Ke70 Fan Posted March 24, 2013 Report Share Posted March 24, 2013 (edited) Hi, I’ve been a forum lurker for years now and finally thought it was time to put up my build thread :) Expect it to be VERY long, sorry :P First a bit about me. My name is Marcus and I’m 17. I’ve been hooked on cars my entire life, it’s so true my first words were brooom broom, haha. At 12 my Dad bought me a 1981 ke70 from my step cousin. It sat in the backyard for 9 months and we never did any motorkhana’s like was ment so one night me and my mate snuck it out and went for joyride, 5 hours of fun ultimately due to some crappy circumstances and probably karma ended with this…. Needless to say it never drove again. But I'd got the ke70 bug, and even when a few opportunities came up to get another car I turned them down as I was determined to get another ke70. When I turned 15 for a few hundred bucks as that’s how cheap they were then I got a beige 1981 ke70. This is what it looked like when I got it. It’s at my dad’s place ‘Traction Tyres’ in Rowville where I currently work Saturday mornings. Immediately I installed the wheels from my last car, tore out the interior, took off front bumper, gutted rear bar and reattached with cable ties, made a fly off handbrake and painted on the go fast racing stripes :P In the next couple weeks my dad got the diff welded and an exhaust made, 1.75 inch with resonator and muffler. It had to be legal volume to compete in motorkhana’s which were the goal for the car. Before it made a motorkhana we took it to a farm in Nagambie for some bush bashing, gave the car hell; it was rough and wet :P This is what it ended up looking like. Took it up a second time, this time it was dry and when an acquaintance of mine took the wheel the diff blew up! So could the day get worse? As it turns out yes it could. On the way home a ratchet strap snapped and the car half fell off the trailer. Luckily only minor damage, broken grill, slightly dented sills (straightened them back out) and a cut in the sheet metal at the back of the car (where I tied the excess of strap too). So began the hunt for a new diff, a friend of my dads who works at a wreckers came through with what was thought to be a t series, I also got xt130 lca’s. It came with a one piece tailshaft to suit a ca18det, 2 rooted shocks and 2 cut kings falcon springs. On top of that it was minispooled, all for $400! Sent the diff of to be rebuilt due to the unknown condition and what we hear back is that it’s actually a shortened r31 skyline diff; Score! So installed the lca’s and diff making the stock tailshaft fit and some new rear shocks as well, leaving the stock springs in because it is was to be used off road and other than not having a handbrake it was all good :) Didn’t have a shed so it sat out back and one night in a hailstorm the driver window shattered so got another. Nothing much happened until our shed was built. I was now 16 and soon after I got the itch to do something to it so I bought a new steering wheel, pedal covers and gear knob. For Christmas 2012 I got the best present ever! A huge KingChrome tool chest! It’s f**king awesome :D Had a 32/36 weber off my dad’s Holden Gemini race car as he was going to twin 40 DCOE’s so I bought an adapter plate and a family friend helped fit it up including cutting and rewelding the throttle wheel to make it work. I then just had to make up a mount for the throttle cable and one for the return spring. Here’s some pics… It competed in its first motorkhana, even without a handbrake I came first in class and if I remember correctly 5th outright, not bad at all. I’d always planned an engine conversion so I used all my saving to buy lots of bits and pieces for a conversion and an s14 sr20DET from an s13 with manual gearbox, loom and crossmember and that’s when my conversion started, just kidding!!!! I was ripped off on the motor and never saw my $2k again >:< Anyway…… Over the next couple months I saved up a few hundred bucks and bought ae86 strut’s with hubs and brakes, Techno toy tuning steering arms and tierods as well and they’re lower control arm kit. Due to be being too difficult for me to get right the kit never went anywhere and still sits in a box on my shelf :P but the struts were installed with a mate one late night in the shed. With no spring compressor it became a big job, uninstalling the lower control arms and castor rod mounts. It’s also probably good to point out that there was still no power in my shed and only 1 workers light running off an extension cable to the back of the house :P I then cut out the rust in the rear arches and installed flares due to the slight increase in track and knowing I was always going to lower it with some bigger wheels. Because for now the car had to have stock suspension I mounted them as low as possible to make it have less monster truck guard clearance. Also The shed now got power and lights, w00t! Chiseled out the last of the sound deadening. Found a set of cheviot 13x5.5 rims for only $100, so I bought them, cleaned them and painted them :) Going to be used for burnouts. I turned 17. Next I bought some SAAS reclinable seats (this was a few months later), a hydraulic handbrake and brake proportioning valve. I sent it off to PowerPlay in Cheltenham who prep race cars to install them, including making new seat mounts lower down so I could sit as low as possible (I’m 6’2). Very happy with their work it’s top notch. Unfortunately the r31 calipers don’t like hydraulic handbrakes and they seized so in went commodore calipers with new flexible lines. After another couple months sitting around it entered its second motorkhana. Came first in class again and 3rd outright, could possibly have won outright if not for the car stalling during a 180 spin into reverse, but very happy none the less :) We then come to January 2013, no more school this year as I left after year 11 and on my daily eBay searches came up a complete sr20de conversion kit out of an ae86. Went all the way out to the country to see and test drive it as it was still in the car, I was happy with it apart from a gearbox that seems on its way out, so I bought it along with the JDM EFI fuel tank and lines as I couldn’t be bothered with my surge tank and bosch 044 (another item purchased for the originally intended DET). The engine mods consisted of rocker stoppers and oil cooler with filter relocation. It was running the factory ecu on a modified loom so I was happy that the engine would be fine for much time to come given the bulletproof nature of them. It also had an rb20 gearbox for an improved shifter position in the corollas. This was sold to me by blingy from nissansilvia.com, Check out his 86 build: http://www.nissansil...pic=516392&st=0 In the time before it arrived I pulled the dash out and am going to use the top dash cover to make a custom dash, I removed the heater and also painted the rest of the interior trims, installed plastic rear windows and gutted the rear doors too. Can't even tell they're plastic The conversion arrived the next week and proceeded to sit for another month. I wanted to use the 4k in one last motorkhana and see if I could blow her up after a killer burnout but due to my dad not having enough time to take me to a motorkhana and my mate coming around one night trying to convince me to get started it never eventuated. So that very night 2 weeks ago we set out to pull the motor out. First off I removed the mud caked exhaust and couldn’t resist giving it a rev….. Damn it’s loud! :P My mate videoed it, doesn’t give it justice. Check it out I plan on doing some vids soon so subscribe if you want to make sure you see them. Started at 9:30 we got the motor out by our 3am goal. Removed the battery tray as the battery is being relocated to passenger rear seat area. Next I installed the modified front crossmember and hammered the trans tunnel for clearance. My mate came over and as we proceeded to install the engine and gearbox the borrowed engine crane gave out, luckily slowly enough that it didn’t break the sump. Modified - Top Standard - Bottom Because we got annoyed we couldn’t do anything we took all the springs out to see how it would sit, sadness + slammed = HAPPY :D My Mate Aaron Thumbs up of approval ;) The next night the new engine crane arrived and I worked into the morning to fit the engine myself. Because of how the engine is mounted and it’s clearances I ended up having to drop the crossmember, position engine down, bolt up the engine to crossmember and then lift the engine with crossmember into place. Over the next couple days I didn’t do much, cut out the new shifter hole and the top radiator support beam and installed the springs back in, this time using the falcon springs. Ordered a new radiator with shroud and fans as the one that came with the conversion was beat up after a front end hit. It came with wrong shroud so they’re sending me the right one. It puts the shifter in the absolute perfect spot! Also bought solid engine mounts/bushings as I planned on solid mounting everything. On top of that I got sick of working with a tiny ass jack so bought a new one; it’s going to make life so much easier :) Most importantly I ordered my wheels from America! I modded the ae86 tank with the ke70 filler neck to make it work. Just need to replace the fuel feed line with the one from the 86’s lines; I’ll do this on a hoist. I installed the solid engine bushings only to find I am going to need to cut and reweld the mounts as they weren’t accurately done which wasn’t an issue with rubber bushings due to them taking up the slack. A gearbox crossmember will need to be made too; all these structural things with be easiest done on a hoist so in a couple weeks, after Easter it’ll be off to work. My wheels arrived at work in only 4 business days, very impressed. They’re Flat Black XXR 527’s in 15x8.25, 0 offset. I bought six as I wanted to be able to swap the rears quick plus have spares if any got damaged. I mounted up 2 Yokohama AO50’s (The fastest R Spec tyre in the world, no question) and 4 AO48’s. Yes grip tyres, as the first shakedown of this car will be at Winton for circuit testing not drift. I also needed the right size tyre to relocate my flares and sort out clearances; they’re 205/50/15’s. Unfortunately I couldn’t bolt them up as I need tuner style nuts, so I ordered some in both the Nissan thread size and Toyota due to the rear end swap. You can tell they look sweeeeeeeeeeeet anyway! :D Finally going to fill my guards :) Bolted up the tailshaft from the diff I bought over a year ago and it fits, score! Then fitted up exhaust, just going to need to make one mount about mid-way for extra rigidity. Now you’re up to date with where I’m at; a few things have been done that I didn't mention but you can spot them easily if you look. A lot got done in 2 weeks! :) In the coming weeks I be trying to sort out the wiring, battery relocation and other stuff before it goes to work. I am currently flat broke so as a friend of mine would say, I need to “just put on my job hat, my job shoes and find a job” before expensive shit gets done. The build is happening in two stages; Getting the engine conversion sorted and using it for a bit, then a strip down for a complete rebuild. So what are the future plans? -Tubbed Front guards -Seam weld entire car -Fill and smooth engine bay -Paint engine bay and underbody in truck bed coating -Paint interior shell -Roll Cage -Rest of Techno toy tuning kit including 4 link, adjustable lca’s, traction brackets and tension/castor rods -Shockworks coilovers with custom spring rates decided after corner weighting the car -Custom watts-linkage with roll centre adjustment -AJPS roll centre adjusters; height will be decided after measuring the roll centre with all the new parts adjusted and working out where I want my roll centre. -2 tone paint job; gloss red on the bottom and satin black on top The Plans after all this is completed and used for say a few months or a year is a sr20det swap and to make my own widebody kit and possibly look at production of it. Sorry for the absurd length of the start post, wish I’d done it earlier and it would have been a lot shorter. The next ones will be I promise. Now here is the end, Hope you enjoy the thread and updates will be constant :) Mad Marcus EDIT: Sorry the pics didn't turn out all that well :( Edited May 7, 2013 by Ke70 Fan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsport Posted March 25, 2013 Report Share Posted March 25, 2013 Nice work mate, this is what corolla's should be about :) Are you intending to fix the diff pinion angle with the new 4 link system? What are you doing about brakes up front? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luk3333 Posted March 25, 2013 Report Share Posted March 25, 2013 Love those wheels! Good effort :) Is there any gymkhana footage? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
oh what a nissan feeling! Posted March 25, 2013 Report Share Posted March 25, 2013 cool nice setup, awesome buld thread. bigger font next time so i don't have to squint? Pinion angle doesnt look that bad, just the photo i would think, its meant to sit down a bit. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted March 25, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 25, 2013 (edited) Nice work mate, this is what corolla's should be about :) Are you intending to fix the diff pinion angle with the new 4 link system? What are you doing about brakes up front? Yes, the pinion angle will be altered with the 4-link and traction brackets will fix the squat and lift problem on lowered ke's Front brakes will get slotted rotors and race pads for the meantime as that will more than suffice. When I do a DET swap and am pulling over 220rwkw I will get this http://www.hoppers.c...2007/index.html The mother of all brake kits! EDIT: you have to scroll down and click toyota ;) Love those wheels! Good effort :) Is there any gymkhana footage? They do look awesome :) I think there is 2 videos of the first motorkhana it competed in but it is pretty crappy to look at as I wasn't in my groove, haha :P I'll try finding them and post them up. cool nice setup, awesome buld thread. bigger font next time so i don't have to squint? Pinion angle doesnt look that bad, just the photo i would think, its meant to sit down a bit. Thanks mate, fixed that up. My computer screen is a 40 inch TV so it's hard to tell what it's going to look like on a normal monitor :P It isn't that bad. It isn't perfect but when the car sits on the ground it tilts up a little more than seen in the pics :) EDIT: Forgot to add the main reason for the four link and everything being changed to adjustables, which is for no bushing slop and they all use rose joints with no play, meaning more constant alignment and direct response between components. Edited March 31, 2013 by Ke70 Fan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted March 31, 2013 Author Report Share Posted March 31, 2013 (edited) Alrighty it's time for an update, sorry it was so long but this week turned out to be really busy for me, anyway a few things have happened. First off the correct shroud arrived :) It's huge so I think I will lean it back for clearance rather than mount it lower. And my red tuner style wheel nuts arrived so I could bolt my wheels up :DDDDD As you can see the front sits a little too high and seeing as my coilovers are a way off I cut the springs. I measured the space between the spring seats at full extension and cut the springs to that height so I kept the spring captive and seating properly in the lower spring seat. That turned out just a tad over 1 coil, If you are going to cut I don't recommend cutting anymore than this because it means at full droop the spring will pop out of its seats (That being said I don't recommend cutting at all, this is just temparary). Here is the result, it turned out perfect and also gave me a little neg camber. As you can see I removed the mudflaps aswell There is only one very minor clearance issue which i'll just cut out. The keen eyes would have noticed there was no tierods or ends installed. This was because I removed them attached to the old rack and I didn't install them on the new crossmember as when I put the engine in it was to test for clearance and I expected something to hit and it didn't. I wish I'd put it in before as to replace it I had to lift the engine back up because there's like only 4mm of spacebetween the rack and engine. It gets decent lock as it is with the T3 steering arms but there are more mods to come. It's limited at the moment due to the steering arms hitting where the castor rods bolt up; This has lead me to re-think the lca's I was going to use so I'm now going to go with a cusco style setup. The different mounting position and style they use solves the steering arm clearance and is also allows more clearance when the front of the wheels are facing inwards and finally; changing the lca length doesnt add lateral tension to the mounts. There is already a little tension with the xt130 lca's. When I went to bolt my swaybar back in I found It doesn't clear the sump, it's not an overly big problem. I'll be uprating the spring rate when I get coilovers and I can set up the roll centre as best I can to help. I want to try an ae86 sway bar to see if that will work first though, so if anyone has one they could lend me for test fitting, pm me. I finally got my work benches set up, they're a mates old ones :) Some pics with the front panels mocked up Virtually no clearance with the bonnet So that's it for now. Tomorrow I have some stuff to do around the house but I plan on giving the shed a much needed clean and doing a few small things; I'll update what I get done. Till next time :D Edited April 30, 2013 by Ke70 Fan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Adsport Posted March 31, 2013 Report Share Posted March 31, 2013 Try an MX83 swaybar. I am running one in mine and it's heaps better than the POS Whiteline one I had before. Quite large and cheap usually! You need the bushes and the d-mounts also. I think I had to ream the holes in the caster rod brackets out for them too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted April 1, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 1, 2013 Try an MX83 swaybar. I am running one in mine and it's heaps better than the POS Whiteline one I had before. Quite large and cheap usually! You need the bushes and the d-mounts also. I think I had to ream the holes in the caster rod brackets out for them too. Thanks for this, I'll look into it :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted April 4, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 Today I cleaned up the shed, re-organised it all and swept it out, I can actually see the floor now and walk without tripping on something :P It took hours, I have soooo much crap. Thinking of selling some stuff I have to put towards the car but don't know yet. A certain sale I will be having is a driveshaft made by powerhouse with replaceable uni's for an rb20 box to t-series. let us know if interested. It may also fit sr20 box but i'm unsure if the gearbox is longer or just the shifter position is different? Pics These are the cars taking up the rest of the shed space. On the right is my Dad's Holden gemini race car built for sprints; it currently has no motor as it got pulled out to be rebuilt it and then got put on hold. The mr2 is a family friends car that's going to be built into circuit car and will be getting a 3vz-fe engine conversion from the camry sitting outside you can see in some following pics. Car on top is a Pellandini belonging to the same bloke that will eventually be rebuilt. It's an incredibly rare car, 6 in Australia as far as I know including his. I pushed the car out to sweep and so I washed of the dust it had been collecting and took some pics with an actual camera not my phone so quality should be good :) Enjoy! I'm working the next few days so updates after weekends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
altezzaclub Posted April 4, 2013 Report Share Posted April 4, 2013 That's quite a story! Well done- What are you going to do with the car?? I assume it will never be road registered or used in gymkhanas again, and trackwork means a roll cage still to go in. The Pellandini is fascinatng, like the Marcos cars built on Mini mechanicals but better looking! They weigh about the same as a motorbike... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted April 5, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 5, 2013 (edited) That's quite a story! Well done- What are you going to do with the car?? I assume it will never be road registered or used in gymkhanas again, and trackwork means a roll cage still to go in. The Pellandini is fascinatng, like the Marcos cars built on Mini mechanicals but better looking! They weigh about the same as a motorbike... Haha, I tend to tell things in a story rather than just a list of mods :P No gymkhana's again. It'll initially be setup for club level drift which is basically what's in it now: Cut falcon springs, hydro, ae86 struts and t3 steering arms. So once the engine conversion is finished that's what i'll do for a bit, then when I save up and buy all the parts I need, It will be torn down to a virtually bare shell and built up with those parts along with a cage and other custom stuff stuff such as equal length 4 link. It will be setup for circuit racing such as sprints, super TT, Super Sedans or Hill climbs but i'll still be drifting it. That's the plan anyway, I may be impatient and just buy, fit and modify parts as I can afford them :D It is fascinating and extremely light! Grant (The bloke building it) was at one point going to build it up for club track use but then realised all the suspension pickup points are in fibreglass and desided otherwise....... Thanks :) EDIT: I hope to get club reg after I turn 18, so I can drive it to car meets, probably wouldn't drive to events incase something went wrong. Edited April 8, 2013 by Ke70 Fan Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted April 18, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 18, 2013 Sorry there hasn't been any updates but a lot of other stuff has been happening lately. My dad's work has been very busy so i haven't been able to get it down there but it is now planned to go down wednesday next week so shit should start getting soon. I've had a test fit of the wiring loom to see how it's all going to work and have also talked to my cousin who is an auto electrician and he's going to help me rewire the whole car, so that's good news. Just thought i'd let you know what's happening. Marcus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Skellington Posted April 19, 2013 Report Share Posted April 19, 2013 Just read through the thread. Nice back story. Looking forward to seeing this new setup on the track. your car makes beige look good! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
B.L.Z.BUB Posted April 19, 2013 Report Share Posted April 19, 2013 your car makes beige look good! nah, the beige make the car look good. Beige ke70s fo life . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ke70 Fan Posted April 24, 2013 Author Report Share Posted April 24, 2013 Thanks guys, I didn't like the beige when i got it but it's definately grown on me :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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