SimonB

What size wheels have you got, and what tyres?

No probs. I bought mine from Nic along with a load of other stuff, they were £2.50 each. So I guess Toyota will probably charge £3 or so.

Here you go: core plug 1 96411-42500 x 2 core plug 2 96411-43500 x 11

I demand some booze!

I don't think the 50" was out when I bought mine. But seeing it in my room the 46 is huge anyway, I think the 50 would be just too big. Depends how far away you sit I guess. You're definitely better off without freesat - you can just get a separate freesat box if you want which is probably cheaper, can be changed for something better when it comes along (like one with a PVR) and means when it breaks it doesn't take your whole tv with it.

You can get a slightly better picture by twiddling the contrast and stuff. I set mine up using one of those blu ray test card discs. I have mine on Cinema mode, with the contrast about 55%, brightness about 45% colour about 60% and sharpness off completely, colour balance warm. It looks awesome with blu-ray discs on the PS3.

I too have a TH46PZ85, and I too have an HD box I bought off ebay with no HD subscription. Great minds and all that! BBC HD is pretty good and free. You want to turn off Intelligent Frame Creation if you have it on. It's pretty rubbish any time objects move over a static background. I never have it switched on and fast movement is brilliant on mine.

Whatever bearings are used you must at the very least measure the clearance with plastigauge. You should measure the crank journal and bearing bore with a micrometer/bore gauge really to be more accurate. You can't just bung things in, see if the crank turns and hope for the best!

I don't think you are allowed to sell them until the 15th unless you have a special license.

Obviously not simple enough! For anyone that still doesn't get it, can I recommend the Mythbusters episode where they explained this simply and tested it by getting a plane to take off on what was effectively a treadmill.

Valve lifters? There aren't any, lifters are for pushrod engines. Do you mean the buckets? Do you not get them with the new head? You should be able to reuse them if they look ok. You'll need to re-shim.

You should definitely use the ones from the block you are using - they are a matched pair. Otherwise you risk them being out-of-round. You should also really torque them up and measure with a bore gauge to check the out-of-round anyway.

AFAIK Tracker is the only one that uses radio as well as GPS. So the only one that carries on working if your car is loaded into a container, or a lorry, or otherwise kept inside where the GPS won't work. That was the case last time I looked at these.

Not quite! Got a few more toys I've been buying to add on while the engine's out, like a shiny new intake manifold & throttle body (when it arrives) I've set the cam gears to 0 at the moment so it's effectively at the stock timing. I figure the best thing is to fiddle around with the timing on the dyno while being mapped to see what works best anyway so I haven't bothered degreeing them. Plus I'm not sure I have all the info for the JUN cams.

I do have a remote cooler as well, a 19 row Mocal one. Never really thought of removing the stock one though. Hmmm, might have a think about that.

Time for an update, just in case everyone thought I've been sitting on my arse instead of engine building! Although that's pretty close... Anyway, I've stripped everything off the current engine to swap over to the new one. Not very exciting cleaning up stuff so I haven't any photos. I also took the opportunity to tidy up my wiring loom while it's all out the car. I stripped all the uneccessary stuff out, that's all the sequential turbo VSVs, evap, traction control, narrowband O2 sensor etc. I traced the wires and pulled them out so they are now completely gone from ECU connector all the way. The traction control ECU harnesses have gone too. This is pretty time consuming and I wouldn't recommend anyone bothers unless they are quite anal and have too much time on their hands! So that, me then... I've bolted on the water pump (I'm reusing the current one as it's not very old), pic 1. You'll see that I have replaced the nipple that the water feed to my turbo was attached to with a proper threaded union, I'm changing the hoses at last and using proper aeromotive connectors on both ends. I've also put the cam gears (JUN), pulley and cam belt on, pic 2. The tensioner, cover and crank pulley have also been put on after the photo was taken. The oil filter mount and cooler are on, as is the water pipe, pic 3. I've also put the cam covers on, pic 4. There's a few other things I'm going to do while the engine is out. I'm moving my wideband O2 sensor from the 2nd decat pipe to the downpipe (which has a thread for it) and getting rid of the stock O2 sensor that was mounted there as I don't use it. I've bought a new 2nd decat without a WB bung as mine was rusty and pretty skanky.

Sorry, I missed this. TBH, I really don't know. I'm not an expert on airflow etc. You pretty much have to rely on the head experts for this stuff, it's an art form.

Actually it was more because Toyota already had a race developed and proven engine from their rally car - it was much cheaper and easier to use that rather than race develop a new engine.

Have you ever seen the Le Mans 24hr race? It's 24 hours of pretty much continuous flat out racing. They do the same milage as an entire season of F1 racing. That's over 3000miles. Which must be the equivalent of 10 times that distance of normal driving at the very least.

Well, I've seen a few turbo race car engines at Le Mans, and they have all used heat wrapping. If they do it it'll be for maximum power, response and importantly reliability - it's a pretty harsh environment! If it's good enough for those guys... Here's the Rollcentre racing car from 2005 with a Nissan turbo engine, notice the heat wrapped turbos and downpipes.

The actual values are not so important as the variation between them. Cheapo gauges don't always read correctly. The difference between your highest and lowest values is 20psi or 13%. 10% or less is what you want really. So it's not good but not a total disaster.

Yeah, you sure could. I'd probably change them anyway, but there is a spec in the engine manual to measure and check if they have stretched too far.

You don't need the front and rear oil seals - they are in the full engine rebuild gasket kit. Not sure what you mean by "billet cap studs". The stock main caps (which aren't billet) are held with bolts, as is the head. You can reuse the old bolts as long as they are in spec, or buy aftermarket studs and nuts.

Exactly that. The turbo is driven by heat so ideally you want the manifold and exhaust housing insulated to keep as much energy in as possible. Doubt it would make too much difference in practice though.

They would say that though wouldn't they? They are the guys getting beaten by him, and he's not exactly humble is he? If you can say something to get an advantage you will...