Very Nice!

 

Great job with the pics.

 

Nice job

 

So today I got new tabs for the car and I go to crank her today and it gave a few strong turn overs, sputtered (was a bit flooded). Then I tried to start her again and the starter slowly died. I tried jumpering the small terminal on the starter to the big 12v wire on the starter. The solenoid is bad. I guess that teaches me to no get a starter straight from japan next time. The battery is fully charged so now I have to wait 2 days for a reman to arrive now.... I got too exited for nothing today.... It was good to hear it run for the two seconds it did...

So lesson: If you do get a JDM starter, rebuild it before hand. Otherwise just get a good TII reman starter locally.

 

Subscribed! This is an awesome thread! Great work man.

 

Well, as far as this project, it seems to be done for now. The car started up after a few tries (i missed 2 grounds and 2 vacuum hoses). It seems to run fine. I drove it for over 4 hours now. Today though, I got a code 11 for the IAT. I will have to look into that. Also getting some small clickity noise out of the ordinary from the rear drivers side area.

The experience with solid drivetrain mounts (delrin):
Noisy. It seems the more I drive it though, the more it quiets down. Could be the bushings just settling in. If you are planning on doing this, be reading to hear the tunes of 1-5th gear and the diff moving around in the back. Not to mention the solid engine mounts will mean rotary engine tunes thrown in there.

The TII Transmission:
Great! No more having to downshift on a hill climb on 5th gear! I can actually accelerate in 5th gear now

TII Diff:
Haven't pushed it, but it works so far.

Coilovers:
I got an alignment. Had a fun time teaching the tech how to adjust camber on the rear and front. The springs are 12k/10k. On the full soft setting for the shock, the car will too much. I stiffend up the shock body and it rides much better, but it could use a slightly stiffer setting (will do this when I get time). Contrary to belief, the ride is fine with me. I was expecting this thing to feel like you were driving on a rock from what everyone says and with all the solid mounts I am running. Yes, it is a harsher ride, but nothing that bothers me.

I am still re-learning the car. I tested out a curvy road the other day, it grips like crazy with the new suspension. I remember with the old OE suspension the body would roll to the point the rear would start kicking out during hard cornering (not good). It sticks like gorilla glue to the road.

The fact I do not have front or rear sway bars due to the spring rates I am running seems to feel comfortable to me. I will have to test it out more once I get more confident with her again but I am really happy with it.

 

Excellence!
I did almost the exact same thing u did ablout a month ago except its already a TII, thanks for posting! (saves me the trouble lol)

I've got 8k/6k springs w/ sway bars and it feels great, haven't really pushed her though since I'm working on either a drivetrain or fuel issue...

The Derilin mounts really aren't all that bad, its only certain rpm where they start to become noticable

 

Wow its great to see you do things right!


When is the turbo coming into the equation??

 

Thanks for all the comments. The turbo will come in the future and I will update this thread when that happens. I won't have enough time between now and december (when I graduate from the university) to get all that done, so it's set aside for now.

Yes, when you get into the harmonic frequencies of the chassis, it's like your in an earthquake. I like it though, it adds to the whole driving a rotary experience. That, and it just makes everything more fun....

 

great build setup and you answered a lot of questions i had.

 

Awesome thread, man! I just read through all 3 pages to see where you were, went and ended up (NTM I just picked up a 90 TII vert, so I'm in the 'acquiring information' stage)!

Just out of curiosity, is there any external difference between an NA diff and a TII? LSD or Not?

Once again, awesome job - Subscribed!

This should be a sticky (minus that exchange with that stunod, a couple of pages ago)!!!

 

I believe my N/A diff had 4.10 gearing, which the TII diff also has. I still have it in the garage, just need to double check. They look almost identical, but I do know the stub shaft length are different, requiring TII axles along with the TII diff and vise versa. To be honest though, I didn't take the time to actually measure the diff's when I had them side by side. To the untrained eye they will look identical.

Edit: Just took a look at some of the pictures of the TII diff from page 1 and the N/A diff from page 2. If you look closely in page 2, the N/A diff, at the bottom, has 2 "points" that stick out near the drain plug, while the TII diff has a smooth bottom near the drain plug.

I am sure others can chime in if they know other differences though.

By the way, the TII diff is much better than that N/A diff. When taking corners my car is so much more predictable when I break traction in the rear. With the N/A it would just snap and scare the scrap out of me.

 

Great build similar to what I am working on. Currently have all new delrin bushings and mounts T2 tranny and hunting for a t2 diff. I brought your other thread back to life since I have a set of rear control arm bushings that I don't know if I can use. How are the spherical bearings holding up? Worth 160? Any clue what camber would be with all solid delrins and no adjusters? How is the delete sway bar did you just delete the front or both? Oh and by the way are those megan track series? I was considering them since they were so stiff what do you think of them?

 

I think if I were to do it all over again, I would of gone with the AWR bearing setup with the adjustable toe links. For some reason I get an occasional thunk if I hit a rough spot which I think are coming from the sphearical bearings (not 100% at this point).

No clue what camber would be with solid delrins, close to stock I would say.

Deleting the front and rear sway bar worked out. The megan track coilovers have 12k/10k spring rates, this makes up for the need of the sway bars in my opinion. If you are considering getting them, I would suggest if you like your back to not hurt and daily drive your car, get something less stiff and more civil. I like them, it takes a while to get used to but they are very rough on non smooth surfaces.

A good suspension setup will not be "super stiff". Keep that in mind. I just got a good deal on these and needed new shocks and they do the job. Having stiff shocks is fun though, in my last autocross I was actually able to get the rear to break traction fairly easily and use the throttle to steer the car around corners. When the time for new shocks come, I will be getting something much more civil and run the front and rear sway bars depending on how the suspension feels to me.

 

I think I am going to try out the all solids then measure my camber and if its too far out of what I want I will change to the spherical bearings. Spherical bearings from what I have heard from the s2000 guys say they don't last but a season of racing and aren't good for the road.

As far as the megans I can get a set of track series for 900 shipped to my door but I have also been looking at BC inverted type rm's. The place that carries the BC's can get any spring rate at no extra cost so I could go like a 11-9 or 10-8 which is just softer then the megans. I have 8-6 on my celica and it ok for a daily but isn't quit stiff enough for anything past that.

 

Just to give you an idea, most people run 8k-6k on these cars paired with a good combination of sway bars and are very happy with it. I think 10-8k would be perfect if stiffer is what you want. Not sure how familiar you are with suspension setup but in general you can get away running lower rate springs if you have a good combination of sway bars and still have the "stiffness" you need during cornering, but a civil car while just cruising. I am sure you can get the megan tracks for $900, but if I would do it again and had more $$$ I would run softer setup with good sway bar combo (which I would have to fix, due to having S4 front control arms and S5 sway bar). In your case get the BC with the 10-8k, it may be what you are looking for.

If you do install the solid rear LCA bushings, please let me know how it turns out, I was thinking of switching to those and toss the spherical ones out.

 

comparing spring rates between different chassis is an apples to oranges situation.

Do some reading on "motion ratios".

 

I would like to get away from the bars but its not necessary. I am going to run the factory bars and see how that flies if I want harder I will go up if softer I will go down.

As far as the control arm bushings are concerned it might be awhile before I let you know what the camber is since I am just beginning my tear down. The car is my winter project. Right now I am doing research and part buying.

I know a little about suspension and am learning much more the more I research it. The whole trailing arm thing is new to me however. I am just trying to come to a good all around balanced suspension for what I will be using the car for. Which is about everything lol. Later on in the cars life it might become more oriented to just one form of racing but that could be years from now.


Are you talking about my celica? I just used it as an example not as a definitive comparison.

 

Don't do it if you absolutely must not. I don't just say for these things for no reason.

My recommendation: 8k-6k springs with a good valved shock with good sway bar setup for you then (MAYBE 10-8k at most, I wouldn't go past that from experience). You wouldn't be more happier. Stiffer isn't best. Thats the reason I HAD TO remove the sway bars (I didn't do it for giggles). Why would you not run sway bars unless you are doing some crazy swapping that does not allow you to run sway bars (V8, my case, ect.)?

Hope this helps you think about your setup a bit more. Look into how sway bars affect your suspension and you will understand...

 

Have you noticed any binding w/ your setup?
I was considering the spherical setup but decided to just leave the stock bushings in since they were in good shape and didn't wan't to worry about replacing the bearings later. I left both (RLCA and Sub frame) in because I was planning to run the single camber adjuster for rough adjustments and the individual adjusters for balancing right to left. The only problem I hear about people running into is binding w/o the spherical bearings, but there doesn't seem to be a specific standard (ride height of 24" for example) for when this occurs.

 

No binding, the current spherical bearings allow free movement of the control arm. Only problem I am noticing is clunking which I think may be the spherical bushings in the LCA. Can't say till I check it out. I don't even bother with camber adjusters at the moment, I snapped my first set in a heart beat.

 

Im not saying my goal is to get rid of the bars it would just be ok. The car will more then likely be tracked more then streeted. So I can get away with running a real aggressive spring rate and ride height. I like the track series megans but man I do think 12 10 is overkill. They do however sell different springs that are compatible with the track series coilover.

 

Ok, adapting the JDM transmission harness to work with the USDM chassis harness, do you match the wires color to color or connector to connector?

 

well, the harness on my JDM transmission had completely different wire colors. Just match what I posted on page 3 to your switches on the transmission.

Chassis Harness:
Two small sqaure connectors - 5th gear switch (not used if using J-spec reverse switch, can be used if using US-Spec reverse switch)
Two small bullet connectors - Go to reverse switch
White Oval Plug - Goes to neutral switch.

From there, cut and solder as necessary to get those wires to the appropriate sensors.

 

Nicely done!