Project Q - Sams 86 (many Tech Pics)

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I don't have any factory trumpets and I don't plan on losing any power, infact I plan to gain some by changing them, heres number one of four of what I am making to replace them:

to fit inside the airbox I will use mandrel bends, it will look bizarre but it will work.

I have seen results of a test that showed that the air flow difference between a full bellmouth and a flare is 3%, so for now I will use this.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

UPDATE: Now that I have finished this part I can say now that what I did below DID NOT work. The calipers hit the body but I will still show this in the interest of showing what else I did.

Well that asside this is how I setup my soon to be brake setup, I used the following:

* T-18 diff

* new ST142 180mm brake disks

* Ae-82 brake calipers (same as AE-92)

I did some work on my T-18 diff with good sucess. In the previous week I took the drum brakes bits off and then with some help pulled the axels out. So after taking it apart I ended up with this:

No drum assembly or mounts only the housing, axel and retainer plate. Next I took the old drum backing plate and chopped a peice of the center that is just a bit bigger than the housing, like so:

I need to put these peices back in as they are required to get the right spacing to all for the crush on the bearing, also in the pic is the shim that adds to the right thickness. After cleaning it up I put it back in with the shim and some gasket sealer and then bolted it back together. Heres how it turned out:

With a quick spray of black paint it looks factory, which is exactly the look I am after. From here I fitted the disk on and modified the ae-82 brake mounts to slide over the housing, which turned up to be an exceptionally easy job. Heres how it looked as a dummy run:

The cardboard is placed between the caliper and the round part of the disk for vertical spacing and the center punch that has been jamed in there manually puts the handbrake on to hold it in the right position. From here I did some tack welds to hold it in. Repeating the process again it turned out pretty good I think:

I am going to have to do get some new custom metal brake lines made up for the diff, which will be cheap and then I will do a dummy run in my car to see that all the clearences are ok. Only then will I do proper welds and bracing of the mounts. I probably should change my brake master cylender too, because this might cause the master to push so far that its goes past what its designed for and then leak.

I also put a rim that came off my Corolla onto the diff with the brakes installed and although the caliper is set so far back it only clears the rim by a single centimeter. I hope my Sprinter rims and also my spare wheel will fit over ok, they should though. Once on my car they should look very interesting indeed.

oh yeah and so far it has cost me this:

$100 - T-18 diff with adjustable panhard rod

$30 - Rear half of the T-18 tailshaft of the install

$130 - Brand new brake disks

$50 - Calipers

so so far its only $310 for a disk brake rear end thats compatable with a Zenki LSD that I am trying to get.

I have been quoted around $20 for the metal lines and I will probably need 2 elbows and 2 reducers so make that another $10. The diff center should be around $800 to $1300. So if its $1100 I should cost me a total of $1450.

Now the standard price for a genuine Trueno diff is $2000, that includes a weak and probably worn out 1-way LSD and disk brakes that are the size of CDs and also probably worn out. I on the other hard have spent hundreds less and would have new disks that are bigger than what almost all 86's have as their front brakes, a new 2-way LSD diff center, thats stronger, longer lasting and has a rebuild kit available for it, and would use common parts to do it all, so spares are easy.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I managed to finish making my own water pipe plate for the back of the head, it took quite a while and looks like this:

the top one is what came with the engine when it was already converted and the bottom is mine. Mine may look rougher and be marginaly heavier but would easly outflow the other one, tottaly un-necessary I am sure but I am a fussy guy. Today I also managed to make some of my top water pipe. What I did is use a flange I made previously and then very tediously chopped small slices out followed by alot of welding and grinding to get the right shape. I will have it as a fixed pipe bolted to the block. I will also fit a heat sheild in due time to stop my extractors boiling the water more. Pic coming soon.

heres a dodgy pic of what it looks like on the engine:

Added later on:

Today I started making a tottaly new setup for the cooling that doesnt require any cross-over pipes, so basicly I have wasted my time so far, great! The information I got requires the use of a RWD water pump so I tried using a single cam one (4AC).

Anyway down to it: I took my stock water pump off and this is how it looked:

I found a spare pump sitting in my back yard in the weather, it had been there for many years, needless to say time hadent treated it well, heres it alongside the 20V one, notice how the 20V one has no provision for a thermostat (right):

I took it apart and found a huge black spider waiting for me, that found itself inbeded in the cracks of soles in my steel capped boots. I found a broken bolt which I drilled out out and tapped and I also disassembled the housing. From here I cleaned it up with some acid based mag wheel cleaner which worked wonders. I decided to get a new front assembly if this works out so I didnt clean it.

Once I took the top section off it fit nicely onto the engine:

After doing this I fitted the pulley off the 20V and I found I had a problem:

and that was that the pulleys didnt line up, I will consider my options from here, a custom pulley seems to be in order. I have been told though that theres 2 versions of shafts on this pump so I will see whats around.

well with my friend Gavin's idea I tried to solve my water pump problem with using the front asemebly off the 20V and the rear housing off the 4Ac. Now the 20V has one extra blade on the impellor however I found this to be irrelevant. Heres how they looked:

Fitting the two together I found they came within about 1mm flat from fitting. So I very carefully ground down the impellor blades on the 20V water pump. This was a bit tricky as one big slip and it would be the sealing ability of the housing. After taking a bit off I would paint it silver, and rub it against the rear housing which was black to see where the high spots are. Folowed shortly by more grinding. Soon enough the two fit together nicely and I purposefully kept it a close fit for efficiency reasons. The original blades are further into the housing so by grinding the 20V ones to suit I had a reduced surface area to push water. However I think this would be compensated by the fact that I has reduced the tollerances betwen the blades and the housing from about 2mm to next to nothing. Also add to that the extra blade and if that wasn't enough my Hyundai radiator would make short work of any extra heat if there was any. This may even have the benifit of less power losses in turning the pump. Anywya heres how the blades ended up looking:

Now that thats been done look at how the bottom outlet faces staright into the dise of the alternator:

So it's time to make a custom alternator mount and some piping.

Edited June 15, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

Also today I readjusted my front suspension, I raised the height of the front to make it oversteer less, as a bonus I can now roll a coke can under my car without it hitting the exhaust.

The result of my tweaks is that the car is now about 1.5 cm higher in the front and it still oversteers a bit but its much better. I can't wind it up more because I will lose too much turn in response. I hope to gain some of that back which I lost when I add some negative camber. Perhaps then i will be able to make it handle even more neutral and still have an as good turn in.

A downside though is that while I did it at a friends I was testing my car in a residential area (under the speed limit) and I upset one guy because I went a bit fast around a corner next to his house. I will be doing that stuff somewhere else from now on or during a time when theres no-one on the roads but me.

Heres some stuff I have worked on prior to this forum:

My custom center console. This car comes standard with a double din hole, or something close to it. So what I did is cut up a stainless plate to fit ontop, cut out the hole in the middle for the face and then covered it. I love the finish and its sturdy too. The way the head unit is held in is a different nighmare altogether. I might take a pic of that soon. I think I am going to have a P.H.D is fidely crap when I am done with this car.

This was put in my car when I was getting it ready for my turbo 4agze conversion, it's still there though and will be untill I get an oil-temp gauge to replace it. This is far from a standard mounting job too, the cup was from Speco and the gauge was from Autometer, both 2 5/8 but slightly different sizes, so it didnt fit. I ended up cutting a slot in the side and having a tiny bolt to clamp it to compensate. I also got a friend to tig weld a mount on I made and I had it painted. This is also light but very solidly mounted.

Next up is my "WTF was I thinking?" parcel shelf, a project that has collected dust for a while now, I will get back to this in due time. Here it is the strangest parcel shelf for a Sprinter ever!

I will soon also show my short shifter and revisit my parcel shelf for more work.

another mod from a while back:

this is my short shifter. Pretty crude really but works better than what you may think. This was off my corolla T-50 I had spare. I basicly chopped the vibration insulator out and then welded in the shank of a bolt to get the height back up. Doing some driving I found that I had to strech my hand way too far for 1st and 3rd so I cut it again and welded it in on an angle, in the pic its in neutral so it shows how much its be moved towards me back and to the right. After doing that I found it suits me perfect, it stays clear of the hardbrake along with everything else. I think it feels really good, so much so I would stil want this even if I liked to make slow gear-changes. The reaction I have had from people who have tried it has been simular. The only downside is that without the vibration insulator I get more force though my hand, I occasionly feel it jar my hand with a particully vicious gearchange. I am hoping a nice leather gear knob will help a bit there. But all in all it's a minor issue.

and something a bit more recent:

This is a photo of my unfinished boss kit that I made myself, I am currently using it and the only thing it needs is a peice of 3.5 inch pipe to be welded on as a shroud to hide the horn holes, cables, etc... Since the photo was taken I have since wired the horn in and obviously attached the wheel. Notice the base where I am using the original (well a corolla original) plastic plate with the brass ring, this is to keep the horn running. To make this I chopped the center out of my old Corolla wheel and machined it down in the lathe at work when no-one was looking, welded a peice of pipe, made my eloborate flange and welded that on. When I get that 3.5 inch pipe i will take it off again and weld that on. In the meantime however it works great, would be almost indestructable while still being very light and still lets the horn work. I know this is an unsual thing to make but it has worked out well so far and besides I made this during a few quiet times at my work

Heres a pic of my steering wheel with the half finished boss kit, the steering wheel center wasnt made for it but some simple mods fixed that.

notice also my 4 piston cross-drilled keyring in the ignition

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

and more parts again:

Here I converted my own traction and pan-hard rods. I don't think I will end up using the traction rods so if someone wants them for a small price let me know. I will probably make up a few more pan-hards for my friends as well. Right now I am using an adjustable pan-hard that came with my T-18 diff but I will fit one of my own because it will be metric, look better and I will just be able to say that I made it. For both I used grade 8.8 threads and nuts, and the rod joiners are grade 5, the threads are 20mm for the traction rods and 16mm for the pan-hard so I won't have to worry about any of these ever snapping on me.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I almost finished my outlet pipe:

now all I need to do is drill a hole and weld on the pipe that suits the thermostat bypass water. It turned out better than expected and fits on the engine real nice (pic soon). I cut the flange myself, used a peice of bent pipe from a truck mirror mount welded to a peice of exhaust that I machined grooves into to seal the water. The outlet on the head was an oval shape so I welded on one pipe and then used a second peice welded on on an angle to cover the hole and provide unrestricted water flow, this was not an easy job but turned out good enough.

Now a question for the ae-86 gurus who read this:

-What is the stock redline cutoff?

-whats a place that the body bends in an adverse way to handling? apart from the strut towers?

and I did even more mods to my water pipe:

I tried to take a pic of it on my engine but I don't have enough light at any time of the day it seems. I will try again soon.

I also finished my custom alternator bracket:

I used the tensioner off a ST-141 Corona and used a 90 degree angle that bolts to the far left extractor mount bolt. The only mods I did to the tensioner is a welded nut to the end of it for easy adjustment. It looks a bit crude but is very light, simple, looks factory and should work really well. I also bolted the alternator up from the reverse side. When I made the lower mount I used a few washers to simulate the width of the engine mount that it would have to fit over, so when I put it together it should go together nicely.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

beerhead · October 4, 2006

This sprinter is a testiment to DIY, keep up the great work mate :dance:

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

QUICK UPDATE: I finally have the chance to take my car off the road for 3 weeks and I have already dropped the diff. I will be fitting my T-18 diff shortly and I will determine if the position of the calipers is ok, so far it's looking good. If good I will take it out again, weld it up properly with braces modify the housing and then get some custom metal lines made up to hook it up.

I want to extend the brackets for the lower control arms, so instead of getting traction brackets I will just have modified mounts instead. This will have the advantage that mine will be lighter, stronger, simpler and look factory compared to profesional traction brackets.

I also want to weld a set of cups around the bottom spring seats to possitively locate the spring, shouldnt be needed in theory but I have found that they can be.

another update: Looks like I have received some bad info, AE-82 calipers WILL NOT fit onto a normal t-18 rear end with corona disks. There just isnt any room for it. It may be possible if the car was like a standard unsagged height which is bloody high, the mechanical handbrake was removed or the lower arm was moved. Lucky for me I needed to drop my trailing arms to correct for the lowering and I did this by cutting the mounts off flush from my Sprinter diff and then welding them on the bottom of my T-18 ones bringing the pivot point closer to the ground. This enabled me to have more room for the caliper mechinism and I looks that with a bit of a cut out of the body it might fit. its a risk though.

This definetly isnt an easy conversion.

UPDATE: I have managed to fit my ae-82 calipers, ended up massaging the body a little in one spot, lowering the trailing arms for the suspension, modifying the hand-brake cable mounts and I am getting custom metal lines made. i will get some pics as soon as I get my hands back on my camera in 2 weeks.

I tried this setup with my T-18 diff and with the standard shocker mounts. I dragged out my old stuffed OEM shockers for testing purposes. The caliper doesnt even come close to fitting because the handbrake mechinism doesnt have room at all. I also found out that my commodore shockers have a significantly longer stroke. Anyhow I am going to ditch my custom mounts and instead get the standard bush pressed out and replaced with a normal bush. This will allow me to run the standard mounts. I didn't want to do this before because I didn't want to mess with my shockers for warranty purposes seeing I wasn't sure if they would work for me and they were bloody expensive. I just need to find out what bushes to use, the standard sprinter ones have a too small outside diameter. Not that any of this matters anymore I have with alot of work managed to fit ae-82 calipers on, problem solved. I feel sorry for anyone that even comes close to trying to copy me on this one though.

Heres a working to people, don't attempt to use ae-82 calipers, I made it work but it was very hard.

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

my car is finally running again but not without a serious amount of work, some major issues and one stupid mistake that did so much damage. Anyway but first heres how my car now looks notice the rear brakes:

a close up of how the new brakes fit and my rims that I gave a bit of a polish:

Heres a pic of how I modified my diff housing. People before me have used bolt on "traction brackets" which I think is a bit of a dodgy and expensive pair of parts to add to a car. I instead did something that's still crude but lighter, stronger and more subtle, no rice. Heres a low quality pic:

Its not hard to see what I did, I cut the original mounts off my Sprinter diff and modified the new diff welding them on the bottom of the original brackets, basicly doubling them up. I admit it's really rough but it works. Although I will never be able to say for sure it certainly seems that it has made a big difference. Before I used to spin my wheels going out from the top of my street real easy and now it just grips. Awesome mod for anyone who is into handling (drifters excluded).

Right now I am considering moving the top mounts also and using a custom curved set of upper arms to stop it hitting the diff housing, I don't know if this will do anything though, anyone know?

this is what I had to do to fit my disks continuing from when I last modifed the diff to take the drums off and prepare the caliper mounts as shown in the earlier post (many pics soon):

* Modified the diff housing to lower the lower control arm mounts. I was going to do this anyway to correct the rear roll center but it also gave me the room to fit a caliper in there.

* Modified the diff housing to have the caliper mounts. The disks fitted on like they were meant to be there so that was all good but the calipers obviously needed to be held in place. So what I did is weld a custom caliper mount directly to the housing. The position had to be exact, too high and it would hit the body of the car, too low and the handbrake mechinism on the calpier would hit the lower control arm.

* Modify the body of the car, to make sure my car could handle the absolute worst case scenerio I took the springs and bump stops right out and then looked to see what would happen. I ended up bending one lip in because the bleed nipple had a theoretic chance of being sheared off. I also had to massaged the inner gaurd a little just incase a severe side load pushed the axle in one direction while being fully bottomed out. Just about impossible doing anything short of a wonky jump off something but still I have high standards. I also swapped my adjustable pan-hard rod to one of my own contruction which I had to carefully adjust with a tape measure. After all this I could make the diff housing touch the body of the car before the calipers did. I proceded to put the springs and chopped bump-stops back in then.

* Alter the angle of the hadbrake stays on each of the Corolla calipers, I found I had to have the handbrake cables come out from under the lower control arms. However the original calipers had the cables come out on an angle that made them likely to run against the arms. So I changed the mounts to have the come off straight. As a bonus the arms are now pulled on a more direct angle and therefore should have a stronger force imposed on them.

* Weld in 2 new hanbrake cable mounts under the car, this was to hold the handbrake cables in place so they could have the inner cables pulled. I had to weld 2 new moutns in because I stuck with standard Corolla cables and this way I didnt have to modify them at all. It was however a hidious job which I don't want to do ever again.

* had the original hard hydraulic lines shortened and reflared to take a new fitting. I then had 2 new custom braided lines made up. Each one of these lines goes from the join on the shortened metal lines, under the spring seat and over onto the caliper.

* Installed different cable mounts for the middle of the cable

However this still isn't finished, i still need to modify the handbrake, because of the changed angle on the calipers or the fact that Corollas have a different amount of leverage on the handbrake mine just doesn't pull the cables enough. So I am going to change or modify the original handbrake mechinism to have a greater ratio of cable pull. Maybe even make it with adjustable leverage.

I also have just about zero rear brake bias now, I am considering various ways to remedy this, I am open to sujestions on this one.

I fixed they have a brake proportioning valve under the master cylender, the trick is to remove the internal spring. As shown here:

http://www.my-acoustic.com/Car/brakes/rear..._efficiency.htm

I will need much more than that though. I will need to look into it but maybe fitting one off a Supra will help. As for the 20V it's still ages away as I want to do other things first and I have so many other things in the way which limits the time I can spend on doing work. I do plan to finish my brake upgrade and also my suspension upgrade before anything else. But I am getting closer now.

monkeymajik: I didn't know whiteline sold traction brackets, but yeah what I did sure is a simple way to go. I like it because it was free and it doesn't stand out if someone sticks their head under there. I could imagine a police officer cringing if they saw something like that. I plan to do a few donuts in a mud patch once I have set it up to make everything like original and non shiny to hide my work down there.

I forgot to mention that I had to temporarily put my standard shockers back in. I won't be making custom mounts this time and instead I want to press out the original Commodor bush and fit a conventional one. I need to find out what fits though. I also need to fit some kind of stroke limiting device as the shockers have a longer stroke and that would cause the lower control arms to hit the caliper.

Lastly I plan to have heaps more photos in about a weeks time

Forgot to mention my stupid mistake. What I did when i put everything together finally after all those weeks is to check all the bolts for tension, all clearences and fitment of parts. What I didn't think of was the oil level, it was bone dry and I took it out, 10 minutes later I ground to a stop. I realised what I had done then and walked home. I managed to come back with some car oil and I filled it up a bit on the side of the road. This got me moving again and I got it home where I drained it and filled it with gear oil. Now I have since done a couple of hundred on it and its noisy as hell but its still ok. Still that's a leson for me. So now I have to change all 4 bearings and I am going to fit some diff gears out of a TA-22 celica with my newly arrived trd diff center.

Another stupid thing happened today, I went around a corner this morning at a decent speed and the whole car wobbled, I reacted instantly so it wasn't a threat but I knew something wasn't right. I pulled over not long after to find a dead flat tyre, oh yeah I just thought I would do a quick swap. I jacked my car up and went for my spare tyre when I remembered that I had a 13inch spare wheel, this thing wouldn't of fit over any of my 4 brakes I now have, my reaction to that was: oh F###. I had to call my dad to bring down a spare bbs wheel which was the wrong size but useable still. Anyway this is the price of having a modified car, I just hope my luck changes soon.

I managed to take some good pictures, this time a proper one of my custom diff housing:

here the extended brackets can be seen, I didnt grind the welds flush for strength reasons, this is one thing I can let go during a high speed corner. The braided line comes off the caliper and goes under the spring seat. The mounts are also visable and its obvious that I have just chopped the original corolla ones and welded them on. Also of note is how close the trailing arm goes to the handbrake mechinism. This is why I am going to have to put stroke limiting rods in before I refit my adjustable Commodor shocks.

The other side and end of the diff showing how the braided line joins on the original metal line which was shortened.

and for the handbrake cables, first up the mounts on the caliper were changed:

As shown here I chopped and welded a peice in so that they came out straighter. This allowed the cables to go under the lower control arms.

from here it runs under the body is a pretty simple way.

and I welded these additional mounts in to hold the cables in the right spot.

So far this is what my diff cost me:

T-18 diff + adjustable pan-hard rod - $100

Rear T-18 tailshaft half - $35 (I think)

Brand new disk rotors - 2x $65

Calipers, mounts + cables - $40

Custom metal lines - $10

Braided brake lines - 2x $70

so the running total excluding bushes so far is $455 and no I won't do this for other people!

also a special mention for Rowvile brake and clutch, they have always been really friendly and only charged $70 for each of the 5 lines I have had made up so far and a miserable $10 to get both my metal lines shorted and refitted with a new fitting.

here you go, firstly the top:

and the bottom view:

its not finished yet though, even though I am using it and it's strong enough I am going to weld an extra brace on each one.

I bought some "engine stop smoke" today for $4 from the warehouse, I plan to put it in my diff housing to see if it shuts the whine up, it's so very wrong but its not like I have much to lose. I will also parkt the car on an angle and fill it up with some old gearbox oil I took out of my friends car that has been sitting in a bucket for about 6 months.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

Managed install my custom king springs in the back, their a little low so I am going to fit some rubber spacers to lift it a little.

I also did do some work to my new exhuast with the help of Kev (phrostbyte), him holding the muffler in position made things increadibly easier. This time I did things even better there isn't a single burr, welding bubble, nick, pit or step in the whole system. Looking down inside it all that can be seen are lines where the pipes join and that's it, this is why I do this stuff myself. I also took to the inside edge near the exit of the stainless muffler because it had a burr and I took that right down, overkill maybe but hell I do it because I can. I took special care to make it hug the body really close and I made it so that if I took my springs and bump stops out the diff still can't hit the thing, well thats the plan anyway..

Heres a half way pic:

theres 8 peices right there and while it looks so simple it sure isn't. Anyhow I am happy with how it's turning out and how it sits in there. I had to stop because I didnt have a resonator to weld in and I needed it to continue. I will order the longest one I can because there's a suprisingly large amount of room under there for one and I will make sure that it's very close to the body because otherwise it will cop a bashing. I as for the flanges and mounts I will add them last.

I worked on changing how my spare wheel sits in my car today. Previously I thought it was stupid that the original setup had the spare wheel sitting proud of the recess that was in the car for it, so I changed my OEM spare to a space saver. These are apparently available from S13 model silvias and 180s, later models I have been told have a larger outside diameter so they arn't much good. Anyhow the one I got fitted looked like it was made for it:

today I quickly made up a thin MDF cover (8mm I think) to go over it. Heres how it ended up looking:

Now when i sit the carpet down the floor is completely level which is great. It also makes things so much better when i make a high tech light-weight subbie box.

I also plan to cover this board with something or paint it black, but I will do that when I have done more important things first so it sure as hell won't be anytime soon.

Here's another project from a while back:

What this is is a setup to have a fully modular rear sound system. This photo was taken when I had my passenger side parcel shelf removed just before I replaced it. The theory behind this one is that I want to have rear speakers and a small subbie but I want to be able to remove them in under a minute to fit my bike in if I want to do so. So I went for this system that uses plugs for everything. The Parcel shelf will unclip physically and the wires all unplug in moments, heres what I used to do it:

These are as follows:

[Power + ].........[]........[Power - ]

[R speaker]...[cables]...[L speaker]

In my hand is the connection for the RCA inputs into my amplifier and also the remote power on for it. The fork lug on the end of the remote wire stays in the amp and when I want uplug it it's done at the red RCA plug and socket in the middle of the lead. The Sub-box has the amp screwed to it and are obviously removed together. The amp has 2 short leads also permenently wired in for power and both of those have bannana plugs attached to the end so even the power is able to be unplugged, also bannana plugs by nature allow a decent amount of current to pass through them, I chose gold plated models to help further.

heres how it looks when its pulled out from the inside:

I did however end up shortening the ground wire and it was joined to the body as close as possible. I drilled a hole though the metal seat mount support and sanded it back to have good contact.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

well today I finished off my rear brace, heres how it looks:

much unlike some rice up products out there this is actually meant to do something by using the top seat latch support mounts. I like to have rear passengers sometimes so at no point did I want to lose the use of my seats. So I made it so a thick plate would be jammed between the latch and the car body. I also didnt want to trim off too much of my interior trim to make room for this thing, I had to be light, small, neat and easy removed.

I used some light gauge Cro-Mo pipe which I think is a far superior material for braces than aluminium, but that's my opinion. I bought this from the helpfull trike building guys at Greenspeed in ferntree gully ( www.greenspeed.com.au ), no Cro-Mo is cheap and this peice was about $25 worth.

I started by cutting the plate out and I also modifed the seat latches a little to suit. I then very carefully measured how close I could go with the bar to the seat. I knew that the closer it would be the better.

I intitually made the pipe to the exact size and I proceded to tack weld it on. To my horror I found that there was no way this was going to slide into position even if I took the trim off. So I had no choice but to shorten it and use a shim. I did this and cut a peice of 5mm thick PTFE (Teflon) impregnated plastic to suit. I finished my welding and then slid the bar in followed by jamming in my plastic spacer. I also found some longer toyota bolts and used them instead. Finishing it up I painted it and put on a sticker that came with my shockers.

Heres the passenger side mount:

and the driver side with the spacer for fitment, also of note is that that black line on the plastic is a texta mark:

Testing this I found that the seat hits the bar but still latches in, the release mechinism also has more restriction in use but still no big deal. So I think I managed to get the distance right on.

Also of note that this thing weighs roughly a quarter of a kilo and it was able to support my whole body weight when it was supported by just the ends and thats when it was just resting on something not actually bolted up.

I made myself up a nice splash gaurd yesterday:

I had a sheet of fiberglass left over from my failed parcel shelf glass job #3, anyhow by memory its 5 layers thick, so it can flex a little it's pretty tough. I layed on the ground marking it out a peice at a time with my marker and cut it with tin snips initially then a bench sheet cutter. After painstakingly getting the right size I used the 3 existing holes in the bottom lip of the bumper to bolt it down. I placed my fiberglass peice ontop of that lip and also used washers to secure it. Then in the middle I used the two mounting points the original engine plate used. On the bolts that used these I fitted an oversized washer and then places 3 lock nuts on it that wernt wound all the way down, that way the washer can still move but the bolt can be done right up because it hits the top lock nut, so the nuts act as a spacer to stop it getting pulled in too far. I am not sure how much this will do but I like doing this stuff as I know every little thing helps and it cost me nothing, a bit tedious though. As a bonus it looks profesional which is a bit of a suprise.

Also on the same day I did a dummy fit of where I want to place my air filter, although I am undecided now for water reasons, see my forum thread on it here:

http://forums.toymods.org.au/index.php?t=msg&t h=72367&start=0&rid=4385&S=573a8e831e0 e3a17dd875dd70a214606://http://forums.toymods.org.au/index....d875dd70a214606://http://forums.toymods.org.au/index....d875dd70a214606://http://forums.toymods.org.au/index....d875dd70a214606

anyhow heres a dummy run with it in place in roughly the right spot:

did a quick drawing for an idea I had on a set of extractors. Seeing I am so desperate for that extra length on the primaries I came with this breifly:

I would if I did this use every last bit of engine space I have, and I would flare it out to go close to the strut tower and strut brace. Basicly my aim would be the max length using every last bit of room I have, I think I would have to run some pretty elaborate heat sheilds too to protect everything. I know I wouldn't get it but I would want 0.8M of length in my primaries alone and still be a 4-2-1 system. But for now it's just an idea I am playing around with in my head, it would be interesting to try it though I think.

Edited August 13, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

with a second 20V in my hands in a few days I am making plans for it. I will put in the engine I have now and in the meantime it looks like I am going to do some work on this one. Here's some of the ideas I have thought of:

head:

- Ported (mainly intake)

- Match ported intake manifold

- Combustion chamber de-shrouded a little.

- Metal head gasket

Bottom end:

- Some 20V pistons I bought with only 40K on them balanced by myself

- Cro-Mo rings

- Con-rods linished and balanced by myself and shot peened by a friend

- ARP Con-rod bolts

- New bearings shells for Con-rods and main bearings

- New main bearings

- New main oil seals

- Lightened flywheel by myself and maybe shot-peened by a friend

- Fully balanced internals

- Block honed if needed

I want to be able to rev it to 9 all the time and not have a problem, apparently this lets me do this. I am unsure of a few things yet but I will ask people next time, I am out of time once again.

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I made some more collectors on the weekend:

2 of (1.5 pipes into a 1.75)

1 of (1.75 pipes into a 2.25)

as usual they are made to a high standard (AKA bloody time consuming and tedious!!) and I am happy with them, my welding is a bit rough though, my welder is in desperate need of a service. I need one of every expendable part, my ceramic nossle insulator is literally in 2 peices jammed together.

enough talk heres some pics:

Edited August 14, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I finished the main part of my rear water re-routing plate:

The taped hole is for one of the two sensors the engine needs, I think I will fit the other one to the top outlet pipe of the engine instead.

this is the rear water bypass plate with a test fit, fits perfect, yeah!

also I finished the basic machining of my con-rods on my second engine:

I will have to buy some scales and wait till my ARP bolts and ACL bearings come in before I continue. In the meantime I will probably give the rods a bit more of a sand down to make them smoother.

Another side pic of the engine:

this is my experimental trumpet setup that I am playing with:

I will have to finish it off once the enigne is in so I know exactly how much room I have to play with. Looks like it might come a bit close to my braking system but I will do what I can.

My extractor piping I used is 309 grade stainless, or atleast I think it is... the main supplier I have for this is Fast-fit mornington who are a great bunch of guys for real world answers. They however didn't have 1 3/4 pipe so I went to george archer metals in Dandenong, who were very cheap indeed.

The primaries on my extractors are 1.5 inch (38mm) O.D and temporarily the secondaries are 2 inch. These will be changed to 1 3/4 soon enough.

The reason I am lengthening to gain power in the top end, I would like to gain power down low but I don't have enough room available under the car to pull that off. Normally I would lose top end and gain low down power by lengthening my extractors however mine are way too short. I have been told the length I suits a harmonic resonance at 10,000 revs and a secondary resonance at 5000. So I really need the extra length to brind the tuned revs down further. Because I need such an obsessive amount of room to do it I will have to compramise. I will try hard to tune it for 6000rpm though and have a secondary resonance at 3000.

another quick update:

- I ordered these:

* my TRD gasket from greenline

* a new timing belt for the 20V, it's the same as a Lada Samara (thanks to Bill Sherwood for that info)

- I also finally found aplce that can get me Cro-Mo steel pipe for a reasonable price. They are called aircraft metals in Tullermarine in Vic. They also have some Titanium plate that I am interested in...

Edited August 14, 2007 by Sam_Q

Sam_Q · October 4, 2006

I worked on some more of my RWD conversion bits today:

I used this little jigger that was the to bypass pipe off a 4Ac which was chopped and welded to a section that grooves cut into it:

which I then glued into this 4Ac water pump housing:

apparently epoxy resin likes to get a bit soft after 100 degrees so I plan to drive this for a while and then try and reef this out with some pliers, that will tell me for sure.

I finished my fuel pump mount for my car, I used a short length of cro-mo hollow square section for the main support, some stainless leftovers from my exhaust for the pump holder and some extra brackets off the side. It uses the two support bolts of the petrol tank and clears everything (I think!). I had to make it two peices because if it wasn't it would mean tottaly taking the supports off the fuel tank to fit it, which would mean someone holding it up. Instead of this I made it so firstly one side bolts in then the other and the two bolt together at one of the ends. This means it's quite easy to fit. I will also fit some soft rubber between the fuel pump and the clamp to shut the thing up. I allowed for this in the design of it. It is also held in a position where the lines should run without any trouble and out of the way of everything.

Well enough talk here's some pics:

I know this is an overkill but I like to do things right, I am sure this thing will never cause me any greif and it's easy to fit and remove, it should work great.

heres another peice finished:

This ones off a 4Ac for my custom cooling system, and has been modified to clear the knock sensor and also the throttle brace. I made up another brace for it so it doesn't put undue stress on the 2 studs that hold it on on the rear thermostat housing. it has also been painted in Satin black which is what many components will be.

Finally finished my handmade top water pipe, I now modified it to accept both sensors, ie: dash temp and ECU sensor.

- Took my engine and trans out

- Split and labeled the body loom (just a few wires)

- bolted all my RWD water conversion pipes on my 20V, it looks great!

- Swapped my standard Sprinter 13/16 both master brake cylender for a Landcruiser 15/16 item. I need to source a brake bias valve from somewhere before I make the custom lines to suit.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Sam_Q

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