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After almost two years of abuse the diff in Jerry’s RA28 Celica has finally taken a holiday. To bring you up to speed, we have been involved in the build-up of Jerry’s car for over three years now, first with the engine transplant at our workshop before my back gave out and then with a number of different jobs like hiding the wiring, engine bay respray and interior refit at home on a part time basis.

The engine used is a 1G-GTE originally found in late 80’s early 90’s Toyota Supra’s. It is a six-cylinder 2.0 litre with twin turbos, twin cam head and efi. The engine is basically stock, with the exception of a full rebuild, front mount intercooler, boost control valve and the turbos have been high-flowed and fitted with Subaru WRX internals.

The gearbox is the original 5 speed from the Supra half-cut and when the transplant was done we decided on leaving the original 4 cylinder diff in place and look at a suitable conversion when it gave up the ghost. Little did we know it would last this long!

Recently the diff centre bearings have been getting noisy and the crown and pinion gears show a considerable amount of wear but the clincher was breaking an axle today after pulling second gear mid-way through a corner with quite a few revs on board (on a private road of course!). Here’s the results:-

Now the hunt is on for a suitable replacement differential. My opinion is that a V8 VN Commodore diff should be strong enough and fitting VT Commodore front hubs and calipers and a Commodore master cylinder would achieve a number of things.

Obviously the over-all brake upgrade would be a good thing as the original brakes are marginal at best and the Commodore wheel stud pattern gives Jerry the choice of literally hundreds of different wheels which will be an improvement over the crappy mags on it at the moment.

The mandrel-bent exhaust might be an issue as it closes the gap between diff housing and the floor considerably so that will have to be a consideration in the final choice as everything needs to be legal for hassle-free cruising.

Will keep you updated on our progress.

Craig

 Due to work comitments for one of our team members, Race Wars had been put off for at least six weeks. It seems like this thing will never get off the ground the way we are going!

 The first scheduled race was abandoned due to the ‘losing team’ finding their car had a blown head gasket and now Travis has to go to Thursday Island for six weeks to work. At least we now have plenty of time to think of more low-budget mods for the Starion and plenty of time to sabotage the Telstar!

 Race Wars is what we are calling a friendly bet between four mates, divided into two teams, a budget set at one thousand dollars (which includes buying a suitable car) and a trip to Willowbank Raceway to see who is the quickest down the quarter mile.

 To read more details please check out the first post and the first update.

Craig 

 The date for the race has been set. The cars are well, as ready as they can be and the scene set for the funniest event since Paris Hilton got locked up. To get an idea of what is happening take a look at the original Race Wars post.

 The Starion has gone on a diet big time and lost all un-necessary interior fittings. I only wish we could replace the doors and rear hatch with something a bit lighter, those things must weigh a ton.

 The engine is another story in itself and to be honest it has me doubting whether it will make the three passes under it’s own steam. The head gasket is blown and we have never had less mosies around here since we got it going.

 A bottle of chemi-weld has helped the head gasket issue and a helping of stop-smoke has been added to control the oil situation. Not a good start! On the “performance” side we’ve made up a cold air intake which houses the original air-flow meter, advanced the timing as much as possible without huge amounts of detonation and will fit a bleed valve to boost it up to around 14 psi.

 The exhaust is reasonably free flowing except for the dump pipe (see picture) and I think will stay as is. If I had more faith in the engine a quick shot of nitrous would help to win this thing but seeing as we are starting out with a sick engine we don’t want to push it too far.

 The date for the battle has changed again! see this post for the latest update. If you are in Brisbane looking for something to do get behind team s**tbox and head out to Willowbank Raceway for what should be a piss-funny night. If you have any ideas of how to squeeze more power out of this rocket without breaking our now $250 budget please feel free to leave a comment.

Craig