. Unless you have doubled (or more) the power output of a K motor, I think twin sidedrafts are overkill too. A cheap K motor with a cam and extractors just doesn't suck that much air. If I did a different carb, I would use a Nikki from a ~1600cc Isuzu/Datsun/Mazda/etc, or twin SUs.

Do you have a shroud on your radiator? As in a big flat piece of metal which covers the radiator except for a round hole where the fan goes? If not, do this first. A thermofan without a shroud is not even using half the radiator area. Don't put bolts through the radiator fins, the radiators have bolt holes on the side. Bolt the shroud to the radiator, and the fan to the shroud. This is what a good custom radiator shroud looks like: http://www.maxrevs.co.uk/cars/bmw/carimages/2008/3/10_1200457039_thumb.jpg

As long as there is enough adjustment in the tappets, just use whatever fits. If the valve gear on the replacement head works, use that. If you find your replacement head can't be adjusted to the right length, the replacement head gear might have come from an engine with different length pushrods, in which case you could maybe swap your old valve gear back over. Like others have said, a couple of coolant and oil flushes would be a good idea. Don't forget to replace the oil filter after a couple of weeks too. if you do take the sump off, if your block has any studs which locate the sump, then take the studs out and swap to all bolts. It makes it much easier to get the sump off again later.

I've also got a set of the $190 K motor extractors from Australian Performance Systems. Arrived 1 or 2 days after order. No complaints.

Cool, keep us posted on the head. Like Banyo said, if the head swap goes south, you can get running 4K motors from the wreckers for $500 or so. Engine swaps in these cars are easy. Everything is easy :) With manual gearboxes, there are three shifter positions. KE1x has the shifter up the front, KE2x/3x/5x has the shifter in the middle, KE7x has the shifter at the back. As you're changing from an auto, you'll have to cut your floor anyway, so it might be easier for you to bolt a flat plate over the auto shifter hole and get a KE70 5-speed and cut a new hole. The other things you'll need are a manual pedal box (bolts in as far as I know), manual flywheel and clutch, drill a hole in the firewall for the clutch cable, the clutch cable itself (eBay Phil's Rotaries or any parts shop), and a clutch rubber and circlip which you can get at the wreckers. Your auto firewall won't have the metal cup which the manual firewall has to sit the rubber in, but I don't really think you need it. I'm not sure if auto and manual tailshafts are different lengths. I've actually got to change my clutch cable soon, so I'll remember to get a photo of my manual firewall while it's all apart, so you can see where to drill the hole and how the rubber and circlip go together.

Take your radiator to a radiator shop and have it flushed and tested. If it flows ok and holds pressure, it's fine. If it's blocked or if it leaks, they can re-core your radiator for $200-$300 or they might try sell you a new one. You can get big fat Chinese aluminium radiators for $300 off eBay if you have the patience to wait for postage. For 100% certainty you can pull the engine out, and either completely rebuild it, or replace it with a rebuilt engine that comes with warranty. I get the feeling you don't want to go to that much trouble. For pretty good certainty you could put some coolant flush and oil flush through the motor before taking the head off and radiator out, then flush the coolant and oil again a week or two after putting it all back together. I disagree with your mate that an engine with a cracked head will always crack heads. Many engines of different types all over the world have had heads replaced and gone on to live long and healthy lives. However, the engine did crack the head for a reason. It would be nice to identify that reason so you can stop it happening again. If there is a blocked water passage, that might be hard to identify, you might even free up a blockage when flushing the engine. Maybe the previous bloke let the motor run low on coolant, or maybe the head is just old and a slight defect in the 40-yearold metal finally let go. Changing the head is pretty simple operation. Make sure your new head matches your old head. There are engines with dished pistons in a circle pattern around the top of the piston, there are engines with dished pistons with a big deep D pattern, but the most common engine is flat-top pistons. You need the head which matches your engine. If your car has the original 3K motor, as far as I know they're all flat-top piston, it was only some 4K and 5K motors which had dished pistons. If you're in doubt you can use oil/petrol/degreaser and an eyedropper to measure the capacity of your old head and new head. Just turn the head upside down and use the dropper to fill the combustion chamber until the liquid meets the deck. They should be within a few cc of each other. If the head volumes are drastically different, then you need a different head. There are half a dozen different pushrod lengths, you might want/need to swap your existing valve gear onto the new head so it all fits properly. You can buy new head bolts if you like. Make sure you torque the bolts up in the correct order and to the correct torque. Check your valve clearances cold and warm a few times once you get it going again. While the rocker cover is off the car, give it a polish with really fine wet-and-dry sandpaper and metal polish so it looks fancy when you put it back on :D

Try running a nice new 60A wire from the B pole of the alternator (if Bosch) or external regulator (if Denso) to the positive terminal of the battery. That'll at least rule out whether the charging wire in the harness is worn out.

The late KE70 gearbox and T50 have the same shifter. KE55 and earlier K50/K40 boxes have a different shifter to the above. Unsure if T50s have different shifters.

Your local guy sounds like a jerk, forget him. Give some hot rod shops a call, they'll still work with leaf springs all the time. Buy Hot Rod Magazine and look for some ads. You can always freight the springs to a good shop and pay for freight back, I got a set of leaves done like this once. I've never seen cardboard between leaves, but I have seen rubber pads, these are just a generic item made out of regular suspension bush rubber. I've also seen people re-pack leaves in grease, wrap the entire leaf assembly in tough plastic, and install it on the car like that. A good suspension shop will know how to properly heat and cool leaf springs to reset the leaves. This can change the shape and spring rate of the leaf (ie: to lower your car or make the leaf a bit tougher) without compromising tensile strength. It's surprising to hear you have so much trouble getting parts over there, these cars are still at the wreckers here in Australia. If you know some local people you can get entire beater engines cheap/free, and there are repro parts all through Asia via eBay. I agree keep your suspension useable. The coolest car is one you can drive without ruining the car or your spine. Leave the ricer sport-compact guys to scrape on driveways and speed bumps :D

You can get a T piece off the oil pressure sender, re-attach the original sender, plus connect the pressure gauge sender. You could do the same for water pressure, or look through water pump catalogs for a water pump with one more fitting than your current pump, and use the spare fitting for the sender. There are about a billion different shapes of water pump for K motor so you'd probably find one pretty easily. Last I heard, running engine fluid into the cabin was not allowed in registered cars here in Australia, so you'd need electric gauges to be street legal. Check your local laws.