Been using this forum for long enough I thought I would post up my ride. Taken from my write-up in Ozcelica... And in the Beginning…. I’ve been around GT4’s for a number of years now, having owned a JDM ST185, ADM ST185, part owned another ADM ST185 and a confused ST184 GT2. My previous housemate owned an ST162 and moved on to a ST165. I saw the potential in these things, being a relatively lightweight version of my ST185, with a bit of old school charm a 90’s car just couldn’t have. I also saw it as a challenge, to create something unique, unlike all these Skylines, Supra’s, Soarers, etc. JDM ST185 JDM ST185 - ST162 ADM ST185 BCC Cruise to Lake Wivenhoe Aug 2012 ST165 & ADM ST185 With a little luck and some good timing a ST165 popped up that required a fair amount of work, but was close by. I bought it as an early Christmas present in December 2012, got it home, then began to wonder what I had actually gotten myself into, as you do. It came already converted to a ST205 engine, with the ST185 rear end. But the engine was more fried than Cheech & Chong. The last owner had told me he played chicken with the engine, just thinking it was playing games. He even told me he had filled up the radiator and kept going again and only stopped when he had the gas pedal on the floor and it was going anywhere. He never found out what caused it. After a quick look, I found it was caused by the intercooler piping rubbing on the bottom corner of the aluminium radiator. It would have been pissing out water directly onto the down-pipe. Don’t know how you could possibly miss it. Anyhow, several compression tests later and the highest reading I had out of any of the cylinders was 60psi. So the hunt began for another ST205 engine. Hunting and Gathering I managed to find one from an importer in Redcliffe. I had a look at the engine and discovered it was a WRC edition, which really makes no difference, but will allow easy WI in the future if I decide. I got this engine home and begun cleaning it up and replacing various seals. Definitely the best degreaser I have found is the Diggers brand from Bunnings. With this I cleaned up the engine bay as well. It came up a million times better, removing years of built up dirt and grease. Using Tools Once the engine was clean and prepped, I moved on to installing the Exedy HD clutch and ST205 gears box. Lining the gearbox up was an absolute nightmare. I ended up doing the ‘Silo Method’ to get it on. I would later discover this gearbox is a million times smoother than any of the 185 boxes I had used and well worth the trouble. Once that was together it was time to get it in the car. Anyone who has put one of these engines in knows the unusual angles you need to get them to drop in. After it was in, it was just a matter of bolting everything back together, being lucky enough to already have the correct mounts, this was not a problem. I now have a set of poly engine bushes, front and back and solid aluminium cross member bushes. I connected all the wiring and fired it up… only to discover the water pump was leaking. It was now an epic hunt to find a water pump. Improving Pastures The standard ST205 pump has a different housing to the WRC model, as well as a different number of fins as it is a high flow model. I sourced this from the UK along with a timing belt kit and installed it all in car. It is not overly difficult, just requires patience, like anything with these cars. Plagues and hygiene In the process of removing the main pulley bolt by cranking the engine with a breaker bar attached, I discover the wiring is definitely not up to standard. Whilst trying to remove this bolt, the car started. I had no fuses or relays at all in the main fuse box. This scared the crap out of me, but luckily the breaker bar just dropped off. The car came with a receipt for the wiring being done professionally. I later discover I also do not have working oil pressure, water temp or accurate fuel level. After completing the timing belt and waterpump, I put everything back together and set about fixing the rest of the car. As you can see from the pictures, the interior was rat shit, the paint was faded and there was poorly repaired damage just behind the passengers door. I completely stripped the interior, removed all old underlay, lifted all the wiring and set about scrubbing the entire interior. It was absolutely filthy, but there were no nasty, rusty surprises so I was happy. I then set about cleaning everything that came out before it went back it. All trims got clean back and front, carpets got hosed, soaped and hosed again. As I had with a previous car, I replaced all the old felt/waste underlay with tile underlay. This may seem unusual but it is quite effective and light weight. It is mould and rot resistant and easy to work with. It is not as effective as a dedicated sound deadener, and not as soft and a dedicated foam underlay, but it sure does the job and lighter than both. Grimm Reaper During this process a ST162 became available for a few hundred with a pretty good black interior. So I bought this and decided to take what I needed for my car, replacing parts that were worn or broken. I felt a little bad for doing this though as I bought the car off a lady who had bought it off her father. He had purchased it brand new. It was however extremely handy and went to worthy cause, as the door cards were dead, and many many trims were either broken or a different colour. After I was done I sold this to a mate of mine who had access to all the spare parts I had taken to replace them. Unfortunately it would appear this car was almost out of breath, as a few weeks later it developed a bottom end knock…. RIP Celina..... Grimm Reaper 2 Once the interior was done, I took to driving it around. It still had the original ST185 teins with modified ST165 knuckles. I had remembered a better drive on the BC coilovers in the ST185, and since I still had them, I decided to put them it. I took this on a number of drives up Mt Nebo and Mt Glorious, some with my ex-housemate in his ST165, who had installed the Teins. We were just cruising back down towards the Gap at night. It had been showering earlier, so the road was a little damp. He was a bit of a distance behind me, but since we were just cruising I would always see him at the straights. I got to one straight and he didn’t come around the corner, so I pulled over and waited. Still nothing. I turn around and start heading back up the hill. At the first corner I see him getting out of his car, stopped at the start of the corner. This corner had a guard rail divider through the middle and was marked a 40km/h corner. He had exited the last corner and when he has braked the car has just slide out, straight toward the centre divider. It hit smack bang in the middle of the front bumper. Was only about a cm of dead center. We later found out it had bent the reo and pulled/kink the rails in. I can certainly say it was not his driving. We had swapped cars earlier that night for fun. The second corner I entered, slower than I would have mine, and the car just slid out, starting an impromptu drift around the corner. I must have only been doing 40km/h. He had recently had the brakes reconditioned, new master cylinder and wheel alignment running standard White Lightening rims & tyres. Building Society After this he took some time to decide whether to repair it or not. He had a few things happen and decided he did not want to be working on cars any longer. Shortly after this cruise I took my car off the road again and decided to keep it in the shed out of sight, while I worked on the body. I did the cleaning up of the paint and panel. Removed the side strips, sanded back and undercoated the bottom sections of the doors, fixed up the previous damage on the passenger’s side, cleaned up the boot lid which had some surface rust, and under the seal in the boot. Hit these with rust convertor and paint. Also, the number one thing I can suggest to someone buying a 4[SUP]th[/SUP] Gen, make sure you remove the front guard liners and clean all the leaves and dirt out. It will rust your guards from the inside out. I had decided to vinyl coat the car matte black, so I did not get it painted, however I did prep everything like it was about to be. Even removed the rear quarter windows, both guards, bumpers, etc. Cleaned up and resprayed both reo’s and used bumper primer on the rear bumper. By this stage my ex-housemate had decided to start parting out his car, so I got the old front bar off him as it had not cracked and I was curious to see if I could fix it. It was in a ‘V’ shape and had been held that way by the reo for some time. I pulled it off the reo, and to my surprise, it was not cracked. I used a heat gun and a lot of patience and got it back to the original shape with only a very small amount of deformation left. Since it wasn’t cracked I decided to clean, spray and vinyl it. I bought 30m of vinyl, thinking this would be overkill. It really was, but as it was my first time, I wasted a lot, or just simply got phantom bit underneath the vinyl. I ended up going through most of the 30m. Around this time I got hold of a set of ST205 brakes and rotors. I got these professionally reconditioned along with new pistons. I also got hold of a ST185 1inch master cylinder. I can confirm the ST204(abs) cylinders are 15/16 with a different booster. I tried a few other cylinders before I got the st185. I couldn’t change the booster as I would need to lift the engine up to get it out, otherwise the ST202/5 booster and master would have been the best option. For the brakes, I tried several different setups, always avoiding taking material off the caliper. I tried the “clearance grinding” of the ball joint. I wasn’t happy to do this, which prompted me to change the suspension to ST185 and start again from there. I will do another write-up on how I fitted them for future reference of ST185 owners, as there was a bit of trial and error. Also a Scooby-do van. I also managed to source a full ST205 WTA setup, and mounted this as a replacement to the FMIC it came with. Much quicker spool, and seems to be better performance. I also installed a ST185 Whitleline adjustable 20mm rear sway bar. I had almost everything that was necessary completed when I needed to move house. I then moved into a share house in West End. No storage space, no garage and on a hill, with street parking. Fortunately, there was a level concrete patch that I could put the car on. So I did that and did some more work on it. Since I had the ST205 gearbox, it had an electronic sensor. I also had a electornic-manual convertor, but as the wiring had not been done correctly the sensor was not getting power, so the convertor had nothing to convert. Luckily in my previous collecting stage, I had purchase a st185 gearbox that had been in an st165. For some reason I had taken the manual sensor drive out of this before getting rid of it. I’m glad I did because I could convert the ST205 box to manual drive. I got the car registered and since then I have just been doing small items to maintain and improve it, replacing various bits that annoy me. I am also still working on an ST205 harness. In my usual fashion, I have decided to use the ST205 fuse box. This has opened up a whole lot of issues, wiring it into the lights, air con and what not. I have also got waiting a PCV and radiator overflow waiting to go in, with speedflow fittings, which I purchased off CUTS some time ago. I’m also going to be making a bonnet with an Evo 6 scoop, an air box for the straight intake, and relocating the battery from the back to the front(not the norm). There is also plans of a screen in the dash and an arduino powered data logging. But I feel this is quite a way off…. The current list includes :- ST205 3sgte WRC edition ST205 WTA i/c ST205 gearbox ST185 rear diff ST205 brakes, front and rear WRX STI Slotted rotors front Full ST185 front suspension, including Lower control arms BC Racing Coilovers - ST185 Poly bushings everywhere Whiteline Rear Sway Bar 20mm - BTR29Z
Thanks guys. I haven't made many changes to it lately. Will write up some more when I get the chance Re-organised my photobucket. Will fix that up sometime soon
