AE92 Corolla SR5 - GTS goodies swap-in mini-build-thread

OK I'm ordering a new OEM rack from Japan. This will create a need for rushed work later on so other stuff will have to be done in the meantime - extended front lugs installed, some adjustments to the front brake lines, and there's a new problem where the upper bolt on the lower shock mount on the right-rear is slipping when the car goes on the ground, going to maximum negative camber in the slot and putting the tire in contact with the spring and spring seat. It wasn't doing this before, maybe the GTS upright is microscopically thinner or something?

Got some little things done on the weekend. The slipping rear upright seems to have been solved with Moar Torques. Put the rear hub-centric rings in. The CAI box is built up to the same level as the prototype, now I have to add insulation and seals. I came up with a way for the insulation to seal off the rear.

The new rack won't even leave Japan until May 20th and the first autocross is looking like it's going to be in late May, so I'll be running the rack that was originally in the car until the new one comes in.

Here is a pic of the CAI box prototype again, open for design critique:

Well I got a nasty gut punch the other day.

I misread a field on the site selling the rack, it's actually about $1250 So the local dealership selling them for $2500 doesn't look so crazy now...this isn't the kind of expense you ever expect to face as the owner of a Japanese economy car.

Did some repainting on the car today but it was really hard to motivate myself to get up and do it after THAT...yesterday the attempted-rebuilt rack came out and front extended lugs went on.

Finished up the CAI partition. The rubber-looking material on top is actually vinyl flooring, you're looking at the underside of it. It's dirt cheap. Maybe I'll add some ducting to blow cool air from the CAI opening near the battery right at the air filter.

Things are going to pick up soon, I'm taking out a loan to accelerate the completion of this project, the only thing that could go wrong now is if the steering rack that's going in leaks all over the place and stalls the project for 3 months. foreshadowing

Would've liked to have done this, but apart from the car not being finished I also don't have the fire suit they're now requiring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbdwyyoD31c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1dS5C0DBPc

Made some progress. The car's original rack is back in and it's not leaking and the front's on the ground again. Put actual coolant in the cooling system. Got the extended lugs put on the front:

And then ran into another problem. Now that the PS system is full, we can see that there's a steady leak from the PS pump inlet, even though a new O-ring was put on it. And of course this pump is specific to the AE92 (and AE82 - FWD 4AGE 16Vs) due to its port locations. So this is gonna be tough to find. I've probably wasted close to a gallon of ATF now.

Well after spilling another couple quarts of ATF we're ready to call it done with this PS pump. I'm gonna try another one, or maybe epoxying the offending fitting to the pump permanently if I can't find one. That's a risky move though, I could ruin what appears to be an otherwise fine pump.

Although the GTZ rack might not be in stock from Toyota at all and then I'd probably be done with hydraulic power steering altogether, because then I'd be looking into a rack swap from something more modern.

Things are going slow again, I've decided to try epoxying the PS pump inlet onto the pump body. If it fails I'll have to import a used one.

Amayama didn't have the rack under the older part number, waiting to hear back from them on the newer one. If both are out of production the next thing I'll try is an AE111 Superstrut rack.

Here's a panoramic pic I took of the track at the official opening ceremony and start of the Top Gear Festival/GRC weekend:

http://2imgs.com/96a6c1eb38

At the far right you can see the curb Ken Block tried to drive over just before he went airborne into the barrier. Sadly who I would consider the two most skilled drivers both took the shortcut route twice in one race, smacking themselves out of the competition with penalties. But anyway that's pretty far off-tangent.

Made some changes to the CAI box, changed the tape that holds the vinyl seals on to duct tape and added a velcro strap to keep it from moving:

Looks like I'll have to settle for the AE111 BZ-R rack, it's not quite as quick as the GTZ rack and it's variable rather than linear rate, but it's the next best thing.

The mechanic berkeleyed up pretty bad today and caused an ATF shower in the engine bay, ruining the wrap. Well I thought I could have put it on better, now I get to try. The AEM prefilter bag really does keep liquids out though.

Maybe it's a good thing the PS system isn't closed up yet, I found out yesterday that the replacement inlet hose I got is apparently not really oil-resistant. I found this out minutes before the hydraulic shop closed, they won't be open again until Tuesday.

Set the throttle cable adjustment yesterday, still need to make sure the PS system isn't leaking and finish up the brake line mounting and attach some heat shields before it can leave this shop.

Replaced the PS inlet lines today and got the system filled, it seems to be holding so far but I'll know for sure tomorrow.

Found some new problems today as well, oil pressure warning and door ajar lights aren't working and about half the inputs on the data logger aren't working. One of the handbrake cables is mounted wrong and another might need replacing.

The PS system is holding together, I took off the PS & AC belt, degreased it and the pulleys, and put it back on yesterday. Just hydraulic brake & handbrake line routing, handbrake adjustment and electrical fixes left (before the work at other shops - exhaust build, a little welding, suspension work, and AC work). Mechanic's totally AWOL this week though.

Well it was 1 step forward, 2 steps back yesterday...I fixed the handbrake line routing problem but confirmed that another handbrake cable needs to be replaced, travel is still 50% over max. recommended. It needs to be in great shape to lock up the rears and ideally avoid me having to install a hydraulic handbrake.

I was going to run a remote oil sensor setup but now I'm thinking I'm going to run the stock pressure sensor on the block and the temperature sensor on one of the fittings on the pan. There's going to be some fabrication involved either way, but there's less this way and the sensors should give more accurate readings. The pressure sensor on the block right now is bad anyway and the AC compressor and bracket have to come off to fix it.

So when I went to take it off I found that the AC compressor pulley got severely dented somehow during installation, the side was bent in and the belt was riding up on it, so that needs to be fixed.

For the data logger inputs, the low oil pressure warning and brake light inputs just need some pull-down resistors, both put out a 12v signal. We'll have to take a look at the signal from the igniter with an oscilloscope to find out why that's not working.

Looking at your air filter setup, any reason why you chose to run a short pipe open filter instead of utilizing the air ducting from the headlight? Yours was SR5, did it not come with that? Or does the motor respond better to a big open element?

My SR5 didn't come with the headlight ducting on the "port side" of the car, and neither did the donor (which probably should have) which came with a Ricemart Special short-ram setup.

The reasons I went with this setup vs. a closed & ducted filter come down to modularity and what I like to call "third-world-friendliness." Aftermarket filters with housings need a filter of very specific dimensions, or sometimes worse yet, a proprietary-sized filter. If I need to replace one of those in any hurry, I'd be SOL. With this setup, in a pinch I can slap on any filter with a 3" fitting.

This setup gives me more freedom to mix & match parts, allowing me to use what I'm pretty sure are the very best filter and intake ducting on the market. This filter setup will keep the sometimes prodigious airborne dirt out and is infinitely reusable without the need for special supplies, which again makes it very third-world-friendly.

I do want to get cool air from the front bumper into the intake though, and I intend to do that by running a duct from the factory opening near the headlight into my DIY CAI box.

(BTW I changed the tape on that box to furniture staples later...tape just wouldn't hold up).

Got it, so more of a "reliability" standpoint than a performance standpoint, though I suppose they can be the same

I was just debating throwing a MAF adapter on mine with a cone filter, and I saw your setup and was curious what you'd found. I noticed the trick ducting at the headlight and thought I might be better off just using a factory filter to utilize that. I'd use a drop in, but for the life of me I can't find one for the factory airbox other than OEM replacements.

Thanks for your view on it.

Guess I'm gonna run the dented pulley for now, an AC specialist said trying to fix it would risk breaking the pulley and he couldn't find a replacement either. The mechanic assures me it won't eat belts too fast. Gonna order an AC clutch kit that comes with a new pulley, because I like to minimize the number of timebombs on my vehicles.

Here's a fun page I used to see what my car's gears would be like with a C52 (red) vs a C160 (blue).

link

It actually wouldn't have got me meaningfully lower highway cruising RPMs. That would've been a major bummer. The lower 1st and 2nd probably aren't good for autocross either. Glad I kept my bombproof C52 over the somewhat fragile, high-enriched-unobtanium C160.

Got the handbrake cable changed and oil pressure sensor swapped, got a knock sensor to go on now.

Had to pick up another handbrake balance bar because the PO mangled this one trying to get a cable out at some point.

Well today I finally ran out of patience with the mechanic. When I told him last weekend that I wanted to get the car out of there for Tuesday, and found it today not touched (like during the last few work weeks) and him not even at the shop (he usually works Saturday mornings), something snapped in my head and I sent him some very angry texts, later he called back and we didn't end things well.

I don't care if he thinks he can do it all at the last minute. That E36 M3 stresses me out. When I honestly disclose a deadline that is not too close, that's not carte blanche to do nothing until right before it. He knows finding a problem could lead to delivery delays measured in weeks or months. He should treat finding a problem as a valuable and important event rather than just an annoying trigger for my OCD. I don't want to work with someone I'd have to lie to in order to make them work on a smart timeline. He should realize I'd like to drive this car I've dumped a decade of savings into and have been paying road tax and insurance on all this time.

Sucks because everything was going decently until around late May. Looking back at our texts I can see everything start to go to E36 M3 after the ATF spray incident. And the exhaust build is gonna be A LOT tougher without his help now.

Also sucks to ruin a friendship over business, but logically I know it's the best thing for the project.

The car's gonna leave his shop on Tuesday and not go back there.

Hahaha well the car had to go right back there anyway. Tried to drive it away, had very little braking power. Might be air trapped in the system or it could be that the experiment with the drum proportioning valve on the all-disc setup was a failure.

Well I drove the car home but it's not much better than yesterday. Some rust wore off the brakes and they're a little better but I'm still not too sure about them. Between about 1/2 and 3/4 travel the braking power doesn't increase much.

The engine just sputters above about 1/5 throttle, the mechanic thinks it's the lack of an exhaust but the AFR also shows max lean under these conditions. Cuts out at idle when warm unless I give it extra gas. And then it threw a CEL and I found a heater hose spraying coolant when I got home.

I can't afford to fix all this AND fully prep it for the first autocross this year. Just can't.

At this point it would be reasonable to call this project a failure. But I haven't quite failed yet, I might be able to make it if I line up another mechanic real quick, run the first event with no AC, no corner balance and a string alignment.

Has the idle control valve been cleaned out? This may be part of the idle issues. Remove it and clean out the gunk. Test the bi-metal valve in a pot of boiling water to ensure it is functioning properly. This part is rather expensive so it would be best not to replace.

Has the distributor been removed at any time? I had trouble getting the timing set right on mine. Apparently the 4ag will run with the distributor installed 180º off, just not run great. Just remove and rotate 180º and re-install.

The coolant ports on the IACV not connected, so if anything I should expect the idle to get too high when the engine warms up. They are indeed quite troublesome though, but I won't be running it for too long (ITBs in the future). I'd think the distributor could be the problem if it didn't run fine at low fuel demand and show a totally lean AFR while sputtering.

Gonna do a heater core bypass to fix the coolant leak and swap in the fuel pump that was being used on the donor car to see if that helps fuel delivery, it's the only part of the fuel system that was really changed (injectors were flushed & given new O-rings).

The mechanic has now reached to the same conclusions about the exhaust & fuel delivery and wants to fix these problems. Fine with me, once it actually gets done.

It is easy to diagnose the distributor. Just throw a timing light on it. If you have a wide range, the distributor is installed properly. If you only have 5 or 10 degrees full range, then rotate the distributor.

Keep at it. It will come together.