Archive for May 2010

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Carbon Fibre Lexus Day 3

Today we started working on stripping the V8 engine and just got the cam covers and inlet manifold off when a delivery guy walked down my drive with a big box with HSD on it. They we're pretty cheap coilovers and not the set I'd ultimately go with on the final car but okay meanwhile whilst trying to get the bodywork to line up on the car. First thing I noticed unlike the BC racing coilovers (which I was going to get originally) is the top mounts are not adjustable. which means I have to get different arms etc to adjust the camber. My friend Byron was around to help out for the day so we got the back of the car up on axle stands and removed the stock IS200 suspension. Definetely took the two of us and after we fought with the car a bit the suspension came off. Here is the stock IS200 rear suspension vs the HSD Coilovers. As you can see the spring is flipped.. The car sits a lot lower now and barely any moment in the car. I will refit the carbon fibre kit today, I think at the back I need it lower by at least another 50mm and the front by 20mm to get it to sit right, I'll have another play with the suspension tomorrow to see if I can get the car any lower. Only annoying problems is when we jumped on the back of the boot there is a knocking sound on the passenger side rear shock so I'm going to have to take it all apart together and figure out what is knocking. [autoviewer id=11 width=580 height=420 ]

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Carbon Fibre Lexus Day 2

Made some good progress on the Lexus project car today. Removed both the rear door skins and the side impact bars. I used an air chisel making it relatively simple to remove the skins and a cone cutter to remove the welds that holds the side impact bars. Removing the door skins and the side impact bars will provide a significant weight saving as the door bars alone weigh at least a kilo. Once they were removed I also fitted the rear arches with the rear bumper removed. A significant amount of work needs to be done to remove all the arch to allow the ride height of the car to be dropped to suit the kit. At the front I need about 100mm, at the back it's almost 200mm. I spoke to Kam @ Driftworks and ordered a set of Lexus IS 200 HSD Coilovers which I'm going to be fitting tomorrow and "slamming" the car as low as possible to work out how much of the original arch needs to be removed. I don't want to tub the arches as it'll mean I won't be able to go into Club Class @ Time Attack and have to run with the pros which on it's first outing and with teething problems isn't a good idea.

A good friend of mine called Ray from RMS Jap Works came round this evening and is going to help with some of the fabrication work needed for the front bonnet and welding up the rears when I get to that point. He's done some fabrication work for me before and I highly recommend him. I've slightly jumped ahead of the game buying the Coilovers before the engine is in and before I've worked a lot of the other problems out, but I wanted to get the aesthetics of the car done first. Even if this doesn't end up being the coilovers I end up using for the car longterm I have a nice IS300 which would benefit from a lower stance on coilovers Amazing when you look at the difference of the car it's already starting to take shape and it's only the second day I've been working on it solid. Have to move the petrol fuel cap, the n/s carbon fibre arch goes right over where the oem petrol cap is located so this will need to be moved. Tomorrow I'll be working on the front doors retaining more of the original door to ensure the door handles function correctly. [autoviewer id=10 width=580 height=420 ]

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Carbon Fibre Lexus

With the GTR running insane amounts of power and achieving the quarter mile times I set out for, I've been looking for a more challenging build to take circuit racing, and eventually onto Time Attack next year. Owning an IS300 (2JZ-GE) as my daily I kept a close eye on the Lexus IS on the LOC and MY.IS forum. On Driftworks I saw that Martin was selling the full carbon fibre wide arch kit for his Time Attack Lexus. In terms of the engine, with a monstrous car like this, a 2ltr or even a 3ltr wouldn't do it justice. So after doing some research I decided on the 1UZ-FE engine. This is the Toyota V8 engine used in the Lexus LS400 and Toyota Soarers. It has 250bhp and 260lb/ft in stock. With some very simple upgrades can be pushed easily to 400bhp without even taking the engine apart. Throttle bodies alone gives you an extra 25%, and forced induction can take you up to 400bhp without any issues. The difficulty is sourcing the gearbox, conversion adaptors, driveshafts etc. Luckily I've been speaking to Roger @ Thor Racing who has been giving me tons of advice on what I need to get the V8 into my IS body shell. Since my IS300 is absolutely mint I set out to find a cheaper donor car and one of my sponsors GTBitz who has been supplying me with parts for my GTR gave me his own Manual IS200 to use as a base car at a really cheap price, it had under 60k on the clock. The only downside is that the car is Green! but with so much of the car being replaced for carbon fibre it will be a challenge to find any green when I'm done. Within the first weekend the bonnet, front wings and bumper were stripped off the Lexus and the wide arch kit was quickly fitted. Last weekend we stripped the interior out. The interior was tanned colour, so anyone who thought of the colour scheme Green and Tan leathers really needs there eyes checked it was hideous! Please feel free to leave any comments below! [autoviewer id=9 width=560 height=420 ]

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Engine Misfire @ 1.6 Bar boost - Ignition Systems

After getting all the fuel system complete on the GTR. The car went on to the Dyna Pack at TDI's in Lakeside to see what the power output would be. After a few runs the car was misfiring above 1.6 bar, we took the spark plugs out and inspected the Splitfire coil packs and they look practically brand new. At first I thought it was down to the voltage draw from the two extra Bosch 044's in the boot of the car (which incidentally make some serious noise!) but it wasn't. So the voltage was checked and it was operating within safe margins it didn't drop below 12v.The Splitfires are actually able to fire on really low voltage e.g. 10v which is good for cold starts and the GTR which only gets driven on occasion. So I've been looking into many alternative options for my GTR. With anything if it fails I do as much research as possible to find out why it has failed and look at ways of upgrading it so it doesn't fail again. We are planning on fitting Nitrous on the GTR to help with its serious amounts of lag which is frustrating but as soon as the Turbo comes all is forgiven! Project GTST looks like it runs standard coilpacks with an ignition amplifier (according to the spec list) and the r33 GTR by Sumo Power runs a bespoke Do-Luck ignition system which has 6 individual coil packs located above the inlet cam overs. I will try and find the pictures. Doing my research I haven't found people are running similar power upgrades to me so I'm on my own. So far what I've discovered is that I have 3 potential routes right now

1. Replace the splitfires with splitfires - easy option about £400
2. Use LS1 coilpacks and two bosch igniters from an Audi TT - This is a TDI special cocktail - £???
3. Use an uprated coil pack e.g. MSD ignitions or Accel

I'm favouring option 3 at the moment and continuing to do research.  Accel have some serious gear fox example~: This works out to £43 a coil but they are seriously big coilpacks so I need somethng a little smaller. The above is designed to power all 6-8 cylinders not just one cylinder so probably on the excessive side! I'll update this post when I make a final decision but if you've had any experience with a serious ignition coil pack upgrade feel free to comment.