DEATH's GT2 Progress [Updated 01-24-13], 6 years/60k? Miles and FCUKING RIDICULOUS!!! Options

[DEATH]

You already have a rebuildable turbo so it's just a matter of a $250 rebuild with a couple $100 worth of upgrades and machining.

[D-Man]

No... What do i have to buy FROM you to FUND the ct-27 for YOU?! it was a joke, get it? as if i were your customer and you were a specialty Celica outlet Garage? (witch is generally the basic scenario here )

Tard'

BTW: you sold me a ct-26 not 27

This post has been edited by D-Man: Jul 22, 2008 - 3:55 PM

[DEATH]

Plus I found a replacement visor for me so I can mount a small screen in mine and a matchin vanity we scored from an Avalon in my girls

Thankfully I decided this was an incredibly bad idea [Really just poor taste/Too Ricey for a car this elegant]. The SRS Audio/Video install is all the car needs in the style it deserves [subdued stockish looking setup that can be hidden away to full stock look - perfect]. I may install the other screen where the rear ashtray is - looks alot better there and the kids will appreciate it.

But a new gremlin has popped up: BRB with that but think on this: EFI relay getting too hot on 100* days?
Edit - Forgot one of the most expensive ones of all.

This is really the reason for the post. Turns out this was merely a failing starter issue. Found some ominous dark grey shavings in the starter's gear box [BGB calls it a "Clutch Assy" - but obviously not the clutch - clutch]. I've learned not to count my chickens with this car so not gonna say this fixed the heat related issue but the damn thing sounds like a Lexus Starter and has enough power that I can feel it through the poly motor mounts into the chassis. Watching the volts meter reveals it uses far less power to start the car and it catches immediately every time. Very satisfied and we went ahead and wiped down/cleaned the whole area around the starter, clutch slave cylinder and Turbo - just another area lovingly restored to like brand new - the starter even looks updated from the OEM one.
Keeping my fingers crossed, but I expect on the next hot day she won't give me anymore trouble restarting after long hot run [So next Texas Toyota meet we won't spend half the time in a parking lot waiting for my starter to cool down I don't regret that much - got to actually meet and have real conversations with some very cool Texas Celica owners]
Here's the thread on the starter replacement:
http://www.6gc.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=60553
Will have pics up shortly. Thanks again to the folks who stepped up to help when I needed it - IMO this is what this site is all about.

This post has been edited by DEATH: Jul 24, 2008 - 8:37 AM

[zero07]

And you wanted us to leave you behind..........Death Before Dishonor!

[DEATH]

And you wanted us to leave you behind..........Death Before Dishonor!

Dude - that's so awesome [and awesome of you guys to stick around like that too - I think a few we're heading to their cars tho ]

[darthripley]

hopefully replacing the starter fixed the hot start issue you were having Death - the starter is a common thing to go out on 2nd gen 3sgte motors.

D-Man, i know all about going from a 5sfe to a 3sgte & feeling the powah ... i have a '99 Camry so there's a pretty big difference even at just stock boost levels.
however, it is very easy to get spoiled by power very quickly and want more

[D-Man]

D-Man, i know all about going from a 5sfe to a 3sgte & feeling the powah ... i have a '99 Camry so there's a pretty big difference even at just stock boost levels.
however, it is very easy to get spoiled by power very quickly and want more

yeah, not to mention it was my B-Day the other day, so He took me for a few runs at a nearby strip Really, going from my wrecked special and hopping into the best GT4 Conversion that Texas has to offer That is FTW!!

[DEATH]

GT2 but "Muchos Garcias"
Ripley - It just gets better every week. Last weekend when I took D-Man out the car was running soooo much better than in Austin [I forget what last weeks upgrade was - just some tweaking in the vac lines and such I believe].
I think next time we meet we may have to do so at the track
BTW - Been following LuBu's thread about the ST-205 brake conversion and apparantly we need some spacers in the rear and much machining to the rotors in the front. I'm gonna make him some quality spacers and a drawing for the rear of his car, can you offer some insight into how much you had to machine you're rotors [Not that it would necessarily be the same]?

This post has been edited by DEATH: Jul 24, 2008 - 2:47 PM

[Havok1997GT]

D-man, Im not going to be stock much longer (as suspension is concerned anyways, still waiting for the space to start working on that spare 5s and start the turbo project) me and you need to hit a track up soon to put that 5 speed vs Auto 5s argument to a rest

[darthripley]

GT2 but "Muchos Garcias"
Ripley - It just gets better every week. Last weekend when I took D-Man out the car was running soooo much better than in Austin [I forget what last weeks upgrade was - just some tweaking in the vac lines and such I believe].
I think next time we meet we may have to do so at the track
BTW - Been following LuBu's thread about the ST-205 brake conversion and apparantly we need some spacers in the rear and much machining to the rotors in the front. I'm gonna make him some quality spacers and a drawing for the rear of his car, can you offer some insight into how much you had to machine you're rotors [Not that it would necessarily be the same]?

that's great Death - so glad the car is running better. those vac leaks can really rob you of boost/power. Vadar had one & we were loosing 2 psi of boost but luckily it was an easy fix.

that would be cool to go to a track - neither joe or i have been to a drag strip but would love to go sometime.
next time we'll have a tranny without synchro grinds & a better clutch too -- oh & a carbon fiber driveshaft tee hee!!
you'll get us probably since your car is lighter & doesn't have the 4WD drivetrain loss that we do, but it would still be fun to do

on the ST205 brake conversion:
really interesting that you guys need a spacer in the rear --- the ST205 rears are a straight bolt on for ST185's. no rotor machining needed there, no spacer, no grinding.
all we did was use a BFH to massage the old dust shields to accept the new larger rotors.
it was really easy & took like 2 hours to take all the old stuff off & put the new 205 rears on.

as far as the fronts are concerned:
1. we had 9mm machined off the front rotor
2. added a 5mm spacer to clear the lower ball joint which was machined down 4mm to fit inside the rotor hat. also used extended wheel studs.
3. used a dremel & ground off about 2mm from the back caliper "ears"
4. we also added a small "ring" of metal inside the rotor since the hub center bore on a ST185 is 54.1mm & a ST205 is 55mm. this will keep all the rotors onto the hub with no moving around.

you have to be a registered member on alltrac.net to view, but i did a small writeup with pics in my project thread there:
http://www.alltrac.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.ph...c&start=150

it makes more sense to see all the pics to know what i am talking about on certain things.

[DEATH]

You wanna know how I tracked mine down? I added a boost gauge line to the compressor housing outlet on a T and sent it to my other TRD gauge [Yes I have two cause I'm TRD like that ] and piped the other from the end of the intake manifold. Then I observed the two and noticed I was getting 2psi less on the IM gauge. So I moved the Turbo one up the piping at various spots until the two gauges read true to each other then I knew the leak was between what was left of the piping and the end of the IM. Found it about 5mins after that. Worked like a charm

[darthripley]

that's a great way to find vac leaks. luckily we could hear it hissing near the intake manifold so it wasn't too hard to track down

oh btw on the ST205 brakes for your ST202 in the rear ... Joe & i read lubu's project thread & it looks like depending on the size + offset of your rims you may not need a spacer in the rear.
it's really amazing how much the ST202 suspension/brake setup is almost identical looking to my Camry, after seeing all of lubu's pics.

[lubu]

that's a great way to find vac leaks. luckily we could hear it hissing near the intake manifold so it wasn't too hard to track down

oh btw on the ST205 brakes for your ST202 in the rear ... Joe & i read lubu's project thread & it looks like depending on the size + offset of your rims you may not need a spacer in the rear.
it's really amazing how much the ST202 suspension/brake setup is almost identical looking to my Camry, after seeing all of lubu's pics.

on the ST205 brake conversion:
really interesting that you guys need a spacer in the rear --- the ST205 rears are a straight bolt on for ST185's. no rotor machining needed there, no spacer, no grinding.
all we did was use a BFH to massage the old dust shields to accept the new larger rotors.
it was really easy & took like 2 hours to take all the old stuff off & put the new 205 rears on.

as far as the fronts are concerned:
1. we had 9mm machined off the front rotor
2. added a 5mm spacer to clear the lower ball joint which was machined down 4mm to fit inside the rotor hat. also used extended wheel studs.
3. used a dremel & ground off about 2mm from the back caliper "ears"
4. we also added a small "ring" of metal inside the rotor since the hub center bore on a ST185 is 54.1mm & a ST205 is 55mm. this will keep all the rotors onto the hub with no moving around.

I found two links for the st185 conversion, one here and one here.

But the st185 conversion is not the same as the st204's, the spacers DEATH and I was talking abt is not for the rims but for the caplipers to align themselves to center with the rotors.
For the fronts I have yet to measure the amount needed to trim but the diameter would need to be trimmed down to 300mm, at least.

Before commenncing this mod I heard many stories abt how hard this is gonna be and that its not worth it, but with abit of research I found this conversion very straight forward.
Whats needed in this conversion are accurate measurements, thats it.

[darthripley]

I found two links for the st185 conversion, one here and one here.

But the st185 conversion is not the same as the st204's, the spacers DEATH and I was talking abt is not for the rims but for the caplipers to align themselves to center with the rotors.
For the fronts I have yet to measure the amount needed to trim but the diameter would need to be trimmed down to 300mm, at least.

Before commenncing this mod I heard many stories abt how hard this is gonna be and that its not worth it, but with abit of research I found this conversion very straight forward.
Whats needed in this conversion are accurate measurements, thats it.

i'm well aware the ST185 conversion is completely different than any ST20x ... i find it interesting just how different it is after doing it on our ST185.
i also find it interesting how similar a ST204 is to my Camry, that's all.
i'm only trying to help by giving a guideline of what we personally did on our ST185 since Death asked.

joe & i studied the 2 links you posted before we even got our 205 brakes and while they offer a semi-decent guidline there are many things that we did way differently.

as far as trimming the rotors to less than 300mm, just watch out for the calipers/pads - they may start hanging off the rotor and you won't get the same clamping force.

i heard the same stories regarding ST205 brakes onto a ST185 and that they weighed so much & it wasn't worth the effort etc. etc.
it's been well worth it already and the brakes will be able to handle the amount of hp the car will be putting out.

This post has been edited by darthripley: Jul 26, 2008 - 3:16 AM

[lubu]

i heard the same stories regarding ST205 brakes onto a ST185 and that they weighed so much & it wasn't worth the effort etc. etc.
it's been well worth it already and the brakes will be able to handle the amount of hp the car will be putting out.

Actually the caplipers are much lighter than the stock's, but the rotors are bigger therefore heavier. So in a sense the weights cancel each other out.

as far as trimming the rotors to less than 300mm, just watch out for the calipers/pads - they may start hanging off the rotor and you won't get the same clamping force.

Thats what I was thinking too.

This post has been edited by lubu: Jul 26, 2008 - 4:18 AM

[DEATH]

Blingy chromy type stuff seemed to be the order of the weekend [Which is strange because unlike my racoon-like friends - chrome holds no fascination for me - in fact in most cases I just find it to be a heavy metal coating better suited to show cars then race cars. Be that as it may...]

I have, for the last week been spending every spare moment [about 12hrs total] polishing my spare Turbo Heatshield. Let me tell you, this was an enormous task that ate up a tn of time, elbow grease and about $30 in dremil bits/supplies etc. Also I got a wild hair up you know where and decided to install the heatshield that came with my Apex'I intake filter/adapter and it too was chrome [Quite the worthless device I'm sure but I guess it helps balance out the look of the engine bay a bit]:

Checking fitment on STB and accessability of fluid level reservoirs, TB clearance, etc. [Also here you can see where I was fitting up extra bracing for the STB mounting points - I need to take a current pic so you guys can see how that wored out - very nicely BTW]

Made a killer difference [I need to get pics with that thing finished, ground smooth and painted right]. BTW - It looks crooked in the top two pics cause it wasn't attached on the DS side correctly yet - it does not look crooked anymore [Anybody else notice the stock 3 point is not symetrical?]

This post has been edited by DEATH: Aug 11, 2008 - 3:37 PM

[darthripley]

STB looks good!
the heat shield will turn gold like ours, it was chromey at one time - all the heat from the exhaust manifold turns the polished chrome to gold.

are you gonna get a ST205 front bumper someday? that would look SO nice!

This post has been edited by darthripley: Aug 11, 2008 - 4:27 PM

[DEATH]

STB looks good!
the heat shield will turn gold like ours, it was chromey at one time - all the heat from the exhaust manifold turns the polished chrome to gold.

I thought about that but I just used various grades of sandpaper to remove the factory coating [Whatever that stuff is it's tough!] and then slowly worked my way throught the dremil sanding, to polishing and finally a little wet sanding with 1200grit wet/dry paper - those pictures do it no justice whatsoever - it looks mirror polished in person.
You still think it's gonna turn yellow? Damnit I hope not - I'll keep taking it off and sanding it down then

This post has been edited by DEATH: Aug 11, 2008 - 4:29 PM

[CelicaST_CALI]

can someone sum up this thread in a single post plz

[95celgt]

are those splitters i see??!?

i just fixed me a pair of the TRD splitters for my vert:D