4k GT86 Gets a Rocket Bunny Kit & LS3 V8 Swap!
Discussion
Well here we go, it's pretty wild to think that it's been basically an entire month since I installed the Haltech loom and that's not to say i've been sitting on my hands doing nothing with it this whole time!
I will start off by saying the car is finally running!
but that's not to say there weren't some additional hurdles on the way.
So if I go back to round off my last update I was able to sort all of the Starter wiring and make it as-per OEM functionality by having all the factory starter relays, etc actuated by the ECU, all good there!
After that I was finally able to get the clutch bled as well! It was litterally just a load of trapped air that seemingly the fluid was going around when bleeding it for hours and hours on end, eventually it just gave up and finally bled through and I now have a working clutch!
I then checked the timing and.. it's bang on! near enough firing on or around TDC, good enough to get it started and running smoothly at the least!
Finally I was able to get the car "Started" after realising I had the coil pack harnesses the wrong way round, doh! but it wouldn't stay running for very long, it would simply roar to life and then die soon after.
After lots more toiling, finding out I had my MAP sensor wired incorrectly (Fixed that!) I felt as though it was perhaps a fuelling issue. Foolishly i've assumed this whole time that the Fuel pressure is fine as I had read online (Where we all know totally 100% accurate information is found!
) that the 86's pump delivers 58psi to the rail constantly which is what the LS needs. I've ordered a pressure sensor that down the line I can connect in to the haltech so the ECU can tell me for sure what the pressure is as well as adjust the map to suit for any changes in pressure, etc.
What lead me to think it might be fuelling however was not a lack of fuel but perhaps too much fuel. I'm no tuning expert by ANY measure but when starting the car it would die almost instantly with no input and subsequent starting attempts would be even less successful unless a flood-clear procedure was first done, as well as this you could "catch" the car on the throttle and keep it alive with some throttle input (A.k.a more air!) but it would die soon after.
This then lead me down the rabbit hole that I have no data on anything! On my injectors, my coilpacks, my sensors, etc! and i've just been going off the LS3 base map in the ECU which i'm being told "The Base map should definitely definitely work to start and run any LS!" by various people online.
After a load of testing, playing with injector settings and so on I eventually decided to just export my logs, take a quick video and send it over to Haltech support in australia (Who are brilliant!)
They took one look at it and made a small change to the idle control, simply changing it from 10% (Default) to 20% (Out of a maximum of 30%) which I assume just tells the ECU "You can use X amount of throttle to reach your target idle RPM of Y"
After that.. it fired up and idled away! Happy days!
For the proper bit you all want to see/hear, here's the journey in my latest youtube video (You can skip to 16 minutes in for the start!)
Now to keep my recent theme of everything with this project lately being an emotional rollercoaster.. it's not all fun and games.
As I allude to in the video, the engine doesn't have good oil pressure. Bearing in mind it's a semi-rebuilt engine (new piston rings and rod bearings) and it's a cold start there with SAE30 Run in oil it only seems to have 15 psi of pressure which slowly creeps down to 10psi after a couple of minutes of running which is rather worrying! The saving grace is that it's not totally 0 so there is oil flow but.. I absolutely would not run the car for any period of time or drive it on this amount of oil pressure.
To say learning this was emotional whiplash after the elation of getting it running finally is an understatement! I was heartbroken.
There's any number of things it could be, from a dodgy sensor or simply incorrect calibration to a pinched or dead O ring somewhere internally.. or something worse.. this is when i'm cruely reminded that at the end of the day I know nothing of the history of this engine/block and despite taking it apart there could still be hidden problems i'm unaware of.
Obviously Oil isn't leaking out of anywhere that I can see so really I just need to go through and begin troubleshooting.
However i'm exhausted from all of this recently and the Car had a date with a fabricator. So I welcomed getting it out of my hair for a short while, being able to just sit back, take time to research my Oil pressure issue and not feel obligated to be progressing on it for a short bit.
I'm hoping as much as all of you at this point that I can soon get this rollercoaster to come to a controlled stop as honestly at this point i'm a bit bored of it and just want to catch a break!
Oh and i've not even posted any pictures, how boring! here's a couple of quick ones just with the engine bay "complete" and after pushing the car outside a bit to get loaded up, I forgot how it looked outside under natural light which is still pretty good even with such a thick layer of dust and half its panels missing!
I will start off by saying the car is finally running!
but that's not to say there weren't some additional hurdles on the way.
So if I go back to round off my last update I was able to sort all of the Starter wiring and make it as-per OEM functionality by having all the factory starter relays, etc actuated by the ECU, all good there!
After that I was finally able to get the clutch bled as well! It was litterally just a load of trapped air that seemingly the fluid was going around when bleeding it for hours and hours on end, eventually it just gave up and finally bled through and I now have a working clutch!
I then checked the timing and.. it's bang on! near enough firing on or around TDC, good enough to get it started and running smoothly at the least!
Finally I was able to get the car "Started" after realising I had the coil pack harnesses the wrong way round, doh! but it wouldn't stay running for very long, it would simply roar to life and then die soon after.
After lots more toiling, finding out I had my MAP sensor wired incorrectly (Fixed that!) I felt as though it was perhaps a fuelling issue. Foolishly i've assumed this whole time that the Fuel pressure is fine as I had read online (Where we all know totally 100% accurate information is found!
) that the 86's pump delivers 58psi to the rail constantly which is what the LS needs. I've ordered a pressure sensor that down the line I can connect in to the haltech so the ECU can tell me for sure what the pressure is as well as adjust the map to suit for any changes in pressure, etc.What lead me to think it might be fuelling however was not a lack of fuel but perhaps too much fuel. I'm no tuning expert by ANY measure but when starting the car it would die almost instantly with no input and subsequent starting attempts would be even less successful unless a flood-clear procedure was first done, as well as this you could "catch" the car on the throttle and keep it alive with some throttle input (A.k.a more air!) but it would die soon after.
This then lead me down the rabbit hole that I have no data on anything! On my injectors, my coilpacks, my sensors, etc! and i've just been going off the LS3 base map in the ECU which i'm being told "The Base map should definitely definitely work to start and run any LS!" by various people online.
After a load of testing, playing with injector settings and so on I eventually decided to just export my logs, take a quick video and send it over to Haltech support in australia (Who are brilliant!)
They took one look at it and made a small change to the idle control, simply changing it from 10% (Default) to 20% (Out of a maximum of 30%) which I assume just tells the ECU "You can use X amount of throttle to reach your target idle RPM of Y"
After that.. it fired up and idled away! Happy days!
For the proper bit you all want to see/hear, here's the journey in my latest youtube video (You can skip to 16 minutes in for the start!)
Now to keep my recent theme of everything with this project lately being an emotional rollercoaster.. it's not all fun and games.
As I allude to in the video, the engine doesn't have good oil pressure. Bearing in mind it's a semi-rebuilt engine (new piston rings and rod bearings) and it's a cold start there with SAE30 Run in oil it only seems to have 15 psi of pressure which slowly creeps down to 10psi after a couple of minutes of running which is rather worrying! The saving grace is that it's not totally 0 so there is oil flow but.. I absolutely would not run the car for any period of time or drive it on this amount of oil pressure.
To say learning this was emotional whiplash after the elation of getting it running finally is an understatement! I was heartbroken.
There's any number of things it could be, from a dodgy sensor or simply incorrect calibration to a pinched or dead O ring somewhere internally.. or something worse.. this is when i'm cruely reminded that at the end of the day I know nothing of the history of this engine/block and despite taking it apart there could still be hidden problems i'm unaware of.
Obviously Oil isn't leaking out of anywhere that I can see so really I just need to go through and begin troubleshooting.
However i'm exhausted from all of this recently and the Car had a date with a fabricator. So I welcomed getting it out of my hair for a short while, being able to just sit back, take time to research my Oil pressure issue and not feel obligated to be progressing on it for a short bit.
I'm hoping as much as all of you at this point that I can soon get this rollercoaster to come to a controlled stop as honestly at this point i'm a bit bored of it and just want to catch a break!
Oh and i've not even posted any pictures, how boring! here's a couple of quick ones just with the engine bay "complete" and after pushing the car outside a bit to get loaded up, I forgot how it looked outside under natural light which is still pretty good even with such a thick layer of dust and half its panels missing!
ChocolateFrog said:
Could be something relatively straightforward, a worn or faulty oil pump, pick up blocked etc.
Very true although I did replace the Oil pump and pickup so hopefully the brand new pieces aren't already gone a common issue on LS's is the O-ring for the oil pickup getting pinched and then the pump simply sucks in air.
In that scenario it would be a case of supporting the engine in place, dropping the subframe and getting to the sump/oil pickup that way, not very fun!
The possibility i'm going to explore before resorting to that is whether the Valley cover, which I didn't replace and undoutedly has some very worn, flat, o-rings in it might simply need to be replaced first. This is a far far easier piece to get to and the only area I know i "overlooked" compared to simply making a mistake on. Fingers crossed it's that honestly!
Whoa an update!
Don't get your hopes up, this one is just to unfortunately say that quite litterally nothing has happened!
No stranger to a bit of a drama when it comes to my car this year it seems I took it to a local fabricator at the end of October to have an exhaust fabricated. I discussed this with the Fabricator and they presented me a really good price of £1250 for the whole system from the Headers back.
I sent over a bit of money to cover the material costs as this is a one man band but unfortunately the next week he had been diagnosed with a condition that means he won't be working again in any major capacity until atleast february.
Credit to him not wanting to hang me out to dry he did attempt to have a friend in the industry take on the job but that unfortunately didn't work out.
I'm getting the car back again tomorrow, out of pocket for the transport fees and also out of pocket "in a sense" as I had to pay for the materials, I did attempt to ask him for a refund on them but with no income that's difficult for him and given his health issues it's not something I want to morally give him too much of a hard time on.
Thankfully having spoken to Craig at Dynotorque he's happy to use the materials to fabricate me a system! It's quite a distance to go for a bit of fabrication work but atleast I know it'll be in more than capable hands.
It also has the added bonus of if i'm not able to solve the oil pressure issue next weekend I could potentially ask craig to have a look at it while it's in his care. I'm at the stage now where although i'm happy and capable to investigate it myself part of me might just pay someone to fix it so I can finally have a working car!
I'll have another update this coming week when i've managed to crack in to the oil pressure myself, i've got a small list of things to tackle it:
-Verify pressure with Physical gauge
-Move Pressure sender unit from top of block to Oil filter relocation line
-Replace Valley cover (I reused my old one which has dead O-rings pressed in to it)
-Fit Fuel Pressure sensor while doing the above
Hoping the Valley cover will fix it as it's absolutely the one thing I overlooked while putting together the engine and it's relatively easy to replace and cheap too!
The car likely won't be on the road before 2023 but hopefully early in the new year it'll be out for its maiden voyage and to some coffee mornings/PHSS/etc.
Don't get your hopes up, this one is just to unfortunately say that quite litterally nothing has happened!
No stranger to a bit of a drama when it comes to my car this year it seems I took it to a local fabricator at the end of October to have an exhaust fabricated. I discussed this with the Fabricator and they presented me a really good price of £1250 for the whole system from the Headers back.
I sent over a bit of money to cover the material costs as this is a one man band but unfortunately the next week he had been diagnosed with a condition that means he won't be working again in any major capacity until atleast february.
Credit to him not wanting to hang me out to dry he did attempt to have a friend in the industry take on the job but that unfortunately didn't work out.
I'm getting the car back again tomorrow, out of pocket for the transport fees and also out of pocket "in a sense" as I had to pay for the materials, I did attempt to ask him for a refund on them but with no income that's difficult for him and given his health issues it's not something I want to morally give him too much of a hard time on.
Thankfully having spoken to Craig at Dynotorque he's happy to use the materials to fabricate me a system! It's quite a distance to go for a bit of fabrication work but atleast I know it'll be in more than capable hands.
It also has the added bonus of if i'm not able to solve the oil pressure issue next weekend I could potentially ask craig to have a look at it while it's in his care. I'm at the stage now where although i'm happy and capable to investigate it myself part of me might just pay someone to fix it so I can finally have a working car!
I'll have another update this coming week when i've managed to crack in to the oil pressure myself, i've got a small list of things to tackle it:
-Verify pressure with Physical gauge
-Move Pressure sender unit from top of block to Oil filter relocation line
-Replace Valley cover (I reused my old one which has dead O-rings pressed in to it)
-Fit Fuel Pressure sensor while doing the above
Hoping the Valley cover will fix it as it's absolutely the one thing I overlooked while putting together the engine and it's relatively easy to replace and cheap too!
The car likely won't be on the road before 2023 but hopefully early in the new year it'll be out for its maiden voyage and to some coffee mornings/PHSS/etc.
So as stated last time I recently got the car back after not a whole lot happened for a month.
Decided I wanted to spend a couple of days tinkering to see if I could fix the Oil pressure issue before I took it up to Craig at Dynotorque to have it's exhaust made (and having a backup plan of him looking in to/fixing the issue if that failed!)
But.. Im pleased to say
IT
HAS
OIL PRESSURE
I started off by double checking the pressure with a mechanical gauge to confirm that me sensor wasn't faulty or had incorrect scaling in the ECU, no luck there! but I did decide that I would also move the sensor down to one of the Oil filter relocation lines as it's a much nicer spot than right up at the back of the engine block.
I then moved to my next potential culprit.. The Valley Cover
to explain the thinking on why this is causing the issue. My Engine block has these DOD (Displacement on Demand) Oil galleries in the valley, eventhough the engine never used DOD GM Simply "Disable" it on various vehicles by blocking up these ports with O-rings on the underside of the Valley cover:
While I was rebuilding the engine I did purchase an aftermarket valley cover but for some reason it wasn't equipped with these o-rings or even an opening for the oil pressure sensor despite being for an LS3 surposedly. So in the moment I just decided to re-use my old cover which unfortunately had very old, very flat O-rings.
Replacing this cover with a new replacement ($35, $80 by the time it hit the UK) sorted the issue!
So pleased that it was something as relatively simple as this, took at most a couple of hours to fit as I had to mess about with draining the fuel rail, pulling the intake manifold etc.
While I was there I also fitted a rudicmentary intake.. which i'm likely to replace soon! aaand a fuel pressure sensor which.. is leaking.. but i'll get to that another time!
For now it has oil pressure, it's safe to run and of course that meant I had to give it a little test moving about didn't I? (Warning to headphone users, it's LOUD!)
Finally with that said today (Wednesday 7th) I hired a flatbed and hauled the car up to Craig at Dynotorque to have an exhaust made.
Decided I wanted to spend a couple of days tinkering to see if I could fix the Oil pressure issue before I took it up to Craig at Dynotorque to have it's exhaust made (and having a backup plan of him looking in to/fixing the issue if that failed!)
But.. Im pleased to say
IT
HAS
OIL PRESSURE
I started off by double checking the pressure with a mechanical gauge to confirm that me sensor wasn't faulty or had incorrect scaling in the ECU, no luck there! but I did decide that I would also move the sensor down to one of the Oil filter relocation lines as it's a much nicer spot than right up at the back of the engine block.
I then moved to my next potential culprit.. The Valley Cover
to explain the thinking on why this is causing the issue. My Engine block has these DOD (Displacement on Demand) Oil galleries in the valley, eventhough the engine never used DOD GM Simply "Disable" it on various vehicles by blocking up these ports with O-rings on the underside of the Valley cover:
While I was rebuilding the engine I did purchase an aftermarket valley cover but for some reason it wasn't equipped with these o-rings or even an opening for the oil pressure sensor despite being for an LS3 surposedly. So in the moment I just decided to re-use my old cover which unfortunately had very old, very flat O-rings.
Replacing this cover with a new replacement ($35, $80 by the time it hit the UK) sorted the issue!
So pleased that it was something as relatively simple as this, took at most a couple of hours to fit as I had to mess about with draining the fuel rail, pulling the intake manifold etc.
While I was there I also fitted a rudicmentary intake.. which i'm likely to replace soon!
aaand a fuel pressure sensor which.. is leaking.. but i'll get to that another time! For now it has oil pressure, it's safe to run and of course that meant I had to give it a little test moving about didn't I? (Warning to headphone users, it's LOUD!)
Finally with that said today (Wednesday 7th) I hired a flatbed and hauled the car up to Craig at Dynotorque to have an exhaust made.
Edited by Samjeev on Thursday 8th December 00:04
SturdyHSV said:
Such great news about the oil pressure and it being a simple fix 
Sounds great with open headers too, unsurprisingly!!
How long do you think it'll be with Craig and then what's left to get it on the road?
Hoping to have it back by the end of next week! Sounds great with open headers too, unsurprisingly!!How long do you think it'll be with Craig and then what's left to get it on the road?
I Could technically get it insured/MOT'd and drive it then but with icy/salty season coming up I might actually wait until spring, do a few extra jobs on the car like wrap the exhaust, change the intake, etc and so on as the GT86 chassis doesn't come with any factory underbody sealer so don't take too kindly to salty roads!
Plus i'm not sure I want my first LS experience to be entirely tight bum moments fighting for grip on 285 wide 959 RSRs
Will see how it pans out
So another update, happy new year all!
However not wanting to go out with a whimper but a bang 2022 had one more nasty surprise for me in store when it comes to the progress of the project which requires a small bit of story time...
So I got the car back from Dynotorque on Christmas eve, thankfully Craig had a few people collecting cars that day so didn't mind coming in to let me collect mine. Although it wouldn't be a day in the life of Sam if it wasn't for some near-colossal F-up and I almost threw the car off the side of the flatbed when I meant to stop the winch and infact kept going, causing the car to ground out and start to rotate off the side of the flatbed... fun!
That drama aside and the 3 hour drive back from Birmingham made me arrive home around 5pm where it was a tad dark.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem but I needed to look for a block of wood to get the car off the truck without the aforementioned grounding and drama involved.
Looking around with a torch I found one and got the car off and back in to the unit successfully!
...Having said all that, the land-owner was clearly quite spooked by seeing someone look around his yard with a torch in the dark on his CCTV and sent me some very "fruity" and perhaps "fueled by Christmas-eve cheer" messages which could be summarised to "Get your s
t and fk off out of my yard!"
So that left me worried on Christmas eve about all the implications of this individual (who has access to the unit, its his land afterall) potentially just deciding to get nasty and bar my access etc and having to come up with a game plan of what i'm going to do going forward.
playing devil's advocate I do understand how "Dodgy" that scene might look but he clearly knew it was me to send me the messages within minutes so could've done without the wild over reaction, ohwell.. Fun fun for Christmas Eve!
I'm not really looking to get in to the Legalities of the arrangement of renting the space but it's very much all "spoken contract" cash in hand type deal. Perhaps silly on my part but considering how rare spaces like this are it was a neccessary evil, and I've had a feeling he's been wanting to get rid of me for months as "I could easily get double what you pay me for this space!" comes up in every conversation.
Fast Forward to the first week of Jan and and I still hadn't heard from him since that day (despite going to the unit a few times) which makes me think those messages were "Fueled by christmas-eve Cheer" and/or he was just in a bad mood but when serving my notice to say i'm leaving at the end of Jan the tune changed to "Don't feel like you have to leave!"... nice.
Either way it's left me understandably feeling as though the trust has been broken and with a sense that my Car/equipment/tools aren't particularly safe in that location anymore.
Thankfully the car is near to completion and I *should* be able to drive it out of there any day now, my parents have thankfully offered me their driveway to store the car and another family member has offered me some of their garage space to store my tools.
The brightside is i'll save money.. which might be needed with an impending remortgage this year!
Unfortunately it does remove a fantastic place to work on my car and could spell out a bit of an end to my youtube channel antics (although with <2000 subscribers and only making about enough money to afford a pint one a month It was hardly groundbreaking), in the long term i'll be looking for somewhere new, a bigger location I can share with like minded friends perhaps or similar but for now the driveway will do.
So with the rush of finishing the car and clearing out the unit that's taking up my whole january and why we probably won't see the car out on the road until atleast Febuary/March, that however gets me back to the actual main story.. the Car.
The work completed by Craig was great, the exhaust comes off the headers in to dual 3" pipes, a couple of sports cats (can't be bothered trying to get a dodgy MOT) and merging in to a single centre silencer. Going under the rear subframe which he notched and reinforced for me and then back out to two mufflers and tips.
There is one Caveat with all this in that the Mufflers (I ordered on his recommendation) are a bit long for the task.. so i'm very much going to have to cut down the tips, but that's hardly a priority right now and heck.. it probably appeals to someone, just not me!
Here's a few pics:
Sounds good though that's the main thing and the tips are easily rectified with the angry-end of an angle grinder!
I got a clip of it running here, excuse the phone audio and lack of exciting revs, it's having a few running issues which i'll get on to later.
I originally posted this in the GT86 owners group on facebook with the caption "My engine sounds a bit strange, what could be wrong with it?" Taking a little joking poke at the numerous people asking what XYZ strange noise is coming from the engine bay.
With that I had to get a few things sorted before I could drive out of there!
The first being to wrap the headers, I only bought enough heat-wrap for one side so far but only one side is a problem with one of the heater hoses pretty much touching the headers, the heater hose is wrapped but I figured wrapping the header would give it the best chance at survival (or swapping it out to an aluminium pipe some time)
The benefits of being single and living alone is you can do utterly rediculous things like wrap your headers on your kitchen worktop and no one has a go at you for it.. apart from your future self when you realise you have to clean up the mess you made after the fact! And I could only taste a hint of exhaust wrap in my following meal.. although it was a bit itchy on its way out!
With that reinstalled I moved on to the intake. I was advised that the one you see on the car previously isn't big enough for the task, as soon as that little seed of doubt was sewn in my mind it HAD to be fixed and so...
There we go, that should sort it!
and finally i got the car on the ground for the final time and put it back together for the first time since November 2021... wait a minute... IT WAS A GT86 THIS WHOLE TIME?!
and the finaly couple of issues oustanding are twofold:
Airbag light: Won't be able to get an MOT with this, I think as I powered the car up without the seats plugged in it registered a fault on the airbag module which won't clear. Probably need to use Toyota's techstream software to scan and clear it.
Tune issue: The car idles but it's mega rich. When giving it revs it seems to misfire or struggle and then stalls after the rev, hardly ideal! I didn't want to have to get it fully mapped before i've had a chance to test drive and run the engine in but that might have to be the end result. I'm hoping I can get it running to a point where it's happy before that.
However not wanting to go out with a whimper but a bang 2022 had one more nasty surprise for me in store when it comes to the progress of the project which requires a small bit of story time...
So I got the car back from Dynotorque on Christmas eve, thankfully Craig had a few people collecting cars that day so didn't mind coming in to let me collect mine. Although it wouldn't be a day in the life of Sam if it wasn't for some near-colossal F-up and I almost threw the car off the side of the flatbed when I meant to stop the winch and infact kept going, causing the car to ground out and start to rotate off the side of the flatbed... fun!
That drama aside and the 3 hour drive back from Birmingham made me arrive home around 5pm where it was a tad dark.
Normally this wouldn't be a problem but I needed to look for a block of wood to get the car off the truck without the aforementioned grounding and drama involved.
Looking around with a torch I found one and got the car off and back in to the unit successfully!
...Having said all that, the land-owner was clearly quite spooked by seeing someone look around his yard with a torch in the dark on his CCTV and sent me some very "fruity" and perhaps "fueled by Christmas-eve cheer" messages which could be summarised to "Get your s
t and fk off out of my yard!"So that left me worried on Christmas eve about all the implications of this individual (who has access to the unit, its his land afterall) potentially just deciding to get nasty and bar my access etc and having to come up with a game plan of what i'm going to do going forward.
playing devil's advocate I do understand how "Dodgy" that scene might look but he clearly knew it was me to send me the messages within minutes so could've done without the wild over reaction, ohwell.. Fun fun for Christmas Eve!
I'm not really looking to get in to the Legalities of the arrangement of renting the space but it's very much all "spoken contract" cash in hand type deal. Perhaps silly on my part but considering how rare spaces like this are it was a neccessary evil, and I've had a feeling he's been wanting to get rid of me for months as "I could easily get double what you pay me for this space!" comes up in every conversation.
Fast Forward to the first week of Jan and and I still hadn't heard from him since that day (despite going to the unit a few times) which makes me think those messages were "Fueled by christmas-eve Cheer" and/or he was just in a bad mood but when serving my notice to say i'm leaving at the end of Jan the tune changed to "Don't feel like you have to leave!"... nice.
Either way it's left me understandably feeling as though the trust has been broken and with a sense that my Car/equipment/tools aren't particularly safe in that location anymore.
Thankfully the car is near to completion and I *should* be able to drive it out of there any day now, my parents have thankfully offered me their driveway to store the car and another family member has offered me some of their garage space to store my tools.
The brightside is i'll save money.. which might be needed with an impending remortgage this year!
Unfortunately it does remove a fantastic place to work on my car and could spell out a bit of an end to my youtube channel antics (although with <2000 subscribers and only making about enough money to afford a pint one a month It was hardly groundbreaking), in the long term i'll be looking for somewhere new, a bigger location I can share with like minded friends perhaps or similar but for now the driveway will do.
So with the rush of finishing the car and clearing out the unit that's taking up my whole january and why we probably won't see the car out on the road until atleast Febuary/March, that however gets me back to the actual main story.. the Car.
The work completed by Craig was great, the exhaust comes off the headers in to dual 3" pipes, a couple of sports cats (can't be bothered trying to get a dodgy MOT) and merging in to a single centre silencer. Going under the rear subframe which he notched and reinforced for me and then back out to two mufflers and tips.
There is one Caveat with all this in that the Mufflers (I ordered on his recommendation) are a bit long for the task.. so i'm very much going to have to cut down the tips, but that's hardly a priority right now and heck.. it probably appeals to someone, just not me!
Here's a few pics:
Sounds good though that's the main thing and the tips are easily rectified with the angry-end of an angle grinder!
I got a clip of it running here, excuse the phone audio and lack of exciting revs, it's having a few running issues which i'll get on to later.
I originally posted this in the GT86 owners group on facebook with the caption "My engine sounds a bit strange, what could be wrong with it?" Taking a little joking poke at the numerous people asking what XYZ strange noise is coming from the engine bay.
With that I had to get a few things sorted before I could drive out of there!
The first being to wrap the headers, I only bought enough heat-wrap for one side so far but only one side is a problem with one of the heater hoses pretty much touching the headers, the heater hose is wrapped but I figured wrapping the header would give it the best chance at survival (or swapping it out to an aluminium pipe some time)
The benefits of being single and living alone is you can do utterly rediculous things like wrap your headers on your kitchen worktop and no one has a go at you for it.. apart from your future self when you realise you have to clean up the mess you made after the fact! And I could only taste a hint of exhaust wrap in my following meal.. although it was a bit itchy on its way out!
With that reinstalled I moved on to the intake. I was advised that the one you see on the car previously isn't big enough for the task, as soon as that little seed of doubt was sewn in my mind it HAD to be fixed and so...
There we go, that should sort it!
and finally i got the car on the ground for the final time and put it back together for the first time since November 2021... wait a minute... IT WAS A GT86 THIS WHOLE TIME?!
and the finaly couple of issues oustanding are twofold:
Airbag light: Won't be able to get an MOT with this, I think as I powered the car up without the seats plugged in it registered a fault on the airbag module which won't clear. Probably need to use Toyota's techstream software to scan and clear it.
Tune issue: The car idles but it's mega rich. When giving it revs it seems to misfire or struggle and then stalls after the rev, hardly ideal! I didn't want to have to get it fully mapped before i've had a chance to test drive and run the engine in but that might have to be the end result. I'm hoping I can get it running to a point where it's happy before that.
Great to see a car in your pictures instead of a collection of metal bits bolted together
I forget what you're doing for an ECU, it's not a GM factory jobby is it? Also cam wise, it's not a standard one is it? Just thinking for best way of getting a base map on there.
I half remember it might have had fresh rings? In which case it'd be ideal to get enough of a map on it that you can put them under some load sooner rather than later from what I understand. If it's not had fresh rings, then you don't need to worry too much about running anything in, if it doesn't leak once it's all warmed up, get on it
Didn't realise the PHSS at MB World was arranged already, will have a look and try to get on the list with the Monaro, be really good to see yours in person
I forget what you're doing for an ECU, it's not a GM factory jobby is it? Also cam wise, it's not a standard one is it? Just thinking for best way of getting a base map on there.
I half remember it might have had fresh rings? In which case it'd be ideal to get enough of a map on it that you can put them under some load sooner rather than later from what I understand. If it's not had fresh rings, then you don't need to worry too much about running anything in, if it doesn't leak once it's all warmed up, get on it
Didn't realise the PHSS at MB World was arranged already, will have a look and try to get on the list with the Monaro, be really good to see yours in person
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