TOM'S 96 Rev 3 GTS - BREAK ME UP, BEFORE YOU GO GO

[C35Rob]

nothing much to report here really.. I had grand ideas this weekend of dropping some parts off at the powdercoaters this weekend (last two suspension arms, crossover pipe, intercooler hard pipes and a few brackets) but for one reason or another that didn't happen.

the goodridge firesleeve for the oil feed/return turned up, it looks like this:



I'm really happy with the quality of it, and being silver as opposed to the usual orange it's really smart looking - obviously I had to demonstrate to the mrs that it doesn't burn by holding an end over the cooker

got my V band adapter fitted to the turbine housing, pretty happy with how that's turned out





you can see the little pockets that were milled out of it to allow the bolts to fit there.. and yeah, I know spring washers in a high heat application like that aren't perfect, but I haven't got any M8 Nordlocks in the garage, so I used what I had.. if they need upgrading in the future it's not a hard job to come back to

I tried the oil drain flange on the turbo too, it's quite sad but I actually think that's one of my favourite pars of the car





a metre of 38mm stainless tube to make my dump pipe/screamer pipe turned up, I've already got a flange and a 90 deg bend so that should be enough materials to sort that out - just need to get some stainless mig wire and a bottle of argon ready for when I put it all together over easter,

I ordered some 3/8bsp to 1/8npt adapters to move the oil pressure/temp senders from the sandwich plate into the ports on the filter housing too, so in the future I can use an oil cooler take off if required

I've had an email today to say my parcel from RHD japan will be here on weds

[JD]

Ah the satisfaction of beautiful new clean parts and cleanly welded custom fittings. I need more engineering knowledge (and money).

[2mad]

Super pretty Rob very nsfw

[C35Rob]

no actual progress here, other than more parts arriving.

I managed to get a serviceable set of rear trailing arms/strut bars (thanks Peter G) which are in great condition other than a little surface rust so I'll get the old bushes out of them over the weekend and get the mrs to drop them and some other parts in with my powdercoaters next week while I'm at work.

As I work away from home during the week my daily phone calls to the mrs usually follow the "what have you been up to, how's the baby, what parts have arrived" format.. so instead of trying to describe stuff she's not sure of she often just sends pictures, luckily my daughter is getting old enough to help!





a few other odds and ends have turned up,



steering angle spacers - if you're not into drifting you may not know what these are - they go between the the inner track rod and the rack which essentially increases the available travel of the rack thus increasing the available steering angle

and a SARD oil filter, because importing service items from half way around the world is totally reasonable behaviour



and a couple of stickers to add to my collection too

[2mad]

Cute cute cute ... she knows her jdm

[C35Rob]

so picking up from where we left off last time:

the front coilovers, URAS rack spacers and poly steering rack bushes are now fitted - in fact, I don't think I mentioned the rack bushes before? I kind of thought that while I was under there I might as well replace another part that is as old as the rest of the car and remove the potential for any slop in the steering. Unfortunately my preferred poly bush brand (SuperPro) don't do rack mount bushes for the mr2 so I had to buy the powerflex "black series" -which at 95 shore are as close as you'll get to a solid mount without actually going fully solid.






yesterday I got started on the turbo install, I already had the x brace, intercooler pipes and air intake pipework off the car so the morning was spent removing undertrays, removing the AC compressor and pulling the CT20b (for sale now, see for sale section) which took a little more than an hour.



At this point I had the pleasurable job of replacing the hose from hell (aka no5 coolant bypass hose) which at £5ish new from toyota is a no brainer to do it now while I can get to it rather than risk it and have it fail in the future.

Then the ATSracing CT to T3 adapter plate was installed using a genuine toyota gasket, brand new genuine toyota locking nuts and Nordlock washers

The turbo was dry fitted, then removed so I could properly clock the housings and nip the bolts up, that was then installed using a genuine nissan rb25 (t3 flange) turbo gasket, new aerolock stainless hardware and nordlock washers - it's safe to say the turbo and adapter plate are never going to vibrate loose!



the it was a case of installing an oil feed adapter into the block - namely a M12 to -4an earls fitting (the eagle eyed amongst you will notice that this is actually an m12 to 6AN fitting in the picture, once I spotted my mistake I removed it and replaced it with the correct sized one out of my drawer of random AN hose and fittings)



and then a sump flange to 12AN adapter for the oil return



I then made up the oil feed and return lines using Aeroquip FC333 braided hose and goodridge silicone firesleeve to protect them from the heat of the exhaust/turbo

then it was a case of bolting up the wastegate, slipping on the turbo blanket, priming the turbo with oil, spinning the engine over till oil was proven at the oil feed and then starting it up..





sounds like a 5 min job when you type it out like that doesn't it?

Unfortunately the bends I bought to make the downpipe aren't tight enough so I've ordered a couple of tight radius bends, when they turn up (mon/tues?) I'll knock up a downpipe, put the air intake and intercooler pipework back together then it's just a case of tying up loose ends and installing all the rear suspension stuff (coilovers, hubs, arms) and then it should be time for alignment/MOT/mapping - eek!

I'm still toying with the idea of spinning the wastegate round and venting the dump pipe/screamer out of the engine lid - the inner child in me says yes, the (semi) grownup says no

[JD]

Do it. It's too good not to. I mean, it's right there, right under this vented panel.

[ashley]

That would be crazy loud- awesome idea!!

[C35Rob]

Do it. It's too good not to. I mean, it's right there, right under this vented panel.

That would be crazy loud- awesome idea!!

OK I'm sold, next time I'm in the garage I'll figure out if it's possible without interfering with the crossover pipe, if so - it's on, I'll probably make a bottom exit screamer too, just in case dumping it out of the engine lid is too much! - it'd only be a 10 min job to swap over

[androo007]

Would you get flames out the screamer pipe? It'd be like a damn motor cannon...... love it!!!

[C35Rob]

Would you get flames out the screamer pipe? It'd be like a damn motor cannon...... love it!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk5DlaX-8qw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmMmW1DOSXg

yes

[androo007]

Ultimate lols

[JD]

Might I suggest:



http://www.rhdjapan.com/sexy-style-engi ... -sw20.html

It would be perfect for an upward screamer setup

[C35Rob]

I love the sexy style engine lid, but for £240+shipping I'd be tempted just to take a hole saw to my turbo engine lid :/ I don't know.. I'll keep an eye out on YAJ for one.

[2mad]

Would you get flames out the screamer pipe? It'd be like a damn motor cannon...... love it!!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vk5DlaX-8qw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmMmW1DOSXg

yes

Hooly nut balls ... i need this in my life

[C35Rob]

I've been ridiculously busy at work recently so not had much chance to work on this but was home this last weekend and took advantage of the good weather to get some little bits done

I recently bought a pair of these to go on the back of the car when it's back on the road, the 245/40's that are on it at the min look both too narrow and too tall for my liking, so I got 255/35 r17s to replace them



they're the Achilles 123S, the same tyres that are pretty much dominating world drifting at the min - everyone from the driftworks DW86 to Daigo Saito himself run them

anyway, back to the car it's self - I got some silicone bends and some ally pipe to knock up an air intake which resulted in this



which I'm pretty happy with.

The next "big" job on my list was to make a downpipe, it'd been hanging over my head since I fitted the turbo and to be honest I've been putting it off cause I simply can't be bothered to get the car out of the garage.

But the downpipe isn't going to make it's self so here goes..

I had collected a selection of thick wall mandrel bends, v band clamps, a 3" flexi and some lambda bosses





for the time being I'm going to keep the HKS exhaust that was on the car already (I will change it to a full 3" system when I get round to it) so I cut the B pipe in half after the original flexi which was blown anyway, welded a new flexi to that, then to the end of the new flexi I welded a 2.5" to 3" reducer and a V band clamp, so the HKS B pipe now terminates at the front of the sump with a 3" v band clamp - ideal, so working from that I then filled the space between the turbo and the B pipe with some pipes which ended up looking like this:



which is the new downpipe tacked up ready for fully welding

and here it is finished, wrapped and wideband/narrowband sensors fitted



and the final fit



and a view from underneath showing clearance



I'm really happy with it tbh, always satisfying to make something myself I know there's a school of thought against wrapping downpipes but IMO the added heat protection is only a good thing in an area so close to the turbo oil drain and the fuel pipes that hide behind the bulkhead heat shield.

so.. what's next?

big job wise I just need to make a dump pipe for the wastegate then get round to fitting all the rear suspension- coilovers, arms, hubs etc then it's just a case of refitting the intercooler piping, plumb in the boost controller, mapping, alignment and MOT then it'll be back on the road

[JD]

Nice work. How hard is it to line everything up for welding and keep the welds neat?

[C35Rob]

Nice work. How hard is it to line everything up for welding and keep the welds neat?

thanks mate, it's not too hard tbh, the 90 degree off the turbo was cut as small as possible (just with a hacksaw and cleaned up with a file to keep it square, much neater than going ape with a grinder) to keep the bend as tight to the turbo as poss. that was tacked to the V band and stuck on the turbo then I spent a few mins under the car working out what bends would work where to make it fit, then it's just a case of marking each pipe with a sharpie to know which way they sit, take them off the car, tack the next piece on, refit & repeat until it's all in one piece

it's welded together with a MIG (obvs with stainless mig wire and the right gas) so it's not #tigweldporn for mega internetz points but it's done properly - 90% of welding is cleanliness, surface prep and proper fitting up anyway.

[JD]

That's very good to know you can do this stuff with a MIG - I'm gonna treat myself next time Machine Mart has a 20% off weekend or I see a decent one for second hand. It's got to the point where it would be so useful to have one.

[C35Rob]

https://www.machinemart.co.uk/p/151te-turbo-mig-welder/

that's the one I use at home, admittedly its nowhere near the quality of the professional ESAB / Kemppi etc stuff I've used at work but it does the job and is suitable for any steel work you'll do on a car - saying that if you've got a little extra to spend it's well worth checking out weldequip and looking at something like this https://www.weldequip.com/portamig-165-mig.htm which will be leagues ahead of the clarke stuff

I'd love an AC/DC TIG set at home but for what they cost I just can't justify it for something that might get used a couple of times a year