Check Out My Terrible Garage!
Before I get all gitty and start turning wrenches on my new car, I needed to take care of some cleaning/maintenance/organizing. I know, not exactly edge-of-your-seat post material... but read on and you'll be mildly entertained.
Like a lot of you probably are... I'm a renter. I'm saving for my own place with the fiancé, but we're not ready. So, I do what everyone else does, and make the best of my situation. In Seattle, renting a house with a 2 car garage comes at a very high premium, if possible to find at all. We have a great home, but the garage sucks. It really sucks. It was actually an old carport that someone tacked some walls onto and voila, 1 car garage.
I know, pretty spectacular. But at least I have a workbench.
$99 Toolbox, check. 60 gallon air compressor in tiny garage, check. Harbor freight vise, already half broken, check.
Like I said, it's an old carport with cobblestone floor. It's straight up dangerous to set up a jack or jackstands on. To remedy it, I used a bunch of old plywood, which has seen better days, but it helps tremendously.
After a bit of research; being a cheapskate (it's a rental house, remember), I cleaned it up as best as possible, added a new light (taking the total up to three now, pretty much an operating room) and Home Depot's finest $30 gallon of deck coating.
Hey, that's a lot better!
As you can see, with the new car in... it gets cozy real quick.
And here's my working space. Just like Japan! Everything a tuner needs packed into 20 square feet. Cleaned up workbench, motor stand and hoist, air compressor, XM radio for the Whitesnake, and my gen3 3sgte motor from my old SW20 chassis.
Speaking of my old motor... that's what's going in the new chassis. I knew I saved it for some reason (along with an entire shed of other parts). The motor itself is in prime condition, I bought it with only 19k on it and since added another 5k. Even though it's in good shape, I am going through it to "freshen" it up a bit.
It's also a bit dirty, let's go through the basics. First, pull the e153 LSD tranny.
My clutch was replaced when I installed the motor into the last car. Clutchmasters stage 3, looks about right for ~5000 miles.
A little hot spot on the pressure plate, clutch disc looks good.
The lightweight flywheel has a much larger hot spot. Maybe I should resurface the wheel.
Even though my motor only has ~24k on it, I get a weird tick/squeal from the timing side upon cold startup. It goes away as soon as the engine builds up some heat, but has slowly driven my OCD side crazy. So with the motor out, now's the perfect time to investigate and replace what's needed.
Here's the old idlers and new. As you can see, the black dirty one is our culprit. It better be. I pressed the hydraulic tensioner back together with after mentioned sketchy vise to re-install.
While apart, I took the liberty to scrub everything.
To re-set TDC timing the VC needs to come off. Still pretty clean for a 15-20 year old motor eh?
A motor refresh like this can become a slippery slope. It's real easy to have the "well, while it's out, I should upgrade the cams, lightweight alt bracket, intake manifold, forged internals" mentality. I'd love to rebuild the motor to support 400+ hp, but it's just not in the cards right now. Instead, I'm living with powdercoat dreams on a spray paint budget.
I forgot an after pic, but all these got the spraypaint treatment.
Yeah my alternator is disgusting, but works fine. I didn't want to paint it, so I perused the internet in search of a clean up solution that's cheap, DIY, and won't kill the charging wizardry within. My local ACE hardware patron lead me to the best thing he could think of... the $4 wire wheel!
Whoah! It did polish it a bit more than I'd like, but I can live with it. I'm not a bling bling kind of guy, but I do like things clean. But wait, there's more!
Up next was my throttle body assembly. I know, looks like it's seen 15 winters.
Corrosion be gone!
Somehow, I forgot to take a pic of the timing belt reassembly. I promise I'll get better at this, still not used to pulling out the DSLR every stage. I also painted the alternator bracket. Toyota somehow thought they needed to design that piece to withstand a hiroshima bomb, and it weighs over 14 pounds. Seriously, 14 lbs, I think that's more than the alternator. RacerX makes a lightweight version at 2lbs, but also $230. Again, spray paint budget for now.
Also in our tour around the new/old powerplant, the turbo. It's a CT21 billet version. Only has about 1000 miles since the last rebuild! The motor should be good for around 300whp, we will find out later this summer when I get it on the rollers.
Here's the refreshed motor put mostly back together (minus throttle body). I'm using this as an opportunity to do a mild tuck and clean. I know, it's still super messy on this side, but I'm adding an aftermarket catch can, eliminating throttle body coolant lines, building cleaner fuel supply and return, and all sorts of little details I will bore you with later. The engine should look much cleaner when in the car.
Up next, we start pulling the new car apart. MUUUUAHHHHAHAHHHHAHAHHAHA Ok, sorry, stay tuned.