What did you do to your car today?

[Pelo]

On Sunday I went to a proper track day. This was the Introduction to Motorsport event at Hampton Downs Club Circuit. The circuit is a tight 1.2km with lovely new tarmac and massive runoff areas. It's great for road cars as the brakes won't be destroyed on a few high speed breaking zones.

We did dual sprints and had instructors available for advice.

The car ran great all day. Thanks to my new SPA Digital gauge, I know that temps peaked at 101c and averaged around 90c. I do need to move the gauge from the center console to the steering column as I can't actually see it with my helmet on!



Boost peaked at 13.7 psi which may or may not be cause for concern. The motor seemed to surge at high rpm occasionally, so that could have been fuel surge or overboost fuel cut. To be investigated...
My new tyres (RE003 in stock 16" size) were awesome.

Here is my video. At 14:17 there is a fun battle with a flame spitting Toyota MR2 turbo, and 17:41 the instructor drives and shows me what my car can really do!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXZX-I5lEXk

[matt dunn]

Spent another couple of hours trying to sort the issue with the 2ZZGE in the daily road car.

Initally the heater would not get hot enough,
the flaps and motors are all ok,
and the heater core does not seem to be blocked as I have flushed it a couple of times
and it has good water flow.

Heater still not really hot enough but the main issue is trying to bleed the damn thing.
Cannot get the cooling system to work properly. It will just keep heating up until the radiator fan comes on,
then the fan will stay on and it will just keep getting hotter and hotter until you turn it off.
Have bled it through the heater core, bled it from the small water pipes to the throttle body,
pretty sure there is no air in there,
and I don't believe the radiator is blocked as if flows fine,
I am suspecting that the water pump is just not pumping the water around.

may explain the heater problem too,
so looks like this week I will be pulling out the water pump???

[RS13]

Blocked radiators can still appear to flow well.

[matt dunn]

radiator has been to the radiator shop and is fine,
now has a new thermostat and water pump,

still had issues.

Turns out that the 2ZZ powered cars like celica's etc are a PITA to bleed.

trick i to raise the front of the car up 1.5m off the ground,
had to use the hoist at work to lift just the front so the rear bumper is touching the ground
and run it and hand pump the hoses to get it to bleed.

All sorted now and going good.

[Vertigo]

Matt... how do you find the oil system in the ZZ series? My friend has a MRS that recently spat the dummy and got rod knock when gunning it up a long hill.

[matt dunn]

Matt... how do you find the oil system in the ZZ series? My friend has a MRS that recently spat the dummy and got rod knock when gunning it up a long hill.

Have not had a problem with ours, but it is a road car.
It does get driven hard usually,
but have never had an issue.
It doesn't use any oil,
and probably doesn't get serviced as often as it should either.

[GDII]

Matt... how do you find the oil system in the ZZ series? My friend has a MRS that recently spat the dummy and got rod knock when gunning it up a long hill.

How different is the 1ZZ vs the 2ZZ? The 1ZZ seems to have oil burning issues so if the oil runs low because of this then you will run a bearing no matter what.

[Mr Ree]

I have always bled my JZA80 while facing up an incline, for this reason. Speeds up the burping process massively. Also, using a burping funnel helps a lot too.

Glad that you sorted it out, Matt.

[matt dunn]

Matt... how do you find the oil system in the ZZ series? My friend has a MRS that recently spat the dummy and got rod knock when gunning it up a long hill.

How different is the 1ZZ vs the 2ZZ? The 1ZZ seems to have oil burning issues so if the oil runs low because of this then you will run a bearing no matter what.

Not sure but I dont think there is much the same between them,
unlike a 4A and 7A where one is just a bigger CC version, the 1ZZ and 2ZZ are about the same CC rating
but very different in construction and design.

Ours can go for 9 months use with no oil change and use not one drop of oil,
and gets driven everyday.

[Al]

Found out the Blade's factory stereo does have Bluetooth for phones. So paired my iPhone to it and it works a treat, only seems to be for calling rather than music though. Also learned how to disable the stupid ETC warnings that pop down on the screen and annoy me every time I back up glancing at the reverse camera.

Pedal dance works a treat too. Traction control off makes it a different car, especially with my grippy RE003s.

[aworldatlas]

Drained the gearbox oil and chucked the wheels back on minus drive shafts and rolled it out of the barn to await repco figuring out how to find the shafts and cvs I need and vacuumed years worth of neglect out of the interior. Cooling system in dire need of some attention so a flush and new hoses on the cards next. The road to the 2k cup

[Pelo]

Finally swapped out my horrible double DIN 90s relic cassette player for... the cheapest head unit supercheap had. If I can plug in my phone I'm happy!
Now I just need some sort of DIN sized panel to mount my boost gauge and RSM tidily.

[Vertigo]

Anyone got any tips for reading your oil level if your oil is super clean? My engine was completely rebuilt only 5000km ago, and Im having real trouble judging the level!

[Bling]

What oil are you using that is invisible? Have never had that problem, even straight after filling it, can always see a thin film on the stick.

[MAC_HATER]

Find an oil thats tinted with colour haha

I get that a lot too, fresh oil in and its impossible to tell unless you wash and dry the stick, dip it, and check it in the riiiight light until a few hunddred km of driving haha

though the only brand I can think of that does coloured oil is Royal Purple, pricey

[RS13]

New front tyres on the daily.. gotta love Tonys Tyre service and their $10 price beat. Although, they don't like selling Yokos much.. I must have been asked half a dozen times between the guy on the phone and the branch manager at the TTS if I was absolutely sure that I didn't want the Firestone equivalent for the same price!

[Al]

I normally shopped for tyres at KATS but the sales guy there didn't seem very enthusiastic about selling anything other than GT Radial or Achilles. There must be fat margin in those, so I just waited for a buy three get one free deal from Bridgestone.

[GDII]

New front tyres on the daily.. gotta love Tonys Tyre service and their $10 price beat. Although, they don't like selling Yokos much.. I must have been asked half a dozen times between the guy on the phone and the branch manager at the TTS if I was absolutely sure that I didn't want the Firestone equivalent for the same price!

That's because TTS are owned by Bridgestone....

[RS13]

New front tyres on the daily.. gotta love Tonys Tyre service and their $10 price beat. Although, they don't like selling Yokos much.. I must have been asked half a dozen times between the guy on the phone and the branch manager at the TTS if I was absolutely sure that I didn't want the Firestone equivalent for the same price!

That's because TTS are owned by Bridgestone....

Yep? I wasn't getting at that, I was more pointing out their insistence.

[RS13]

I normally shopped for tyres at KATS but the sales guy there didn't seem very enthusiastic about selling anything other than GT Radial or Achilles. There must be fat margin in those, so I just waited for a buy three get one free deal from Bridgestone.

Yeah. The last time I tried to buy my specific Yokos from TTS a couple of years back, the lady told me they didn't make them any more so couldn't get them in.. but could sell me the Firestone equivalent for the same price. So I bought them elsewhere, so hence my surprise when they did sell them to me this time.

Yeah I do the same when buying a set. Wait for Bridgestone to have their buy three get one free, get a quote for a set, then hit up TTS. Got the Caldina a set of $230 tyres for $162.50 each.