snot35

Surely the torque converter in an AE71 auto wouldn't be tuned for a 4AGE, you may spend all that effort doing it and work out that it drives like arse. I'm not sure if there were auto AE86's, but I'd be looking into that.

Yeah, might take some chasing. Pump is fixed but the problem remains. This is an untested throttle body so I'll put on the other that I know is ok and see how that goes. But, it's outside! Has only taken 4 years ???? So I've discovered that the flex in my exhaust leaks, and my driveway is steep enough for fuel to come out of the line when parked on the slope!

So, this runs! Life has been insane, but now I need to rip down the shed around it so it has to move or there will be dramas. It actually came together fairly easily. I'm only running a temporary wiring for the moment. I wanted to run it all first to work out how it would fit together before doing proper wiring and using nicer connectors. My wiring came together well. I only fried one wire of my own making when I hooked up a relay in the same fashion as a Toyota relay and internally they were different. Easily fixed and fortunately I didn't kill anything else. I was a little worried about it not working, I'm using the AE86 loom I have along with an AE86 dizzy which I hadn't used before, so there were some unknown quantities. I turned it over and got some back firing, so I knew ignition was OK. Then I remembered I'd only put the dizzy in for show, not for go. Corrected that, hit it, and we're away! It's very loud though, I may need to do something about that, not sure. Unfortunately I was having the floating idle problem. A quick google told me one of the first things to do is check the coolant level. I did, there wasn't enough. Then I found the leak. Damn it! I decided to use the RWD water pump I had, because RWD, but I think the seals have dried up and it's not water tight. I've ordered a new FWD version and I'll just use that, I'm going to run thermos anyway. I have to say though, it's nice and easy getting the water pump off on a RWD car! I'd forgotten how nice it is to work on them. So for now, panels are on, the tailshaft is in. I just need to put the pump on and the steering wheel and we should be OK to move it around.

Wow, I thought it was longer since I touched this thing, but only a bit over a month! Life has been flat chat, job change, blah blah, too f'ing cold in the shed. The shed has developed a leak too which isn't ideal. I had the seat out of the car so I could get in and do wiring and it ended up soaked which didn't make me happy. Night in front of the combustion heater sorted that. Been racing the MTB too so had some maintenance and upgrades to do there. But on to the car. Got out last night and tidied the shed so I had a decent work space. I teased out the wiring I wanted from the drivers side and re routed that over to the passenger's side where all the relays will go. It's looking reasonably tidy which makes me happy. I also managed to pick up JDM AE86 washer and overflow bottles, which also makes me happy :) So I'll use the washer wiring in the AE86 loom and have a decent space for the air filter. At some stage I'll make a cold air box in that front driver's corner. Got a gearbox gasket kit on the way from Japan too. The plan is to get it moving and then drive it up onto the ramps so I can get it out, do the gaskets and then put it back in.

Enjoy the yumps :D

I think I'll be doing that too with the alty, but I'm not 100% sure where my alty wiring has gone, I must have missed something. How is your electric fan hooked up? On a temp switch somewhere?

Heater core is back and looking good. Started unwrapping the loom that goes in the driver's side guard. Still trying to decide if that is a good idea or not :D It does give me everything I need though, so I've got a pretty good idea of where everything is going to go know with the exception of the wiring for the alternator. I know where I'm going to run it, just haven't finalised how it will be wired. Still progressing though.

New muffler welded on. It sits in place nicely, but I'm not happy with the welding that I did. I removed the hanger from the old muffler and that went on nicely, but the pipe join is a bit rough. I might tidy it up, I haven't decided. At the moment I can't work out what I did with the exhaust gaskets, so it will have to come off again at some stage anyway. I also did a bit more wiring. the CORS and ECU plug are now connected to a terminal strip to I can prototype everything and get it all in the right spot. Turns out the ratchet crimper I have doesn't have the right jaws at the moment, so I ordered some designed to do the joints that I want. I'm also out of spade terminals for prototyping the relay connections, so I'll pick some of those up today. The aim is to get it all together with my dodgy crimpers and test it while I'm waiting for the new crimper jaws. When they show up I should be able to finalise the wiring. Oh, plus, I took the heater core in for fixing. It was leaky. I asked them to turn one of the pipes so that they both pointed in the same direction, so I could then use the AE86 pipes I have. Went to pick it up, they forgot and just fixed it. That pushed that back a few days. No big deal, but I was hoping to use my procrastination on the wiring to get some other jobs done :)

That actually makes a lot of sense! Why didn't I think of that? :) So the family car blew the clutch today, which was awesome! I'd just dropped off the kids, changed from first to second and let out the clutch. "Clunk" it went, and there was no drive what so ever. I was trying to go up hill, so that was that. Did a bit of diagnosis and figured that it was the clutch. The road service guy confirmed it and then I got a tow to the local mechanic. It's going to cost quite a bit. But it made me take the day off work so I got a few bits done including some cars stuff. Got some relays and another mounting block, so I very nearly have everything I need for the electrics. Also ordered some different dies for my ratcheting crimper so I'll be able to do some good joints on the wiring. I also did a wrecker run and picked up a plug and some tails for the alternator and the right nut for the bottom of the fuel filter. The u pullit didn't have any twin cams so I took a punt with a plug from a Camry and nut from a ST202 Celica. Both worked! It also makes me wonder if the Camry might have an upgraded alternator that will fit? It looked identical to the 4AGE unit. I also chopped the dud muffler off of the exhaust system. The new muffler lines up nicely so I'll zap that together some time soon.

The ones I have must be different. They are tapered, the larger end fits the diff nicely but then fouls on the bottom out bumper tower. Turn them over and the smaller end won't fit on the diff perch. I'm going to have to search some wreckers. I'm going to be difficult and do my wiring completely differently! I've found where to get my ignition power and constant 12V, there's a plug in the driver's side kick panel that runs wires down the right side rail to where the coil was for the 4K. I'd like to replace that plug and make my own mini harness, but I'm not sure where everything goes just yet. The white 12V wire keeps going all the way around the front of the car into the fuse box! There seem to be so many redundant wires in a KE70. The only other main one I need to work out is the starter signal.

Whole family has had colds, so that took out two weeks. We're all over it now pretty much, but it's cold, so I've been wussing out! I have printed and taped together and AE86 wiring diagram and spent a few hours developing a plan of how I'm going to tackle it. Fortunately a reasonable amount of stuff plugs in and I was smart enough to grab the COR with plug and wiring, along with the body plug for the ECU. The plan is to put as much as I can through the AE86 loom as the old KE70 loom was pretty damaged. All the reversing connectors had been torn off and it only provides connectors for the oil switch and temp sensor. All the power etc is over the other side of the bay anyway, so it will be tidier to use the AE86 setup. The only thing that won't really line up properly is the washer bottle power. I'd like to put a washer bottle in the AE86 spot I think, but it needs to tuck in pretty well as it's going to get pretty hot over there. The AE86 loom seems to plug into the starter wire and has coil power etc, so I just need to adapt it in the car with some relays. Sounds simple enough :)

Did a little last night. Removed the seat and stuff I'm storing in the car to make the wiring easier. Did a few traces on the AE86 loom to identify everything. God I hate wiring. I'm not sure why, I've barely done anything, I'm just not enthused by it. I'll press on.

Well the caliper is designed for a 12.7mm disc, so I'd have to juggle all that. I guess it would be possible to make spacers to make the caliper wider, but I get the idea that that's generally frowned upon. I searched through a brake rotor catalogue and found a heap of discs that could be made to work, some almost perfect in size. Given there are already big slotted rotors on there with decent pads I'll probably use them to start with and worry about it later. It's a project far down the track! I did measure up to see if I could use my current springs with them. It might work OK, not sure what it will do to the height. I might muck around with that after she's running. While I have you altezza, those springs you put in the back of the rally car, that was in the Celica wasn't it? I grabbed some from the AE82 Seca I wrecked and they don't fit. I think the bottom out tower in the Celica is probably narrower.

Dash is back in, so I sat in it and made brumming noises. Not too much has changed, the shifter is mostly in the right spot. I'd like to move my seat back, but if I do that I'll definitely need a shifter extension of some sort. I also printed out wiring diagrams for the KE70 and AE86. Some of the wiring colours on the body plug are different to what I have, but I've identified them all and am pretty happy that I understand what's going on. I'm going to diagram what is going on and then get the old man to check it after. He's an ex electronics tech and pretty pragmatic so that will make me feel more comfortable. If I let the magic smoke out I'd be very, very unhappy!

Yeah, it looks fairly straight forward, so I'm not too worried. I might do a little more than I have to, just so there aren't too many superfluous wires around the place. Diff will be awesome, but is a little way away, probably later next year if I'm honest. I'll probably run the 4.3 locked borg for a while. It's got a noisy bearing though, so that may not last too long behind the 4AGE. I had a bit of a look at the XT130 struts tonight. God they have big brakes! I'm going to put them on the scales I think and compare them to the TE72 struts. Given I've never run out of brakes, I'm not sure how much I want to add a heap of un sprung weight to the car for now. I did find that there are Wilwood calipers that bolt up while trawling the forums here. I'm just trying to work out what discs were required. It was for a 20mm vented disc so I might be better off saving up and doing that with them further down the track. The Wilwoods are 1.5 kg vs 4.5 for the Sumitomos.... Oh, and Aust post found my coil over sleeves. What a saga!

What? He means over bored 60 thou, or roughly 1.5 mm to 76.5mm.

Banked some XT130 struts yesterday. They were pretty cheap and came with slotted rotors and EBC Green pads. Once we're up and running they'll get turned into coil overs. I managed to grab a sleeve kit cheaply too, assuming Australia Post can find them (f&*K)!!

Did they come from a KE70 or AE86?

Oh, but I did put in the AE86 throttle cable. That does fit in nicely! :)

Started on the wiring. I hate it so far! :) But it's not really going that badly, I've got an idea of where everything is going to go. I have an AE86 Kouki engine bay loom, so I'm in the process of auditing what I have so I can splice it into the loom under the dash. I'd like to reconcile of much of it as I can, it seems my car has power on both sides of the bay to the coil as well as all the starter and alternator stuff. I'll take out as much of that as I can and probably move the relays to inside the car if I can. I jumped under the car to try and plug in the reverse light switch and found that I have some oil seepage from the gearbox. Poop! I remember now, I don't think I put a gasket between the box and bell housing when I swapped them over. I'm pretty annoyed about that. I might leave it for a bit and keep an eye on it. Can't be bothered pulling the box just yet. I'm leaning back towards doing an 8mm feed pipe and working out how to put the factory filter in the bay. It's just the tidiest solution with the least number of joins and fittings. More labour, but I think it will be cheaper because I won't have to buy fittings. Not to mention better. I also managed to bend up a new brake line, but that still leaks. And I noticed a leak on the clutch slave. I'm in a bit of a "F this car" phase, but I'll pull through. Oh, dash is mostly back in and I've reassembled the column. I'm trying to clear out all the stuff I've just stored in the car that's related to the project. Now that I'm trying to sort wiring, I'm going to need the space.

Got some time tonight. Started looking into upgrading the fuel line before remembering I really don't like working under rally cars with all the dirt that drops in your eyes, hair, everywhere! I think I'll just stick with the 6mm line, everyone seems to say it's OK. I also pulled out the old exhaust and put in the new. Looks pretty good :D While I was there I tried out some other springs I had from an AE82 which I hoped would lower the rear of the car. Not to be unfortunately. They taper, so although they would theoretically lower the car, the taper fouls on the spring seat column and I think the ride height is the same. I also worked out where I'm going to put the fuel filter, so that's all good to go. I started replacing the leaking brake pipe before bending it wrong and making it useless! I need to grab some more before I can continue with that one. I don't think I'll have a chance to do that until next week which is a bit annoying. If I get a chance before that I'll make up a new intake manifold gasket so I can get that back together. TRD LSD is tiny!

I was thinking drill it out and then have a go with the MIG. There's still time for me to come to the conclusion that it isn't worth it :) Another bit rocked up recently too. TRD LSD.......

Radiator is in and as worked out reasonably well. It's all hooked up so I can put some coolant in. I had to do a bit of wrangling as they're AE86 hoses onto an AE71 radiator. At the moment the bottom hose touches the alternator which I'm not happy about. I think if I get a shorter belt and move it in I might be OK. I'll put that on the list of things to do after it's running. Oil filter is on, small job, but she's ready for oil :) Clutch slave has also been mounted and hooked up, so that just needs some fluid and a bleed. I've also done the earths. I ended up doing two to the block as there was a earth wire handy already from the K motor and a bolt hole on the block that was perfect for it, so hopefully that will prevent any future hassle. Next is really to get the manifold mounted. I'm annoyed with myself, I could have ordered a gasket from Toyota weeks ago that would have enabled me to finish all that but I baulked at the shipping time. I could have had it by now a few times over. I could still make a gasket, we'll see how time and enthusiasm runs. I also need to pull out the fuel lines so I can make up my bigger line. I might as well enlarge the lines into the tank while I'm there. I've also noticed the brake line to the front left is weeping, so I'll need to sort that out. It's been a busy but productive day though, which makes me happy :) Oh, and I fixed my air compressor. I ran it without oil and managed to seize it. Turns out it was just the rod so I gave the crank a clean up and put a new rod in. $5 on ebay including postage!

There's a lul at the moment, so got into a few bits and pieces last night. Started mounting the radiator which required some minor fab work. That's nearly finished but I needed just a little more time on the power tools to get it done and it was a bit late. I also got the exhaust manifold on which took a little longer than I wanted. The front bolt was cross threading, so I ran a tap through it to fix that up. It's all on OK now, so I can get into that when I have a moment too. I'm getting a bit anxious to get this thing going :/

Decided on fuel system. I'm going to do it right and upgrade the lines to 8mm. It would bug me otherwise. I like the idea of as few a joins as possible, so rather than using adapters etc I'm going to do some new line under the car. 8mm feed and return, and just use a Z200 fuel filter to feed the fuel rail. I've picked up the tube and filter already. Clamps on their way and I've got the bending and flaring tools ready to go. Just need the time :)