rob83ke70

got the correct part on order - has to come out of japan, eta 20-30 working days!! the part number was NA in australian toyota's parts system but was still good in the global system... and it is the same part for ae102 or ae112 as well... Robert.

it is an oil to air heat exchanger behind the front bumper on closer inspection..... no fancy radiator here lol. thats interesting I might go hassle toyota next door during lunch tomorrow and see if I can get that bit for an ae102 or ae112.... It does work without the heat exchanger installed, I just put the other union in place and put a filter on it. I would have had it going today but for some drama with the extractors. I disconnected the injectors though and cranked it until it got oil pressure so at least I know it has pressure lol. The welch plug had a bit of pitting on the bottom, possibly electrolysis, other than that it looked pretty good. Maybe it was blocked with some rubbish and it was cleaned off. I will check for stray voltage anyway when it is going!! Robert.

when you clean a block up in a machine shop you dunk it in a caustic solution? if this is the case does it eat aluminium or welch plugs? I got the block back and the welch plugs were all in it and looked ok so I've assembled the engine, fitted it to the vehicle, and filled the cooling system up to find i've got a nice little piddle of water coming out of one of the welch plugs.... new welch plugs tomorrow. should've done that with the engine out of the car!!!

complicated. I dropped the engine block there, this piece still attached because I didn't have a socket the right size at home to remove it. My brother picked the block up, and I didn't realise it was missing for a little while after.. I'm a little less than impressed that when I asked them about it they proceeded to tell me that they wouldn't have removed that piece off the block because all they did was hone the bores and that piece wouldn't have been in the way..... anyway, here's me thinking "I'll just get a new one off toyota, how hard could it be?" so I forked out $12 and bought one, but its for the engine without the heat exchanger. I'd really rather not have a massive blue with the machine shop!! I've been down that path before and having just got out of a bad job with a dodgy boss who seemed to rub everyone up the wrong way I'm kind of eager to make friends in the trade.... On closer inspection its a oil to air heat exchanger as well, it is a separate thing from the radiator. Anyway, I've fitted the oil filter without this heat exchanger and hopefully it all works for the time being until I can sort something out! I'll probably end up getting one made I'd say with the way this is going!! Robert.

I have a 92 model ae93 corolla seca ultima with a 7afe 1.8lt engine. The vehicle appears to be fitted with a water to oil heat exchanger (engine oil cooler), and the oil pickup/return unit is between the oil filter and the block. when the engine was apart, the machine shop lost the union that retains the pickup/return unit and mounts the oil filter. I have ordered a piece from toyota, and it appears to be appropriate for vehicles WITHOUT the heat exchanger fitted. They had two part numbers, one was long since not available, the other was good. does an ae102 or ae112 have this heat exchanger fitted or were they deleted? were they ever deleted on an ae93? were there techlines/technical service bulletins issued on this? was there every any dramas? I'm assuming it won't be a huge headache to not fit the heat exchanger, its just for the fact that it is there and I'd rather be using it. I may have to get a second hand bit or a custom piece made to use it!! Robert.

pedders should be able to fix you up with something, they got some for me. rear swaybar for ke55 is aftersales or aftermarket option, not factory. It looks factory, but thats cause its a good job! Robert.

deep heat and something.... can't quite remember what the something was though so it might not be much help!! Robert.

I was offered $300 for a set I've got in slightly worse condition.... didn't take it, I want to put them on a ke11 sitting in my yard lol. Robert.

make/use roller throttles...

haven't seen a saab badge on a commodore engine yet..... which engine do you think it was? "Holden" vehicles can be made in a variety of places.... if the vin starts with 6g1 it is made in australia, if it is "kl3" it is made in korea, if it is "mmm" its japanese, "w0l" is germany, "5gt" is american.... not hard to tell if you do your homework... Oh, what do we think about the south african zze122r corolla? "jtd" is japanese "aht" is south african.... Robert.

firewall isn't cracked or damaged where the cable mounts by any chance?

LOL take it from a slightly older more experienced mechanic, it doesn't matter what company you work for, they all have their good and bad points.... you can't generalize and say "all of this brand of car is SHIT" because they aren't. All manufacturers will do things differently to each other and have their own style and way of thinking, its not always good, but its definitely not always bad.... Toyota has good and bad things..... think of A series engine oil consumption because of the design of the pistons and oil rings.... starter motor location on a 1vd-ftv.... why on earth do you undo the engine mount from below in an sv21r camry with a 3s-fe? why did they put a tiny little 3k and 4k into a corolla in Australia when a 2t-c or 2t-g was fitted overseas? I could think of heaps of things... the point is, Toyota certainly isn't shit, despite any shortcomings.... we all love Toyotas, which is why we happened to be here lol. You get to appreciate and like what you work on after a while when you get used to it. I've had a go at quite a few different makes and models of cars to work on and once you get your head around them they are all good. IMHO you should buy a good set of extractors and either ceramic coat them or heat wrap them, and get a 2" exhaust system made with good quality performance mufflers that are not too loud. If you get the exhaust system right, you will get an increase in power and economy, without getting defects.... unfortunately this is a very very easy thing to get wrong, if you go too big, you lose gas speed. high gas speed gives you greater scavenging, which is greater efficiency. You are aiming for greater efficiency to achieve an increase in power and greater economy. Basically you want as little back pressure as possible, with as high of a rate of flow as possible, minus the noise. Robert.

Anyone out there have specifications for the valve guide maximum diameter on a 7afe cylinder head? I've got an engine in bits that had horrendous oil consumption issues, the bottom half is all sorted now, but I still have to sort the cylinder head out. The valve guides appear to have a reasonable amount of play in them, so I'm going to knurl them to rectify this. I can't find valve guide specifications though. Robert.

from what I gather, having never run a speed event myself, but kylie has run a few, you need to keep it in mind that you can and should use ALL of the track for corners, make sure you are on the outer edge of the track well before the corner and cut it right to the inside and end up back on the outside. its hard to get road habits gone for racing! have fun :( Robert.

just to clarify a point here if you don't mind, what tyre pressures would you reccommend and why? we run 18-24 with rally tyres depending on conditions and mud etc, we ran 24 in the slicks we used for the last hillclimb, but on normal street tyres in a tarmac hillclimb, what sort of pressures should you run? :(, you said 40 psi, is there any reason for this? I think we ran 32 psi in these tyres for the last descent. They are firestone firehawk tz100 tyres in a 195/60r14 on a 7" wide super light weight set of rims (that I don't think are a J or JJ profile, they look custom/handmade by someone with a lot of time/money/skills). Robert.

my guess is that your distributor is 180 degrees the wrong way. double check your cam timing by verifying valve events in relation to piston position, and then check your distributor position in relation to valve events and piston position. having the rocker cover off for this is a good idea. make sure your plug leads are on in the right order (1342) gotta start with the simple things. Robert.

Thankyou TRD KE70, thats what I was wanting to hear, I will be doing so at some point before the hillclimb. I'd be up for trying one of those Tayell Automotive LSD kits in the rally car. I can't see any problems for the sort of events we'd be competing in, we aren't too serious or we'd be throwing lots of money around lol. Robert.

I'm under the impression that I don't want a cone type lsd lol. I want something that would make power go to both wheels and I don't want a locked diff on the street. an LSD would be ideal, but I want something that is going to go in a standard BW diff as thats what I have fitted.... I'm being difficult. I'm planning on running a jap diff in the rally car at this stage (ke30) and I'm under the impression that you can get LSD centres (very rare/expensive but possible to get) so thats probably what I'll do. As I'm running a modified 4k every kilo counts, and I'm trying to keep weight to a minimum... Robert.

gearboxes are not *that* hard to rebuild.... make sure you mark the orientation and location of EVERY component and be careful with everything. noisy in 1st 2nd and 3rd is probably an input shaft bearing. the k box is actually pretty simple although its been a long time since I've had one fully apart. take your time and be careful, and make sure you put selector hubs and sleeves back the right way and the right shift forks in the right place, but that goes with all gearbox rebuilds. Robert.

Thats interesting about the phantom grip..... what sort of cars were they in when they failed? how did they fail? I'm very curious about them, but not curious enough to spend $350 or so to buy one. Why didn't I get a job as a fitter/machinist at a place with lots of CNC gear? Think of the things I could make!! I did install some shims into the diff carrier behind the differential gears and this tightened it up a fair bit, which seemed to do what I wanted it to do (it would spin both wheels on dirt evenly) but I think something has worn a bit and its not as tight anymore. I'm thinking at this stage I should pull it apart and install some thicker shims so its nice and tight again... Robert.

very interesting..... I thought I hadn't heard of that, but as it is in the FAQ I'd obviously dismissed it as "limited slip" whereas I was looking for "bodgy diff modifications" or something lol. I will be putting one of those in both the corollas (ke30 rally car and ke20 street/race car)... Maybe a mini-spool would be the go for the hillclimb? but that's a bother because I'd have to take it out soon after or else Kylie would get done over for drifting everywhere lol. Anyone got a sensible opinion on what a ke corolla is like to drive on public roads (both sensibly and non-sensibly) with a locked diff centre? Robert.

I recall a discussion some time ago on here about differentials, I think it was in a thread relating to rules for racing a class of corollas.... the basic gist of what I was interested in is as follows: :D, you said that you could make an open centre diff behave like a limited slip, yet upon scrutineering behave like an open centre diff.... I'm having a guess here that you are tightening the differential gears inside the carrier via means of shims or other adjustments, so although it can act like an open centre, it is reluctant to do so, and so acts more like a limited slip. Is that right or am I barking up the wrong tree? What I had in mind was a poor man's LSD, basically I have a 4.3 BW diff that I'd love to behave like a limited slip for a tarmac hillclimb (there is no rules that say I can't have an LSD, its just money and finding the parts). I don't want to weld it up because its still a road going registered car, and I'd rather not break stuff (and its my only 4.3 ratio at the moment). Anyone with ideas feel free to contribute. I've searched for mods like this but all I get is pages explaining how LSD's and differentials work..... very frustrating.... Robert.

they leak oil somewhere around 100-150k from the front camshaft seals which is a bit of a pain in the ass to fix. you need to add speedi sleeves as well as new seals. the belt gets done at 100k. the spark plug tubes and rocker cover gaskets also leak oil, and they suffer from the usual holden/ford mould growing in the brake fluid reservoir because nobody changes it. Robert.

as in it will probably break if applied at over a certain speed.... they are a parking brake designed to hold it still when it is still, rather than an emergency brake, designed to slow a moving vehicle down. they are still a mechanical linkage to a drum brake inside the rear discs.... Robert.

ummmm.... they came with 155sr12's from the factory..... they are the same width are they not? 155 = 155 does anybody want to contest that? Robert.