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That is insanely excessive and you possibly glazed the pads/rotors and boiled the brake fluid, which would give you a pretty consistent spongy feel since if you boil the fluid you usually get air in the lines.
Yeah, figured that out, so went and had a rotors touched up, new pads and fluid, and re-bled. This time break-in was still hard, but not extreme. Rotors look perfectly even pad wear now and fluid is clear. Still going to upgrade the brake booster and master cylinder to 97+ supra and go with ss lines.
Originally Posted by Reaper617
You will hate the acceleration, or now lack there of, going that low. If top speed is of no concern go taller 4.3+ if possible, then you can be aggressive off the line.
I'm going to source a local auto 300 4.3 diff and use that pinion gear. Should be quit cheap is they are everywhere and really no one wants them. It's only for me while I am NA if the top end doesn't suffer to much.
Originally Posted by Reaper617
When I get to work tomorrow I'll see if Alldata has the guide for rebuilding the diff and snag a copy for you. I've never done a supra diff but if its like other Toyotas they are not too bad. You need a dial indicator.
Much appreciated. I've pretty much searched youtube etc,and was shocked to not find any supra diff gear change videos, esp being such popular cars. A manual would help a lot. Diff tracking # says it arrives in a week, so I have time to source needed tools and parts beforehand.
Supra tt auto diff arrived today in great condition. Even the bushings look fantastic and are still soft. I would not have expected that.
I ordered all the rebuild parts from Toyota last week and last I heard they should be here tomorrow. Cost was approx $350. I have also sourced an sc300 auto diff so that I can have the gears switched out.
For now I am going to just keep the oem bushings on the diff as they appear in great shape. I'll stick a gopro under the car after the install to check for flex under load, and if there is much then I will change the bushings. I do know that I don't want solid as a few articles I have read from those that went solid now suggest against it and one has even gone back to poly. So far I only see one site selling poly diff bushings so not much choice out there.
Question:
While I am at it, is there any need/benefit to changing anything else back there?
I received the sc seat brackets in the mail yesterday and started work on getting the ears removed so that I can use them on the supra seats. Remember that the seats I purchased had the mounting ears cut off for some stupid reason.
My plan of attack was to drill out the small rivet and then to chisel away at the large rivet. It took about a solid hour of hammering away before the first large rivet was finally removed.
*As I have 7 more large rivets to chisel, and knowing I am NOT going to spend another 6-7 hours doing the work, I decided to go out and purchase an air compressor and air hammer. Still has to be cheaper buying these tools than finding a shop to do the work for me and they should come in handy when it comes time to swap the rear diff.
Unfortunately it seems that I am also going to have to use a cutting wheel between the 2 cutout holes as the ears are still attached to the rails. It is not enough to just remove the 2 'rivets'.
Well gave up and decided to take the rails to a local shop to have the ears cut off. Quoted on $30 and seeing as I already spent 2x that much in tools to try and it it myself, figure it is worth it.
Also decided to park the car for a week as it is supposed to be non stop rain. Seems like the perfect time to send the ecu to tanin for repair. Not sure if anything is wrong with it as the car runs and everything works, but it seems prudent as eventually it will need to be done. I tried pulling the cover to check the caps but the first screw began to strip and I wasn't going to chance ticking tanin off with a bad screw.
If this goes well, then next step is to send in the cluster and climate control for repair.
It's been a month since my last post to the build thread and in the meantime there has been a fair amount of work going on.
To start with I was having an intermittent problem with a crank shaft sensor code showing up where the car would hardly run, loosing probably 90% of the power. The strange part is this ONLY started happening after having the ecu rebuilt and reinstalled. When the problem happens the car will barely run and it will stay that way for a few days, yet sometimes I jump in and it starts and runs perfectly.
So the car has been in the shop for a couple of weeks now. Everything in the entire ignition system has been replaced. All hoses and gaskets are now new. We put in a new maf with new o2 sensors as well. I am hoping that when I get the car back today/tomorrow that the codes are gone. A compression test is also being done to let me know if the engine needs a rebuild prior to boosting or if I can get away with just a new head gasket and a new fresh head rebuild.
On the positive side, the tt auto torsen is now installed and working great. I kept the 3.76 gears in it as the turbo is up next and I didn't want to keep the 4.08 gears as with a turbo that would be horrible. The downside is there is a very noticeable difference in acceleration with the new gears as it is much slower at the moment, almost boring auto feeling.
We also replaced all the wheel bearings as I thought there might be a slight bit of play in the front right wheel. Better to do them all at once and not to have to be concerned about the others.
Finally I am looking into upgrading all the bushings in the car.. I am still on the fence as to which brand to go with, r2, prothane, etc... Finding good advice on this has been hard as I am looking for a 90% track setup but don't want solid as that would be to rough.
If anyone here actually tracks their sc with 'good results' and happens to read this, I could really use some good advice on which products work best and what to avoid.
Well spoke to soon on the torsen. I now have rattling going on in the diff in 1st and 2nd gear. Looks like the shop I took it to may have ruined the diff. Will know more about that tomorrow when we pull it out again.
When it rains it pours....
I have spent the past few months trying everything we can to find the engine issue with the lean bank 1 and I suspect that the above picture probably shows exactly why. The day after I got the car I took it to a lube shop to change all filters and fluids. This is the factory fuel filter still on the car, even though my receipt shows I paid for a new one. Worse yet, I'm sure you can see the pinched fuel line. Shocking that fuel doesn't leak and that the car runs at all. Sure hoping this solves the 'lean bank 1' code.
Now the diff not only has to come back out, possibly replaced, but the fuel lines have to be replaced as well.
As you can see in the pic of the pumpkin above, it only came with one of the axle stubs. When it arrived I wasn't concerned as the stubs in my sc pumpkin looked exactly the same so I figured I would just use one of mine as a replacement.
Well it turns out I cannot.. If you look at the picture closely it is apparent that the axle stub is 'short' just like the auto tt stubs. HOWEVER the end with the clip is not the same and won't lock in place. So the good news is the rattling that we heard is a simple fix if I can locate the right stub. The seller is currently looking for it, and with luck will find it and ship it out. This should solve the problem.
The fuel line itself has been replaced. Instead of spending $150+ at lexus, I just purchased a kit and bent my own. I am really hoping that this was the real cause of my trouble code for 'lean bank 1' as everything else has already been replaced so out of ideas beyond this.
Wow, glad you caught the issue with the twisted fuel line. Hopefully, that is the cause of you running lean and has now increased the fuel pressure since the twist is no longer there. That would've been one of the last places I would've looked if I was running lean
Well I had to learn the lesson the hard way when it comes to 'budget' shops. I was tired of spending 3x the $ at the 'real' shop and decided to let another shop do the "easy" stuff.
Issue 1: tune-up diagnose
The car was delivered to me on 3 separate occasions, and each time it either dropped a cylinder on the way home or on a subsequent trip. Never made it more than 10 miles before issues again. Each time I was told it was fixed.. The final time I was looking over the engine while it was running bad and noticed the pcv grommet was not in tight. I pulled it out and found that it had a manufacturing defect so one side was solid with no proper seat for the valve cover. My theory is that as the car was driven it moved, allowing oil into the spark plug wires (hidden under stupid sc intake so can't see) which would foul them out. Once I changed that, the car has run perfect since.
Issue 2: install supra lsd pumpkin
This pumpkin was installed into the car 3 times. And each time we took it for a test drive it sounded like huge banging, but only on acceleration, say 50% or greater. After the 3rd attempt I finally took the pumpkin myself to a professional to have rebuilt. It was done perfectly to spec (I watched the 4hr process and took notes from the Toyota mechanic who did the job), yet when I took it back to the cheap shop to have it installed into the car the banging on acceleration was back again. So being the 4th time, I had the car towed to the guy who rebuilt the diff.
Ok, here is one I didn't see coming. There are 4 bolts for the driveshaft to the pumpkin. They are DIFFERENT LENGTHS! If you look close there is about 1/4 or so difference. So it turned out the cheap shop had the long bolts in the wrong slot, so when under load, the driveshaft straightens and the bolts hit the face of the pumpkin.... stupid mistake, especially when made 4x in a row.
issue 3: wheel bearing
When I would make a sharp right turn into my driveway then the front right wheel would clunk very very bad, almost locking up. I assumed it was a wheel bearing and asked for it to be replaced. The first time the cheap shop looked they said it was fine, no need to replace. They just tightened everything up because it was loose.. hmmmm... So I take it home and sure enough, clunk!
Trip 2 they replace the wheel bearing and send me home. Into the driveway and clunk! So I drive back to the shop and they drive it, can't find any problem. So I took the car to an alignment shop. They put it on the rack and sure enough the bearing is so bad that the tire wobbles about 1 full inch vertically. I take a video and drive back to the shop to show them. They say spindle must be bad.
Three days after it was supposed to be done for the second time, I call and it turns out it is not even started, no parts ordered, so I go and purchase every possible part to rebuild the system. Days later I get a call and they want hundreds of dollars more to redo the wheel bearing even though I had already paid for it in full.
Just got the bearings redone at the real shop and come to find out the cheap shop had cross threaded the axle bolt so there were no threads. The spindle was just walking its way out of the bearing. Talk about the ultimate safety fail.
So now I am done with the cheap shop. I needed three basic repairs done, and after 2 months they made all three issues worse. In the end I had to spend 2x what the pro shop would have charged to begin with, so lesson learned.
I am out well over 1k to replace both front bearings, another 800 installing the lsd (2 shops + full unnecessary rebuild), 400 on the tune-up which turned out to be a simple $3 part.
On a positive note the car is running perfectly now. The lance alignment is dialed in, the brakes are crazy great and the car handles like a large go-cart. Every bit of maintenance is now done and I have to say that the car probably drives as good if not much better than the day it came off the lot. Now she just needs the power to match the handling.
Nice. Congrats on the build. Sounds like your gonna have a super fun and we'll taken care of car with all the maintenance done.
It's so unfortunate that that happened to you and your car. :/ I would've stopped going to them after the second time not knowing what they're doing. At my shop, if we do a job, we drive it to make sure everything is fixed the way it's supposed to. So that does not fly with me. It's better to come out clean and say, "look man Idk how to do this and would be better if you took it to someone more experienced," than to just guess at what your doing and not do it even half right. Talking about the axle and bearing incident there. Also after the 2nd diff install. I would've came clean and said I don't know what is happening maybe we can find you someone else or I can have a different technician look at it.
but good luck with your build. Keep it coming.
Well it turns out the car isn't fixed after all. It ran perfectly for about a week and now that stupid 'dropped cylinder' is back. Quite frustrating as nothing was touched, hadn't even popped the hood prior to the new round of issues.
I had almost made it home from a 200+ mile drive and a block away from the house I noticed my fan started increasing and decreasing (no a/c). Seconds later the engine started a slight misfire, and within a block there was zero power again, though zero codes....
I checked the voltage and at rest it was 12.4 and 13.6 while idling. Not great, but also not the problem.
So the quest continues to find out why the car runs perfectly one day and almost not at all the next.
As I had already ordered new hoses and thermostat I went ahead and installed them and of course it makes no difference to the problem but at least solves another future problem in waiting.
I believe the only thing I have not replaced yet is the distributor itself, fuel injectors and wiring harness. I've checked all the connectors and wires and they seem to be in good shape. As the car spent most of its life in the Pacific Northwest with no sun, there is very little heat damage to anything on the car, so I believe the wiring harness is not the answer I seek and will save it until everything else is tried first.
**Does anyone know if Toyota or Lexus has a computer they can plug in that will actually identify the problem if there are no codes showing on my obd2 reader?
03-17-15, 10:03 PM
