Adam W

This would be about 20 degrees advance, right? Good info/post, thanks.

Thats a lot of money for a pretty common gearbox . . .

Pah, they just get in the way when you need to pull the engine out. I would get one but I couldn't be arsed unbolting it every other week to fit a new headgasket

The ECU doesn't control the FPR or the pump, fuel metering is done by altering injector pulsewidth. Flow through the injectors is proportional to the pressure difference between the fuel rail supplying them and the manifold pressure they are trying to spray into. Hence, the FPR is referenced to boost pressure so that the pressure differential across the injectors remains constant. Going over the stock fuel cut limit is where your fuel mapping will begin to get a bit vague. There are ways of bodging it but if you want to run serious amounts of air and fuel through your engine the stock ECU will be way out of its depth no matter what you try and trick it into thinking. Your options at this point are full replacement ECU, or the Greddy E-manage (maybe the Apexi FC as well?) which can add injector pulsewidth directly. You're in that horrible no-mans-land where you can make the stock ECU work, but life becomes much easier and tuning much more straightforward if you can ditch fuel cut etc and take full control of what the engine is doing (ie new ECU). All depends what you want from the car and how much you want to spend etc, I got so pissed off with constantly fighting my stock ECU that I ordered the AEM.

Snip it off with some wire cutters or something. It's only silencer packing, it was just weighing you down anyway

Yep, those guys sound UTTERLY clueless. The only N/A produced was a jap import car, they were all about 220bhp, although some had 5speed and some had 6 speed gearboxes.

Is it still the case that the ball bearing turbos can't be rebuilt? I've never heard any doubts on there reliability but just if the worst should happen. As Terry says, they are a lot more expensive - unless you already have all the bells and whistles that money could probably be spent on better things.

I would say .58 for a 63mm wheel or smaller, .68 from 63mm to 71mm, bigger still after that. Just from what Ive said you understand. .68 is a good starting point I reckon, I'm actually thinking of stepping up to .81 on mine.

I think it's more likely that Toyota made a cock-up . . .

They wouldn't tell me!

Ian, I worked out the volume flow requirements of 550bhp (my target at the time) and IIRC it was quite near the top end of what the Walbro 341 can deliver. A lot of it depends on what your rail pressure will be at the time you need max fuel delivery. The pump will be able to flow lots more GPH at low rail pressure than at high rail pressure. So if you set your base FP to 50psi and then run 25psi of boost there will be 75psi backpressure that the pump is working against, and the GPH will drop right off.

I lost my keys and a mobile locksmith was able to come out and make some up to fit my old locks. Cost about £60 I think. I tried getting a new key off Toyota but despite me giving them the chassis number etc the key they provided was totally wrong. One tenner wasted there!

Be aware that you can't run much over 18-20psi on pump fuel without serious tuning of the ignition map, no matter how much injector you have.

Hmmm, could be GREAT for getting the Outside Lane Owners Club out of your way on these long dark nights! Of course theres a danger that someone might realise the scam after they had moved over and record your plate as you passed them; but if that happened to me a Mr R. Sole at 150 Empy-Aitch Road would be getting the follow-up knock on the door from the BiB

Twins won't spool any quicker at all. There is just more stuff to go wrong, more pipework for all the air to go through, and more weight to carry about!

I can only speak for the Mk3 but we never, ever reuse the stock headbolts cos they stretch and they're known to be rubbish. All modded Mk3's run ARP headbolts as a matter of routine, they are a quality product but I don't know whether they are neccessary on the 2JZ (ie the Toyota bolts might be of an equivalent spec to the ARP's and not made out of melted down baked bean tins and liquorice like the Mk3 headbolts!).

Yep, what Keith said I'm keeping the rev limit at 6500rpm but I want to run as much boost as my fuel octane will allow! What is classed as "mega boost" these days Chris? I have ARP rod bolts which offer some reassurance I guess, and forged pistons, albeit american ones, so they may be lighter than standard ones.

I was bloody glad I didn't own the 300ZX that they used in last nights show! Anyone else wincing as the boffins were let lose in it?

Darren, if its fatigue failure that causes most problems, then I guess the Mk3 that made 800bhp at 8000rpm on stock rods in Oz won't last too many dyno runs This is the problem, the yanks see a story like that and think "800bhp on stock rods is perfectly safe", I want my car to perform more than once without blowing up though! ie real world driving, 1000's of miles between rebuilds, not dyno queen stuff. I was wondering if I could use the tensile test rig here at work to try and overstress an old rod, I think that simulating 100 strokes a second (oo-err etc etc) might be asking too much though! It was most useful for checking out my valve springs though

Makes sense to me! The rod isn't there just to hold the piston as it gets thrown around, all the motive power is transmitted through it, that's what I was forgetting!

Just thinking about how much stick I want to give my standard con rods . . . I figure the main force exerted on them is rapid changes in the direction of the piston at the top and bottom of the stroke. Change in speed over time = acceleration. As the revs increase the piston goes up faster, comes down faster, so the total change in speed is greater. It also happens in less time so the acceleration is increased by a big factor as the revs go up. What happens if I double the bhp though? I will be able to go from 2000 rpm to 6500rpm a lot quicker, but the peak acceleration force on the rod will be the same as in a 50bhp engine doing 6500rpm! So, does the rate of change of acceleration impose any greater stress on the rod? Or is there some other force exerted on it? Assuming the rev limit stays the same, and that all bearings are properly lubricated etc, my theory says that the rods will be just as durable at 2000bhp as they would be at 20bhp . . . am I missing something?

UK turbos won't fit on a jap car

I think Paul E at Miami Rice had a set on the shelf, ready to go, you send him your old knackered ones and he sends you the new shiny ones. Then new shiny ones are made out of your old knackered ones for the next poor soul that blows their turbos!

Ash - a hybrid turbo means the standard housings, with Toyota CT12 stamped on them , ie the original toyota part, but slightly machined out inside to fit bigger wheels in there. This is what Leon odoes, and what your company will do. So from the outside a hybrid turbo looks exactly like a stock turbo. Unless you took it off and you had a standard turbo there to compare it to, you wouldn't know. So, Leons turbos will look just like this other companies turbos, which will look just like your current turbos. Even though you can't see a difference there is one though! Tiny differences in the size and design of the compressor/turbine wheels in the turbo can make a huge difference to how the car drives. The bearing assembly in the centre of the turbo is changed as well, some places will put a new toyota-spec bearing in, but there are different types available, ie ball-bearing, 360 degree thrustbearing etc, and some are better than others. Again, it's not something you can tell by looking at it though, it's real expert stuff. Not trying to badger you into one course of action you understand, just trying to provide you with info! At the very least, I would do some research into exactly what this company are doing with your turbos, and try and find some previous customers of theirs.

Ash, the hybrids these guys are selling you are identical from an insurance point-of-view to Leons. Leons are known to be of excellent quality though (and there are other reputable suppliers through this board). I would be very nervous about handing over 1600 to a company I'd never heard of before, you don't know whether they'll honour guarantees etc and they won't have done as much supra specific reasearch as "our" guys into what spec works best. I would say that taking the head off is under 10 hours work btw . . . £1300 labour for that sounds WAY OTT!