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Carlos Who? My ST185 GrpA GT-Four Rally car
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07-01-2024 5:36am#1
I've never posted about it here as it's not a project or build but I've been having a go at Targa style Rallys here in Aus. My Mate Dru & I have had a go in in his Lotus & well that ended as you'd expect with a broken Lotus....
With the Lotus off the road & needing sorting we moved to using my 50th anniversy Bullitt edition Mustang for a few events
However after the last event the Adelaide Rally in November we decided that we wanted to move up to a faster open class of racing, we where in the 130KPH capped class that didn't require a rollcage. My Mustang is too rare & frankly worth too much to butcher & to take any bigger risks in so I dedcided to move the game on & build or buy a fully caged Rally Car.
With man maths in full flow at the bar in the hotel in Adelaide post the event, I worked out that it would be much much cheaper & quicker to buy an already built rally car.. some internet searching showed this beauty for sale... the only issue was she was in Perth & I live 3500k's away in Melbourne.
Mind you it's not going to be a project in the same way my other cars have been, this one is actually turn key & runs fine. But as with all cars there will be some work to do, so I figured I'd capture it here.
The car itself is an ST185 Celica GT-Four GrpA... this is actually the 3rd one I've owned, I had a normal air to air intercooled standard bodied ST185 in 96/97 when I lived in NZ & had an almost identical white Carlos Sainz GrpA ST185 from 98-2000 when I moved here to Aus.
The big box tick for buying this car... other than the fact I love them & think it's a very cool & very very capable rally car was the fact that the rollcage was new & fully complied with the CAMS (Think Aus FIA) rules to allow the car to be raced in outright classes of racing.
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I bought this car back in Nov the week after the Adelaide Rally but figured I'd hold off starting a thread until I had stuff to say... but the car was washed & loaded up onto a trailer in Perth this weekend & today she started here 3500k towing trip across to me.... to say I'm excited & that I probably won't sleep this week is a massive understatement.
I've tried to hold off buying stuff until the car is here in my shed for obvious reasons.... but as it's wired for Stilo helmet comms & both Dru & I aleady own the right helmets I've bought a set of Stilo headsets as the road noise in this thing is another level & we're never be able to chat on road transport stages... plus we'd go deaf.
I will of course be removing all the stickers currently on the car & I've decided to go with the iconic & I think best looking GT-Four layout of the Castrol car
To that end I ordered a complete set of said stickers out of the UK whilst on my flight home from the test drive in Perth back in Nov... so that's waiting to go right on
I'll leave it there for now, but I'll share the list of things that I know for a fact I need to do around upgrading my racing license & getting Rally rego for the car & the things that I know I must do during the week... the expected ETA should be next weekend for having her in my shed in the metal.... can't wait!
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Things are progressing a little faster that I thought they would which is awesome. I wasn't sure how far he was going drive each day, but I got this pic sent to me this evening as I was cooking a steak on the BBQ... this is a location just inside the South Australia boarder, it's about 100k's off being the mid point between where he started & my house.
I had assumed that he'd take it easy & I wasn't really expecting him to arrive till Friday, but he's done about 900k's a day so far so at that pace I could well have my car in my shed Wednesday evening now... assuming he doesn't slow up on the second half of the trip.
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She's here!! so far she's a huge hit with everyone who's seen her.
Tested the lights out the first night as you'd expect, I hope to have full vision back by the weekend now...
I got some other bits with the car... first up is a set of 4 spare wheels (not including the actual spare in the boot that matches the set on the car now)
There is still some life left in them but they are date coded March 2016 so I doubt they are as soft & sticky as they where new... plus tyre tech has improved so I might use these hard on a track day & then replace them with something newer.... all the tyres are 235/45R17's front & rear. The Rears on the car are late 2017 & the fronts are mid 2018 vintage.
I've got a Carbon bash plate for the front & a carbon rear diff bash plate incase I want to take up dirt rally at some stage... I'll leave these off for now.
Also have a Turbo heat shield, that I probably will put back on
When the previous owner ordered the light pod for the front, he also ordered a set of Carbon side skirts... I'm not sure just yet if I'll stuff around adding these to the car
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Next steps is to start going over the car, I'll split the inspection into 3 areas
1. Body
2. Interior
3. Running Gear
Then I'll make two lists for each, stuff that is a todo before I can use the car & stuff that is a I'd like to do one day but won't happen for a while
The body is pretty good really... the biggest issue is that the car is missing any sort of mudflaps & as such the road rash is pretty bad. I'll have a chat with my painter about this, but I need to remind myself that this is a rally car & it doesn't need a show paint job... if I can get him to halfarse a spray of the damaged areas behind the front & rear wheel openings I'd be happy. Or I might just do it myself using white rattle spray cans.... again because Rally car.
I have a set of those big bright red oversized mudflaps that you see on Rally cars on order to try & stop this from happening too much in the future.
The drivers side sill panel has had a big hit at some point & I will see what I can do to massage that back a little bit
I got a stack of paperwork with the car & it looks like I'm the 3rd or 4th owner of her in Rally car form & the first owner who stripped her down & made a Rally car lived about 20 mins drive from me, I might have to look them up & show them the car now if they are still at their old address. Based on some of the papers found in their ownership folder looks like they had planned the same Castrol scheme that I'll be running with
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I've been checking over the tyres tonight, the tyres on the four white wheels on the car have about 50% thread left & the rears are dated 2017 & the fronts are dated 2018... the spare in the boot is like new but it's dated 2012...
The tyres of the 4 spare wheels I have are also about 50% thread but they are all dated as 2016...
My thought process now is to use all of these tyres for track days only & to get a new set of competition tyres for the first Targa/Rally that we do as I've no idea how many heat cycles these have had & how much life is left in them regardless of thread wear.
I've confirmed that the seats & the belts all have a long life left in them yet, well so long as they don't shift the rules anytime soon they do.
I've been reading up on the regs for the seat mounting brackets as I'll have to modify mine to shift the seat forward for me... when I'm fully strapped in I have to stretch my arm into full lock to grip the top of the wheel & I can only get the clutch all the way down with the tips of my toes.
For the Nav side the seat is as far back as it can go so that's fine but this foot rest needs to move, the Nav for the guy I got the car off was his wife & she must have been short
Sitting in the seat my knees are up in the air & there is a huge gap between my legs & the actual front of the seat, so I'll need to sort that as it's not comfortable nor safe
I think my interior must do list is actually pretty short, move the drivers seat & move the Nav's foot rest but the other stuff I'd "like" to do can wait till I've had a bit of fun with the car. Tomorrow evening I'll take the wheels off & go through the brakes & the suspenison stuff... might start peeling off the old stickers too
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I ended up helping a mate working in his shed for most of the weekend so my list of jobs didn't get dented much... I did take the car for a 25km or so drive & there is a whine from what I think is a bearing on the rear drive shaft centre carrier that's just under my seat, so I'll have to have a look at that later. The car is way too low for Targa events & the rear brakes lock up under heavy loads & thats with the brake bias adjuster set all the way forward... so some work to do on setting the car up right, but I'll not be letting perfect be the enemy of good here & she's good enough for the girls we date so I'll run the car & just work the issues Apollo 13 style as & when they pop up.
I did manage to get the old stickers off the car with the help of a heat gun... that's a shite job I don't want to do too often with old stickers.
Next I'll fix up the worst of the stone chips to stop any rusting as there is already some surface rust showing just behind each wheel as the paints been chipped back to bare metal & give the car a cut & polish then the new stickers can go on.
I'm aslo expecting the Dodge to come home from paint next weekend so another re-org of the shed is needed to make everything fit
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I've jacked up the front & pulled the wheels off as I want to raise the suspension height, looks like a simple enough job... I've soaked the threads with WD40 so it shouldn't be a nightmare of a job in the morining now, I'll put some anti-seize on it when I'm adjusting the height tomorrow
Whilst here I noticed some additional bracing has been installed here
Decided to pull a brake pad out to see what they are, sadly no part number on this one, I'll pull the others tomorrow.. looks like they hadn't been seated all the way in & that's resulted in a lip forming, I've never seen this before but it seems to be on both front pads on both sides... I think I'll sand this off before reinstalling them tomorrow
You can see how the disk is rusted on the inside too as the pads wheren't far enough in
There was no part number on the pad I pulled, I hope there is on one of the others when I pull them tomorrow... I'd like to know the wear rate ect for them
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I only own one set of coilover C spanners, they came with the QA1 coilovers that I bought for the GTO from memory.. turns out not all coilover lock rings are made equal & the C spanners I have are way too big... I managed to make them work but it was a pain in the arse so I have ordered a set of 6 C spanners in various sizes that should cover me going forward...
I only own one set of coilover C spanners, they came with the QA1 coilovers that I bought for the GTO from memory.. turns out not all coilover lock rings are made equal & the C spanners I have are way too big... I managed to make them work but it was a pain in the arse so I have ordered a set of 6 C spanners in various sizes that should cover me going forward...
Google told me that most coilovers have a thread pitch of 8 turns per inch, I decided to test that & raised the coilovers all around by 8 turns... it is a 4x4 after all, then I dropped it back down & took it for a drive to see how that handled, it was fine & not only could I go over the local crap sections of roads with no wheel rubbing in the arches I could even go over the speed bumps at 25k's & it wouldn't hit... Took it back to the hoist & measured the car to discover that my coilovers are not 8 turns per inch or 25mm as that would be,, but 8 turns for me is 20mm of ride height change.
Then I put her back up on the hoist & brought the suspension back down 4 turns or 10mm so she's now 10mm higher that she was when I got her, a quick test drive showed that road bumps & dips still no longer bottom out the car but going over speed bumps does but there are no speed bumps on rally stages that I've come across so far. She can probably still drop a little but I'll leave her at that for now until I do a track day next month & start fine tuning the suspension. I know know that one full turn for me is a 2.5mm height adjustment. I've set the car level for now but I'll do some reading, maybe a big of rear higher than the front rake angle is better than flat? don't know, yell out if you do.
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Then I decided to fix a silly little detail that's been bugging my OCD since I got the car.... I don't know why but sometimes my brain just won't let go of little things. I've had a few mates sit in the car now & they all want to start it & when I tell them they have to turn the battery isolator on they ALL went to turn it the wrong way... no idea why, also the chips in the paint have been bugging me... so I did a thing
Stupid little detail but it made me happy, distracted me from the bigger job of making new seat rails as I wasn't happy with the clutch travel with the seat where it is, the brake & throttle pedals are fine but I wanted an extra 1/2 or so of travel on the clutch & when you're fully strapped into the seat that 1/2 makes a difference, whilst looking for other tint pointless jobs to avoid the real task of removing the seats I decided to remove the pedal pads to clean them up & apply a new layer of grip tape to them
It was at this moment I had what alcoholics call a moment of clarity.... I only want an extra 1/2 of throw on the clutch pedal, why am I going to move the seat forward when it's already hard to get out of the car & moving the seat forward will make that 1/2 worse... so I simply put a 1/2 inch spacer under the pedal pad & bingo problem is solved, not perfect but good enough for the girls we date... I'm not happy with the wheel, that could be closer to me, but once my removal wheel boss turns up I'll remeasure that & will probably end up with a dished wheel to solve that issue. Not sure if I need to put grip tape on the foot rest or if I should leave that as it is??
Now I want to focus on sorting the stone chips on the lower sections of the body... once that's done I can get the Castrol stickers put on & then it's onto track work for setup & getting comfy with the handling at speed etc... then I can look into what's the next Tarmac Rally event I can enter... thinking I might have a play at hill climbs too?
I'm going to paint the lowest section of the sill my self here with that same Raptor Ute liner paint I put on the underside of the XB & the Challenger... I have a bottle of White Raptor paint ready & waiting. I'm going to paint up to the factory stone guard paint water mark.
I'm thinking of continuing that Raptor paint line around the very lowest level of the front bumper bar too as it's badly scratched up as it is... then I can get my painter to do the tiny repairs to the guards... he's happy that he just has to blend in some tiny sections & understands that it's a racecar so we're not looking for perfect here, just an afternoon job whilst drinking a few beers is the plan.
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I want to get the lower sills repainted in the white Raptor paint this week so I spent some time in the shed after work... I masked off the waterline where I'll be painting below & followed all the destructions for prepping to paint Raptor over paint & on plastic bumpers etc... lots of cleaning then some sanding with 180 grit sandpaper was the go it seems.
I did some panel beating to the sill where it had been knocked in, it's far from perfect but perfect from afar so that'll do... you know because racecar
I sprayed rust converter onto all the surface rust bits that you can see
Next steps will be to get it in the air with the wheels off, finish masking off fully & then spraying with their adhesion promoter before the actual Raptor which is what they say you do when painting over old paint.
Also I've just realised that the aerial for the Rally Safe unit we have to run at events is mounted right where the big Castrol sticker goes on the roof.... bugger, no the question is do I unwire it & weld up the hole & mount it towards the front of the car or just remove it & reinstall it in the same spot on top of the Castrol sticker.... hmmmm
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The weather was pretty good this last week so took the opportunity to pull the car out of the shed, get her up on stands & masked off
As well as sanding the painted areas to be covered they also recommend that you use their adhesion promoter stuff... so I did
It came out a much closer match that I thought, from a few feet back you can't even tell that it's painted... very happy with that outcome
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I mean you wouldn't do it to a road car... but I think for a tarmac rally car that's a nice enough finish to live with if it means no more big stone chips & I even reckon I'd do any future touch ups with a brush or roller & not even bother spraying it.
She's booked in for the 19th now to have the new stickers applied, they are really large & curvy so I'm paying for a pro to do them rather than balls it up myself. Between now & then I have to buy a DA polisher, learn how to cut & polish a car without burning the paint & brighten up the paint as she's sun burnt around the old sticker placement. Then I have to get the rest of the stone chips painted to match the body.
There are some little interior bits & pieces but they are on the nice to do list & not the need to do list...
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Spent an hour in the shed tonight after work & got a few little jobs done... I can't refit the OEM rear vision mirror as the roll cage is in the way & it just won't go back on. I guess I could glue it on or screw it on but I didn't like the idea of either of those options.
I got a really wide angle 14" mirror that mounts to the roll cage bar & I'm really happy with how that went it
I'm still waiting for my quick disconnect steering wheel boss to be delivered but in preparation for that I've also fitted a steering wheel hook to the roll cage so the wheel can be hung just in front of the mirror when it's off
I'm now thinking that I might get some more of those wheel hooks & use them in the rear of the cage to hold the Stilo headsets that we'll be using on the transport stages
In the last Rally we did they actually wanted us to have our mobile phones to hand at all times in case we needed to contact the organisers or vice versa so I figured I'd need a phone mount as there is ZERO storage in this car with the interior ripped out like it is. I liked the look of the Quad lock stuff as they have an anti-vibration option for their mounts... they don't sell a roll cage mount for Quad lock but they do sell a motorbike handle bar mount so I gave that a go.... sadly it's just too small to be locked onto the roll bar.
Now they do make a RAM adapter mount for a Quad Lock & I know that RAM make a rollbar mount that works as the car already has one on the Nav side for the Rally Safe box to mount too
So I've ordered the RAM roll bar mount & the Quad Lock RAM mount with the anti-vibration adapter so I should be able to Frankenstein the phone securely into the car when all of that arrives later this week.
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Pulled the light pod off & cut & polished the paint on Sat morning so that my painter could come around & spray all of the big scratches & gravel rash marks... she's looking pretty shiny now. This needed to be done this weekend so the paint has a full week to cure before the new stickers go on next weekend.
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It was 35 deg today so I wasn't in the mood to do much in the shed as it was hot as balls as they say... but my to-do list on all the cars is too long so I have to just keep getting stuff done. Got too simple jobs done today... first up was installing my new removable steering wheel hub... it's a lovely piece of kit.
Very straight forward job, just pull the old wheel & old hub off.
The hub is a 3 part unit... the base that bolts to the steering shaft
Then install the car side of removable hub
Then the wheel side
Getting in & out of the car is so much easier now with the wheel out of the way
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Got the right RAM Rollcage mount option so now I can have the phone securely in the car if they need me to have it... went with the anti-vibration option for the Quad Lock phone mount too.
I've also been thinking about secure storage options for when we're competing... there is a nice big empty space behind the drivers seat & I 'm thinking that it looks just the right size for a battery holder box like the one the cars actual battery is in. These bolt to the floor & have a lid that is strapped on... this could be perfect for holding wallets, keys etc without the risk of them bouncing about in the car.
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Last few little jobs done today before taking the car off the hoist for what will hopefully be a long time. I needed the steering wheel rim to be closer to me, so I got a nice Sparco deep dish wheel to replace the old flat one.
I also refitted the black plastic trim that sits on the front lip of the bonnet, that gets removed to allow the light pod to be installed. But the car goes to get her stickers applied tomorrow & the Castrol sticker on the front of the bonnet also covers this trim piece I believe. Without the stickers & the light pod she's scrubbed up to look like a nicer driver quality Carlos Sainz GrpA I think.
Last two jobs I wanted to do was to replace the two fire extinguishers with the new ones with the double latch brackets & to move the Nav's foot rest forward a few inches...
In the end I moved it a full 7 inches forward... it's in a much better position now & it's also much easier to get in & out of the car too on the passenger side. I've also replaced all the nut & bolts used for nutserts & bolts... slowly over time I will look to do replace as mush of the old owners installs with nutserts.
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I needed to find a way to stop the headphones we'd be using during the transport & recce stages from flopping around too much during the actual competition stages... I've installed another two of the steering wheel holders that mount to the rollcage... seems to be doing the job. I'll find out for sure at the track day tomorrow.
I went across early this morning before work & collected the car after having the iconic Castrol livery applied... it looks so so awesome in the metal, brings back all the memories of watching these things compete in the WRC & also so many memories of the early Rally games like Grand Turismo 1 etc... to say that I stood out in traffic & got a lot of positive attention is a huge understatement
I so want to throw the big light pod back on but I don't want to run it at the track day tomorrow as I know that I'll be north of 200kph on the front & the back straights & I'm not 100% sure that the airflow at that speed won't damage the pod or even put a kink in the bonnet if it lifts too much... plus un like a rally stage I'll be up close with other cars lapping & I don't want a piece of gravel thrown thru a light either... so I'll leave that off for track days I think. I have her parked where I can see her every time I walk thru the lounge to get to the kitchen to make a cup of tea... I can't stop grinning like a child. Now to make a list of what I need to pack tonight for the track day.
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Right... Sorry, I was on a flight to the US the morning after the track day for a combo of two weeks of work & a bit of a roadtrip… so I’m only getting around to updating you all on the trackday now.
The car went down well & everyone at some point came past the garage to have a look & take a pic or two…. seems most people remember this from video games but also because one of the most famous Australian rally family's the Bates ran & still sun Toyotas in the Castrol colours.
Long story short the day was awesome & the car ran pretty much faultlessly.. the format of the day was a full open pitlane from 9am till about 4pm & I think I must have done 80 laps or so by the end of the day. I had a few friend come out & I was able to take them all out for a few laps each which was a nice thing to be able to share with them. The car handles great, really planted in the bends & as expected when you push on a bit too hard you’re met with understeer but that’s easy enough to plan for & to sort out so it’s just a nice car to drive.
The brakes where great & never really felt like they got too hot & had no fade at all to speak off, the pedal is a little softer & a little longer that the one in the Bullitt so that took a bit of getting used to but she behaved fine. I do have some Castrol racing fluid in the shed so I’ll look to flush the whole system before the first rally event anyway.
The only issues that popped up where the catch can would fill on long runs & couldn’t drain back quick enough thru the pipe it has back to the sump so it would put some oil spray on the side of the engine bay.
On the last two runs of the days she started to backfire & break up on the last laps but would come good if I backed off & gave her a cool down lap or two…. My first thoughts where/are plugs or something in the ignition system breaking down but I’ve been noticing that she takes a while cranking at starting up too so I do wonder if I have a fuel pump/filter issue maybe? I’ll look to sway out the filter soon & see if I can hoot up a pressure gauge to see what’s going on too.
But all in all…. Any track day when you can drive the car back up onto the trailer under it’s own power is a good track day.
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I have one more track day booked for Winton next month, I more technical track than Sandown & a track I've never driven on before... then its onto our first ATR event in May at Snowy River. There are some more things I'd like to get done before then....
I want to upgrade the Stilo intercom to be hardwired into the car so I don't need to carry spare 9V batteries with me each day.
The TerraTrip computer that came with the car is very old & it lacks a lot of the features that you'd like to have so I've gotten a new 303 v5 model now, it's much smaller too so that's weight saving I guess.... means I needed the new bracket too
One other issue I uncovered at the track day is that the speedo doesn't work... it gets to 120kph & then it just flops about between 120 & 140 regardless of how fast your going, this will be a big issue as I have to do a few rounds at a 160kph speed cap before I'm allowed into the full open class so I need to know how fast I'm going. This was one of the reasons to get the new TerraTrip as this model supports a remote display that I can mount in my eyeline to show my speed.
It's also a GPS model as a backup to the speed sensor that you run.
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I've been seeing theses ads for prewired GoPro kits out of the UK everywhere the last few weeks, I had been planning on getting a new GoPro to run the car anyway & I was looking for ways to hardwire this to the cars battery so another check item could be removed from the rally check list in the same way the check comms battery task will be removed from that list.
Looking at the ads & the reviews for this wired GoPro stuff I was impressed at the simplicity of a singe dash mounted switch too that could be used to start the GoPro's & kick off the recording... there have been a few cases where the simple task of operation start GoPro recording has failed dismally so hopefully this will help with that.
I decided to order a dual GoPro kit as that way the wiring to the both would be pre-terminated into the one loom with only one activation button to worry about.
They sell the wiring on it's own without the GoPro cameras but I was in the market for new cameras anyway & this way I don't have to break open & modify anything, it's all prebuilt. There is a cable hardwired in that has the female connector for the wiring loom that goes to the dash mounted start button.
There is also a red LED that does on the dash that gets the signal from the GoPro that it's on & recording... so in theory we shouldn't miss that again... maybe
Last but not least is the power cable to wire the GoPro's directly into the 12V supply.
One of these is going on the cage in the centre between the seats obviously... I'm not sure where the 2nd is going just yet, I might see if I can modify an external case to fit with the wiring running to the GoPro as the best place for the 2nd would be nice & low on the front bumper to show speed etc... but one rainy stage & that GoPro would probably be finished.
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Collected 4 new Medium compound A050 tyres this morning, I have a final shake down track day later this month that I'll use the existing tyres for but then this will go on for the first Tarmac Rally which is the first weekend in May now.
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I had a track day last Wednesday out at Winton here in Victoria which is a technical track I've never driven before. I had a list of must do's & like to do's for that track day. I had to go through the car & replace all the cable ties that hold wiring to the roll cage as that's no longer an allowed thing it says in the Rally regs, also non of the wiring can run along the top of the cage between the cage & any external panel such that it could be crushed in a rollover.
So I bought a large roll of velcro ties & redid all of the wiring inside the car
I made some new brackets to install my new Terratrip & also did a temp install of the remote display from the Terratrip that I plan to use to alert me of over speed issues for the stages we capped to 160kph.
Installed the GPS antenna for the Terratrip also
I hard wired in the stilo coms to the 12V battery so I can remove the check/replace 9v battery off the morning rally checklist list
Installed the new hardwired GoPro too... there was heaps of wire for the dash button for turning it on & for the light that shows if it's on or not.
I'm not 100% sure where I'll permanently mount the button & light, but for now I just have a very temp bracket in a spot that both the driver & the Nav can reach
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Did a bit of a basic service, replaced the fuel filter & was very happy to see that I could just move the water to air intercooler out of the way without having to disconnect & drain it... the plugs looked horrid.
I tried to replace the coil, but after removing its bracket & replacing it I noticed that the new coil is missing the ears to allow the coil lead to lock onto it... so I've had to order a different replacement coil that I have confirmed has the correct clip holder on it.
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The track day was on Wednesday & it's a bit of a hike to get there, a little of 3hrs.. but we packed both cars & trailered her up.
The morning was solo driving only, but I did have access to an instructor too so I did a few laps to learn the circuit & then did a few with the instructor next to me giving me some tips... was a great morning to be off work....
At one point when pushing on I got distracted by a current gen V8 Supercar that was there testing passing me that I missed the braking point into the second to last bend leading to a monster lock up.... lucky we had spare wheels with us & extra lucky that I had decided to not run the brand new tyres just in case this exact thing happened...
Just before lunch they had the first of the passenger sessions so I took MrsXB out for a spin as this is a great technical circuit & the car was flowing well on it
On the day the car felt a little down on power, oddly even the instructor commented later that when he was driving it to show me the lines he noticed that it had more power at half to 3/4 throttle that it did at full throttle. Then on lap four in the very long double apex left sweeper a huge plume of white oil smoke belched out of the bonnet vent just beside the catch can. The oil light on the dash blinked & that was all that was needed... I backed off instantly & rolled into the pits... BUT she's FUCT (Failed Under Continuous Testing).. there is a horrid knocking from the engine now, she's done a bearing or a rod or a something.... she had to be winched back onto the trailer.
This happened around 12:20pm on Wednesday & it's 3:20pm now on Saturday & I only now felt like writing this update... to be honest up till now I was still very much in the feelings stage of this problem & a big part of me just wanted to park her in the corner, throw a cover over her & just ignore here for a while & focus on the XB & the Challenger.. but this morning I've moved into the solutioning phase of this problem.
I now have a mate lined up for next Sat to help me pull the engine out, I know everyone seems to drop these engines out the bottom ( did this myself on a mates back in the late 90's) but I want to try & pull this out the top this time. I've found a company in Qld who have a 3S-GTE engine from a much newer JDM only car that also ran the 3S-GTE engine, so I'm thinking of buying that as a direct drop in now to get the car back up & running ASAP.
Then I can pull down this engine & inspect it & build this one back up as a stronger more powerful engine to go back in.
I'll also do some tidy up work on the rest of the suspension & running gear whilst the car is off the road. I'm really bummed that next weekend was going to be our first rally & now instead of sitting on the start line with my adrenaline pumping next Sat I'll be cursing rusted bolts & ripping skin off my knuckles as I pull the dead engine out... but as they say, that's motorsport...10 -
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Someone else sadly put his beautiful supercharged Lotus into the wall in the afternoon... so clearly had a worse day than me. I'd much rather leave the track with mechanical repairs to be done than with a bent car that could be hiding major structural damage... he went in hard & that rear wheel is anything but tracking true now
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Well, sadly as far as I know the car didn't Christine herself back to health during the week so time to get into myself I guess. First steps get the bonnet off & get the car up on some axle stands.
Water to Air intercooler drained & removed
Water to Air intercooler drained & removed
I'm not going to bore you with every step, but the Air intake, Alt, shock tower bracing, coil, Fuel lines, gearbox linkage, clutch line, & a heap of vacuum lines & electrical connectors all get removed or unplugged.
Then I went under the car, first step was to pull the front drive shafts out.. I didn't have a socket to fit over the hub nut, it's a 30mm nut but you need a deep socket & the majority of my tools are imperial for obvious reasons.. so a quick dash to the tool shop was needed.
Then disconnect the steering arm from the front & unbolt the hub from the coilover, this allows you to pull the hub down & at just enough of an angle to let you slide the axle shaft out of the hub. Then you just yank on the shaft like you're in a shake weight advert & it will make a noise that you inner child will once to laugh at when it finally pops out of the gearbox
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Next do the other side & then I removed the front section of the rear drive shaft
There are two braces that live under the engine/gearbox & they need to come off to... the first is an east-west brace that ties into the lower control arms
The north-south brace also has a front & rear engine & gearbox mount fitted to it
Oh & if you've ever wondered what an FIA turbo restrictor looks like, it's this cute little bit
By now it was getting late on Sat night & the exhaust had a nut that really hard to get a spanner onto to, was very tight & has been rounded off slightly by a previous owner for my convenience... as I was starting to get frustrated with it, I just used a torch to heat it up & then quenched it in WD40 & decided to call it for the night before I just damaged it. I'll deal with it with a clearer head on Sunday morning was the thought process.
Other than the exhaust the only other two things to do are... figure out how to disconnect the power steering unit, not sure if I'll try & remove the pump from the engine whilst it's in the car or leave the pump on & just drain it remove the lines & the reservoir. I also have to work out how to disconnect the wiring from the engine, the loom is so entwined through the engine I'm starting to think that it might be easiest to disconnect the whole loom from the car & remove it with the engine now.... I'll think about that as I'm cursing the exhaust nut this morning.
Once I've done the above then it's just attach the engine crane & undo the two engine mounts... still haven't fully decided if I'll pull the engine up & out or lower it down & out... thinking my preference is up & out but that will be bloody tight by the looks of it.
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Had a fresh start Sunday morning & got that exhaust undone without any additional damage to the nut & bolt... always good to start out with a win, no matter how small.
The next mini nightmare was the wiring... the manual says to unplug the ECU under the dash & to pull the wiring through into the engine bay via this neat little hole & then remove the engine with the wiring attached...
Nice idea, but this car has had a second piggy back Motec ECU wired in & the connection plug & additional wiring for that make the loom too big to fit thru that hole on the firewall, so short of unpinning the Motec connector or cutting the wiring with the death wheel on the angle grinder (I did briefly smile at this thought) I was going to have to take the wiring off the engine
Why was this an issue, because in Toyota's wisdom the wiring passes through some of the dumbest & tightest places of the engine, I lost a lot of blood & some of my mind getting this all off without breaking anything.. I had to remove the throttle body in the end as the wiring passed under it tucked super tightly against the curve of the intake in a hard plastic cover that made it a nightmare to get out
After an appropriate amount of time picturing what I'd do to the Toyota engineer who dreamt this up if I ever got the chance & generally questioning my life choices I ended up with all the wiring now off the engine & in a big messy pile on the side of the engine bay... reinstalling this is of course future Dave's problem & feck am I'm glad I'm not him...
There was a lot of swearing for the next hour & not a lot of pictures taken but man for car from the dry state of Western Australia some many of the nuts & bolts where rusted & seized on.. I was only just able to get the pipe fitting for the gearbox oil cooler off without damaging anything, the hard line for the clutch sadly left this mortal coil, the power steering pump bolts where so hard to get too & torqued to... well all the torques I guess that I almost took to the power steering lines with the death wheel.. but they finally came undone. Then the engine crane was attached so I could test the tensile strength of everything I'd missed in operation disconnect everything from the engine
Also the lead technical advisor I'd brought in had lied on his CV clearly... I no longer believe he worked for TTE in the early 90's & he refused to get under the car due to his floof being an attractant for oils & other fluids he said
I knew more bits would have to come off to get the great big lump out of the car but I waned to take off as little as possible but some stuff was obvious, like the turbo & manifold setup... bugger me is this a heavy lump
Both engine mounts & brackets came off as did the rear output housing of the transfer case
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Then I figured that was enough & this stupid lump should be able to be lifted out... this was the late afternoon of day two of this mess & I'd had two different mates pop over across the two days to help & that was so gratefully received... but to quote the Knight from that Indiana Jones movie, I chose well... Mrs_XB was there 100% of the time & not just standing off to the side making sarcastic comments but up to her armpits in gear oil & road grime.. I'm very lucky that she doesn't just accept my hobby as the mental illness it is she actively encourages & helps me in the madness.
Jesus this engine, gearbox & transfer case lump is huge.. it'll be fun figuring how to break this down without damaging anything
I wonder if I could get a 6ltr LS in there......
Tonight's job now will be cleaning up the massive mess I've made, cleaning & putting away all the tools & bolting any bits that came off the car than can go back on back on so I don't have to find a spot to store them & I can't forget where they go. Then I'll start googling how to pull the big oily broken bit apart I guess...
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Went out tonight to clean up the mess... I collected all the nuts & bolts & put them all back in their homes on the car or the engine. When I remove them again I'll bag & tag them correctly, I went through everything including the parts pile of removed bits removed & I know where everything goes... well except for one small bolt, buggered if I can remember where this part goes, so I've already improved om Toyota engineers work by adding lightness in the removal of this clearly unnecessary bolt from the car.
Put the wheels back on the car & dropped her back to the ground, I tossed around the idea of putting the bonnet back on but in the end settled for just resting it on the roof for now. It's safe enough there. It's a lot easier to push the car around now that I've removed what's probably close to half a ton from the front... there's your tech tip for the day.
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Went back out to the shed tonight... lifted the engine & gearbox unit back into the air so I could remove the inspection plate
Then remove the two brackets that bolt the transfer case to the side of the block
Then lowered it back down onto the dolly & undid all the bellhousing bolts & then wiggled the hell out of the gearbox to try & break it from from the engine.. it was a bit of a bugger but it broke free
I'll clean the gearbox & transfer case up now that they are off & free... not sure if I should paint it or just clean it & leave it raw?
Next step was pull the clutch & flywheel off.. the clutch looks fine, but I guess it would be pretty stupid not to change it out now whilst everything is apart...
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I drained the oil out & it didn't look too bad there was only the tiniest hint of sliver to it, it you weren't looking for it you probably wouldn't have noticed it. I then removed the filter & got my opener out to see what was in the filter.
Even looking at the filter it doesn't look like its covered in metal, there is some glitter there for sure but I'm starting to think it's not catastrophic inside this engine... maybe, hopefully, fingers crossed etc...
I used my magnetic wand to pull all the metal fragments out of the filter & I'm thinking that this really looks like it's all bearing material... if I've only destroyed bearings maybe scored the crank a little then I'll call this a win
I didn't have the right size bolts to mount the engine to the engine stand & my local hardware shop didn't have them in stock either... so sadly that ended play tonight, I would have loved to pull the engine down tonight but now that will have to wait. I'm busy the next two nights so I think it'll be Friday evening at the earliest that I can get this engine stripped down to see just how bad the damage is.
Feel free to start a betting pool as to just how fecked you think it is....5 -
Got the correct bolts & now the engine is up on the stand
I've started doing a little research & it seems that the oil cooler that the filter mounts to is not something that should be reused after a bearing failure in one of these engines... sadly Toyota no longer make these, so I can go looking for a 2nd hand one & hope that it hasn't come from an engine that just had the same issue mine did or I can look to delete it completely & see what it can be replaced with.
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Right lets get into the engine tear down... first step was to remove the intake, this then allows access to the weird TVS or TVIS as I've seen it labelled elsewhere, this variable airflow system is to help with torque at low RPM I believe
Looks to be stock cams in the head & looks like no porting has been done, so there is scope here for some gains during the rebuild.
Can't get the distributor off yet as the screws are ugga dugga'd all the way on & I've bend my torx but trying to undo them. They will have a date with a small nut & the welder at some point.
I'll spare you all the pics I took during the teardown, it all went to plan other than needing a quick dash to the tool store to get a set of male spline sockets so I could undo the head bolts as I've never needed to remove this style of fastener before
The cams look fine, they have a little wear but I suspect that they are the originals & as such have 201K on them, the buckets in the head look fine too but I suspect that all of this stuff will be upgraded for the rebuild
I was happily surprised by how good the bores look with the head off, you can see that this was rebuilt not that long ago, you can still see the hash marks on the bores.. it looks like I got very lucky here & there is no bore scoring at all from the failure
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Now for the fun stuff... rolled the engine over on the stand so I could get the sump off... the bottom of the sump was full of swarf as was the screen on the pick up... clearly things have not gone well inside here
The end caps on Rods 2, 3 & 4 all look like this
But Rod number 1 looks very discoloured from heat
This video kinda tells you all you need to know
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There was not a trace of bearing shell left in the number one big end... the inside of the rod is badly scared too, the crank journal I think can be saved with a light linish as it's not too bad when I drag my nail across it
The big end bearing for rod number 2 was about sooooo close to failing, another few RPM run & it would have let go too
With the rods & pistons out a full inspection of the bores can be done & again I think I've dodged a bullet here & there is no real damage to be seen at all, the rods & pistons looks good quality & new but I'll probably look at replacing them all as I can't find any brand markings on them
The main crank bearings are another tale of a super close call... I don't think you can get much closer to a bearing failure than this with it letting go, I was so lucky that this thing didn't seize up on me sending a rod out of the block
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So that's it... one rod is dead nothing else seems to be, if I knew the brand of rod I could probably just order 1 replacement rod & rebuild from there. But I'm thinking that this failure was the racing gods way of telling me that they wanted me to upgrade the internals, so I think I'll be doing just that. The block is fine & I'm pretty sure that the crank could & would clean up too. I may end up reusing the crank, I'm not decided on that just yet.
I've already ordered a new Moroso baffled sump for the rebuild & I've gotten a new oil cooler just in case I opt to use that in the rebuild.
I think I've found an engine shop for the rebuild too, they are Toyota specialist.. Supra's mostly but they say on their site that they started with 3S-GTE's so I'll go & have a chat with them on what I want. I've also ordered a full set of replacement suspension bushes as this car is running on old cracked rubber bushes today & that's just not right. I have some other ideas for upgrades/improvements too so I guess this is officially a project car now... just what I **** needed... 🤔
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Ok... so turns out that the guy I got the unused still in the crate TTE engine block off also had a brand new still in the box TTE head.... so no need to tell you the obvious, but here is my new TTE head
This head has all the porting & polishing that I would have paid a machine shop to do to mine anyway & have some additional castings webbing for flex resistance. When you add the costs of the fact that the porting & polishing is already done on these & that I would needed to have that done on mine, plus I needed mine skimmed & crack & hardness tested these are a cheap & even if I do say so myself cool purchase.
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I can't remember now if I'd pointed out before that all of the suspension bushes are the original rubber items & are as you'd expect quiet worn. To that end I'd order a long list of bits out of the UK to rectify this. I'd ordered:
- Front Sway Bar End Links
- Rear Anti-Rollbar links
- Front Anti-Rollbar Bushes 27mm
- Rear Anti-Rollbar Bushes 18mm
- 3S-GTE Engine Mounts set - RED
- Rear Subframe Bushes & Top Diff Mounts - RED
- Celica Turbo 4WD Rear Diff Mount Cushion - RED
- Celica ST185 Front Bushes - RED
- Celica ST185 Suspension Bushes Kit Rear - RED
These look like nice bits of kit I have to say, I've just inspected the steering rack bushes & I think that whilst the engine & gearbox are out I'll order a new set to replace them also.... hopefully they make them in red too.
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I've put the car back up on the hoist now, I plan to do all the rear suspension bits first.. but now that I'm looking at it, I'm wondering if I can actually get the back end up high enough on the hoist to be able to drop the whole rear subframe out in one go? I'll need to study this closely, I may actually be better off with the car on the ground jacked up on old school stands that gives me more room to slide the subframe out... guess we find out soon.
Sadly none of these parts where in labelled bags.. so a game also has to be played now to match them to the correct suspension part they fit, so are easy but others less so. Hopefully once the parts are off it will all be obvious.
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Operation remove the rear subframe or diff cradle depending on who you talk too started this afternoon, first step was to remove the tail shaft. I go find a driveshaft place to have this refurbed, seems stupid to not do that job now as it's out of the car.
Because of where I think I want to jack up the car from I need to remove these brackets that go to the front most mounts as I think I want to have the jacking points where the two body attaching bolt holes for this bracket are.
It took way longer to get these disks off than it should have, the spacer had fused to the threads on the studs.. I'll be using lots of copper grease when it comes time to reinstall.
I know now why the handbrake is so weak... these is less than a mm of material left on these shoes, so new shoes & hardware have been ordered.
I'm not removing the rear shocks as I don't need to so I've just disconnected them from the spindles, the drivers side is fully done & ready to drop the subframe, just need to dismantle the passenger side handbrake assembly tomorrow morning & then it's only 4 bolts that hold the whole subframe to the car. Then I can play the fun game of how to slide this out from under the car in one oversized piece.
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