Toyota Sprinter Trueno (no, not that one!)

[swampy442]

After my S600 debacle, I needed to get back to where I belong, my comfort zone so to speak, and that is 80's/90's Toyotas.
I had an AE92 Sprinter a few years back, really cool little car, Corolla based but with the supercharged 4A engine, the 4A GZE. Come from the factory with forged this and forger that, really delightful little power plant put out 150hp

[swampy442]

So, onto this car. I saw it on a Facebook group, so drove to London to have a look.
On the surface it looked good, pretty straight, needed bodywork but the underside was very good, considering it had been in the UK nearly 20 years and its an 80s vintage Toyota. The current owner bought it to rip the engine out of it, not uncommon as they make good power, are strong and well supported. In fact he already had an Escort that was 4A GZE powered.
Anyway, here it is, as you can see, bit of a project

[swampy442]

First job - Started and revved its knackers off. I diagnosed an air leak, which seemed like common sense. So I broke out the borescope





Nothing obvious, no split pipes, no gaskets poking out, nothing. Hmm.

So next job was to remove all the intake system. The route goes Throttle body - supercharger - intercooler - inlet manifold. As you an see lots of possible leak areas! So started with a had on the throttle body an tried a start. As you know with the old fire triangle, with no air there should be no fire. WRONG! Ran exactly as before
So I stripped all this off -




Next step, hand on intake manifold and go for start, after all there was nothing else to leak apart from injector seals, which Id replaced in the previous diagnosis, it bolts directly to the head. No fire right? WRONG. So it had to be the manifold gasket

[swampy442]

I'd like a cut scene here, to cover over the approximately 1000 man hours and pain it took to remove the manifold. I would definitely have been easier to pull the engine!





Anyway, here's what I found.








Would you look at that, a huge MF gasket! I'm surmising the previous owner fitted it, found the running issue, and sold the car on as he couldn't work out what was up.
Understandable as theres lots and lots of different variations of 4A engines, particularly 'Big Port' and 'Small Port' Looks like he fitted a big port gasket to a small port head.

Edited by swampy442 on Friday 18th December 20:01

[swampy442]

And thats where we are currently. Plan -

Get it running properly
Swap eBay maxpeedorod coilovers for stock suspension
Bodywork
Wheels
Send it

[BEAMS 162]

That's mental,that gasket .WTF.
Seriously cool car,of course i'm biased but that's a rare beastie.Front end,where have i seen that before.Oh yes



Will be lots of oddities compared to my ST162, but probably a lot of interchangeable bits and bobs.Of course,the 162 parts are hard to get now as well unfortunately.
Cool car and a very worthwhile project!

[samj2014]

Amazing. You would think that anyone that was mechanically inclined enough to get that far would have realised that gasket wasn't going to work?!

[Veeayt]

Id prefer that to a AE86 TBH. Nicer body shape, less hyped. Isnt the stock suspension a bit too wallowy?

[swampy442]

BEAMS 162 said:

That's mental,that gasket .WTF.
Seriously cool car,of course i'm biased but that's a rare beastie.Front end,where have i seen that before.Oh yes



Will be lots of oddities compared to my ST162, but probably a lot of interchangeable bits and bobs.Of course,the 162 parts are hard to get now as well unfortunately.
Cool car and a very worthwhile project!

Thank you I had a 162 many years ago, fancy 165 GT4 but theyre really hard to come by.

[swampy442]

Veeayt said:

Id prefer that to a AE86 TBH. Nicer body shape, less hyped. Isnt the stock suspension a bit too wallowy?

2 different cars tbh, but re suspension, anything is better than 150 quid eBay coilovers, I may do something with it down the line

[Cambs_Stuart]

Really interesting car. These 90's oddities are really tempting now. Light weight, nice steering and not too much electrical complexity.
Who spent hours getting to that gasket, only to chuck on something the vaguely lines up?

[FIREBIRDC9]

That is cool.

Is that Sherwood Toning by any chance?

[5harp3y]

love this

one for the 'cars you've never heard of thread'

[Countdown]

I am in awe of your spannering skillz!

ETA ANother big Toyota fan here but mainly because I hate spannering

[BEAMS 162]

swampy442 said:

Thank you I had a 162 many years ago, fancy 165 GT4 but theyre really hard to come by.

Hugely underrated cars for a long while,last few years with the prices going up on Jap metal the 4th gen cars have been going up in price and interest.Yes,good 162s very thin on the ground now ,good 165's even more so.Im a Gen4 Moderator over on the Celicaclub,we always keep an eye out for the cars on the classifieds everywhere.The last really nice looking 165 GT4 that came available actually appeared as a family owned car in 3E5 Red (same colour as my 162) on the bay of E,and eventually had 2 people bidding on it..Went for 15k,which surprised even us a bit,tbh.But,find a good original one,as they say.Had my 162 nearly 12 years,has a Beams Redtop conversion,coilovers,LSD,to name a few mods.
Love the look of the Sprinter,look forward to seeing how you get on with her.




Dropped another pic of my own car in,Won't bung up your thread but as an ex 162 owner I thought you might not mind too much..

[swampy442]

Cambs_Stuart said:

Really interesting car. These 90's oddities are really tempting now. Light weight, nice steering and not too much electrical complexity.
Who spent hours getting to that gasket, only to chuck on something the vaguely lines up?

I have absolutely no idea, but I can imagine their rage/frustration when they started it up for the first time

[swampy442]

FIREBIRDC9 said:

That is cool.

Is that Sherwood Toning by any chance?

Thank you Is that what or where??

[swampy442]

Countdown said:

I am in awe of your spannering skillz!

ETA ANother big Toyota fan here but mainly because I hate spannering

Haha thanks All self taught on the spannering thing but 25 years of working on planes and engines helps. I'm hoping once this hiccup is over, I wont have to spanner again, in true Toyota style!

[swampy442]

BEAMS 162 said:

Hugely underrated cars for a long while,last few years with the prices going up on Jap metal the 4th gen cars have been going up in price and interest.Yes,good 162s very thin on the ground now ,good 165's even more so.Im a Gen4 Moderator over on the Celicaclub,we always keep an eye out for the cars on the classifieds everywhere.The last really nice looking 165 GT4 that came available actually appeared as a family owned car in 3E5 Red (same colour as my 162) on the bay of E,and eventually had 2 people bidding on it..Went for 15k,which surprised even us a bit,tbh.But,find a good original one,as they say.Had my 162 nearly 12 years,has a Beams Redtop conversion,coilovers,LSD,to name a few mods.
Love the look of the Sprinter,look forward to seeing how you get on with her.




Dropped another pic of my own car in,Won't bung up your thread but as an ex 162 owner I thought you might not mind too much..

BEAMS and an LSD, bet thats good fun! My dad had a 165 back in the 90's, absolutely loved it as a young, car mad boy. Now I look for the light weight, great traction and back road blast ability of them, Sadly out of reach now (for my values anyway) Ill have to make do with the Supra.
I have a problem with how cars like that are valued but thats for another thread

[swampy442]

In other news, several new gaskets, a bunch of googling about vacuum hoses and routing and a pinch of tweaking, et voila

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00f7TfLcT7g