JDM55

yes you may haha but i don't have a car that would tow a trailer any way , well it seems that things have just gone from bad to worst, just been speaking to a few engineers over the phone and apprently, vic roads have just realised a whole new set of rules ,specificly aimed at making engine conversions very hard, especialy big block type engine conversions, which may not effect the smaller engine conversions but I'm sure the rules for them will filter down to us car builders in some way :) :D :blinks: :blinks: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: :bash: maybe its time to get out of vic its just crazy here now ,building a nice car is near impossible and keeping it on the road is even harder!!! wheres the best state for car building???

yeah just confirmerd it, the old scheme they had you could take any engineers report didnt matter who or where,but now under the new scheme vass,you can only take it to aprroved engineer to obtain the cert,,:::::::: . Replacement engine is not of a type offered by the vehicle manufacturer as an option for that vehicle or where alterations, or changes to the vehicle's frame or structure are made, and/or specially fabricated supports or structures are used You will need to attend a VicRoads Customer Service Centre for an inspection of the vehicle to confirm the new engine details. You will also need to complete a Change of Vehicle Description form and provide VicRoads with: a VASS Approval Certificate from a VicRoads Vehicle Assessment Signatory an original receipt for the purchase of the engine as proof of ownership of the engine so pretty much screwed in the way of getting an outsider to sign me off,and pretty much screwed getting any one on the list either ,well not quite yet ,i still have a few more to see, but this is not an easy task when it costs you to tow truck it here and there and then 200 for an inspection every time , I'm pretty shattered about the hole thing at the moment ,every way i turn its just not looking any brighter

yeah I'm going to have to look into it abit more i think ,from what ive gathered tho ,down here at least vic roads have done away with taking just any engineers report,as they have had a lot of trouble with dodgey cars getting thru , which is understandable,i know several of the engineers on the old list have been removed and probably given large fines due to leting dodgey cars thru , so yeah as far as i know the only ones able to sign off something of this size is a guy from the vass list,aka the c**t list as I'm now calling it,but ill definately look into it some more this week, I'm hoping to have 2 inspections done from 2 seperate engineers by friday and see what they have to say about the hole thing, if worst case senario comes around i could all ways keep going and take it to the guy in canberra whos now doing vic,but thats a fair mission and no garentees that i wont have to start all over ,which is what I'm trying my hardest to avoid, maybe i should be come an engineer and pass my own car haha

yeah i heard things up there are a little different to down here, if it was that easy id probably do it,

took this pic today , dosnet look like ive done anything for months ,actualy i havnt in the engine bay anyway ,will this car ever go?who wants to engineer it for me?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHD2UYsmAkI cannibal corpse: decency defied

aparently not mate , as any car bought out of state has to be re tested down here to pass a road worthy ,and to get rego, something else about the whole engineers process that you guys mite not know ,but vic rules are even if you pass everything you only get 30 days to pay for your rego,then its not engineeered any more and the police can make you go for another engineering report if they so choose, mental stuff i just wanta drive my car legal!!!!!!! jesus not asking for the world here am i

i sent this guy an email explaining my situation , he said that ihe would be happy to have alook at it and take it from there, but i would have to shipp my car up there ,which probably doesnt sound like a big deal but when you pay 500 plus to get it up there,then 500 to get it back and what ever the inspection fee would be , it ends up being very costly :) i mite ask him if i could fly him down here to have a look, then take it from there, would have no problem taking it up there once its driveable but at this stage it aint even moving so makes it very hard, think my brain my explode trying to sus this one out,

yep thats the same here mate, we have vic roads down here and only the aproved engineers from there vass list are able to give a engine conversion pass, and yes your right its exactly the same here the stereotypical ones are the hardest to deal with , there are also alot of engineers around here but I'm pretty much stuck with the ones that are on the list :) went into work to day to have a look at the car, i couldnt even bring myself to do anything on it knowing i could be wasting my time till i get some one to check it :D

hmm vic aye? maybe they have been added to the vass list down here, not sure how id get the car up there tho haha little far to push the dam thing, thanks tho mate ill certianly call him and see what he says cheers for that

well none to happy at the moment been working on my car for about 12 months now, everyweekend, after work at nights most nights, and its looking like it was all for nothing ;-( having an absolute nightmare getting an engineer to aprove the work that i have done so far, not the fact that ive done dodgey work no the reason lyes in the rediculous vic roads legal system, and the fact that all engineers are open to there own interpution of the law, the first one i used for some of it basicaly would change his mind and not tell me the correct way to do things thus i would be repeating my work over and over just to satisfiy him, and the fact that he was unreliable in showing up,and the fact that he could hardly speak decent english ,and making things very clear to me in what i was spose to be doing resulted in me giving him the ass, how ever now that i have spoken with nearly all the vass approved engineers in victoria, I'm having extreme trouble in finding some one who is satisfied with what ive done so far and most of what ive done has been aproved by the first engineer, but now others don't agree with what hes told me to do, very very very frustrated and stressed out of my mind right now, another engineer tells me i have to remove all my nolathane bushes and replace with rubber??? also my drive shaft loop that i posted up about not so long ago isnt good enuff, engine x memeber has to be redone gear box xmember isnt good enuff, it goes on and on as far as I'm concerned i have made every effort to do the best quality work i can do and often over kill to make sure that everything is up to scratch and then some, and that for the most part i was under instruction from a dam engineer any way, but due to the fact that any engineer has the right to read the rule and pretty much make up what they want you to do , its looking like my car wont be getting finished i have another apointment for next week but after speaking in great detail with the guy don't hold much confidence in that inspection either, there for: i could be selling up what i have , engine looms ecu gear box diff seats struts brakes electrical stuff everything basicly thousands of dollars of parts that will be useless to me if i can't get an engineer to give me a f!^#% break the other thing is i can't afford to keep geting tow companys to take my car here and there and then pay inspection fees time and time again , realy realy shattered had big ideas for this car , a car ive owned for over 5 years now, and its pretty much going to be crushed if i can't do something with it, can't return it to orignal due to the heavy mods that have been done ,so prety much a nightmare any one be interested in a sr20det engine? or anything else for that matter i have it all , give me a message if theres something in particular you would like, i will post up a massive post with parts and pics and prices if all turns sour next neek ,which it isnt sounding very good at all from what the guy was saying , ive done everything i can to stay with inthe law and do the right thing by everyone ,definatley can't just fiinsh it and drive it ,not here ,maybe in another state id get away with that but not vic, all you vic guys will be able to relate, the laws are completely out of control here and theres nothing we can do about it ,gone are the days when you could slide the dude a few hundys and be on your way, some one has to do sumthing about it!!!??? wheres the potitions ,wheres the complaints , i know i can't swear to much on this site but if i could every 2nd word coming from my finger tips would be f ing vic roads and there crap :)

720!!! f-ck that haha , i can't afford that kind of cash just on a very tight budget so was looking some alternitive to a custom one, maybe later one can look at but just need something for the moment,

could you get a pic for me mate?

well i thought id post a few things up tonight, even tho I'm still keen as mustard I'm finding the progress as sloooowwww as rowing a boat backwards into a storm on the way to china!! but a few little things even tho i had a huge day today on the car , so heres where I'm at: fiiting a drive shaft loop ,kinda sust it out so thought id paint it up .. while i was at it i painted my drive shaft that i had made up to fitt .... also painted the bolts and plate for the driveshaft loop just to seal it from rusting,... and all the parts for the drive shaft loop.... and picked up my surge tank that i made and had welded up by a radiator shop,special thanks to marty k ,i stole your idea :P and i decided to seam weld the diff hangers,was a mission!!! had to pull everything out the ass and grind off all the stone guard around the joins and get on my back and weld the hell out of it, turned out ok should be alot stronger now,probably didnt even have to do that but if you know how these engineers are these days...... while i was under there deicided to fit the surge tank in there too with some small bolt bracket things..... after al the welding ,gave the baremetal a quick seal off with some stone guard stuff then mounted the tank in place then fitted the leaf springs back in and the diff back in place ,while i was reassembling the diff set up i changed the u bolts to a more heavy duty thicker bolt ,and larger nuts , diff back in with the drive shaft loop assembled with new bolts it was time to get the thing in there but first had to get the steel plates fitted ... then on to the floor decided to seal up these holes help stop any water sitting in there ..... like soooo bolts sticking out with sealer all round the holes ... and finally after a bit of stuffing round all bolted in and tightened, the sealer actualy squessed out around the nuts so at least i put enuff in there haha then bolted the new driveshaft back in place ... and thats about it a huge days effort for a few little things haha, aww one other thing while i was under there i just got a muffler ,its a xforce varex,these have a remote controled valve in them that you can close by pressing the button on the remote, its spose to quiten the exhuast down a fair bit,guy at the exhaust shop i spoke to spoke quite highly of them so thought id give it a go,probably only going to run this one muffler and a cat convertor, but will see how loud it gets i guess hoping this muffler will help me pass epa test when it comes time for that ,not realy a big fan of the cannon style mufflers ,but this thing is starting to grow on me ,its bloody huge tho!! not going to have the straight tip,probably weld on a dump tip something different, one thing i notice about these is the quality of there construction all stainless polished and the welds are very neat,this one is a 3" straight thru, you can get oval ones which i was going to get but there sizes are pretty big and would have been a realy tight fit,this is all ready a fair tight fit,but should be able to make it fit in ,just had it on a jack to get a ruff idea of a position that i mite have it in ,again its huge!!! hahaha :bash:

Thanks philbey kinda put my mind a ease about it, i just know how some engineers can be so anal about silly things like this, well ill leave it how it is for the moment and fingers crossed i wont have dramas with it,theyll probably pick everything else haha ,it kinda takes the fun outa building when you have to follow all these rules and regulations ,can't do this can't do that ,ohh don't do that! not that I'm being dodgey at all ,going for the best result i can get ,but yeah ahh well onto the next step!!! maybe in like a few years we will find out if the loop was ok haha,god hope it doesnt take that long , i wanta driveeeeee :P

wooa thats some professional workings going on there, nice work il be sure to watch for more in the future :)

haha yeah cheers mate i hope so ,just want it to pass engineers ,trying to do everything as strong as possible , still suprises me how long little things like this can take ,cheers for the advices by the way , after i sort this out looking at doing the fuel system .....

hay man great to see the progress still coming along nicely, with the front panel this is what i done after i cut the holes, just welded a strip 10mm wide i think around the hole, it strenghten it up alot and dosent move at all,can sorta see what i mean below, also i seen on another idea that chrisgt done,sorry mate for stealing your pic :) just a thought , keep up the great work ,hope you finish way before i do then i can pick your brains some more :S

yeah been doing the sr conversion for a while now, yeah i was debating 2 or 4 ,i only ended up doing 4 because thats what the ends of the drive shaft loop had on it orignaly, i had to shorten it down to get it to fit and redrill, i may get 4 thick washers and lock washers ,hopefully that should be ok, i had spoken to an engineer about it,actualy an engineer that i had been using for a bit ,but this guy seriously had no idea ,he may have had the paper to say he was an engineer but some of the things he was making me do was just rediculous ,changing his mind after id done what he told me and bascily not making any sense at all,he wanted me to weld little brakets to the floor with bolts hanging off , i had made up the brakets that he wanted but on closer inspection i found these to be a terrible idea ,as the brakets were small and would just rip off the floor if anything realy went wrong,also the drive shaft loop wouldnt have even been touching the floor the way it is now, it would have hung down away from the floor about 8 mm only touching where the it bolted to the braket thingys ,make any sence??? and way i believe the surface area of the 2.5 mm plates is way stronger than having any bolts welded to the bottom of the floor and the loop actualy is hard up against the floor also, any way ive got rid of that guy as he was breaking my balls with his rediculousness and I'm using a differnt engineer now

ok well thanks guys i guess ill leave it as it is , i just wanted to get a few options ,any one else want to throw there 2 bob in ? :)

hay peoples looking for some advice been stuffing round with my drive shaft loop trying to get it to fit , i ended up making 2 x 2.5 mm steel plates and drilled 4 holes in each, then welded in some thick bolts, lined up the loop and drilled some holes thru the floor ,bolted it in and swung my full body wieght on it ,its solid and doesnt move, but I'm still not happy , i was going to weld some steel plates under the floor, so it would go something like this ::: 2.5mm steel plate with bolts thru the floor then thru another steel plate and then thru the drive shaft loop , does this sound like over kill???????????????? or what i have be strong enuf? like to see some pics of what others have done that would be helpful,my cars a ke55 any advice be great thanks guys

Hay mate if you have a search on here there are several rolla owners who have done this conversion ,theres alot of usefull pictures and info in the forums also,if you ask nicely you may even get advice from others who have done it all ready,the sr20 fits a little tite in places but can be made to fit with out tooo much chopping, I'm in the process of doing the sr20 in to a 55,some general advice for you to think about tho,,,,, first your going to need alot of patients and time ,this sort of thing dosent happen over nite,next lay out a large budget any where from 4000 up to 15000 depending on how far you want to take it,remember its not just hay lets slap a turbo it that would be sickkkkk, you also have to upgrade your suspention and braking systems, a new gear box must be fitted to take the new engine and off corse theres the diff that will most definatley have to be changed,new exhuast system as the old pee shoot wont work anymore and a whole new fuel system,lines pumps surge tanks etc etc etc etc, have some good understanding and know how to use all kinds of tools ,depending on where your from be prepared to have your balls broken by engineers,that is if your going to do it legal of corse, do your research!!!,jump on google and spend the next few months going thru forums and sites and emailing people about this and that and arm your self with what you need to know before jumping in, unless your a die hard rolla fan i would advice you just to spend your money on a 180sx then you can drive the same engine and all the works done for you but if your realy keen then do your home work and plan it out properly , being orginised is very important if you want things to go as smooth as possible, well thats just my thoughts on it I'm sure other members here will tell you to go for gold, then again they mite have not taken on this conversion them selfs, good luck with it if you decide to take it on,feel free to pm if you have any questions more than happy to give you advice thru my experience,others may not be so willing to share there secrets :wink:

haha i mean the rod that connects the steering box and the idler arm together and has the tie rods coming off it , pretty sure i havnt put in on the wrong way as its the same as my other 55 and realy will only fitt one way , could be right about the manual trying to keep it basic, i was hoping i could find a straight one tho would help alot with clearance issues, maybe ill have to try some other toyotas ???????

any one? can some one with a ke30 have a quick look for me?

Hay guys have an odd question for you ke30 owners were there any ke30s made with a straight steering connecting rod, thats the rod that connects to the steering box and idler arm, i have a ke55 manual and it shows a straight connecting rod, how ever in my 55 i have a offset rod, this is causing some issues with hitting so I'm trying to track down a straight rod that mite fix this issue, so does any one know ???? maybe the early ke30s had a straight rod??>>>?? what about the earlyer models ke20s or something >?????? any advice be apreciated getting stressed out here cheers