JamesG

Managed to get the car through its MOT okay with the new kit. Ive been making the most of the last of the decent weather and the car has reached 100000miles on the clock. I have also made a couple more upgrades. First off being a Cusco brake cylinder stopper from japan. It was quite fiddly to fit into position however ive heard they give a better pedal feel. This also came up for sale and I just had to get it. Its a Zisco 6 point rear brace, Ive always wanted one to finish off the interior and you dont see them come up very often nowadays. Had to get some new correctly sized bolts to fit it and figured out the seatbelt bolts are 7/16 UNF thread. It was a little bit technical to get it all lined up and fitted into place but managed okay in the end. Really does look great in the back off the car and fills the space really well. Hopefully It makes a difference to the stability and handling aswell.

Another update, For anyone who has bought the replica glanza headlights. I've discovered you can swap the reflectors from inside your original units into the replica ones by simply unscrewing three screws at the back and transferring them over. Makes them look a lot more oem and probably increases light output with the original halogen bulbs. Also this happened. I'd been debating it for a while and was unsure because of how difficult these bumpers are to come by in original condition nowadays. Anyway I'd already hacked a fair amount off underneath for the front mount so I decided I wanted to take the plate holder out to maximise the airflow into the intercooler and radiator. I have always liked the look of the 96 spec bumper with exposed intercooler and thought whats the point having a great big front mount if the plate is blocking a lot of the air flow. Very pleased with how it turned out, looks a lot better in my opinion and maximises air flow. I then bought a bracket so that I could relocate the numberplate to one side and got that all mounted up. Went for a smaller plate so that none of the air flow into the cooler was blocked. I may use a larger numberplate if I have any issues with this one. Ive had my new 400 cell cat pipe made up by my local fabricator which allows me to run a cat in the exhaust with the new WEPR kit for emissions purposes. Lastly I managed to get a really good condition interior light on the japanese auctions and I finally have a working interior light for the first time since ive owned the car. I put an led bulb in and it is suprisingly bright. Been out enjoying the car again a lot lately and really impressed with the performance of the new WEPR external gate kit. I have put the 0.8 bar spring in the gate now and it holds 0.8 through the whole rev range perfectly. It feels great to have proper boost control on the CT9.

Sound mate, I should be all good then. Cheers 👍

Thanks Nick, Yeah spoke to another lad who has done the same and his went through mot fine. Just hope my tester is okay with the screamer lol

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Here's the link mate, you just have to message the seller and ask for just 1 pair 👍 https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Black-Housing-Aftermarket-Headlamp-Headlight-For_1600226466504.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.48c361eb61sWSG

Managed to break one of these clips that holds the archliner in while working on the car. Luckily they are still available from toyota. Actually worked out cheaper to get two of them shipped over from japan via amayama than it would have cost me for one at my local toyota dealer!! I have also purchased a 400 cell cat from tegiwa to go in the exhaust just after the sump. Going to get my exhaust fabricator to make me up a new front pipe to house it once I get the car back out. Should help me to be emmisions compliant.

Next up I decided to take the plunge and ordered a new ct9 ram horn external gate manifold kit from Sacha at wicked ep racing. I had been debating it for a while after problems with boost creep on the oem ct9. I like the ct9 and wanted to get the most out of it while still on standard engine management. A couple of months later it arrived, it really is an amazing bit of kit. Got the tial 38mm MVS from Mike at tuning developments. Made a start on getting it fitted, starting with clocking the compressor housing to face down and making a new hot pipe adapter to suit. I was then able to get the kit bolted up to the engine and make a start on connecting up the oil and water lines. I made a bracket to hold the internal gate shut instead of welding it permanantly closed. Also made up my new short route hot pipe. Then it was onto fabricating a new intake pipe to accommodate the new turbo position. I realised my triple core civic rad and fan shroud was taking up too much room in the bay so sold it on in order to fund a new tegiwa dual core half rad and stoney racing fan. Made up some brackets out of flat aluminium bar to attach the new fan to the rad. Came out really nice. So this is where we are at with the kit now complete. Took it on a short test drive down the road to check for leaks and make sure everything is working as it should. The sound is insane, can't wait to get back out in the car again now and im hoping I should have much better boost control. Running a 0.7 bar spring in the wastegate for now and ill see how stable it holds the boost level.

So about time I updated this, cars been tucked away in my good mate's garage again over the winter months. Meanwhile ive been busy making some upgrades. First up was the doorcards, mine had seen much better days and both corners had been snapped by someone trying to access the upper trim fixing. So went out and got myself some 3mm thick ply to remake them. I traced around the old cards and marked out all the holes, then I cut them to shape with a jigsaw and went about cutting all the holes out with a drill and multitool. Once I was done I got myself some suede fabric and used spray glue adhesive to stick the fabric to the ply. This is the finished article, pleased with how they came out. While I was behind the doorcards I also decided to redo the plastic lining as the originals were a mess, Again traced them out and cut some plastic sheeting to size. Then stuck the plastic to the door with fresh butyl tape.

Thanks mate, heres the link for headlights. I had to message the seller and ask for just 1 pair. https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Black-Housing-Aftermarket-Headlamp-Headlight-For_1600226466504.html?spm=a2700.galleryofferlist.normal_offer.d_title.48c361eb61sWSG

Yeah, as far as I'm aware I've managed to get 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th gear synchros. Only one I couldn't get was 2nd gear. I read a thread on the other forum where a lad had successfully used 1st gear synchro for 2nd gear and 4th gear synchro for 3rd gear. So I was hoping to use a 1st gear synchro for 2nd gear. https://www.toyotagtturbo.com/community/index.php?threads/gearbox-synchros.110499/ This is the part number I have for 3rd gear synchro, can't confirm it's correct though as I've not had the box apart.

Thanks Tyler, yeah pleased with the lights. They're pretty decent overall. Good to see an alternative available.

Picked up some aftermarket replica headlights for the car recently. Wanted to try them out and see how they compare to the toyota units as my lenses are quite worn and always seem to come back yellow despite polishing. Got them installed and quite impressed with the fitment overall. They fit well onto the original mounts and line up nicely. Swapped over the bulbs and put my osram nightbreakers in and they seem to work well. Time will tell to see how they last but look much better than my originals. Also got some more genuine bits from toyota. New front windscreen moulding and dam strip, Drivers front door weatherstrip and gearbox syncros to hold onto incase I ever need to refresh the box in the future. Got the drivers door weatherstrip fitted. The soft material on the inside has deteriorated on the orignals, the new one looks great and window operation seems a lot smoother. Unfortunately the passenger side one is discontinued, wondered about trying to use a rh side one but there is a rather large curve in the trim to follow the shape of the door. Been out in the car a lot lately enjoying the last of the summer months, heres a few pics with the local scenary. Hopefully got some more improvements coming over the winter.

After driving the car quite a lot in the past few months I decided I wasn't quite happy with the seat rails and wanted to get the seats to sit lower in the car. So I managed to get hold of a pair of ep91 low rails made by William Tuite in Ireland. They're really well made and get the seating position as low as possible. Only problem was they are designed to work with recaro SR seats with the flat base, the trendline seats have a different bolt pattern and the base of the seat hangs down in the middle. So I decided to sell the EP3 prem seats and the rail setup in order to fund some recaro SR4 DC5 seats. They are in good condition, just needed a good clean with some woolite and my mate's wet vac. They came up really well. Very happy with how they sit in the car, they are a lot lower and really change the driving position.

Looks great mate, some really good work gone into this.