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I’ve not been keeping this thread up to date as I don’t think many people read it. However things have progress well the last few weeks. 1) Despite a couple of minor fixes the car is driving great. The idle sorted itself out after a few drives 2) passenger upper rear arm is replaced and the car has had a full alignment. 3) The car seems quite laggy, it’s got all the stock power at high end but seems to spool up much later on the 2nd turbo than I remember. This might be due to it being a stock UK engine but it doesn’t feel very quick. Next step is to get a boost gauge and see what boost pressure I’m seeing and when. Maybe a lazy isv or similar. 4) after much discussion with @evinX we decided to get Kev to paint it at home. This car will be used on the track so there’s no point spending £5-7k on a paint job only have it ruined. Ghetto option it is. Cost is going to be a fraction of the cost but obviously it involves a lot more labour. Some pics below for the first stage (rear quarters and all the mid-matched panels). Next step is for Kev to paint the bonnet and front wings then assess what to do about the doors and sills. Following that it’s time for dozens of hours of wet sanding and polishing. It should look pretty good when it’s done.

Morning guys and gals, A small update to the thread, not much has been happening lately with the car. Attended a few shows and managed to win 2nd place best of show which was fun. First place was a 1 of 1 NSX which was a worthy winner. I've had a small leak on my steering rack for the better part of a year so decided to eventually get it fixed with a referbished rack from Andy @ Unrivaled Supras this brought up another issue afterwards and the PS pump decided it didnt want to pump anymore so we fitted a referbed pump also. Thanks for Andy for the quick turnaround. I also fitted some of SRD's new jacking pucks which should make future work easier and changed the diff oil and recharged the AC.

So with the car running, it was onto the dyno for some engine run in and some testing and setup of all the new pieces to see how it all reacted. Engine run in mainly consisted of loading up the engine at 150ft.lbs, then doing some low power sweeps to 5000. Varying that for a while, and do-ing some cooldowns and starting the process again. Noticed my oil pressure was a bit lower than i remember and noticed I left my thermostatic sandwich plate blanked off as I didnt want run in oil circulating through the oil cooler which was a bit of an oversight in a rush to get the engine started. The bypass orifice in the sandwich plate to the filer isn't massive, so was restricting flow a bit. Luckily wasnt running the engine super hard, so got away with that. Inspected the oil filter/cam caps/turbo filter and vvti filter and all clean with no debris. Took the thermostat completely off now till it the oil cooler is needed for the real world, changed the oil to 10w60, slapped a new filter on and oil pressure back to normal, healthy 8 bar at 8000rpm. Before ripping it to 8000+, I had to address the ECU firmware as I was still running on the Motec GPA package, just to get the engine started. With 12 injectors, lots of CANBUS data & 8HP integration to worry about I went to a JRR Motorsport Firmware, as it gave me some needed features. Overall the package seems like a step in the right direction, but not sure its going to fufill everything I'm requiring. Also had to track down a weird issue with the cam sync. For whatever reason, compared to the GPA package the cam sync hysterises seemed a lot more sensitive to noise. At the time I wasn't sure if this was down to a mechanical change or a difference between the coding of each package. As a sanity check, I went over the VVTi system and changed the cam sensor to another unit and swapped to a spare VVTi pulley in case the old one was jamming slightly and throwing off the cam position. Luckily with no front engine covers and a barebones approach to the engine, this was a really quick job I could do on the dyno in 15 minutes whilst keeping crank pulley on. If I lost cam sync randomly I could load back in the GPA package and it would fire up perfect and rev out no issue, then swap back to JRR and 50/50 it would drop out using the same settings. In the end had to adjust my hysterises values a bit higher then expected to get rid of any potential noise on the signal, even though the triggerscopes between both packages were the same. Weird, anyway been fine since. Next issue was the CANBUS and the M150 running out of available CPU processing power. Trying to bring in data from my EGT Module, LAM2CAN, CANTCU, PDM's, M1 Trans/Recieve Info, Turbosmart blackbox & Steering wheel controls seemed too much for the CPU to handle concurrently. So had to streamline some of the data incoming/outgoing to keep CPU load around 90%. The new firmware is also limited to how much custom CANBUS addressing can be used, so another limit I should of paid better attention to. At this stage of the development I don't need oversight over every little detail, so could pick and choose the most important information for now. In an ideal world I want all information being logged and referenced from a single point to make the data collection a simple process. My options going forward is to: a) Jiggle around some of my canbus setup, so a bit more things get recieved/transmitted and logged by the C1212 to spread the load, then I'll have to pull logs of ECU & Dash after each run and merge them in I2 for checking (not preffered). b) Get a developer license for the ECU and embark on the quest of streamlining a custom firmware package just for this car and I can get rid of any resource hogging things I'm not requiring and setup the canbus and various functions for how I'd like to see it. I'm actually up for this but comes at a decent price in terms of cost and time invested to get the result I need, so need to see what kind of mood I'm gonna be in as this progresses. c) Bin the M150 and go back to a Syvecs which can just squeeze on all the information via Canbus I require and does everything I need from an 8HP perspective from having done a lot of them for customer builds. Next issue with the Motec is the lack of granularity on some settings that I'm used to with the Syvecs. In fairness it runs the engine absolutely fine and is simple to use so I get the appeal, but feels a bit wattered down/restrictive now I have to worry about the 8HP and modifiers for things like what to do in each gear with idling/fueling/timing and reacting to torque reqests adequately. Some other functions like lambda control/boost control/throttle maps etc do the job, but again lacking some finer control I'm used to having. Annoyingly there is no package that I've found that ticks all the boxes for my requirements, even though the M150 hardware side of things is all there for it. Thats about the only issues I've had on the electronics/ecu side of things. Everything else has gone to plan so far. Got the steering wheel working, so I can choose P/N/D/R, drive modes/shifter modes and paddles all from the steering wheel. The C1212 dash displays all the info & warnings I need to know about whilst on the dyno and PDM's have been providing power just fine. Got a new revision for the keypad roll bar mount. Sits nicely above me near the roof of the car and houses some of the body/engine functions as well as the MSEL driver cut off switch. So with the oil changed, I could get into some power tuning and was a mixed bag of results. Generally happy with performance but need to make a few changes. The EM Raceport electronic blow off valve is sweet. Works just like a normal blow off valve under normal operation, then you can energise the solenoid and stop vacuum/pressure being fed into the top part of the BOV diaphram, essentially opening the gate. My main aim for this was to create a small air leak whilst staging the car for launch control to get the turbo speed a bit higher than normal to continue some momentum in the turbine after the launch. Might have to rethink this slightly as the Raceport does a fantastic job of depleting basically all the boost pressure in the pipe. Can do a run to redline with the BOV open and wastegate completely shut and I might see 0.3 bar boost by redline. I'm not super bothered about having the BOV functioning as a BOV should, so I'm either gonna have to move to a smaller orifice on the pipework to tune the amount of bleed it can do till I get the result I need. Or maybe if I can PWM the solenoid at a high enough frequency, maybe I can adjust the amount the valve lifts at various duty cycles. Need to check with turbosmart if they rate their solenoid for that kind of action. For now I'll leave it as a "normal" BOV and activate it in case of overboost as a safety backstop. Next is the turbosmart 50mm electronic straightgate and blackbox. What a cool piece of tech. So above is a log from a dynorun. Bringing in some of this info about the gate and the control system of the blackbox over CANBUS into the M1, so I can check what its up to and start to understand how its reacting to my commands. Currently I've started with the most basic way of controlling the gate by using a boost PWM signal from the M1 to the Blackbox. This is the same type of signal used to control normal MAC/Pierburg boost solenoids. The blackbox converts the PWM signal, into a target area signal which the blackbox converts into a valve position target as the target area and actual valve position are not on a 1:1 scale as the flow through the gate isn't linear. From there the electronic motor moves to valve into its required position and turbo makes some boost (Or not!). Overall this sytem works really well. I had a few struggles with the JRR M1 package, as ideally I need to send a high side PWM signal to the blackbox, so when 0% duty is requested the valve remains shut and 100% = open. However, I could only send a low side PWM signal so 0% duty = open and 100% = closed. This isnt a massive issue, other than if the blackbox actually recieves 0% duty, it will close the gate, so I have to cap my signal to 0.1%, when requested the gate to stay completely open or it shuts itself which was annoying cause a boost spike. In future I will move away from the PWM signal and send a target position area directly through canbus, so I can avoid the above situation. Although I've got this system working ok at the moment, I need to do a bit more work on it. The gate itself moves quickly and the current draw averages 2-5 amps, spiking to 25amp momentarily if you really snap is hard against the upper/lower limits of its travel. However as it flows differently than a typical poppet style valve took me a while to understand when and how much to open/close it. The PID system controlling the PWM output signal is also very slow/gentle at the moment whilst I was getting my head around it. I think if I make that a bit more aggressive and increase the frequency of changes, then I can get snappier changes on the gate itself, more like how an OEM electronic wastegate is controlled. So bit more work to do there, but the gate does work. Also super cool to open/close to the wastegate whenever you like, even at idle if needed. Look ma im a drag car. Only one small issue with the boost control, which I don't think is actually a gate issue but I'm getting some decent boost creep even with the gate wide open. If I leave the throttle wide open during a pull with the gate completely open, it slowly creeps from no boost to 1.7 bar after 7000rpm to redline. Guessing this is a manifold/wastegate priority issue, but I'll do a run with the gate completely removed to confirm. If it still does it, then will need to modify the design of the manifold routing slightly. Manifold needs to come off at some point to get the gate recirced & wrap the downpipe etc, so can tackle it all then. For now if I shut the throttle to 80% WOT, then I can control the creep, but trade off some engine efficiency/power at the top end which I'd rather avoid. So after playing around at a few different boost levels and dialing in the map, went to start making some decent power runs at 2.0 bar boost Not too shabby so far, but max RPM limit for gearbox was being reached before the power started rolling over completely. Quick conversation with kenneth at CANTCU and he sent me a revision that would let me rev to 8800rpm. ZF rate the max output shaft speed of the gearbox at 8000rpm, so in 6th gear at 1:1 i was exceeding that slightly, but figured a few hundred RPM more wouldnt hurt in a quick burst. However for anyone trying this, do not do this in 7th or 8th gear as you will easily overspeed the output shaft at much lower RPM's. So next run tried to bring it on slightly more progressively but overshot my mark a bit, closed up the VVTi angles at the top end after 7500rpm added a degree of timing and 0.1 bar boost more and she screamed nicely to 8600rpm. Before/After TCU changes Impressive powerband for stock GE VVTi head with some springs and cams on petrol. In reality I'm coming on boost a bit quicker than the dyno shows, but my inductive pickup keeps having a shitfit with the IGN1A coils and inteference, so had to calibrate RPM using wheel speed calibration which works, but I lose some accuracy down low as the wheel speed/gear ratio changes through the run due to tyre deformation. I think for petrol, I won't be running much more than 2 bar boost as its getting a bit close to detonation threshold on top end, so not much point chasing a number. If anything I'm gonna remove a few degrees up top to give me a bit more headroom, and offset that versus whatever gear / enviornment conditions the engine is going through in real world, even if it costs a few ponies. But it's looking good for making 1000whp at 2 bar of boost on E85, so wasnt a million miles off in my hopes. Some data from the sensors I've got hooked up so far. ETS 5'' doing a lovely job of keeping things cool even with 145C going into it. Got around 2-3psi pressure differential through the intercooler, which dosen't upset me that much for the cooling performance. No pressure drop going through the throttle body WOT so that good news too. I need to get my fabrication on 5'' intake pipe sorted, then I'll get it flowed and scale the MAF sensor correctly so I can really track what airflow through the turbo is, but as a rough guide matching up turbospeed and pressure ratio of the turbo gives the above (with a pinch of salt). Looking fairly well sized for the job though, and more room to grow with some more boost pressure in future. Can even see on my fast rate IAT sensor when the compressor wheel starts going closer to the choke point of the compressor map as temperatures rise. So overall decent progress with bringing this machine back to life. Gonna take a week spending some time doing normal people things and seeing the outside world then I'll get back to it after some more development and changes. Should have all my EGT's, lambda's, EMAP/DMAP sensors installed on the next go, so interested to see what thats going to show. Hopefully get some E85 action in as well.

After installing all the wiring, I went through the process of powering on each loom, checking I didn't have any major issues. Then started a preliminary setup of the power distribution modules to get power to all the places it needed to go based on various keypads/buttons in the car. Started to get excited as starting up the engine seemed closer than ever. All the looms seemed to be behaving and nothing caught fire, so off to a good start. And then disaster! The PDM15 that I had bought second hand a while back was always a bit glitchy, even on my test bench. Technically it worked, but the communications over CANBUS were a bit hit and miss. Once I started setting up the rear of the car and testing the lights/fuel pumps and putting around 100amps through it with everything turned on, it made a strange noise and CAN communications failed entirely. I triple checked my rear loom, made sure I wasnt shorting out on anything, couldnt find anything wrong. Bench tested the PDM and still couldn't get any signs of life from the comms system, so I went home pretty grumpy. Decided I wasn't going to let this get in the way of me starting the engine, so got in contact with Dave @ EPS. He was happy to take the PDM and send it off for inspection at Motec, and in the meantime I bought another PDM15 so I could keep the party going. Depending on what they find is wrong with it and hopefully fix, then I'll either keep as a spare or sell on to recoup some moolah, as a last minute purchase on a new PDM was a bit of kick in the teeeth, but teaches me for buying second hand stuff The next morning the PDM arrived and I was back in business. Plugged it in and immediately worked like it should, phew. So that night it was crunch time. Continued setting up all the electronics and CANBUS communications. You know its getting serious when both laptops are on duty. The list of jobs was long, but after a few hours I had done enough so that all the electronics would do a thing, checked all the inputs/outputs and made sure all sensors had the correct linearlizations to read correctly. Also removed the factory immobilizer from the 8HP gearbox and got Kenneth from CANTCU to flash on a custom tune for a 8HP75 just to get me going and letting the box rev to 8K without trying to upshift. The following morning it was a scramble to get the rest of the mechanical systems all checked/cleaned and primed ready for first start. Ended up taking the entire day as I had a few leaks from coolant system and some other setbacks. But eventually got everything dialed in and with a small audience tried to get the engine to start. Unfortunately it cranked but didnt want to fire the coils or injectors. My brain and body was fried after a whole day or work so I called it there, took some startup logs and triggerscopes and went home. Sat in bed looking over my initial tune on the Motec, I noticed I hadn't set my threshold voltages low enough on the cam sensor for it to get detected when cranking. Cool easy fix, fell asleep like a log and got up super early the next morning. Uploaded the new tune into the ECU, fired the engine and it started like nothing ever happened. But it ran like shit, and wanted to cut out. Scratched my head a bit as to what was causing it as all vitals/sensors looked perfect. The issue was actually a very welcome suprise. The 90mm GM throttle body I chose to use went above and beyond what I was expecting. Normally on a larger throttle body you need less throttle angle at low engine speeds as it will still bypass a decent amount of air in order to maintain idle. However, due to the design of the throttle housing around the blade on the GM throttle you get a lovely deadzone at lower throttle angles that flows less air when throttle is closed. This picture sums it up between a regular throttle and whats going on with this one. So essentially I can get any potential flow benefits from a larger throttle whilst keeping amazing idle quality, just means I have to use larger throttle opening in the tune relative to what I'm used to seeing. So adjusted my idle and throttle flow maps and she purrs like a kitten. Idling at 900rpm at Lambda 1 thanks to the great throttle airflow and ID1050x primaries.

I then installed the lights themselves.

I have finaly got the balance right on my rotisserie. So the supra is up in the air and on its side ready for it's underside restoration to take place.

A few little updates: 1) During the cars past life it lost its active spoiler. After a lot of ear bashing Kev finally convinced me to get one fitted, though this was very cheap by todays standards (as I bought it from him )! While I was on holiday Kev was kind enough to fit it to the car. I’ve always maintained the active spoiler makes a noticeable difference to front end downforce at higher speeds, so for a car that’s going to be doing its share of track days it’s a very worthwhile upgrade. 2) The 2nd turbo delay issue is getting worse, I think that along with some issues with the piping the IC is leaking. I need to find a smic solution, but options seem limited. The whifbitz one is expensive and has poor reviews and CW isn’t making them anymore. I’m going to see if something can be made locally but I’m not very hopeful! I don’t want to lose the active aero so have backed myself into a difficult position. 3) Amayama parts arrived at last, this is one of the last big orders to get the main parts of the car finished. Now, lots of fitting fiddly bits! The picture below shows just how far head the active spoiler is in front of the cooling systems (IC, AC rad and water radiator). It gives a good visualisation of just how much air is being forced into the stock ducts. att.S2OjbILd-t4o__gN4oSDZiW6VkSdpzAVTiC1QdrD-VQ.mp4

Morning all. Hope you’re having a nice day too. Forgot to grab a few photos of the new Pro Spec Imports carbon wing mirror covers. Snapped a few this morning before I set about cleaning the daily. These go over and around the stock mirrors, so easy to fit and they look surprisingly good. Very pleased and adds a nice touch.

Back into the engine bay: - Mounted racegrade EGT on chassis rail - Installed all 7 lambda sensors - Ran vacuum lines - Made some hardlines for oil - Coolant hardlines for electronic gate + turbo - Changed the JUN cam pulley bolts with some ARP variants so they didnt rust - Started filling and bleeding any fluids where required etc. Starting to get closer to the goal of having mechanical systems ready to go, but I couldn't find a nice way to run 6 lambda sensors wires in a neat way, which was a bit annoying as everything else in the bay looks fairly neat and wireless. New plan with this is to build a breakout box that will sit on top of the exhaust cam cover using 8STA connectors for each sensor. Again a bit overkill, but I think it be icing on the cake in terms of looks and function. Currently have some 3D printed models that we've tested, but still need to finalize design and get it created out of billet before its ready for its unveiling. So more on that once its ready. Christmas 24' holidays were coming up, had a few weeks where I could focus on my car and get the wiring started. In the run up to that, spent a few more days staring at excel, going over pinouts and finalizing the plan. The holiday started, moved my car into the workshop. Closed the doors, told my family I was in spain with a girl so they would suspect I was doing something normal with my life. Instead I measured up all parts of the loom, and shut myself in the wiring room, huddled around the heater for two weeks. The long process of concentrically twisting the engine bay, engine, interior, rear and roof harnesses had begun. It was very time consuming but I'm happy with the results. All wiring done with M22759 spec wires ranging from 26AWG to 12AWG for various signals/powers/etc. All wrapped in DR25 sleeving with a sprinkle of ATUM/SCL in places. Opted not to label anything as I prefer the stealth look, and I know where everything goes. Some of the twisted sections going for a few meters really pushed my small table to the limits, and tested my patience many times. Very irritating trying to twist looms with 4 meter long wires when you can't spread everything out in a large area. But managed to get the job done, so can forget it happened now. Looms are currently installed on the car for testing and setup, havent finished booting the bulkhead connectors till I'm 100% happy that its all working as intended and I dont need to go in to modify anything. I'll grab some photos of the finished pieces when i remove them to do that. Next I made some mounting brackets for some of the bulkheads and did a final reshuffle of the electronics on their mounting plate. Also removed the X20 E888 expander, as managed to condense all my I/O onto everything else as I found a CAN based weather station module that cut down on the need for an extra 5 independnent analog sensors in the engine bay. Final thing on the wiring list was the ECU's to breakout bulkhead connectors. Went back and forth in my head a few times about whether to twist all these + wrap them same as the rest of the looms. In the end I decided not to as this section of loom is pretty modular and open to me making lots of changes in future compared to everything else that is pretty set in stone now. I still have some doubts about whether I'll keep the M150 ECU or possibly even change the gearbox to a different type of 8HP, so for now all this wiring is remaining like this until I have a better idea on what route to go with next after some testing. I'll probably neaten this up some more though once I've got everything tested.

Next arrival was this custom 4'' exhaust backbox. I wanted to keep the 4'' system as quiet as physically possible using only one backbox, rather than multiple boxes throughout the system. Mainly for simplicity, and keeping the weight of the exhaust as low as possible, whilst mounting the heavy bit behind the rear axle. Although the pipe is 4'', its surrounded by another 4'' of baffle, so total diameter is 8'' by 550mm length. It's filled with a "race" baffled system, which is used to keep rotary cars quiet on track days. Have used a 7'' version of this on a customer car and it was wonderful, so went a bit bigger on mine to see if it fits and if its any quieter. With the new backbox ready to go, Ash got to work on the rest of the exhaust sytstem. As my firewall and underside of the car isnt completely factory anymore, there was less room than normal to fit a 4'' system so Ash had to get a bit creative with some bends to get around everything. She's a tight fit but it turned out great. Although I will recirc this wastegate tube, leaving it to atmosphere for the first dyno session to hear how it sounds and allows for easier diagnostic of the electronic gate in case thats required. Need to pull the manifold off when doing the head porting, so will get recirc done at the same time when we can build the manifold on the bench as there is no space to do much with it installed on the car. Had to shave a bit of the rear bumper to get the backbox in there fully, but cant really tell from the outside so not a big deal. Backbox will sit a bit higher soon, just waiting on some lasercut mounts to come through so we can mount backbox securely, but looks promising even with some cable ties holding the rear of the exhaust up. Few things going on in this photo. 1) Testing clearance to intercooler pipes with wheel at near max compression whilst on full lock. Its tight, a bit too tight. Especially with the front wheel arch fitted, so have adjusted the pipe slightly to get a few more mm of clearance, so shouldnt be a problem now unless I decide to go offroading. 2) Replaced the Turbosmart Raceport BOV with the Turbosmart EM Raceport BOV, which is basically the same other than it has an electronically controlled solenoid ontop of the diapgram which allows the ECU to allow the BOV to function as normal, or for it to open and create a boost leak. Figured this will come in handy during my launch control strategy to get the turbospeed a bit higher with a leak whilst staging. Also got this cool nitrous solenoid from Wizards of Nos that is a bit of different take on your typical nitrous solenoid. I was looking for a solenoid that I could control progressively so I can feed the nitrous into the engine progressively rather than as one big hit all at once. Although you can use a more traditional solenoid for this, typically you cant run super high frequencies for very long through them without failure. This system essentially has an adjustable nozzle/jet, so you can flow next to nothing then step it up to max flow as and when it suits whatever you are trying to do. Looking forward to playing with this.

I have some success.. and some disaster First of all the progress on the headlight intake took a turn for the worst when the drill bit snagged and splintered a large chunk of the lense so thats now gone on the back burner indefinitely lol. In better news though the titanium pipework i had made looks (in my opinion) the bollocks!

So the block has been prepared for the build by the team at SRD

The car performed brilliantly on the track day. No issues at all during the day aside from a slightly loose water hose. The w58 is still going too I did around 35 laps of Bedford GT circuit, which for those that aren’t familiar with it is a long and high speed track. It’s around 4.5 miles per lap. The brakes were incredible, I never found the limit on them. No fade and no loss of pedal even when abusing them. I put a lot of that down to the race fluid and pads. Supratronix non oem front brake calipers held up just as well as stock. Very impressed for such a low price! I did find some issues: - The ARB’s need to be uprated. - The w58 is not well suited to the TT power delivery, I was constantly dropping off the 2nd turbo in lower speed corners. I’m impressed it didn’t lose any gears though! Kev also came along for some passenger rides, which he seemed to enjoy

So while I wait for parts @evinX is getting on with the next stage of paint work. The bonnet paint had completely failed due to it being painted very poorly previously. It has serious corrosion and paint flaking off. Kev is going to do what he can with it for now but it looks like I might need to source a replacement. The hood scoop is oem but the bolts connecting it are permanently fused together. There is no way to remove it without breaking it, so for now it’s going to painted in place. Kev is confident he can get it looking good. Front wings also have stone chips previously painted over and there is a lot of underlying rust. Kev is going back to bare metal before epoxying and repainting.

Quick couple of jobs completed in the last couple of days. Nothing too interesting! 1) Corroded water neck has been replaced with a new one. 2) The two rubber hoses connecting the turbo inlets were suspected to have collapsed, so I replaced them. It turns out there was very little wrong with them, though one did show signs of it starting to collapse. It also have me chance to inspect turbo 1, there was no play in the shaft and the blades looked new. Not bad for a 200k mile engine! There was a the usual grime from the EGR system so I will be removing that as soon as possible. Hose starting to collapse, the other one was okay: New hoses and water neck fitted. I was tempted to take the turbo shield off for painting but didn’t want to open that can of snapped bolts!

Kev’s been busy and finished the wings and bonnet. I’m really pleased with the results, there’s some specs in the paint and some small runs in the clear coat but it’s really good considering this is a diy job with no booth. He also did an amazing job with the bonnet scoop, it’s impossible to tell it was painted while on the car. It’s good enough now to leave it for a couple of weeks to let the paint harden before beginning the wet sanding process. That is going to take a lot of hours but the final result should be pretty decent. It’s very dirty as we had a big rain shower yesterday. couple of before and after Kev put together. How it arrived at his place and how it left.

Morning All, So after an early start (up at 5:30am) I managed to get the car cleaned, ceramic wash and wax and a nice coat of ceramic wax as well. Pleased with how it came out. Also added some extra storage and racking in the garage which I’m pleased with. Just need to sort all the parts that came home I don’t need anymore and try to sell them. As you can see, lots of boxes I could do with shifting!

Little bit annoyed really - thought the RSP was going to be at mine a bit longer than 6 days, was loving 2 Supras on the drive But there had to come a time where she saw the road. Ill let the pictures and videos do the talking Happy happy days and very happy for @Homer Its been a pleasure building the car

This is now sold I’ll let the buyer introduce themselves when they are ready and the price if they want too.

Morning All. Small update from Lee/SRD. The new intercooler pipes have been fabricated by the super talented Ash, and have been sent off to Sean at Inspraytion for powder coating in the same dark copper used on the original pipes. Mike is tackling the new engine loom and Ash is currently getting stuck in to the downpipe and midpipe, however they still need a flange to turn up. Not much in the way of photos, but did get this one of the new pipework. Ash has done a fab job as always and hopefully these will be powder coated soon and sent back to the guys to reinstall. I’ll keep you all posted when I hear more. Have a great day all.

Thanks for the replies guys, sadly it has taken more time than anticipated to get to a starting point. But, excellent news, the car is now out of storage, and we should be starting the strip down very soon. Some more parts sourced, such as correct rev counter, warning lights, spoiler. I am trying my best to hunt down the correct 60mm Greddy gauges that the film car had, found the fuel pressure gauge but still hunting for the boost, oil pressure & egt gauges. Hoping i have some good news regards the brake kit & some more interior parts this week. Fingers crossed some decent content coming soon.

Afternoon Folks. So next phase of my build is now officially underway. Dropped the car off at SRD this morning. Few before photos from Lee so hopefully I’ll get plenty more as they start the work to get the single setup installed. First job was whipping off the U.K. brake calipers which are off to BCS for refinishing as the OEM coating is awful and was coming off badly on the passenger front. Not going to spoil the surprise and say what colour they are going, I’ll post up some photos when they are back and reinstalled. Keep an eye on this for updates, now the fun really begins! Cheers all.

Long time guys however I still have her New gearbox fitted stage 2 built auto and pi high stall converter fitted

Small package of random bits I missed from Amayama, I noticed when putting the prop back in that the new OEM doughnut was for an N/A so I had to fit the old one for getting the car out. Made some blocks to sit the rear wheels on now the back end is pretty much complete except a few minor things. Removed the prop again to fit the correct doughnut and torqued everything up, got a whiteboard up now so I remember what needs to be torqued and checked. Now it’s on to the front, will sheet the car up and get cracking on taking it all back when I next get the some free hours.

I'm back at it again. I've fitted the bonnet stoppers. The four bolts got lost during the respray, but James at Retro Road Sports came to my rescue and gave me the 4 bolts. Even better they had been zinc plated. For reference these bolts are now discontinued by Toyota. Got the fuel lines, fuel tank and ancillaries all fitted now. The three fuel lines are all brand new as are all the clips and fasteners. I replaced the rubber fuel hoses with SAE J30 R9 hoses. The OEM rubber fuel hoses aren't ethenol resistant, but R9 hoses are and are as used on modern cars. I replaced the breather hose on the fuel tank a few years ago as this was discontinued and my original was rusted badly. I installed a new clip for the fuel lines, the old one had become quite brittle. This was surprisingly difficult to fit as the bolt is made from plastic and I was terrified it would sheer as I tightened it up. I think the bolt cuts a thread in the clips as it is wound in, which is why there is quite a bit of resistance. I used my gearbox jack to position the fuel tank up into position and to fit it. I bought new tank straps and bolts. I had the fuel tank straps powdercoated because the factory finish was far too thin. Had to make sure the new flexi primary fuel line was routed under the plastic ducting on the fuel tank. This needs to be done before the fuel tanknis fitted as its next to impossible to fit this once the fuel tank is installed - I found this out the hard way! Fuel tank in and straps attached. The straps bolts need to be torqued to 49 Nm. I then ensured all the fuel pipe brackets and fixings were tightened. Next was the fuel tank guard, which had also been bought new and then powedercoated. I also had new bolts (there are 6)and the two protective strips. I retained the rubber grommet from my original fuel tank guard to reuse. This rubber grommet stops the plastic wheel arch liner rubbing on the the fuel tank guard. Not sure what the two protective strips do, but Mr T put them there for a reason. Once fitted I installed a new trim piece to hold the rear bumper to the tank guard. All finished.

Forgot i hadn't updated this in a little while. The project has gone above and beyond what i anticipated for it, but don't they always? Started putting some bits back into the engine bay to make some sort of progress on it. Cleaned up the firewall shield a bit too, scrubbed the loom and got the manual pedals and clutch master in. This is where the fun begins......... the car then went down to see James at Retro Roadsports for a complete welding job including two new sills left and right, a new rear section on passenger side, and manual tunnel swap. I'll let the pictures do the talking here but the work was quite extensive. He did say he enjoyed doing it though and would welcome many more through the door. I picked up the car last week from James and wasted no time in getting the sills protected, started but rubbing them back, masking them up - sprayed in 2k Epoxy then seam sealed. Next step will be to tackle the wheel arches, drop the subframes and clean up the underside

Hey folks, Long time no see, but I want to share some interesting observation with you. I just finished stripping passenger side mirror (it was replacement for folding one which was damaged long time ago). Replacement mirror was from car with heated mirrors, so did not fold with a button, but it did not bother me back then. Some time later i bought set of folding facelift mirrors and was planning to paint them to my Supra colour and install them. Then i stumbled across topic about dismantling mirror and reusing plastic covers, so I basically moved internals of facelift folding mirror into plastic covers I already had on my Supra (freshly painted too!). My Supra is prefacelift aerotop with original folding mirrors, so plugs on facelift mirrors did not fit one in my prefacelift door loom (facelift plug is 5 pin, prefacelift is 9 pins). So obviously I removed 5 pin plug, found 9 pin plug from my old smashed mirror (I kept bloody thing in box for 8 years! ). Thats, when I discovered that loom on door side got actual 7 wires running in a 9 pin connector! 3 were used for regulation of a mirror up/down/left/right, 2 for fold/unfold, but it also has extra 2 wires with colours identifying as heated mirror connection. So technically, if I install heated mirror glass on my folding mirrors and feed 2 extra wires to 9 pin connector in corresponding pins responsible for heated mirrors, I can have both worlds in one solution. I'm not sure its common knowledge or not, I just discovered it today when I was fighting with connector swaps and wiring diagrams lol

So after a 2 year hunt I found the missing peice of my Miami GT engine bling I'm planning to do a custom rear arch job on the Supra with some new wheels this year so watch this space

Inlet and DBW is in, wired up and the car is running. Had a bit of an issue on first start up. It was cranking, but not starting... and then it let out a big backfire. I thought to myself "well, fcuk. That's interesting lol". I checked a few things, but couldn't see anything glaringly obvious, but suspected it was a trigger issue as it was getting fuel and spark, but you could hear it was combusting out of time. I checked over the cam sensor wires, but again, everything looked fine. I reached out to @Mike2JZ and he kindly dialled in to take a looksy. Mike checked the trigger scope and asked if there was a chance the front and rear sensor plugs could have accidentally been swapped around. I said I couldn't rule it out as I had extended the wires meaning they would no longer marry up to their original locations from the loom. He did a quick test and swapped the ignition timing around and flipped it 180 degrees and we gave it another go. Boom! She was alive! Map Daddy came through like the legend he is. With the car running, it was quickly time to undo that and start getting the turbo off. I've offered up the new 6870 and it's not a lot of work to modify the downpipe from the 4 inch flange to the cone reducer flange to fit the Precision. I've had a brief conversation with Lee at SRD and will be ordering the flange tomorrow. I'll probably order two as I need one for the current recirc downpipe and another should I make another downpipe for a screamer configuration.

New to the forum but I finally purchased my MK4 after all the years. Found my car on GMT. Formally had a 2020 Supra and owned it for a year. It just didn’t do it for me. Ended up selling it to someone who would appreciate it more and I’m happy the new owner is finishing what I started. After selling, I was on the verge of getting an R35 GTR. I think I would have been happy but not sure if I’d be fully fulfilled. And then my buddy sent me this old photo from 2009 of me sitting in a Supra from a Supra dyno meet in San Diego. And that brought back all the desire I had as a youngin. Started shopping for the MK4 and found this one. I was locked in immediately. Couldn’t be happier to know I got it, but now the wait for it to arrive at my door begins.

Final layer of protection is now on. Raptor paint is complete.

Track day at Bedford GT circuit on Monday so I’m getting the car prepared. 1) First job was to get the car on a 4 poster lift and get all the suspension and subframe bolts torqued down. I used a local garage for this for a very reasonable cost. The guy that runs it used to prep rally cars and did a very thorough job. I also had the diff oil changed. 75/145 LSD oil since it’s a plated diff, no additional additive. The old oil came out like new and no filings in the sump plug, not bad since it’s been in there for 15 years 2) The brake pads from daily ones to Porterfield R4 race ones. They need bedding in so I’ll do that either late at night or early morning. 3) The oem drivers seat had an issue where it shifted forward slightly under hard braking. I’ve replaced this with a Recaro one and Recaro seat frame from a forum member. It was inexpensive and is extremely comfortable! I don’t know how I’ve put up with stock seats for so many years. Game changer! 4) The exhaust is also changed over to an oem one. It now has a UK spec 1st and 2nd cat and a genuine UK spec rear section. It’s quiet as hell and I hate it. Good for the strict noise limits at Bedford though. Once again, huge thanks to @evinX for helping getting this thing fitted. It’s a lot longer process than first appears. Only down side is I can now hear there is an exhaust gasket leak on either the manifold or between the manifold and turbo. That would explain the poor idle and turbo whistle. No chance to fix this before the track day so I’ll take my chances. Either way it looks like the exhaust side is coming off…. I’m not entirely sure if it’s going to go back on. All the UK stock stuff. I was going to decat as I have the pipes, but no point while it’s stock boost: Sounds crap: Recaro driver seat, very comfy! I think this is the larger person version so no lower side bolsters. Massive improvement over stock and for not much money: Race pads. These are nearly £500 new, luckily a member was selling a brand new set for a fraction of that.

It wasn’t my idea, honest! Managed to fix it in the end by manually bleeding the abs pump using a child’s medicine syringe. If it works it’s not a bodge!

Stripped all of the underside and have made a start removing the underseal to re do it all. some of the old fuel pipes and brake lines were starting to look a bit crusty. So they have all been removed and will be replaced. under the fuel tank has been stripped of underseal and the small rust patches that were starting to creep in have been sanded back to bare metal. POR15 metal prep was then used to prepare the base metal for paint. POR15 Black paint has then been applied. Once I have completed the car panel by panel I will then re seam seal it. Followed with Raptor paint over the top of everything which will then act as the stone guard to protect it all underneath. Up to now that's as far as I've got as it's a lengthy process.

Realised i have not updated on here for a while. Not many interesting pictures currently - We stripped the engine of ancillaries & dropped it off with Paul Cheshire for full rebuild. Had an issue with a company who were supposed to be supplying all trim & seals (door seals, roof seals, weather strips, rear quarter glass etc) so having to claim for that money back. Lee at SRD came to the rescue & has supplied the trims/seals so that is taken care of now. Lee also supplied the Precision 6266 Gen 2 turbo, fuel rail, fuel pump, injectors etc etc. Bodyshop are getting along, i popped over last week to check with kit fitment after they have tweaked it around a bit, before the car now goes back to bare metal. Really hoping to have it at shows next year but we have a large number of projects on so they may be a tall order, lets see.

Went and got myself some Tint remover and easy stripper. Long story short it did f all. Also tried ammonia, pure acetone, goo gone, sticky stuff remover, bug and tar remover but still wouldn’t shift the tint. Well for the rear anyway.. the side windows were okay as I could use a blade but for the rear with the defroster lines I had to scrape the tint using a copper scourer as not to scratch the glass. A 16 hour process that I’m so happy is over.… All whilst taking breaks doing this I decided to finish removing some more bits from the engine bay. Loom gone, brake booster gone, abs pump gone. Misc bits also removed like brake lines, horn, bonnet catches etc. brake booster a little worse for wear so I’ll paint that while it’s out. Got some plastic plugs for the PS rack top so I could get the lines out the way. Will need the boots replaced though as they’re all cracked. As you can see also removed the black felt that goes on the firewall but I’ll put that back on once painted. Chucked the horn and catches in vinegar to remove the rust, gave them a bit of a rub and I’ll paint them in the next few days. Next I got on with removing the pedals. Relatively straight forward job which is nice. Just spent the last few days removing all the miscellaneous bits really like plugs and grommets etc along with most of the interior (bar the dash) got a few touch up bits to spray inside the car. Other than that drilled the holes ready for clutch master cylinder, and assembled new brake and clutch pedals. That’s pretty much where I’m up to at the moment. Next plan is to drop the fuel tank. Drill and re-tap some sheered bolts from the bay, give it a good vacuum then maybe start rubbing down the bay for paint. I might start painting some misc bits also.

Theres a few things going on with this type of setup, I've never gone as far as scoping each pin or trying to get the JOBD output working to see ignition timing or other values to try and diagnose it fully but I've been able to confirm the following on a few cars. a) Normally with auto shifter it gets signals sent to auto ECU for P/N/D/R/L/2/3/Overdrive/Manual etc . With a manual none of these signals other than NSW (Neutral) is still recieved by the ECU, so it seems auto ECU always considers the car to be in Neutral, as NSW pin is always grounded on a manual box. The idle air control valve & ignition timing values around idle change based on weather you are in neutral or drive with an auto, as being in drive will load up the engine more. This is what I think causes the main issue with stalling with auto ECU's. A dirty hack that can get around this is to bump up the throttle set screw a bit to allow more air to enter the engine through the throttle. Don't forget to recalibrate the TPS sensor afterwards to keep ECU happy. b) Back to back on the dyno i've tested auto and manual ECU's on a manual converted TT car and the manual ECU made more power everywhere and the turbo transition happened sooner. Presumably auto ecu being in Neutral has less timing compared to if it was in drive and more than likely has different turbo VSV activation maps based on RPM/Speed/TPS/Gear Mode etc. c) Not all but some manual converted cars on auto have shit top end power, graph on dyno is horrible. Seems likely its pulling timing for gear shift compared to a manual ECU that will just keep going to the limiter. RPM limits can also vary by ~500rpm at times as well sometimes changing for no reason. You can of course still drive the car with auto ECU and manual box and it will feel ok, but theres more left on the table usually by going to a manual ECU. All of the above is mainly tested with Jspec pre facelift cars. Can't remember if i've seen this behavior with UK cars before or not, but as UK ECU's are way more sensitive compared to Jspec it wouldnt suprise me if it had loads of warning lights and codes. Facelift auto ECU's really dont work well manual swaps as they are lacking certain speed signals so the car hits a rev limiter really early on. So yeah with all the above mentioned, my recomenation is always manual ecu when doing gearbox swap or go to a standalone ECU and save yourself the aggro.

Promised I'd update this thread when I pulled the turbo link pipes, and I can confirm they were the cause of my issues. The car is now boosting like an absolute champion and lag is noticeably reduced with the turbos not having to work as hard to create boost. If anyone is having boost issues on their sequentials I'd recommend checking these. Jamesy

A video of the best today 20240726_153024.mp4

Another tiny update but I couldn’t find the door lock light up surrounds and then they appear to be discontinued except for in America/ Canada. However I found a helpful guy in Japan and he sourced them brand new

Love this car! Followed it on numerous occasions with its previous owner. Even kept it in my own garage over winter for 6 months years ago. And the postcode even ended in 2JZ.

As you can see, we have finally started! The car was started on Monday in terms of strip down, and around other jobs ongoing too we have got this far. Engine & box should be out by the end of the day today, then its stripping the rest of the engine bay area out, cleaning the engine bay/shell and then we can trial fit the kit before the shell goes to paint. The engine will be going to Paul Cheshire for strip & rebuild. Also working in the background to source more parts.

Few pictures after a drive out and a wash a couple of weeks ago

Picked up the gearbox from Paul Chester and it looks epic

Afternoon All. So had a mammoth day yesterday driving across to Whifbitz to get the half cage and harnesses installed. Huge thanks to the guys for their hard work and effort, wasn’t as easy as I’d have liked, looks like the rear is slightly out possibly linked to the accident damage we found when we replaced the drivers side rear quarter. Meant a lot of elongated holes to get it to fit, but it worked in the end and I’m really happy with how it came out. Had a good wash and clean inside and out today, next up is the trip to SRD in a couple weeks to get the single fitted. Hoping they can send me some photos and updates I can share with you all. Till then, here’s a few photos of the cage and harnesses all fitted and looking rather tasty. Enjoy!

Some pictures from paul, the box is all stripped down ready for the rebuild

SOLD

To add to my already very colourful engine bay, i bought some titanium coloured mikalor clamps.. keeping with the titanium/purple theme. I'd already bought some a few weeks back but hadn't bought enough in the correct sizes. But I've now replaced all of the regular jubilee clips.. Im sure my engine bay is considered a bit marmite by people.. i fully appreciate its not the typical all polished, or all black engine bay that most people tend to do (because either of those options do look mega!) I just fancied doing something really in your face!

And the ETS has arrived and the carbon radiator surround