Took the car out for a shakedown

So at the weekend I took the car out for a shakedown! the first shakedown on the saturday had a lot of smoke billowing out off parts near the exhaust, I expected this to some degree from wd40 and oil burning off. However it took a long time! Mainly because when the oil filter came off, oil went everywhere...it was slightly embarrassing!

However on the Sunday it was all burnt off and the car was run normally with no major issues.

I have a small oil leak which looked to be from the headgasket...however after stripping the engine back a bit last night it was the camshaft seals which appear to be leaking. So ill be picking up some gaskets for that and refitting and doing the timing again. Should have the engine back together tonight and oil leak fixed.

the seal had seen better days! And teaches me a lesson...replace all seals!!!

Seeing as the geometry isn't set the car did well, grips well with the wide tyres and once moving the steering feels nice and solid and not too heavy. I will want to replace the springs for softer springs as the ride is a bit too harsh for UK roads in my view. I will also probably at some point in the future replace the rear coilovers for ones where the dampening is on the top as that's restricting my lowering height at the rear.

The car boosted to 7psi without any issues and now I know the oil leak isn't head gasket the 16psi shouldn't be a problem going forward. I'll complete the boost controller solenoid fitting after the bodywork is done and once I've run at 7psi for a little amount of time..

Next stage is to replace the mirrors, the may look small and good, but were useless! So I have found some ones which are bigger but don't look too bad.

As well as this I will create some arch liners to try and keep the mess off the rest of the car! I can only clean it so many times before I get bored. After these two pieces are done it will be time for the bodyshop.

Got my reg plate and first drive

So my reg documents arrived, on the day it arrived it was my sisters wedding, so I'd been drinking...so had to wait a day!

Put on the reg plate and headed somewhere local... My mums! The turbo / exhaust manifold was smoking a lot when I arrived but it hadn't had a proper run since fitting with oily hands and WD40 everywhere.

By the journey back, smoke wasn't as bad but it is only 6miles so don't know how long that takes to burn off so I'll keep an eye on it.

Being so low the car feels fast and very rock solid, the car was boosting fine, although being late and wet I only boosted to 4.5psi...so plenty to go! 10psi with current setup, once boost controller connected will be 14psi.

It then rained and showed up I will want some rubber to go on the top door hinge fitting to keep water out, so that will be easy enough.

Overall a good test run and I'll use this weekend to get some more test miles under the belt and ensure no niggles exist before going into the bodyshop!

steering wheel, screen, indicators & further prep

So im still waiting on the DVLA for the reg number. Over 3 weeks now, bit of a joke really!! For an organisation which looks after all UK vehicle matters id expect a better turn around.

So I fitted the new oil cooler, drained all the new oil :( and got it running and the car is running very smooth so that is some good news...although of course there has been no engine load on it yet.

So first of all  i ditched the Toyota wheel as its 380mm diameter which is just massive. Now as I have no power steering I don't want to do to small, so went down to just 350mm for now and its made a big difference when sat in front of it already, I may be able to go down to 320mm but definitely not 280mm unless I work on my arms at the gym all the time! as well as this I fitted the rear view camera and also the screen. All worked fine. Obviously at the moment the interior is just to be practical with ideas for later on and this has opened up my eyes to needing a larger and better screen when doing the interior.

and rear camera position....

Some will of spotted the boost controller, that has been wired in and plumbed in as well, although I haven't done the solenoid at this point as I just want to make sure the car is working as expected before trying to raise the performance.

Next was the indicators as i wanted to get rid of the bobbles on the front so I got some LED waterproof strip. (600 leds a reel) and cut them to about 10cm in length and fitted them to the headlight covers. Much nicer and cleaner and can be seen clearly. these are actually brighter and better then the first set I had on for IVA which I failed with.

Following this I lowered the front end of the car to roughly the ride height I wanted. It has a ground clearance of about 3 1/2 inches. I suspect this is too low so I may need to raise it half an inch or so but ill work that out.

I also fitted some much smaller and nicer wing mirrors, now these I believe are too small, but being from a motorbike which generally have a universal fitting (not all) means I can find some bigger ones that will suit.

Im still to decide on what wing for the rear, it needs a wing to break it up but I don't want OTT. Hopefully the reg number will come this week, as im running out of time for test drives with roads being half dry at least! Today would of been perfect....typical!

Turbo bracket, Rear view camera and broken Oil cooler

So I got the oil cooler off...well it had had destroyed itself! Luckily I found all the chunks of the metal and fitted them together so I know no large pices of metal are in the engine so thats good.

Either way I will still be changing out the brand new oil for some more brand new oil after its warmed a bit so i know it removes as much as possible.

Following this I modified the turbo stay for the CT20b from a Celica. this now has a slit to it rather than a hole so it can be mounted on properly with the support.

Next I tested the rear view camera on a spare battery I had. Its a wireless from front to rear so i dont need to run any cables down the car. I bought the parts seperately as I wasnt sure how well it would work etc... and the cost came out at less then £30. Now its not amazing but will definitly provide a big improvement on rear visibility. Going forward long term I will get a larger screen for when I do the interior properly as currently its a 4.3" and i think a 5" would be better.

the two shots below are a daytime colour, which is a bit washed out as its from in the garage and night vision one.

Now I just need to decide on where to mount it at the rear.

As well as this the boost controller I have, I will start plumbing in the pipework along the car, although not connecting it as I want to test run the car with the boost just off the actuator at first to make sure everything is ok. That will only give me about 0.5bar of boost I believe but thats fine for test runs to ensure everything is ok.