Category: Uncategorised

Some nice cars had to wait outside, while Ricardo from Ferrari helped me with the suspension align.

The system was overprecise optical computer system, which immediately told us that the whole car was heavily out of spec. This wasn’t news, because the car had been really nervous and twitchy to drive, almost to dangerous levels. For measuring, we had to attach plates with reflective patterns to rims, so the computer could find the car.

We underestimated the time to adjust the suspension, and easy one-hour trip to the shop turned into mad three-hour wrench battle, when we went through all possible adjustments. Once again, I was really pleased to find almost everything still working as they should be, only passenger side rear toe adjust was stuck. We adjusted the car to these values: Front camber: -1degrees06′ Front toe-in: 0.9degrees Caster: 6degrees45′ Rear camber: -1degrees06′ Rear toe-in: 1.7degrees After the adjustment, while printing the aligment report, Ricardo told me that not even Ferraris needed to be this well aligned.

This is the famous TOM’S/Chowini’s 10krpm tachometer for AW11. I also have the original box with the part number. I have to find new location for the supercharger led, because I’m not going to drill the 10krpm at all 🙂

 Kinda lame, both carbon parts are mostly made out of metal 🙂 (Bit cool to have such parts!) The LSD is carbon street version. The carbon race version is way too hardcore for my car, but there is possibility to upgrade it either to metal or race carbon versions just by swapping the disks. The clutch should be nearly normal, except ATS said it should be able to cope up to 400hp without any problems. I think the model was CT23H182 for the clutch, with 1600kg clamping force and easy pedal effort. Carbon fibre seems to have strange effect on Maladar. Looked like my sisters cat with catnip.

 Still in wraps here, but bright yellow spark plug wires can be seen. Sadly, those spark plug wires were meant to another 4A engine, presumably either early 4AGE or 20V 4AGE. Some pictures of the shipment: (the shift knob was a surprise from Maladar to me) 🙂

AW11 with track day tires isn’t very agile on this kind of surface. I’ve been driving around with new tires and everything seems to be ok. Some valve problems with tires but thats nothing.

Mostly, my driving has been divided between city and smaller highways and oh boy and brothers in arms, it feels good! (well, it’s still bumpy in city) 🙂 Maladar has a fender rolling tool and I rolled the rear fenders so the tires can move as they want. I still haven’t done that for front fenders and I get nasty scraping sounds every now and then.

What I have bought for the car, is something I’d love to install right now. I bought a manual gearbox! Actually, the gearbox was still attached to exactly the same kind of 4A-GZE what I have in AW11 right now and we’re thinking of doing something for the spare engine. 🙂 While at it, I also bought a carbon clutch & LSD from ATS & ACROSS and those lovelies are just waiting for the manual trans, and a second hand clutch reservoir and some pedals for the manual. What I’m still missing, is some smaller bits (probably I can get ’em from Toyota) and some clutch line, but those aren’t in any kind of hurry.

Success! I went to the MOT inspection and got through it without problems! I had a lot of new, shiny metal in every corner, but for some reason the inspector didn’t ask about those. The suspension setting was also bit of mix-and-match, because I had to order new springs for the front end. (More about that later) I had Toda/Fightex coilovers at the back, Toda/Fightex adjustable everything at the front + Eibach springs and new swaybar end links from Hawkley Inc./TwosRus, and only thing the inspector asked me, was about tires getting in contact with the fenders 😀

On the way to the inspection, I noticed that I had a blue ghost following me. First thought was that I had an oil leak, but it was just the oil from the spill when I changed the oil. Nothing serious, but it probably looked pretty weird. 103555 on the odo

I’m having some trouble with these end links. Seems that the protective rubber seal has been broken, and as far as I know, this is going to fail me in the MOT inspection. Luckily, twosRus offers new, better ones to AW11. (Toyota replacements are _really_ expensive)

I built a patch cable between the car and AEM EMS. Took almost nine hours, as I’m not really good with soldering. I built a straight cable with some color coding, so I can review my changes when I’m done.

 Bit dark picture, but I’m officially a trucker now!

I got mail from customs office.

Not my favourite source of mail, as I’ve had my share of problems with them in the past… First I payed too much tax for my car and then I got some of the taxes back, and I thought I had to go through that cycle once again (revenge of the customs), but no. It was a packet fromPhoenix Tuning.

The connectors on the 30-1110 AEM EMS are same 10p-18p-24p as in 4A-GZE, but the pinout is different, as the EMS I have is for 1986-1988 Toyota Supra with 7M-G(T)E (There is no plug and play version for the AW11). With the extra connectors I can make a patch cable for the EMS, so if I screw something with the AEM management system, I can take the AEM EMS and the patch cable off and connect the original ECU and drive away.

Also, I can keep the original harness intact. 🙂 My idea was to order both connectors (male and female) for 4A-GZE ECU, so I could make a patch cable for the AEM EMS. It’s almost impossible to get the connectors from here, as we didn’t get the supercharged version of AW11 ever into Europe, or any of the other Toyota models which had the same connectors. I even called Toyota Tsusho Nordic (again) and asked the connectors (I found the part numbers from the net) but the representative said that the connectors are discontinued.

After lot of Googling and going through EBay Motors I found a company calledPhoenix Tuning, which specializes in Toyota and Toyota engine swaps. After few emails,Dr. Tweak from Phoenix Tuning promised to get me the connectors. So, I got the connectors from the customs and the officer told me that I needed to pay 19 euros of taxes. I promptly told the customs officer that I was displeased about the extra cost and tried to ask him why I needed to pay any taxes for used parts. I didn’t get any reasonable answer, something about “freight does not have VAT included” and some mumbling about customs, so I told the officer to Have A Nice Day and left. I’d love to include some pictures of the connectors, but I forgot to recharge the camera battery 😀 Anyhow, thanks to Dr. Tweak!