ST165 Daily Beater Project

Hey guys!

Here is the beginning of my first build thread ever! I picked up a pair of ST165's from a friend of mine. I plan on using one of them (the grey one) as the driver and the other (the red one) as the parts car. The grey one has a JDM motor and transmission with ARP headstuds and a fresh Cometic head gasket. Other than that, the motor is just sitting in the car and the interior is pretty bare.

I don't plan on doing anything crazy, just getting it running and driving . I'm going to run a FMIC and I'll probably fab up a DP and full exhaust just because I can . My family has a welding/fabrication shop, so I have access to some decent equipment and a lift. The red car has some nicer interior and it have some aftermarket springs (Eibach according to the PO) and some better struts.

I just have a few photos at the moment, but here they are:






I'm up for any suggestions you guys might have! I'm new to the All-Trac world, so help me out . Cheers!

They both look pretty clean, why not drive one and sell one?

Good luck with the project , Def some of out there interested in some parts if you decide to part the red one out ...

Sorry guys, had to edit my first post. The red one has definitely seen better days. The motor is totally locked up, but it is still complete. I have the missing body kit pieces that are undamaged as well.

I plan on taking a lot of the interior and maybe a few things from under the hood, but other than that, the red one will get parted out and then scrapped when I'm done. That is, unless someone offers me some cash for it

If that body part that goes under the drivers door is in good shape and you dont want it PM me ...

Nice! Silver one looks just like mine

Best of luck! More pics!

Great looking cars! Keep us posted on progress!

Nice pick I love Toyota grey paint the trim around the car

What kind of exhaust setup does the read one have?

Where are you located?

Northern Cali

Hey guys!

I'll check on the parts and see what I have laying around. I'll need to sell them so that I can fund this little project, but I'm sure the prices will be cheap . The exhaust on the red one is some random exhaust that I fabbed up when the car belonged to my friend (the PO). It's a basic universal muffler with 2.5" DP back. It's not great, so I'll probably redo most of it for my new project. I like the way it exits and it actually sounded pretty good. Who knows!

I'm hoping to get the grey one running on Saturday the 25th. The cars are about 100 miles north of me at my family's shop, so if I can get it running then I can bring it home. Then I can work on the exhaust, FMIC, and other interior parts. I'm hoping it runs alright once it's put together!

If you want to sell the exhaust hit me up cause my OEM exhaust system was involved in a accident by the PO

Sorry man, I'm going to use parts of the exhaust to make one for the grey one. If I get good enough, I'll make one for you .

Hey guys!

Here's a question for those of you with a different intake manifold: Does the side-feed intake manifold from the non-turbo motor fit the all-trac motor? Before I fab up the intercooler pipes, I want to have a different intake manifold so it looks better. That and clocking the turbo seem to make a big difference in the engine bay.

Thanks for any input! I should have more photos and updates in a few days! I'm headed to work on it this weekend and I'm pretty excited. I have the repair manual all loaded up on my iPad

A 3sge intake looks better and i think get some more hp, me i plan doin what your doin

3sge manifold is the best option for cheap and it fixes a lean issue on one of the cylinders. I will be doing that mani on my car when I sort out my cars engine.

Hey guys! Here's a quick update on the progress:

I pushed the car into my shop on Saturday and started cleaning out the leaves and cobwebs that were in it everywhere. I didn't really even look at it before I bought them, so I was a bit surprised to find that nothing was done to it at all. The motor and trans were just sitting on the east/west motor mounts and that's it. The PO couldn't get the axles to snap into place and just quit. Here's a "before" photo from under the hood:

So my brother and I got started on it and I think we made some pretty good progress. We got the axles snapped in place and then moved onto the actual motor. We hooked up the shift linkage, the fuel lines, and started sorting out the wiring harness. The harness is completely unmolested, which is really nice. The motor/trans are JDM, and there are definitely some minor differences in the wiring and in the sensors. We had to switch some around and swap some from the parts cars, but it wasn't anything too bad. We got the throttle body in place and put the fuel rail together. We bolted the wiring harness under the throttle body and kept hooking stuff up.

I'm sure we'll have some vacuum hoses that aren't hooked up, but so far we didn't see any that we missed. I'm not using the water-to-air intercooler, so there will be a couple of wires that don't go to anything.

Here's a photo of the lift and small part of the shop:



I have a ton of little stuff to do and a TON of cleaning, but I think it's a good start. We have the driveshaft, the subframe, the alternator, and the radiator to put together still. I'm not worried about the cruise control yet, but I'll sort that out later. I'm going to fab a little downpipe and exhaust If I have time next time I'm there, but I think that's it.

I'm going to use the bumper and passenger door from the red one because they're nicer. Also, the interior of the red one seems nicer too. The door panels have the leather inserts and so do the rear panels by the seats. I like the look of those a lot better than the cloth. Does anyone know how difficult it is to remove the dash from these? The red one has a really nice dash and the grey one has a little crack in it.

Here are some random shots of both cars:



Extra parts:




Grey Interior:


Clearly I'm having some trouble resizing these photos, but my photobucket account isn't cooperating at the moment

Damn!!! Both tracs seems to be in good shape. Atleast from those pics.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any photos of ST165's with a roof rack for bikes? I think it would look really cool and it would help me drag my bike around .

If anyone out there has anything, let me know. Thanks for looking at this little build thread!