Celica ST205 GT4 - Phase 2!
Discussion
Hello Motocrosser, great to find a previous owner!
It looks like the owner between us did not look after the car very well as it arrived with me in a bit of a state. Getting there now though!
Do you have any photos of it in your possession?
The car will not be out this year as there is just not enough time to do what I want to it. Next year though, I will make sure I inform you!
B'Child, good to see you too chap
Have to make sure we meet up at some point, get to meet Ruby all over again 
And finally, look at Mr Popular! Reached my bandwidth an blanked all my photographs I'll have a look into sorting that one out
J
It looks like the owner between us did not look after the car very well as it arrived with me in a bit of a state. Getting there now though!
Do you have any photos of it in your possession?
The car will not be out this year as there is just not enough time to do what I want to it. Next year though, I will make sure I inform you!
B'Child, good to see you too chap
Have to make sure we meet up at some point, get to meet Ruby all over again And finally, look at Mr Popular! Reached my bandwidth an blanked all my photographs
I'll have a look into sorting that one out J
So, bit of an update.
Since I was last on here -
I have moved between three contracts.
My daughter Ruby has had Cancer and is now in remission.
Had a son (Dexter Jensen).
Moved to the south coast.
I have also found some time to work on the Celica!
The full updates are on retro rides here, but a potted collection of photos follow -
http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/123485/96-t...
The shell got stripped and sent to paint, it was around this time that Ruby got very unwell and everything stopped for a few months. It turned out that garage time was good therapy for a very very stressed parent. All components were stripped, cured, zinc primed, painted and lacquered.
Wheels imported from the US
All suspension rebuilt and painted
Then I moved jobs to the south coast to be closer to parents for both my wife and I, took us an age to sell our place in the midlands but once sorted we got our house down south pretty quickly. Main feature? DOUBLE GARAGE
Everything looking nice an clean, ready for the engine, which has also changed! It will now be a black top BEAMS unit, dual VVTi and Ti valves, first of it's kind to be fitted to a GT4
Wing risers painted at home with rattle cans
Engine going together
The new workspace is just lovely lots of plans though. Board the ceiling, stairs in to loft access (to building regs) cinema room in loft(!).
And thats us now, Ruby is in remission, work is steady, and life is comparatively easy
J
Since I was last on here -
I have moved between three contracts.
My daughter Ruby has had Cancer and is now in remission.
Had a son (Dexter Jensen).
Moved to the south coast.
I have also found some time to work on the Celica!
The full updates are on retro rides here, but a potted collection of photos follow -
http://retrorides.proboards.com/thread/123485/96-t...
The shell got stripped and sent to paint, it was around this time that Ruby got very unwell and everything stopped for a few months. It turned out that garage time was good therapy for a very very stressed parent. All components were stripped, cured, zinc primed, painted and lacquered.
Wheels imported from the US
All suspension rebuilt and painted
Then I moved jobs to the south coast to be closer to parents for both my wife and I, took us an age to sell our place in the midlands but once sorted we got our house down south pretty quickly. Main feature? DOUBLE GARAGE
Everything looking nice an clean, ready for the engine, which has also changed! It will now be a black top BEAMS unit, dual VVTi and Ti valves, first of it's kind to be fitted to a GT4
Wing risers painted at home with rattle cans
Engine going together
The new workspace is just lovely
lots of plans though. Board the ceiling, stairs in to loft access (to building regs) cinema room in loft(!).And thats us now, Ruby is in remission, work is steady, and life is comparatively easy
J
BricktopST205 said:
Dual beams. I bet the spool time is going to be amazing. Lots of people vouch for 5sgte but when mine pops I would love a beams top end
Thanks bricktop, that is exactly the plan, minimal spool time making for an extreme road car. Something really driveable I will be attempting to use scavenging to spool at very low RPM too. The ECU is capable of reacting to EGT thermocouples, so that will be good for protecting the Ti exhaust valves, something that is a bit of a worry!
Thanks chaps, Ruby is doing great, lots of legacy issues but they are a walk in the park compared to treatment :-)
Gt4's are reliable if maintained, if not then they will break, all the time!
As for castrol rep, there are so many of them it is way overdone. That and get to pull it off it needs to be faithful mechanically as well, and that is tough with the parts availability.
Most of them are sheep's in Wolf's clothing, very disappointing!
Gt4's are reliable if maintained, if not then they will break, all the time!
As for castrol rep, there are so many of them it is way overdone. That and get to pull it off it needs to be faithful mechanically as well, and that is tough with the parts availability.
Most of them are sheep's in Wolf's clothing, very disappointing!
What a great story. The Celica, as you point out so well, is very, very rarely well maintained and just about all of the ones i've seen have been decidedly ropey. People seem to spend more time painting wheels and putting stickers and boomy exhausts on than focussing on the fact you'll be driving something with so much potential and pedigree.
I really look forward to further details and updates. I've also popped a Celica GT4 onto my wishlist after seeing this. Brilliant bit of kit!
I really look forward to further details and updates. I've also popped a Celica GT4 onto my wishlist after seeing this. Brilliant bit of kit!
Holy thread revival!
It looks like this now
There was a pandemic, we moved house during it to a place that had been unoccupied for around five years and been unmaintained for at least five before that. There was a garage but it managed to be wetter inside it than out, water was coming through the roof, walls AND floor ffs! So the Celica sat in dry storage for two years (BIG thank you to Car Locker of Chepstow, dehumidified secure storage at a decent price) and I finally got to a point where we could have it at the house end of last year.
I have totally changed the car AGAIN too, moved the driving position back to stock, sold off the giant charge cooler and fitted an air to air unit (mercedes), re-did the cooling system properly using a custom swirl pot and VW T4 radiator, and a lot of other little bits to make it a better road car.
The intake and engine cooling side of things was a decision to make the car lighter and reduce complexity. The charge cooler required five silicone connectors, three hard pipes, twelve hose clamps, a water pump, radiator, ecu control for the pump, and that is just the heat extraction side. Overall the system weighed in at something like 20kg and it was all out front over the nose.
I have replaced it with a copy of a Wagner Mercedes GLB intercooler, it is a relatively compact unit for the capacity and dimensionally fitted the Celica like a glove.
From this
To this
So much better! It also did really well cooling the air inlet too, I am very happy with the result. If you look at the data log in my next post, you can see the inlet air temp on the bottom plot, it basically sits at ambient throughout the laps.
The process for fitting was a little less than simple, building robust mounts and vibration isolating it was important and inline with the ethos of the project, make it fun and useable.
In position
Mounted up
Putting this in also made the Renault 5 radiator a bit pointless, the core is the wrong size for the car really as it hangs down a long way and with the Mercedes intercooler, half the front opening would be wasted. Lots of measuring and looking at specs online came down to a VW T4 radiator being the right size, when flipped upside down to get the inlet / outlet in the right place!
I then worked on getting all the stainless steel coolant pipe work done. This was a custom swirl pot off the head, with a top bleed port, stainless lower hose with a return and a little header tank that took the air bleed and return to the lower hose.
Much neater compared to the old combined header / swirl pot which didn't have a mounting point and was hard up against the bonnet.
Once all buttoned up, I had a go at running the car up and seeing how it would behave. The result was overheating, straight away pretty much. For some reason the water was short cutting the radiator and just looping back to the engine with the core not getting hot. Bit of swearing and once removed this is what I found.
What you can see here is a light in the bottom hose port and a picture using a mirror in the top hose port. Then a piece of welding wire going direct in from top to bottom, with nothing to impede it's path.....yeah.
I spoke to the manufacturer and it was made correctly. I have come to the conclusion that VW being mega clever built the T4 cooling system to rely on thermal gradient to force the water through the core without any physical separation from top to bottom. I do not have a multi million pound budget or any form of coolant testing rig. So I made a divider and got a local firm to TIG it in (my machine is only DC). Result - Fixed. And as we have seen on the log again, it was running totally without fan for the entire track time and only had fans come on when I slowed going into the pits. Winner.
Other than that, the air box has changed too. I decided to do my usual and make something from carbon on an incredibly tight budget, in this case £20. I used some old carbon kevlar fabric I have had on the shelf since the Imp days, £20 of modelling foam, some packing tape, a bin bag and a hoover. It didn't go entirely to plan
Mould made
All together, but the foam collapsed as I didn't protect it well enough from the resin
I decided to put a little bit of filler in and re-cover it. I couldn't face starting again!
Not perfect, but not bad either.
Cut to give a lid and lower half, then time to dig the foam out.
Not bad!
I also managed to stop the turbo falling off too. It came down to the fact that the 100% copper gaskets I had been making were annealing in the heat, then extruding out of the join. This would back off the tension on the studs and result in the nuts coming loose, no matter how tight I did them up.
I looked for ages for something like a wills ring to use without luck, then realised that I could use the copper annealing / extrusion to my benefit. I made up a stainless gasket with a larger bore than the flanges, then put a copper washer inside it that was about 0.1mm thicker than the stainless. As it got hot the copper extruded into the stainless sealing it up! It has worked faultlessly.
Oh, and I also put in a proper gearbox cooler too, just a tube and fin type, I think it is meant to be an auto trans cooler but it fitted like a glove.
Pipes:
It looks like this now
There was a pandemic, we moved house during it to a place that had been unoccupied for around five years and been unmaintained for at least five before that. There was a garage but it managed to be wetter inside it than out, water was coming through the roof, walls AND floor ffs! So the Celica sat in dry storage for two years (BIG thank you to Car Locker of Chepstow, dehumidified secure storage at a decent price) and I finally got to a point where we could have it at the house end of last year.
I have totally changed the car AGAIN too, moved the driving position back to stock, sold off the giant charge cooler and fitted an air to air unit (mercedes), re-did the cooling system properly using a custom swirl pot and VW T4 radiator, and a lot of other little bits to make it a better road car.
The intake and engine cooling side of things was a decision to make the car lighter and reduce complexity. The charge cooler required five silicone connectors, three hard pipes, twelve hose clamps, a water pump, radiator, ecu control for the pump, and that is just the heat extraction side. Overall the system weighed in at something like 20kg and it was all out front over the nose.
I have replaced it with a copy of a Wagner Mercedes GLB intercooler, it is a relatively compact unit for the capacity and dimensionally fitted the Celica like a glove.
From this
To this
So much better! It also did really well cooling the air inlet too, I am very happy with the result. If you look at the data log in my next post, you can see the inlet air temp on the bottom plot, it basically sits at ambient throughout the laps.
The process for fitting was a little less than simple, building robust mounts and vibration isolating it was important and inline with the ethos of the project, make it fun and useable.
In position
Mounted up
Putting this in also made the Renault 5 radiator a bit pointless, the core is the wrong size for the car really as it hangs down a long way and with the Mercedes intercooler, half the front opening would be wasted. Lots of measuring and looking at specs online came down to a VW T4 radiator being the right size, when flipped upside down to get the inlet / outlet in the right place!
I then worked on getting all the stainless steel coolant pipe work done. This was a custom swirl pot off the head, with a top bleed port, stainless lower hose with a return and a little header tank that took the air bleed and return to the lower hose.
Much neater compared to the old combined header / swirl pot which didn't have a mounting point and was hard up against the bonnet.
Once all buttoned up, I had a go at running the car up and seeing how it would behave. The result was overheating, straight away pretty much. For some reason the water was short cutting the radiator and just looping back to the engine with the core not getting hot. Bit of swearing and once removed this is what I found.
What you can see here is a light in the bottom hose port and a picture using a mirror in the top hose port. Then a piece of welding wire going direct in from top to bottom, with nothing to impede it's path.....yeah.
I spoke to the manufacturer and it was made correctly. I have come to the conclusion that VW being mega clever built the T4 cooling system to rely on thermal gradient to force the water through the core without any physical separation from top to bottom. I do not have a multi million pound budget or any form of coolant testing rig. So I made a divider and got a local firm to TIG it in (my machine is only DC). Result - Fixed. And as we have seen on the log again, it was running totally without fan for the entire track time and only had fans come on when I slowed going into the pits. Winner.
Other than that, the air box has changed too. I decided to do my usual and make something from carbon on an incredibly tight budget, in this case £20. I used some old carbon kevlar fabric I have had on the shelf since the Imp days, £20 of modelling foam, some packing tape, a bin bag and a hoover. It didn't go entirely to plan
Mould made
All together, but the foam collapsed as I didn't protect it well enough from the resin
I decided to put a little bit of filler in and re-cover it. I couldn't face starting again!
Not perfect, but not bad either.
Cut to give a lid and lower half, then time to dig the foam out.
Not bad!
I also managed to stop the turbo falling off too. It came down to the fact that the 100% copper gaskets I had been making were annealing in the heat, then extruding out of the join. This would back off the tension on the studs and result in the nuts coming loose, no matter how tight I did them up.
I looked for ages for something like a wills ring to use without luck, then realised that I could use the copper annealing / extrusion to my benefit. I made up a stainless gasket with a larger bore than the flanges, then put a copper washer inside it that was about 0.1mm thicker than the stainless. As it got hot the copper extruded into the stainless sealing it up! It has worked faultlessly.
Oh, and I also put in a proper gearbox cooler too, just a tube and fin type, I think it is meant to be an auto trans cooler but it fitted like a glove.
Pipes:
Edited by BlownImp on Friday 17th March 11:06
After all that and it being in storage for the two years I got it back and start to actually use the damn thing! I had recommissioned it, driven it, blown a wheel bearing, fixed that and just about got sorted for Retro Rides Gathering at Mallory end of last year.
I packed up the car on Thursday night and finished up work at 1pm Friday, ready to roll. Started the drive with 44% fuel level and took the fosse way, 92 miles. The car is night and day better to drive with the stock pedal box, column and a (mostly) normal driving position.
The camp site at RRG was something to behold, a totally incredible set up of flat grassed areas terraced around 5m above track level, so the view was amazing. Friday night was a little blurry
Saturday morning on the other hand, yeah, that'll do pig.
It was cold that night, low single figures and my double double sleeping bag worked a treat! Celica looked ace in the morning sun too
Ugly mug
The day was spent chilling out, watching some bonkers racing cars going 10/10ths and chatting to friends. I only got a couple of pics though.
Early night on sat for me, because our friendly track dictator BstardChild had peer pressured me into taking the car on track on Sunday!
I got up an enjoyed some porridge with the sun coming up over the track
I was terrified. Everyone was super nice to me though, giving lots of advice and words to calm me down. A chap called David took me round in his Millington Diamond engined Escort for the sighting lap, this gave me a good chance to view things without worrying about the car or driving.
Past that, checking tyre pressures and levels, it was time. All this work, 10 years of dicking about with it, would it actually work?
Obviously no pictures on track, I was a touch busy! The long and short of it was the car ran like a top, it was much faster than I was which worked out just fine, the chassis, engine and power delivery were relatively benign though, so a great way to learn. I had one little lock up on track, a result of coming into the back chicane with cold brakes, which rapidly warmed up as I was putting more and more pressure on the pedal, this locked the rear and caused it to step out. I just backed off the pedal and got back on it again as the corner was approaching fast!
Every gear change resulted in a lick of yellow flame out the bonnet exit screamer pipe, distracting but in the very best way!
Here is a quick log of the data taken from the third session
In my fourth session and one lap in, the car suddenly developed a really bad exhaust blow, happened like a switch too. I limped it into the pits and was greeted by Gobs, Pip Warren and Elk, we looked it over and found it was one of the exhaust bungs for the EGT sensors. It had vibrated loose and lost the little stainless tube that locks into an olive. A bit lost we discussed getting it welded up by the R-Tech guys, but as we were discussing this, Elk popped up from behind my passenger front wing and said 'is this it?'..... yes, yes it is!
The tube, about 25mm long had fired out of the manifold, ricocheted off the bonnet (there is a dent!) fired between the chassis leg and gearbox, past the suspension and driveshaft into the passenger front wheel which then caught it in one of the spokes. The centrepetal force had kept hold of it until I stopped in the pits. You couldn't make it up.
Fitted it back in, job done.
I called it quits at that point and drove the car to the Late Brake show stand, where it lived for the afternoon.
I stayed at the show later than I ever have, it was just superb. However the time came to pack up and make my way home. Another 92 miles back with zero issues, I parked up at 6:45pm.
The car ran faultlessly all weekend, zero leaks, consumed no oil, the breather catch tank is totally dry. It just ran like a top.
Thank you to all involved, RRG is the best show of the year, and this one was a vintage year for sure.
Finally updates, what needs doing or updating? I think I need to bleed the brakes, the pedal is softer than I would like, especially on track. I need to see why the throttle is only opening 75%! I could do with a less grabby clutch, this one is comical
I will attempt to keep you guys updated with any progress I have, plus I will be starting my new project soon. This should be interesting, carbon tub, sub 400kg.....
I packed up the car on Thursday night and finished up work at 1pm Friday, ready to roll. Started the drive with 44% fuel level and took the fosse way, 92 miles. The car is night and day better to drive with the stock pedal box, column and a (mostly) normal driving position.
The camp site at RRG was something to behold, a totally incredible set up of flat grassed areas terraced around 5m above track level, so the view was amazing. Friday night was a little blurry
Saturday morning on the other hand, yeah, that'll do pig.
It was cold that night, low single figures and my double double sleeping bag worked a treat! Celica looked ace in the morning sun too
Ugly mug
The day was spent chilling out, watching some bonkers racing cars going 10/10ths and chatting to friends. I only got a couple of pics though.
Early night on sat for me, because our friendly track dictator BstardChild had peer pressured me into taking the car on track on Sunday!
I got up an enjoyed some porridge with the sun coming up over the track
I was terrified. Everyone was super nice to me though, giving lots of advice and words to calm me down. A chap called David took me round in his Millington Diamond engined Escort for the sighting lap, this gave me a good chance to view things without worrying about the car or driving.
Past that, checking tyre pressures and levels, it was time. All this work, 10 years of dicking about with it, would it actually work?
Obviously no pictures on track, I was a touch busy! The long and short of it was the car ran like a top, it was much faster than I was which worked out just fine, the chassis, engine and power delivery were relatively benign though, so a great way to learn. I had one little lock up on track, a result of coming into the back chicane with cold brakes, which rapidly warmed up as I was putting more and more pressure on the pedal, this locked the rear and caused it to step out. I just backed off the pedal and got back on it again as the corner was approaching fast!
Every gear change resulted in a lick of yellow flame out the bonnet exit screamer pipe, distracting but in the very best way!
Here is a quick log of the data taken from the third session
In my fourth session and one lap in, the car suddenly developed a really bad exhaust blow, happened like a switch too. I limped it into the pits and was greeted by Gobs, Pip Warren and Elk, we looked it over and found it was one of the exhaust bungs for the EGT sensors. It had vibrated loose and lost the little stainless tube that locks into an olive. A bit lost we discussed getting it welded up by the R-Tech guys, but as we were discussing this, Elk popped up from behind my passenger front wing and said 'is this it?'..... yes, yes it is!
The tube, about 25mm long had fired out of the manifold, ricocheted off the bonnet (there is a dent!) fired between the chassis leg and gearbox, past the suspension and driveshaft into the passenger front wheel which then caught it in one of the spokes. The centrepetal force had kept hold of it until I stopped in the pits. You couldn't make it up.
Fitted it back in, job done.
I called it quits at that point and drove the car to the Late Brake show stand, where it lived for the afternoon.
I stayed at the show later than I ever have, it was just superb. However the time came to pack up and make my way home. Another 92 miles back with zero issues, I parked up at 6:45pm.
The car ran faultlessly all weekend, zero leaks, consumed no oil, the breather catch tank is totally dry. It just ran like a top.
Thank you to all involved, RRG is the best show of the year, and this one was a vintage year for sure.
Finally updates, what needs doing or updating? I think I need to bleed the brakes, the pedal is softer than I would like, especially on track. I need to see why the throttle is only opening 75%! I could do with a less grabby clutch, this one is comical
I will attempt to keep you guys updated with any progress I have, plus I will be starting my new project soon. This should be interesting, carbon tub, sub 400kg.....
BlownImp said:
It wasn't as loud as I thought it would be with a screamer pipe either.
Next time I need to be more organised and get you out for a lap or two ??
I had a plan for that…….Next time I need to be more organised and get you out for a lap or two ??
Then herding cats became all consuming as always at RR events - it’s fun but this video shows what it is like
Regardless, I very much appreciated the support given by you and the team for a complete novice like myself. I was terrified, sweaty palms, dry mouth the lot. The reality was rather addictive, I guess like a lot of endorphin generating activities!
I need to get it uncovered, prepped and taxed ready for the Sunday service at Prescott 🙂
I need to get it uncovered, prepped and taxed ready for the Sunday service at Prescott 🙂
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