Richee3's Progress thread., Wilwood BBK installed. Options

[SupraKid]

Sorry i couldnt get you the ECU dan. But good to see you found one!

[bloodMoney]

^This.

[richee3]

No worries, Andrew. vincent_doggy found one pretty much immediately after I PM'd him. Turns out I should ask my contacts in JDM land before pulling my hair out. The ECU is Stateside and clearing Customs as we speak, so it should be here early next week and hopefully that'll bring this swap to a close.

The Paypal dispute with Nengun worked- and worked well. I originally sent them $469 and change, or 37,399 Yen. I didn't get that money back and I opened the Paypal dispute and as of today, they refunded 37,399 Yen... or $476.91. I guess the exchange rate changed a little, huh?

Chris, I still owe you money. PM'd.

[stephen_lee]

nice. i knew a paypal dispute would do something for you. good job!

[Celisauras16]

Yay! I can't WAIT until my car is done.

Wow, she posted! I didn't think you'd do it, considering the last few pages of this thread have been about your car. I love how your BEAMS hasn't even started yet and you, like everyone else with a BEAMS, already have a BEAMS logo in your avatar. Your ECU will be here this week and then we'll get it running. Then I'll drive it around for a month or two, then you can have it back. Or you can keep the IS. Whatever.

(She can keep the IS. )

I didn't know what else to make my avatar, so be nice mister.
So wait, after it starts up you get it for a couple months? And if I win at the casino, I have to buy us both Supras, but if you win you just buy "us" one nice one? I get the feeling I'm being scammed by my own bf....

[richee3]

What? I would never con you into buying me a Supra when I would only buy one for myself...

[richee3]

Got a box in the mail today... You ever feel that the guys that work for customs are literally a bunch of apes? Like there's one guy there in a suit and tie and all the rest of the workers are a bunch of chimps running around, jumping all over the place, throwing their poop at each other? Yeah, I get that feeling too. This box sat in Customs for 5 days before moving. When it did move, it didn't go to Galatia, IL as addressed. Instead, it went to Wichita, Kansas. Because the whole state of Illinois is now located within city limits of Wichita, apparently. My box is covered in "US CUSTOMS" tape, because I guess the fact that it clearly says "Used car ECU" on the side of the box isn't good enough. I suspect these chimps sat on the box for 5 straight days, probably sniffing it a lot, and throwing it at each other when they ran out of poop.

No, seriously.



But I finally got this box, and as if you guys can't figure out what it had in it...



Finally, I have an appropriately labeled Toyota ECU. Got it out of the box, plugged it in, car turned over 3 times, then fired right up. Didn't even have any idle problems or anything. First impressions... BEAMS with an open header is loud as sh*t! Took it for a spin and I have to say, open header, full tank of 87 octane rather than 91/93, my mind isn't blown. But then, I didn't expect it to be. It's exactly as previous BEAMS swappers have said- it's not just sudden, violent power. It's very smooth all the way up to redline, acts like a 5S for the most part until VVT kicks in, then gets to redline without hesitation. You just really get the feeling that this is how the car should have felt from the factory, without any of that 5S tomfoolery.

Initial problems I had with the motor, the battery light stayed on after the car was running. Bad alternator. Swapped that out for my Greytop alternator, problem solved. Power steering pump was whining, but Chris told me that I just needed to fill up and bleed the power steering system. Words of wisdom indeed. The battery doesn't seem to be staying charged at all... Ground issue? I'm guessing that the problem lies in my battery relocation since this is a brand new battery. It wasn't exactly staying charged before I got the motor started. And last but not least, the biggest issue. I was driving the car around pretty calmly, just to see how it was running, and it started backfiring a little when I let off the gas. Then I could feel it missing. Then it got to the point where I was holding the pedal to the floor and it was struggling to pull itself along. It wouldn't die, just wouldn't get above like 1,300 rpm. If I pushed the clutch in, it idled just fine. It just didn't like when I gave it any gas. It did this for about 5 minutes, pulling itself up hills just fine, idling along, refusing to die. Then after that, it got to the point where I could give it a little bit of gas. Give it too much, it had problems again. Let it idle for a minute, give it gas again. Problems solved. I'm thinking maybe since I'm running an open header that the O2 sensor was sending the wrong signal to the engine? Or maybe the AFM in the intake. I'm honestly not sure what to suspect on that. Keep in mind that the car simply would not die, pulling itself up some decently steep hills, idling along. I would expect the car to die if it had to idle up a hill, but it kept giving itself just enough fuel to keep running and keep moving. The temp gauge said it wasn't running hot, full tank of fuel, so I'm thinking either O2 sensor or AFM. Hopefully one of the gurus knows what that problem is since I'm hoping to send the car back to the girlfriend in the next few days.

Picture just for kicks and giggles.


This post has been edited by richee3: Jul 13, 2011 - 10:50 PM

[bloodMoney]

*patsselfonback*

Damn we do good work!

Just think, if we had the right ECU in the first place, we would've driven it that weekend....

[cheela]

looks good.

[Culpable04]

the issue described is with the same 87 octane fuel ? if so, that's the first thing I would look into, that engine was not designed to run with that low octane junk.

[FORGMANN]

Your box has customs tape on it because they probably opened it.

I ship tons of stuff monthly from Japan and never once have i had that
tape on it and takes 2 days.

[BonzaiCelica]

running 87 octane on a 11:1 compression engine you crazy!!? It was probably engine knocking and you couldn't hear it because of your open header. The least you can safely run on beams is 91 octane.

Good job getting it up and running. Congrats

[njccmd2002]

clean that maf...

[richee3]

clean that maf...

Actually, I am beginning to suspect that the intake is my problem. The car was running great when I first started it up and went for a couple of drives. Then in the middle of one drive, it started hesitating. I know the intake pipe for the BEAMS need to be for a 97-01 Camry. I was told to get the Injen intake for $200 or more. Instead, I went cheap and got the Weapon-R intake for $130. See those nipples sticking up on the intake pipe? The Injen intake doesn't have those. I stopped them up with some JB Quick Weld but the JB Weld is no longer in the middle nipple. Given that I have read how sensitive the AFM is, I'm guessing that I've found the problem. It's hot right now and I'm watching Scrubs and doing some much-deserved cuddling so I'll go do some troubleshooting later.

Exhaust is fabbed up and complete. I don't have a gasket for the B pipe yet, so I still have an exhaust leak that needs to be taken care of.

[BonzaiCelica]

you should of bought this. http://www.amazon.com/Short-Induction-Inta.../dp/B002W5XHI8/

whats the piping size of your current intake??

honestly don't run 87 octane anymore. You'll screw up your engine, performance will be crappy, and at that point your knock sensor won't be doing its job. These engines run perfectly on 94 octane. You'll just end up damaging your internals with 87 octane.

[njccmd2002]

dude the intake i bought was 30 bucks and then i modified, i paid no brand, hell even the hks was 60 bucks..

make sure that intake is 80mm and shave those nipples and even out the surface from the inside...

no turbulence.... thats the key word...



thats my cheap intake...


and i scouted ebay and could not find any of those cheap intakes, maybe the company went out of busz./

[stephen_lee]

skeet.

[BonzaiCelica]

what are you talking about Norberto I just posted my link. It looks similar to the intake I bought off of you. 80mm thats too big. 70mm is oem size...

[njccmd2002]

internal diameter is 72 mm...

retracting statement....

This post has been edited by njccmd2002: Jul 14, 2011 - 11:30 PM

[BonzaiCelica]

I'm not confusing anybody Im giving straight up facts, you didn't even measure it right.



also backed up by the guys at beams owners group: http://www.mr2.com/forums/beams-owners-gro...ntake-pipe.html

puretone later says in page 3 that if someone could fabricate a 70mm intake piping that it would be a perfect page

This post has been edited by BonzaiCelica: Sep 10, 2012 - 12:55 AM