New adventure Toy(ota) in AZ
- Thread starter Jrally
- Start date
trailrunner
Observer
That thing looks awesome. Something I would have liked to do, but I guess you can't do everything.
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Jrally
Adventurer
After runing course closing for the Prescott Rally, a bit more work needed to be done. A friend of mine gave me the race seats out of his road race car, didn't like the color, but what the hell, they match my harnesses.
I also am in the middle of upgrading the front struts to stronger, better valved units, custom built by Bilstein for me. They are interesting, inverted monotube design. What looks like a HUGE shaft is infact the shock can and the section that goes inside the strut housing, in this case, a yellow tube, is the means of the strut to take side loading.
-Jon
strut work:
I'm going with strut top mounts from a Rav4, 1/3 of the cost and about twice as strong as a stock Celica one. $24/ea at Pep Boys.
I also am in the middle of upgrading the front struts to stronger, better valved units, custom built by Bilstein for me. They are interesting, inverted monotube design. What looks like a HUGE shaft is infact the shock can and the section that goes inside the strut housing, in this case, a yellow tube, is the means of the strut to take side loading.
-Jon
strut work:
I'm going with strut top mounts from a Rav4, 1/3 of the cost and about twice as strong as a stock Celica one. $24/ea at Pep Boys.
Jrally
Adventurer
I finished the strut install tonight. The special spacers I had to machine for the bottom, after fitting last night, had to be machined down 1/4", to get full thread engagement on the retainer nuts. The strut turned out to be 1" taller than the stock ones, which includes 1" more travel. And after the test drive over the massive speed bumps in my neighborhod, AMAZING!! Now, the rear shocks are feeling a bit whimpy...
-Jon
-Jon
Jrally
Adventurer
I just got back from a rally outside of Vegas, Seed 9, in Jean NV. I took the Celica up for the suspension engineer from Bilstein to see our handy work. The struts he came up with for me, custom valved, worked amazingly well. I took him for a 3 or 4 mile ride down a very rough powerline road, and the front struts soaked it up like a $10K rally suspension would. My once seemily overbuilt rear suspension no feels very mooshy. I guess we all know where that goes, pouring more money into the car for better handling and comfort.
-Jon
-Jon
BlackWidow
Observer
Jon
I was so hoping to go to Seed 9 and do sweep again but the day i was leaving my passenger side bearings decided to quit working. I am glad you made it to Seed 9. Did you end up working it or just going to spectate. This car is so bad *** and even better in person.
Mike G
I was so hoping to go to Seed 9 and do sweep again but the day i was leaving my passenger side bearings decided to quit working. I am glad you made it to Seed 9. Did you end up working it or just going to spectate. This car is so bad *** and even better in person.
Mike G
Jrally
Adventurer
As part of my cars ever changing progress, this weekend I decided to build a welded version of a strut tower bar. I used some .090" thick sheet to cap the towers, adding a lot of reinforcement to the tops to take the abuse I plan on giving it. I then cut out 4 identical flag shaped brackets, designed to be flat across the top, rather then parallel to the tower angle. The inner bracket was bend and shaped a bit to go around the inner hole. For the strut bar, I had a couple of 8mm heim joints lying around, along with coupling nuts. I'm planning on tying the bar into the firewall too, help support the towers a bit in multiple directions, since the cage doesn't come to the front of the car.
-Jon
-Jon
