89' Toyota GT-Four Lightweight
Discussion
A weeke today ill be bording the ferry for ... Calais I think? then through France to the 'ring. Cars more or less ready
Devided to go over without the spots on as they're rather easy to remove and should make a noticeable difference to fuel economy I reckon as I wont have the dam on the front of the car.
Got a few queries over European travel, not even sure how many euro's to take over but sure I'll learn as I go..
Just found out I need a GB sticker too..
Breakdown cover should probably be sorted before I go too
Devided to go over without the spots on as they're rather easy to remove and should make a noticeable difference to fuel economy I reckon as I wont have the dam on the front of the car.
Got a few queries over European travel, not even sure how many euro's to take over but sure I'll learn as I go..
Just found out I need a GB sticker too..
Breakdown cover should probably be sorted before I go too
Cheers dude.
Time for another update I guess. Trip the ring was amazing. Got there and back fine, car didn't present any major problems; no problems at all really. I probably could have taken more pictures but that's how it goes. I'll try and do a highlights reel of the trip as much I'm able. The drive over wen't surprisingly well/quickly, the slowest part was the ferry at around 1am, started feeling tired then but driving on the continent for the first time in the dark soon woke me up.
A few shenanigans before we left the country however. A shot of the line up that drove over, we had a Leon Cupra R and a Fabia VRS meet us over there the next day
Looks can be deceiving, the Mk2 was probably the most expensive car there, sort of!
Speaking of the Escort, the boy had just spend quite a bit on a new engine, brakes etc. Well; turns out one of the coils in the head holding the spark plug in wasn't too clever, and pulling out of Reading services the spark plug decided to pull our of the head and hit the underside of the bonnet
not the start the Escort owner was looking for
M4
no way that's being fixed on the hard shoulder. We we're all pretty devastated as you can imagine, we assumed that was the end of his trip before it had begun. Nope. The type of boy he is he pulled the injector on the effected cylinder and said come on lets get on we've got a ferry to catch.. Fair play. He drove all the way to Germany on 3 cylinders
the noise was deafening; in my car let alone his. I did has a pic somewhere of him driving with ear defenders on, Mk2s not being the quietest of cars at the best of times, especially stripped out and caged ex road rally Mk2s.
Trying to get it fixed at - I forget services
managed to get one of the boys who was leabing a day later to meet us to bringh a helicoil kit, he ended up fixing it in the hotel car park in Germany after a good few pints of Paulaner.
On the ferry
somewhere in Belgium if I remember correctly just as it was getting light
somewhere else in.. Europe at a piss stop
Well we got there in fine form, the Escort blatting on 3 cylinders for the whole journey was equally hilarious and mind numbingly annoying
Iconic photo
and as we got to the Lindenhof
The hotel was fine, not the Ritz but clean, tidy, the landlady was mad in a good way, we turned up slightly early and none of the rooms were ready so she allowed us to basically help ourselves to the bar
some opted for coffee, i went for
that was about 9:30am if I remember correctly. Perfect.
The Lindenhof is on the main road in the small town that looks over the ring, few of you will prbably recognise it, knw the place I mean, the main road in the town leads down to the main tourist entrance for the ring; about a 2 min drive in the car. Sae Rent 4 Ring so popped in
The ring cars just seemed to be left outside all week. We noticed they didn't even have locking wheel nuts, all on Enkeis I believe too? I doubt we could be that trusting in this country unfortunately but good to see the confidence in the locals over there is high.
We went for a drive I think the day after and popped down into Adenauer where we found a few pubs and some speccy points. I remember pulling out of the lay by and forgetting to drive on the right side of the road, my only lapse with the swap
This is the field directly behind/below adenauer forst
we may have got lost trying to find it and ended up on the outside of the left hander if that makes sense. No speccy points are really sign posted and I think most rely on local knowledge to find the best spots, was still good for a watch though.
I've all but totally forgotten the time line on the pictures but this was out first visit to the car park, it was probably the tuesday or wednesday in the early evening as the tourist sessions started
lol
A random picture with my mate driving the Celica, don't normally let any else drive it (especially around the Nurburgring)but he used to own it so would have been rude not to.
As an aside, and continuing the entertainment from the Escort; going through the barriers to enter the circuit the Escort owner was told to pull over and was the car was scrutineered. The upshot was (and being told in broken english) that 'zie car is not fit for German roads'
The front wings were loose, the front bumper brackets were pround on the front valance, and it was rather dirty.
No problem we thought. The bumper brackets were removed, I assume they thought (quite rightly) that they could be a sharp hazard to other ring users. Actually before the forest we went to a local engineering/rally car prepping firm (with an all black GT40 in the unit among other things yumm) and were allowed to weld the wings up for bout 60 euros I remember. So that was 2 out of the 3 issues sorted.
The look of the car then. For this we scooted off and found an accommodating forest and got to work. As the paintwork was a little shabby as well as needing a clean, we got some fence paint aand.. I'll let the pictures tell the story
prepping for paint
in the booth
The result was absolutely fantastic, It really did look this good
We all got back to the car park, lined back up at the entrance to watch the Escort tentatively pull up to the card barriers. The same marshall who had refused him access to the circuit the first time was there again, damn. After being pulled over after going through the barrier again there were many long looks, torches flashed at stuff, wings pulled etc, and he then got waved on to join the session with everyone else, success!
a tense moment.
Few randoms car park pics
Fords inni
The GT-Four got round fine, the first lap was the fastest due to rain on all subsequent 4 laps @ 10:38, I was the only one of the boys in the group not to get a sub 10 first lap.. arse..
The laps themselves were the most frenetic of my life, the first particularly was mind blowing. You have to experience it. If anyone is thinking of going, go. I spend around £900 all in, totally worth it.
I could write up a lot more about the lap, the trip etc but I'm tired and feel like I've been typing this for a few days now.
Post
(hope there's not too many speeling erurrs and fingers crossed all the pics are the right ones
Time for another update I guess. Trip the ring was amazing. Got there and back fine, car didn't present any major problems; no problems at all really. I probably could have taken more pictures but that's how it goes. I'll try and do a highlights reel of the trip as much I'm able. The drive over wen't surprisingly well/quickly, the slowest part was the ferry at around 1am, started feeling tired then but driving on the continent for the first time in the dark soon woke me up.
A few shenanigans before we left the country however. A shot of the line up that drove over, we had a Leon Cupra R and a Fabia VRS meet us over there the next day
Looks can be deceiving, the Mk2 was probably the most expensive car there, sort of!
Speaking of the Escort, the boy had just spend quite a bit on a new engine, brakes etc. Well; turns out one of the coils in the head holding the spark plug in wasn't too clever, and pulling out of Reading services the spark plug decided to pull our of the head and hit the underside of the bonnet
not the start the Escort owner was looking forM4
no way that's being fixed on the hard shoulder. We we're all pretty devastated as you can imagine, we assumed that was the end of his trip before it had begun. Nope. The type of boy he is he pulled the injector on the effected cylinder and said come on lets get on we've got a ferry to catch.. Fair play. He drove all the way to Germany on 3 cylinders
the noise was deafening; in my car let alone his. I did has a pic somewhere of him driving with ear defenders on, Mk2s not being the quietest of cars at the best of times, especially stripped out and caged ex road rally Mk2s.Trying to get it fixed at - I forget services
managed to get one of the boys who was leabing a day later to meet us to bringh a helicoil kit, he ended up fixing it in the hotel car park in Germany after a good few pints of Paulaner.
On the ferry
somewhere in Belgium if I remember correctly just as it was getting light
somewhere else in.. Europe at a piss stop
Well we got there in fine form, the Escort blatting on 3 cylinders for the whole journey was equally hilarious and mind numbingly annoying
Iconic photo
and as we got to the Lindenhof
The hotel was fine, not the Ritz but clean, tidy, the landlady was mad in a good way, we turned up slightly early and none of the rooms were ready so she allowed us to basically help ourselves to the bar
some opted for coffee, i went for 
that was about 9:30am if I remember correctly. Perfect.
The Lindenhof is on the main road in the small town that looks over the ring, few of you will prbably recognise it, knw the place I mean, the main road in the town leads down to the main tourist entrance for the ring; about a 2 min drive in the car. Sae Rent 4 Ring so popped in
The ring cars just seemed to be left outside all week. We noticed they didn't even have locking wheel nuts, all on Enkeis I believe too?
I doubt we could be that trusting in this country unfortunately but good to see the confidence in the locals over there is high.We went for a drive I think the day after and popped down into Adenauer where we found a few pubs and some speccy points. I remember pulling out of the lay by and forgetting to drive on the right side of the road, my only lapse with the swap
This is the field directly behind/below adenauer forst
we may have got lost trying to find it and ended up on the outside of the left hander if that makes sense. No speccy points are really sign posted and I think most rely on local knowledge to find the best spots, was still good for a watch though.I've all but totally forgotten the time line on the pictures but this was out first visit to the car park, it was probably the tuesday or wednesday in the early evening as the tourist sessions started
lol
A random picture with my mate driving the Celica, don't normally let any else drive it (especially around the Nurburgring)but he used to own it so would have been rude not to.
As an aside, and continuing the entertainment from the Escort; going through the barriers to enter the circuit the Escort owner was told to pull over and was the car was scrutineered. The upshot was (and being told in broken english) that 'zie car is not fit for German roads'
The front wings were loose, the front bumper brackets were pround on the front valance, and it was rather dirty.No problem we thought. The bumper brackets were removed, I assume they thought (quite rightly) that they could be a sharp hazard to other ring users. Actually before the forest we went to a local engineering/rally car prepping firm (with an all black GT40 in the unit among other things yumm) and were allowed to weld the wings up for bout 60 euros I remember. So that was 2 out of the 3 issues sorted.
The look of the car then. For this we scooted off and found an accommodating forest and got to work. As the paintwork was a little shabby as well as needing a clean, we got some fence paint aand.. I'll let the pictures tell the story
prepping for paint
in the booth
The result was absolutely fantastic, It really did look this good
We all got back to the car park, lined back up at the entrance to watch the Escort tentatively pull up to the card barriers. The same marshall who had refused him access to the circuit the first time was there again, damn. After being pulled over after going through the barrier again there were many long looks, torches flashed at stuff, wings pulled etc, and he then got waved on to join the session with everyone else, success!
a tense moment. Few randoms car park pics
Fords inni
The GT-Four got round fine, the first lap was the fastest due to rain on all subsequent 4 laps @ 10:38, I was the only one of the boys in the group not to get a sub 10 first lap.. arse..
The laps themselves were the most frenetic of my life, the first particularly was mind blowing. You have to experience it. If anyone is thinking of going, go. I spend around £900 all in, totally worth it.
I could write up a lot more about the lap, the trip etc but I'm tired and feel like I've been typing this for a few days now.
Post
(hope there's not too many speeling erurrs and fingers crossed all the pics are the right ones
Cheers, could have been a better write up having re-read it, but you get the gist of it I'm sure
I referenced us being in a field next to adenauer forst, looks like I forgot to include it; here it is.
worth the wait I know
Celicas been running rough on and off for the last few weeks, possibly tracked it down to an ECU issue, It has the piggyback at the moment that retains the OE ECU for knock, they may not be working well with each other so in the next 2/3 weeks it's having a full standalone fitted/mapped which fingers crossed should sort the fueling issue. I have the option of anti-lag then also. Unfortunately I don't have the many thousands needed for a turbo setup that can handle it, awww
I referenced us being in a field next to adenauer forst, looks like I forgot to include it; here it is.
worth the wait I know
Celicas been running rough on and off for the last few weeks, possibly tracked it down to an ECU issue, It has the piggyback at the moment that retains the OE ECU for knock, they may not be working well with each other so in the next 2/3 weeks it's having a full standalone fitted/mapped which fingers crossed should sort the fueling issue. I have the option of anti-lag then also. Unfortunately I don't have the many thousands needed for a turbo setup that can handle it, awww
quick update. As said previously it's going in this week for a now change to a Link G4 Atom ECU which should be fitted and mapped over the next 2/3 weeks. A nice addition will be a set of ST205 540cc injectors to safely increase the headroom of the duty cycle. On last mapping it was leaning out at around 5k so boost was reduced to 14 psi to keep things safe and resulting in approx 260bhp. We should be back up to a safe 300hp with the new injectors.
On a side note I'm likely to be putting the Celica up for sale in the coming months. It'll break my heart to do so but I've got a hankering that won't quit for a bugeye STI. I've had the GT-Four for some years now and as much as I love it I want to tick a few more fast cars off the list. Will need to start prepping it for sale including a rolling road print out to make sure it's putting out what we suspect. Although when I get it back with it's new ECU I may change my mind
On a side note I'm likely to be putting the Celica up for sale in the coming months. It'll break my heart to do so but I've got a hankering that won't quit for a bugeye STI. I've had the GT-Four for some years now and as much as I love it I want to tick a few more fast cars off the list. Will need to start prepping it for sale including a rolling road print out to make sure it's putting out what we suspect. Although when I get it back with it's new ECU I may change my mind
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