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The mkiv Supra Owners Club

Young, Free & Big Single **UPDATED**


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  • 1 year later...

Ok, so I thought I would do a bit of an update to this thread as over the past year ALOT has happened with this car and to be honest, there has been so much going on that I haven't really had time to keep track of it all until now! So since the last post, I took the supra for MOT, which it failed......miserably as you can see:

 

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At this point I conceded that I would need to do some major work to restore the car and make it not only roadworthy but also suitably maintained for the modifications I was trying to run with and so began, "The suspension project". I was working away during the week so I only really got a chance to do this at weekends but even so, I managed to get it done in 3 weekends with a lot of help from a few friends and mechanically gifted seniors!

 

I decided to go for the full Strongflex bush kit, which I am aware a few members on here have installed now. At the time I did this, Strongflex did not make all the bushes I need so I supplemented with some Superpro items where I could not get Strongflex, I also went for OEM Toyota for the rear diff mounts as these were not available from anyone else at the time. I managed to get a great deal on all new suspension bolts from Kurt Aigner at Elmhurst Toyota, shipped at a fraction of the price that they are available in the UK, which is also where my OEM diff mounts came from

 

I also took the opportunity to refresh all the arms and subframe which were all lasted and finished in Black or silver Epoxy.

 

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And..... I painted my diff yellow..... lol

 

As this process put me under quite a bit of pressure, I didn't really get anymore opportunity for more photos, but what I can tell you is that it is an absolute pig of a job, I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a lot of help and a lot of patience. In saying that I managed to not have any broken or seized bolts that caused me any major issues. Its like a new penny underneath :)

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Following on from my suspension project, I knew I had to do something about the rusty sills and brake lines and also I wanted to follow up on some cosmetic respray plans I had been meaning to get on with for some time. Luckily, the man for the repair work and the paintwork are in the same yard, so I thought I would drive it over of a Friday evening and it could be passed between the two of them to complete the work.

 

At this juncture, I want to point out to those of you who have read my full thread, that my "tuner" that I had praise for in the whole first part of this has completely lost my respect and I have therefore removed all reference to him and his business to save any name calling or hassle. You'll see why shortly....

 

So I drove the leisurely and I mean leisurely 4 miles or so to the yard where my painter was still working and could smell my car from inside the unit, he came out of the unit to see what the hell was going on, at the same time I also exited the car to see what all the smoke was....

 

 

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So obviously at this point I was quite worried, I thought maybe that because the car had been off the road and also as I changed my exhaust to an HKS SuperDrager that it may have just been crap burning off the exhaust or WD40 or anything at all.....it wasn't :(

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After my mate the painter managed to calm me down, we pulled the car inside and set about some initial investigation to see what was causing the smoke, firstly checking the intake side to see if there was oil or anything in the intake pipes, which there wasn't nor was the turbo spraying oil out the compressor seal, removed the plugs incase it was maybe piston rings but they were dry, which only left one option, the exhaust side of the turbo, I removed the V-Band clamp and found this:

 

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So it appeared my turbo had blown its seals, why? The car was warmed up before I left my house, I literally tootled down the road, as my suspension alignment was of course all over the place having just had all the components removed and reinstalled, the car literally started smoking on its own when I arrived at the yard (although it could have been smoking the whole way, I wouldn't have known). My mate's suggestion was removed the turbo and have a look, I also had a few other guy from England on FB messenger I was chatting to including the guy I bought the turbo off who has said he has never heard of a Borg Warner doing that, ever and also suggested to removed the turbo.

 

So once it had cooled I set about removing the lines and unbolting the turbo....which proved more difficult than you would expect, as one of the securing bolts was bent at a right angle - Don't ask me how I why, I don't even want to get into that....

 

But anyway, I got it off eventually and discovered the problem - the person who installed the turbo, had decided to use a length of radiator hose as a turbo oil drain, not Teflon coated, not rated for oil temperature and after I got the part number off it and checked online, specifically not for use with oil or fuels. This is what said pipe looked like on removal:

 

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Not too bad you may think? - Check out the inside of it:

 

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Wonder how much of that is now floating around my engine.....

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After this I gave up for the night and actually left it all weekend entirely, I couldn't even look at it. I contacted the guy who had installed it and he came up for a look. In fairness he admitted his mistake and offered to cover the cost of repair to the turbo which I was actually pretty happy with. He apologised and said that he genuinely thought the pipe would be suitable and that he had asked the guy in the place he got it from and they told him it would be fine.... neither me or my mate really bought this excuse tbh and later as my mate suggested it probably was not the £90 turbo oil drain pipe on the invoice considering this stuff sells at £4 a meter of which I had about half that.

 

After discussions with a few other experts and mechanics I knew, both supra related and in general the point was raised yes the melted/dissolved pipe probably did cause a backup in pressure which killed the turbo, but where did the rest of the rubber go? I was advised to drain and strain the oil in several engine spots to see the extent of the contamination:

 

Oil from the sump:

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Oil from the cams:

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Oil from the Filter Housing:

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Oil Filter Itself:

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Mehhhhhhhh what a chore..

 

 

Put it back together yourself with the correct bits so you know its done right.

 

I would be tempted to run some cheap 10w-40 through it and drop the sump pan/strainer etc it seems a shame if you have already had the bloody subframe off as you could have done it then.

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Ahhhh well nevermind you must have posted that at the same time as me..

 

 

Just pull the bloody engine and box out and break it all down its the easiest way to be sure although it will be incredibly time consuming and you will hate the thing by the time your done :(

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After consulting with quite a few experts involved with engine building including the main ones on here and that other one we are not allowed to talk about, it really did seem as if the only way to be fully sure that the engine was going to be ok going forward was to pull it apart and clean it out, which of course was going to involve building it back up with all new seals, gaskets, bearings etc. This presented a significant problem. I was then left with the dilemma of who was going to be responsible for that although I know what you are all already thinking and that was my thoughts too. I approached the guy who had caused the problem and talked it all through with him and I presented all the findings and the recommendations and he said he would need time to think about it, which I thought was fair enough given the magnitude of the outlay he was going to face.

 

I was still working in England at this point so I couldn't really deal with it during my working day, but nevertheless, he came back to me a few days later and effectively disclaimed all responsibility for any of it and any suggestion that he was going to cover any of the damage to the engine or the turbo. He had, had his own advice apparently.

 

As you can imagine this presented significant panic for me but after speaking to my dad who has been a barrister for 30 years I decided to take it down the "official channels". I cant really get into what happened in detail in the interim but the outcome was that there would be compensation paid for damage, costs incurred and associated repair work, however, the recommendation of our own motor engineer was that the engine should be built back up and flushed thoroughly before being put back into regular service. So apparently that was the plan, the turbo went back to BoostLabs where it was fully refurbished for the "significant" damage to the internals according to he technician there and was sent back to me.

 

At this point the engine itself had been removed having been examined by the motor engineer and was still on a stand in the workshop awaiting my next move, having all monetary matters been previously settled.

 

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You will also notice the vacuum pipe with some silver stuff wrapped round it hanging down, this is the feed to the wastegate which was "protected" from heat also....

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My mate and the welder worked pretty hard at the floor and basically re-made a substantial portion of it, but was a job they made of it, the underside of the car really is like brand new now!

 

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Of course It was all properly seamsealed etc after this but I don't have any photos of this

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So after a few weeks, once I returned home to Northern Ireland to work I decided that I really did need to do something about my engine situation least of all that the car and engine were both taking up space in my mates unit. I consulted a well known name in the UK drift scene who is a very good friend and he talked me through all the possible ramifications I could face going forward with the engine if I did simply flush it. I am a bit of a worrier anyway but this made my mind up as I had been leaning this direction anyway - I hate the "what if" scenario.

 

I decided to send the engine away to be rebuilt at my own cost! This was a tough decision for me but ultimately the only option available to me as I knew I would never be happy with it and also, legally speaking I had already settled based on an expert report so I would have to cover this myself. But man, am I glad I did. I sent it to a well known family firm in Dundee to build for me, Peter and Steven Donnelly of Diemax engineering who some of you may recognise and remember their drift JZ RX7 which regularly makes the headlines! The engine would be built to last with the help of Peter, Steven and my very good friend Mark Luney.

 

My tough decision soon became a relief when the engine as stripped and the following video made its way to me...... imagine if I had just flushed this and tried to start it:

 

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Ahhhh well nevermind you must have posted that at the same time as me..

 

 

Just pull the bloody engine and box out and break it all down its the easiest way to be sure although it will be incredibly time consuming and you will hate the thing by the time your done :(

 

Give me time Matt lol I'm posting a full year's worth of progress here......but yes it is a very love/hate relationship at this point

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So as you can see the strip down had already begun and was in full swing and slowly but surely the reports started to come back.....poor little JZ. It was in dire need of some care and attention:

 

From the top, as you can see the valves had received a severe toasting and there was significant heat being generated.

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We always suspected there was an issue with the way the cams had been timed up, or not as the case may be but as you can see there was so much heat being generated from badly timed cams coupled with bad fuel mapping that the valves were white!

 

It also became apparent during the seal test that it was just the 17 bent valves....

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Not one chamber was sealing properly, due to one or more valves being bent and not sealing. I was told this was a combination of the heat generated, badly timed cams and significant over-revving on standard valve springs - I seem to recall being told during the mapping that the rev limit had been raised significantly to "make the power"

 

I believe the block in a 2JZ is cast iron, I wonder how much heat it takes to warp that..... apparently my car managed it:

 

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As you can see here being measured with a straight edge, the block is anything but...

 

The pistons and rods themselves were surprisingly ok, guess Toyota really did build them to last:

 

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The crank however was fit for the bin, it was evident that the crank had started to move and was bashing against the oil pump and had actually worn the nose off itself to the point where it was unsalvageable. We managed to get a new one from Julian and the guys at Garage D:

 

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You can see from the colour that there was significant friction and heat being generated, of course the oil pump was scrap too.....not that I planned on re-using it!

 

And of course, what we expected to find, look at the crap in the strainer:

 

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I'd love to say it was obviously doing its job, but apparently not well enough given what was found in the oil posts above :(

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I really need to pay a visit to Diemax. My sister knows Steven through his missus and he's only along the road. Seems like a good place and know what they're doing, your engine is in good hands!

Great guys, cant thank them and Mark Luney enough!

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While this was all going on, I got offered a deal I couldn't really refuse on the opportunity to go manual as well. Unfortunately not a V series box, as I'm not made of money but an R154 from a Soarer, so I did my research and gathered up some bits and well, got enthusiastic with an angle grinder:

 

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Of course, me being me, this is the only photo I actually took while I was doing this, but as I'm this far in, I can assure you, the car is now manual and I had prepped the shell to take the manual box when the whole lot was going to go back in. Just for perspective, at this point the car had been off the road for about 6 months, so I as getting pretty disheartened with it.....this cheered me right up though!

 

Whilst I was playing with my shell, I also took the opportunity to get some custom dials made (many thanks to Mr Norris for this) and get Heckler to do a full LED conversion on my instruments and clocks

 

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I also re-furbed my dash panels matt black to tidy them up as they had seen the benefit of a few years use! I don't really have any specific photos of them done themselves but I do have the photos of when I cleaned up my seats and had intensively cleaned the carpet and to be honest, the interior of the car looks like brand new now:

 

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At this point we were coming up on 9 months off the road and I was running out of "little bits" to do lol Not that I needed anymore on my plate at that stage!

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