HarleyFDMD

Been pretty slow progress lately. Was hoping the car would be pretty much painted by now but with work being so busy and having a few members of staff off sick its ment the supra has just been collecting dust in the corner. I did spend a few hours on it this afternoon though, got the exhaust heat shields blasted and painted and also painted one of the wings. To anyone looking at getting their car resprayed, i highly recommend specifying Spectral lacquer. It is more money but its 100% worth it.

Cleaned up my crash bar today and made some brackets to mount my intercooler. I always see people making really ropey mounts for there intercoolers! Pretty pleased with how these came out though!

Lonnngggg way from those days mate!! Ha! Literally makes me cringe just thinking about it

Got a few bits bolted up this evening.. Mocal power steering cooler, PHR power steering reservoir and a carbon ARP cooling panel. Just need to plumb the power steering up next.

Next up was to start wiring.. now this is where i get a bit out of my depth. I had a non vvti gte engine loom which i obviously wanted to use on a vvti engine. I also have brand new oem non vvti coil packs. I sent my loom off to Phoenix engine management and they adapted it to suit the vvti engine and also replaced any broken clips and plugs. I just wish I'd asked them to label everything because i haven't got a clue I had to swap over the plastic loom guide piece that goes at the front of the cam covers as this is different between non vvti and vvti for obvious reasons. Fortunately I'd kept the original aristo loom. I found which plugs were for the coil packs and which part of the loom goes down to feed the alternator and power steering rack etc then on the intake side i removed the manifold to give me better access. Im fairly confident though that I've got loads of plugs that are actually redundant though since I've gone standalone ecu with an aftermarket intake manifold so i think im going to leave the rest of the engine loom for when it goes to SRD. I moved onto the bay loom as i actually know what im doing with that! I've removed it from the bay and tucked it inside the wheel arches behind the arch liners. You can retain pretty much all the factory clips and locate them in un used factory fixing holes - almost like Toyota designed it that way other than having to extend a few of the plugs. On the drivers side i had to extend the wiper motor and brake fluid level plugs. I used these 2 in 1 heat shrink/solder sleeves which always work perfectly for me. Then just wrapped it up with proper fabric loom tape. Any nearby edges got covered in that rubber edging trim.

Big day today!! So firstly i got the new oem flywheel fitted with ARP bolts and a new Spec stage 3+ clutch and slave cylinder I then got the R154 mounted with a new starter motor.. then got it all mounted in the car! my mate had the job of making sure we didn't damage the paint. Poor lad isn't very strong and the only way he could push the gearbox into the tunnel was to sit on it

Got back off Holiday a few days ago and now have my R154 back from Garage D. They gave it a clean bill of health, all the synchros and gears are 100% They stripped and cleaned it and I had the thrust washer and shift forks replaced with Marlin crawler upgrades and also had the shifter housing extended to suit a mk4.

Today i got last nights paint polished up - the paint finish straight out the gun was really clean so i only grazed over it with a 3000 grit trizact pad - no need for anything harsher before going over it with 3M fast cut polish. I then did some reflective heat tape in the necessary places before refitting the abs pump, clutch master cylinder and all the brake lines. My gearbox is still with Garage D at the minute but as soon as thats back I'll be dropping the engine in!!

Thanks mate, no not as such.. although i am pencilled in with Lee at SRD for mapping in October so it needs to be mostly finished before then!!

Finally got the engine bay painted today! Started by cleaning out the paint booth. After giving it a good sweep out i literally took the jet wash in there and washed everything out.. all the walls, doors and floor. Then cleaned the car down with an air line - genuinely forgot what it looked like 'clean'! Then into the booth, jacked up, wheels off, subframe brackets off and everything masked up. 197 Obsidian black base coat Lacquered! Photos were taken after a 30 minute bake. Really impressed with this Lacquer. Well worth the money

The bay is now officially all prepped ready for paint. Got it all rubbed down over the past couple of evenings and then just went over the areas (mostly on the edges) where i rubbed threw to the bare metal with an etch spot primer just to seal it all up. o

I like that Carbon boot lid a lot! I want one for mine!

Actually made a start on proper body work today! We had been waiting for these 'big kid blocks' to arrive. They are basically just a piece of coloured acrylic with a replaceable velcro sanding strip on one side - very simple but very effective! The acrylic flexes to the shape of the panel giving you a perfect finish. My bonnet looked pretty perfect even to a trained eye.. but as soon as we tackled it with these blocks it showed loads of tiny low spots all over it. This has made me even more excited for the finished product.

Thanks Pete! Yeah it's certainly been a roller coaster! When i look back at the car over previous years all the low points now just add character for me. I'll never sell it so i want everything done to the best of my ability to save me heart ache in the long run

Looks like its going to be really special when it done! Lots of very nice parts! Are you not tempted to go single turbo?

Next step will be to get the bay rubbed down and painted. Hoping it'll be done by this time next week! Like I've mentioned before, I'll be painting the car in Mercedes 197 Obsidian black and i have Spectral Klar lacquer which is supposedly one of the best on the market. Must admit im pretty apprehensive about painting the bay - lots of edges and angles to cover and it needs to be perfect!

Last night i got the steering rack cleaned up with a quick lick of paint, strongflex bushes installed and then back on the car. Everything suspension wise is now bolted up and the wheels are now back on the car. For those eagle eyed people - yes some of the bolts have just been blasted and painted which i know isn't great. Once everything is finished and the cars painted/engine in and running etc i will re visit those areas and replace with brand new zinc plated bolts - but for the mean time im on a tight schedule, i have it pencilled in with SRD for October for the final bits and pieces in the engine bay/first start up/mapping. Id also like one of Paul Cheshires rebuilt steering racks!

Thanks Tyson Do you think its worthy yet to move to the 'Mkiv supra projects' section of the forum? That would be a little milestone complete for me!

Lower wishbones are now blasted, painted and fitted with strongflex bushes Then got them back on the car with brand new bolts. These are super hard work getting back into the alloy part of the subframe!

If i had a £ for every time someone said that i could buy a second set

Got my Subframe back on last night, got the upper wishbones blasted, bushes pressed out and new strongflex bushes installed and back on the car. Also cleaned up my Meister R coilovers and got those refitted. These are about 4 or 5 years old now and pretty much still look brand new with the help of ACF 50

Raptor coated the under side of the bay and inner wing structures before leaving tonight. I'll get the subframe back on in the next couple of days

Got the rest of the front end in raptor epoxy primer today Also got the other half of the subframe blasted, epoxy primed and finished in 2k gloss black. I did the same to the braces and finished them in ford race red

Been getting on with the front end over the past week. I'll be spending all day on it tomorrow so should have a decent update tomorrow evening. As with this build in general, things snowballed a little further. Decided to rebuild the front subframe as it seemed daft not to while i was in this position. Generally thought it would be a quick(ish) job but i guess that was me being nieve. Passenger side all came apart easy.. driver side not so much! One of the subframe bolts that run from the engine bay and down through the chassis leg sheared off and both bolts in the lower wishbone were seized solid. I was dreading this happening. My rear subframe was the same when i did that. I think lots of people have experienced it now. So anyway i dropped the subframe down and tried cutting the seized wishbone bolts out - I'd already attempted using an air hammer to no avail. Cutting them out was a total nightmare and i decided i was going to sacrifice the wishbone to avoid the risk of damaging the subframe - still pretty annoyed that i had to destroy the wishbone but i had 2 good condition spare wishbones, i didn't however have a spare subframe! i have also got the front end (upto the strut towers) in raptor epoxy primer. I'll get the rest finished tomorrow. Would have been nice to have done it all in one hit but it takes ages rubbing down and degreasing! And then lastly, once i got both halves of the subframe separated i stuck the cast alloy half in our aqua blaster and got it looking brand new again