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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

decided I need to frighten myself before I get any older.


Chris Wilson

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looks well! :D

 

Thanks, found a few inevitable problems. I knew when I bid on it, it had a couple of engine water leaks, these could have been trivial or more serious, it was a risk. Traced them under a pressure test to O rings on the rad pipes to the two water pumps (one for each bank). I have ordered new ones and cleaned up the housings. I had to remove these anyway as I wanted to weld on some adaptors to use an engine pre heater to get the thing close to running temp, coolant wise, before starting it, so no big deal. I suspect the fuel tank, which is an Aerospace "rubber" bag tank, may be leaking. There's a fuel smell, and it doesn't seem to like holding pressure. You can't go mad, 1.5 PSI is all that's safe to put in them, much more and they can split the tub open pneumatically.

 

This could be a big problem as Premier would have to make a new one, which would be about 3 grand. Here's hoping...

 

I also found the usually floor damage from kerbing to the underfloors, all very repairable, although I know where I can buy new ones if needed. A few of the bonded in alloy bobbins in the underside of the tub that take the sub floor bolts are stripped, or have wonky threads, these need sorting. Otherwise it seems very sound, with compressions OK and leakdowns good for the hours it's done. All the master cylinders, calipers and discs were renewed or rebuilt only 1.5 hors run time ago, so they are fine. The transaxle has had a recent rebuild, too. The suspension was also crack tested. The dampers were rebuilt by Koni and dyno tested a couple of hours run time ago, so no problems there, hopefully. I am trying to find oil filters for it (two small paper elements within the pressure pump itself, probably off something mundane, but also the same as the Zytek KV current engine if I can't match them, but Zytek will know how to price oil filters :) It's now very hard to buy new Mugen MF308 engine parts. I have ordered new harnesses, as these are out of date time. Willans still have the drawings as I could still read them the production code on the buckle strap, so not too bad at 200 notes a set. I can't run it without renewing these, although the ones in it have done sod all :(

 

Some pics of it with the floors off and the wheels off, on its stand:

 

http://www.chriswilson.tv/T91_2/lola2.html

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With a maximum 30 mm ride height I'd need some very slim neons, in a very tough material, I'll pass on those :) I will have a flick through the anodising colour cards though, good idea Rob ;)

 

In all seriousness, it looks awesome, im very jealous :)

 

If you need a skinny driver with lightening fast reflexes to do the vehicle justice then give me a call....

 

 

 

 

...wont be me though!

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Well I fired it up on Friday and despite living in the sticks I had people from way down the lane come over to see what the hell was happening, so, IMHO, it's bloody loud, and i was only blipping it to about 4000 RPM :) It also seems to have a bag tank leak, which is an expensive PITA :(

 

:lol: What does it idle at and how high does it rev?

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God, that was a lot to wade through, but yes, that'll be the same car. it's an ex Heinz Harold Frentzen car, then run on the hills in Belgium. Busy making an adaptor to do a compression and leakdown test on it. 10mm x 1.0 plug size, down an 18 mm well. the plugs take a 1/2 inch socket. so they are tiny.

 

Sounds like a marine engine plug to me.

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I used to work on these things back in the day, though in 91 I was with a team running Reynard DFV's.

Surprised to see that there are still some of these about, as they were 'pre plank' days and we used to run them very low and the chassis used to take an awful beating over the kerbs. Cracked and damaged tubs used to be very common, usually round the bulkheads and floor area. Also, we only used to run them for one season as we used to get new cars every year, though there was a British F2 series for older cars, and the Japanese would run these as well.

Good luck with it Chris, would like to see it in action one day :)

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Got my eye on a brand new rolling chassis, never even been painted.... ;) If I like it I might buy it ostensibly for spares, but possibly to build and use THIS one for spares. Tub seems very good, sub floors are a bit ratty, but having a neighbour who is a carbon specialist helps there. He has been round to have a look and can fix the worst one (centre floor) to be pretty good again for a modest fee.

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Well I fired it up on Friday and despite living in the sticks I had people from way down the lane come over to see what the hell was happening, so, IMHO, it's bloody loud, and i was only blipping it to about 4000 RPM :) It also seems to have a bag tank leak, which is an expensive PITA :(

Where will you be able to use it? IIRC even 'loud' days have their limits? :(

 

Maybe I could persuade Llandow to let you do some one-off, let's forget the noise limit, demo laps at the club track day. ;)

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Donington, Silverstone, plenty of European circuits still, although I don't i'd make the effort to drive across Europe for a few laps ;) Llandow would sadly take the bottom out of it, it's too bumpy. Running costs are such that I won't be doing millions of laps so the limitations of where it can run aren't that bad to me.

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Donington, Silverstone, plenty of European circuits still, although I don't i'd make the effort to drive across Europe for a few laps ;) Llandow would sadly take the bottom out of it, it's too bumpy. Running costs are such that I won't be doing millions of laps so the limitations of where it can run aren't that bad to me.

Let me know when you go for an outing as I'd probably take a day off to come & spectate. :)

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