altezzaclub

While the driveshaft was away I tackled the panhard and the brakes. The easiest panhard solution is to cut the end off the Celcia one and slip a piece of pipe over it while in the car. Mark it and weld it. It needs to be 85mm longer I think it was, in a 150mm pipe For $20 the welders gave me the piece of pipe that I cut to length and marked, and they welded it in 2minutes.

The KE70 driveshaft doesn't unbolt like the Celica does, so its an engineering job to cut the Celcia rear UJ off and weld it onto the KE70 shaft. That took a week.

I had to put the Borgie back in to measure the driveshaft, so make sure you make a mark in the chassis by the middle joint of the driveshaft and measure to the nose of the Borgwarner. Then swap diffs and measure from that mark to the banjo diff nose. It should be 8mm shorter, as the banjo is longer in the nose, and that is why their different arm mounts all work in a KE70 . You need the KE70 driveshaft and the last UJ off the RA60 and a driveshaft engineer. Two of the KE70 d'shaft holes line up and two don't, and the Celica has a smaller diameter locating shoulder, so there is no chance of using the KE70 driveshaft.

The diff sits in place quite nicely and the lineup is pretty good

Celicas use 14mm bolts, so their mounts have 14mm holes, but the Corolla uses 12mm. Luckily there are old Datsuns with old sway bar mounts on the front suspension, and those washers take a 14mm sway bar hole down to 12mm. I had a few, and then it was off to the wreckers again for a while as there were only two on each car I found, but in the end I had 8.

Once I put the RA60 diff in place I could see the difference in top arm alignment.

The panhard rod would need to be longer than either stock item. The Celica has a shorter rod than the KE70, so they have the chassis mount in a different place.

The brakes are larger in diameter, the slave cylinders larger in diameter, and the shoes are wider. This will take a little more fluid to get them working, but the KE70 pedal is so high it doesn't matter.

The Celica coil spring has a little tuck-in as it touches the diff, so the KE70 spring would be sloppy on the fitting.

The top arms are set on a different place on the diff, but as the diff is a different length at the nose, it works out fine..

The mounts are slightly different in width placement, but the arms take the difference up without a problem. It was less than I thought from reading around the net.

Side-by-side, we gained 15mm in track and bigger rear brakes.

First up was to remove the KE70 Borg-Warner. Its just 5 bolts on the diff, (4 arms and a panhard) the brake line, (stick a bleed nipple rubber on the line to stop it leaking) the handbrake cables, the two shocks and 4 bolts on the driveshaft. My daughter can do it in 3/4hour.

The Celicas have a couple of ratios in the banjo diffs, and a 3.9 would drop the revs from 3580 to 3250. In reality, the tacho shows 3400 at 100kph, but I know that is really only 96kph anyway.

An RA60 was there, I'd taken the rear sway bar of it in the past as it was 30% stiffer than the stock KE70. A check of the VIN showed it had a 3.9, fine for cruising I hoped, and I had that with all its arms and driveshaft for $100.

This really started off last December, when Steve thought he'd bring me a banjo 4.1 for my birthday. It came from an abandoned KE70 on the roadside, and it turned out the reason it was abandoned was that one wheel bearing had collapsed completely and the oil was like metal-flake paint. So I thanked him politely and declined, running the 4.3 up and down to Walcha at somewhere over 1000km a trip. It started to get whiny, so the next trip was to the local wrecker.

That sounds dodgy.. does it lose water at all?? How often do you top it up? What littleredspirit said, or check for drops of water under the oil filler cap or the tappet cover before you drive away one morning. Its either losing water into the exhaust or the smoke is just condensation from combustion. It shouldn't occur when the motor is warmed up.

Hell yes! Its the anniverary of the first time I saw the car and I'm looking forward to seeing how much its improved since then! Steve was running an average of 75% of the fastest stage times then, he's up to over 90% now. The crew will be staying at my place, make sure you look us up!

Keep pulling it out, it will sound better and better!

TRD lightweight flywheel- http://z4.invisionfree.com/lexusaltezzaclub/index.php?showtopic=13777 TRD sways http://z4.invisionfree.com/lexusaltezzaclub/index.php?showtopic=13791 TRD Extractors http://z4.invisionfree.com/lexusaltezzaclub/index.php?showtopic=13785 Where abouts in SA are you?? I lived in Cape Town for 8years, but travelled all over doing the National Rally Championship.

Not adjustable?? I put ours on the rallycar each time and wind on some force outwards to pre-load the struts out.

That's good. That housing has the oil pressure relief valve for the oil filter built into it, so oil keeps pumping around the engine in case the oil filter gets blocked. It just bypasses the filter. The housing carries the oil filter and has the bleed to the oil pressure sensor too. Sadly, the oil pump is in the sump, and seeing as its a motor out job you really don't want trouble with that! I wonder if that little valve-looking thing in the hole was a broken off end from a sensor unit?

Got a publicity photo... with the mucking around learning about videos, I didn't get any action shots. You can see how much extra clearance we've got compared to the first photos in the topic. The nose doesn't hit (if you stay on the road..) and the tail squats for traction. All I want to play with now is even softer rer springs.

You do- But seeing you've probably left school its too late. You need to be on Altezzaclub, not here, its where nearly everyone has those motors and stuff gets sold for them. Also, don't expect much of a performance increase from trying to mod a motor that left the factory with more than 100bhp/litre. It was all done when they built it. TRD have managed it, but you'll buy a fleet of Rollas for what you'll pay for parts!

Drop the line off and see how fast it dribbles into a can, it might be blocked. Take the pump apart and check inside. The diaphram might have a hole in it or a valve might have shit under it. The motor should die under full throttle in 3rd or 4th gear if it is starving of fuel. I'm not sure what stress goes onto it when you're doing a skid.