gv1.3
Admin
ToyotaGTturbo.com Newsletter edition 4
Introduction
So where do we start?
You may have noticed it has been quite a while since the last newsletter, for that we apologise. The idea of a regular newsletter is fantastic but I don’t think any of us realised how busy things were going to get over the last couple of months.
I have received a lot of queries via PM as to when the next newsletter will be available and its great to see that it was enjoyed by some of you guys - with that in mind we have been furiously hiring staff and sorting out the forums so some aspects require less manual moderation, a list of some of these changes will be at the bottom of the newsletter for those who like to read about that stuff.
So here it is the latest TGTT.com newsletter... I hope it was worth the wait and I want to encourage you all to submit your articles to toyotagtturbo@gmail.com - each article picked will receive 50 reputation points for the author.
In this edition we have features from Texx and Starlet_Sam, offers on tires, lights and oils. We have an interview with a long term Supra owner, an article from the oilman, the engine tuner, the IT expert, info on competitions and upcoming events... wow... it got so big it wouldn’t all fit in one post!!
I hope this makes up for the missed editions,
Let’s get on with it!
Drive Safe,
Dylan
The Monthly Interview
INTERVIEWER: Dylan
INTERVIEWEE: Pete - Moderator for the MKIV Supra Owners club
Ever wondered what a Supra is like to drive? the highs? the lows? and everything in between - In an effort to bring you interesting and informative interviews we have a long term supra owner onboard for the interview this month - Read on!
Welcome to the Toyotagtturbo.com Newsletter interview Pete, have you any experience of the Starlet GT or Glanza?
I've had no hands on experience of Toyotas little rocket, but they've come onto my radar a few times. Envy do a lot of Supra work and Gaz there has a really nice one. I see the odd one around, but they're pretty rare. I tried to convince one of my employees to buy one as he wanted "something faster". Alas, he bought a Golf instead.
What made you make the move to a Supra?
I bought my first MkIV Supra 7 years ago, it was a beautiful Black NA. The reason I chose this was for several reasons. The obvious one - it looked seriously cool! Also it was unbeatable value for money. It cost me about £7k with low mileage and superb performance (compared to what I was used to).
My main reason was that I'd previously had a few euro hot hatches and they we're utterly unreliable, probably down to my own abuse as much as anything. The Japanese car scene was really starting to take off back then so I though I'd try out the rumoured steadfast Japanese reliability. Thankfully it turned out to be a well deserved and true reputation.
The MkIV Supra itself was also quite a technical accomplishment at it's time of design (first ones sold in 1993) with nothing that could really touch it in the price range.
Did you go for a UK spec car or an imported Jap model?
Good condition, sensible mileage, genuine UK Supras are very rare and command a high premium. I wasn't willing to shell out the extra money just for heated seats, glass headlights and some dildos on the front (the affectionately named headlight washers). There are a few other unique differences which us train-spotting type enthusiasts would notice but I won't bore you with them all. (larger injectors, bonnet scoop, 5th central ABS sensor, etc)
There are a number of variances of JSpec Supras from a version with cloth seats, smaller brakes, no ABS, slightly spongier suspension through to the top of the range ones with leather interior, active spoiler, larger brakes, LSD, larger wheels, Bilstein shocks and cruise control.
For many the ultimate version is the post '97 facelift VVTi engine model and it was this particular model that I hankered for in a rare Royal Sapphire Pearl colour with most of the extras. These VVTi versions were only available in Japan as Toyota (will Lexus in fact) stopped selling them in the UK in 1995. One finally came up for sale 80 miles away from me, I drove up the night it appeared in Autotrader and agreed to buy it there and then. As a bonus the dealer didn't realise the rarity of the car so I got it for a nice price too!
What would you recommend looking out for when choosing a Supra?
I've attached a PDF of a buying guide one of our members did, this covers all the points to look out for when buying. Just use your common sense and look for the usual things like coloured exhaust smoke, noisy engines, leaking crank seal (expensive one to do that is!). My best advice is to go out and see lots of them to get a flavour - don't go be blown away by the first one you see!
BHP figures are mostly nonsense varying wildly from test to test so pay no heed to them. Oddly, some cars seem to just go better than others - even with the exact same spec, so it's essential to test drive a few.
If a Supra has had regular oil changes and servicing then they're good hundreds of thousands of miles. Chris Wilson (a highly recommended Supra specialist in Shropshire and Official Club Trader) had a customer with one that did 300,000 miles and still ran perfectly.
Inevitably as time goes on and the price of them comes down you find a lot of people buy them but can't afford (or be bothered) to maintain them properly. You have to beware as there are a lot of bad examples out there. Many with poorly made and badly fitted replica fibre glass body kits to cover crash damage or look "cool", then painted on the cheap. It's soul destroying what some people do with them.
Having said that there are still plenty of amazing examples out there which have had lots of money spent on them with high quality components - you'll usually not go wrong with one from a club owner. Naturally these usually are more expensive but generally there's less to go wrong and you'll have a wad of receipts and service information to go with it.
Watch out for unscrupulous importing specialists. I shan't name companies, but there are some out there with consistently appalling stock.
Japanese cars generally have a lower mileage, but don't always believe a freshly imported 15 year old car has only done 30,000 miles. BIMTA mileage is nice as is a copy of the official auction sheet (but that's rare).
You CAN still bay a bargain at the dock auctions in this country if you know what you're looking for, but if you fancy picking one out of the auctions in Japan use a reputable importer - there are a few in the club which have people in Japan who hand pick fine examples and will give you all the costs up front.
Are they as thirsty as everyone says?
Not as thirsty as many.
It depends how you drive, at the end of the day a 3 litre turbo engine at full throttle is going to drink fuel whatever car you put it into.
The subject raises itself on many occasions on the club forum and people report anything from 18 to 30 mpg depending upon NA/TT/Mods motorway/city driving.
£80 to fill the tank is getting painful as my daily driver though.
There is a huge amount of info on the MKIV Supra website with lots of very individual cars - If budget was not an issue what would you do to a stock Supra TT?
You're correct, on the www.mkivsupra.net owners club there is masses of invaluable information. Technical docs, official manuals, service guides, member created guides on everything from oil types, changing valve stem seals through to complete single conversions. It's really quite phenomenal the club spirit that we have with members that are so helpful and knowledgeable. I've never known a car club like it.
If budget wasn't an issue? That's a tricky one as there is A LOT of nice kit out there and plenty of conflicting opinions. Similarly there's a lot of tuner junk out there - even from the big names. I'm sure we could start a bar brawl in 30 seconds with a handful of club members with that question!
Personally I wouldn't be interested in building a drag car, it'd have to be a nice all round street and track car.
I'd like to start out with an official TRD wide body car, I prefer the stock look. However there are only a handful of these factory built ones about. The bonnet would have to go with a Stout carbon fibre one in replacement. This is proper full C/F which is very light, not the cosmetic stuff layered onto fibreglass that 99% of carbon bonnets are made of. The standard Supra bonnet is made of aluminium and is very light already - most aftermarket bonnets do not save you much, if any weight.
Volks/Rays wheels are very attractive, light, built to specification and high quality. I'm sure I could find a bespoke Magnesium wheel manufacturer if I looked hard. There are a lot of junk wheels out there manufactured cheaply, heavy and completely the wrong offset. Reducing the rolling weight of a wheel is incredibly important for performance and so often overlooked in favour of looks. That's another one for the buying guide.
I think Top Secret came out with some particularly nice LED rear lights recently. That'd finalise the cosmetic stuff.
Then it would be over to a suspension specialist like Chris Wilson to sort out some proper custom modifications as simply sticking on some wider wheels on a TRD kit isn't really a proper solution (naughty Toyota!). He sorted out some Nitron custom made triple adjustable race dampers for some R34s recently which sounded good (they should do at £8k a set!)
Suitable upgrades to the rest of the drive train like larger floating disc brakes, TRD diff, carbon prop would naturally follow. Some kind of Titanium exhaust to save weight.
Motec Sport Dash Logger (SDL) with a an Innovate LM2 AFR reader. That'd keep most of the monitoring in check. Only problem is with that is that you'd need to make a custom dash, but hey, money is no object so lets build a custom carbon fibre dash. Who does Aston Martin interiors?
It'd be really great to build an engine with some of those new variable vane turbos, but this is uncharted territory and would require a very good mapper and a proper ECU like the Motec ones to do this properly. You don't need 100's of BHP to have a well sorted and fast Supra - my main concern would be drivability through the whole rev range and reliability.
Basically I'd want a lot of specialised, custom race bits which aren't generally available.
I have Racelogic Traction Control on mine at the moment - it's very good for those moments when you least expect the car to bite or it's wet. Highly recommended and at £500 I consider it as an insurance policy.
I'm not a technical genius myself so I can't list you a complete spec of what injectors, main bearings and caps I'd go for. I'd leave that in the hands of an expert.
Then a 15" 1500 Watt sub in the boot.....nah I'm just kidding.
What do you like most about the Toyota Supra?
Value for money. You just can't beat it. That and the owners club of course!
Skyline is a close second in my book, but they're no where near as pretty.
Have you had any reliability issues or are they like most Toyotas?
None - touch wood.
I've had three MkIVs now and they've all been utterly bullet proof. Of course, they've all had a full service as soon as I've had them and well maintained. Also I'm only running Basic Performance Upgrades (BPU). That's decat, exhaust, Fuel Cut Defender and a few gauges. Air filters are a waste of time as the standard box design is very effective at drawing cold air.
Is it possible to purchase one and leave it stock or is the temptation to mod just too much?
BPU is too tempting, for just a few hundred quid you can release the beast within and about 50 bhp.
It's getting to the point now where a nice stock MkIV is rare and quite desirable.
What is the most surprising thing you have learned about the Supra since you got one yourself?
I would expect most people would answer this question with "the performance". It is quite staggering if you've never driven anything similar, I was really very apprehensive when I first drove a TT - and that's after I built my own Tiger Super Cat (Lotus 7 type car) so I'm used to wild rear wheel drive cars.
Cost of running is surprising too - it's way lower than you would expect with OEM parts still readily available from Toyota, many tuners and also the far east. The odd part costs silly money but the daily wear and tear stuff is no more than an upmarket family car.
A lot of people seem to compare the TT Supra and TT RX7 - would you ever consider an RX7?
I really liked the RX7 and went some way to buying one. What put me off was the smaller cabin and horror rebuild stories.
What model of MKIV Supra would you recommend?
Any of them - you really can't go wrong. Most parts are interchangeable so it's easy to retro fit an active spoiler for example as the looms are all the same.
If you're new to rear wheel drive then the NA is a good starting point - I'm glad I did it that way round.
What would your advice be to a GT/Glanza owner considering making the leap to a Supra?
Other than the above, join the club, use the search facility and read a lot to get familiar with Supras.
Attend a few local meetings - the guys are always happy to talk about their cars. I'm sure you'll find they'll have an interest in yours too.
If you buy one, drive it with respect. We've sadly lost two young members in the last 12 months who have died through crashing theirs. You'll soon learn that it's not worth the risk driving too fast or challenging other cars at the lights, (it gets boring winning all the time anyway!) ;-)
Thanks,
Pete
MkIVSupra.net Moderator
Thank you to you Pete for a great response to our interview - Pete's car is below....
you can check out more pictures of his particularly fine example here CLICK ME
Check out a huge amount of Supra info on www.mkivsupra.net
The Supra buyers guide is available here http://dylan.paunix.org/tgtt/Supra buying guide.pdf
-----------------------
Classifieds Review - Missed a bargain??
This month has been really busy for the classifieds section, with loads of great parts coming up for sale at great prices!
Our classifieds section recives a huge amount of traffic each month, with alot of sales being made, so the team thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of the best sales that have been made!
monka has been selling some very rare items this month at very good prices.
He has put up for sale a rare set of toyota optional extra door cards with speaker pods and a rare boot mat, the door cards dont come up very often but monka put them up for sale at just £45! unbelivably these have't sold yet! but the boot mat did at just £50 and was in mint condition!
Affy sold a jam ECU this month at a good price of £450 delivered, these come up every now and then and are very popular with GT and GLANZA owners wanting to run a hybrid turbo as its basically a plug and play unit that is pre mapped for 1 bar boost, very effective and does a good job!
There is also loads of awesome parts for sale that have't sold yet like cornish glanzas HKS F-con full kit at a steal of a price at £310 delivered!
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20657
Not to mention Kons top mounted TDO5, completely different to most turbo setups out there being top mounted! looks a brilliant bit of kit and is well worth the asking price in my opinion!
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20595
keep up the good selling, there majority of members have been doing a great job of reading the rules and using the sales template.
nice work!
Dan_ep82
Terry (Texx) submitted this useful info on engines
Where An Engine's Power Comes From
The power to work an engine comes from igniting petrol or diesel fuel. Burning these fuels by themselves does not create sufficient power to work an engine. But if the fuel is made into a fine spray, like an aerosol spray, and mixed with air, then it will explode with considerable force if ignited.
An air / petrol mixture has to be ignited by an electrical spark from a spark plug, but an air/diesel mixture can be self ignited when it is compressed. When an air and fuel mixture is ignited in a combustion chamber rapidly expanding gases are created. See diagram below. These gases push down on a piston contained within a piston cylinder. Connected to the piston is a connecting rod which transfers the downward movement to a crankshaft. And just like a cyclist's legs pushing down on pedals causing them to turn, so the connecting rod causes the crank shaft to turn.
Most engines introduce the air fuel mixture and expel the burnt gases by what is known as a 4 -stroke cycle.
1. The air and fuel has first to be put in to the engine this is known as INDUCTION
2. It is then compressed (because it burns more efficiently that way) - COMPRESSION
3. It is then ignited by a spark from the spark plug causing it to expand and push the piston down and produce POWER
4. Finally the burnt gases then have to be expelled from the combustion chamber - EXHAUST
Induction Stroke
The inlet valve is opened, the exhaust valve is closed. The piston moves downwards, and atmospheric pressure pushes the air/petrol mixture into the combustion chamber above the piston. As the induction stroke continues, and the piston moves down, the chamber size increases allowing maximum mixture in.
Compression Stroke
The inlet valve closes, sealing the chamber completely. The piston starts to move upwards, compressing the air/fuel mixture. Compression continues until the piston reaches the top of its stroke and the mixture is at its highest pressure.
Power Stroke
Both valves remain closed and the spark is produced from the spark plug. The burning gases expand and press down on the piston with great force. The piston travels down to the bottom of the cylinder to complete the power stroke. (Refer to ‘Timing the Spark’).
Exhaust Stroke
The inlet valve remains closed, the exhaust valve opens. The used gases, still under some pressure from the burning action, are forced out, assisted by the rising piston, and disposed of through the exhaust system. On completion of the exhaust stroke a new cycle starts. The cycle continues while the engine is running.
Compression Ratio
Compressing the air/fuel mixture produces considerably more power. By using a complete stroke to fill the cylinder and another stroke to compress the mixture, the pressure built up on firing is greater, and the high pressure lasts longer because there is more fuel to burn. More fuel means more energy; more pressure means more force behind the energy being delivered.
The amount that the mixture is compressed is called the Compression Ratio. This is described as:
The volume inside the cylinder when the piston is at the start of the compression stroke, compared with the volume when the piston is at the end of that stroke.
The diagram above shows that:
Volume 1 is the volume of the cylinder at the start of compression.
Volume 2 is the volume of the cylinder at the end of compression.
If volume 1 was 320 cc and volume 2 was 40 cc, then the compression ratio would be:
320 divided by 40 = 8
The compression ratio = 8:1
Compression ratio is one factor that determines the amount of power that an engine will produce. The higher the ratio (within limits), the more power can be produced from a given engine.
Pistons and Cylinders
The engine block is cast in one piece and is most commonly iron, although aluminium blocks are becoming more common. Apertures are left in the casting for the piston cylinders. Piston cylinders can be fitted with liners. After a lot of engine use wear can occur in the walls of liners causing loss of compression and power. When this occurs the liners are replaced. Liners take several forms. ‘Dry’ liners are the most common, so-called because they are not in touch with the water of the engine cooling system. ‘Wet’ liners have the upper part of their walls surrounded by the cooling water passing through the passages in the engine block; they are therefore efficiently cooled. Short liners, are dry liners fitted only a quarter or a third of the way into the engine block.
Pistons have several grooves into which split rings, known as piston rings, are fitted. These ensure a tight seal for the piston against the liner or cylinder wall. There is always a small gap in a ring when it is fitted and if these gaps were in line there would be loss of compression, so it is usual to evenly space the gaps round the piston at 120° intervals.
Engine Wear
When engine piston rings or liners are subject to wear, the oil which lubricates the engine, can get through the worn areas into the combustion chamber. Once in the combustion chamber the oil will burn with the air/fuel mixture producing blue, smoky exhaust gases.
Timing the Spark
The spark must occur at the precise moment the mixture is ready to be ignited. When the spark occurs it is necessary to know the precise position of the crankshaft.
The timing of the spark is set so that it occurs just before the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, known as top dead centre (TDC). This is because the air fuel mixture needs time to ignite, burn and develop the power required. However, during certain driving conditions, engines will perform better if the timing is earlier (advanced) or later (retarded).
On older engines the advance / retard was achieved by mechanical methods. On modern engines sophisticated sensors constantly monitor a range of engine conditions and more precisely adjust the timing to suit the operating conditions.
Valves and Camshafts
To contain the pressures of burning air and fuel, cylinders must be sealed tight. But the air/ fuel mixture must be introduced into the combustion chamber and the burnt (exhaust) gases must be let out. This is achieved using inlet and outlet valves usually mounted at the top of the combustion chamber (see the diagram on the next page.
The stems of the valves fit into valve guides (close-fitting 'tubes') in the cylinder head, so that they are positioned correctly when they slide up and down. The sealing faces on the 'mushroom' ends are usually at 45° in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. The style of the head and stem can vary. An example of a valve is shown below.
These seals are very important. A bad seal between either the inlet or exhaust valve and where it 'seats' in the head will allow gases to escape from the combustion chamber, resulting in loss of power.
The valves are held shut by powerful springs, usually coiled round the outside of the valve stem. The bottom of a spring rest on the cylinder head and the top presses against a retainer on the stem of the valve.
To open the valve it is simply pushed down against the spring pressure. There are three main ways of doing this as shown in the diagrams below.
Most modern engines have valves opened by overhead camshafts. Valve opening may be by two general methods:
Direct OHC - Cams on a rotating camshaft work directly on a tappet (known as a bucket tappet) which sits directly on the valve stem.
OHC - The camshaft controls pivoted levers which rest on the valve stem.
Tappets are often known as thrust pads. An advantage of OHC engines is that the complete head of the engine, with camshaft, levers, springs and valves, can be removed in one piece. This allows easy access to valves, cylinders and pistons.
On modern engines valve adjustment is not required. Hydraulic tappets automatically adjust as the engine warms up and cools down to ensure correct full closure of each valve. These are filled with oil that presses the exterior and interior sections of the tappets outwards, so that the tappet is always in contact with both operating surfaces.
Cambelts
OHC engines became possible through the development of internally toothed cambelts which allowed the replacement of chain drives from the crankshaft.
The main advantages of cambelts are:
• They are quieter.
• They require no lubrication so can be mounted externally.
Because of the length of cambelts, which reach from the crankshaft to the top of the engine, systems have an ‘idler' pulley wheel to ensure the correct tension in the belt.
Multivalve Engines
It is increasingly more common for high efficiency engines to use more than two valves per cylinder. More valves per cylinder allows the air/fuel mixture to be introduced evenly into the combustion chamber and allows greater compression ratios to improve engine efficiency. To drive these extra valves an additional camshaft is required.
Valve Timing
The spark plug has to spark at the right time to burn the air/fuel mixture, so the valves are set to open and close exactly to ensure they coincide with the 4-stroke cycle.
Common engines open the valves sufficiently to allow the correct air/fuel mixture into the combustion chamber in the time available.
In high performance high revving engines, for example on performance marine engines, there is only a very short time to get the air/fuel mixture through the gap opened by the valve (known as lift). In these vehicles the valve lift is greater to allow a greater volume of air fuel mixture in, in the time available to produce the power required.
Valve Clearances
Engine temperatures can vary dramatically from cold starting to normal operating temperature. Engine parts expand and contract with these temperature changes. If there was no allowance for these changes the tight seal between the valve and the combustion chamber could slacken and leak. This would cause loss of compression in the engine, reducing power.
It could also be dangerous - hot exhaust gases could enter the air/fuel inlet valve and ignite fuel outside the combustion chamber. This is called ‘blowback’.
On most modern engines with hydraulic tappets adjustment is not necessary because the mechanism automatically accounts for expansion.
Older pushrod type engines and OHC engines maintain a small clearance in their mechanisms to allow for this expansion. Handbooks give the recommended settings for the inlet and exhaust valves - the exhaust valve gets hotter and therefore expands slightly more.
Typical OHC Engine
Turbocharger
A turbocharger can be used to increase the air intake pressure so that the cylinders can more efficiently be filled with air during the intake stroke, thus increasing the volumetric efficiency of the engine.
The Turbocharger uses the energy from the exhaust gases to drive its turbine and the air compressor rotor.
Diagnostics and Repair Techniques
Engine performance can be affected by components out of adjustment or by wear. Early detection of these will sustain the life of the engine and stop any further damage that might result in engine failure.
There follows some of the common symptoms and their cause:
Rattling
This is usually a symptom of wear in the ‘little end’ bearing. This bearing lies where an engine piston is connected to its connecting rod. This is demonstrated in the diagram below. Replacing a little end requires disassembly of the engine.
Tapping
A rapid tapping sound from the top of the engine usually indicates that there is too much ‘tappet clearance’ between the valve stem and rocker. Tappet clearance is there to allow for expansion of components as the engine warms up. If the gap is too small the valve will not ‘seat’ properly and maintain a good seal. If the gap is too large the valve will not open sufficiently to allow air/fuel mixture in or exhaust gases out. Pushrod and rocker systems require regular checking and adjustment. OHC systems with fewer moving parts need less adjustment and some require the camshaft and tappets to be dismantled to achieve this. Modern engines with hydraulic tappets need no valve adjustment.
Knocking
Often known as ‘pinking’, knocking is caused by pre-ignition of the air-fuel mixture, i.e., ignition is too soon. This can be caused by an overheated engine, a ‘hot spot’ in the cylinder, a fault in the engine timing, or the use of the low octane fuel. Pre-ignition produces shock waves that can cause serious engine damage. Checking the ignition timing and that the correct octane fuel is used, are the first steps in diagnosis of this condition.
Rumbling
A deep rumbling sound usually indicates wear in the ‘big end’ bearings that are situated where the piston’s connecting rod is attached to the crankshaft. Replacing these requires disassembly of the engine.
Misfire
Engine misfire is often most obvious when a vehicle is under hard acceleration. It can be caused by a breakdown of the spark plugs, the coil, or mechanical problems Faulty spark plugs can be identified through visual inspection. If this is not conclusive a good plug should be used to substitute in turn each of the suspected plugs and the engine run. When the faulty plug is substituted, engine performance should return to normal. If the spark plugs are not faulty diagnostic procedures to check the coil should be followed. A compression test is required if the suspected fault is mechanical (see below).
Exhaust Smoke
This is usually an indicator of worn piston rings. Because of the reduced effectiveness of the seal between the piston and piston cylinder wall, excessive engine oil can seep into the combustion chamber and burn with the air fuel mixture producing smoke from the exhaust. Replacing these requires disassembly of the engine.
Compression Test
Compression tests are carried out to test the effectiveness of the components sealing the combustion chamber (valves, piston rings) and the integrity of the engine block. The compression of each cylinder can be checked using a compression gauge inserted into the spark plug holes. The pressures measured should be compared with those in the relevant Shop Manual.
Note: Because of the large differences in compression ratios between petrol and diesel engines, different compressions gauges are used.
Loss of compression between two adjacent piston cylinders would indicate a crack in the engine block, or a leaking cylinder head gasket. Loss of compression in a single cylinder would indicate poor valve seating or worn piston rings. These can be identified by squirting oil into the cylinder and carrying out a further compression test. The oil will seal the piston ring seal, so if the compression is normal the rings are probably worn. However, if the compression remains low it is likely that the valve seating is at fault. Some loss of compression might result from a leaking head gasket but this is usually indicated by a rise in the temperature of the engine coolant as exhaust gases leak into it. If the compression is too high the piston head and cylinder head should be checked for a build up of carbon deposits.
Events
Past Events
JapFest 08
Japfest 2008 was held at Castle Coombe. And I am pleased to say the members were out in force. With just short of 40 starlets on our stand it was a nice attendance by the members of the site.
It was a great day and luckily the rain held off and kept the track nice and dry for the FWD’s. Many of you would have spotted the odd EP here and there on the track. I would like to say a big thank you for everyone who made it there. And a big thank you for behaving so well and leaving the stand in the condition we arrived
For anyone who hasn’t viewed the pictures and video’s they can be found in this thread here -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=16878
Japshow 08
Japshow 08 has passed us by and we was lucky enough to have Sammie AKA *starlet_babe* organise this for the site.
The stand was full and the weather held up for the day. Many starlets made it up the famous Santa Pod quarter mile strip to show what the EP’s can do. Again big thank you for the members representing TGTT.com proudly at the shows. And a BIG thank you to Sammie for taking Japshow on board
Anyone wishing to have a look over the thread here it is -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=19212
Forthcoming Events
Trax 08
Anyone wishing to attend trax show which is held at Silverstone please see the following thread. We are hoping to have a nicely numbered club stand and to spot many of the members cars out around the famous Silverstone circuit.
Tracktime has already been booked to ensure that we don’t lose out. Clubstand spaces can still be allocated and paid for up until mid August. For more information click here -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=10077
Herts/Beds/Bucks Meet
Anyone living nearby those area’s and fancy meeting up with a few fellow members off the site. Please see this thread below. The meet will be held on the 10th August.
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=19882
Japan North (northwest)
Anyone living nearby the Wigan area and fancies attending a Jap car show should see this thread. Jamie has organised this himself to raise money for charity. Entrance fee is a donation of your choice and there will be many Jap car clubs attending to show off their motors. This event is being held on the 17th August.
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=18034
Essex RR day
Anyone wanting to attend a Rolling Road day and is situated near Essex should keep an eye on this thread started by Ricky. He’s mid sorting out a RR day for the members in that area, anyone wanting more info please contact Ricky
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20597
The Volvo Drift King AKA Starlet_Sam on the Pains and Gains of selling a GT
I have been on these forums for almost 4 years years now, and the owner of a GT for 2 and a half, although the car has been in the family for 3 years. My dad originally bought it as a bit of fun, and it was a great fresh import. It wasn't the cleanest, but it was nice and had character. 6 months later it was mine and the fun began. Alas, the time has come when I'm ready to move on and get something else, hopefully more fun and great to drive, it's a Eunos Roadster Turbo.
It all started 6 months ago when I asked an importer how much a decent Eunos Roadster would cost, a really nice one with a turbo. It was 2 days later he came back with a perfect one and a very cool price, but I couldn't raise the deposit in time so that ship sailed very quickly. Since then it has been 6 months of bolt on kits, which doesn't appeal to me. Unfortunately the GT has to go to make way and make funds for this. I originally put it up for sale way back in February hoping that someone would be interested in it and would go quick quick, i wanted £3.5k, which i thought was reasonable price for a car that has a lot of mods, it was running a hybrid ct9, E-Manage Blue and OC309 clutch. The car had a few troubles but nothing major and nothing to worry about. Over 2 months down the line I still had no interest in it, not even a single U2U or phone call and so the tough decision was made to break it for performance parts and sell the car off standard. It took a fair few hours of work but in the end I had enough parts to clutter the porch of my girlfriends house and fair cause for her to nag me about it everyday. To be honest I think I was really lucky, the forum had a lot of members with spare cash for their cars and I had some desirable parts at decent prices. I ended up going from noone interested in the car to a lot of people wanted all sorts of parts from my car, i should have taken out shares in DHL while I was sending all these parcels out!
Now, I did have one main worry about doing this which was that i would be stuck with a near standard car that wouldn't shift either but again Lady Luck was on my side, I had jokingly said to my mate (known as “Starlet_Sams_Mum” on the forums – bastard!) that he should buy my car off me and on Saturday I had a call from him saying that he would be at mine shortly to have a closer look at it. Now it seems that the car will be going to (hopefully) a good home this coming weekend, and a healthy amount of cash will be put in my back account. I will really miss the car if I'm honest and I do ask myself why I'm selling it, but got to think of the car that will be sailing it's way around the world to me.
All in all I am happy with the way things have panned out, I have technically ended up with over £5k for a 92 GT, and will still get to see the old girl every once in a while and I know my mate will be enjoying it for years to come starting with the long trip to Le Mans. It shows that during the current market you don't have to settle for a price that is way less than the car is worth, do yourself a favour and really consider if you could benefit from stripping parts off, I know noone wants to do it but it makes great financial sense, someone gets a fresh canvas to start with and a lot of fellow members can benefit from great second-hand parts with healthy price tags. It was hard to do, but well worth it for me.
(submitted by Sam a couple of months ago - but well worth the read I am sure you will all agree)
Tire Special For TGTT.com Members
We are delighted to announce that we have teamed up with EIRETYRES.com who supply all of your favourite rubber at some of the best prices around.
Eiretyres.com is the home of low tyre prices for cars, 4x4's and vans with fitting service throughout Ireland and the UK!
By quoting your member ID you will receive an extra 3% off your order!
Given that eiretyres prices are already some of the best available this is another great way to save some of your hard earned to put toward your next mod!
Project of the year
Hello to all members,
with the Project of the month being a great success the staff and i decided we could do one better so here it is the inaugural Project of the year. This is a two week long vote with all of the contenders being the last years project of the month winners to crown an all out project of the year. Included in this is a very generous prize for the winner sponsored by some of the traders on the site as well as a year’s free membership and having their project stickied at the top of the Members car forum, the first and second runner ups also receive prizes. This will no doubt be a hotly contested and should have an equally hot project that wins it. Details will follow soon.
Good luck to all of the eligible lucky ones.
Franza1
Tuning tips from the Engine Tuner
This is the second installment from enginetuner.co.uk and opens up the discussion on forced induction - When you have read this article why dont you go and discuss it here -> http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=21439
Now over to the engine tuner...
Forcing the issue?
Forced induction has been around almost as long as the internal combustion engine.
In the normally aspirated engine, you can only get more power out by increasing the amount of airflow through the engine, then adding the correct amount of fuel to it.
The amount of power is limited by what can be sucked into the engine on the intake stroke. If you want to move up the power ladder, you either have to fit a larger engine, or persuade your original engine to flow more air. Designers quickly realised that forcing air into the engine can radically improve power output. Supercharging works by using an engine driven compressor to pressurise air in a plenum chamber. Turbo charging uses an exhaust gas driven turbine attached to a compressor to achieve the same thing. It’s all about cylinder fill, and basically, the more you can stuff in there, as long as it hangs together, the more power you can get out of it.
In practice, a supercharger will tend to produce more power throughout the rev range, adding more and more until the peak flow is reached. The effect is to produce a generally flat power curve, adding power gradually. The downside is the fact that the engine has to drive the compressor, and loses some power in doing so. The turbo appears to give free power, since it uses waste exhaust gas, although the exhaust flow is somewhat restricted by the turbine itself, and has therefore a limited power output at peak revs. A turbo on a road car will produce more power overall than a supercharger, and will certainly give more torque in the mid range relative to peak power, but a well sized supercharger with a large engine takes some beating, witnessed by the drag racing fraternity, who regularly boast over 3000 bhp from top fuel cars.
The main benefit from turbo charging has been the rise of the smaller engined ( 1.3 to 2 litre average ) road cars, the benefit being good performance with reasonable economy, taking advantage of the wide range of power outputs available.
Tuning is a breeze with modern turbo cars, enabling amazing power outputs from relatively small engines, assuming the effect of reducing reliability targets with increasing power is taken into account! Just raising the boost pressure a bit gives instant results, although steps have to be taken to eliminate manufacturer’s limits fairly early on. The men in suits try to make the product “idiot proof” and of course along come we idiots to try and get around it.
Like anything else, there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things, some “cheats” can be effective, but others bring disaster in the form of broken engines.
The big killer is “det” or detonation, an unhealthy condition where heat build up can be dramatic in the cylinder, causing melt down of pistons crowns, and premature bearing wear. The causes are amongst others, too much boost, over advanced ignition (or under retarded) weak mixture, or an unchecked build up of charge temperature, where the effect of compressing air (heat) isn’t adequately corrected by intercooling.
The problems arise where the margins built in by the factory are exceeded, without taking steps to improve the situation. An example is what happens to an early Subaru Impreza WRX if you wind the boost up, leaving the titchy top mount intercooler on it, add an FCD to cheat the boost limit system, fit an induction kit, thus compromising the ECU outputs, run it on 95 octane, and then go for it! - Meltdown almost assured.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Making the right choice of components, and ensuring that it’s set up correctly makes all the difference, that, and keeping the power outputs within the limits designed for, will improve the chances of the engine seeing old age.
Bear in mind if you fancy tuning your turbo engine, it’s your choice, and you have to accept that every form of performance tuning carries a risk with it.
However, where’s the fun in not doing it?
www.enginetuner.co.uk
Engine Tuner is Alan Jeffery. Alan started business in 1983 and is a foremost authority in his field.
01752345880
Christy on PC security - Dont wait until it is too late - READ THIS!
Anti-Virus
Well this one is easy for me I only use and only trust one Anti-Virus I recomend and install it on customers computers everyday and best of all its COMPLETELY free. This Anti-Virus is one of the nest in the business and do offer a chargeable version with more features but you wont need it as the free one has all the key features. The Anti-Virus is called Avast and can be download from this URL:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
Download this and register to their site, its take 1 minute. They will send you a registration code in your email, enter this and your away. This code need re-new every 13 months but you will NEVER be charged.
This Anti-Virus is very user friendly e.g when it detects a virus when your downloading It pops-up on full screen and sets an alarm off quite loud.haha. It will tell you if its Maleware etc and give you an option to remove so its simple remove it and dont download again.
I would recomend running a through scan once every week, you can do this while still browsing the internet.
So I hereby announce every Friday as TGTT Virus Scan day.haha. So while your browsing TGTT run your scan
Some Virus are very vicious and can severly harm your computer, they can even DESTROY your hard drive, I dont mean something that a format would fix I mean destroy to a point where the hard drive needs to be replaced. They can destory the sectors on your hard drive, so keep your computer free of them!!
Anti-Spyware
Again there is only one I use and trust, this again is COMPLETELY free and excellent and what it does. This runs very through scans of the hard drive and all files to detect Spyware and never misses. The Anti-Spyware is called Super Anti-Spyware..haha. This can be found at the below URL:
http://www.superantispyware.com/
Download the Free Version for home users, again they have a version that is chargeable its upto you how secur you want to be but for the standard home user the free will will do everything you need. This software is also very user firendly and very easy to start a scan.
It is very important to keep your computer secure especially if you use online banking or buy things through internet websites. Doesnt matter if the internet site is secure and legit, if spywar is on your computer it can record every key type depend what virus you have. So basically it can go in and find your credit details then ay goodbye to your $$$...Simple as that.
I would also recomend investing in a Wireless Router must wireless router have pretty decent firewalls on them so the internet gets filter before it even gets to your computer. They are quite cheap and you could pick up a wireless router and wireless dongle for around £40 for a good one, if you already have a wireless card in your laptop then you can just buy the Wireless Router which you will get for around £30.
When you are settinsg up your wireless router it will give you an option for encryption (Wireless Key) set this to WPA-PSK with TKIP as the authenication, then make up your password this can be anything between 8-64 characters. This encryption is very hard to crack turst me I have tried the reason it is so hard is due to TKIP, this is known as 'Wrapping' basically what it does is it wraps your wireless encryption key and sends out false packets, the way to crack a wireless encryption is you take all the packets sent out and use software to crack the key as each packet will contain a piece of your security key hidden inside it. So with TKIP it send out false packets which then stop the person cracking your password as they have alot of false characters being sent out.
Kepp your computer safe... you dont want to have it infested and not be able to get on TGTT.com now do you??
Introduction
So where do we start?
You may have noticed it has been quite a while since the last newsletter, for that we apologise. The idea of a regular newsletter is fantastic but I don’t think any of us realised how busy things were going to get over the last couple of months.
I have received a lot of queries via PM as to when the next newsletter will be available and its great to see that it was enjoyed by some of you guys - with that in mind we have been furiously hiring staff and sorting out the forums so some aspects require less manual moderation, a list of some of these changes will be at the bottom of the newsletter for those who like to read about that stuff.
So here it is the latest TGTT.com newsletter... I hope it was worth the wait and I want to encourage you all to submit your articles to toyotagtturbo@gmail.com - each article picked will receive 50 reputation points for the author.
In this edition we have features from Texx and Starlet_Sam, offers on tires, lights and oils. We have an interview with a long term Supra owner, an article from the oilman, the engine tuner, the IT expert, info on competitions and upcoming events... wow... it got so big it wouldn’t all fit in one post!!
I hope this makes up for the missed editions,
Let’s get on with it!
Drive Safe,
Dylan
The Monthly Interview
INTERVIEWER: Dylan
INTERVIEWEE: Pete - Moderator for the MKIV Supra Owners club
Ever wondered what a Supra is like to drive? the highs? the lows? and everything in between - In an effort to bring you interesting and informative interviews we have a long term supra owner onboard for the interview this month - Read on!
Welcome to the Toyotagtturbo.com Newsletter interview Pete, have you any experience of the Starlet GT or Glanza?
I've had no hands on experience of Toyotas little rocket, but they've come onto my radar a few times. Envy do a lot of Supra work and Gaz there has a really nice one. I see the odd one around, but they're pretty rare. I tried to convince one of my employees to buy one as he wanted "something faster". Alas, he bought a Golf instead.
What made you make the move to a Supra?
I bought my first MkIV Supra 7 years ago, it was a beautiful Black NA. The reason I chose this was for several reasons. The obvious one - it looked seriously cool! Also it was unbeatable value for money. It cost me about £7k with low mileage and superb performance (compared to what I was used to).
My main reason was that I'd previously had a few euro hot hatches and they we're utterly unreliable, probably down to my own abuse as much as anything. The Japanese car scene was really starting to take off back then so I though I'd try out the rumoured steadfast Japanese reliability. Thankfully it turned out to be a well deserved and true reputation.
The MkIV Supra itself was also quite a technical accomplishment at it's time of design (first ones sold in 1993) with nothing that could really touch it in the price range.
Did you go for a UK spec car or an imported Jap model?
Good condition, sensible mileage, genuine UK Supras are very rare and command a high premium. I wasn't willing to shell out the extra money just for heated seats, glass headlights and some dildos on the front (the affectionately named headlight washers). There are a few other unique differences which us train-spotting type enthusiasts would notice but I won't bore you with them all. (larger injectors, bonnet scoop, 5th central ABS sensor, etc)
There are a number of variances of JSpec Supras from a version with cloth seats, smaller brakes, no ABS, slightly spongier suspension through to the top of the range ones with leather interior, active spoiler, larger brakes, LSD, larger wheels, Bilstein shocks and cruise control.
For many the ultimate version is the post '97 facelift VVTi engine model and it was this particular model that I hankered for in a rare Royal Sapphire Pearl colour with most of the extras. These VVTi versions were only available in Japan as Toyota (will Lexus in fact) stopped selling them in the UK in 1995. One finally came up for sale 80 miles away from me, I drove up the night it appeared in Autotrader and agreed to buy it there and then. As a bonus the dealer didn't realise the rarity of the car so I got it for a nice price too!
What would you recommend looking out for when choosing a Supra?
I've attached a PDF of a buying guide one of our members did, this covers all the points to look out for when buying. Just use your common sense and look for the usual things like coloured exhaust smoke, noisy engines, leaking crank seal (expensive one to do that is!). My best advice is to go out and see lots of them to get a flavour - don't go be blown away by the first one you see!
BHP figures are mostly nonsense varying wildly from test to test so pay no heed to them. Oddly, some cars seem to just go better than others - even with the exact same spec, so it's essential to test drive a few.
If a Supra has had regular oil changes and servicing then they're good hundreds of thousands of miles. Chris Wilson (a highly recommended Supra specialist in Shropshire and Official Club Trader) had a customer with one that did 300,000 miles and still ran perfectly.
Inevitably as time goes on and the price of them comes down you find a lot of people buy them but can't afford (or be bothered) to maintain them properly. You have to beware as there are a lot of bad examples out there. Many with poorly made and badly fitted replica fibre glass body kits to cover crash damage or look "cool", then painted on the cheap. It's soul destroying what some people do with them.
Having said that there are still plenty of amazing examples out there which have had lots of money spent on them with high quality components - you'll usually not go wrong with one from a club owner. Naturally these usually are more expensive but generally there's less to go wrong and you'll have a wad of receipts and service information to go with it.
Watch out for unscrupulous importing specialists. I shan't name companies, but there are some out there with consistently appalling stock.
Japanese cars generally have a lower mileage, but don't always believe a freshly imported 15 year old car has only done 30,000 miles. BIMTA mileage is nice as is a copy of the official auction sheet (but that's rare).
You CAN still bay a bargain at the dock auctions in this country if you know what you're looking for, but if you fancy picking one out of the auctions in Japan use a reputable importer - there are a few in the club which have people in Japan who hand pick fine examples and will give you all the costs up front.
Are they as thirsty as everyone says?
Not as thirsty as many.
It depends how you drive, at the end of the day a 3 litre turbo engine at full throttle is going to drink fuel whatever car you put it into.
The subject raises itself on many occasions on the club forum and people report anything from 18 to 30 mpg depending upon NA/TT/Mods motorway/city driving.
£80 to fill the tank is getting painful as my daily driver though.
There is a huge amount of info on the MKIV Supra website with lots of very individual cars - If budget was not an issue what would you do to a stock Supra TT?
You're correct, on the www.mkivsupra.net owners club there is masses of invaluable information. Technical docs, official manuals, service guides, member created guides on everything from oil types, changing valve stem seals through to complete single conversions. It's really quite phenomenal the club spirit that we have with members that are so helpful and knowledgeable. I've never known a car club like it.
If budget wasn't an issue? That's a tricky one as there is A LOT of nice kit out there and plenty of conflicting opinions. Similarly there's a lot of tuner junk out there - even from the big names. I'm sure we could start a bar brawl in 30 seconds with a handful of club members with that question!
Personally I wouldn't be interested in building a drag car, it'd have to be a nice all round street and track car.
I'd like to start out with an official TRD wide body car, I prefer the stock look. However there are only a handful of these factory built ones about. The bonnet would have to go with a Stout carbon fibre one in replacement. This is proper full C/F which is very light, not the cosmetic stuff layered onto fibreglass that 99% of carbon bonnets are made of. The standard Supra bonnet is made of aluminium and is very light already - most aftermarket bonnets do not save you much, if any weight.
Volks/Rays wheels are very attractive, light, built to specification and high quality. I'm sure I could find a bespoke Magnesium wheel manufacturer if I looked hard. There are a lot of junk wheels out there manufactured cheaply, heavy and completely the wrong offset. Reducing the rolling weight of a wheel is incredibly important for performance and so often overlooked in favour of looks. That's another one for the buying guide.
I think Top Secret came out with some particularly nice LED rear lights recently. That'd finalise the cosmetic stuff.
Then it would be over to a suspension specialist like Chris Wilson to sort out some proper custom modifications as simply sticking on some wider wheels on a TRD kit isn't really a proper solution (naughty Toyota!). He sorted out some Nitron custom made triple adjustable race dampers for some R34s recently which sounded good (they should do at £8k a set!)
Suitable upgrades to the rest of the drive train like larger floating disc brakes, TRD diff, carbon prop would naturally follow. Some kind of Titanium exhaust to save weight.
Motec Sport Dash Logger (SDL) with a an Innovate LM2 AFR reader. That'd keep most of the monitoring in check. Only problem is with that is that you'd need to make a custom dash, but hey, money is no object so lets build a custom carbon fibre dash. Who does Aston Martin interiors?
It'd be really great to build an engine with some of those new variable vane turbos, but this is uncharted territory and would require a very good mapper and a proper ECU like the Motec ones to do this properly. You don't need 100's of BHP to have a well sorted and fast Supra - my main concern would be drivability through the whole rev range and reliability.
Basically I'd want a lot of specialised, custom race bits which aren't generally available.
I have Racelogic Traction Control on mine at the moment - it's very good for those moments when you least expect the car to bite or it's wet. Highly recommended and at £500 I consider it as an insurance policy.
I'm not a technical genius myself so I can't list you a complete spec of what injectors, main bearings and caps I'd go for. I'd leave that in the hands of an expert.
Then a 15" 1500 Watt sub in the boot.....nah I'm just kidding.
What do you like most about the Toyota Supra?
Value for money. You just can't beat it. That and the owners club of course!
Skyline is a close second in my book, but they're no where near as pretty.
Have you had any reliability issues or are they like most Toyotas?
None - touch wood.
I've had three MkIVs now and they've all been utterly bullet proof. Of course, they've all had a full service as soon as I've had them and well maintained. Also I'm only running Basic Performance Upgrades (BPU). That's decat, exhaust, Fuel Cut Defender and a few gauges. Air filters are a waste of time as the standard box design is very effective at drawing cold air.
Is it possible to purchase one and leave it stock or is the temptation to mod just too much?
BPU is too tempting, for just a few hundred quid you can release the beast within and about 50 bhp.
It's getting to the point now where a nice stock MkIV is rare and quite desirable.
What is the most surprising thing you have learned about the Supra since you got one yourself?
I would expect most people would answer this question with "the performance". It is quite staggering if you've never driven anything similar, I was really very apprehensive when I first drove a TT - and that's after I built my own Tiger Super Cat (Lotus 7 type car) so I'm used to wild rear wheel drive cars.
Cost of running is surprising too - it's way lower than you would expect with OEM parts still readily available from Toyota, many tuners and also the far east. The odd part costs silly money but the daily wear and tear stuff is no more than an upmarket family car.
A lot of people seem to compare the TT Supra and TT RX7 - would you ever consider an RX7?
I really liked the RX7 and went some way to buying one. What put me off was the smaller cabin and horror rebuild stories.
What model of MKIV Supra would you recommend?
Any of them - you really can't go wrong. Most parts are interchangeable so it's easy to retro fit an active spoiler for example as the looms are all the same.
If you're new to rear wheel drive then the NA is a good starting point - I'm glad I did it that way round.
What would your advice be to a GT/Glanza owner considering making the leap to a Supra?
Other than the above, join the club, use the search facility and read a lot to get familiar with Supras.
Attend a few local meetings - the guys are always happy to talk about their cars. I'm sure you'll find they'll have an interest in yours too.
If you buy one, drive it with respect. We've sadly lost two young members in the last 12 months who have died through crashing theirs. You'll soon learn that it's not worth the risk driving too fast or challenging other cars at the lights, (it gets boring winning all the time anyway!) ;-)
Thanks,
Pete
MkIVSupra.net Moderator
Thank you to you Pete for a great response to our interview - Pete's car is below....
you can check out more pictures of his particularly fine example here CLICK ME
Check out a huge amount of Supra info on www.mkivsupra.net
The Supra buyers guide is available here http://dylan.paunix.org/tgtt/Supra buying guide.pdf
-----------------------
Classifieds Review - Missed a bargain??
This month has been really busy for the classifieds section, with loads of great parts coming up for sale at great prices!
Our classifieds section recives a huge amount of traffic each month, with alot of sales being made, so the team thought it would be a good idea to highlight some of the best sales that have been made!
monka has been selling some very rare items this month at very good prices.
He has put up for sale a rare set of toyota optional extra door cards with speaker pods and a rare boot mat, the door cards dont come up very often but monka put them up for sale at just £45! unbelivably these have't sold yet! but the boot mat did at just £50 and was in mint condition!
Affy sold a jam ECU this month at a good price of £450 delivered, these come up every now and then and are very popular with GT and GLANZA owners wanting to run a hybrid turbo as its basically a plug and play unit that is pre mapped for 1 bar boost, very effective and does a good job!
There is also loads of awesome parts for sale that have't sold yet like cornish glanzas HKS F-con full kit at a steal of a price at £310 delivered!
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20657
Not to mention Kons top mounted TDO5, completely different to most turbo setups out there being top mounted! looks a brilliant bit of kit and is well worth the asking price in my opinion!
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20595
keep up the good selling, there majority of members have been doing a great job of reading the rules and using the sales template.
nice work!
Dan_ep82
Terry (Texx) submitted this useful info on engines
Where An Engine's Power Comes From
The power to work an engine comes from igniting petrol or diesel fuel. Burning these fuels by themselves does not create sufficient power to work an engine. But if the fuel is made into a fine spray, like an aerosol spray, and mixed with air, then it will explode with considerable force if ignited.
An air / petrol mixture has to be ignited by an electrical spark from a spark plug, but an air/diesel mixture can be self ignited when it is compressed. When an air and fuel mixture is ignited in a combustion chamber rapidly expanding gases are created. See diagram below. These gases push down on a piston contained within a piston cylinder. Connected to the piston is a connecting rod which transfers the downward movement to a crankshaft. And just like a cyclist's legs pushing down on pedals causing them to turn, so the connecting rod causes the crank shaft to turn.
Most engines introduce the air fuel mixture and expel the burnt gases by what is known as a 4 -stroke cycle.
1. The air and fuel has first to be put in to the engine this is known as INDUCTION
2. It is then compressed (because it burns more efficiently that way) - COMPRESSION
3. It is then ignited by a spark from the spark plug causing it to expand and push the piston down and produce POWER
4. Finally the burnt gases then have to be expelled from the combustion chamber - EXHAUST
Induction Stroke
The inlet valve is opened, the exhaust valve is closed. The piston moves downwards, and atmospheric pressure pushes the air/petrol mixture into the combustion chamber above the piston. As the induction stroke continues, and the piston moves down, the chamber size increases allowing maximum mixture in.
Compression Stroke
The inlet valve closes, sealing the chamber completely. The piston starts to move upwards, compressing the air/fuel mixture. Compression continues until the piston reaches the top of its stroke and the mixture is at its highest pressure.
Power Stroke
Both valves remain closed and the spark is produced from the spark plug. The burning gases expand and press down on the piston with great force. The piston travels down to the bottom of the cylinder to complete the power stroke. (Refer to ‘Timing the Spark’).
Exhaust Stroke
The inlet valve remains closed, the exhaust valve opens. The used gases, still under some pressure from the burning action, are forced out, assisted by the rising piston, and disposed of through the exhaust system. On completion of the exhaust stroke a new cycle starts. The cycle continues while the engine is running.
Compression Ratio
Compressing the air/fuel mixture produces considerably more power. By using a complete stroke to fill the cylinder and another stroke to compress the mixture, the pressure built up on firing is greater, and the high pressure lasts longer because there is more fuel to burn. More fuel means more energy; more pressure means more force behind the energy being delivered.
The amount that the mixture is compressed is called the Compression Ratio. This is described as:
The volume inside the cylinder when the piston is at the start of the compression stroke, compared with the volume when the piston is at the end of that stroke.
The diagram above shows that:
Volume 1 is the volume of the cylinder at the start of compression.
Volume 2 is the volume of the cylinder at the end of compression.
If volume 1 was 320 cc and volume 2 was 40 cc, then the compression ratio would be:
320 divided by 40 = 8
The compression ratio = 8:1
Compression ratio is one factor that determines the amount of power that an engine will produce. The higher the ratio (within limits), the more power can be produced from a given engine.
Pistons and Cylinders
The engine block is cast in one piece and is most commonly iron, although aluminium blocks are becoming more common. Apertures are left in the casting for the piston cylinders. Piston cylinders can be fitted with liners. After a lot of engine use wear can occur in the walls of liners causing loss of compression and power. When this occurs the liners are replaced. Liners take several forms. ‘Dry’ liners are the most common, so-called because they are not in touch with the water of the engine cooling system. ‘Wet’ liners have the upper part of their walls surrounded by the cooling water passing through the passages in the engine block; they are therefore efficiently cooled. Short liners, are dry liners fitted only a quarter or a third of the way into the engine block.
Pistons have several grooves into which split rings, known as piston rings, are fitted. These ensure a tight seal for the piston against the liner or cylinder wall. There is always a small gap in a ring when it is fitted and if these gaps were in line there would be loss of compression, so it is usual to evenly space the gaps round the piston at 120° intervals.
Engine Wear
When engine piston rings or liners are subject to wear, the oil which lubricates the engine, can get through the worn areas into the combustion chamber. Once in the combustion chamber the oil will burn with the air/fuel mixture producing blue, smoky exhaust gases.
Timing the Spark
The spark must occur at the precise moment the mixture is ready to be ignited. When the spark occurs it is necessary to know the precise position of the crankshaft.
The timing of the spark is set so that it occurs just before the piston reaches the top of the cylinder, known as top dead centre (TDC). This is because the air fuel mixture needs time to ignite, burn and develop the power required. However, during certain driving conditions, engines will perform better if the timing is earlier (advanced) or later (retarded).
On older engines the advance / retard was achieved by mechanical methods. On modern engines sophisticated sensors constantly monitor a range of engine conditions and more precisely adjust the timing to suit the operating conditions.
Valves and Camshafts
To contain the pressures of burning air and fuel, cylinders must be sealed tight. But the air/ fuel mixture must be introduced into the combustion chamber and the burnt (exhaust) gases must be let out. This is achieved using inlet and outlet valves usually mounted at the top of the combustion chamber (see the diagram on the next page.
The stems of the valves fit into valve guides (close-fitting 'tubes') in the cylinder head, so that they are positioned correctly when they slide up and down. The sealing faces on the 'mushroom' ends are usually at 45° in the cylinder head above the combustion chamber. The style of the head and stem can vary. An example of a valve is shown below.
These seals are very important. A bad seal between either the inlet or exhaust valve and where it 'seats' in the head will allow gases to escape from the combustion chamber, resulting in loss of power.
The valves are held shut by powerful springs, usually coiled round the outside of the valve stem. The bottom of a spring rest on the cylinder head and the top presses against a retainer on the stem of the valve.
To open the valve it is simply pushed down against the spring pressure. There are three main ways of doing this as shown in the diagrams below.
Most modern engines have valves opened by overhead camshafts. Valve opening may be by two general methods:
Direct OHC - Cams on a rotating camshaft work directly on a tappet (known as a bucket tappet) which sits directly on the valve stem.
OHC - The camshaft controls pivoted levers which rest on the valve stem.
Tappets are often known as thrust pads. An advantage of OHC engines is that the complete head of the engine, with camshaft, levers, springs and valves, can be removed in one piece. This allows easy access to valves, cylinders and pistons.
On modern engines valve adjustment is not required. Hydraulic tappets automatically adjust as the engine warms up and cools down to ensure correct full closure of each valve. These are filled with oil that presses the exterior and interior sections of the tappets outwards, so that the tappet is always in contact with both operating surfaces.
Cambelts
OHC engines became possible through the development of internally toothed cambelts which allowed the replacement of chain drives from the crankshaft.
The main advantages of cambelts are:
• They are quieter.
• They require no lubrication so can be mounted externally.
Because of the length of cambelts, which reach from the crankshaft to the top of the engine, systems have an ‘idler' pulley wheel to ensure the correct tension in the belt.
Multivalve Engines
It is increasingly more common for high efficiency engines to use more than two valves per cylinder. More valves per cylinder allows the air/fuel mixture to be introduced evenly into the combustion chamber and allows greater compression ratios to improve engine efficiency. To drive these extra valves an additional camshaft is required.
Valve Timing
The spark plug has to spark at the right time to burn the air/fuel mixture, so the valves are set to open and close exactly to ensure they coincide with the 4-stroke cycle.
Common engines open the valves sufficiently to allow the correct air/fuel mixture into the combustion chamber in the time available.
In high performance high revving engines, for example on performance marine engines, there is only a very short time to get the air/fuel mixture through the gap opened by the valve (known as lift). In these vehicles the valve lift is greater to allow a greater volume of air fuel mixture in, in the time available to produce the power required.
Valve Clearances
Engine temperatures can vary dramatically from cold starting to normal operating temperature. Engine parts expand and contract with these temperature changes. If there was no allowance for these changes the tight seal between the valve and the combustion chamber could slacken and leak. This would cause loss of compression in the engine, reducing power.
It could also be dangerous - hot exhaust gases could enter the air/fuel inlet valve and ignite fuel outside the combustion chamber. This is called ‘blowback’.
On most modern engines with hydraulic tappets adjustment is not necessary because the mechanism automatically accounts for expansion.
Older pushrod type engines and OHC engines maintain a small clearance in their mechanisms to allow for this expansion. Handbooks give the recommended settings for the inlet and exhaust valves - the exhaust valve gets hotter and therefore expands slightly more.
Typical OHC Engine
Turbocharger
A turbocharger can be used to increase the air intake pressure so that the cylinders can more efficiently be filled with air during the intake stroke, thus increasing the volumetric efficiency of the engine.
The Turbocharger uses the energy from the exhaust gases to drive its turbine and the air compressor rotor.
Diagnostics and Repair Techniques
Engine performance can be affected by components out of adjustment or by wear. Early detection of these will sustain the life of the engine and stop any further damage that might result in engine failure.
There follows some of the common symptoms and their cause:
Rattling
This is usually a symptom of wear in the ‘little end’ bearing. This bearing lies where an engine piston is connected to its connecting rod. This is demonstrated in the diagram below. Replacing a little end requires disassembly of the engine.
Tapping
A rapid tapping sound from the top of the engine usually indicates that there is too much ‘tappet clearance’ between the valve stem and rocker. Tappet clearance is there to allow for expansion of components as the engine warms up. If the gap is too small the valve will not ‘seat’ properly and maintain a good seal. If the gap is too large the valve will not open sufficiently to allow air/fuel mixture in or exhaust gases out. Pushrod and rocker systems require regular checking and adjustment. OHC systems with fewer moving parts need less adjustment and some require the camshaft and tappets to be dismantled to achieve this. Modern engines with hydraulic tappets need no valve adjustment.
Knocking
Often known as ‘pinking’, knocking is caused by pre-ignition of the air-fuel mixture, i.e., ignition is too soon. This can be caused by an overheated engine, a ‘hot spot’ in the cylinder, a fault in the engine timing, or the use of the low octane fuel. Pre-ignition produces shock waves that can cause serious engine damage. Checking the ignition timing and that the correct octane fuel is used, are the first steps in diagnosis of this condition.
Rumbling
A deep rumbling sound usually indicates wear in the ‘big end’ bearings that are situated where the piston’s connecting rod is attached to the crankshaft. Replacing these requires disassembly of the engine.
Misfire
Engine misfire is often most obvious when a vehicle is under hard acceleration. It can be caused by a breakdown of the spark plugs, the coil, or mechanical problems Faulty spark plugs can be identified through visual inspection. If this is not conclusive a good plug should be used to substitute in turn each of the suspected plugs and the engine run. When the faulty plug is substituted, engine performance should return to normal. If the spark plugs are not faulty diagnostic procedures to check the coil should be followed. A compression test is required if the suspected fault is mechanical (see below).
Exhaust Smoke
This is usually an indicator of worn piston rings. Because of the reduced effectiveness of the seal between the piston and piston cylinder wall, excessive engine oil can seep into the combustion chamber and burn with the air fuel mixture producing smoke from the exhaust. Replacing these requires disassembly of the engine.
Compression Test
Compression tests are carried out to test the effectiveness of the components sealing the combustion chamber (valves, piston rings) and the integrity of the engine block. The compression of each cylinder can be checked using a compression gauge inserted into the spark plug holes. The pressures measured should be compared with those in the relevant Shop Manual.
Note: Because of the large differences in compression ratios between petrol and diesel engines, different compressions gauges are used.
Loss of compression between two adjacent piston cylinders would indicate a crack in the engine block, or a leaking cylinder head gasket. Loss of compression in a single cylinder would indicate poor valve seating or worn piston rings. These can be identified by squirting oil into the cylinder and carrying out a further compression test. The oil will seal the piston ring seal, so if the compression is normal the rings are probably worn. However, if the compression remains low it is likely that the valve seating is at fault. Some loss of compression might result from a leaking head gasket but this is usually indicated by a rise in the temperature of the engine coolant as exhaust gases leak into it. If the compression is too high the piston head and cylinder head should be checked for a build up of carbon deposits.
Events
Past Events
JapFest 08
Japfest 2008 was held at Castle Coombe. And I am pleased to say the members were out in force. With just short of 40 starlets on our stand it was a nice attendance by the members of the site.
It was a great day and luckily the rain held off and kept the track nice and dry for the FWD’s. Many of you would have spotted the odd EP here and there on the track. I would like to say a big thank you for everyone who made it there. And a big thank you for behaving so well and leaving the stand in the condition we arrived
For anyone who hasn’t viewed the pictures and video’s they can be found in this thread here -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=16878
Japshow 08
Japshow 08 has passed us by and we was lucky enough to have Sammie AKA *starlet_babe* organise this for the site.
The stand was full and the weather held up for the day. Many starlets made it up the famous Santa Pod quarter mile strip to show what the EP’s can do. Again big thank you for the members representing TGTT.com proudly at the shows. And a BIG thank you to Sammie for taking Japshow on board
Anyone wishing to have a look over the thread here it is -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=19212
Forthcoming Events
Trax 08
Anyone wishing to attend trax show which is held at Silverstone please see the following thread. We are hoping to have a nicely numbered club stand and to spot many of the members cars out around the famous Silverstone circuit.
Tracktime has already been booked to ensure that we don’t lose out. Clubstand spaces can still be allocated and paid for up until mid August. For more information click here -
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=10077
Herts/Beds/Bucks Meet
Anyone living nearby those area’s and fancy meeting up with a few fellow members off the site. Please see this thread below. The meet will be held on the 10th August.
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=19882
Japan North (northwest)
Anyone living nearby the Wigan area and fancies attending a Jap car show should see this thread. Jamie has organised this himself to raise money for charity. Entrance fee is a donation of your choice and there will be many Jap car clubs attending to show off their motors. This event is being held on the 17th August.
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=18034
Essex RR day
Anyone wanting to attend a Rolling Road day and is situated near Essex should keep an eye on this thread started by Ricky. He’s mid sorting out a RR day for the members in that area, anyone wanting more info please contact Ricky
http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=20597
The Volvo Drift King AKA Starlet_Sam on the Pains and Gains of selling a GT
I have been on these forums for almost 4 years years now, and the owner of a GT for 2 and a half, although the car has been in the family for 3 years. My dad originally bought it as a bit of fun, and it was a great fresh import. It wasn't the cleanest, but it was nice and had character. 6 months later it was mine and the fun began. Alas, the time has come when I'm ready to move on and get something else, hopefully more fun and great to drive, it's a Eunos Roadster Turbo.
It all started 6 months ago when I asked an importer how much a decent Eunos Roadster would cost, a really nice one with a turbo. It was 2 days later he came back with a perfect one and a very cool price, but I couldn't raise the deposit in time so that ship sailed very quickly. Since then it has been 6 months of bolt on kits, which doesn't appeal to me. Unfortunately the GT has to go to make way and make funds for this. I originally put it up for sale way back in February hoping that someone would be interested in it and would go quick quick, i wanted £3.5k, which i thought was reasonable price for a car that has a lot of mods, it was running a hybrid ct9, E-Manage Blue and OC309 clutch. The car had a few troubles but nothing major and nothing to worry about. Over 2 months down the line I still had no interest in it, not even a single U2U or phone call and so the tough decision was made to break it for performance parts and sell the car off standard. It took a fair few hours of work but in the end I had enough parts to clutter the porch of my girlfriends house and fair cause for her to nag me about it everyday. To be honest I think I was really lucky, the forum had a lot of members with spare cash for their cars and I had some desirable parts at decent prices. I ended up going from noone interested in the car to a lot of people wanted all sorts of parts from my car, i should have taken out shares in DHL while I was sending all these parcels out!
Now, I did have one main worry about doing this which was that i would be stuck with a near standard car that wouldn't shift either but again Lady Luck was on my side, I had jokingly said to my mate (known as “Starlet_Sams_Mum” on the forums – bastard!) that he should buy my car off me and on Saturday I had a call from him saying that he would be at mine shortly to have a closer look at it. Now it seems that the car will be going to (hopefully) a good home this coming weekend, and a healthy amount of cash will be put in my back account. I will really miss the car if I'm honest and I do ask myself why I'm selling it, but got to think of the car that will be sailing it's way around the world to me.
All in all I am happy with the way things have panned out, I have technically ended up with over £5k for a 92 GT, and will still get to see the old girl every once in a while and I know my mate will be enjoying it for years to come starting with the long trip to Le Mans. It shows that during the current market you don't have to settle for a price that is way less than the car is worth, do yourself a favour and really consider if you could benefit from stripping parts off, I know noone wants to do it but it makes great financial sense, someone gets a fresh canvas to start with and a lot of fellow members can benefit from great second-hand parts with healthy price tags. It was hard to do, but well worth it for me.
(submitted by Sam a couple of months ago - but well worth the read I am sure you will all agree)
Tire Special For TGTT.com Members
We are delighted to announce that we have teamed up with EIRETYRES.com who supply all of your favourite rubber at some of the best prices around.
Eiretyres.com is the home of low tyre prices for cars, 4x4's and vans with fitting service throughout Ireland and the UK!
By quoting your member ID you will receive an extra 3% off your order!
Given that eiretyres prices are already some of the best available this is another great way to save some of your hard earned to put toward your next mod!
Project of the year
Hello to all members,
with the Project of the month being a great success the staff and i decided we could do one better so here it is the inaugural Project of the year. This is a two week long vote with all of the contenders being the last years project of the month winners to crown an all out project of the year. Included in this is a very generous prize for the winner sponsored by some of the traders on the site as well as a year’s free membership and having their project stickied at the top of the Members car forum, the first and second runner ups also receive prizes. This will no doubt be a hotly contested and should have an equally hot project that wins it. Details will follow soon.
Good luck to all of the eligible lucky ones.
Franza1
Tuning tips from the Engine Tuner
This is the second installment from enginetuner.co.uk and opens up the discussion on forced induction - When you have read this article why dont you go and discuss it here -> http://www.toyotagtturbo.com/showthread.php?t=21439
Now over to the engine tuner...
Forcing the issue?
Forced induction has been around almost as long as the internal combustion engine.
In the normally aspirated engine, you can only get more power out by increasing the amount of airflow through the engine, then adding the correct amount of fuel to it.
The amount of power is limited by what can be sucked into the engine on the intake stroke. If you want to move up the power ladder, you either have to fit a larger engine, or persuade your original engine to flow more air. Designers quickly realised that forcing air into the engine can radically improve power output. Supercharging works by using an engine driven compressor to pressurise air in a plenum chamber. Turbo charging uses an exhaust gas driven turbine attached to a compressor to achieve the same thing. It’s all about cylinder fill, and basically, the more you can stuff in there, as long as it hangs together, the more power you can get out of it.
In practice, a supercharger will tend to produce more power throughout the rev range, adding more and more until the peak flow is reached. The effect is to produce a generally flat power curve, adding power gradually. The downside is the fact that the engine has to drive the compressor, and loses some power in doing so. The turbo appears to give free power, since it uses waste exhaust gas, although the exhaust flow is somewhat restricted by the turbine itself, and has therefore a limited power output at peak revs. A turbo on a road car will produce more power overall than a supercharger, and will certainly give more torque in the mid range relative to peak power, but a well sized supercharger with a large engine takes some beating, witnessed by the drag racing fraternity, who regularly boast over 3000 bhp from top fuel cars.
The main benefit from turbo charging has been the rise of the smaller engined ( 1.3 to 2 litre average ) road cars, the benefit being good performance with reasonable economy, taking advantage of the wide range of power outputs available.
Tuning is a breeze with modern turbo cars, enabling amazing power outputs from relatively small engines, assuming the effect of reducing reliability targets with increasing power is taken into account! Just raising the boost pressure a bit gives instant results, although steps have to be taken to eliminate manufacturer’s limits fairly early on. The men in suits try to make the product “idiot proof” and of course along come we idiots to try and get around it.
Like anything else, there is a right way and a wrong way of doing things, some “cheats” can be effective, but others bring disaster in the form of broken engines.
The big killer is “det” or detonation, an unhealthy condition where heat build up can be dramatic in the cylinder, causing melt down of pistons crowns, and premature bearing wear. The causes are amongst others, too much boost, over advanced ignition (or under retarded) weak mixture, or an unchecked build up of charge temperature, where the effect of compressing air (heat) isn’t adequately corrected by intercooling.
The problems arise where the margins built in by the factory are exceeded, without taking steps to improve the situation. An example is what happens to an early Subaru Impreza WRX if you wind the boost up, leaving the titchy top mount intercooler on it, add an FCD to cheat the boost limit system, fit an induction kit, thus compromising the ECU outputs, run it on 95 octane, and then go for it! - Meltdown almost assured.
It doesn’t have to be that way. Making the right choice of components, and ensuring that it’s set up correctly makes all the difference, that, and keeping the power outputs within the limits designed for, will improve the chances of the engine seeing old age.
Bear in mind if you fancy tuning your turbo engine, it’s your choice, and you have to accept that every form of performance tuning carries a risk with it.
However, where’s the fun in not doing it?
www.enginetuner.co.uk
Engine Tuner is Alan Jeffery. Alan started business in 1983 and is a foremost authority in his field.
01752345880
Christy on PC security - Dont wait until it is too late - READ THIS!
Anti-Virus
Well this one is easy for me I only use and only trust one Anti-Virus I recomend and install it on customers computers everyday and best of all its COMPLETELY free. This Anti-Virus is one of the nest in the business and do offer a chargeable version with more features but you wont need it as the free one has all the key features. The Anti-Virus is called Avast and can be download from this URL:
http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html
Download this and register to their site, its take 1 minute. They will send you a registration code in your email, enter this and your away. This code need re-new every 13 months but you will NEVER be charged.
This Anti-Virus is very user friendly e.g when it detects a virus when your downloading It pops-up on full screen and sets an alarm off quite loud.haha. It will tell you if its Maleware etc and give you an option to remove so its simple remove it and dont download again.
I would recomend running a through scan once every week, you can do this while still browsing the internet.
So I hereby announce every Friday as TGTT Virus Scan day.haha. So while your browsing TGTT run your scan
Some Virus are very vicious and can severly harm your computer, they can even DESTROY your hard drive, I dont mean something that a format would fix I mean destroy to a point where the hard drive needs to be replaced. They can destory the sectors on your hard drive, so keep your computer free of them!!
Anti-Spyware
Again there is only one I use and trust, this again is COMPLETELY free and excellent and what it does. This runs very through scans of the hard drive and all files to detect Spyware and never misses. The Anti-Spyware is called Super Anti-Spyware..haha. This can be found at the below URL:
http://www.superantispyware.com/
Download the Free Version for home users, again they have a version that is chargeable its upto you how secur you want to be but for the standard home user the free will will do everything you need. This software is also very user firendly and very easy to start a scan.
It is very important to keep your computer secure especially if you use online banking or buy things through internet websites. Doesnt matter if the internet site is secure and legit, if spywar is on your computer it can record every key type depend what virus you have. So basically it can go in and find your credit details then ay goodbye to your $$$...Simple as that.
I would also recomend investing in a Wireless Router must wireless router have pretty decent firewalls on them so the internet gets filter before it even gets to your computer. They are quite cheap and you could pick up a wireless router and wireless dongle for around £40 for a good one, if you already have a wireless card in your laptop then you can just buy the Wireless Router which you will get for around £30.
When you are settinsg up your wireless router it will give you an option for encryption (Wireless Key) set this to WPA-PSK with TKIP as the authenication, then make up your password this can be anything between 8-64 characters. This encryption is very hard to crack turst me I have tried the reason it is so hard is due to TKIP, this is known as 'Wrapping' basically what it does is it wraps your wireless encryption key and sends out false packets, the way to crack a wireless encryption is you take all the packets sent out and use software to crack the key as each packet will contain a piece of your security key hidden inside it. So with TKIP it send out false packets which then stop the person cracking your password as they have alot of false characters being sent out.
Kepp your computer safe... you dont want to have it infested and not be able to get on TGTT.com now do you??
