Duke Racing Celica GT-Four Time Attack Racecar

[Punknoodle]

Sorry, I just get excited lol.

 

[GDII]

It looks SO good. And the sound! I want it in my life!!

 

[Punknoodle]

Thanks, although I have a little chuckle to myself every time I go to my tuner. Here's my car that I'm pretty proud of, and every car in the car park just puts it to shame. Some super impressive machinery in there from a couple of nice street cars to quite a few all out race cars. This shot only has a couple of cars in it, on the other side was a R35 GTR race car, inside were a few time attack evos, a time attack Rx7, an awesome 180.. All with mega dollars and engineering hours having been spent on them. I felt like I wasn't worthy to be playing in their sandpit!

 

[GDII]

Maybe you feel like you aren't worthy to play in their sandpit but I wouldn't. They are all car guys just like you. Maybe with just a bit more cash although that's not always the case.

That shot is cool, how often do you see an ST185 next to the 'common' tuner cars like those? Sure they are great cars but everyone has one. I've never seen a maroon ST185 plus yours doesn't have crazy body kits. You know I like that look.

 

[Punknoodle]

Well I had a really tough day at the circuit yesterday. I had high expectations and it just didn't work out.

I mucked around for a few sessions, going out for a lap, engine protection would engage and I'd come back in to have a look. I thought it might have been intake air temps, so I adjusted that setting a little bit, then it still kept happening. I ended up doing a full PC data log of a session and looked at in more in depth and found that the engine protection had engaged due to a lean condition.

I inspected my fuel base pressure and it was half of what it was supposed to be, so I adjusted that up to what it is supposed to be and went out again. The engine felt much stronger, but only for a short time, after about 3 laps the temps were starting to creep up and it was running like a dog. It didn't help that the little under tray to direct air through the radiator decided it didn't like life at 150 kph and folded down, so I had to remove it.

It rained a lot so track conditions were crap.

Intake air temps were high, coolant temps were hot, oil temp was not bad though.

So basically I came away feeling pretty demoralised. I need to completely rework the front end. Remove the water to air, install a front mount, make better ducting for everything, I'll cut up a st184 bonnet and make a large vent for the radiator exhaust to come up out of the bonnet. I'll likely need to change the way the intake pipe runs. Lots of things. I'm worried about the capability of the water pump. In theory it's up to the task though so hopefully it's just an airflow thing.

Kind of pissed off so I'm going to have a break from it for a month or so and hopefully regain some motivation for it. It's just hard when the budget to do what I actually want to do with it isn't there at the moment. So I'll just concentrate on my sim racing.

My friend was there with his superkart. It made me want one. So simple, fast as hell and would feel awesome to drive. Maybe that's a better option for me going forward..

Anyway, some photos, and just for @GDII a drive by video to hear the exhaust.

 

[GDII]

That's really unfortunate things aren't working out as planned. What are your ambient air temperatures?
Come back to NZ, it's so cold here lately for summer. It's 14 right now with masses of rain. But so much wind the house is shaking....

Thanks for the video. It just sounds so good!!!

 

[Punknoodle]

That's really unfortunate things aren't working out as planned. What are your ambient air temperatures?
Come back to NZ, it's so cold here lately for summer. It's 14 right now with masses of rain. But so much wind the house is shaking....

Thanks for the video. It just sounds so good!!!

About 32 degrees, so pretty warm.

I've removed the intercooler and I'll start thinking of tidy ways to do the plumbing for a front mount and ducting. I want to sort this thing out.

 

[GDII]

Not too warm but hot enough to cause issues. Can you add in more water temperature sensors in the water lines to track coolant temp in different parts of the system? Expensive but might help figure out what is possibly happening with it getting too hot.

It's a bit hard to tell but I assume you are trying to direct/force as much air as you can through the radiator rather than let it go around it?

There are many different ways you could route intercooler pipes in the ST185. Some look better than others but then ones that might not look as good possibly work better than the good looking ones.

 

[Punknoodle]

Not too warm but hot enough to cause issues. Can you add in more water temperature sensors in the water lines to track coolant temp in different parts of the system? Expensive but might help figure out what is possibly happening with it getting too hot.

It's a bit hard to tell but I assume you are trying to direct/force as much air as you can through the radiator rather than let it go around it?

There are many different ways you could route intercooler pipes in the ST185. Some look better than others but then ones that might not look as good possibly work better than the good looking ones.

Yeah my current plan is to clock the turbo to point the outlet down. From there it's pretty easy.

I have a to do list now that I've had a night to think about it and vent my frustration.

- Remove and sell the wta setup, buy a PWR intercooler core.
- Clock turbo and come up with a good plumbing solution for the intercooler and intake
- Remove and dismantle the fuel pressure regulator and inspect it
- Depending on how that looks, replace the fuel pump
- Install a flex fuel sensor and replace any lines necessary to run E85
- Obtain an St184 bonnet to sacrifice, cut a large vent in it and then come up with a good ducting system for focussing air in to the radiator and also for letting it exhaust out the bonnet. At the same time install some bonnet pins as the vent may weaken it a little
- Fit the best SPAL fan I can get in to the space.

With the E85 the car will run cooler and be less prone to detonation, and with the front mount I should see some better intake temps. As for the coolant temps, I figure my radiator has a large frontal area, it's a good PWR core, so as long as I can get good airflow through it it should be able to cool it down. It's only making 250 horsepower for goodness sake. It's just in this climate you need to go to a bit of effort..

So yet again the bumper comes off and I'll start the build again. No hurry though.

 

[Punknoodle]

One more thing I'll mention, unfortunately I didn't get a video of it, but when the engine protection cuts in, the timing goes really retarded and it runs rich, so the effect is lots of banging and popping out of the exhaust. Coming down pit lane I was in 2nd gear at around 40kph and it sounded like a V8 supercar on the limiter, bang bang bang out the exhaust. Sounded bloody cool. I need to make a straight through exhaust for it so I can get some knarly flames out the back. I'll do that before it gets tuned as well.

 

[Punknoodle]

Bloody hell! So yesterday I was working on the car a bit more and noticed, right above the exhaust manifold that there was oil seeping out in between the head and the block. So I yelled and cursed.

I then degreased it, cleaned it off, and started the engine. 10 seconds and I notice oil weeping out. No oil above it, so it's not coming down from the rocker cover. Brand new cometic head gasket. I had checked the head and block for flatness.

So last night I was in a bad place. Really upset about the whole thing. Today I came home from work and figured I'd just check some things. I didn't have oil in my coolant or coolant in my oil, so figured the head gasket wasn't blown.

So, removed the rocker cover gasket, put the torque wrench on the first stud (in the sequence you are supposed to tighten them in) and expected it to just click without moving the nut. Well, the thing turned, about a quarter of a turn. In fact, they all did. Some worse than others, but they were all loose.

ARP instructions say you don't need to retorque the head studs, however upon searching, a lot of engine builders do indeed re-torque them after a heat cycle as they have been known to loosen.

Anyway, reassembled it enough to get it running again and fired it up, brought it up to operating temp and, no oil.

It's a big relief, and explains some of the issues I was having at the track.

Lesson - RE-TORQUE ARP HEAD STUDS.

 

[GDII]

Well that's some good news after being in a bad mood. So I guess the next plan is to take it back to the track and do more testing?

 

[Punknoodle]

Next step is to clock the turbo and finally install a front mount intercooler. The water to air is just proving to be too inefficient. I've already removed the core, tonight I'll remove the heat exchanger and pump and I'll put it all on eBay. Then I'll come up with a much better ducting system than I did have and do a bit of testing then, after I find whatever the issue was with the fuel supply. If the engine needs a retune to suit the intercooler though I'll do E85 at the same time to avoid getting it tuned more than once.

That's the plan.

So I basically got it running and tuned to go to the track once lol. Ah well that's racing.

 

[Punknoodle]

I went out and bought a compression tester and then warmed up the engine and performed the test. The result was 170psi, dead even, across all 4 cylinders. So that's a good result.

Anyway, next step was clocking the turbo. While removing the turbo I noticed a crack in the exhaust manifold.

Looks reasonably fresh. So will have to sort that out.

Anyway I've got the turbo off now. The hardest part of clocking the turbo is fabricating a new waste gate actuator bracket. First I'll adjust the compressor to how I want it to fit, test fit, then pull the turbo back out, lock in the compressor location then make the bracket to pick up the original mounting points on the compressor and keep the waste gate actuator in the same position. Hopefully I can come up with something neat, tidy and strong.

 

[Punknoodle]

Last one today.

I removed the compressor housing from the turbo and then fitted it back up loosely in to position.

This allowed me to sit the compressor housing on at the angle I wanted it. There isn't much room in between the rad fan and the clutch slave cylinder but I think I got it in to a position that will work ok.

I then removed it all after match marking the housing and turbo. Sat it on the bench and went about fitting the compressor housing back on properly.

The housing is aligned with a little dowel, the turbo has a slot in it for the dowel to sit in. I got out the Dremel and made a new slot where the dowel now needs to sit in the new position.

And now the compressor housing is back on and it's a complete turbo again.

Next I need to fabricate a bracket for the wastegate actuator. I'll start this in the weekend, but I already have a rough design in my head of how I'm going to do it.

 

[GDII]

Too bad the turbo doesn't spin the other way with the compressor outlet on the other side of the turbo. That way it point straight down and no clearance issues for the intercooler pipes from the turbo.

 

[Punknoodle]

Yeah, bit of a pain. I actually figured it's probably a fairly straight forward thing to simply get a 45 degree outlet welded on where the straight one is on the compressor housing. Then it wouldn't need as tight a bend to come in and clear the radiator fan. So I'll chat to the guys who have done all of my aluminium welding tomorrow and see.

 

[Punknoodle]

Just so you can visualise it - I'll get the straight outlet replaced with a bend. About 45 degree should do it. It will bend out where the arrow is drawn on the compressor, meaning the pipe will be able to come straight out and clear the dump pipe and run along under the radiator to come in through the ducting I'll make and in to the intercooler. Shouldn't be too bad. Cold side is a little bit fiddly, but I'll cross that bridge later haha.

I think it looks quite good when it's clocked like this.

 

[Punknoodle]

This is just a random shot from the test fitting process. I've had the turbo on and off the engine several times now to check clearances and I'm happy with where the actuator sits. I've since trimmed the bracket some more (where I've drawn on it).

I had to cut the majority of the bracket off that used to hold the water pipes in place. I could have just cut it off completely, but I wanted to still have it secured so I left a little tab that I can bolt to, as you can see.

I've had it all bolted up and tested the waste gate with some compressed air. It works very well, the waste gate opens and closes fully and there is preload on the arm to ensure it is held closed tight. It has a small amount of flex. Probably not enough to be a problem, but I'm engineering it out with a support down the guts of the bracket. It has a little tab coming off it as well, which is for the aforementioned water pipe bracket to bolt to.

I can weld ok enough, but as this bracket is sitting proudly right at the front of the engine bay I'm going to take it to a friend of mine with a gas MIG who welds for a career. Want it looking tidy!

Should look better when it's all painted black with some nice new stainless bolts.

So as soon as I have a replacement manifold, this bracket all welded and the compressor housing modified I'll be able to fully reassemble the turbo and bolt it back on to the engine, making it a complete engine again, and ready to move on to the next task.

 

[GDII]

Nice fabrication work. Looking really good. I don't know why more people don't do this to get around issues of the compressor outlet facing the wrong way.

If it was me I'd design it in CAD and get it water jet cut but that's because my brother can help out. I'd still need the bracing like what you have done. I only say this because you mention it's location in the engine bay. My OCD wouldn't let me hand make a bracket

 

[Punknoodle]

Nice fabrication work. Looking really good. I don't know why more people don't do this to get around issues of the compressor outlet facing the wrong way.

If it was me I'd design it in CAD and get it water jet cut but that's because my brother can help out. I'd still need the bracing like what you have done. I only say this because you mention it's location in the engine bay. My OCD wouldn't let me hand make a bracket

I was able to get the curves looking ok, Ill do a pass over it with the wire wheel and linisher after it's welded and before it's painted and you won't even know it was cut out by hand But regardless, it doesn't matter so much, because racecar 👍

 

[Punknoodle]

Don't worry, I'll be replacing those two really long bolts, it's just for test fitting purposes.

Zero flex on the bracket with everything bolted up. The pipe bracket actually doubles as a support so I'm really glad I decided to do that. Tested the actuation of the waste gate and it works really well. Nice and smooth.

So I've dismantled it all again, removed the compressor housing again too, as that is going to get a new outlet on it. I've painted the bracket and the waste gate actuator black. Should look pretty knarly.

This is the manifold. I've just made a little stop drill at the ends of the crack, and I'll be heating the manifold in the BBQ up to 250 degrees or so and then using the arc welder to repair the crack. Hopefully it works. Shouldn't be hard to source another one but I think this should be quite repairable, and the majority of it apart from where I've sanded it back is ceramic coated so wouldn't have to worry about getting it done again.

 

[Punknoodle]

OK so it may not look laser cut or anything but it does the job lol. Turned out ok, and it works which is the main thing!

 

[GDII]

Looks great and good that it works. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the front mount setup.

 

[Punknoodle]

Ok, so since last update, repair of manifold was big failure, turned out there were more cracks and so it's a write off. Good news is I have sourced a replacement. It's not coated, so I'll get that done before it goes back together.

My account is in recovery mode at the moment, so I am yet to get my compressor housing modified or purchase any more components, so I've been satisfying my need to work on the car by doing some prep for the roll cage.

I've removed the seats, centre console and carpet and started removing the sound deadening. I'm an idiot though, I knew about the dry ice trick but for some reason I thought that was just for the adhesive, so I manually removed the hard top layer. Now I need to use a heat gun and cleaners to get all the gunk off.

It does work, but it's a slow process. I'll try the dry ice technique when I do the lower floor sections. Once that's all cleaned up I'll reinstall the racing seat and the plastics I'll be retaining, and then it'll be ready for the cage fabrication, and mounting of the anchor points for the harness.

The car is going to be a fair bit louder in the cabin now, but I think I'll be able to deal with it lol.

 

[GT6champNK_69]

@Punknoodle, don't use a heat gun to remove the gunk, what you need is to order something called "3M Surface Cleaner". It stinks like hell, but it is much more effective. Search on their website!
3M.com. I would use it if it was me👍.

 

[Punknoodle]

@Punknoodle, don't use a heat gun to remove the gunk, what you need is to order something called "3M Surface Cleaner". It stinks like hell, but it is much more effective. Search on their website!
3M.com. I would use it if it was me👍.

Yeah I'm going to pick up some of that Goof Off or whatever it's called today, it's a 3M product. But you still need to use heat and scrape, this stuff is super thick, like about 5mm thick, so you need to get the bulk of it off before using the cleaning product.

Just in what I've removed so far is about 7kgs, by the time I'm done I reckon there would be close to 30 kgs of sound deadening gone.

 

[GT6champNK_69]

Ahh okay, I was just worried that you would just use a heat gun:tup:. Never heard of that super sticky stuff though, what does the heat gun do. Yeah I guess you will be satisfied with the sound you get with that stuff removed in your car:tup:. Like your work so far with your car.

 

[Punknoodle]

Ahh okay, I was just worried that you would just use a heat gun:tup:. Never heard of that super sticky stuff though, what does the heat gun do. Yeah I guess you will be satisfied with the sound you get with that stuff removed in your car:tup:. Like your work so far with your car.

All the heat gun does is makes it all soft, so the scraper can actually get under it and take it off. Think of it like comparing dried chewing gum and fleshly chewed chewing gum. Before heat it's all hard and stiff, after heat it's soft and workable. So I'm taking the bulk of it off like that then using chemicals on the residue that's left.

Thanks for your comments

 

[Punknoodle]

This morning I finished removing the actual sound deadening from the entire floor. This is what's left:

And what went in to the bag:

It weighs about 8kgs, but the main reason I did it was because the roll cage needs clean metal to be able to weld to, and with no rear seats I didnt want what was left to be that ugly sound deadening stuff. Looks awful.

Can't wait to see how the car sounds with all this stripped out..

Anyway next job is to use some of that adhesive remover, maybe some acetone, maybe a wire brush. Not sure yet but have to get the crud off. I'll repaint the floor when the cage is in, I think I'll go with a gun metal or silver.