Insanity-74s ST205 Rally Hybrid build

Insanity-74

New member
OK, this is my project build thread, I will try and make it as interesting and informative as possible but the early stages might be a bit mundane so bare with me, I will do my best.

The story starts about 6 months ago when I finally purchased a house that had its own garage……its not very big, but luxury compared to having to work on the street like my old house. This enabled me to follow my dreams and do a full on nut and bolt rebuild of an ST205…..after owning one for 8 years it was time to own another one.

After about 10 whole minutes of looking I found just the car I was after (sorry, st205s are plentiful in the UK and go very cheaply now)

After a trip in a low loader (I don’t know what they call them in the US…but a truck that is built to carry a car) I finally arrived home with this

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I failed miserably with the photograph here, I should have taken a picture of it turning up but hey ho. It had cost me £500 which is what? About $700 It is basically a complete car without an engine….I don’t need the engine because as of this time I plan on going 5sgte, but things may change, time will tell.

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So work began

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I need to strip out all the interior, the suspension, cross members, fuel & brake lines, electrical looms, glass…..etc…you get the picture.

My plan is to make a rally hybrid……what do I mean by a rally hybrid…well half rally car, half road car……it will have a roll cage, anti lag, bucket seats etc just like the rally cars did…it will also have a good stereo, carpets and some home comforts so I can drive it on long journeys and not arrive at my destination feeling like I have been beaten with a hammer.

First task….strip the interior out, plastics, carpets, seats loom the lot.

Seats arnt in bad condition, but not needed so have to go

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Carpets are good too…going to keep those as good carpets are hard to come by

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a few notes

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The interior was coming out nicely…took the screen out to make things easier

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struggling to find space to store all the interior parts

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Removed the rear crash bar (I will be using it later for a rotisserie)

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Dash out along with all the air conditioning parts

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Toyota optional extra pedals…think I will keep those too

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rest of the dash etc removed

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I removed all the sound deadening material…what a pain this was, using a cold chisel and lots of time it took me about a week to remove all the sound deadening material…….it also weighs about 7KG in total so it will save a bit of weight.

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a bare naked interior

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By this stage I had also removed most of the engine bay parts and wheeled it outside for a wash

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Pretty clean through out

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As I was relocating the battery to inside the car I no longer needed the battery tray

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there it was….gone!!!!!!

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My next task was to remove the suspension, brakes etc and gain access to the underside of the car to remove the seam sealer and underbody protection that is very badly applied at the factory.

To enble this I had to make a rotisserie

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Finally made…having not only never welded before but not owning a welding machine I had to go out, buy a welding machine and then learn to weld.

Not too bad for one of my first attempts

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rotisserie coming along well and fully functioning

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Once this was working it was time to remove the sub frames and suspension…….i sent the sub frames off to get sand blasted and upon return painted them with POR-15

Look pretty good

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same with the drive shaft (soory about the poor photo

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Stripped and refurbished the steering rack

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and polished the rear diff end plate

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time to start stripping off the underseal and seam sealer

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what a horrible jon

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after about 2 weeks work of doing nothing else but remove underseal

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oh…I did blast and repaint some more cross member sections

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same treatment for the rear suspension arms

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nearly finished

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Sooo much more to do, but that’s about where I am up to…it will be a slow process but eventually its going to be awesome.
 

Insanity-74

New member
I did have a bit of prep work to do before this build could start......as I only have a small single car garage I had to build an "extension" nothing too flash as I didnt want to fall foul of building regulations. I had to make it out of wood and it couldnt be too big.

The back of the garage with the start of the extension being built

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Finished and clad...I even added a bird feeder so the local birds could get some food

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and a bit of decoration

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from the inside

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MWP

New member
Woah, awesome start to the build.
Great to see you doing it all properly!

So what is your aim?
I know you said Rally Hybrid... but what will the car be used for?
 

Insanity-74

New member
MWP":2k4qbuel said:
Woah, awesome start to the build.
Great to see you doing it all properly!

So what is your aim?
I know you said Rally Hybrid... but what will the car be used for?

Basically its going to be a weekend toy.
 

Insanity-74

New member
I did manage to secure this with a bit of bartering.

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It'll be a long while before it gets onto the car, time to put it somewhere safe...and try not to forget about it :lol:

I have some TTE Style rally mirrors but i have already put them somewhere safe....and cant remember where :shrug:

Roll cage parts will be arriving soon so some of the more fun stuff can start soon 8)
 

CMS-GT4

Active member
Did you weight all the soundproofing and under material you removed? I am curious how much that reduces the weight of the car.
 

Insanity-74

New member
CMS-GT4":3hpcmz8d said:
Did you weight all the soundproofing and under material you removed? I am curious how much that reduces the weight of the car.

I weighted the interior sound proofing which IIRC was about 7Kgs.......the under car stuff is in a nice little pile which i will bag up and weigh when I have finished.....its at least going to be a few kgs...I guestimate that both combined will weigh about 10-11Kgs
 

tubasteve

New member
Insanity-74":3tzwqc24 said:
I did manage to secure this with a bit of bartering.

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It'll be a long while before it gets onto the car, time to put it somewhere safe...and try not to forget about it :lol:

I have some TTE Style rally mirrors but i have already put them somewhere safe....and cant remember where :shrug:

Roll cage parts will be arriving soon so some of the more fun stuff can start soon 8)


I really hate you right now
 

Insanity-74

New member
Blasted and POR15 ed the diff carrier

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Also the seams were a bit FUBAR so I set about fixing those too (I did this a while ago before I started stripping the underseal off the car...sorry the photos are a bit out of sequence)

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Not perfect when I was done...but not bad

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I also had a go at blanking off the rear high level brake light

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I made a plate up ready to weld into place

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Unfortunately I got a bit carried away with the welder and ended up melting holes into it......so its in the bin and I need to buy a new boot lid (trunk lid to you guys :) )

A few minor parts painted up

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Inside the rear diff

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I will have to dismantle the rear diff so I will make a slide hammer to remove the shaft ends....I want to send the diff housing to get sand blasted so i can get it in as good a condition as possible for painting.
 

Insanity-74

New member
Minor update.

Still scraping away at the underbody protection :doh: , although for a change of scenery I decided to start painting the bits I had already done with POR15 paint.

Wheel arch stripped ( sorry about the blurry photos, dont know whats going on with my camera at the moment.

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and then painted

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the rest of the underside of the car will be done the same....should keep the rust at bay for a good few years.

Roll cage is on its way 8)
 
You are very handy and neat. What are you planning for suspension and transmission. Technicaly that is what makes a rally car. You will have to buy that. Just about everything else you can fabricate. I like GT4OC fiberglass. The airbox is very cool but not necessaryfor rally.
 

Insanity-74

New member
As I am not going for an all out rally car I dont know what suspension I am using yet, it depends on my bank balance...a UK company called Avo will make me some custom coilovers to my exact specifications but will cost £3800, but they will be strong...or theres the BC coilovers option for less than half that....but I dont know how long they will last or what the quality is like.

Transmition wise I will just be using a more or less standard set up...might go for a carbon prop shaft but havnt decided yet....nothing more fancy than that.

Still not sure if I want to go for the rally look or sports car look? or a weird mix of both?

Time will tell.
 
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