project GT2 - "courtney", like no other.

well as karma would have it, things have balanced out. i have a new straight, gts to work off of. this car has its share of cancer like every 4th gen, but what i like is: it doesnt hide anything, all the damage is clearly visable. dave (st-165-2765) gave this to me to see it go to a better home than the junk yard, this car is totally stripped, except for wheels and engine she is empty. i donated my first gts for parts swapping over everything to this car. so far i have swapped the apex coils from my car on daves struts (wheel bearings were not fucked + better struts) so she sits a bit lower now, i have mocked all the glass (minus the windshield...) to keep the rain out, mocked the hatch and i have painted the bay, i sanded the skin and painted it black, im waiting to drop my new powerplant into it. im using a usdm engine i hauled out of the wreckers. the only usdm parts are the block and head, everything else (including the turbo) are straight jdm. me and my buddy went to daves in good old french land, about a 6h round trip, we had to flat tow it back, cause fucked if i was paying a flatbed. my buddy has a locked rear end in his truck, (welder locked lol) and we blew that up, we wanted to leave at 10 am, be back by nightfall. after going to the local scrappers for spider gears, we were under way at 4pm!! im the pissing rain hahah and his truck has no doors. all the way to renfrew than que, was all in the middle of nowhere lol. . here are some pics:

my new car


dave in the background. . looking good buddy hahah



on the way home, in the middle of f-ing nowhere


the legend and the curse


spare ge

removing the engine in a fun manner...ahahah

in the works of a new suspension,

with apex coils (camber not adjusted)

with the doors from my old 4th gen

glass mocked in place


hatch mocked,

looking like a celi eh team?

as she sits now,


some engine bay photos;




updates will come soon, im back at the college next week, so it may take a while to get new photos, enjoy.

heres a quick update, the other day i cut out the passengers rocker panel. the rocker from my previous celi was actually salvageable...i took the trusty flap wheel to her and cleaned that all up, and took a razor blade and removed all that window glue for the quarter window. oh and you know that annnoying stock lip underneath the bumpers? i never djd like that, so guess what? i cut that out too.... lol heres some pics

window channel


painted channel,

and just cause im such a nice guy, here is a teaser pic of when i had my engine in the other celi...egjoy


well the past few days i have gotten rained out...tis the joy of working in your driveway, heres some pics of the passengers rocker i cut out the other day, i straightened out the seam weld (most people try to lift the car up by the seams, when they rot, you pump the jackand just hear bending lol) my plan is to brace this up with some square tubing, and weld my new rocker on top of it.

the back half,


front half, i cut this rough, because i dont know how much of this panel im going to actully use,


and a side shot,

well here is an update for all of you eager celi lovers out there... im back at my second year of college so i dont have a whole lot of time for court- as a matter of fact i havent even looked at her in over 2 weeks...ive been so busy helping my friends work on there cars...but i put the last two days in on court and here is my results, the trannie i was using was out of a 93 camry, but as i proved in the drive line sec. on this site, the s-53 is the prominate chioce to use due to the high final drive, one prob for all of us turbo guys is.. starter location.. it kinda intercepts a important part... **cough, turbo, cough** so i attempted to make it fit, the bolt holes are there they just need to be widened and drilled and tapped... the starter hole just needs to be cut out with a hole saw.... but as i found the shifting belcrank casting on the case gets in the way of a drill... so the anatural choice was to remove the bell housing... then i got thinking..."dont be dumb..." dont waste time drilling, just swap the bell housings...which is exactly what i did... and learned that trannies are a bitch to get back together...if the top cover was 1, case was 2 and bellhousing was 3. thats the order its suppose to come apart...everything is suppose to sit in the bellhousing and you just lower the case, and assemble... the trannie has a reverse fork pivioting on an arm attached to the bellhousing...it is suppose to go on in the first stages of assembly (when taken apart the right longgggggg way) i was not about to pull out the frigging gear cluster for one damn fork.... it took many choice words and a few attempts but i got that bitch back together. and the most important thing COURT HAS A ENGINE!! ahahah i droped my engine in it tonight. the stock toyota engine mount bolts blew....they are a bitch to get to thread in, so i took my trusty prybar and my hammer and knoced off the shit stock tack welded nuts on the mount brackets. i was late for theory today cause my buddies car just happened to "break down" out in front of the local brofasco....lmfao i got two longer grd 8 bolts with nylock locknuts... so much easier for installation... holy shit...like half the fighting with it... so needless to say my ride has an engine... i need to hit it tommorw on my day off from school to clean and re-paint some spots where the crankpully dug in... and for all you noobies out there, who whine and bitch about having no shops or garages, i did all of this sitting in my driveway in the rain..... and i did it all alone, all my friends were "busy"...thanks alot ya basterds...ahaha dedicated arent i? well heres some pics. enjoy!!!

GT2-----
the camry trannie, that i originally wanted to use

the apart s-53

you can see the reverse fork i mentoined...

my bolts ahaha

when i first lifted my enigne..you can seet the shower curtian i had tapped to it.... thank you holiday inn...lmfao theres already one engine in my place i cant have two...lol the celi was a bitch to move... and i live on a main st... thats all i need is that rolling out in to traffic....ahahaha, you can see my two piece trannie.... i decided to paint the s-53... now i gota get around to painting the camry bellhousing lmfao


bolted in!!!!!




my ericsson does not take the best pics.... good little phone though....
GT2-------

heres the cdm gte i got out of the junkers, now didnt i make this look good????


heres a quick update. i got bored the other day and didnt feel like doing homework.. so i took both my retractor assemblys and tore them down (headlights) sanded them all and painted them. i also rebent mt fenders to fit the door.. and painted them along with my front bumper. heres a few shots...



and a little tease for you guys..






GT2----

yeah lol shes coming along, i have everthing just mocked into place. this is solely to keep my landlord happy. you should see when i work on it, fenders, bumper, hood it all comes off lol... i painted the cowl the other day, now i need to get some stuff to seal up the sunroof rectrator assm. with me being a full time student and poor as the creepy hobo outside wal-mart... it makes it very hard to work on my ride... all i have is my tools and my mind...the rest i have to improvise... you can see in these pics, the conditions i have to work in lol.... one perk of being an auto student, not only can i use the auto shop, i have full access to a machine shop, well heres some better pics i took lol







GT2------
well today i put in the engine harness...can any of you guys find it?? a hero cookie goes to the one who gets it lol...
**keep in mind, all sensors, inj, ect.. are in their proper location**

from the front


the side


other side (kinda a dead give away)


i post up something interesting tonight, i said my ride would make an fe' bay look tight, and i ment it...lmao

GT2----
hey thanks guys, i really put some effort into her, now onto an update, i love to see how everybody maks a big fuss over the "jdm" folding power mirrors. well i was at the junkers today, and found a set on an 85 mr2, they come stock they come stock on it, lol good old cheap toyota....

heres some pics,

heres the beast thay came off of,



and the mirrors,




GT2----

well as for the fairer sex, she didnt mind as much, but she did say "why do you buy those plug in air freshers? your apt smells like an auto shop, a just witingly replyed its fine, you dont even notice it..." that got me cut off for a little while lmao.......and yeah, willies friends do seem to help him out alot, my friends just bitch about the cold and the snow, i just say "quit bitching and pick up the ratchet........" so i end up doing alot of work on my own.... well i have an update, i thought its finally time to reveal my tucked harness job, i started this in the summer when i had half-life, it only seemed fair to carry my work over to this celi. so ive routed all my wiring through the fender, the fuel pres relay, turbo pres. sens, igniter, injector resitor, both fuse blocks have been tucked and moved. and ive extended the harnes over 300 ft, this will cause a lot more electrical resistance, but i have compensated for that, this is not done as of yet, im still cutting and moving sensors. all the connecters i have cut, have all been soldered and wrapped to prevent grounding out. i have decided since this is my bare shell/ project in the making, why should i build it according to toyta? im buliding it how i want. i hated how that clump or wires looked choking the engine bay. so heres a few pics of the progess...

when i started on half life, (actuallly this is about 4 hours into it, there waas just a mass of wires when i started. . .)


this is another half life shot, i have hundreds lol


this is on my celi to be


would you believe i know what every wire does?? lmao



GT2-------

well heres a little update, i picked myself up 500ft of 18g wire from my local electrical store,i have now begun to move the fuse and realy blocks, im runningt them right to the rear of the car (where the bat. will be) simply so they will be out of the way. i sand blasted my throttle body the other day, (ambition finally reared its head lmao) and i got that and painted it black to match my intake mani.. i got a new metal tb gasket straight from my local toyota dealer... so today i went to put on my tb, and realized the tps sensor i moved was an inch too short to mate with the plug...... so out all my tb related and my inj, plugs, and once again, i had to cut the fucking harness open, and re-solder the connector... so iget that all back together and then i had to make myself a cold start inj, gasket. so i just grabbed my gasket paper and fabbed one up. got it all together and i must say, she looks bitchin... heres some pics

the tb,



back


and on my celi.....



GT2----

 

well i chose the 53 due to the fact its better than the rest for top end, i dont have the numbers for the 54.all in well it could be better? there not very easy to find here. the only trannies here are c-52's the 53 gear cluster is identical to the 52, but a higer final drive. this sacrifices some accel, but will give me more in the long run. and with the way this car will be drove, 2-300 rpm may make a big difference.

 

umm.. its kinda hard to say, the chassis is an 88 that i got from dave, but the doors are off my old gts, as well as the vi number. so shes considered an 89.

thank you, im a 2nd year auto student with barley a dime to my name, all i have is my tools and my mind... i think i do alright eh?? progress is definatly slow.... but i do what i can with what i have..

update tonight.... more suprises to come, im heading out to the cold to work on her right now!! lol

 

ok, ask and you shal recieve, heres a much needed court update;
continuing on with my tucked harness job, i have decided to move the fuse and relay blocks to the back of the car where the battery will eventually be placed. i went to my local electrical store and got 500' of 18 g fine strand wire. the stock toyota gauge for most of those connecters is about 20-22g so by using 18g i have compensated for any extra electrical resistance that i may encounter. as for the 14 & 16g wires in the fuse block i have decided to replace them with 10g fine strand to compensate, i have yet to buy my spool of wire cause im simply too poor :'( so it will have to wait till more gainfull oprotunities arise. now i have wanted to install my bulkhead harness for the longest time (to try to get main power working, and possibly start the bitch once more stages have been completed). but there was a problem.. the floor pans, there not in the best of shape, but considering this chassis has like 400k on it im not complaning, i would have had to cut out the more part of the front of the pans, but i cant afford to get a big enough peice of steel to cover it, so i had to make due, i picked the worst spots out of the floor and cut them out and replaced them. on the passengers side, i have to do more work, im using a little dc stick welder, so she likes to burn through rust. there was a little "wedge" if oyu will that kept burning through, so i had to cut out this little sliver of floor beside my patch panel so it looks funny i must say. but untill i get more metal it will have to do. from the floor being rusty it looks very pourus throughout it. i am just going to use some seam sealer to fill it in. this is just a quick fix untill i can actually afford to buy the steel to put two new pans in..i also have cut out the two rear seam welds in the floor pans, but there not going back in untill i get some cash lol oh and btw it dipped down to -15 here last night, made welding very cold.... heres some pics




my 20' braid of wire, all soldered no butt connecters or moiretts

where the stock fuse block would have been, **not done yet***

the pass flor..**notice the wedge peice i had to cut out after welding, because it kept burning through, cause of the rust**

the firewall to pass floor seam, not really there.. but i cant afford to make it go away... sigh...

little paint to prevent rusting

the drivers peice.. holy flapwheel time here omg....

 

im trying to make this car stand out... heres hoping

ive never had a problem getting off those top trim peices, i just put my fingers in the water channel where it meets the roof and pull it down... there shouldnt be any clips holding it in, its just a piece of metal that snaps to the rail, getting in is a bit of a bitch though, cause you have to line the bend up right or you will have such a gap its unreal, as for the quarter window, i used an old e-brake cable, and got it through the glue between the window and the car and slowly "sawwed" the glue so i could take it out. never pry or pull the widow... they tend to break..... lol

 

thanks man.. but sad to say im hitting that point where im losing hope for the car... there is just sooo much to do, when i think of just how muck i have to do, like sanding welding painting, modding, creating.. when you have to make something from nothing its just so hard.... i could probably have it running for about the cost of wire, but even that seems so far away... maybe im just becoming used to seeing it not move... but ill try to keep my hopes up for it and see if i can have this celi like all the other beauties on this site, and not the black sheep its become lol...........

 

i wouldnt say i have lost faith yet... but its taking a beating. working in the frrezzing cold all night puts a dampen on hopes.. this is the farthest extent i have ever gone with a car. like im building it completly from the ground up...and i have to change everything. i could have half assed it and probably had it doing doughnuts by now, but i wanted to create it my way... do things that within a saturated car world, have not been done before... its like i look at the bottom of the mountain, watching people climb, but im never one of them.... well.. thats philosphy for today... lol

 

its just hard to see it sitting there day after day... mn old gt, i could hop in and have fun.. i cant even sit in this beast.. maybe its just a rough day... and i bet i could make your car pass the etest, new o2 sens, new cat, run it on 91 oct, retard your timing a bit, and lean out the fuel mix... and that bitch will pass.. hell we have the e-test equipment at the college.... i know a few tricks to get them to pass

 

quick update tonight, its time enough for me to get my distributor on, so tonight i took apart the two i had, and made one very decent one, i re-set the air gaps oiled up the seals, went outside (its like -20 here) to turn the crank to no.1 tdc on intake, and only to find i have no fucking crank bolt. . . so sadly tonights ceil adventure came to an end. . lol now tommorow i go on the great crank bolt hunt of 08, see if i can get this bitch together.. i have recently re-wired my fuel pressure vsv, and have started to re-design the charging system circuits. .

 

took about 20 minutes...maybe??? it was easy. . . set the air gaps to .04mm and your good

 

you got it.. be up by this evening