Ghost XI

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!

It’s running again!

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Maladar got some stuff from AIM, mostly data logging stuff and wires. Also, there was a steering wheel and a lcd gauge system. This stuff is going into someone’s F3 project. I’d love to see the result.

I’mtesting drooling over the steering wheel.

Maladar got some new vinyl and I found one old design I made not so long ago. I have a Chowini’s (Tom’s) tachometer for AW11 (goes to 10krpm) which I got from a acquaintance of mine. I had to pay 50 euros of it, but that was a bargain.

The first cut was bit misaligned, so it ended under the screaming chicken 🙂

 Here’s some more info about Chowini’sSpeedHunters Team Chowini’s AE86

Again, some progress with bumper and front lip. Bumper was torn apart and the skin went to paint shop. Front lip got some fiber epoxy and is being sanded at the moment.

Some progress with front lip. It’s still broken, but at least I’ve sanded it. It’s now ready for epoxy and glass fiber. Next time, I’ll buy a some sort of machine for this.

Just to see how it would look, we lowered the car and added some camber. Maladar measured everything and we agreed that 40mm lowering should be fine, except some miscalculations happened and car ended lower than we wanted. I took some pictures, looked nice 🙂 (Really, I had to stop whatever I was doing at the moment and grab my camera and take pictures)