Project 86 - Big technical worklog with 20V + brake + suspension conversion

[rthy]

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

[rthy]

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?

[rthy]

I finished my top pipe:





I tried to take a pic of it on my engine but I dont have enough light at any time of the day it seems. I will try again soon.

[rthy]

I also finished my custom altrnator 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.

[rthy]

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.

[rthy]

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.

[rthy]

Yeah no problems Chris, I won't be needing it anymore. I do however want to see if the ae-92 handbrake cables are any different. The reason I ask is because you may not need custom cables at all, see below.

thanks man, I am so used to a welder I don't know how others can work on my car without one, even my gauge pod has custom brackets and clamps welded onto it.



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.

[rthy]

no unfortunelty that's not it, 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.

yes your right the celica seats, they are nothing too special but a big improvement. Awesome upgrade for the money I paid.

I would love to open a workshop or atleast work in a worshop making custom parts however I don't have such an opertunity. I would make bits in my free time to sell if I wasn't such a busy person.

[rthy]

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:

[rthy]

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 dont know if this will do anything though, anyone know?