[trdee]

Thought I would make a new thread for it.

How it was when it was purchased in december 07

Mechanical Specs;
- 212,XXX kms on chassis, bit over 15,000 on engine
- Rebuilt MAP sensored 4A-GE bigport. Bored 40thou with oversize pistons + nitrated cams + ARP bolts + polished head
- C52 auto-manual conversion
- Exedy HD clutch
- Adjustable Sports Koni's front and rear
- Eibach pro-Kit springs
- RDA slotted rotors front with series 2 calipers
- Gay exhaust which keeps cracking and giving me the shits
- Shortshift kit + drop-plate

Wheels/tyres;
- RAYS/payton place 15x6.5 +38 offset. 205/55 rear and 195/50 front. s##t tyres all round.

Body;
- Standard, with bubbling/cracking paint

Interior;
- Alpine CDE-9852 head unit
- Fosgate splits
- Blue LED instrument cluster backlighting
- Automatic climate control (oh yeah )
- Fire extinguisher in passenger footwell (for use in the distant future, but still a good safety precaution)

Pics

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 October 2009 - 10:51 PM

[trdee]

28/12/07
old lights

new lights

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 July 2009 - 06:20 PM

[trdee]

13/02/08
thieves tried stealing it

[trdee]

11/07/08

installed tangcla's LED's today

comparison of the old jap globes to the new LED's.

also bought alarm and central locking kits at last bitches aint gonna steal my car no more.

[trdee]

05/08/08
group buys ftw




also a pressie from my gf when she came back from singapore a few weeks ago


found all this wiring tucked behind the dash when blakeg came to fix my central locking

[trdee]

28/11/08
alarm has been installed thanks to a top effort by blake, and it has also just come back from a service, where the engine and gbox oils were changed, every bushing throughout the car was replaced by prothane polyurethane items, and had my cam covers swapped to these items; shaved, sandblasted and powdercoated



need to get a wheel alignment done tomorrow and then ill be on the lookout for a respray, or some jdm style deep dish rims

[trdee]

11/02/09
s/c tailights



absolutely love the look of them, especially at night

[trdee]

14/02/09
Sportmaxes are on!


Front fitment

Rear fitment


man 195's on the front on an 8" rim = MASSIVE STRETCH

lovin it dont think i'll even need the guards lipped, havent got any scrubbing at all yet

[trdee]

05/04/09
met up with kyle, dylan and scott at the aw11 "working bee" yesterday. here are some pics.



we resprayed my white panel black with exhaust paint too LOL. actually didnt come out too bad!! kyle and dylan were going hard with the sandpaper hahaha

[trdee]

24/04/09
Ok so I went shopping today and now have everything I should need for tomorrow except primer, so the stuff which is really bad can wait for another day, we wont get the whole car done tomorrow anyway, so will just do whatever panels dont have any crazing on them.



I spoke to the dudes at mcgraths, told them what I was planning to do with the car. They said they didnt have any acrylic in matt-black except for the GMH chassis paint, or otherwise 2-pak. I showed them my tin of subframe black enamel and they said that the paint should adhere better to the existing paintwork than the gmh acrylic, and for the parts that need bare metal I will only need to use etch primer rather than etch and normal primer like the gmh stuff, not to mention this tin cost $40 and the gmh stuff was $102!!!

They also told me that if prepped right the paint should last long enough to make the job worthwhile (one to three years depending on prep), and that it can be sprayed with a 2mm nozzle just like acrylic (so kyle you dont need to worry about it being too thick for your gun, unless your gun can't spray acrylic.

[trdee]

25/04/09
Ok so today was one helluva day!!
The prep work on my car begins, stage 1: side strip removal

Byebye screaming turkey

Drifty arrives, and starts sanding with the wrong grit paper

Running out of time, screw it let's just start spraying (big mistake)

Toyota crown anyone?

Primah

Paint!!

The guard and door came out ok.... I wont show the bonnet

We got lazy....... here

New wheel. Oldschool MOMO corse

[trdee]

10/05/09
and the plot thickens....

[trdee]

24/06/09
now sporting epic camber thanks to brendan off toymods

[trdee]

27/06/09
Wakefield yesterday was epic funs.. so what did I learn?
- downshifting into a corner = instant 180deg spin
- turning too sharply into a corner = instant 180deg spin
- trail braking too hard into a corner = understeer followed by 180 degree spin
- my tyres are fken shoite (although i knew that already )
- distributor caps have heatshields for a reason.....

In the very first corner of the first session i came in far too hot and the car spun like a top. this happened quite a few more times till I started being much more smooth with my control inputs and taking corners at a much lower entry speed. My best time was a 1:21.7, which I was stoked with as even my best lap was still VERY messy, and I've never done a trackday before in my life. Though it was a bit dampened by cuzzo; "oh yeah i did in the 1.20's my first time out...... in the rain." bastard

After the first few sessions I stopped trying to go faster and started experimenting with different lines into corners, hopefully next time I can get someone who can drive well to ride shotgun with me and show me some better lines and techniques, especially into the fish-hook. I also finally grew a pair and started to hold it flat stick through the sweeping esses before the fishook and through the two kinks after it too.. mad fun NOW FOR PICS!!

Checking out my wheels at Mike's manor.


Cooling off


Artsy fartsy


Check out the mud from my off-track expeditions


Dizzy went byebye



Late in the evening I noticed a knocking noise and sure enuff, I have done a wheel bearing on the left rear.. so that will need attention very soon, as does the dizzy cap :S

meh one more pic

[trdee]

---4AGZE CONVERSION PART 1---
12/07/09
arken hell, just got home and remembered the ridiculous effort we had trying to (unsucessfully) crack the right driveshaft nut.
sheared extention #1

sheared extension #2

then we twisted and nearly sheared a third before we gave up. also if you guys wanted a closer look at what my melted dizzy looked like.....

and the traditional toymods engine conversion shot


some other photos of the day





must say a great thankyou to kyle, cuzzo, dylan and jbs for all their help, and also to scott for coming past. it was a tiring, but fun day

edit; also thanking blakeg for his "dial an electrician" services in removing the alarm from the loom

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 July 2009 - 06:37 PM

[trdee]

13/07/09
When I said oil was pissing out of my old cam covers i wasnt kidding.



Gonna miss the nugget. Reliable as F*** it was

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 July 2009 - 06:36 PM

[trdee]

16/07/09
gze is out from the halfcut and ready to be serviced and dropped in

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 July 2009 - 06:36 PM

[trdee]

---4AGZE CONVERSION PART 2---
19/07/09
ffs what a day. Last night we took my fubar wheel bearing and knuckle to a mechanic to press in an new bearing. We went there this morning to find that the bearing repco had supplied me was WRONG!!! FFFUUUUUUU.

So, we rushed back to the workshop and set about removing the knuckles off the half cut, hoping to use them to at least get the car driving till i could get mine back. however, we then found that the series 1 and series 2 have different length tie rods, and the mounting points are narrower, so we couldnt even fit the series 2 tie rods in there anyway.


So we had wasted 3 hours of the morning for nothing, and at this point there was no way the car could be driving by the end of the day, as it would take till monday to get a new bearing into my hub. We then set about getting the engine in at least... which turned out to be a MASSIVE pain!! The engine refused to sit properly with the crane and a jack underneath and we spent something like 5 hours just getting the mounts lined up and bolted in. WTF!!! Kyle's swap was soooo much easier, i seriously think my car is cursed.

Anyways... PICS

breakfast of champions

GOODIES!!!

Super fun happy jdm filter

Engine getting a wash and ready to go

???????

Engine in, but no hubs

Photo to make me look like I was doing stuff, but I really wasn't

5 and a HALF AW11's here to help

This post has been edited by trdee: 28 July 2009 - 06:40 PM

[trdee]

24/07/09
No skids ONCE AGAIN. Cuzzo and I were there from 7pm to 1pm the next day working on the car nonstop. By 5am we had it running with a temporary wire from the ignition barrel to the starter relay (original wire just coincidentally happened to s##t itself?????)

We then set the timing, bled the brakes and clutch, flushed the oil, attached the driveshafts/hubs etc and had it all ready to rock. I drove it out of kyles workshop to flush the coolant, turned the car off and raised the back. once I had flushed the coolant I went to start the car again to burp the system as I added more coolant and it never got past one crank.

Now I'm only getting two warning lights on the dash when the key is set to "on" rather than the full complement (only the cooling fan and cat temp sensor are lighting up, far left) It seems that the wire feeding power to the ecu has now F***ed out. What the F*** is going on?? This cant be a coincidence twice. Also when the engine was running we did a diagnostics and got code 51????

First startup vid, headers only
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=O7NGNNsPRY4

like seriously, can anything more go wrong??

engine in and ready to go

[xjustinx]

You killed dinocar



edit: I can still see remains of dinocar.. all is well

This post has been edited by xjustinx: 28 July 2009 - 06:40 PM

[trdee]

27/07/09
Well it is home at last. The thermofans arent turning on, and also, that wire feeding AM2 fuse is now completely dead, as it's not blowing the fuse anymore when I try to crank the car from the key (good), but it doesnt crank from the key either, and half my gauges are now dead (bad). Apparently, whatever wire is feeding AM2 is not critical to the engine running though. So long as AM2 fuse is not blown, I can start the car by manually switching the starter relay in the fusebox by hand with the ignition set to "on".

Secondly. I think the (brand new) thermostat is fubar, as it isnt drawing a single drop of coolant out of the overflow bottle, and the car is F***ING HOOOOOOTTT. I hope I didnt warp the head, there was coolant pissing everywhere by the time I was home :S

Also the idle is a bit better than before, it doesnt want to stall the instant I take my foot off the throttle, but the idle bobs up and down and gets quite close to stalling. The car is also definately missing a lot of grunt down low, and there is a very weird "bearing noise" coming from one of the pulleys on the front of the engine.

Vid of noise
http://www.youtube.c...h?v=1OkVdb9-K1I

Timing belt getting munched by something

[trdee]

random pics of the car






so that's what has been done up til now. havent done a new thread here in a while as the tool factor has been quite high lately and i just couldnt be bothered with it here, but i was bored just now

This post has been edited by trdee: 29 July 2009 - 12:07 PM

[Tazz]

nice..

now tell us you made a BBQ out of the donor half cut?

[Hiro Protagonist]

Tazz, on Jul 28 2009, 09:11 PM, said:

nice..

now tell us you made a BBQ out of the donor half cut?

He's making a pretty good effort of making a BBQ out of the current car, no need to do the same to the halfcut

[Trev084]

Hiro Protagonist, on Jul 28 2009, 09:41 PM, said:

He's making a pretty good effort of making a BBQ out of the current car, no need to do the same to the halfcut

Ha, Best come back ever Ian.

[trdee]

assholes thought about it and the thermostat cant be buggered or the engine would have blown after over an hours worth of driving, so it must have been the lack of thermofans + final 15 minute run home through the suburbs. will hopefully have her all fixed and running good next week

[orangeLJ]

whip the thermostat out, grab a pot of water and a thermometer (non contact works aswell, but anything that will read accurate enough to show you when its opening)

Throw the pot on the stove and watch the thermostat, youll see it open at a certain temp or not open at all.

So many new thermostats dont function correctly, or dont function at all, its a pain in the bum, but thats life.

Also, what temp thermostat did you go for? If its opening too late in the heat range, that could also be your problem.

Id be looking at what wires were accidentally touched while you were playing with the alarm/immobiliser or anything else, as it definitely sounds like you disturbed something or there is an open circuit situation going on somewhere.

If you arent 100% keen on matt black, grab some paint stripper, strip the stuff youve done, $100 worth of 2p hardner and hi-fill primer, and probably $150 of solid white 2p paint will have you a nice shiny white paint job, wouldnt be too much hassle to just etch in the door gaps, leave the engine bay black (retro style) and go all white.
Will hide all the dents in the car, wont show any ripples like black will etc etc.

Between me and my dad, we rubbed, prepped and primered a majority of the ute in half a day (it helps that its stripped, but masking a complete car would have only been a couple extra hours.)

And hey, even if you leave it in all primer for a while (needs a week to really harden anyway) Primer hides more dents then anything else too! most cars looks straight as an arrow in primer!

eg. my big floppy quaters on the ute-


Anyway, hope you get it sorted mate should be a fun little car when your done!

[trdee]

I am quite keen on the satin/matt black, dont really care about the dents as it's just a track beater. The only reason respraying it at all is the old paintjob is basically peeling off... which is kinda not good

As for the thermostat, it is definately the right type, whether it's working properly well theres only one way to check that, although the lack of thermofans probably explains a lot... lol. Just waiting on an auto elecy mate to come down and have a look at the wiring. I have a fairly good idea of which wires are fubar, just need to trace them to where they are shorted/melted etc

[Casey-G]

Really nice car trdee, im enjoying reading the updates that you have done on the car.

What sway bars and struts are you running?


Also what are you planning after you have the gze and the paintwork sorted?


cheers.

Case

[rollin_by]

the car is looking good mate

aint you going turbo though lol if the supercharger is in good mint condition might buy it off ya

btw im the bloke that bought the extractors off ya

just put dem in last night the car sounds heaps cleaner n crisp but i cant hear my supercharger scream like before