My "Nothing Crazy" Project (Picture Dump Page 14)

TheNubkins

New member
Well...after owning/driving my AllTrac for 3 months I've decided to finally start doing small things to the car to make it a bit faster. I want to keep it fairly reliable as well as drivable in everyday traffic so I won't be going nuts as far as power mods are concerned.

I recently purchased a Street Brawler T3/T4(46trim) turbo kit, ACT 6-puck clutch, and a Blitz DSBC Spec R boost controller. I don't plan on installing the clutch until after I blow through my current stock clutch(which was just replaced by the previous owner in August of 2006). I will take a few pics of the goodies once they arrive.

As far as handling is concerned I also purchased the TEIN SS coilovers and within the next day or so I'll have made up my mind on which wheels/tires to purchase as my summer setup. It's currently between the Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2 Custom 17x9" wheels in Anthracite, or a much cheaper setup(I'm thinking the Sport Edition KM11's...I know they're cheap but they look half-decent on the car and won't kill the wallet).

After I get the turbo installed I'll be having a custom 2.5" or 3" mandrel-bent exhaust fabricated for me(no cats). Considering the downpipe from the KO Street Brawler kit is 3" I'll probably go with a 3" system. I don't plan on running crazy boost levels and I'm thinking I'll probably cap it around 13psi(0.9bar) unless I hear from enough people that I can reliably run more boost on a stock engine.

Future plans for the car will be, as I've mentioned in other posts, window tint, replace all the speakers in the car with newer/better ones(I plan on keeping the stock stereo as I would like most of the car to remain stock looking), new alarm system(current one is ancient and crap), and finally redo the leather seats. I was toying with the idea of swapping out the current top mount a/a intercooler for the ST185RC top mount a/w setup but decided it's too much work for me at this point considering I won't be boosting at crazy psi levels.

Hopefully this will add a bit more get-up-and-go to the car so my wife won't leave me behind in the Hyundai. Believe it or not that Hyundai has some decent balls for a family hauler. I think I recall a Car and Driver article saying some guy got caught in the states doing 147mph in one. I bet you I can go a bit faster because the baby-seat I have in the back is rumored to add 50hp. :D HAHA. Anyways any thoughts or comments on my plans for the car are welcome. Hopefully I should get the whole thing finished by July/August of this year. After she's all done I'll just enjoy driving the car and keep money saved up for if things bugger up. :doh:
 

Corey

Active member
Sounds great 8)

Really looking forward to seeing how this one comes along.

I'm kinda bummed to read that our factory spec cars get spanked by a hyundia :doh: lol oh the shame.
 

TheNubkins

New member
Want to know what's worse? Hyundai's new engine is a 4.6L V8 rumored to put out 368hp. What's going on here? Don't get me wrong, I love my hyundai as a family car...but I'll have to say it's less than inspiring to drive in a fun manner. Hence the All Trac. :D
 

Hotrodhendrix

New member
To be honest your hyundai actually doesnt look bad. Looks like a saab. I had one nearly beat me in my 3kgt a few days ago.... Please dont tell anyone. :cry:
 

TheNubkins

New member
Thanks Hotrodhendrix. The Hyundai works quite well as a family car. Tons of space inside, power heated seats, huge trunk and when driven nicely it's fairly decent on fuel. A little bit faster than the stock ST185...but steering feel is VERY numb. I've been driving it to work and back lately as my driver's side rear caliper seized up. Damn Toyota. lol. Anyhow the part is on it's way, and while waiting I decided to go ahead and order up some new summer wheels and tires. I ended up going with the Sport Editions KM11's wrapped in 215/40ZR-17 Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1's. Total after tax and shipping it came to 1200USD sourced from Tire Rack, so not too shabby for a nice looking cheap set of wheels. I'll have pics posted when the caliper is replaced and the wheels are on the car. I've purchased two complete sets of wheels and now two sets of tires from them and recommend them 100%. I also took the cover for the air/air intercooler to work today and used a wire-wheel to buff it nicely. It looks brand new again. Makes the engine bay look a little bit cleaner and it was free.
 

TheNubkins

New member
Well some small parts for the AllTrac arrived the other day. I had orderd some rear hatch struts to hold the hatch open because my stock ones were all but dead. I didn't realize how heavy that rear hatch is. For such a small looking car, the thing is a porker! My tires and wheels arrived from The Tire Rack...very quickly I must add. For cheap wheels they look pretty decent in my opinion...although I'll admit that my favorite wheel combo on an AllTrac would have to be Simba's. I'm debating whether I should keep or sell the tires I currently have mounted to my stock rims. They are 205/55R15's and have approximately 2000miles(3200kms) on them. As well my replacement caliper came in from 1sttoyotaparts.com.

Some more news: I also ordered the "SUPER MOTORIA BRAND" 3-inch exhaust from the XS Power website. This was done on the 23rd of March, and according to the tracking information the package is already here in Edmonton. I expect it to be at my door tomorrow(March 26th)...so a 3 day wait for shipping is amazingly fast!

Hopefully I'll get the majority of the work done on the car this weekend and have some pics of everything all installed. Here are the pics of the wheels/tires posing all sexy-like in the bedroom.

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TheNubkins

New member
The exhaust showed up today while I was at work...so I came home all excited like it was Christmas. I was surprised how light the box was...mind you I don't have anything to compare it to as I've never lifted a full exhaust system before. :D First things first. XS Power sure knows how to pack their stuff. It took me probably 5 minutes to get into the damn box...although I was trying to be careful as I wasn't sure how protected the piping was within and didn't want to scratch anything. After all the layers of tape and the thousand or so staples I opened her up and was welcomed by a sea of fluffy Styrofoam bits. I sifted through it all and took out the exhaust piece by piece and noticed three things.

1) I had read before about a clamp that is supposed to be shipped with this package and how sometimes it is missing. Well...it's missing. No biggie.

2) I assumed I would be getting the huge canister style muffler and instead ended up with a twin tip muffler. I double checked with some other pictures on this site and it is the correct setup for the ST185, but the twin tip style. This actually pleases me more as the car retains more of a stock look.

3) They forgot to ship the downpipe. This is also fine because I'll be using the 3" downpipe that comes with the KO Street Brawler kit.

Hopefully tomorrow the TEIN coilovers show up(crossing my fingers)...and even more the NGK Plug Wires I ordered from 935 Motorsports a month ago. Aside from those two things I'm still waiting on my fuel cut defender to show up, and the KO Racing goodies which haven't shipped yet. I'm assuming it'll take a while for Kris to get the turbo kit together.

Anyhow I'll have the wheels and brake caliper installed on Friday and probably try and get the exhaust installed on Saturday. I've still got to check around and see if the "Motoria" midpipe will bolt to the stock downpipe. If not the exhaust will sit until the Street Brawler kit arrives.
 

Hotrodhendrix

New member
Its amazing that they just pick which style to send and if they will ship the other peaces at all. Looks good for the price though.
 

TheNubkins

New member
Hotrodhendrix":26ky4gez said:
Its amazing that they just pick which style to send and if they will ship the other peaces at all. Looks good for the price though.

Yeah. I got lucky. If I had wanted the huge canister outlet and the downpipe I would be pretty pissed. I've read that this company can be really bad for communication and getting things right. I guess anyone should order from them "at your own risk". For such a cheap exhaust though I can't complain too much...again only because I ended up getting exactly what I wanted/needed.
 

TheNubkins

New member
A quick update here...with pics to follow after I decide to freeze my ass off outside and take a few. Perhaps I will try and find someplace scenic to take some photos...we'll see.

So yesterday I bring the car into the shop and we remove the driver's side rear caliper. Boy was it toast. Anyhow we swapped over the brand new caliper and fixed her up all nice. No more seized caliper. Hurray. Next up was the exhaust install.

Sorry but I forgot the camera so there are no pics of the exhaust install. Removing the stock exhaust was easy(downpipe back), but installing the new XS Power "Motoria Brand" was a pain in the ass...although it could have gone worse. It would not clear the front crossmember nomatter what we did so unfortunately we had to put a small dent/crease in the pipe where it was interfering with the crossmember. I doubt such a small dent will have any perceivable impact on performance/maximum power output as this 3inch system is overkill for the power level I will be running the car at. Everything else bolted up nicely with the exception of the rear crossmember which we were able to shim with nuts. We found that it was much easier to remove all of the rubber mount hangers from the car and directly attach them to the suspension components. The only mount hangers we didn't remove and attach directly to the exhaust were the three at the rear of the car for the muffler. Everything bolted up nicely. Overall for a cheap exhaust system it looks nice and fit up fairly well considering how damn huge the piping is.

We then put the new rims/rubber on the car, double checked everything, installed the plug wires that came in from 935motorsports.com(the high tension coil wire was the wrong one and must have been for a 1992-93 as I've heard they have a slightly different wire). Turns out my engine miss was most likely caused by the original/old leaking valvecover gasket. Anyhow after taking off the wires you could see oil sitting on top of the spark plugs. We think this might have had something to do with the miss...so a new valvecover gasket has been ordered. Oh, and while going through shit under the hood we noticed how sloppy Toyota was at putting everything back together when I originally had the car worked on.

After all this was done I took the car out for a quick spin and noticed the extra power instantly. The engine breathed a lot better, didn't seem to bog down when stomping on it in 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The exhaust is a little louder than the stock one and doesn't drone at all. I actually am very pleased with the look of these cheap Sport Edition wheels. They suit the car very well in my opinion and make it look more aggressive. Handling around corners improved dramatically and I can sense more of what the car's tires are doing. The smaller sidewall didn't increase ride harshness nearly as bad as I had expected. The car will look much better once the TEINS are installed and it's lowered about an inch to close up some of the gap between the top of the tire and the fender.

So after I got home I ordered up the new Valvecover gasket, the turbo gasket kit for when I do the turbo swap(couldn't find the damn part number for the turbo/manifold gasket so I just ordered the kit for 60 bucks or whatever it was. Also I ordered the small clip to retain the cup-holders when you push them in as the one in my car is broken. I then ordered up some 25mm wheel spacers from Rocketeer Performance that I plan on using on the rear wheels to push them out a little closer to the fenders. I'm really starting to love this car and now there's no way in hell I'll sell her.
 

Corey

Active member
Thats awesome. :)

New turbo already eh, :p

I'm glad you lucked out on the exhaust. I also prefere the twin tip over the canister style. Are you planning on doing some sound clips at all? :)
 

TheNubkins

New member
Here's a link to a bunch of pictures I just took. I don't have the time currently to upload them all and link to the photos so they show up on the forum. That link will take you directly to the album. Ignore the water spots on parts of the car, and the dust on it. I washed it yesterday but overnight it got dirty. Darn black cars...

As for the sound clip. I took a brief video of the exhaust but the mic on my camera sucks. I'm debating uploading it as it doesn't do the exhaust justice at all. I can only describe the sound as a perfect compromise between systems I've heard before. It's not loud and "annoying" like some canister styles, but it has a definite sporty sound to it that is not overwhelming or high-school boy racer like. It's obvious the car has exhaust done, but sounds more like it is done to perform power-wise and not noise-wise. It does sound noticeably louder when your stepping on it(from within the car) in comparison to the stock exhaust. Anyone wanting a very loud exhaust setup would be best to stay away from this system(muffler anyhow...get a canister type). If you want a toned down quieter system that performs this exhaust system is amazing. I love it.

Edit: Here's a few of the shots from that link that I liked the best.

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TheNubkins

New member
Corey Darling":2h8b54ah said:
Thats awesome. :)

New turbo already eh, :p

I'm glad you lucked out on the exhaust. I also prefere the twin tip over the canister style. Are you planning on doing some sound clips at all? :)

A buddy and I went out a few days ago and took some vids to capture the sound of the new exhaust. Nothing crazy mind you. His camera didn't quite pick up the sound and it's actually a bit louder in person than in the videos.

EDIT: Video's and link removed due to poor quality.
 

TheNubkins

New member
Another minor update: The TEIN SS Coilovers with front pillowball mounts finally arrived. Thanks Rocketeer Performance. I'll hopefully get them installed this weekend.
 

TheNubkins

New member
For the 2 people who will end up reading this thread(lol) here's another update. Firstly the TEINS went in without drama and after driving with them for a few weeks I feel they were a great investment for someone wanting a firmer ride with much better cornering abilities than the stock struts could provide. I admit they can be a little rough for some road conditions, but overall it's a great setup in my opinion. Mind you I am not planning on racing the car in any way so my perspective on these coilovers relates to a street-use only scenario.

I ended up going with 25mm H&R wheel spacers for the rear and must say that it makes the car look a whole lot meaner. Not just from the rear, but also from a front corner angle.

After consideration I decided to run a blowoff valve for when I install the KO Racing Street Brawler turbo kit. I decided to chance it venting to atmosphere first and purchased myself an HKS SSQV with steel flange. The other day I went in to work, drilled into the intercooler piping and mounted the flange. Unforunately we don't have any TIG welding machines at my work as we deal almost exclusively with MIG for very large welds. Needless to say the welds were not the prettiest due to using a less than ideal welding process. I didn't care as long as it was sealed up good. I ended up smoothing out the welds quite nicely afterwards so it all flows like it was a single piece. In the end it worked out I suppose, but it would have been nice to get my hands on a TIG machine for some nice looking welds. Anyhow the rest of the setup was fast and simple and I'm happy to say that I've had no problems running this blowoff valve. I've noticed no stalling or rough idling...in fact the car seems to run the same as before the SSQV was installed, both under low engine load, and hard acceleration.

I'm definately happy I decided to stick with this car as it looks a lot better than an STI in my opinion, and for an 18 year old car it's shape is still very modern. I still have a ways to go in order to keep up with an STI though...but hopefully I'll have her around that power level when I'm done. Kris at KO stated my turbo kit is almost done and should be shipping in the next two to three weeks. I may wait until then to post further pictures.
 

TheNubkins

New member
WarTowels":10b58j9l said:
Get some pictures up, sheesh.

-Towels

Alright alright. :D You convinced me. HAHA. Here's a few pics I shot today to show the difference between my old pics with stock suspension against the new Teins plus the 25mm rear spacers. Right when I was leaving a very mint Lotus Esprit V8 twin turbo parked nearby. Unfortunately the owner of that car had just bought it and showed up to show it off to his buddy quickly, and zoomed off before I could get any cool pics or ask if he cared to do a double photo-shoot. Bummer eh? Needless to say I caught up with him but couldn't provoke a race due to traffic and we ended up heading off in opposite directions. Boo hoo. I would have gotten served anyways...but it would have been fun. In case anyone is curious they have a 3.5liter V8 twin turbo producing 355hp, 0-60 in under 5 seconds and they have a weight roughly 450lbs less than my Alltrac.

Here's a link to his drive-by: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJTrejiom2E

EDIT: Picture links broken and removed.
 
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