slapper

It's the front attachment point for the radius rods. Radius rod goes from the bottom of the strut (it bolts to the lower control arm) to that bracket. It provides the front to back location for the strut bottom. cheers, Slapper

3" may not be achievable without some extra mod's. That will almost certainly take the front lower control arms past flat. The problem with that is that 1) You will have screwed your front roll-center up. Draw a line 90 degrees from the top of your strut, draw a line through the lower control arm. Where those lines intersect is your roll-center for the front suspension. This, loosely speaking, is the point where your suspension is providing all its resistance to body roll. Ideally, you want to get this as close to the center of gravity of your car as possible. Above the C.O.G. is better than below - below and your suspension starts helping the body roll rather than hindering it ... loosely speaking :y: Roll Center Adjusters go on the bottom of your stut and space that end of the control arm down so as to return the LCA angle to something sensible. Anything past 2" compression, you should really be thinking about RCAs. 2) As your suspension compresses, the bottom of the strut will no longer move outwards, but inwards. This is a lesser effect than (1) above but any decrease in camber is bad, right? Particularly when you most need it (ie. outside wheel getting reduced camber as suspension compresses). 3 " at the back is almost certainly going to give you "diff hitting floor" issues. You may need to trim the bump stop attached to the floor above the diff center and/or build a cutaway above the diff to accomodate the loving closeness. You also want to be careful with leaf springs. You don't want to deform them past flat - in complete and utter plain speak, the spring rate starts to decrease as the ends get closer together. Get the eyes reset and dearch a little to achieve 3 inches. Even if you decide 2" is cool, do it with reset eyes rather than resetting the arch. My KE25 was dropped roughly 2 inches. Shorter stiffer springs at the front, reversed eyes (and sometimes an extra leaf) at the back. Front control arms were pretty well dead flat. Diff hit the bump stop whenever I hit speed humps at ... well ... speed. In the end, the kids wouldn't ride in the back as "it hurt" too much. My AE71 is dropped about 1.5 inches at the front and about 2 inches at the back. I'm amazed that I have never bottomed out the suspension given my KE25 experiences. so ... your KE55 mileage may vary :) cheers. Slapper

The only real problems with cut springs are: they don't locate so well in the spring carrier as you've cut away the nicely formed end that sat there. This can be an issue as the spring can rotate to the side when you unload it (top of a bump, inside of a corner etc) depending on how you cut them, they are more likely to crack and break ... mid-corner would be lots of fun! illegal your insurance company will walk away refusing to have anything to do with paying a single damn cent Really, it's just not worth it. You will save yourself the cost of one set of springs by cutting the ones you have. Subtract the cost of your falcon springs if you have to buy them. So you've saved, oh, I don't know, $150? Is $150 worth the risk of car defected - will the rest of the car pass the intensive inspection that will result? fine/charges brought against you after an accident for driving an unroadworthy car zero insurance coverage if you're in a stack and the assessor notices your dodgey springs You're better off getting the right spring (with the rate of a cut falcon spring if that's what you want) coupled with an effective damper. As an aside: if you're driving on the road, you'll need a softer spring than you can tolerate on the track. The roads are not as smooth as a track - don't think that "harder is better, so really hard must be best" :D A road car has to be a compromise. Having said all that, there are some excellent recommendations earlier in this thread. You should be looking for: An inch or two lower in the front with a stiffer spring and a matched damper. If you can't afford that, go for a Pedders or Industrial Springs or whatever, 20% stiffer spring (or so) with a new monroe gas or similar (OEM replacement) shock. The extra spring stiffness is okay with the original damper. Don't go much any lower than flat control arms without considering roll-center adjusters or something similar, even flat is pushing it. Invert the eyes at the rear and add an extra leaf - original damper should be fine, but a stiffer one would be better. Urethane all your front-end bushes - swaybar mounts, ends, radius rods and lower control arm. Urethane what you can on the rear suspension. With my KE25, I could only get rear hangers, none of the other bushes were available. Ideally, you'd be better off replacing the dampers with billstein or similar but your wallet may force you to make a compromise! cheers, Slapper

That is horrendously underdamped and will bounce like crap if you have front tyres with any grip. Been there ... done that. Really, there's no reason to cut springs beyond a way of testing different rates. Cut springs have no real place in a daily driver as an end goal. Do it properly - get lowered and stiffer springs by all means, but make sure your damper is matched to the spring. I've heard the suzuki sierra shocks for the rear before, but can anyone tell me whether they're a stiffer damper than the original? cheers, Slapper

what????? I hope you don't mean what that sounds like ..... are you pouring petrol onto the spot where the manifold joins the head? Check the manifold nuts. Have you fitted extractors? If so, check that the header flange isn't thicker than the inlet flange - it's been known to happen and that will leave your intake (or exhaust if it's the other way around) loose as they share mounting studs. Slapper

I feel your pain! Been there, done the miles and miles of internet trawling and reading for suspension ... so many questions, so many questions! First question you need to answer: what do you want from your car? track? motorkahna? rally? street? comfort level? carry people in rear seats? How committed are you to "better handling"? Do you still want to go to supermarket carparks without scraping on those monster speedhumps? I'm not aware of any premade coilovers for KE55. You will be able to fit new springs , new dampers, new front swaybar without going anywhere near a machanic. I don't think KE55 came with rear swaybar mounts - whiteline may have a kit that doesn't involve welding though ... maybe someone else has better experience than me as far as that's concerned. So ... tell us what you want and we might be able to help. cheers, Slapper

How do you know it's sparking? What makes you think it's not running? Pull the rocker cover off, turn the crank with a spanner and check that intake and exhaust valves are working. Take all your sparkplugs out first to make it easier to turn. cheers, Slapper

That's a point ... you might have just broken an axle even ...

If you're not hearing grinding noises (pressure plate etc flopping around inside the carrier), then it's more likely you've done the input shaft. There's no escaping it ... you're going to have to pull the transmission out and have a look. cost? Can't tell until we know what the damage is. You could be up for new flywheel, clutch, input shaft, bearings etc etc ... cheers, Slapper

Also make sure that you don't bottom out the clutch master cylinder - if the rod has more travel than the cylinder has, you'll bend the rod. Make sure you put a stop under the clutch pedal or something ... cheers, Slapper

ahh ... just followed your links. Looks like Castrol 4T is available in 10W-40 as well as 20W-50. I wouldn't run a 28 year old car on 10W-40 alone ... too thin. For a top-up here and there it's probably fine though. The 20W-50 would be a much better option. If you can't get the 20W-50, do the bottle top-up trick to put 20W-50 car oil in the bottle. cheers

The short answer is "for a 1981 KE70, yes". So long as the viscosity is comparable, go for it. 20W-40 might be a little thin at operating temperature, so I wouldn't be using it all the time though .. just for top-ups here and there. If you're thinking of using Castrol 4T, I'm pretty sure it's 15W-50 which should be fine ... a trifle thin when cold though. why not buy a 1 litre bottle of the bike oil then top it up as required from a 4 litre car oil? That way you ultimately only pay $30 for 4l but have the convenience of the 1 litre bottle :P I do exactly the same thing the other way around. On my motorbike, I carry a 1 litre Castrol GTX2 bottle filled with Castrol Activ 4T. I must say that it's unusual you can buy a litre bottle of bike oil cheaper than a litre of car oil - here it's usually the other way around by quite a margin! Motorbike oils usually have shear resistant viscosity polymers to resist the chopping action of the transmission. The advent of high revving small capacity engines in cars means these are turning up more often in car oils nowadays as well. In tests I've read (in a magazine) conducted at a university in the States, the current batch of car oils (last year) performed pretty much as well as the bike oils in maintaining their viscosity when used in a motorcycle. Bikes usually share the engine oil with the clutch as well as the transmission, so they're also not friction modified as a rule. Friction modifiers can wreak havoc with the clutch plates. Car oils stopped including a couple of "last resort" metal-on-metal lubricant components when catalytic converters came in - phosphoric compounds I think. These components weren't friendly to cat's and the requirements for cars to meet emission goals for 10 year old cars meant the cat still had to be intact. Motorcycles are only recently seeing the introduction of cat's and they're not yet subject to the same emission laws, so motorcycle oils often still carry these same compounds. You don't need to worry about the longevity of your catalytic converter in a 1981 KE70 though! cheers, Slapper

My theory: sounds like blocked jets ... Pumping the accelerator pedal is giving a little squirt from the accelerator pump each time. If that's what you;re needing to do to keep it running, then it sounds like it's not getting enough (or maybe any at all) fuel. Since the only fuel being delivered at constant throttle positions comes from the jets, then they've got to be suspect. Pull the carby down and run an kit through it. You might also want to double check the float level when you do the kit. cheers, Slapper

bubbling? bubbling where? cheers, Slapper

Run a jumper lead from -ve battery to the block - does that improve things? If so, check the integrity of your earth straps. cheers, Slapper

and the KE30? time for a rebuild :hammer: at least check it out and eliminate the knock ... knocking's never good :y: 35,000 revs per minute? Holy shit! that's not a car, it's a spinning top! Oh, I crack myself up! Actually, I don't really ... that joke was sad and pathetic - it must be morning and I haven't had coffee yet :y: 3.5k at 110 sounds okay - I know my 4WD van does that at about 100kph. i have no corollas on the road at the moment, so I can't check one of those ... I'd say maybe you motor might need at least a tune up ... cheers, Slapper

Gidday Mr Hogie, or may I call you "HotDog"? ... always nice to start with a pleasantry I find :y: Unfortunately, I don't know ... maybe someone else will be able to help. You may need to provide more info - particularly as the 3TC is non-original in your chassis. As you've indicated elsewhere that you have the KE30, I'm going to assume that the car came with a 3K originally. If that's the case (ie. not the T or 2T motor) then the transmission you have is also non-original. If you know the donor car for the gearbox, that may be helpful. I don't know whether it's the same with the T boxes, but K boxes have different extension housings on them so knowing what it came from gives extra information that may be useful. I haven't driven a KE30 with a 3T, but I know people who have and they generally seem to think that they "go OK". I don't know what you're basing your assessment on, but that might be helpful to know too! What's it sluggish compared to? Give us some benchmarks we can relate to ... In my experience (4K with extractors (headers) in a KE25, and 4AC with DGV in an AE71), I'd think a 3TC in a KE30 should be "a heap of fun". RX7 rearend? Please explain ... what diff ratio? What sort of revs is the engine doing at, say 40 mph? (which translates to 64 kph for us in metric land) Do you know why an RX7 rearend has been swapped in? I would've thought that a bit of overkill - maybe not ... Short answer: "I don't think so". Long answer: "yes, but not without some work". I seem to recall that they are a different length, the steering knuckle has different mounts and the KE30 tie-rod end doesn't fit the AE86 knuckle. I think the stub axle is the wrong angle too and you finish up with +ve camber. Maybe someone else can give more help. If you haven't already done so, have a look in the FAQ (there's a link at the top of the web page) for a summary of the common knowledge as it applies to strut upgrades. I have no idea what you mean! What do you mean by "Jw" ?? A 1978 KE30 should be exactly the same as a 1979 KE30 ... Then you have a little while to wait then! good luck :y: Slapper

AE71 - resonator cracked at the input pipe. I ripped the resonator out and replaced it with a straight through section of exhaust pipe. I took this approach because I was simply too cheap to: have the crack repaired (it would've meant a new resonator) go to u-pullit and grab a replacement resonator I was kinda hoping it might sound better but I don't think it actually made any difference at all to the sound level ... So: if there was any change, it was negligible. cheers, Slapper

last time I checked ... In SA, you can only register a 4 point, and the front bar needs to be 200mm (if I recall correctly) behind the driver's head. Plus you have to remove the rear seat and have your car registered as a 2 seater. Not sure whether the seat removal needs to be engineered or it's just an inspection or what ... soon as I got to the "car becomes 2 seater" bit I stopped paying attention :dance: cheers, Slapper

Gidday Josh, I don't think there are many Perth members here, so that might explain your lack of recommendations :party: This question has been answered a couple times on this board - I don't have time to do so at the moment, but if you spend a little time searching, you should turn something up ... Look for 4AGE stuff for most of your info ... then do some searches on "GZE" to find extra info. Basically, you're looking at a 4AGE conversion with the added headache of blower location together with intercooler (if you decide to run one). Go looking for "turbo + KE30" for intercooler ideas. The basic difference between a KE70 and a KE30 conversion is that the KE70 is an AE71 with a K motor rather than the 4AC that the AE71 got. So, if you pull the engine cross-member from an AE71, it will bolt straight up to a KE70. A 4AGE will bolt straight up to the AE71 cross-member. Hope that helps - sometimes it takes a while before the right person reads your post and responds :dance: Slapper

GRAMPS

He's probably after testimonials/recommendations from people who've had similar work done ... Opening the phonebook will give him dozens of choices, but no idea about the quality of their work. I haven't had any K work done, but I got a Mitsubishi block dipped, bores checked and the surface cleaned up at Richardsons Engine Service - 82661646 103 Muller Road HAMPSTEAD GARDENS They came recommended from sources I trust ... did the work and the motor is back together and running happily. They let me know that the bores should really be rebored if I wanted a performance motor but would be fine with a hone otherwise - so they didn't try to get more work out of me than was necessary. Be warned though ... they're cash only, no EFTPOS facilities caught me out :( cheers, Slapper

oops - editted my mileage claims ... Just looked back through my records and my milegae varied between 8 and 10 in the ke25 and 9 and 10 in the AE71. What can I say? My memory isn't what it used to be smile.gif It didn't seem to matter whether I had the weber in or not though ... at least I was right about that bit! cheers, slapper

ahh ... 400 km / 50 Litres gives you km/litre ... ie. 8 km/litre (which is 12.5 litres/100km) Besides the fact that that's a very inaccurate way of doing it ... the accepted way for you, me and everyone else without expensive measuring equipment to do it is: fill up to the first click at the servo zero your trip counter or record your odometer reading drive ... drive ... drive fill up to the first click at the servo (ie. try and fill it to the same level it was before) record the amount (litres) you've just put in record the distance travelled since the last time you filled up now you have an indication of how many litres it takes you to travel a certain distance Divide the litres by the number of kilometers and then multiply by 100 - this will give you your litres per 100 km number. Every time you fill up, you'll fill to a slightly different level - so a better way of doing it is to do the calculation across multiple fills and combine the results. eg. after 4 half tank fills, you'll have travelled around 800 km and will probably have put in around 96 litres ... which would work out at 12 litres / 100 km. you mentioned that you have the wrong diff - so I (maybe wrongly) assumed you meant you had an auto diff in there. Either way, what do you mean by "the wrong diff". If it has a different ratio than original and you haven't changed something else (tyre size, speedo sender) to compensate, your speedo will be wrong and hence your odometer will also be wrong - which will mean that you've used the wrong number of km's in your calculations. cheers

8 litres per 100 km is actually pretty good - I'd be tempted to check my calculations! Have you allowed for the auto diff vs 4 speed manual transmission combo correctly - ie. is your speedo/odo correct? My experience has been: KE25 with stock 4k + extractors + weber downdraft + 4 speed varied between 10 and 11.5 litres/100km depending on usage AE71 stock was about the same * stock carby vs weber downdraft made negligible difference to economy on both cars. My L300 van (4wd 2.4 injected) gets 13litres/100 km damn it!! Love the space, but I could do with some better fuel economy! cheers, Slapper edit: I'm an idiot! :jamie: Just looked back through my records and my milegae varied between 8 and 10 in the ke25 and 9 and 10 in the AE71. What can I say? My memory isn't what it used to be :) It didn't seem to matter whether I had the weber in or not though ... at least I was right about that bit!