blinded's KE70 build

[blinded]

Reporting in Gentlemen:

Decided to upgrade my radiator as the car had been overheating a bit when I was skidding it and also when it sat on 4000rpm on the highway on the way home. Purchased a twin core alloy radiator off eBay and 2 x 10" thermos and had intentions of just swapping that in and being done.

But, as always one thing leads to another, and so on, so forth.

Had to make new upper brackets for the radiator, and modify the lower ones to compensate for the extra thickness. No dramas, was always expecting to do this. However once the radiator was in, the throttle body was mm away from fouling on it, which I could just get away with, but the thermos wouldn't fit as the left side one hit the throttle body.

So I thought fuck it, I'll swap the abortion manifold that was in there for a cut and shut smallport one. Always wanted to do this, but never had the motivation or time to bother. At least now was a perfect opportunity to do it.

Anywho, got a tidy cut and shut manifold from a member on here and gave it a lick of crinkle black paint. Had to make up a bracket to screw the air temp sensor into the manifold where the cold start injector usually went. Turned out to be a pain in the arse to find a correct threaded nut to use as a bung. 3/4 BSP was like rocking horse shit to find in Wagga.

Got everything finally sorted and back together on the car. Needed to re-do the cooler piping. Got 90% of the welds done on it then ran out of gas...and also conveniently filler rod. So $300 later after a trip to get gas and filler I finally got the piping done.

Last thing to do was to connect the throttle cable...Oh shit, what's that, no throttle cable bracket on manifold?! Simple mistake turned out to be a prick of a thing. Didn't even realise when I was fitting it in the first place that it didn't have a bracket, so after more fucking around I removed the manifold and took it to a mate to weld am alloy bracket to it. I then had to repaint it and then waste more time refitting it a second time.

So what was supposed to be a little job of swapping radiators turned out to be a complete utter head fuck. At least it is finally done though!




Engine bay looks a fair bit different to when I first put the 4AGTE in!

[blinded]

Another update..and so soon!

Recently was part of a group buy with Jake and Sam for some CAMS spec half cages from Bond Roll Bars in Sydney. The cages turned up on Friday so on the Saturday we had a group cage fitting session.

Obligatory pics:











So now that the cage is in and out of the way, I am 100% ready for Winton in May.

Can't wait!

[sam92]

Skids!!

[stahlz_ae86]

Haha, that seat never stood a chance!

[blinded]

Nope not even the slightest! Was a much better option to do this rather than remove the seat all together. At least look a little bit tidier!

[blinded]

In other news:

Went to May prac day at Winton couple of weeks ago. Car had massive under steer for the first couple of sessions, but I wasn't sure if it was the car or my driving, being that I hadn't driven for 6 months...Decided to let a bit of air out of my fronts to try get a bit more grip, turns out that they had 51 psi in them!! Last time I let Sam put air in my tyres for me........(actually, it wasn't his fault, the compressor at the servo when he put air in them for me was way out of calibration )

Once I got rid of 20psi from the fronts, the car drove much better. Shouldn't have doubted my self earlier on and checked the tyre pressures earlier. Had a muuuuuch better time out there for the remaining sessions with some decent front end grip!

Also managed to get my missus come passenger finally lol. Been asking her for like 2 years, and finally she gave in haha!





So I also have been gathering parts for the last few months:




W55 with Niteparts bellhousing, and an F series out of an MX13. Should keep me busy over the next few months swapping everything over. Going to take a fair while with Uni and new job etc taking up most of my time.

And I also decided to keep my Watanabes. A few hours and a couple of beers with Jake, 2 of the 4 now look like so:




Going to Drift Fest 02 at Raleigh next weekend too which I am stoked about. Fingers crossed all goes well with my car as it is a loooong way to have something go wrong!


Alex out.

[sam92]

I was just trying to sabotage your driving with your front tyre pressures
Not really I actually felt pretty bad even though it wasn't my fault aye.

[blinded]

Been a while, but an update for anyone interested - A BIG update;

Went to Drift Fest 02 in June last year. Was about a 12 hour trip each way but was fortunate enough to stay in Newcastle on the way up which made getting there nice and easy...Thanks again Micheal!

Had an absolute blast meeting everyone and obviously the driving and track time was unreal.

A long way from home but we made it!:



The hotel room for the weekend:



Did lots of this:





...But probably more of this:



Which in turn lead to this:





Fortunately the damage turned out to be only 'cosmetic' and there was no mechanical damage, apart from a a busted thermo fan. That being said, every panel forward of the A pillar was destroyed, bumper, grill/lights, bonnet, radiator support. The worst part (which I thought would be then end of the car) was the fact that the rails and engine bay were pushed about 60mm out of square...

Considered what to do with it for a few weeks, but eventually made a decision:

"We can rebuild him. We have the technology. We can make him better than he was. Better, stronger, faster."

Stripped the entire front end of the car, put it on on a trailer and took it to one of the biggest smash repairers in town, Batkin & Damme, who put it on their chassis straightening machine for a very low price!

Straight as an arrow:



A new build begins...

See you later Mr Toyota, be good to your new owner:



Something, Something, Something, Dark Side:



Yep, decided to go SR. Made 210RWKW in Japan and it was a good price so thought, mreh, why not?

F series that I was going to put behind the 4A:



Jigged up a T series:



A converted F series appears:



S13 rear brakes as I was too lazy to rebuild/replace the F series drum brakes:



Oh god, what have I got my self into? Why the hell did I decide to remove this shit?:



Probably ended up being worth it I guess:



Also, this is why you wear safety glasses when using a wire wheel:



Better in my finger than in my eye!

Jake Holt in his element - laying on hot concrete, under a car:



Got a dog...:



How my car looked at that point in time:



The dog - 8 months later:



The car - 8 months later:



Came to the realisation that cars don't build themselves...no matter how long you let them sit for.

Decided to pull my finger out and make the most of my Uni holidays, so over the last two weeks I have been working on it each night after work to hopefully get it running by the time I start back up next week. Working in 0-5ºC temperatures with rain and wind is not fun.

Made progress though. This is how it sits as of tonight:




Will get some daytime photos tomorrow.

Going to try and wire it up this week and get it running. The 'driving' part is a fair bit down the track though.

The to-do list, off the top of my head:

- Wiring
- Exhaust
- Tailshaft
- Rear brake lines
- Handbrake cables
- Box in transmission tunnel
- Rebuild diff/bearings

Might be a while before the rest happens though. Spare time is hard to find now-a-days.

Enjoy...

[323gtx]

interesting post, well done for fixing it up after the accident