[battleaxe]

dropped the oil pan today to inspect a rather large dent in the pan. all good, toyota gives lots of space from pickup to pan and uses very thick gauge metal, so i hammered it out and put it back in and then lined everything up and bolted everything in. dropped the car back down and started to put the parts back in and start mock up of exhaust, oil cooler/relocate, and intake. originally wanted to run all oem plastics to go for oem+ (get another front cover so its not flashy) or pop my big filter on and weld up a pipe. iunno which way i'll go just yet.

 

[RedP85]

Great update!
Getting closer and closer 👍

 

[battleaxe]

as im back to work after parental leave next week, figured i would keep on keeping on.
did a bunch of plumbing this week. fuel lines run, PS lines run, just waiting on a fitting for the rack so i can connect the -8 line.

started to plop the oem hoses back on and figured out the small stuff ... still have to run vacuum lines ... the few that there are. also did a little project i wanted to do since getting the Gita parts, make the gas pedal and dead pedal work. With a mix match of parts after a lot of in and outs to see what worked, got it to work with some mods. The gita pedal with supra mount (different spacing) had a weird arch to it and the arm itself hit the firewall/floor before the pedal can get to full sweep.

What I ended up with was Gita pedal, spring, throttle cable...supra pedal arm, stopper, mount, pedal pin. The throttle cable is a lil longer than I want it to be, but a little more helped to mock up the holder where it needs to go...which is the next task. After that, fab for the rad support and oil cooler mount and then run the -10 lines to where they need to go. once this is all sorted ill run the harness and get that connected to the link then prep and spray the front half of the bay in single stage black.

 

[battleaxe]

minor update, been busy with baby.
supra has a removable rad support now, going to try and Tig this this week, working throttle cable and bracket.

lexus has tiny studded snows and i gave a lick of spray paint to the wheels that have never ever been cleaned.

civic got some brake and clutch fluid bled, swapped to regas with 3mm spacers in the front and changed the eye brow lights to black housings for a change of pace. further work on supra this weekend ahead

 

[battleaxe]

civic got the rest of the windows tinted. 50% to the fronts, and 20% in the rear. Gave it a vacuum today too.

Supra got tidied up a bit, has captive nuts in the holes now, modified core support to run the oil lines, mounted the rad and oil cooler. Oil cooler needs a stedy stay to keep it from wandering. Nothing too exciting. Run the oil lines, then tighten all the lines to everything, then take it all apart and paint the front core support, reassemble and then run wires.

 

[battleaxe]

no LEV content, just more Supra, and brackets.

repurposed an old custom battery tie down from the cressida and chopped it down and made it the oil filter holder. Cut back most of the battery tray to allow mounting and free up some space. ran the oil lines, check and re check everything can fit.

repurposed a crv? overflow bottle and modified the oem bracket for that to work with the supra.

found a perfect size cut off in my aluminum bin for the filter. I wanted to re use the Gita air box but it was massive and did not fit in the engine bay good at all, as well it has the air flow sensor cast into the plastic. I am debating if modifying the air box to act as a cover would work, or look tacky. The other option as the filter looks stupid by itself, would be to make a heat shield air box for it by modifying that cut off and welding the shield to that so it acts as a cool box and makes that area not so baron.
Last task before paint is to weld the holes up on the rad support and then paint the lot of it.

 

[discoelk]

I dig your thread here and on ZT. Love the aesthetic. Car should rip with the 2JZ.

 

[battleaxe]

After work this week I worked on getting this thing painted so I could assemble this weekend. I shaved all the unneeded holes on the rad support and then welded them closed and seam sealed the backs. Tapped all the holes after final sand so the bolts would be in real easy. Buzzed that all back and prepped the bay for quick spray on the rad support and the one half tower as there was some scratches and the colour was a graphite? I think the bay has been resprayed at some point.

Went through all my bolts, went through my Altezza/Gita bolts and went through my stash of zinc plated bolts and found a lot of OEM toyota bolts zinc plated so I used those to tidy up the work I did. I'm not even a fan of the gold bolts but they are clean and OEM so thats nice. Took more time finding bolts than it did to assemble the front end. Painted all the brackets a semi gloss black as well so it wasnt so much raw aluminum everywhere. I'm still not keen on the air filter, but might use it until I build a ARC type box, or find an ARC box...lets be real, its just the ARC logo on the red filter that people buy it. The Gita box was took big and I dont think ill attempt cutting it up to make a cover. I'll keep my eyes out for an OE box too to keep it looking sort of factory..maybe even a honda intake tube.

I also moved the cars around as the S13 needs a few things..a lot of things and I wanted to move it cause next to the deck is a spot spot for mice/rats. They don't usually show up but I found a whole apple ( I have an apple tree) eaten on the valve cover that started to rot, so that was nice. cleaned that up, checked fluids and saw the clutch master cylinder seal at the push rod must leak cause it leaked on both sides of the firewall, so the paint it fucked on both sides and I need a new one. Got it over to the other side of the house so I can do a couple small things on it. Fired right up too, unlike the cressida.

I'm not surprised with all the neglect I show my cars that any of this happens to me. Maker of my own demise.

 

[battleaxe]

i took some time away from cars after the tents fell down on the cars. i have since sold what remains of the tents for $150 and am getting a quote from a guy who does metal enclosures. its been a few weeks so im not holding my breath he makes it any time soon.
been busy being a dad and have little time for garage activities, however motivation was at an all time low as my garage was full of non sense and my cars kept needing maintenance and not "fun stuff."
first thing was to sort the garage and shed at the same time so a lot of back and forth. shed is still a catch all but all items are useful still and what junk is in there is temporary. sold a bunch of stuff from in there and tidied up a bunch, put some tools in there for easier access.

garage as of a couple days ago. sold the bike, put the boards in the shed after I sold the air scrubber and removed the motor from the lexus.

this back corner is a bit of a mess with all the drawers. it was organized until i added this rather large sony Trinitron. i have been after one for a while for my old game systems and this was free, took nearly 3 months to get as they live on a remote island and only come to this island once a month. for whatever reason i had been hooked on these old style of Trinitron as it has a lot of inputs in the back and my uncle had one when i was younger and just always wanted one...seemed to pair perfectly with the sony playstation...nostalgia is a hell of a delusion. currently it is hooked up to my VHS and my old options are what get played in here. My house is too small to put it in the actual house, so here it is. House is 1085sq ft, she tiny, and it houses 2 adults, 1 baby and 2 cats.

Supra hasnt had anything done to it since i started putting the engine bay back together months ago. I have oval tube on order and its back ordered but I have been messing about with the integra air box, got a new filter for it and ill come to a conclusion on that soon.

Cressida has been put back on the road and I have been dailying it to see what new problems it has developed since sitting there since Oct 2020.

First up was replace the very old battery as this was the last part of the puzzle for the poor start, currently it starts very good and strong. Steering has felt weird since driving it around, found a loose castor rod nut, and the diff is rather chattery (going to change that soon), and the brakes..brake, RR, was dragging. All 4 brakes were cleaned, lubed and bled. Raised the rear 10mm as the front was a little higher so this should even it out some more. Raised the exhaust while I was under there as a temp fix as i plan to clock the tips correctly once I finally put the short jzx bumper on the rear. I removed the power steering cooler to see if the system would bleed, sure enough, it did. i had it going from the reservoir to cooler to pump and i think the vane pump sucks and it was causing constant air to be generated. It should work on the low pressure side as its on the push side but thats for another day. Bled the clutch while i was on the bottom and the fork fell out...so i lubed that all up, ordered some cover plates for the r box, and then put the fork back in and continued to bleed the clutch. feels a lot better to shift now oddly lol. still some more things i want to sort out but theyre small and the car functions currently. Need to put miles on it cause it just sits there. sadly its nuclear summer now and it generates a lot of heat :/ but it stays cool so thats what matters.

civic shifter had been feeling poor for a little while now so when i had it in the air last time i took a look. one nut was missing, and the other looked like it was ready to break. i popped it out. took the remaining nut off, welded the top so the captive stud was actually captive. put a new bolt in and lined it up, welded and ground that down, shot it with black, got new crush washers and nuts, cleaned the shifter itself, lubed that all up and popped that back in with the oem shift knob to change it up a bit. while i had the paint out, i splashed some black on the wiper arms as they were nature polished

crv has been a non stop fun machine with random failures. the latest has been the fan sensor, it gave up the ghost after 425k kms and has overheated the motor for the tenth time now. already got a new one and looped the fan for the time being so it wouldnt leave my wife and baby stranded in this heat. its not a huge deal as the oem rad and system works so well the fan rarely comes on, but when it needs to be on, i really need it. we went camping in it a few months back. going to get the ac checked out and refill it so might have a few days of ac

whats been taking most of my time has been the LS400. i started parting it out and then took the motor out. its heart breaking but the parts have gone on to help save and make a few LS400s a little better with her parts. little over doubled my money and got a free motor out of it so thats a win. covers the loss of the tents at least....ahh yes, the feeling of going back to zero.
just started tear down on the 1uz to clean it up and get some paint on the valve covers so it may look fun while it sits there forever.

looking forward to this going away. Id get another LS400 for keeps some day. They are a very well built car and appreciated how nice they were to work on and take apart through all of this.

 

[gamble]

Ah dang, shame to see the motorcycle going away but that's the way life goes. You can always re-buy things later, but simplifying your workload can be a huge improvement.

Love the progress cleaning up your work space. My advice would be if you can swing it, trade those black bins for clear ones, but either way put a label with date last touched on there, and update that every time you touch it. You might find you've got bins you haven't touched since you put em up there, and then you can use that to justify selling that stuff

 

[battleaxe]

the date last touched is a neat idea.
all bins are marked and I have found these black bins to be the toughest and most convenient to use..unless trying to pop the lid off while its on the shelf. I got rid of most of the spares, just kept a pair of most of the things and sold the rest.
a lot of the bins are projects waiting to go on. i have a couple bins with hks cams, wiseco pistons and rods, turbo, exhaust manifold, bovs, wastegates etc all for the s13 and other spares I collected for another turbo project just in case.
theres bins of fuel hoses, rad hoses, couplers, fittings, then chassis specific stuff like suspension, misc interior...list goes on and on. One day I hope to have only a handful of bins and all cars run and drive and I just do oil changes and put gas in them.

 

[battleaxe]

made an air box solution to make it look OEM+ as much as I could.
it uses a factory DC2 intake box which is a factory 3inch cone filter. the cone filter however is very specific to how its orientated as is a hard plastic. the DC2 intake tube is a very ugly shape and the intake tube to throttle body is a bit smaller (its a factory bellow, large intake, small tb (i like to all it wind torque).
so i wanted to use the oem 2jz plastics but the ID's of the DC2 intake cone and 2jz intake were the same so i would have to make a slip joint and add a coupler and i think at that point i might as well just have one intake tube and a cone filter. SO i did this instead, 2jz intake tube, small alum cut off to the K&N filter and the DC2 intake box as just a limiting shield.
i was unable to grab the intake tube that connects to the bottom of this intake box as it was connected to the factory resonation box on the donor car at the salvage yard and I didnt have all day.
so we have speed holes in the bottom so it gets all the hot air from the exhaust it can take.
made some oddball brackter to mount the box and scalloped the underside corner for max tight fit and this is what she looks like
my oval tube came in so now i can do my exhaust and stop walking into it and cutting my shins. baby steps now that the dailies are functioning again.

 

[battleaxe]

finished the exhaust the other day (letterkenny voice in my head)
pardon the welding, i am a caveman and chopped up what i had and glue and stick'd it together.
as i said earlier if i would do it over again on a hoist, this flange would be modified and moved.
Cerakote'd it outside this fun blue as an homage to Trust, figured i would give it a coat for the whole exhaust to not be so gross.
side note, today there was a section of the crv exhaust that fully just separated like a banana removed from a peel. i LOVE exhausts...i should probably also stop using the misc pieces I have laying around and just make a nice piece from scratch ala stew (but more caveman)

i wanted to keep both oem cats on the manifold for sound so chopped up the 5m runners and ran one to mate up, real booger here
no room for a flex here, so hard bolt it is, likely to fail sometime, fix when it fails
this is mostly oval tube too, the exhaust i had before was 3inch round turned into oval and fit fight up to the vibrant oval lol

and finally, in the engine bay, tig'd up the water line below for the TB coolant and put the manifold on

the 3.7 with the kaaz is done and ready to be picked up so ill swap that this weekend and sell the 4.3 i have in it to a friend then sell the oem lsd that was taken out. should mostly pay for the diff setup lol.

next up ill start to run the harness, mount the ecu and fit up the diffuser and if it will look good..really excited for that actually,

 

[battleaxe]

So the CRV exhaust completely fell apart the other day.
I noticed the muffler was rotated and thought I may have clocked it poorly somehow when I did the J pipe stuff...then I was coming out of the chiropractors office and the exhuast was a full 90 degrees, so I took a look at it and the resonator fully slid apart from itself.

The resonator was completely rotten and was eating itself away. This is the highest point in the system down wind from the manifold and all CRVs have rotten exhausts at this rise. Super odd. So I went to digging through my metal pile and found this muffler, long, offset in and outs, one side was 2 1/4 and the other was 1.5? Guess which side exits? if you guessed the small pea shooter, you're right. I used some pipe and chopped the dolphin tip and slapped that on for "looks." The idea is, sell the CRV or turbo it with the stock pile of parts and redo the exhaust entirely. Hondata makes an ecu for these and uses its own auto trans controller too, my tuner is actually very keen on turboing the CRV. I just want it to get better fuel mileage. 436k? kms, what could go wrong? (helps to have the Edge as its normal and basic so this can be worked on when needed as it seems to be weekly) - moron? yes, of course.

Meanwhile, the 3.7 was mated to the Kaaz 2way with all new Timken seals and bearings. Picked that up on the weekend, cleaned up the diff again and slapped the cover on and filled it up ready to break in. The 4.3 came out easy, the 3.7 fought me the entire way in and I even had to get a die to tidy up one of the bolts that caught an edge. She's in now so that allowed me to slap the exhaust in and then put the intake back in so I can start to run the wiring.

gave the tips a polish as well so they look fresh for the pavement slapping.
not sure if the engine look crooked or my poor photos, or both