JamesG

Thanks Claymore, I actually got the manifold and downpipe second hand of the same fella I bought the japspeed exhaust off a few weeks ago. Unsure of the brands but I think it could be a tuning developments manifold and possibly a gravity or j performance downpipe. No issues with fitment bolted straight up to my exhaust and the standard turbo oil feed fitment is still spot on . Was really lucky to get a good deal on these to say the TD manifolds are around £300 brand new. I have bourght a lot of stuff through mike at TD in the past and he has always been sound with me. Best speaking to him on the phone rather than ordering through the website really as its a bit out of date. Hes also told me in that past that J Performance have now stopped trading and ive heard some rumours that they will take your money and not send the parts, so wouldnt reccomend ordering through them myself. Yeah wouldnt want to run anything above stock boost levels on the standard manifold really. I suppose toyota only made them to cope with the standard boost pressure.

So my amayama order arrived last week, lots of brand new genuine parts direct from japan. It worked out a lot cheaper than it would of been from a main dealer and took just 4 weeks to arrive. Well worth doing for a big parts order, just got to bare in mind the import tax when it arrives in the UK. Also picked up a mild steel CT9 tubular exhaust manifold and a braced stainless downpipe. Got a really good deal on them and they are perfect for my setup . Should help the car to breathe a lot better. I started removing the exhaust manifold, the turbo and the stock cat. It was fairly simple, just had to remove oil and coolant lines from the turbo and pull the power steering pump up and out of the way to access some of the bolts. It was tricky to remove the o2 sensor from the stock cat as there wasnt much room to get a spanner on there but we managed it in the end. I replaced all of the old exhaust manifold studs with some fresh ones from tuning developments while I was in there and thought it would be a good time to replace the oil filter housing gasket. Next I seperated the turbo from the stock exhaust manifold. I spent a bit of time cleaning the turbo up as it was quite dirty and oily, but it looks in good shape overall with very little shaft play and no cracks in the wastegate. I bolted it up to the new manifold and started putting it all back on the car with my new gaskets and coolant hoses etc from toyota. Once everything was bolted back up and I was happy we removed the efi fuse and primed the turbo with oil. Unfortunately upon the first start up we had an oil leak from the oil filter housing gasket I changed. I ended up having to strip it all down again to find that I had left some of the stubborn old paper gasket on the housing mounting surface. An annoying setback however I ordered another gasket from idworkz, then spent a while scraping the rest of the old brown paper gasket off I had missed. Once it was completely smooth I installed the new gasket and bolted the housing back on before building everything else back up. I also gave the car a quick oil and filter change prior to priming again and starting her up. This time no oil leaks and running smoothly. Really pleased, the car feels as though it pulls stronger now I have freed up the restrictions in the exhaust system. It sounds great, you can hear a lot more noise from the turbo. The boost dosent seem to have crept up by that much either but will keep an eye on it, hopefully get some form of engine management next year. Good peace of mind to finally get rid of the stock 4efte mani because of the restriction in the thrid runner (see pic below).

Thanks burty, I did the same with my indicators recently too. Water droplets were forming inside when it was wet so popped the lenses off and sealed them with some clear silicone .

Thanks bud

Thanks Sam, that's interesting. I think the gt turbo quad lights are glass too. Probably means there a bit more resistant to the elements and don't go yellow and hazey over time like the Glanza ones👍.

Yeah mate forgot to mention that, I just used some hydrophobic wax 🙂

Had a go at restoring my headlights today as they were looking really yellow and hazey. Ideally I would buy new lights from toyota but sadly they are now discontinued 🙁. I followed socks old guide on how to bring them back to life, so went out and got myself a selection of fine wet and dry sandpaper ranging from p800 right up p3000 grit and a headlight restoration kit. I started by removing the headlights from the car to make it easier. Next I wet sanded the lights starting with the p800 grit to remove the contaminents from the surface of the plastic. I made sure I was sanding in a horizontal direction following the 3 lines in the headlights. I repeated this process moving up by 200 grit at a time until I reached p3000 grit, they were then ready for polishing. The sealey headlight restoration kit I used came with a buffing wheel attachment for a drill and some polishing compound. I went over the lights with the buffing wheel and plenty of compund untill they were clear and shiny again 😀. To finish off the process I sealed the lights with some hydrophobic wax. Quite pleased with how they turned out, They are by no means perfect however they reflect the light soo much better than before and no longer look yellow and hazey. Made the front end of the car look a lot better 🙂

Nice thread burty, good work. Is that the breakers in bradford? seems like a decent chap, got all sorts of parts spare.

Indeed just read through this thread start to finish, great build gainzy. Hope its gone to a good home.

Yeah think your right claymore. Dont think id be able to bring myself to drill those holes in my chassis, like you say its almost to clean to do it. Get what your saying about some cars being investments too, Im sure if I left mine completely standard and sat it up for 10 years it would be worth a fortune but wheres the fun in that. I enjoy modifying it and making it my own but am also not very keen on making changes that cannot be put back for that reason. At this moment id like to say i will keep the car forever however as we all know situations and circumstances change over time so who knows. Will be worth looking into that ultra racing rear sway bar as an alternative to the whiteline one, thanks for pointing that out. I have a whiteline rear anti roll bar fitted to my daily yaris t sport and it made a huge difference to the cars handling, hopefully the starlet ones have a similar effect🙂

Looking good, handy little guide. Thinking about putting one of these on mine in the future. Does look a bit daunting drilling the holes in chassis leg but well worth it for the handling gains.

Thanks chaps

Managed to pick up this japspeed full exhaust system on ebay this week for a great price. Drove 120 miles there and back yesterday to get it but well worth it. Had a good chat with the chap who was selling it and had a look round his 2 track/hillclimb starlets. Didnt manage to get any pictures but very intresting seeing what he had done, some really good work. Went about getting it fitted yesterday evening. Jacked the car up and dropped the old factory exhaust off, starting at the front of the car and working my way back. Was fairly straight forward to get off and didnt take long. Looks like a good improvement over the stock system when compared side by side. I carefully slid the new exhaust under the car into position and started bolting it up into place, again starting at the front and working my way back. Pleased with the fitment bolts straight on, dosent catch anywhere and looks really good. Also comes with a removable bung to quiten the exhaust down if needed. The car sounds good, has a nice tone to it however I think the cat is holding a lot of the sound back at the moment. Will maybe have to look at a decat pipe when i swap my exhaust manifold to unleash a bit more noise from the turbo. Anyway really happy with the car and how its progressing at the moment 🙂.

Sorry to hear the bad news fella. Good to see your sticking with it, enjoyed reading through your build. Hopefully it will be back on the road before too long

Thanks mate

Good read this Claymore, some useful info. Keep it up👍

Got my boost gauge installed this weekend. I managed to pick up an A pillar gauge pod trim on ebay a while ago to make it easier to mount gauges. I think it used to house some greddy 60mm gauges but i went for a prosport 52mm mechanical boost gauge and it fit quite snug with the visor installed. I tee'd into the vacuum line linking the blow off valve to the intake manifold, then found a convinient grommit to feed the vacuum line into the cabin and to the back of the gauge. Excuse the dirty firewall. All the gauge then needed was a power and an earth cable. I bought a few metres of extra 12v wire, connected the earth to a chassis ground and spliced into the 12v ciggarette lighter wire for power. I then used some putty type glue to secure the back of the gauge into the pod and reinstalled the trim. Pleased with how it turned out, seems a good quality gauge and looks tidy without any wires on show. The car is boosting to around 0.7 bar in 3rd 4th and 5th gear with the mods I have done so probably not far off fuel cut with any more breathing mods. Might have to look at some sort of engine management in the near future. Hoping to get myself a basic ct9 upgrade exhaust manifold next and possibly a better sounding jdm exhaust system but will have to see.

Been working on getting my new front mount intercooler on the glanza over the last couple of weeks, I picked up a short route hot side pipe off glanzadude and bought the long route japspeed front mount intercooler kit. I was able to make up my own short route hot side piping by combining the hot pipe I purchased and some of the japspeed long route pipes. I also had to have a blow off valve fitting welded onto the cold side piping by a local welder, so I can run my blitz BOV. I then went about getting the intercooler mounted to the car. The brackets were provided in the kit, the top one bolted to the bonnet latch and the bottom two had to be fixed to the front cross member. To do this I used some rivinut fixings as i could not get in to put a nut on the other side of the box section. I was then able to drop the intercooler on and bolt it up. Next I pieced together all of the intercooler pipework on the car and tightened all the clamps up. I had to buy an air filter relocation kit as the standard efi pipe would not fit with the hot side pipework, so I got that installed and attached my blow off valve to the pipework. Some longer studs were also required to bolt the new hot pipe to the turbo, as it had a slighly thicker flange. Now everything was bolted up it was time to try my front bumper back on, I was worried about having to cut a lot of the bumper away to fit the cooler behind, however it was not as bad as expected. I had to trim the bottom of the bumper for the pipework and cooler. Only a small amount of trimming was required either side of the plate for the endtanks. Really pleased with how it has turned out, the bay is a lot more decluttered, I think it looks a lot cleaner and there is a lot more access to the top of the engine. The car now sounds amazing, you can hear the turbo spool up with the relocation kit and the blow off valve seems to sound better being located closer to the throttle body. I am conscious i need to replace the stock exhaust manifold as soon as I can, because of the restriction in the third runner. The boost will probably have crept up with these mods so taking it easy untill i get my boost gauge plumbed in and a better flowing manifold. I also replaced the silicone oil return hose with a genuine one, as oil was starting to seep through the silicone. It seems silicone dosent work well with oil. Crazy how much more flexible the new genuine hose was to the original one that snapped in half when I tried to remove it.

Small update on the car, I picked up a whiteline adjustable rear panhard rod recently. I have seen that when you lower a starlet it pushes the axle over slightly to one side and thourght it was worth getting one of these to allow adjustment left and right. It was fairly simple to remove the original one from the car. I then adjusted the whiteline to the same length of the stock bar and got it bolted on, it seems a lot more sturdy than the stock bar which is quite light in comparison. I then lowered the car back down and measured the distance between the wheel and arch on both sides as best i could. I figured it was around about 10mm further out on the passenger side, So i shortened the bar by 5mm and lowered it again. It now seems to measure up okay and if you look down the line of the car the wheels look even on each side. I know this needs doing properly on a wheel allignment machine but looking to get a decent wheel allignment when im finished with the suspension. The car feels a lot better already with the springs and panhard bar, feels more stable and planted. Also painted my brake calipers to freshen them up as they were looking a bit tired. Decided to go red as thourght it would look good against the grey wheels. Started on the fronts, wanted to do a decent job so dissasambled the brakes removing the pads, clips and carriers. I gave the calipers and carriers a good clean and sanded them down before giving them a few coats of k2 brake caliper paint. The car has had a set of pagid disks and pads recently so no need to change them just yet. Pleased with how they came out I did the rear calipers the following weekend. Really pleased with how they came out, spent quite a bit of time prepping and masking etc but was worth it for a good job. Noticed I am missing two of the metal clips that hold the brake pads in place on the rear calipers but found a replacement full set on amayama for fairly cheap https://www.amayama.com/en/part/toyota/0494816010. Thanks for reading

Got some tein lowering springs fitted to the car this weekend. The front springs had seen better days but all of the shocks looked in decent condition so just replaced the springs for now. Pleased with the springs, the rear sits a lot better now. Planning on getting an adjustable rear panhard bar to bring the axle back into line soon. Might get some uprated shocks in the future or possibly get some coilovers.

Thanks, there is some extra vibration inside however i dont find it that bad. It is worst when idling so I have raised the idle rpm slightly which has reduced the vibrations. My old mounts were pretty shot so it was worthwhile upgrading however i dont use the car daily. Your td04 setups looking good by the way, have made some impressive power.

I have managed to make some more progress on the car recently. I removed old water pump in order to fit the new one only to find when the new one was bolted up in place the pulley was stuck and wouldnt spin . Upon closer inspection i noticed the new pumps rotor appeared to be catching on the original toyota housing. Very strange anyway the old pump seemed in decent enough shape and spun freely so i bolted it back on with a new gasket. I have noticed some companies sell the full housing as a complete unit so I will probably buy one of those at some point. I then went about installing the new timing belt and tensioners which went fairly smoothly, Trick I used was to turn the top cam sprocket to the right very slightly. This meant when tension was put on the belt it pulled it over and both timing marks lined up perfectly, I was then able to build the timing side back up bottom timing cover, crank pulley and new alternator and power steering belts etc. Next i moved onto replacing the rocker cover gasket, spark plug seals and new washer seals for the nuts ontop. I did a few other small jobs including replacing the fuel filter, installing some polyurethane shifter bushings and installing a new silicone oil return pipe as the stock one snapped on removal. I then put everything from the top half of the bay back together with the addition of my jd tuning clear cam cover . I also replaced the stupid circlip thing that holds the efi pipe onto the turbo with a stainless hose clamp, made it a lot easier getting it back on properly. Yesterday I was able to get the car back up and running, after filling it up with oil and coolant i removed the efi fuse and cranked the engine over to gain oil pressure. This didnt work straight away so I had to remove the large banjo bolt from the oil filter housing and pour some oil down the housing into the pump. After doing this and reinstalling the bolt I cranked the engine over, the oil pressure light on the dash went out and oil started flowing out of the bottom of the turbo. I then put the front bumper back on, put the efi fuse back in and started it up leaving the rad cap off to bleed any air out of the coolant system, car is now running great with no more oil leaks. I was able to take the car out for a quick test run, taking it steady to bed the new clutch in. Feels great to drive and no more oil leaks. The clear cam cover also looks really good when the engine is running. VID_43651226_103335_428.mp4

Still doesnt seem to bring up the file upload box when I click on choose file?

Same here seems to be broken?

yeah strange times, hopefully more people come back on here. Was hoping to get the car on stand at some of the shows later this year but will have to see which ones go ahead... Batterys going flat is always frustrating haha, I try to get mine on trickle charge when possible if im not using the car seems to help them last. Will get some more updates on here when im able to get the car back together and running again Thanks I know bad times, Hopefully the situation starts to impove soon. There are some great builds on here people put a lot of time and effort into these cars, its great to be able to document your progress on here. Lots more to come