6G Celicas Forums

stick-on fender vents, aaaaand this:

Hello 6gc, long time no update.

I've been exercising a lot of fiscal responsibility the last couple of months so the celi build had to be put on hold unfortunately. Now however, I'm all set to continue what was started back in 2011. Phase 2 has already begun with just one small change. I've decided to leave the E154f alone and simply go with an S54-06D from a beams. The 06D allows me to use my current clutch(I might still change it out for something other than Clutchmasters), has good gearing, a helical lsd, and should (not confirmed) be pretty much plug and play with my superstrut suspension if I use Beams axles. So for the rest of the year I'm going to be reconditioning my GT4 superstrut to function with a USDM LHD chassis, sourcing an LSD S54, and just overall redoing the suspension on the car. Phase 3 will take place in the hopefully near future when I have a larger garage, a welder, and maybe a spare shell. Anyway, here's the progress on phase 2 so far:


Here is a picture of my work bench. It's certainly nice not having a pile of engine internals on it for a change. Instead I have a fantastic example of Toyotas multilink suspension engineering to look at.


I decided to work on brakes first. My clip came with all four rotors so I set to work reconditioning them. The above photo shows what state they were in when I pulled them out of their storage boxes:


First thing to do was get rid of all the rust to prepare the surface for powder coating. Luckily my friend has a blasting cabinet with aluminum oxide that allowed me to strip the surface rust off.


A quick bake in the oven ensured there was nothing on the rotors that would affect the powdercoat finish.


A few hours later we had all four rotors coated with high temperature powder coat. Now it was time to throw them on a CNC lathe.


I took the rotors to my old mans shop where we cut down between 10 and 20 thou off the pad surfaces. Great pains were taken to ensure a consistent runout for all surfaces.


And finally here are the results of all this work. Turned out pretty well for used OEM rotors


Some may say that new pads wont bed-in on a smooth surface like this. And they would be wrong. We've been doing this in my family for years and it's always worked perfectly. The Toyota FSM even calls for a lathe.

Along with working on the rotors I also cleaned, inspected and painted all of the calipers. They seem to be in very good condition so I don't think I'll be rebuilding them. If they do end up needing to be rebuilt I'll order a new seal kit from tcbparts.co.uk. I decided to use VHT caliper paint on these instead of powdercoating them. The reason for this lies in the fact that I've only ever found mixed opinions on whether the rubber seals in calipers can stand up to the extended periods of heat that comes with powder. The fact that brakes are designed to convert kinetic energy to heat makes this almost a no brainer, but there are plenty of people that had leaking problems after coating. So I'm going to try caliper paint first. The porsche guys seem to have good luck with VHT. The key is surface preparation. Observe:


First a quick before shot of how the calipers looked when I got them.


Here's another shot showing the front 4-pots. I spent a lot of time sanding these down with a 3M sanding sponge to get the surface nicks fixed up. I then got rid of all the brake dust in the hard to reach places with a plastic bristle brush before degreasing everything.


From there I spent what felt like an eternity masking off the contact surfaces before applying multiple layers of paint.


Here is a shot of one of the rear calipers. I'm still on the fence on whether or not I should make the Celica logo stand out.


Finally the completed caliper. I'm in the process of ordering new pads and hardware, along with a set of GT4 stainless lines.

I'm going to have to overcome two obstacles in order to install superstrut into my USDM frame. Those are steering rack compatibility, and axle compatibility. Other members on these forums have shown that the inner tie rods on the GT4 steering rack can be transferred over to a USDM rack, the only problem with this is that the overall length that results is too short. Extending the rods offers a solution, but I'm not convinced that doing so wont affect the steering Ackerman angle. I'll have to sit down, take some measurements and do some math eventually. Furthermore I still have to confirm that the GT4 subframe will accept a USDM rack (I'm going to purchase a rebuilt rack this Thursday and compare ). If it does not fit I'm going to have to source another USDM subframe and clean it up instead. Finally I have to confirm that BEAMS lsd axles will fit into a GT4 hub. If they do I have nothing to worry about. If they don't I'm going to have to mix and match tulips between axles, or press in different hubs into the GT4 uprights.

In the midst of all of this I'm also going to weatherproof the entire suspension with POR-15 hardnose paint. This stuff is really popular with guys that restore old cars and should offer the best protection against rocks and salt. To complement everything I'm going to use polyurethane bushings wherever I can. However one of the benefits of a superstrut suspension (Aside from maintaining camber like a double wishbone) is that it replaces a lot of the bushings found in mcpherson setups with solid joints, so it's a very tight suspension straight from the factory. If I remember right there is really only one place where you can find a rubber bushing, and that's on the rear banana arm. So the polyurethane is most likely going to go on the rear banana arm, the sway bar mounts, endlinks, and rear suspension.

Anyway, the first step toward weatherproofing the suspension was to clean off all of the dirt and grease from everything. This is where my power washer came in handy yet again:


Here is the subframe and the majority of the suspension mid cleaning. I was surprised at how much welding splatter there was, guess Toyota didn't really care how it looked back then

Alright, that's all I have for now. Expect more updates in the coming weeks, my target burnout date is November 30th

This post has been edited by enderswift: Oct 2, 2013 - 6:37 PM

you are the man

you dont need beams axles. use your original manual transmission s54 axles to fit them into ss3 or gt4 knuckle.

proof on superstrut thread.


and..... boooom!

no need to do research the evidence is already here.

SCROLL TO THE BOTTOM !!! http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=89939



This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Oct 1, 2013 - 4:25 PM

Thanks dude



Ah that's good news. I kinda suspected that was the case since the SSIII has an s54 trans and superstrut. It just wouldn't make sense for Toyota to go through the trouble of specifying a different hub for the GT4. I still think I'm going to try and source a set of beams axles anyway though, they are definitely stronger than what is available for the s54 in the US.

As far as the steering issue goes, I've definitely been keeping an eye on that thread. I like the fact that it shows how things can be plug and play, but I really want to make sure none of the steering angles get messed up if I go down that path.

This post has been edited by enderswift: Oct 1, 2013 - 5:49 PM

Excellent stuff. Must be fantastic for steady-state cornering, camber that adjusts.

the way i look at it with beams axles. i mean they are thicker and heavier in that matter. so they put down less wheel power?

yea my concern is steering angles but i only see that as a concern if your auto x. on the track it won't be much of a difference how many sharp u turns do you take on a race track.

The loss of power due to extra mass would be so tiny that I doubt anyone would notice it. But the added strength makes all the difference considering how many member here have sheared/broken regular 5s axles.

And I guess you're right about steering angles...I mean it's important but production cars don't really follow perfect ackerman anyway. I'm just trying to avoid a situation where the handling gains that come from better camber compensation get offset by slightly tweaked steering

This post has been edited by enderswift: Oct 2, 2013 - 6:36 PM

Please tell me you plan on driving this thing in the snow, it would be one badass machine.

It's my daily and I unfortunately live in the midwest. I have no choice haha. A good suspension and LSD were sorely needed last winter. I even crashed into a curb during one the snow storms. Thankfully all it cost me was rim, and maybe a balljoint if the latest clunking is any indication

I guess I'm just one of those people that, why would you build a car... spend all that money and time, if you don't drive the damn thing. That's all. LOL.

I agree 100% These cars are meant to be enjoyed, not stared at in a garage half the year

I too really really need LSD. I can one wheel squeal like a pro!

Open diffs suck, hope you get that e153 in there soon

On another note, here's the progress I've made lately:


As I mentioned before I needed to confirm a number of things before I could go through with the superstrut swap. One of them was whether or not a USDM rack would fit on a JDM GT4 subframe. The answer unfortunately is no. Above is a picture of the horrible looking 'rebuilt' steering rack I recieved from Advance auto (they painted over dirt ). It's not a very good picture but the mounts on the ST205 subframe are spaced too far wide apart compared to a USDM part; everything else is identical however.

I eventually gave in and spent some time making the aforementioned 'rebuilt' steering rack look halfway decent. Couldn't shake the feeling that I was polishing a turd though. If they couldn't be half assed to at least clean the dirt off, then what confidence do I have in the parts they actually rebuilt? I guess we'll see what happens after I install this thing. I'm already mentally bracing myself for a mid-winter rack swap and plan on keeping the one that came with my car as a spare, just in case.


Since this car is my daily driver, I had to source another USDM subframe. This way I can comfortably go through the process of checking compatibility and rustproofing while still using the car everyday. So with that in mind I made a stop by a local junkyard and pulled this undamaged member from a wrecked '95 gt convertible. It was snowing, I had no impacts, and no torch. It took two and a half hours to rip this thing out. Never again

At the time I was really surprised because the subframe looked pretty good and mostly rust free. Turned out that a thick layer of grease and grime was concealing quite a bit though. Some engine degreaser and a soft bristle brush revealed a few pitted areas and surface rust on a lot of the welds. Oh well, cant expect perfect parts out of a 18 year old car. Especially not in this part of the country.


With all of the pitting I decided to go ahead and blast away all of the rust with aluminum oxide. Blasting does a much better job clearing rust pits than a wire wheel ever could. My friends blasting cabinet is really meant for smaller parts so I made a temporary cardboard cabinet and set to work.


Worked pretty well for the majority of the blasting, but it ultimately turned out to be too small. I had to finish the rest of the subframe at the shop.


And finally here is the result of all my effort. 99% of the rust is gone and the metal is currently soaked in wd-40 until my order of POR-15 comes in.

While all of this was going on, I also worked on creating inner tie rods that would allow me to use ST205 outer tie rods with a USDM steering rack. I measured the USDM rack and found a ~21" total length, whereas the ST205 rack measured roughly ~24". Therefore I had to create parts that were 1.5" longer than the ST205 rods.

Luckily USDM steering racks came with inner tie rods that were much longer than what is needed for the custom parts. So making inner tie rods that would work was only a matter of cutting the USDM rods to the right length, machining the proper diameter, and threading:


On top is an inner USDM tie rod after it has been cut short. It is 1.5 inches longer than the ST205 part below. Next step was to turn the piece to the proper size for threading.


Machining the diameter down.


Get ready for hands down, 'the' most exciting video you have ever seen. Ever


And here is the final product. Original ST205 rod on the left, new machined rod on the right. We later added flat spots to give the alignment guy something to put his wrench onto. For those considering this swap in the future, all you need is a USDM rod to be cut short and threaded. Any machine shop with a lathe can do this without a problem.


All of this work just to have a little bulge in the outer tie rod.


Here is a small mockup I did with the newly machined inner rods and freshly blasted subframe. Soon I'll be applying a layer of POR to everything and getting started on reconditioning the steering knuckles.

With subframe and tie rod compatibility taken care of, it was now a matter of figuring out what to do about axles. I plan on using an S54-06d and beams axles, so I had to make absolutely sure they would fit the ST205 hubs. A few members on here have asserted that there would be no problems. However I could not miss an opportunity to take pictures when it came time to replace a trashed balljoint on my current mcpherson suspension.


There you have it, an ST205 axle fits an ST204 hub no problem. Thus beams axles will fit the GT4 hubs perfectly

The plan is to have all of this cleaned up and installed by the end of November. From there I'll finally be able to start saving for meth injection and a boost controller. Cannot wait

This post has been edited by enderswift: Nov 3, 2013 - 11:44 PM

Wow.

All this being done in such a limited space!!
Just goes to show ---
Plan your work...::...Work your plan

Hats off & thumbs up!!

Awesome progress Luk.

and the vid...very exciting watching it spin

Whose shop was that? Yours!!! Awesome dude..

Very cool Luke.

You're making me want to take Abby down to keep up with you.....

Great updates Luke; this thread is full of excellent information and inspiration.

Amazing attention to detail Luke! Keep up the clean work!