Its been a while but update on project 'CJN'

cheers! Fair bit of work gone on for sure,kind of two steps back one step forward at times but shes getting there.
Adam,yeah it just made sense to use as much of the BEAMS car as possible,no risks taken here.
I haven't been able to get down there today but Bek has been squirreling away as usual...just the pop up lights to get working,the clutch line had a leak after road testing,and as I don't need a catalytic converter over here because of the law in UK concerning the age of certain cars,he's re done a decat pipe as it had a small 'blow'...no majors,just teething issues.The engine is running sweet as can be though :hurray

 

Sorry Adam,the CAT was part of the deal with Bek to go towards his labour costs,as was the rest of the shell that I didn't need,though there wasn't much of it left anyway,didnt have an interior or rear suspension in the first place LOL.Kept costs right down that way.He also took my REV1 engine and gearbox as P/X

She's not quite home yet,cant seem to find the bloody relay box for the pop up headlights,its about somewhere :roll.Heater needed doing,and the secondary fan to wire in but that's all that's left.Took her for a good drive round the local countryside though,nice power,very smooth,not like turbo powered car delivery just smooth power right the way up to 7000k or so.Deceptive actually,that speedo whizzes right round to big speeds pretty quick!

 

Stop putting ideas in my head Mr Wolf, LOL. Supercharging was something we discussed before the engine even went in ,its the expense mainly....and getting the right kit of course.Be happy with her as she is though,its certainly something that has rarely been done properly in the UK if at all.
He has made the install look really neat,the engine got a lot of attention when it was out of the car,all quality Toyota parts where possible,not bloody cheap either ,including the full gasket set for HG,etc etc,water pump,oil seals,you name it.It was cleaned properly and then VHT painted over several days,no mad colours just a nice smart clean look so it would sit nice in the bay

 

Adam,sorry I forgot to say,ill ask him what he's doing with the CAT,prob speak to him next week as im away for a bit next few days

 

Well ive been able to run the car for a bit now..couple of electrical niggles still to be sorted as the gen4 loom was completely replaced by the JDM 6th gen one.The car woke up and is wondering where its 3rd brake light in the rear spoiler has gone so it illuminates the rear bulb fail light as soon as I hit the brake pedal LOL.Bypass that then.The engine management light comes on after it warms up though.It runs fine,as it should but wondering if its linked to maybe the fact it doesn't have a CAT now,amongst other little variations.Ive tried linking an OBDII reader to the port but it either says 'error' and cant connect and give me a code to give me a clue ,even with a different reader;though ive yet to take it somewhere to try on a more comprehensive diagnostic system.I have been told that some readers don't work well with older JDM codes.Still has the diagnostics port in the engine bay.Is there a way to read codes the old skool way by shorting the ports in it?Doesnt have a T1 port as such so need to know which ones to short to see if I can get a code from the EML light flashes.
Any advice be good.We didn't have the BEAMS clocks so the gen6 loom was grafted into the gen4 connectors to keep the original G4 clocks.Took some work from Bek to make sure the tacho and everything worked as it should,but it all works.In fact the car is f***in awesome actually. :hurray
Pulls like hell from 4 grand right round to redline,smooooth power too.Beams engine is a very clever bit of kit in my opinion and suits a gen4 very well.
Took her to the Japanese Auto Extravaganza with the CCUK club last weekend;attracted a lot of attention,especially as there doesn't seem to have been any UK gen4 BEAMS conversions ,not in the public domain over here anyway.Ill happily be corrected on that fact but either way she's a rare beast in the UK.Picked up a couple of CCUK trophies,best gen4 for third year running which was amazing,, and also a Memorial award dedicated to a sadly passed CCUK member who was a legend with modding cars;making the impossible possible and coming up with ideas most people wouldn't attempt;so CJN was awarded that honour for this year, and very chuffed and honoured I was too,accepted on behalf of myself and Bek who has been the main builder of the project.



She does have her white 5 spokes back on with Toyo Proxes T1-Rs.Had them professionally refurbed and they look awesome now.Nicked the OZ centre caps temporarily LOL







Excuse the mud on the bottom of the car LOL.Pissed with rain 2 days out of three!



Added the custom decal as a bit of a nod to the Eighties style,with a twist.





Great weekend though.Nice to see the gen4s being appreciated,Ady and Ben were there with their cars too,got to show the non-gen4 owners how its done don't we

 

Wow thanks for the reaction!
The wheels are wrapped in 205 tyres with a 45 profile...they're 16 inch Nakajima PIAA racing alloys in 7J I think,cant remember the offset offhand.They are very light actually,well worth the expense having them properly refurbished,scanned and straightened where necessary.
Ultimate Celica? It is to me,but theres so many gen4s out there that I would love to own,on this site and others...but I wouldn't sell my one,no way.Steve collected the CCUK Best Original Celica award and rightly so...my car was always destined to go a different way,it had a mixed history in its time,a bit unloved and neglected but now she's turning into something I cant leave alone
Adam thanks for the tip,need to get this right though so how to do go about the error read again?Is it just the pin you mentioned shorted to earth?

 

Still to totally sort this EML issue,but the car is running brilliantly I have to say....such a good match the Beams and the 162.The car passed its UK 'MOT' last week so is 'legal' :cop for another year...my tester likes my 162 even if it is way too loud LOL
Changed the front reg plate from UK to JDM style,remains to be seen if local police get fussy but im going for the rear one as well and see if I can get away with it.The front looks better IMO but also frees up those sections under the front bumper so the air flows right in.Having no aircon in the way is good too





By the way,Adam particularly how did you route your air feed to the Beams airbox with the gen6 fusebox in there?

 

Me again...I do tend to leave these long gaps dont i.
Car is still going well,done a few small things over the last year,mostly cosmetic although I do now have her handling well as she's sitting on a set of BC 'BR' series adjustable coilovers
Bought brand new,they are for a 1993 Gen5 182;the fronts fit perfectly but the rears had to be modified as the bottom hole didint quite line up.So I had that done properly,added some Whiteline droplinks and camber bolts and she now sits and handles brilliantly,along with the Whiteline rear ARB.Also fitted a Whiteline front strut brace which originally lived in Alwaysidewayz' 165 'Trinity'...



Rear coilovers being modified



In progress..



Once it was all fitted it was off to be set up properly


the difference is amazing,so nice to be able to adjust the stiffness at the twist of a knob.Car handles absolutely brilliant.

Took her to a Dyno day to see how she was running; She ran 179bhp at the fly and 148bhp at the wheels.A little lower than i had hoped,but looking at the graph the AFR drops right off at peak revs;the Beams airbox still had a gap at the entry instead of a proper feed,so its feasible that she's sucking in too much hot air from under the bonnet,she runs rich once shes over 6000RPM as well so it would suggest that she's not breathing right at peak power range,and i reckon that is also affecting optimum power production too,so im fixing that at the moment.



I have the gen6 fusebox/relay on the inner side of the passenger (UK) wing so its hard to connect it through to the resonator box that the standard REV1 engine airbox connected to;however i can get a 57mm diameter pipe in there,so i am currently modifying the Beams airbox to a twin feed cold air system (sounds ever so technical doesnt it LOL)
But i basically need to ensure the engine is being fed plenty of cold air when it needs it,so ive made an adapter plate to fit over the original 'hole' thats in the side of the Beams airbox,and some 2 ply flexible air ducting pipe fits into there,and will eventually be sealed,which in turn runs down into the inner wing to negate the hot air issue;I have also made another feed into the base of the airbox ,the 57mm ducting comes from the front of the car,giving a proper cold air feed,and runs into the box on that underside.This should then form a completely airtight box with twin cold air feeds,should be more than enough for the engine to suck up when the hammer is down to the redline :naughty I'm also hopeful it may help a couple of more horses to appear,at least make that power graph rise up more from 4500rpm when the VVTi opens up fully.I've also been looking at the exhaust,I run a single rear box system from stainless steel i had custom made from cat back (i dont run a cat though ), but the downpipe is one that Bek fitted from a gen6 GT just to get by on;the exhaust fabricator agrees that it isnt totally ideal,plus the Beams downpipe is slightly restrictive,so at some point soon im having a new downpipe system made up(custom manifold is waaaay to expensive!) ,so itll be a nice 2 pipe tubular stainless job,leading into a single pipe that mates to the system they built before.The bracket at the front we're going to move,so there isnt a kink there so the flow of gases runs straight down and out ,will also include a new flexi section.Anyway, airbox;

 

Car is running well with the new cold air intake,exhaust downpipe will be next major outlay. Have just sourced some facelift ST182 calipers,so Im using them with 277mm MTEC dimpled and grooved discs on the front,along with Ferodo DS2500 fast road pads.I also have some HEL braided brake lines to fit too.The Black Diamond gear I run at the the back will stay the same.Hoping ill get a little more bite on braking from the front,hopefully be fitted this week.:fingersx

 

Added a couple more things to the car over the last year,cant believe its been so long since I've been on the forum!

Brake lines and kit got fitted,I was using the Ferodo DS2500 pad setup but didnt get on with them,even though they were supplied as fitting the facelifted 182 caliper kit,I started to get some grinding and vibration under heavy use,and they started to form a 'lip' at the top edge where they weren't sitting on the disc properly,they were too large by 1-2mm.Not happy with that,so I've replaced them with a set of fast road pads I'd had before but I'm looking into other options.I really wanted to fit the front brakes from the ST205 but it meant replacing my wheels as the offset wasnt enough to suit the much larger 205 caliper,and I wasnt prepared to outlay the money for brakes AND complete set of wheels,plus i love the wheels the way they are.

Drivetrain wise,I sourced an S54 gearbox with LSD from another Beams gen6 car,from a trusted guy over on CCUK;so with the added advantage of the limited slip for fast street use,I also invested in a Fidanza lightened flywheel and a full set of ARP fasteners to suit.So happy with the result,the car is even better to drive now.

With that in place,it was time to finally get rid of the temporary Gen6 GT downpipe from the Beams exhaust header ,so it was off to a company called Fast Road Conversions to have a new one made up in stainless steel along with a new flexi section.Speaking to the exhaust builder he agreed a straight pipe design,for better exhaust gas flow and i also had a free flow performance silencer incorporated into the mix,as it was a straight through system to a large rear box before.This was also built by them,so they were happy to rebuild the front section,and mate it to the rear that they had built before and continue the lifetime guarantee with it.Sweet.

S54 box cleaned and painted..





Exedy clutch kit



Fidanza/ARP kit




Box in..



And a set of driveshafts I had made up,utilising gen4 and Gen6.



Custom downpipe built and fitted..





Free flow silencer



Design of the front is now much straighter.



Car is much happier,its extremely responsive,not a flat spot in sight right round the rev range to a 7600RPM cutout. It goes and handles brilliantly,if you've ever been in or against a Honda Civic Type R for example,then thats the point this car is at performance wise.Its a very capable 162.

Been to a few meets and shows along the way since,she's looking good and its just nice to drive something with modern performance and old skool looks. :salut