Rebuilding the strut housing.

Like the control arm, my strut housing had also gone south. So again it was time to make another housing. I had 2 available to me, but only problem was they were passenger sides and I needed a driver side.

Fortunately, Naoki was really working hard to findone for me and eventually found one he had laying around. It took him a couple of tries, but he eventually got it right. Though he was also the one who had 2 passenger side housings.

The modification will follow the same setup as previous, which is a 40mm cut on the housing. Which is the perfect cut for short struts, from TRD or using the front SW20 MR2 strut inserts. I'll be using TRD shocks this time around instead of the Koni shock. After about 9 years of rocking Koni's I think it's about time for a change.


The sleeve is measured 25mm/~1in from the top of the strut. This will located where i'll be welding the coil over sleeve perch.


Some cutting and welding and were done.

Thanks to;
Naoki @ driftday for finding the housing.
Taka @ driftpro for selling me some old TRD shocks.

Do you prefer wet or dry

Were not talking about burritos from Albertos either. Check this out, an all out Formula Atlantic dry sump system is up for sale on ebay. I'm just droooling to get my oily paws on this setup. the starting bid is 1800 and there's one bid so far. There's about a day left on it so you better get going. If you wanna be the popular guy at the show or at the track this is a must have item.

Check it out here

flex

time and time again i always run into people with crack headers. every time i always recommend a flex pipe but they don't listen. this poor sap had his header pipe crack not once but twice. you may think it cracks cause it's an ebay special. but that is not the case, the pipe above is an actual trd piece. so no one is immune, all th vibrations and engine movement has to transfer. since the header is basically solid with the engine it's also soaking it up. so if you plan to track your beast consider adding a flex pipe to the header. save yourself from headaches, unless you just like welding.

One Weekend

In three days I pulled the motor, slap together another one and dropped it. All while working my regular day job Monday – Friday and my second day job on Saturday. The only way I can even afford to participate in this expensive hobby. I even made time to give praise to the man up stairs. That’s church for all you atheists out there. So maybe it’s about 2 full days of work. I can’t say it’s a great motor, it’s just something I scraped together. Don’t ask specs cause you may just cringe. But for people who know the specs on the past motor, well this one is worse than that.

Probably the only redeeming thing about this motor is I used the made in Mexico TRD timing belt. Cause it’s hella stronger than stock and so all the Mexicans and Filipinos can jock the TRD. The life expectancy for this pile is probably 6 months. I’m just falling down the 4AG totem pole. But no matter, I’ll get it running with whatever parts I find.

As for the previous motor, here’s what it looks like. As I expected, number 1 and 4 cylinders were toast. “Catastrophic engine failure” as that guy from Pinks would say. It’s sad to see it go, but it lasted longer than I expected for an engine I just slapped together. BTW it lasted about a year and a half of hard track and drift days each month. No need for high dollar stuff here, when factory stuff works fine for what I do. For an engine that I actually was expecting to last no more than six months, this isn’t bad at all. I underestimated myself and the strengths of Toyota motors.

I only have one pic which was the pretty much when everything was already installed and I was taking a breather. I was busy just trying to get everything done this weekend. And wasn’t sure if I was going to finish on time. I’m busy during the week, 19-20 hour days sometimes, so I don’t have much time to work on it. But everything dropped in smoothly that it probably took ~ 2 hours to have everything running. So far it’s not bad, a bit on the smokey side, but that’s more points for them smokey drifts. Drives a bit strange, may be I’m not used to it. Who cares Utah here we come!

Specialist T #2

At the shop, there was this corolla race car that the owner acquired not too long ago. I've seen the car in pics online. It's hard to miss a spoon colored corolla. I never truly knew the history of the car itself. On Club4AG a driver by the name of Scott Webb had posted an in car video. On his avatar there was a pic (shown above) of the car itself which looked like to one at the shop. I showed him the shop car and he confirmed that was the one. He gave me a very brief history of the car, it was owned by Paul Goduti and was featured in the Toyota Performance Handbook published in 1990. It's the silver hatchback with the mesh wheels. So it's been a race car most of it's life. Truely, amazing the car has survived for this long. If only it can speak, and tell us of the many battles it has faced over the years.



It's been through a couple of owners since then, and now sits in hibernation waiting for the call to do battle once again.



Here's a video Scott duking it out in a Cal Club SCCA enduro race at Buttonwillow in 2000.

Do you remember Toyota?

This past weekend was the 13th Annual Toyota Fest held at Veterans Stadium in sunny Long Beach. This year was different for me, rather than spectate this year, I decided to show off the beast this year. So the past few days i've been changing the car to be show worthy. Well at least presentable. No primer spots or broken bumper today.

Paint in progress
Added JDM Wise Square crystal tail lights. No it didn't come with a bowl of rice.
Cleaned up the wheels by Boyd. You make the slickest set of wheels for my Corolla.RIP
Unfortunately, I couldn't finish off my wiring to show hella dope electrical skills.

Enough of that and back to the show itself representing Toyotas new and old.


From youth market Scion


To the luxury driven Lexus.

A very rare Toyopet Crown.


2 roadsters were on display. One built by a privateer using pretty much all Toyota parts. The 2nd built by Toyota using what looks to be a V8 from their NASCAR program. Both are very well constructed and simply amazing. I could spend hours going over these vehicles.

Toyota displayed a few of their race cars.



This year they paid homage to the Corolla and the Landcruiser. Which have been Toyotas longest running models since the beginning of Toyota's quest for world automotive dominance.

Real deal RHD JZA70 and U.S. spec JZA80, well kept by Brian 'Good Lookin' U.

The reason why I didn't win was Andy sabotaged me. Damn you. But WTH is that orange AE92 doing in the AE86 section?

Old is good as long as you keep them clean like these 3 fine examples.

A never imported Soarer precursorto the Lexus SC300. This one is equipped with the anemic 1GGTE engine. Though last I saw, it was equipped with a slushbox. Now it sports a 5 speed transmission.


Vans need recognition too.

Each year the show is growing, from it's humble beginnings, at the Queen Mary parking lot, to the stadium parking lot in Long Beach. It's great to see the enthusiasm for Toyotas is growing. As these cars get older, rest assured there we'll be a Toyota nut who is willing to keep these rolling pieces of history alive for the next generation to appreciate.

For more pics click here.

I didn't take as many pics cause I split my time between this and the Spring Fling 22.


More on this soon

Fixing the Ring and Pinion

The upcoming Greddy Festival, has forced me to fix my car. The last time I drove it was at the 4AG Time Attack. Which I DNF'd, when I broke the ring and pinion. I was planning to fix if for a drift event when I returned from Tokyo Auto Salon, but as luck would have it, my truck got into an accident. It was down for a few weeks so there was no point in fixing diff anytime soon. With the event coming up in less than a week I need to get the ring and pinion replaced.


Before the build, I picked up a TRD solid sleeve w/shims from PASS Racing. Since the stock crush sleeves are on the weak side it's a good investment. Another good thing is that they are reusable, hopefully I won't have to use that option. I replaced the gear set with a spare used set(NOTE: If you own a Corolla, and you actually take if out to driving events, you'll need lots of spare parts), which bought from a Club4AG member a while back knowing I'll be replacing the ring and pinion. He claims it made no noise before he changed it for a different ratio. And me being the cheap bastard couldn't resist the price.

I tore down the diff and here's what remains:




Everything went in well so I'm not going to bore with the details of the install. The import mags have that covered.