Custom parts from T3 for the 5th gen celica

Ahhhh.... I saw multiple people offer to send parts to get things made, there was always some excuse and T3 just bailed on us basically. This happens to 90+% of all group buys for this car. My opinion is people try to focus on their specific part they want at the moment and not having the company produce a few cross-generational parts more would be likely to buy first to get the company interested. It may just be impossible for most companies to care about our cars. The love of money is the root of all evil after-all as God tells us, so it is no surprise when they don't see dollar signs before their eyes they just bail on us after lying about intending to produce anything. I always try to support these types of things but until someone that owns 1 or more all-tracs or celicas they personally want to make parts for in their own shop were pretty much at the mercy of the capitalist ideal. Making a few lowly celica owners happy is not motivation for a production line. Anyone who takes this on and intends to produce parts for us has to realize you need to get parts in-stock and things will sell eventually. There is a reason most of us own a 20+ year old celica and its because we cannot pay for a BRZ or tons of upgrades right away or we would just choose a different chassis, so inherently low cash flow in the community is another detractor. Another big problem is there is never a set timeline for these things, even when a group buy actually completes you never know when it will be done or when you need the money, not everone can just throw 3-500 in a bank and not touch it for 6 months while someone tries to get something produced. I was in Klues group buy for diff bushing kits and paid deposit and we never knew when the money was going to be called in and I ended up cut out before I even knew it was completed. I had spent the money because it was taking forever and we had absolutely no timeline on payment, so it was part my fault. But all these factors turn people off on both sides of this equation.

Well before everyone becomes distressed, last I heard was t3 was going to still do it. They were putting it behind their other projects, but a few of us contacting them, as well at Bill telling them he was taking his oem stuff back seems to have them motivated.

I think one thing that might help is getting the admins of these forums to send out newsletters now and then. Would be nice to let more people know this sort of group buy is going on. I think their ball joint kit will do well, especially when they find maximum compatibility. I still think it might work for 7th gen and tc guys which will open up the market more.

well hmm if i were a business and i had money being offered up by tons of people in MR2's and AE86's id prolly go that route vs making parts off shit people send in.

also I'm not speaking specifically about T3 and i dont include group buys cuz that doesnt work with all the fickle people.


i went to T3 to have parts made, i figured since they showed interest it was worth a shot. they specialize in niche markets so it made sense but i did not go in with "one part in mind".
i went to them from the perspective of knowing theres nothing for this car and wanting to enrich the culture. ive been tired of building everything from scratch myself and having to tweak stuff, i truly believe that if you start building parts more people will buy them and gather more interest and maybe other companies will consider it and possibly other people will buy these cars and the ball rolls from there.


the difficulty with T3 is they are increasing in size about the same time i came to them, which makes sense given the large variety of parts they do make for a large span of vehicles, yet have a staff of now 5. according to them they cannot find a machine shop to keep up with their demand yet can meet any demand from any part that doesnt require machining.


its sad that from talking to people on here and other forums and getting to see their rude demeanor kind of makes me want to scrap all of it and just build one off parts for myself just like everyone did prior.

well hmm if i were a business and i had money being offered up by tons of people in MR2's and AE86's id prolly go that route vs making parts off shit people send in.

also I'm not speaking specifically about T3 and i dont include group buys cuz that doesnt work with all the fickle people.


i went to T3 to have parts made, i figured since they showed interest it was worth a shot. they specialize in niche markets so it made sense but i did not go in with "one part in mind".
i went to them from the perspective of knowing theres nothing for this car and wanting to enrich the culture. ive been tired of building everything from scratch myself and having to tweak stuff, i truly believe that if you start building parts more people will buy them and gather more interest and maybe other companies will consider it and possibly other people will buy these cars and the ball rolls from there.


the difficulty with T3 is they are increasing in size about the same time i came to them, which makes sense given the large variety of parts they do make for a large span of vehicles, yet have a staff of now 5. according to them they cannot find a machine shop to keep up with their demand yet can meet any demand from any part that doesnt require machining.


its sad that from talking to people on here and other forums and getting to see their rude demeanor kind of makes me want to scrap all of it and just build one off parts for myself just like everyone did prior.


T3 will eventually reenter building stuff but my interest in trying to help other people is definitely diminishing.

Am I missing something here?
Where were we so rude an off putting to you?

Looks to me like a lot of us HELPED you by emailing T3 asking for stuff to be developed for the 18X chassis.

Seems like your enthusiasm has soured pretty quickly after just one endeavor, can't imagine how you'd feel if you were involved with one of our efforts to get a front LSD made.

Go ahead, make your own parts, enjoy your car. We're not standing in your way. Just stop trying to blame 'us' that T3 was too busy to make this happen.

athousandleaves":2fn21lq8 said:

Am I missing something here?
Where were we so rude an off putting to you?

Looks to me like a lot of us HELPED you by emailing T3 asking for stuff to be developed for the 18X chassis.

Seems like your enthusiasm has soured pretty quickly after just one endeavor, can't imagine how you'd feel if you were involved with one of our efforts to get a front LSD made.

Go ahead, make your own parts, enjoy your car. We're not standing in your way. Just stop trying to blame 'us' that T3 was too busy to make this happen.

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Agreed. Our frustrations are with T3 for pulling the same crap as everyone else.

What I don't get is the machine shop part. If one machine shop cant keep up, start working with two or more. I assume all they do is the design work?

R&D takes time, patience, commitment and money. Some attempts will never make it to market, while others will. If this doesn't pan out, then we acknowledge the effort(s) and redirect energy to the next idea. It's efforts like these from enthusiasts like yourselves that have helped in enabling us to keep these cars evolving with such little attention from the aftermarket. Gotta keep the synergy going!

Sorry to hit this late, but are you guys just looking for them to make RCA's utilizing and extended ball joint? I am currently getting my BBBBK brackets made for those that were interested and I can probably take on another project. I would need some information like how large of a spacer you would like to correct the roll center and I can design accordingly to make clearance for the brake rotor issues plagued to the 185 people. My 165 is slightly higher than stock height so I have no use for RCA's but if I could make some sales on some I wouldn't mind.

Also might be able to whip up some front camber plates. I have these coilovers and the have front plates that I can copy:



Side note, if anyone is interested in the coilovers, they are $1200 and very well made for being Chinese. They have 24 damper settings and the brackets are very good and all the brake lines and abs sensors mock up. I plan on making a shock dyno to verify the damper ratios and optimize the spring rates later on. They fit the 165 but the rears need the top bolt hole drilled.

A kit that lets you bolt the 205 fronts on easier and without milling down the rotor or spacing behind the rotor would be at the top of my list along with the camber plates too so I would say start there, but that's just my selfish opinion! lol Anyone have a set of the longer 205 arms they want to sell me? I have tried everything to get the toe adjustment piece out of the sleeve and its not coming out, too much rust. I do not want to shell out 200 for control arm bushings right now!

CTechBlueDragon":3ajpe1ta said:

A kit that lets you bolt the 205 fronts on easier and without milling down the rotor or spacing behind the rotor would be at the top of my list along with the camber plates too so I would say start there, but that's just my selfish opinion! lol Anyone have a set of the longer 205 arms they want to sell me? I have tried everything to get the toe adjustment piece out of the sleeve and its not coming out, too much rust. I do not want to shell out 200 for control arm bushings right now!

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You could do STi rotors/UCF calipers like mine instead of 205

I am committed at this point, I already decided to mill them down and get a spacer for behind the rotor and trim the ears, but I would wait if someone could work something out. I want the front and back brakes to match I spent way to much on all this junk not to get it all in together. Even with milling the rotor down its still a nice upgrade... plus that does remove some rotational mass/un-sprung weight which I saw as an advantage...?

CTechBlueDragon":3ousdyb2 said:

I am committed at this point, I already decided to mill them down and get a spacer for behind the rotor and trim the ears, but I would wait if someone could work something out. I want the front and back brakes to match I spent way to much on all this junk not to get it all in together. Even with milling the rotor down its still a nice upgrade... plus that does remove some rotational mass/un-sprung weight which I saw as an advantage...?

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Oh didn't know you had the parts. ehh unsprung yes, not much in inertia since you are removing material from the center. Unless you are talking about the overall diameter of the rotor.

fftopic:

I want T3 to make a kit for me, but they won't. There back on topic! Its 10 mm off the diameter so it would help, these things are super heavy.

bajallama":3kypix9l said:

Sorry to hit this late, but are you guys just looking for them to make RCA's utilizing and extended ball joint? I am currently getting my BBBBK brackets made for those that were interested and I can probably take on another project. I would need some information like how large of a spacer you would like to correct the roll center and I can design accordingly to make clearance for the brake rotor issues plagued to the 185 people. My 165 is slightly higher than stock height so I have no use for RCA's but if I could make some sales on some I wouldn't mind.

Also might be able to whip up some front camber plates. I have these coilovers and the have front plates that I can copy:

Side note, if anyone is interested in the coilovers, they are $1200 and very well made for being Chinese. They have 24 damper settings and the brackets are very good and all the brake lines and abs sensors mock up. I plan on making a shock dyno to verify the damper ratios and optimize the spring rates later on. They fit the 165 but the rears need the top bolt hole drilled.

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are those caster plates as well or just camber? also I am guessing that you mean a spacer between the control arm and ball joint to adjust RC? If it was that simple, why didn't anyone else think of that?

TRDTurko":16n9l4wt said:

are those caster plates as well or just camber? also I am guessing that you mean a spacer between the control arm and ball joint to adjust RC? If it was that simple, why didn't anyone else think of that?

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Putting a spacer under the ball joint does nothing else than lowering the control arm. the pivot point stays at the same height, so the roll center height in unchanged. To really change the roll center height, you absolutely need to have a longer ball joint, to get the ball joint's pivot lower relatively to the car. Another way to acheive this would be to modify the knuckles to relocate the lower part of it lower (that would involve cutting/welding, which can be a little on the not safe side...)

TRDTurko":e9g7o402 said:

bajallama":e9g7o402 said:

Sorry to hit this late, but are you guys just looking for them to make RCA's utilizing and extended ball joint? I am currently getting my BBBBK brackets made for those that were interested and I can probably take on another project. I would need some information like how large of a spacer you would like to correct the roll center and I can design accordingly to make clearance for the brake rotor issues plagued to the 185 people. My 165 is slightly higher than stock height so I have no use for RCA's but if I could make some sales on some I wouldn't mind.

Also might be able to whip up some front camber plates. I have these coilovers and the have front plates that I can copy:

Side note, if anyone is interested in the coilovers, they are $1200 and very well made for being Chinese. They have 24 damper settings and the brackets are very good and all the brake lines and abs sensors mock up. I plan on making a shock dyno to verify the damper ratios and optimize the spring rates later on. They fit the 165 but the rears need the top bolt hole drilled.

Click to expand...

are those caster plates as well or just camber? also I am guessing that you mean a spacer between the control arm and ball joint to adjust RC? If it was that simple, why didn't anyone else think of that?

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Because it doesn't correct roll center at all. You have to raise the spindle at the pivot point. If you raise the entire joint between the control arm and the mounting bracket you are still left with a poor angle of your arm. The point is to make your attachment points level with your pivot points. The T3 flip kit corrects bump steer by leveling the tie rod. What we need still is a longer ball joint pin to raise the spindle without raising the pivot joint.

I'm all for you making one but I have a hunch the FRS one would work with a machined bracket to hold it. I just don't have the 200$ to buy RCA's for a car I don't even own lol! If you do decide to make them Bajallama I'll be first in line to buy them

ALLensTRAC":32tvvovr said:

I'm all for you making one but I have a hunch the FRS one would work with a machined bracket to hold it. I just don't have the 200$ to buy RCA's for a car I don't even own lol! If you do decide to make them Bajallama I'll be first in line to buy them

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that sounds promising, should not be hard just to make a bracket. where do I find the T3 flip kit? do I have to call and special order?

i wonder if we could modify these to fit? looks very similar to our ball joint and bracket. Maybe just have to drill new holes in the control arm. have to check the length of these I guess.
http://www.ebay.ca/itm/BLOX-RACING-...Parts_Accessories&hash=item2ec474b9e5&vxp=mtr

T3 found a mono ball pin that fits and is adjustable. It just needs a bracket and it's done.