Archive for August 2010

1

RB26 powered Lexus / Altezza

From 1UZ-FE Power to RB26

Originally when I purchased the Carbon Fibre Kit, I bought an LS400 V8 1UZ-FE engine. Straight after I ordered myself a set of V8 engine mounts which would allow me to install the LS400 V8 engine with a R154 Gearbox from a Mk3 Supra.

After going to a DWYB day and meeting a Mk3 Supra owner with a 1UZFE (v8) engine, he told me that the R154 was very notchy gearbox and didn't feel good to drive, he's switched to a W58 gearbox and happy with it since. He took me drifting in his V8 Powered Supra and it was great to hear the V8 roar. I was exited at the concept of a V8 but after querying the cost of the transmission, whether it was an R154, or the more expensive Getrag V160 (used in the Supra Twin Turbo) it was looking around the £2.5k - £3k mark for the R154 or £4-5k for the V160. That was for the kit to convert the gearbox and move the gearstick into a suitable location. That's a lot of money for only 30bhp more than the Altezza or IS300 2JZGE Engine.

The V8 is a restrictive engine and needs either Turbo Kit or Throttle bodies to release the engines power, and that again costs a lot of money. Tuning a car with an NA is never cheap.

So sticking to what I know best, I put the V8 up for sale with a full brand new gasket kit on eBay it went within 5 days to a Porsche driver in Scotland, and the same time the engine was picked up and a new R34 GTR RB26 engine arrived.

The engine was sourced from GTBitz who are the main sponsors of this project. The low mileage R34 GTR had a rear end whack and the engine was mint.

The R34 engine unlike the R32 or R33 block comes with better Turbos, and better Cam position sensor which isn't susceptible to interferance like the older R33's.

Here are pics of the new heart to the beast which is the Carbon Fibre Lexus!

The plan is that the engine will remain standard, I need reliable power, so 300-400 bhp is easily achieveable with this engine and will be a lot to handle on a RWD setup.

At the same time I purchased the engine I got myself an RB25DET gearbox, which has the same internals as the 4WD RB26 gearbox, minus the transfer box so can take a lot of abuse.

The next step is to take out the Lexus IS 200 2 litre straight 6 150bhp of crap out and replace it with the Rb26.

As of yet the only company in the world who have done this conversion is www.c-ysports.com :

1

Inspiration behind the Altezza GTR

After reluctantly selling my Porsche Cayenne to settle some debt, I had some money left over and bought a Lexus IS 300. With a car like that a 2JZ-GE, which is the legendary Supra engine minus the twin turbo setup, I spent a lot of time looking at kits etc. If I was going to work on that car, I'd go all out, or I wouldn't bother and look at other cars. With the GTR comign towards it's end in terms of modifications, it was time to look to a new more challenging product. I spotted the full Carbon Fibre Kit for sale on Driftworks. I agreed a price with Martin Ffrench who is a well known drift in Ireland. We met up in Reading services, I handed over the wad of cash and drove home with the full carbon fibre kit. These pictures are what inspired me to go down this route, and work on this well and truly ambitious build.

6

HKS Academy - Rotorstock 7

With uncertaintity about rain and grey clouds covering the sky at 6.30am, we still headed up to HKS Academy at Santa Pod Raceway. Rotorstock 7 was the first place to host the HKS Academy drag event which is a prequel to the HKS drag series. The Team GTR Skyline run at Japshow earlier this year, but didn't get good runs due to a variety of problems with engine misfiring and flying ashtrays. USC 2010, we couldn't run as we had transmission issues, but by Rotostock two weeks after USC 2010 the car was ready to compete.

Currently the two known issues with the car are bad diff ratios, due to the hybrid R34 Gearbox, with R33 diffs and serious amount of lag due to a cracked manifold and a big turbo (HKS T51 Kai) better suited for a 2.8 litre not a 2.6 litre.

I recently got my hands on a NOS kit from ZEX, which was mapped by Sam @ TDI's to help spool up the Turbo and switch off once the Turbo is on boost. My confidence in the Nitrous system was low, due to the solonoid failing in the past and just dumping fuel into the car. On Thursday at TDI's in Lakeside, the car produce 710 WHP, and the results from the map showed an increase in power a lot earlier on in the rev range, reducing the turbo lag.

Unlike normal RWYB it's first over the line, so reaction time is everything. No time to prep, soon as both cars are staged it's green.

So in the Semi Final up against a 10 sec Evo II I flicked the switch to activate NOS Anti-Lag. This made a great 2nd gear boost and pushed me over the finish line at 11.12 secs leaving the Evo behind.

In the Final I was up against an RX7 that was being worked on the night before up until 3am getting ready for the academy. Both of us with ambitions of winning HKS Academy knew that we had to push ourselves and the cars hard to cross that line first. Once your on that startline and you see those lines go green, you don't think about what your doing, you just feel. I punched the car through the gears and went two quickly into 5th instead of 3rd! Within a split second I was back in third and thought that's it - I've lost. I waited for the sound of the rotary to blitz past me, but heard nothing…

After I crossed the line I let the car roll and slowed down waiting for him to come next to me back into the pits. Completely confused wondering what had happend. My excitement was short as I was worried and kept asking around what happend to the guy with the RX7? My friend rushing from the startline to where I was, was shouting broken diff. My opponent had broke his diff launching his car off the start line, running drag slicks with seriously low pressure was too much.

Now it's time to celebrate my first win in a drag racing competition, and after I calmed down I can say I'm well and truly looking forward to the next victory.

Thanks to:

• Warren Meade for trackside support at HKS Academy
• Sam & Shaun at TDI's for mapping the car and setting it up with Nitrous
• Immy at Midlands Exhausts for letting us use the ramp
• Mario for sorting the transmission problems out
• Hom at GTBitz.com for support and advice
• Rick at TrakBak Racing