Hi

This is a copy of my build thread from the OC Just thought I'd post it here too. As Insanity-74 said somewhere else, there's not much interest in builds there unless your going for mega horse power or adding a million gauge pods....

So here begins the project thread on Myself and my father's conversion of an ST205 for road use towards that of a car that we hope will eventually race in something similar to Club MSV trackday challenge type racing.

Firstly a bit of a background, I and my brother have been racing Karts since we were young kids, and have competed at various levels, from the local clubbie every month through to my brothers latest attempts at International Karting over the last few years. However as I started getting older, and just after I learnt to drive on the roads we bought a old 182 at an auction with the view to having a bit of fun on tracks, and possibly one day starting to do a bit of car racing.

And here she is:



The stripe wasn't our choice it came that way from the last "Lady Owner" and was picked up for the pricely sum of a grand at an auction. She survied a trip to the ring before her clutch finally died on her.



At which point we decided to go for the job of changing the clutch, which we did by removing the engine. Sadly this through a variety of events, (me getting a job, Uni and various kart meeting) took us a long time. But eventually she wasd up back and running. But quickly we came to the conclusion the life of the old 182 was limited and we searched for a replacement car. The obvious choice would have been a BMW or scooby or something you can get parts for but, no, that would have been too simple so we went for a ST205.

All was going well with the ST205, we'd been a few trackday and liked the car it did understeer a little but it wasn't drastic, it seemed to be pretty quick but wasn't as fast as you'd have expected.

None the less it was booked onto it's first competitive outing at TSS and drung the first quick practice run with my brother at the wheel something when horribly Pete Tong with a downshift and he came in.....

All that needed to be said by adrian was "Ahh shut it down, Death Rattle!"

So that leads us to start with our stripping of the beast.

Upon initially getting the car back and trying to figure out what the knocking was he hoped it was top end....and investigations proved it wasn't but did reveal a shocking amount of play in the turbo, of about 1 to 1.5 mm radially (well the distance is a guess but it was enough to hear a clicking noise ), but not inout. So we decided to take the engine out again....

This job as it turned out was alot easier than originally imagined as we followed a helpful guide off GT4dc, and the lump was dragged out through the top in a little over a day's work. For the beginning of this thread there aren't many pictures as it would just be recreating the manual and also i wasn't taking any.

Upon dis assembly of the engine it turned out that the big end shells had worn away to about coke can thickness and filled the oild with nice shiny glittery bits so we took it fully apart and sent it to and engine builders for some work.

In the mean time we continued to take the turbo apart and found this terror:



which isn't as bad as it looks as dad kinda snapped a few bits off taking the turbo apart but still both compressor and turbine had been grounding on their respective housings.

Whilst the engine was away we decided we would remove the Macpherson strut so we went to Nick from Bolton and got ourselves some bits and bobs to replace that Here's a picture of the rust mostly removed strut ready to be painted initially with Kurust then Hammerite:



There's all the other bits and pieces but I'll add those photo's as I go along. We decided to go for the 202 rack as we reckon there will be a bit more adjustment in Toe, for those who are wondering. But I'll cover the Macpherson Conversion more in later updates. Suffice to say at the moment we're thinking that the best idea is probably some XYZ or BC Racing coil overs and we're probably gonna have a serious go at fitting the 205 disc's with a bit milled off, or running the Scooby disc's depending on weight, as if the disc is significantly thinner or lighter your getting some unsprung reduction there :thumbsup:.

Whilst at Nick's we noticed an old 202 shell with a non ABS setup so we took that option and as it had been outside for a while he gave us the bits for free! So we have changed from all this:



to this:



Considerabbly less complicated, and frankly better for track use.

At this point the friendly engine builder told us that the crank was alittle out so it's getting ground, and the conrod's were for the bin at only a 4mm ovaling :thumbsup: so it turns out that the car appears to run really well for some time on duff bearings as i doubt that the all ovaling was done in the 4 or 500m my brother drover it back to the pits in....

So we stripped the car out a fair bit and now have this sitting in the garage:





Looking a little sorry for herself, but not to fear as we're currently sorting her out with a roll cage off of one of my brother contacts in the racing world who should enjoy the change from fitting cage's to mini's.

As an aside we found this under th rear seat, suggesting someone in the factory came on public transport when the were building this particular import.



and happily these arrived in the post today!



YAY!

So thats the stage we're up to now, but one thing has me flummoxed.....what in god's name are these little boxes and can they be got rid of or moved, we figured they're ignition related but it just seems and odd place to put them.

and


The Plan of action and modifications we have at the moment are:
Light as possible
Plastic Windows
MacPherson Conversion + Coilovers
Cage (multi point weld in)
Light flywheel and clutch
Whiteline ARB at the rear
Engine Oil Cooler
FMIC
A proper Radiatior swirlpot setup
Greatly reduced loom
Stainless exhaust and manifold.

The list will no doubt grow as we go on with the work

Jobs for this weekend are:

Finish taking out the Toad Alarm....anyone want one?
reducing the loom and wire mess in the front and removing the last of the speakers.

On that note does anyone have any real idea what all the relays on the drivers pillar do...without wading through the manuals, ideally a little picture with some names on would be good then the choppin of copper can start in earnest!

So here's an update from today's work!

Having made a little box to use our new sand blaster in dad set about cleaning the suspension arms back to bare metal basically, as well as the front hubs. The arms and hub are now sitting inside out the damp till the next chance I get to paint them.

Whilst he was doing that I had a go at lightening a wing mirror and it seems the reduction was quite large.

Before:


After:


I will be putting up a step by step next chance I get as I have only done one so far, it's pretty straight forward really it was getting the thing to bits that was the most hassle, but the 3 motors and metal mount inside the mirror weigh quite alot really.

Then I started a job that I came to think "god what have I started"

The loom has been partially removed and i've stripped the back half down, so far saving a massive two kilo's just in the rear section

Going to continue the dash loom tomorrow after work.

Firstly a guide on making your mirrors lighter....

Step 1:



Undo the three bolts pictured, I found this best to be done with an impact driver, as the first one of these we had a go at was loctite-ed in, and to quote Marcellus Wallace we had to go to work with a pair of pliers and a blowtorch, well not quite but a drill certainly.
Then pull the mirror off it just comes off with a screw driver and a bit of prising.



Undo the two bolts holding the bit that attaches to the car on and then pull the [car coloured] plastic bit off leaving a massivley heavy metal mount in your hand. Throw this in the bin.



Undo the three bolts in the cut-outs of the white square here and pull off the unit that the rectangle it attached to leaving:



and once the remaining screws are out you can pull the mirror fold motor (if you have one) out. I then put this in the vice and cut the motor off leaving all the screw holes in place, effectivley cut down the obvious notch at the top of the unit. Throw the motor out.



Then I took the motors out the mirror moving thing. Firstly by removing the small brass screw and cross piece then by taking out two screws on the unit itself.



Then once I'd put it all back together and remounted the mirror it still ratchets (allowing manual adjustment) and it weighs less than 500g over 2kg in total for the car! I haven't bothered mounting it all back on the car yet I'll update ion that once the cage has come back and it's all ready for fibre glassing as the mirror will need attaching to bit that the metal mount used to be in. Alternativley if your not so keen on fibre glassing, and only want to save the weight of the motors, don't cut it and take the motors out instead so the whole thing can go back together!

Edit: just noticed in that last picture I have literally put blood into that task!

And so here is the update itself,

After much time in the evenings at work spent taking bits of loom apart, I have not managed to make this bag of wire, and boxes that we don't need and weights about 7 - 9kg and thats only from the rear, cowl, and dash looms! The front end loom is to get butchered today.



Also I have been getting busy with the Kurust and Hammerite and now have these sitting in my room, and some of these partially completed sitting to my mother's dismay in the kitchen.





Also spent some time lovingly cleaning and sand blasting the gearbox to leave us with this shiny (new looking) unit!



And so the engineer returned the engine block and crank, Having honed it, found us some new conrods, and ground us a crank, also we got a large box of rings, seals, and gaskets and some nice new race standard shells. He also nicely gave us back the old ones, so here's a picture of the damage. (we'd taken these out previously but i just hadn't taken a photo)



Ouch! and thats only from one of the big ends, the mains looked surprisingly nice, but they're getting replaced anyway. So here's some pictures of us starting the rebuild.













So thats where the engine build is up to, and also look what arrived in the post yesterday!



Steel Turbine spool!

Well here we are, a massive update, as I haven't for a variety of reason got round to doing one for a while. hopefully I'll do another one later, as I haven't got all the photo's I'd like yet showing some of the bits that are to be fitted. Including the Intercooler we're going to use that is of an...erm...different design.

Firstly after having a discussion with Mr Barry I have discovered why the wiring diagram for this car is so different, he's pretty sure that for 96 onwards JDM car's there basically isn't a wiring diagram available, which would explain alot of my confusion when trying to interpret the diagram to the wires I was looking at. But none the less.

Firstly we stripped the car out fully including the side glass and took the car out of the garage, here she is ready to go off to get her cage fitted.





Once the car was out of the garage it gave us time to finish refurbing some bits and pieces I finished painting the Wishbones, Roll bar and hubs and there's also a picture of the Kurust doing it's thing on the front subframe. Pollybushes now fitted on the fronts, it's becoming obvious the car is going to be a fair bit stiffer than it was before....






Quite an improvement over the first rust wishbone that I put up in the first post, for any part if the car that we're going to re-furb the basic process has been to wirse brush the rust off, shot blast said item, then treat with Kurust or a grey primer before painting again this yields a nice finsih that although possibly not as high quality as getting a specialist to do it it's almost as good and a fraction of the cost.

Also gave the turbo a good start of a clean and was surprised to find the compressor can be shiny!



We also spent quite alot of time cleaning the metal sand out of all the oilways in the engine and in the sump as the bearing failure has made a bit of a mess. The "Oil Strainer" proved troublesome but owing to the difficulty in getting a replacement we have given it as good a clean as it's ever going to get and will be fitting all that back together today.

The the car came back from the cage guy and quite a good job it was too!
Just a subtle difference looking at this.....


but quite a change here....







Took some pictures of the rear of the car, this is going to be an epic bit of work I think as just looking at this it seems pretty corroded in places, but thats ok everyone likes inhaling rust when brushing it off



We spent some time making a new way of making garage space, and only one one old pallet and a few caster wheel later the car's turning circle is greatly reduced...



The when we were stripping the head we came across this, just wondering what everyone thinks to this set of grooves round the camshafts....




So there we have it most of the major updates from the past few weeks. I'll also be taking most of the floor tarmatt off today so I will probably update with this as it goes along. The suspension has been ordered and should hopefully be arriving in time for two weeks time following a Kart race.

Well after a few weeks off due to various reasons this weekend the work has continued. A quick summary with pictures to be added on friday in a longer post.

Rear Subframe dropped off and dismantled, with refurbishment underway
Front Macpherson strut set up mostly assembled with the disc's away to get skimmed, in the longer post I will explain what modifications are being made here to get the original discs to fit.
Valve seats have been done and the exhaust ports polished, we will be smoothing off but not polishing the inlets.
All the tar matt up to the rear seat recess is gone weighing a massive 6 kg so far.

The plan has altered slightly as now we have the tank off and most of the suspension struts refused to come off with out a fight so brake lines were angle ground through....

So now we are going to fit our own stainless lines for fuel and for brakes, the brake system we are toying with the idea of making a bias setup and running just a single line to the rears with a splitter T valve type thing.

Also we have been weighing some bits so I will for the longer update make a spreadsheet of weight savings, but the initial saving for macPherson conversion is 30kg from the front alone....more than counters the cage :clap:

the build has slowed down for work and the like, but alot of the lack of updates has been through laziness rather than lack of activity.

Well as I said in the previous little update the front subframe was dropped off and dragged out from under the car in one big lump F-Me it was a heavy beast!


The comparison to the Machpherson setup is obvious when you see them bot next to each other but there is about 30kg weight saving if you include the addition of some coilovers, This weight reduction will go a long way to solving the understeer in the car before you even start messing around with the anti-roll bars.



In the foreground you can see the pile of rear arms awaiting refurbishment. At the time of writing this they are currently drying and will be getting the polybush put into them tomorrow.

Another interesting discovery that was made wa that the ST202 front roll bar is a considerably thicker at 20mm than the original ST205 bar. If nothing else it will reduce body roll

But then we managed to get the macpherson front subframe on before encountering the usual problems of disc clearance.






Initially the disc's grounded into both the inside of the caliper and into the knuckle at the end of the suspension arm, so the normal course of action here is to run a spacer behind the disc and grind some metal off the calipers, being a little loathe to start chipping the caliper to bits we decided to look at the situation another way and about 10mins later the disc only grounded on the caliper.....



Modified steering knuckle!!!



The problem with disc radius however was still one that haunted us so the only way around this was to get the disc's milled or get some scooby brakes, as the car is miles lighter now anyway and it's in line with our eternal quest to reduce weight the disc's were sent off to get milled down to 295mm and get a few mil off each face, the rears went too.

Meanwhile we started work on the head and got the valve seats ground down manually to get nice fit, and make them nice and shiny once more!
Before:



After:



Following the we sent the head off with the disc's to go and get a nice clean at the engineers an a week or so later these came back!





Following bit of a test fit we can safely say that the new arrangement of modified steering knuckle and smaller disc's will allow the caliper to fit nicely.



The only other modification we plan to make from here is to weld a couple of captive bolts onto the hubs (near the disc) so that the caliper's bolts can be tightened up without splitting the caliper!

Also the head is coming along nicely with the valve's all fitted and ready to be dropped onto the engine tomorrow.





Also work in progress that isn't pictured is the removal of Tar Matting from the inside of the car, but thats a horrible job that i woul really wish upon no-one.

But all in all the progress s going well there should be more updates tomorrow, also i'm off for a test drive in a GT86

Thanks for sharing, look forward to the updates.

I think the little boxes are ballast resistors but someone more knowledgeable will confirm.

_________________
GT4DC Events Co-ordinator
1996 ST205 UK

Well today's intention was to fit the head and rocker cover, initially that went well but then we had some minor valve clearance issues.....it's fairly obvious to have looked at the clearances we had originally that whoever last built this engine just kind of threw it together. The inlet side was fine wth no issues at all, the exhaust however some of the shims were so big there wasn't a clearance and the valve was open even with the cam lobe vertically.





I know we did a bit of polishing but not that much. So we decided that we'd DIY the shim's rather than go and order some off of Toyota, and the DIY is kind of keeping with the approach we have taken through out, this meant the dremmel was broken out and we set to work on the shims. About 3 or 4 hours later we were sorted and both camshafts were in.




Then we spent some time looking at partially gas flowing the head, the inlet side wasn't too bad to with the aid of the trusty dremmel again we made it so the ports were the same size as the gasket's holes. The work on the exhaust seems much more extensive an the cheapo e-bay manifold is going to need attacking so that side is being left till later.

Also included some pictures of the stripping progress of the tar mat..... I honestly think that tar mt chipping could be handed out as a punishment to prisoners such is the boredom and futility of chipping away a .5cm square bit of it for ever two or three hammer hits. (sadly we have no dry ice :angryfire: )

Hey, well following this weekend more progress has been made on the transformation of the car.

I have been keeping a close eye on e-bay for the last few weeks and uncovered these for a very reasonable price considering that they are light for a set of 17's and that they came with a set of pretty new R888's fitted. It was cheaper infact to buy these than it would have been to buy a whole set of R888's which beggars belief really.




They're in an offset of ET48 so may need spacing but initially they seem to fit fine, however the calipers are not yet fitted so there may be an issue there, but given the price it will still be cheap if a set of four spacers are needed to get it all to work. Also they're in black and averyone knows a racing car uses black wheels!

The pile of discarded parts outside is becoming larger, initially the plan would have been to sell these but they are in a pretty rusty condition so maybe someone wants them once this is finished i will probably remove the inserts out the dampers as they are 4 way adjustable TRD units. But for now they are staying here.....If anyone does want any of it PM me.



The front of the car has been dismantled a bit and this will be allowing for some more weight reduction here and a cunning plan we have for the long run. But for now this is WIP and will be getting rebuilt in standard form initially! The battery tray and the crash bar holders have gon at a saving of 3.5kg.



Once the car starts going back together any unnecessary threads or captive bolts will be getting cut off for a bit of extra saving.

We then started the process of spraying the inside of the car, the final bit of tar matt was removed, the window and surround overspray bits were masked and all the bare metal was given a final prime.






We then started the process of spraying using hammerite smooth red out of the compressors gun. I didn't bother using Hammerite own brand thinners at 15 quid per 500ml and instead used some trade "standard thinners" which was a mix of Xylene and Acetone, mixed to about ^0% paint 40% thinners. This meant that one tin of paint is good for about 1 1/2 coats of the inside of the car. Here's some pictures during and after we finished the rough first coat.









So it is fine to spray hammerite with a generic thinner incase anyone was wondering and had been scared by the horror stories from other forums. I'd say overall as this was reall mo or my dad's first time spraying anything it was a fun process, it's HIGHLY advisable to use a mask of some type. Once we have done the second coat then I'll take a photo of the filters to show you what I mean. There are some bit's we'll need to do by hand but i guess this is always the case with a roll cage as some pars it's impossible to get the gun into.

Once we had finished this we Ku-Rusted and then Hammerite-d the diff and drive shafts.



Finished fitting the polybushes to the rear of the car, rather controversially we are going for polybush replacements for the spherical bearings, as the old ones moved so much it seems difficult to believe that they provided a solid track at all but we shall see in the long run.

Lastly for the weekend we finished reassemble of the engine after having cleaned up the rocker cover a fair bit.




Hopefully by next weekend the bolts for the struts should have arrived then following a little waxyoyl under the car we can rebuild the rear subframe and fit what we can before finishing painting inside the car.

Overall progress moves along well!

Some impressive work there Pete! I'm sure lots of people on here will appreciate your build thread. Do keep us posted on your progress.
How long have you been working on your project?

_________________
Don
GT4DC Chairman
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four ST205WRC JDM 269bhp @ 0.9bar
1994 Toyota Celica GT-Four Special GT 590bhp @ 1.8bar
1989 Van Diemen RF88/89 Formula Ford 1600
2008 Nissan Patrol GU 3.0L ZD30DDTi 154bhp

+1

Seeing the red 205 and the mention of TSS brings back some memories

_________________
Vice Chairman
1990 White UK Celica ST185 - Project DTM
1997 Cream BMW R1200C (as seen in James Bond "Tomorrow Never Dies")
2005 Jaguar X-type 3.0 Sovereign AWD Automatic
Blood Bikes - https://www.freewheelers.org.uk/

Lightweight wing mirrors is real dedication

Good work

Ahh thanks guys.

Don: I guess it been about 7 months so far but only at weekends.

Plans this weekend: finish painting the cage then start re assembling the suspension! Exciting times. It might support its own weight for the first time in quite a while.

Muddy waters: I guess you were there when it died then? I've finally got a confession out my brother that he missed a gear. I think in fairness tho it was most likely on its way out any way as I doubt the bearings melted and the turbo died in the space of a single lap.