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Project UFO ! Restoration after over 7 years of neglect


supra_ufo
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http://www.photographybynaz.co.uk/Supra/calendar_supra.jpg

 

Summary

The following thread is a documentation of the work that I have carried out on my J Spec Supra TT Aero, for my own personal history as the car has non at this moment. It’s the first time ever I have documented something like this so it’s not going to be brilliant. I have learned alot from this project and would probably have done things differently if I had a chance to start again, mainly concentrating on one thing at a time and mainly engine / mechanical, I was more into cosmetics.

 

The History

 

The car belonged to my uncle who did the work on the car himself / friends and was bought by his younger brother who then has passed it down to me for a small fee. The car has been in the family for over 10 years and ever since I set eyes on it I have always wanted it and now own it...

 

The SUP started life off as RED and has been resprayed in BMW Purple called Daytona Violet, found on some E36 M3's....

 

I arranged to pick the car up in Dec 2012 however it wasn't going to be simple as the car had not ran for 6+ years and I was told that there was an oil leak. I had arranged with little_num/James on the here to pick the car up from London and I caught the train from Leeds down the previous day and met with the James in the early hours. We replaced the battery and checked the oil, it fired up first time, the car was driven onto the trailer and then our 200 mile Journey north started! It was raining heavily so I couldn't get pictures of the car until I got home.

 

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This is the condition that I got the car in

 

Excuse the garage mess, should of seen it a week before! I couldn't see the extent of the oil leak as the car had a lower engine cover and it wasn't obvious where the leak was from but it came out more when the car was running (obv)

 

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The car was a mess, webs, dust and lots of coins. It looked like the roof had leaked at some point and water got in the back of the car and stained the floor. Either that or someone had done a poo

 

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As you can see it had been severely neglected over the years, it looked like a barn find! I didn’t get the chance to look at the paintwork whilst in London so until I got back to Yorkshire it was more obvious that it needed a respray! There were small dints in various places, scratches and paint fade. The car was stored outside under a car cover and it looked like the wind had battered the car and which caused fading in some areas :-/ Anyway the first thing was to give the inside a clean so I could sit in it! Once done the next step was to see where the leak was coming from and to resolve that. My intention was to get the car on the road for the summer so I had about 6/7 months to complete the restoration. Prior to starting I had never worked on cars before, although I had an interest in cars I'm not a hands on mechanical person and to save costs I wanted to do it myself and learn in the process.

 

First things first, the to do list

 

Engine

 

The car has a stock twin turbo engine & stock exhaust. The engine bay needed alot of TLC, it looked very poor under the hood and most if not all of it was 20 years old! The radiator was being held up by two cable ties The car was missing the rad brackets which explains the cable ties but it was on mounts underneath so was secure.

 

Plans

 

• Repaint plastics / engine dress up

• Replace all fluids

• Replace turbo vac hoses

• Replace main radiator hoses

• Respray turbo heat shield

• Full exhaust system or BPU (basic performance upgrades)

• Refurb brakes/change Discs and Pain Calipers

 

Interior

 

The old vinyl needs to go!

 

Plans

 

• Dash Retrim

• Upgrade interior lights with LED, and upgrade the dash lights as some were not working

• Ive always wanted gauges to monitor car, boost at the very least

• Retrim the leather seats

• Dye the carpet black and get some new matts

 

Exterior

 

• Get the car detailed to see what needed work on

• DIY Refurb the head lights as they were slightly clouding (paint the insides)

• Remove the Rear Spoiler

• Remove the rear Wiper

• HID Kit, and possibly Day time running lights

• Refurb the wiper blades as the paint had come off

• Replace the number plates with smaller legal ones and reposition the front ones as it is stopping air flow

• In the near future respray the car fully either in the current colour (Daytona violet) or a new one

• Deep dish wheels

• Lowering Coil Overs

 

I got my work cut out so I picked up a 170 piece Halfords pro tool kit, 2 car jacks, 2 axel stands and got to work! After taking off the undertray I managed to pin point the leak (thanks to forum members) to the turbo oil return pipe and after removing the pipe (with difficulty) I noticed the gasket had perished. I went to Mr T and got some OEM gaskets & replaced both the 1st and 2nd Oil Return gasket and hey presto no leak!

 

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The next aim was to get the car MOT’ed which meant I needed Insurance at least...this was not straight forward. My uncle had misplaced the log book but was adamant that he had it in his other house (in the process of moving) after weeks of looking I decided to apply for the logbook which is a longer process, and around a month later I got my V5 log book.

 

Whilst waiting for the log book I decided to have a go at redoing the interior. I did some research and decided vinyl wrapping was the way to go. After many youtube tutorials I picked up a kit and took the dash apart.

 

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Ignore the underwear LOL how did I not see that. I removed the old vinyl with a hair dryer and used autoglym tar remover to get the sticky glue off.

 

Next Update on Page 2...

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Edited by supra_ufo
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As above the front bumper is part of a BN kit. An acquired taste from my perspective.

 

I think she'd look a lot nicer with a stock front and a nice lip (then again in bias) ;)

 

Will follow your thread with interest. :)

 

Not sure if it is the BN bumper, looks different unless there are more variants of it

 

http://shop.j-spec.se/bilder/artiklar/zoom/JHG-20081524-26_1.jpg

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Front bumper looks like its from the BN kit. Doesn't look too bad!

 

Are your stock wheels 16 or 17" dude?

 

Stock 16"

 

Cheers for the recommendation mate, i really enjoyed the 530 miles round trip and was good to meet another member who is willing to work on the car themselve's.

Colour looks darker in the pics and much better in real life.

If you need any info mate just drop me a text anytime.

 

My Aim is to get it up and running with most plans completed by April

Yea its the crap digi cam I used, the flash was drowning the natural light, Ill use the DSLR next time just didnt want to haul it around ;-)

Cheers James!

 

You've certainly got your work cut out for you! But best of luck :)

 

The colour looks like it might be 'Technoviolet', which is lovely when it's polished up.

 

Yes I think it is that colour...

 

http://www.dtmpower.net/forum/attachments/car-care-detailing/22196d1054570985-techno-violet-e36-m3-detail1.jpg

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/4717/technoe46mvertgv0.jpg

Edited by supra_ufo (see edit history)
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Nice project, and good to see you're willing to get stuck in and do things yourself. Before joining this forum, I knew next to nothing about how cars work. Now, I like to think I'm quite knowledgable :)

 

Biggest achievement is doing my electrics in the garage myself, which I wouldn't have done if I wasn't getting this car though... Haven't started on the car stuff yet :/

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I quite enjoyed doing the vinyl wrap however I struggled on round corners and after a few days I managed to wrap the dash, gear surround (to some extent), door handles. Results:

 

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Before

 

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After

 

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High on the list was to replace all the old fluids, coolant, brakes, power steering, gear box etc. I drained all the old coolant and picked up some OEM Coolant from Mr T. I noticed the lower hose was not clipped into position and the clip was a few inches down! So there was a slight leak coming from this area. The alternator was replaced (so I was told) so I imagine the mechanic forgot to put the clip back into position as the lower hose is in the way of the alt. Just to be sure I replaced the thermostat, both main upper and lower Radiator hoses with SRD new ones. I ran the engine and all seemed well, bled the airlocks and the heaters were warm. Over the next few days I checked for leaks and came across a pin hole in one of the hoses that was crossing the 1st turbo so I ended up replacing both of those too, again had to partially drain the coolant and go through this process again. After that all seemed well no leaks..for now...

 

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Still waiting for my log book; I decided to respray the wiper blade holders as the paint had come off from them. I choose satin black. Unfortunately I don’t have an after picture whilst i was in the process but you will see it in later pictures.

 

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I was advised by mechanics (some considered as friends) to do the MOT and then start replacing the parts that needed replacing. Discs were in good condition, no lip but they were just rusty from the car being stood. I decided to listen to them and held off on the disc replacement and brake refurb until I had the list...More time passed, and finally my Log book arrived!

 

I got the car insured with Sky Insurance with all mods declared. I booked the car for an MOT and on the morning of the test i got up early to check the car....As the car came to temp I noticed a leak from under the radiator! :-( I called the MOT place to discuss options, they told me to come down and they will determine whether it can be fixed....I took my car out for its first drive with a leaking radiator not knowing the extent of the leak I drove very carefully and made my 3 mile trip to the MOT centre. I heard some very strange noises which at first I thought must be the turbo, I was doing 20-30mph so wasn't sure if the car was at boost speeds (don’t laugh), anyway I got to the MOT place and more bad news, the radiator was shot after they had seen it on the ramp! After all it was 19 years old! I drove back from the MOT place straight to the garage and took a video of the strange noise I heard. The next aim was to get the old radiator out and source a new one, once again I drained all the coolant (back into the OEM cans (using filters) as it was new!) and saw the condition of the old rad...

 

A local rad specialist came around my house and measured my old rad up and was able to source a replacement for only £120 compared to mr T’s £300+ OEM. A day or so later I got a replacement and went ahead fitting it. I was very happy with the aftermarket rad, everything appeared to be in place. I also had got some top radiator clamps as there was not any holding the last rad on, I suspect when the alternator was done the bloke had “forgotten” to put them on.

 

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After fitting the new rad I went through the same old process of putting in the coolant and checking it for airlocks etc. Once I was happy with it I called the guy at the MOT station and booked the car back in. The MOT station is down the road from work so I took it in first thing and walked up to work. 8 hours passed and no call but I thought no news is good news?? I walked down the road to the MOT station and to the counter...looked at the MOT guy and he said “Sorry its failed it’s got loads of things wrong!” and then he laughed and said “it passed”. Anyway I was chuffed as I was expecting a mile long list! :-) I got back in the car, armed with my camera phone again I took another video of the lack of power/strange noise I had...

 

 

After spending alot of time on here researching and asking a lot of questions, I started replacing all VAC hoses the car still was not boosting! The next test was to do a true twin conversion (TTC)

Following Hecklers guide http://www.internetwork.org.uk/mechanical/ttc/ttc.htm I went to work, the result, it was still the same :-( So out came the Halfords kit again and I started taking the turbos off to check the fins...Oh Guess what? I had to drain the coolant once again before I began this.

 

Having taken the intercooler pipe off and checking the fins they looked totalled however I was told on here that it was “normal” But the noises that it was making told a different story so I took the whole unit off (it was a very tough job, spent weeks on it, working on and off!). Heating the bolts and taking them off was the easiest way as they were all ceased.

 

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Here is what I found..... Yes the first turbo was fooked!

 

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The 2nd turbo looked in good condition

 

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At this point I had two options

 

  1. Buy a 2nd hand unit from here and fit that onto the car, however this option was a ticking time bomb as you can not tell what condition the turbo was in.
  2. Get the original turbos refurbished but this would be around £1000 for both turbos. The refurb would replace the ceramic internals for steel ones instead

 

After looking at the for sale/wanted section for weeks I got impatient and decided to use a friend of a friend to get them refurbed. I already had purchased a refurbed turbo for my leon, from Omar who was the owner of a tubby place in Doncaster. He said it would take a few weeks to source parts as he had never done a refurb on a supra, he usually does common turbo cars. I went to see him and he seemed confident, even checked his unit out which seemed very professional and he knew his stuff.

 

Whilst I waited very patiently I decided to refurb my head lights, a common issue with the supras is the old plastic units get yellow inside and look crap. Mine were not too bad but I wanted darker inserts.

 

Iky had given me an already separated unit FOC so I went to work on it for practice.

 

Sanded down

 

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Primed

 

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Finished in satin black but not glued back together (oven job)

 

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About a week later, I got an update from Omar to say he had ordered some parts but was not confident that it was the correct parts and needs to check when they arrive from being shipped from Italy. He said it would take approx 3 weeks! So i waited patiently...

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  • 1 month later...

I needed to think about ordering gaskets to replace the ones that came off so I began sourcing part numbers etc.

 

I also spoke to my best mate and arranged a weekend to refurbish my wheels given I had some time.... I wanted to spray them in one of my favourite colours, BMW Sparkling Graphite (I used 2 own a 1 m sport in this colour). I picked up some paint from a paint shop (50 quid!) and took the wheels off the car putting the old OEM 16” wheels on (I had bought 2 sets – dont ask). My friend said he had a good “idea” and had something “different” in mind. Anyway I gave the wheels a good clean the night before, and headed over to his house in the morning. He explained his idea and I was reluctant at first but got talked into it. Basically his idea was to mask part of the wheel and leave some of the silver showing as you can see from the picture.

 

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It didnt look too bad in the sun however it had an audi black edition type look to it

 

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I got another update from Omar, to say that the bits had arrived and it was not the correct ones. :-( Being honest with me he told me that it would be best to go to someone who had done these before, he said he would send them anywhere at his own expense. (really nice guy). Anyway after many phone calls later I came across a company called CR Turbos, who had experience refurbing these turbos, called Craig, agreed a price and arranged a collection on the following Monday and before I knew it I got a call on Thursday to say they were completed! At this point I was like OMG I have not even ordered the gaskets! Friday came and look what arrived... :)

 

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I went to see Mr T and got my bits ordered... I basically ordered all turbo gaskets, the nuts holding the manifold and turbo onto the engine and also some turbo intercooler pipes as the old ones were collapsing inside

 

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I thought these parts would take a week at most but nope, took almost 3 weeks from Mr T! Whilst waiting I decided to refurb the turbo vac lines/pipes as they were looking rusty and faded... satin black again.

 

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I also refurbed the heat shield which I unfortunately didn't take a pic of the process but you will see it later.

 

I decided it would be a good idea to add a boost gauge to the car so when the turbos were on we could see if the car was fully boosting/working when we go for the drive. The boost gauge also showed peak boost which was very handy. It was a Depo racing gauge. Took me a while but I eventually figured out how to wire it up following various guides.

 

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I had also picked up some indiglow dials from a member , the stocks dials are too old school and needed a modern touch…

 

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(I wasnt happy with the vinyl wrap on the part of the dash showing the warning lights so I ripped it all off to either start again or sand down and spray)

 

Finally the Parts from Mr T arrived so I finally I began rebuilding the car back up with help from my friend.

 

New Tubby

 

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I struggled with getting it on as it appeared it wasn't lining up eventually I figured out the manifold pictured below needed to be sprung in before it all lined up.

 

Turbo Removed

 

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New Turbo

 

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Spaghetti junction all back together, here you can see the painted heat shield

 

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Edited by supra_ufo (see edit history)
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  • 5 months later...

Once it was all back together I dumped all the oil from the car (something that needed doing anyway) and put some fresh Fuchs Oil (the Fuchs man at work gave me 10 litres FOC :). I also ensured I replaced the Oil Drain Plug + a new gasket and new OEM oil filter. Next was to put coolant back in which I was an expert at doing now. I finished up that day and decided the next day would be D day! On the night, i checked the forum to see which fused needed removing to prime the engine to pump oil around it without starting the car. The following day, reconnected the battery, removed the fuse and primed the car to pump oil around. Popped the fuse back in and started her, checked for leaks at this point and put the heaters on full letting the car get warm. I noticed a slight coolant leak from the bottom rad hose, I tightened the jubby up more which stopped the slight leak. Got the car off the jack ready to be taken for a test drive.... Immediately when putting the car into drive I noticed the pull of torque... slowly came out of the garage onto the main road, brakes were squealing like a pig! Went to my test track which is a nice twisty country road....At this point I had a big :) on my face, the turbos were definatley comin on, I wasnt pushing the car but I noticed the power, about ½ mile in I noticed some smoke from the engine bay! Pulled up in a lay by and checked, luckily it appeared to be the antigunk spray and cleaner I had used, it was just burning up so on I went... again I did not fully boost the car as I wanted to replace my brake fluid, pads and brake line hoses. All seemed well with the turbo. I took it to my friend (member on the forum who owns the same model car). He drove it and said it drove well like his own stock TT although the boost gauge was reading 0.6BAR when it should of been 0.8? (I will come back to this later) The next step was to book it in for new brake fluid, new brake hoses and new pads. Later that afternoon I went to a car wash to clean the car and remember my wheels I had refurbed, well....

 

http://www.mkivsupra.net/vbb/attachment.php?attachmentid=181499&d=1393539741

 

The paint came off with the pressure hose! FAIL! I wasn't 100% on them anyway and either I would respray the lot in one colour (this time rubbing them down before spraying LoL) or replace them.

 

Booked the car in for the work on the brakes, its something that I didnt want to do myself. I dont have pics of this work but you will see the hoses later on when the wheels are off. Things did not go very well at the garage, one of the calipers had seized so I sourced another 2nd Hand one which meant the car had to stay at the garage for 2 days over the weekend. :-/ My future plans were to upgrade to the UK spec 4 pot calipers but it was cheaper to get a 2nd hand one in the mean time.

 

Whilst the car was at the garage I decided to browse the net and find some new alloys, I had seen some a while ago which didnt sell and always had the intention to make a crazy offer. It made sense to do it as the 20th Anniversary meet was coming up and I couldn't turn up with the alloys in the condition they were in! A few PMs were sent and we agreed upon a price for the wheels...

 

The car was ready on Friday just in time for a drivers dream day circuit in Leicester that was booked for my bday last year...I decided to take the car for a 250 mile round trip and it performed brilliantly, I had no issues what so ever with it! I had also arranged to collect the wheels I had got which I did in my own car, what a trip they just about fit into the car! I went around to Iky's unit to fit them the same day :)

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I was extremely happy with the wheels and sold the old ones to iky’s brother who owns the blue supra you can see in one of the pics. The next thing that needed attention was the brake callipers so the following weekend I went to work...Using a dremel I sanded them down and used calliper black paint, Masking off all the bits I didn't want to paint.

 

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No shots of them with the wheels on yet but there coming...

Next was to get the car cleaned and prepared for the 20th Anniversary meet at the Heritage Car Musem, it would be my first meet with the car so it was important for the car to look its best.

 

I had purchased some legal new number plates both front and back and also a front plate holder. The original plate was a large rectangle one which was positioned between the bumper and it was stopping air flow so I wanted a smaller plate on the bumper itself. I also purchased a front plate holder to fix the new plate onto... I gave the number plate holder a few coats with satin black and fitted it onto the car with the plate.

 

Front Plate before

 

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I decided to remove the day time running lights as I wanted to run the wires properly and thought I would do this once I get around to fitting those head lights I refurbed a few weeks ago.

 

Front Plate After

 

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Rear Plate before

 

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Rear Plate After

 

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I booked it into the body shop and asked him to do the best he could, the body needed alot of attention and I wanted to know what needed respraying and what could be buffed out etc.

 

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I was very pleased with the results and would postpone the respray till the following year (2014). The car had some minor dents on the drivers’ rear quarter and the bonnet which I was going to have them removed early 2014. We managed to find the correct colour code for the car as I thought it was techno violet, but was in fact Daytona violet. I had some touch up paint and managed to touch up areas where paint was missing so it would look respectable.

 

The weekend of the anniversary meet at the car museum was coming up, and I still had various bits I had purchased to fit but didn’t think I would be able to in the time scale I had.

 

I had the following bits yet to fit onto the car

• Refurbed Head lights

• HID Kit

• Full SS Cat back system including double decat pipes

 

The day prior to attending the meet I decided to take the car for a run as the weather that weekend was lovely. I always check underneath the car for any coolant leaks and have cardboard under the car. Well today was an unlucky day, the car as leaking coolant somewhere! It wasn’t the radiator or any of the main hoses. It appeared to be the back of the car, I checked the passenger footwell as the matrix is there but there were no wet patches. Iky came around and we drained the coolant partially and started taking off the engine side upper hoses and came across this..

 

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The pipes going to the heater matrix had corroded, probably due to the car being stood and my uncle admitting to running water instead of a coolant mixture. There was a hole under the pipes where the coolant was leaking from even with the hose on it was going behind the engine and onto the floor! Taking my car to the meet was not looking like it was likely to happen...

 

I had a moan on here and members suggested to join the 2 upper hoses together, I would have no heaters but the car would still run. Anyway the same day I popped into B&Q to find a pipe I could bend around, came across a nice flexi copper pipe...

 

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Put 2x jubbies on both ends jus to be sure and went for a spirited drive whilst looking worryingly at the temp...it wasn’t leaking or overheating so I was all set for the meet the following day . This would be addressed in the winter months where I would change the heater matrix..

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Edited by supra_ufo (see edit history)
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Sunday morning was a very early start, travelled on the M62 towards Wakefield to convoy with some local supra members, then travelled down 100 odd miles to the Heritage Motor Centre, it was a brilliant drive and turning to be a bright sunny day. It was lovely seeing a dozen or so supras convoying on the way down.

 

A few photos from the day...

 

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I didn’t get a chance to clean the car and seemed like I collected alot of flies from the journey...

 

Whilst I was there I got some black supra and Toyota badges added onto the car.

 

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Over a 100 Supras turned up which was a UK record, it was an amazing day. I met alot of club members and saw some amazing cars. The drive back up was great, had the roof off for the first time, sun shining down, and it couldn't get better than that

 

Having seen many amazing cars I had the drive to put the other bits and bobs I had got over the months.

 

Onto the headlights and HID kit. Whilst putting the head lights back together I ended up scraping some of the black paint off by accident :-( so I rubbed it down again, primered and went for a different colour...BMW Sparkling Graphite

 

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Then sealed it all up and in the oven for 15mins for the glue to warm and stick. Fitted the headlights and HID kit and installed the DRL but not wired them in.

 

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I was very happy with how the head lights came out, I had taken them to the body shop earlier in the week to get the lens cleaned professionally so they came out like new. The HID kit were 6k and the light output was a massive improvement compared to stock.

 

As previously stated the car was boosting at 0.6 BAR when it should be close to 0.8, even after going TTC it was reading the same. After weeks of diagnosis and not getting anywhere fast, I decided the best route would be to go BPU. The reason why we decided this was we thought the exhaust was blocked possibly with the bits from the old turbo which could of been effecting the performance of the car and with the decats we could rule that out – More power had little to do with this decision (honest :p ). With the BPU mods it would also raise the stock boost to 1.1/1.2 and if the car wasn't reaching this then the boost gauge was either fooked or there is another problem....

 

The following weekend I took the car over to Iky's unit to fit a full cat back exhaust which I had purchased via the forum and delivered to my door at a bargain price (thanks MattP) The decats were one of my first purchases before I had even known the turbos had died!

 

Arrived at Iky’s unit, his brothers car parked left and his TT on the right.

 

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1st and 2nd decat pipe containing a restrictor ring, and the Stainless Steel custom cat back exhaust. I didn’t take pictures of the fuel pump but it is a Walbro 255 and the Spark Plugs were NGK (BPU recommended grade). It took a good 4-5 hours to get everything installed, the exhaust was hanging low on the back, we used the existing O ring but it needed a piece welding on for it to sit just right which is something I would address later.

 

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Once everything was completed, we went for a test drive and OMG! What a massive difference BPU made, the car felt much more responsive than before! I tried not to push it past 1BAR as we didn’t get a chance to fit a FCD Fuel Cut Defender ....

 

Page 3 for next update

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Edited by supra_ufo (see edit history)
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Not sure about the wheels but lovely progress on the rest dude, nice one

 

Those wheels have been replaced mate, update will be following once I have cleaned the car and taken some better photos ;-)

 

You need to update this thread with photos of the new wheels :)

After its had a full detail! :D

 

Missed this mate lol I want to get the head lights in and cleaned up

Edited by supra_ufo (see edit history)
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