I has a car, Updated 11/1/2015 - Nothing of note. Options

[Anoroc]

New wheels on.

Ride quality is delicious in comparison, brand new tyres appear to be ideal. Considering some rear spacers, and it needs to be a fair bit lower at the back to not look too silly, but it looks much better than the stock ones.

Definately need hub rings, but it appears that my understeer woes were primarily due to completely bald shoulders on my previous tyres. Took the Paekak hill back home from Waikanae (where some wheel nuts that fit were hiding), and despite the cold evening and damp road, didn't find the point of understeer despite throwing it into corners progressively harder throughout the ride. Non-NZ based posters should browse streetview through that road, its a damn good drive!

Previously, i'd have sledged the entire way through. I presume this means i'll get shoulder wear fairly quickly on these, but I can't have it all.





Related note, do any NZ-based posters want some glow-in-the-dark facelift ST205 wheels on some borderline tyres? Special plice!

[Rusty]

front definitelly look good, rears as you said could use a spacer

nope on the rims, mine are white

[SwissFerdi]

Man those wheels are tasty.

[delusionz]

theres a reason why the rear is jacked up like that, and why the rear track is 5mm narrower than the front, its to reduce the understeer inherent in the chassis and drivetrain design,

in my experience (trial and mostly error) the best setup that looks good and is still functional is 17x8 ET25 (or equiv in spacers, which requires fender roll), reduce rear negcamber from -2 to -1 and increase front negcamber from 0 to -1 (even all round) ride height should be mostly same all round since reducing the rear negcamber will reduce rear grip but lowering the rear will increase it again.

rear spacer and lowered rear = understeer city

[delusionz]

ideal ride height for handling i think would be anything tall enough so the tyres arent tucked, i think celicas need that long suspension stroke to have good handling

[Anoroc]

I have spoken to the fine gentleman at Frost Motorsport who is game to convert this overweight, understeering orphan from 4WD to N/S RWD, most likely through the use of a W58.

Wife pursuasion and funding pending.

I'm sure it'll divide a few opinions, but the reality is that with children on the way in the not-too-distant future, this won't see as much track time as I would like, nor will it likely ever see the business end of a Targa stage. Hence, I want it to be as enjoyable as possible where it is used, which is on the street, with the occasional Wendys run over the Paekak Hill.

The change in format, moving of the engine and reverting to 2WD should clean up the understeering issues the car has, remove a fair amount of power sap from the drivetrain, and drop the weight significantly (as well as leaving what remains further back.

This is rather longterm, and may not commence for some time. Thoughts appreciated.

ACTUAL UPDATE: Painted the ugly muffler/exhaust tip with black VHT so I don't have to see it as much until the actual exhaust gets built.

[Anoroc]

Reference pic from before paint, none taken as yet:



Good lawd it was ugly. You can see my ST202's butt with the GT4's boot lid. I do miss it.

This post has been edited by Anoroc: Jul 16, 2012 - 2:46 AM

[delusionz]

Lol get that GT4 badge back.

My engineer also would like to see my GT4 turn into a 2jz rwd monster. I keep telling him its too extreme, I may aswell have the Supra in the first place.

Also what happens to our steering setup? There would be no need for the bull**** macphersonsuperslutsuspension anymore once the wheels are freed from the drivetrain, so some kind of A-arm suspension from a Nissan or Mazda or something may be the way to go, then if this means different hubs, chances are we get to upgrade to 5x114 wheels (loads more choice), so then we'd also want to swap the rear suspension too so custom strut mounts all round too.

did you see GT8/GT4000 on Toyspeed?

its one heck of a job, i think if you had a full supra tt to donate the parts, you'd just drive the supra...

[delusionz]

oh by the way, yes, rotate your wheels every 5000kms (with an oil change is good)

if you drive anything like i do, you'll wear the fronts down with lots of camber wear

superstrut is good for that

[Anoroc]

I keep thinking that maybe I should flag the stupidstrut-equipped chubby thing in the garage and just pick up a Mk3 Supra with a 1JZ and do skids that way.

But to be honest, even if it takes more effort, I want to have it done with a GT4. There's few enough of them around as it is, and I like being different, even if it does make everything harder and more expensive than it needs to be.

Kinda like the wife. Trolololol.

The superslut suspension can be converted to MacPherson as it is - the other guy down this way with a GT4 that I know of is building a relatively monstrous 3S, and has already converted to plain old MacP coilovers at the front through some engineering trickery. Annoying to do, especially so if you're still running the stock 4pots at the front, but possible.

The GT8 burnout vid is one of the most delicious things i've ever seen - automated boot opening/closing to let smoke out? A+

oh by the way, yes, rotate your wheels every 5000kms (with an oil change is good)

if you drive anything like i do, you'll wear the fronts down with lots of camber wear

superstrut is good for that

Yep, didn't expect the shoulders to last as long as the rest of the tyres

This post has been edited by Anoroc: Jul 16, 2012 - 3:13 AM

[SwissFerdi]

Liking the RPF1s still, noticing a big difference with the weight loss?

[Anoroc]

Not a great deal, except for looking better obviously!

These arrived today:



Gotta file down the fronts, paint the rears, and work out how i'm attaching them, then the skirts will go back on too.

[Box]

Look forward to seeing the skirts and spats on.

[Anoroc]

Several weeks recap! In MySpace fashion, i'm feeling [good].

A couple of weeks ago, I brought and had delivered some front and rear caps (TRD styled, rather than SS-3). These were in varying condition - the fronts were in relatively faded Toyota 040 'super white', while the rears were merely primered.


I picked up some aerosol 040 from Super Cheap, and gave the rears a few coats + clear. It came out quite alright, except that once dried, I mocked them up to the car - and said **** **** ****ting dicknipples. Apparently, 16 years and 215,000km means that paint, even white, ends up a different colour. The can was far brighter than the car. These got shelved for the meantime. I had a plan, and ****. Note that the colour difference is worse IRL than in this pic, this camera makes up for a lot.


Last Saturday, as per WDYDTYCT, I picked up some oil (5w30 Castrol Edge, with mad wankery Titanium Technorogy) and put that in, with the intention of following up with a thermostat change (as I also picked up some coolant + thermostat from Toyota) - nope.avi. Alternator well and truly in the way.


Said ****it, and decided to look at my front caps. They were pretty well colour matched to the car, but due to the shape of the ST205 front bumper, they needed trimming to not 'interrupt' the eyelets. It looks goofy for them to be left as is, and I intend on running intake ducting down to the passenger side one eventually. Had a 'close enough' stab at filing them down, which came out looking like this:



Still quite a bit of a gap between the inside of the cap (even when solidly held in place) and the cap, so I noted that i'd need to get some filler in to let the caps match the lines of the bumper. Thats alright, not as aggravating as the thermostat, anyway. Went to a stag party, lost Sunday to a raging headache and couldn't attempt anything then.

On Monday evening, I had the assistance of a gentleman from work with time on his hands, tools in his car, and hatred for the skin on his knuckles.


Battles were had, alternator came out, thermostat came off, revealing a bunch of crud in the coolant. Not ideal, so we flushed that like a post-stag night poo.


New thermostat went on. Old one was completely ****ed. Witchcraft occurred. Temperature stays constant as intended. Butt dyno is impressed. Car will move directly sideways when pushed hard in slippery conditions, which makes me wonder how much power was missing due to shovelling petrol through the exhaust. Combination of new plugs (see a few pages ago) and this make it feel like a vastly different car to initially purchased one.


Fast forward to today.

I'm currently in posession of a 1996 Fiat Grande Punto (to sell for the father-in-law while he's overseas). I give it credit for some small things, like the fact that it is more comfortable than my car over bumps etc, and has a far better heater/AC. Thats where it ends. The gearbox is a pile of aids. It is 1500kg pulled by an asthmatic, fascist 1.4L. This has made me appreciate my car far, far more (going from that to my car almost makes me think that I own something fast!), and encouraged me to get out and get some stuff done.

I had borrowed some filler from another fine gentleman from work, and bukakked the front caps with it, filing it down between layers to ensure i was actually achieving what I had wanted to. Currently a little messy, but more or less follows the lines of the front bumper - tomorrow's (maybe) job will filling it out and hitting it with some primer.


I had to take a mate over to Repco to pick up some battery terminals, and while there I figured i'd pick up some cutting compound - wound up picking up a box of Meguiar's stuff, incl. fresh microfibre, applicator pads, a clay bar etc, refilled my stocks of wax. Special plice indeed. Herein lay my plan for getting the rear caps on without further ado - 16 years of harsh treatment had made my paint a little 'creamy' rather than the slightly brighter white that it should have been. I cut the **** out of it, and took a couple of pictures after waxing it. Again, the camera has downplayed the difference, but while it isn't eye-piercingly white, it is certainly closer than it was. Close enough for me to be happy with putting the caps on as they are.


I also spoken to (and thrown money at) Nick Chiew from North Shore Toyota, who gave me special plice on a black TRD duracon buttplug gearknob, as the faux carbon fibre one currently there has deserved death for ages, i've just procrastinated replacing it.


This post has been edited by Anoroc: Sep 9, 2012 - 1:54 AM

[delusionz]

thats weird, i didn't have to take my alternator out to get to my thermostat (when my engine bay was stock as yours)

it just required different length 1/8th drive extensions and a long 10mm socket

only thing is, i keep dropping the nuts and they get stuck somewhere, god knows where and they dont drop to the floor ;[

lucky m6 nuts are more common than chlamydia in hamilton lol

[Anoroc]

lucky m6 nuts are more common than chlamydia in hamilton lol

Not even possible!

But yeah, might have been able to do it with extensions, but it's done now!

Pow:


This post has been edited by Anoroc: Sep 10, 2012 - 1:35 AM

[delusionz]

Oooh I see recaro seats and Tom's pedals

Nice knob lol

[SwissFerdi]

Car will move directly sideways when pushed hard in slippery conditions,

(going from that to my car almost makes me think that I own something fast!)

I like your style, except for this one glaring piece of discrepancy. You've got me dream wheels though.

This post has been edited by SwissFerdi: Sep 10, 2012 - 7:39 AM

[Anoroc]

That's more in reference to comparable Evos/STIs, which are lighter and faster for the same dollars.

Not that a car necessarily needs to be fast to get sideways. Hi2u, MX5.

[SwissFerdi]

NA6, mmm.

Are you speaking of any Evo/STi, or just the new ones? Seems to me that the ST205 could match it's present-day rivals.