1996 Glanza Tracktoy

[Fatman]

The plan was to have a track toy that was light, newish (thus hopefully reliable) with good potential for handling and power modifications without spending mind bending amounts of money. The good ole starlet fit the bill..

So late 07 I bought a 1996 Glanza V in white. Very tidy with ~80k on the clock, straight body and a mint interior. Factory dual airbags, Viscous LSD, rear strut brace. Only modifications was 2 inch exhaust from the cat back with an HKS muffler and a blitz BOV and some very light (i'm told) racing sparco wheels.




I took it to Puke in stock trim to see how it'd go unmolested. Result was a 1:19.3, hitting speed cut on both front and back straights Unfortunately the handling was pretty naff, apparently I had the rear wheel about six inches off the ground on every bend...

The plan!

Stage one:

DPR Coilovers [DONE]
Uprated bushes all round
Whiteline adjustable rear sway bar
Whiteline heavy duty front sway bar
Whiteline caster/anti lift kit
Whiteline lower control arm brace
Whiteline adjustable panhard rod
Set of semi-slicks [DONE]
Partially stripped interior [DONE]
Boost gauge [DONE]
HDI Front mount intercooler [DONE]
Strip aircon [DONE]
Full service
decat pipe
Mintex 1166 race pads [DONE]
Penrite Sin Fluid [DONE]
New Wheels [DONE]

Stage two:

Half cage
Light seats
tdo4, injectors, fuel pump
link with a dyno tune
2.5 inch mandrel exhaust

I'll hopefully be keeping a log of progress with pics of the process.

Jan 08:

I've ordered some DPR adjustable coilovers from Driven Performance.

http://www.drivenperformance.co.nz/scri ... roduct=959

After investigating the price of a set of well matched springs and adjustable shocks, it turned out that these excellent looking coilovers weren't too much more of a stretch.

They're big, bad and should be quite reliable. Locally rebuildable and you can order with any range of spring rates. Additional springs are cheap at $190 a pair so experimentation is on the cards. Much more agreeable price than the Tein type flex or Mono flex at $3800 odd.



Also ordered an HDI front mount kit. These guys appear to have a pretty good rep in Australia, their complete kits are significantly better looking than the Autobahn clones available on Trademe. Piping is more direct, joiners are better quality and the core itself is a much better design. Single piece extruded design, very unlikely to leak.

[Fatman]

Update:

I've bought some new wheels - Some Advanti CP01's with some Falken ST-615 semi slicks. Slightly less sticky than Toyo R888's but should have a much longer life and cope with heat a bit better.



Went to the DriftX trackday on Easter monday along with GTPornstar and had a blast. Unfortunately he was having some tire troubles and on his second outing had his manifold split from the turbo entirely

I was trying out a new method of track timing - Racechrono and a bluetooth GPS receiver. Results were excellent! The GPS was working with excellent accuracy once I taped it to my dash and the timing results were very interesting. I'll try and post a picture of the results later on.

Fastest single lap of the day was a 1:18.1, but I set much faster split segment times on other laps. Taking my best time for each section gives me a time of 1:16.8, showing I have a lot of improvements to make on my driving before I'm consistently fast

The track time was excellent for setting up the coilovers. Initially the car was very prone to understeer, adjusting stiffness in the rear and lowering tire pressures helped a lot. I didn't get in many laps across the day, barely used half a tank of fuel. Hopefully the next trackday I can continue setup and dial out some more understeer and increase front grip.

The biggest conclusion from monday? I need more POWER! I could more than hold my own through the twisties, but come the back straight every otehr turbo car was passing me

[Fatman]

Another testing day at Pukekohe. Four 20-30 minute sessions and a full tank of fuel and I set a new personal best time, adjusted the suspension for the better and got some cool incar footage

Check out the vid for a few laps from two different views. Best lap on record was a 1:17.3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Y1GbUPbUmc

The video makes it pretty obvious just how badly I need some more power, I never really use anything other than 3rd and 4th. 3rd coming onto the back straight (usually) and am just about at redline in 4th by the end. GPS says 185kph, speedo is miles off the clock.

[Fatman]

Update! Few new things on the car.

Twinpot AE101 Levin GTZ brake swap with some more Mintex 1166 pads and penrite sin fluid. Running standard diameter rotors but thicker at 22mm vs 19mm standard. Much better feel to them, much better at high heat loads (Pukekohe) Rotors are cheap standard AE111 levin, so easy to maintain.

Bought a whole bunch of stuff from StealthGT and have been putting it all together with Finx for the past month or so.
Car is now running a rebuilt 4e (with the original mint engine stuck away in storage) with a hybrid TB25/HKS mongrel turbo put together by Steve Murch. Currently running standard fueling/injectors on 8psi. 2.5 inch exhaust off the turbo with an HKS fart cannon. Tial external (currently vented to nowhere ) Custom alloy piping to join up the new turbo to my HDI intercooler. Factory LSD box.

Took it to Suprafest the day after it was finished and it managed a 14.63 at 154 km/h on the last run of the day Car had more in it, unfortunately the clutch was getting pretty hot on that last run. Hopefully will find some photos of the event and post up.

Big thanks to Finx for all his help, the man knows his starlets to be sure.

Stuff coming:

Alloy triple core Civic radiator
Exedy sport tuff button clutch
Whiteline rear swaybar, anti lift kit and panhard rod
Oil cooler and remote oil filter relocation kit
Smoked oil temp/pressure and water temp gauges
VR4 injectors
Walbro fuel pump
Stiffer coilover springs for trackwork (8kg/mm and 6kg/mm front and rear)
Link + tune for hopefully 16psi+ and some serious power
12 second 1/4 mile