random snap, garage 4ag Trueno, NOM!!

perfect Trueno on some TOM'S August Feroce, Bump for garage 4ag , keep it up , that is all!

Wheel whoring, Friday edition.....

Well tonight was time to finally get my SSR rims together!

Tomorrow we will be getting close to finishing my Levin resto!!

Here is "Anonymous" helping with the assembly......

Beer helped in the assembly process , but so did my files, as there was some excess paint from the powder-coating process that needed to be taken down to allow the wheels to come together....

The finished product , awaiting rubber...

***Some fresh pic's of my Levin***

New metal plates on and the front and rear wheels are now spaced out a small bit to make use of my arches, thats all for now. nice and clean in the pic's , pity it's not like that now..........

^^Wheel refurb complete!

Today was a nice day, the Trueno got some mega love..

First of all the car was up on axle stands so the 4 trusty but tired looking TE37s could be removed. The stickers were very faded and cracked, and not much remained of them after 10 years of road and powerwashing!

So armed with some choice products from the detailing shelf...

... I went to the local carwash and gave them a very thorough cleaning. The AG Custom Wheel Cleaner is safe for use for anodized and other less common metal finishes so I was happy using that on the gorgeous bronze metal..

The power hose also made short work of the remaining decals, so I was left with a spotless grease free surface.

And now for the really satisfying part! My new OEM decals from RAYS all the way in Japan.

gently...

 

The results speak for themselves!! and with some wheel sealant and tyre shine later,

All done! The car is still too shamefully high to put up a picture of them fitted but the car was also given a super clean today to match the wheels, along with a fresh coolant swap and some other small jobs..

And now for many beers :)

Racing Service Watanabe....

official Ad , how fucking cool is this,

obviously bad quality vid being sooo old and retro, but hey....


So who can guess the car?????????

more stuff in the post!

Two packets of long awaited parts have arrive from around the globe! 


Firstly, from my friends in RHDJapan, we have some genuine Rays sticker repair kits for TE37's, black & white for my bronze set, and blue and white for Kevs set.. I'm so chuffed with these I didn't think I would ever find them, my wheels are going to be like new when I put them on! BIG thanks again to RHD for getting these for me :)

Secondly, from Australia, we have two beefy T6 6061 aluminium 40mm RCA's by AJPS. I chose these as they were similar in price to T3 but were 40mm thick rather than 30mm for better correction if I go very low, and also its nice to support all of the independent tuners making aftermarket AE86 parts! Also anodized black is a big plus for me lol. 

Also supplied by AJPS were two sets of polyurethane steering rack mount bushings and they will eventually go into my Trueno and one of Kevs '86s. They should really improve the steering feedback on our manual racks so that is one mod I am quite looking forward to. Results will be posted.

This weekend might see the start of assembling the new coilovers for my Trueno so stay tuned!

"such as when the injured aging..."

With the awesome discovery of this link, rayswheels.co.jp/omnomnomnom, my long term wheel refurb will now be complete! The wheel nuts and valves are in, they are wrapped in Yokohamas almost finest (family car lol) rubber, and the lightweight TE37's will soon be off for a serious full cleaning, sealing, and the careful application of new GENUINE decals...

Only one wheel has the lightest kerb rash and was on it from the cars previous life, so I can live with that for an otherwise perfect set of 11 year old set of wheels! A set of the blue on white decals are also coming for
Sarahs
Kev's white, Gravel TE37s which have an eventual date with a sandblaster & powdercoater..

weekend service

Last weekend saw the long awaited fitment of my new Yokohama rubber, and the new Rays valves on my trusty (and shamefully dirty) TE37's. 

185/55/14 on front

The tracking on my Trueno was pretty bad, 30 minutes toe-out on either side, which led to a fairly smooth inner shoulder on the front Toyo CF1s on the after roughly 25k kilometres/1 year. I do a lot of motorway driving too so this accelerates any tire wear from alignment problems! We had been keeping an eye on this and was on the list of things to do so it was great to finally tick another item off.  

can't see through zenki splitters!!

needs so much more low.. :(

Skilfully using an oldschool set of gauges, and his internal eye-o-meter, Kev set my toe to a pretty much spot on at almost zero toe-in per side, perfect for a road going FR car.

Unfortunately the two outer track rods had been overtightened in the cars previous life, so adjustment was proving difficult. One of them was freed up enough to provide the extra thread or two needed to toe in the wheel, but the drivers side one could not be loosened despite all attempts with various grips and hammers and chisels. 

survived ultimate wallying

Luckily there was a pretty fresh spare rod (with the correct length inner end for a manual rack) sitting in the Garage Hachi treasury, and this was quickly swapped out to get us going again. Here Kev is staking the new securing washer back onto on the new inner track rod end.

leaky coolant/curry/tea FTL

The Yokohama S.Drive in 55 profile with newly corrected toe-in felt really really nice and first testing shows that they are a very nice grippy grippy tyre with a stiff sidewall, but they are quickly showing the limits of my cheapo-lowering-springs + crappy-Monroe-damper set up (also from the cars previous life). Turn in is faster now, but when pushed hard there is a tendency to slightly understeer first and then grip as the weight transfers onto the tyre. I expect the tyres to be even better when the 6kg springs & MCN shortstrokes are up front. Braking performance is awesome too and they are matched well with the brake upgrades, once the pads are warmed up of course. I also got to test them in high speed rain on the motorway home and they really do carve through the water like its not there, there was no aquaplaning through quite heavy standing water to they really give good confidence for Irish roads & weather. I have tried both these and The Toyo T1-R (though on a different car) and I think the Yoko S's are superior! When the coilovers eventually go in I will update again how they perform on my 1st trackday.

185/60/14 on the rear

The C.drive on the rear proved to be a very good choice too, as they are very grippy in both dry and the wet especially, and need to be fairly well provoked to step out in the wet, so I am enjoying the new grip style of my car at the moment! Hopefully they will be durable too. Both tyres were sourced through eiretyre.com.

While the car was on the ramp the LSD oil was also topped up as that halfshaft seal leak gets worse, so expect an axle refresher + Cusco MZ install blog in the future!

Also investigated a leak from a cracked heater feed hose, so a new hose is on the way from Toyota and that will be installed asap, to hopefully end that horrible tea running down my engine block for now..

Dave

Random lazy Tuesday snaps

My poor Levin is crying out for some attention , I haven't driven it in two weeks , I'm waiting/saving for a few parts for it........... decided I'd clean it up a bit and play with some offset just for shits and to make me feel a bit better about it

* new whale skins!

I've been waiting for these :)
A nice fresh set of Yokohama rubber. Performance S-drive in 185/55/14 for the front, and a slightly cheaper and more hopefully durable C-drive in 185/60/14 for the back (Anything will be better than the evil Runway Enduro's). I would have gotten /60 profile all around only I couldn't get a very good tyre in that size, so S-drive in 55 it was.

S-drive got some good reviews online so far, so I can't wait to give them a try. They will be replacing Toyo CF1 which was a very good normal tyre, but thanks to bad tracking and lots and lots of motorway, they have no shoulders left haha. Fitting these will also give me a chance to fit those new RAYS valves I got for the TE's a while back. The mini wheel refurb is nearly complete.


fatment & tracking this weekend hopefully.

The Shining..

I'm still not quite recovered from holidays part 2.0, but nevertheless the Trueno needed some attention after being parked up for a week. It was quite filthy so a relaxing St. Patricks day was spent washing and detailing the car. I went a bit mad with the Meguiar's Endurance Tyre gel, but its just such a good product and really makes a differance between just washing your car and having a clean car.. (And no I didn't use half a bottle on one tyre..)



The new KICS R40 lug nuts are in and looking spanky, and the new black aluminium valves have arrived from RAYS, so at the next interview with the tyre machine they will go in, and I'll be one step closer to finishing my little DIY wheel refurb. Here is one of the old blue ones we took out, they have had a tough life.

New decals are next on my list, once I can find some black & white ones in the correct size. RHD contacted RAYS for me, and they unfortunately won't supply and fresh decals, probably some thing to do with crappy fake wheels.. Luckily some enterprising Japanese wheel sticker enthusiasts are selling them on the yahoo auctions :)

Wheel Whores!!!

Dave's te's and my mk2's during a tyre changing season, weight wise the te's win hand's down!!

fitment yo!**

trying 9j wat's with -19 offset on my levin