altezzaclub

Ah- nice trick! Although I think the fact that sidies don't turn the air 90deg is an inherent advantage in them. I'm going twin SUs as a compromise...

Love it! Very nice! "Great Wall" rear tyres I see.... :jamie:

yeah I assume so.. What do you reckon? 3mm alloy plate cut and drilled, then tig here and there?

Well, if you can't cut these down, how about the $12 Honda ZR plastic stubs guys were using?? http://www.jntperformance.com.au/index_c269035_0.html

Don't even think about mods to the engine until its up and running reliably philthy- those motors push 1350Kg along very nicely as stock and you won't have a ton there I'm sure. Take a look over altezzaclub.org.nz for ideas about the motor- you might find a couple of our guys down Dunedin way.

Could be spigot bearing.. If you push the thrust bearing off the pressure plate by pushing on the arm, does it stop? That would stop the thrust bearing spinning, but leave the spigot running with the gearbox shaft in it. Not much else in there- with the clutch up the input shaft spins in the spigot, usually the thrust spins on the pressure plate (shouldn't do really..) and the input shaft turns the layshaft in the gearbox.. there's oil in box I assume!! I always grease the end of the input shaft where it goes in the spigot, and the splines where the clutch plate runs, and the yoke where it pushes the thrust bearing.

I used this plan- Turning on the light switch powers both relays, and the top one (the 4pole) feeds power through the dip beams and down to earth through the 5pole relay. Flicking the dipswitch changes to highbeam by switching at the 5pole relay.

""The 3RZ-FE is a 2.7 L (2693 cc) I4 version built in Japan. Bore is 95 mm and stroke is 95 mm. Output is 150 hp (112 kW) at 4800 RPM with 177 ft·lbf (240 N·m) of torque at 4000 RPM."" Truck engine... Y'all building a truck boy?? The thought of the vibration from a 2.7L 4cyl should make your sister go weak at the knees... Surely you can find some 1600cc motor that makes 140bhp and weighs a lot less.

It adjusts at the top on the fire wall. You pull it out of the firewall as far as it goes and put the circlip on the last groove that shows. then check that the clutch works, and where it picks up- then move the circlip to a different groove as needed. Ideally you won't have the thrust bearing sitting on the pressure plate all the time, so the gearbox arm should have a few mm of free play. Otherwise it spins the thrust bearing all day until it wears out. My new KE clutch is quite soft, has a long release travel, but is very easy to drive with and control in tight situations like reverse parking uphill.

...and Mr Philbey, the 33% change in deflection I observed agrees neatly with the change in thickness. 13mmdiam is 530sqmm and 15mm diam is 705sqmm, and surprisingly enough 705-530=175, which is a 33% increase. I like it when engineering science works! I'll bolt it on tomorrow night..

I whipped the stock one off and set up a test bench. Screwed down one mount and grabbed a straight-edge to measure from, and loaded a bucket with bricks as a weight. If anyone needs it, I can weigh the bricks... Anyway, the stock bar deflected 30mm from unweighted to weighted, and the Celica one deflected 20mm under the same conditions. Getting round figures suprised me, but they were 30 & 20, not 18 and 32... So I'll let the girls in the family drive it for a day or two without a sway bar then bolt on the Celica one and see if anyone can notice the difference...

Ok, picked up the Celica bar this aftertnoon. It's an exact copy, which suggests the whole rear end will probably fit a KE70. It looked exactly the same, complete with the old style rear-door diff. It was an A60 I think, with the pop-up headlights, but I forgot to check the VIN code. There are a stack of Celicas & Corollas at Great Western in Orange. It is 15mm in diameter, compared to the stock 13mm.

Thanks Rob, I'll let you know how it goes- Do you have a spare head I can borrow for a couple of months?? I want to dummy up the SU carbs and make a filter box... Mind you, we should wander down to the kahnacross anyway... where abouts is it being held?

When we bought the KE70 it rattled every morning until the oil pressure built up. It had some Japanese filter on who's name escapes me. I replaced it with one that had an anti-drain valve in (a circular piece of rubber) and the problem vanished! I reckon it hammered the bearings over the umpteen months it was in there before we bought the car, as it sounds slightly growly in the bearings yet its only done 130,000km since brand new. Maybe its a Toyota thing?

Not only that, will take photos! The bar is bolted to the diff housing, the arms face forward, and it has a semicircular dip in the crosspiece to allow it to go under the diff. That must make the twist along the bar as it goes across the car rather odd. Give me a day or two!

Thnakyou Mr Philbey Sir, I have been wandering around the wreckers today and for $15 I can go and unbolt an early Celica one. The rear end looks identical except it has a 15mm diam sway bar to replace my 13mm stock one. I will put them both on the workbench, fix one and add a weight to the other, then measure the deflection. It should roughly agree with the % increase in stiffness you are just about to calculate for me!! It will be a shitload easier than adapting two together and will take out some understeer I'm sure! The front I plan to leave stock.

Fuzzkill that is an AWESOME writeup! There you have it Reso, its possible and all you have to do is follow the instructions!

It shouldn't be particularly hard, just the ongoing year on year set of unexpected problems that any project goes through trying to fit a large engine in a small car, resulting in a nose-heavy car with lots of torque! I assume the V6 is old enough to have an iron block, so if I were you I would weigh the motor/gearbox and a 4AGE or Honda S2000, and see what the difference is. There is a big difference in handling between the Altezza with its 3SGE 4cyl and the Lexus IS200 with its 6cyl 1GFE. Just depends what you want to do with the finished product.

Ah- I knew that much... If you weld spring steel the weld is stiff and the spring steel next to it is flexible, so it breaks at the weld. I'll do some planning and see what people say. The maximum strength of a sway bar can only be the weight of the wheel and bit of diff it carries, as after that it picks the wheel up. I'll pop the stock one off and measure the torque deflection on it. I've got a couple of other sway bars lying around. Putting a stiffer one on the back of the Altezza gave pin-sharp turn-in and wiped out the trace of understeer it left the factory with.

I thought I might have a go at stiffening the rear sway without rushing off to Whiteline or similar. Has anyone clipped a second sway bar on below the stock one and hooked it up? I figure on making a double mount on the diff then using a pair of heavy little coil springs under tension at the chassis end between the two bars. That way the first sway bar works with the second adding more and more tension as the springs stretch. Any ideas?? Is there a Corona one or similar that a wrecker might have that is stiffer anyway??

<-------- I admin this one, and rollaclub is very similer. AE86DC is often too 'txt-talk' or poor English, too many stupid arguments and some other car forums are worse again. I'm always keen to answer people's questions if I can, learn from others about my questions and buy/sell bits for the KE.

The KE has absolutely crap lights by the time they are 20 years old, so I decided to reverse the power flow and fit relays, just like I used to do on the Datsun 1600s. The results were better than I ever expected, showing that the column switch is definately a drag on the stock system. I've put the 'how-to' up in the sub-club KE70.com here- http://www.ke70.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=1856&hl= Its under $50 to do and makes a great difference. Probably similar for all the earlier KE models too.

Once you've sorted the electrics like points gap, timing, (and tappets too) then check the carb for leanng out. Let us know what it was if you sort it, it will help others...

Just do it, then put the head on w/o a gasket and turn it by hand. Cam timing affects piston/valve clearance a lot, so if you have one of those wonderful variable cam gears make sure you try turning it w/o the gasket at both ends of the cam timing range you expect to use. You will need the gasket thickness to allow for stretch in pistons & rods, some chain slack and a bit of valve movement. If the pistons touch the valves (you can put a bit of plastosine on the piston to see the clearance) you might solve it with cam timing (you just can't run the cam there) or mill an eyebrow out of each piston. Usually inlets hit, not exhausts. Chase up Rob here in Orange (rob83ke70) he's a mechanic with stacks of 'rollas, and will be a mine of information for you!

Definitely- Is it only the first start int he morning, or only when its hot, or randomly.. Does it turn over and over and never fire, or coughs and coughs but never catches, or catches but runs badly & dies or...