Stu's 4agte EP71

[Stu]

Well, finally found a bit of time so thought I'd throw up a build diary of sorts for my car.
This may take a while as I've got photos stored all over the place so its a good excuse to get it all sorted.

The Beginning
I can't even remember what year I bought it - but the car started off as a dead stock white 1985 Si EP71 with stock body kit, 2e-elu, 5spd etc. It cost me $1400 and it had 120,000km on it. It was absolutely bog standard with rattly valve train and smokey when worked really hard (thought it was going to die with 5 people and gear heading up over the Coromandel). I had my 4efte Grey EP71 Si at the time so the car sat around and was only used as a backup between gearbox changes in the grey car which were numerous...



Most of the photos I have at this time were taken before I had a digital camera so I'll have to scan some when I have time.

[Stu]

The only issue with the car was it had tiny spots of rust in the pillars which Glenn (ezy10s) and I attacked one weekend. Other than that is was super straight.

[Stu]

At the time, I shared some workshop space with Ezy10s and others out in Kumeu which was much better than working on the drive at home. The car came with 14 inch minilights and at some point I lowered it. I forget the brand of springs but it sat very low and even scrubbed a bit on with the 14's. Hacked the inner guards out which fixed that problem.



Ezy10's Yellow KP61 4agte (T4,24psi,Nos) is in the background.

[Stu]

Skidded around like that for ages and due to one too many drunken nights with Glenn, I decided that instead of a 5e repower that was originally on the cards, that I'd have a go at squeezing a 4age in instead.

Purchased a fresh 16v bluetop off Glenn hadn't been run since a rebuild, 4agze flywheel, 4agze clutch and 4agze gearbox and started measuring up and getting all the bits together. Took a bit of nutting out and few setup changes and finally decided on a combo that could work.


My old 4efte EP71 in the background.

Eventually got around to ripping the very tired 2e out (which I sold for $180!) and starting to drop the 4age in.


The mighty smoke machine...


Pretty messy


4age in

[Stu]

(Not many photos available for the next we while)

So the 4age was fitted, support bars through the engine bay fabricated, and suspension/wheels refitted so the car was rolling again. About this point after Glenn twisting my arm I decided that I'd go turbo too so set about buying a turbo etc. At this early stage I was only planning on running a T28.

Also learned a lesson about here, not to park the car next to the work bench as the sparks from cutting and grinding a turbo manifold ate into and wrecked the paint. The car needed to be repainted to had a mate of mine who worked as a car painter help out stripping everything down and prepping. Randomly chose a blue colour from the colour charts - turned out to be a costly decision later down the track. Should have just repainted it white.


Strip down and 4age back out.


Engine bay painting in progress (rest of car was done in the oven)


Engine bay again


Bits and pieces painted


Back together ish


The factory. My car next to the startings of Glenns 1UZ-TT tubbed and caged KP.


The T28 I first mocked up.


Thought about going tubbed after fooling around and rolling Glenn's shortened hilux axle underneath for a laugh...

[Stu]

So slowly did bits and pieces once it was painted. Mounted up a VR4 cooler. Made a strut brace, mounted multicoils and ran 10mm leads.


Kept the car undercover after the sparks killing the paint the first time.


Piles of shit I horded...


Picked up some 17inch EVO R's from a dodgy dude in Tauranga.

Also about this time I found a 4agze engine and swapped that in after a freshen up for the blue top originally mounted.


Engine in.


Painted.


Coils mounted and custom 10mm leads.

[Stu]

We basically got evicted from the factory due to too much crazyness/dodgyness so I had a forced kull of all my shit and also moved into a flat with a double garage alot closer to my work.

About this point I got hard and went big with the intercooler rather than pissing around with the VR4 unit. Also made up stainless 2.5inch intercooler pipes and a sweet catch can. Also swapped in my bilstein coil over suspension and adj. cusco strut tops from the now deceased grey car RIP.


New front mount fitted and scored a honeycomb grill.


Starting to take shape, aquired a genuine Tial external.

[Stu]

Got quite good at welding


Piping for frontmount


More piping


Mounted up a big radiator and oil cooler (thanks Pick-a-part)

Also scored an almost unused LSD diff through a mate and an imported rally car. They thought it was bung but it was actually set to 2-way not 1.5way so its no wonder they couldn't go around corners. Also see my gearbox build guide under the FAQ section.


Diff


Pulled down for inspection - perfect inside.


Checking preload


Final assembly

[Stu]

Next was the turbo manifold. Glenn worked at Niteparts at the time and was knocking out a heap of manifolds so with his help we made some spaghetti sweetness. Also stepped it up a bit and setup a HT18 rather than the smaller T28.


Starting to look good


Finished manifold after being force extruded and high temp coated.


From the top


Fitted. Shows oil filter relocation kit in place too.


From the top


From the passengers side


With the HT18 fitted


Made up an exhaust my neighbours really liked

[Stu]

Antilift kit fitted


Picked up a Linkplus in an awesome deal. Was setup for a GTR and never used. The guy was struggling to sell it and didn't know that its only a daughter board swap to make it suit other vehicles. Wired this up and also setup antilag.


Got it running about this stage


Before shot. Bought a hole heap of stainless pipe and bends to make up the exhaust


Finishing touches - braces being tacked on


Fitted a 60mm ZR4 throttle body

[Stu]

Pick-a-part was my friend for most of this build - not necessarily always for parts for my car, but more often for good deals which helped pay for parts. Anyway, one day I stumbled upon a EL31 Corsa GP Turbo which are very similar to EP71's although butt ugly. Was seeing what I could steal off it when I noticed it had rear disc brakes. It just so happened that there was a EP71 sitting next to it so I tried swapping the setup over - it worked. So happily walked away with a very rare find and the only bolt on disc brake conversion for an EP71.


Fitted


Racepro seat I fitted


Hand made stainless steel muffler care of Teal Bay Performance aka KPR aka Kris


Stepped it up again with the turbo - scored a brand new rebuilt T4 with comp bearings and seals and a 360 degree thrust kit. Milled out a T3 housing for it so it would come on boost with the 1.6.


Comparison to a ct12


Muffler fitted


At work


Modifying to suit the T4


Setting up the narrow and wide band 02 sensor bosses in the downpipe


Fitted

[Stu]

I can't remember but it may have been 2004 and I got talked into putting the car on display at Autosalon.

[Stu]

Sometime around now (actually was before Autosalon) I organised a dyno session out at Bob Homewoods with a few mates. Many thanks to Adrian (SEEKN) for the booking for his dad's dyno. It helped that one of the guys was Damian from A1 Turbos who was in charge of tuning. We had Damians 1uz AE85 rally car, Jades AE101 4agte Levin, Kris's (KPR) EP82 4efte back then, my EP71 and Millers 1UZ Montage.


On the trailer


1uz AE85 Midmounted


Kris


Unfortunately I didn't even get one decent run - the 'heavy duty' clutch slipped before the fun started


Millers 1uz Montage


Engine bay - individual throttles sound awesome


Had a bit of spare time at the end of the day so also ran up my old mans Isuzu bighorn with its front mount and cold air intake. Made over 110kw from memory

[Stu]

Had Autoclutch make up the heaviest clutch they could and fitted it.


Had another go running it up, on the Shore Performance dyno this time. Had a miss develope so pulled it off, sorted the plugs out, then road tuned it to 12psi. Something wasn't quite right thou as it should have pulled harder than it did. Scratched our heads a bit.


Took it to the Honda vs Toyota day anyway and had heaps of fun even with low power and a un-prepped track. Think I ran a 14.2 from memory


Bought some Wedsport 15inch wheels. Had them media blasted.


Had them powdercoated


Not bad

[Stu]

Picked up Krads old 16inch wheels (which eventually made it onto KPR's EP82) and cheekily fitted them. Loved the offset and the style but the colour didn't suit at all. Maybe should have looked at powdercoating them.


Side on


Fitted the back perfectly


Another shot


Looked better on these thou


Poser...

[Stu]

I've got a turbo s rear boot spoiler but not sure if I like the look of it fitted


So this is the stock EP82 GT brakes


The rotors I got from Racebrakes


Fitted with bigger pistons/calipers


With the wheels on

[Stu]

Getting a bit out of order here but anyways...


Wheel just after powdercoating


Battery setup in the boot


Teal Bay Performance short shifter

I was living with Brendan from Niteparts for a few years so we had all sorts of crazy cars coming and going. One of them was his Mark2 Chaser that ended up with a 1uz-turbo in it which eventually Pedey from Performance Car bought. Amazing amount of torque from this car.


Mean


Built for skids


First and last time I will use nolathane for engine mounts. Lasted 1 launch at Meremere from new... After this I poured my own solid mounts with urethane spacers to stop all movement, made a huge difference although the car is super noisy/rattly now


Start of the watermeth/intercooler spray/window washer tank I made up. Has 3 different compartments. Don't think I've got any photos of this completed so will have to take some.


Engine bay

[Stu]

Now, it was looking ok but wasn't making the power it should. Had taken it to Gavin's dyno for a run and it was making a very lowly 138kw @ 12psi - well down on what it was capable of.

So one weekend I loaded it onto a trailer and dragged it up to KPR's place via one of the dodgiest roads ever (cliff drop off one side+narrow road with no trailers warning+verticle cliff the other+night time=dicey...). Dropped it off with a brand new Bosch fuel pump which Kris kindly fitted by bashing the shit out of the bottom of the tank.


Noisy bastard but will easily flow more hp than the car will ever see

So after this was fitted he took it for a tune. Found that some jumpers on the Link daughter board weren't on the right settings which was causing the advance to limit. As a result after a road tune and running it up at the Starlet Central dyno day at Torque Performance that I organised it made a much more respectable 196kw @ 16psi.


This is my dyno plot vs KPR's 198kw @ 20psi plot

[Stu]

Took it to the Nationals show


Toyspeed stand


Waiting in the pits


Lined up


With my mates AE86


Waiting


Did some sweet skids


More

It was an ok day, had old R881's on which are really track tires and the weather was a bit average (had to do drive bys of the track to dry it out at one point) but did ok and ran a 13.02 run @ 196km. Pretty happy!

[Stu]

Went to a private day a mate orgainsed at Meremere and dragged KPR along aswell. The track was quite cold and un-prepped but we had a ball - no really fast times but we both got in more than 30 runs due to the low number of cars. We even swapped cars for a bit which was mean. Quite awesome being in the stands and seeing your own car thrashed.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7g8TLZbvGQk

In the end I started launching in second and full boost which did seem faster but after about 1/4 track where the little prep ran out I lost traction. Ended up just doing huge burnouts and generally thrashing the shit out of the car.

At one point we were doing continuous runs - coming down the return lane and just spinning around and lining back up again. Great fun!

Had two problems pop up during the day. The first was running so hard and not having much fuel which in turn caused what little was in the tank to get quite hot which in turn caused a mean missfire under load. More fuel in the tank fixed that problem.

The second was a bit more serious. Due to the heat the clutch litterally started to melt and at one point I had smoke coming out of the clutch fork hole. As power was coming on in 3rd the clutch was starting to get a bit soft so called it a day at 36runs!

Pulled the clutch out a month or so later... the below damage I blame completely on KPR...


Flywheel - fuct


Top of pressure plate, paint burnt off, the smell was terrible...


Friction surface - fuct


Check out the heat markings and yes it does have a bow in it


The rivets were letting go