Duke Racing Celica GT-Four Time Attack Racecar

[Punknoodle]

Sounds like it's running well! And that engine bay looks boss now!

Thanks, it's actually running quite rich at the moment, but that will be sorted soon. Engine bay still needs little things done like the charge cooler properly installed and a good clean but it's getting there. I will give it a good clean in the weekend now that I can drive it out of the garage.

 

[MidnightRun85]

Thanks, it's actually running quite rich at the moment, but that will be sorted soon. Engine bay still needs little things done like the charge cooler properly installed and a good clean but it's getting there. I will give it a good clean in the weekend now that I can drive it out of the garage.

It still looks better than 99% of engine bays out there!

 

[Punknoodle]

Drove it out this evening and washed the last few months of dust off it.

And the natural light is better for photos of the pretty much completed engine bay (just have to put the head shield back on the exhaust manifold).

 

[MidnightRun85]

That is probably the best looking Celica I've seen in a very, very, very long time. Top effort mate!

 

[Punknoodle]

That is probably the best looking Celica I've seen in a very, very, very long time. Top effort mate!

Thank you very much!

 

[GDII]

It's great you have it running and can drive it out of the garage. Still looks as good as ever. Like @MidnightRun85 said it's a very nice clean Celica with no crazy external mods. Actually the only external mods I can see are the intercooler and wheels + suspension. The engine bay is very tidy even with all the mods and extra bits.

That accelerator cable is excessively long! I assume it stock based on all the photos of other ST185s I've seen.
This one has a shorter cable but I assume the pedal would get stiffer as the cable binds up from the tight bend which would make it harder to drive. http://s62.photobucket.com/user/BrendanAtkinson/media/Engines/230620111081_zps88204313.jpg.html

 

[Punknoodle]

It's great you have it running and can drive it out of the garage. Still looks as good as ever. Like @MidnightRun85 said it's a very nice clean Celica with no crazy external mods. Actually the only external mods I can see are the intercooler and wheels + suspension. The engine bay is very tidy even with all the mods and extra bits.

That accelerator cable is excessively long! I assume it stock based on all the photos of other ST185s I've seen.
This one has a shorter cable but I assume the pedal would get stiffer as the cable binds up from the tight bend which would make it harder to drive. http://s62.photobucket.com/user/BrendanAtkinson/media/Engines/230620111081_zps88204313.jpg.html

Thank you

The throttle cable doesn't worry me to be honest, it's a necessary thing and routes that way, as you say, for a reason, so that the throttle cable glides smoothly and it clears the cooler. Imagine if the throttle spring weren't able pull the throttle back through that tight radius and the throttle got stuck open...

 

[GDII]

That wouldn't be good.

While I was doing a quick check on the cable route I found these detailed photos of the ST185 WRC car. Interesting mods but no too dissimilar to what you have done. Water to air, swirl pot, oil cooler. I love the 2.1 kgf/cm cap on the water to air and other places on the engine cooling system. No overflow on the water to air.
http://www.gtfours.co.uk/pics/wrc/185/185.htm

 

[Punknoodle]

That wouldn't be good.

While I was doing a quick check on the cable route I found these detailed photos of the ST185 WRC car. Interesting mods but no too dissimilar to what you have done. Water to air, swirl pot, oil cooler. I love the 2.1 kgf/cm cap on the water to air and other places on the engine cooling system. No overflow on the water to air.
http://www.gtfours.co.uk/pics/wrc/185/185.htm

Yeah dude the WRC car is complete no ******** engineering. So awesome, just all done for ultimate performance. So much custom engineering. Oh to have that budget!

Still don't know if it's going to work as intended. Really hope it does, I'm actually quite anxious about whether or not what I've done actually makes an improvement.

 

[Punknoodle]

Been pretty quiet from me lately, not a lot happening with the car. Good news though, I've been in talks with my new Tuner (GT Auto Garage) and it's going in on Wednesday the 9th of Nov. So looking at the schedule for QR open practice days, there is one on the 11th of Nov.

Very tempted to book in for that practice day. That way I can give it a good shake down to test the new cooling systems, otherwise I have to wait till the next one which is at the end of January. Just don't know if I'm being too hasty.

 

[Punknoodle]

Two days to go until the tune

I think I'm ready, since the last update:
-Performed another oil change, dumped out the cheap Magnatec I had in there to flush it and the cheap filter and on went the Toyota filter and some fresh Penrite 10 Tenths 15W50 synthetic
-Put the front bumper back on for the 10th time
-Pumped up the tires
-Added fresh BP ultimate 98
-Changed the spark plugs to one step cooler plugs and boxed the old ones as spares if needed on the day
-Also have oil and coolant spare bottles in car
-Written up comprehensive notes for the tuner
-Ran the car, double checked the fuel base pressure, voltage, leaks, fluid levels. All ok.
-Installed a seat belt anchor bracket so I can use the factory seat belt with the racing seat for now.
-Currently have it on charge to ensure the battery is in perfect condition on the day.

Just have to give it a bit of a wash the night before and it will be good to go to get loaded on the tow truck Wednesday morning. I think they need it for two days, so I'll update this on the weekend with a report on how it went.

 

[GDII]

Can't wait to see the results.

 

[Punknoodle]

As promised, an update with the results!

Picked up the car tonight, I am so impressed by the guys that tuned it, really professional, friendly, actually took the time to ask what I want out of the car, specifics like spark plug temp range etc. A lot better than the last mob that tuned it.

Today is a really hot and humid day. The kind of day that I wouldn't have taken the car out in before because of it's temperature issues. Regardless, the car performed really well. Good start up and great driveability, much better than it was before. It got a raise in boost pressure this time around (up to 18psi) and on boost you can really feel the extra power. Last time it was tuned it made 157kW at the wheels and this time round, its been tuned for track use so it's a bit richer higher up in the rev range, but with the extra couple of pounds of boost pressure it makes 182kW at the wheels.

It's going to take a track day to get a real idea on temps so I won't comment on them right now.

Anyway, some photos and the dyno graphs (ignore the before runs and it was totally the wrong tune for the new cylinder head so it was down on power anyway).

Tuner made the comment that it was a really great car, the engine behaved nicely and it was incredibly tidy. Pretty happy to hear that from a dude at a workshop where they mainly work on high end race cars and big money street cars.

 

[Korza]

I see you've already updated the thread title.

 

[Punknoodle]

I see you've already updated the thread title.

It's all about the click bait

 

[MidnightRun85]

Good results there mate! Looking forward to some track day footage!

 

[Punknoodle]

I have to take the car back to the tuner at some stage, it's not starting very well so it needs a bit of attention in that regard.

Last really hot day I took it for a long drive to see how the temps held up under normal driving conditions. At highway speeds it was perfect, however in stop start traffic behind other cars it was getting quite hot. I think it could do with a fan replacement.

I took it for a blast up a mountain and was driving pretty hard, temps were staying pretty steady at the set point even though the average speed would have only been about 80kph. I was only when I slowed because I caught up with traffic that it started to get hot, but as soon as I got up to speed and got some airflow though the rad it cooled down fast.

Looking good so far but need some solid data from a track day.

 

[Bram Turismo]

I'd love to give that Celica a paint detail

Great looking car man, keep looking so good after it!

 

[Punknoodle]

I'd love to give that Celica a paint detail

Great looking car man, keep looking so good after it!

To be honest, it needs a respray. There are cracks from a previous repair before I bought it that have appeared. It really bothers me, but the paint isn't high on the priority list at the moment as it's such a big job.. But yeah, it looks good in photos, just not up close unfortunately.

When the roll cage goes in I'll be painting it myself with a spray can. Maybe one day it'll get a full outside and inside paint job but only after I've finished prepping it for full time circuit work.

 

[Punknoodle]

Today's little project was to remove the oil pressure sensor from the head and remote mount it.

It's recommended to reduce the vibration within the sensor, prolonging life. I also wanted to do it as the sensor thread is NPT and the head thread is BSPT so while the sensor did fit, it wasn't exactly right and I didn't like it. Also, clearance to the charge cooler pipes was very close.

The new set up uses a BSPT to AN nipple adapter, 90 deg hose fitting with a straight hose fitting to NPT end on the hose so the hose goes straight on to the sensor.

Much better. I've now got the sensor up on the firewall.

 

[GDII]

It's never a good thing when brass fittings snap off and oil gets everywhere.

This is a much nicer solution to brass and hard mounting it only using the threaded hole in the head to support the sensor.

 

[Punknoodle]

I bought the kids an Xbox and Forza Horizon 3 for Christmas. They really enjoy it, but I had to kick them off for a few minutes to have a bit of a go and make my car in the game It's awesome. Took a few liberties with the front splitter and roll cage but it looks pretty awesome 👍

Anyway, as for the real thing, I'm planning on doing its shakedown on the 21st, but I have a couple of things to sort before then. The clutch still isn't right, I've bled it several times but I keep getting air bubbles, I think the slave is stuffed (master has already been rebuilt). So I have to take that off and send it in to get rebuilt, or just grab a replacement.

The other thing is, the starting still isn't right and the other night I took it for a drive and I thought it made a bit of a knock at high rpm so I've contacted the tuner to have it put back on the dyno so he can double check the tune to make sure it's not got any knock and also to fix up the starting issues.

Hopefully it all comes together ok though. Thought it was all done but this thing keeps testing me..

On the positive side though the coolant system appears to be working really well, and the new oil temp sensor location has removed a lot of the spiking in the pressure readings.

 

[Punknoodle]

There's the inside of the clutch slave. One seal completely shredded. I think I've found the culprit... Got a complete replacement slave on the way and I'll get a rebuild kit for this one to keep it as a spare.

 

[GDII]

That doesn't look very good at all. Hopefully the new one will fix that issue and you can change gears with ease.

 

[Punknoodle]

That doesn't look very good at all. Hopefully the new one will fix that issue and you can change gears with ease.

The new one arrived today actually. Fitted it then bled the system with my son doing the pedal work and it bled through so much better than the last time, no air at all and now the shifting feels brilliant again.

Car is booked in with my tuner again just before the general practice day at QR so it looks like it's going to plan so far, touch wood.

 

[GDII]

That's great. That seal would have been causing aeration in the fluid and not allowing it to hold correct pressure. I'm surprised it didn't leak heavily out the front dust seal onto the clutch fork.

 

[Punknoodle]

Yeah I am too, the only leak it had was from the master so I replaced that, and when I removed the boot on the slave it was full of gunky grease

 

[ShobThaBob]

I love reading about your car. It looks fantastic.

 

[Punknoodle]

I love reading about your car. It looks fantastic.

Thank you 👍

I think I found the source of that knock I was worried about, I found one of the exhaust manifold nuts was loose

 

[Punknoodle]

Well I just dropped the car back in to my tuner, he's going to fix the starting issues and then run it up on the dyno again to check the tune.

General practice day on Sat out at QR. My main goal for the day isn't lap times but just to stress the cooling systems and make sure it stays in check. I'll report back here with the data.