My Toyota Caldina GTT - 3SGTE Gen 4

[trd_zzt231]

MY JOURNEY SO FAR FAR AWAY

I bought this car off a mate, after owning one in the past I loved them to bits and couldn't resist buying another. I would have loved a manual one but the costs were 12-13k. I ended up picking up this baby for around $6k and was lucky to have a pretty impressive collection of mods including 17x7 +38 A-Tech rims, Blitz cat-back exhaust, Apexi N1 ATS silencer, Blitz DSBC spec R, Blitz radiator cap, Blitz boost gauge, Largus Coilovers and EBC Greenstuff Pads All Round.

There were a few issues that needed to be resolved such as the non working sunroof, noise at Front Struts, and a Small Oil Leak.

The small oil leak ended up being the rear main seal which I knew would be a big job but still persisted.

The first thing to come off was the roof racks. I doubt i'll ever use them but it was good to keep them just in case.

I had my old wheels from my celica (and prior to that they were on my original Caldina) which I was quick to put on.

CHECK OUT MY BOOTY

Well I like to keep busy so shortly after this I chucked on the rear aero kit rear bar. It went on really nicely and only took about 15 minutes. I cleaned the area behind the bumper nicely and bolted everything up.

The under side of the lip will eventually require a bit of attention from a plastic welder as there is a small crack down the bottom of one of the mounts and one on the left hand side.

Notice my traditional "TRD" addition to the car? I love those decals lol. Now to find something TRD to put on the car to make the sticker relevant lol.

I am on the hunt for some better nick aero kit sideskirts as the ones I have at the moment are in need of some work as well.

The muffler sits a bit off, but this should be resolved quite easily with a visit to the muffler shop.

Well not to leave things half finished I then went on to do the front bumper too. I really love the look. The only issue I had was with one of the fog lights having a blown bulb and I didn't have one spare. They are quite difficult to take out so the bumper will likely come off again in the near future.

Its all coming together yay

CAPTAIN WE HAVE GAS

The next step was to get the Air Conditioning regassed, I took the car to the mechanic, the air conditioning gas was reconditioned and its super cool now

I took the time to clean up a few things that I was meaning to do.

I got a GPS/BLUETOOTH/DVD headunit online the other week and got around to installing it, it fit in really nicely. I wouldn't mind spacing out the headunit slightly further out (was thinking about elongating the mounting holes).

I removed the back trim on the hatch (it was damaged) and found a bit of damage doh :( I am hoping that the Panel beater will be able to remove them (even though you won't see it behind the trim its nice to know that its all straight.

I plastic welded the hole, it still needs more work but its better than what I had before. I found that cable ties are an excellent source of cheap plastic when plastic welding:

My Cusco Rear Sway bar is on the way from Japan. Can't wait to get it installed.

THE PHOTOSHOOT

I then went out to take some photos of the car. Still needs to be lower (coilovers sitting at stock height nearly)

I was driving around for the first time since I got the car back and noticed it was down on power, I noticed I was only boosting to .5 bar. I may have hit the boost controller when cleaning. A quick phone call with the previous owner and it seems that the car was on the low boost setting. A quick adjustment and the car is back to normal now. Big difference from 7psi to just on 12psi now. I was wondering whether the st215 has a boost cut? I wasn't sure where to adjust the boost controller to (was thinking 14-15psi)

THEN IT HAPPENED.

I was cruising around while filming on my GOPRO with a mate and the gearbox started playing up. It would knock from 2nd gear to 1st coming up to a stop and it would miss second gear completely.

The decision came to do the rear main seal and put in a manual transmission.

I had a list of parts required for the Manual Conversion :

Gearbox
Flywheel (now machined)
Clutch Kit
Clutch Slave Cylinder
All Clutch Lines
Clutch Master Cylinder
Clutch Pedal
Brake Pedal
Gear Shifter
New Rear Main Seal
New Flywheel Bolts
New Hose from Hell
New Hose From Hell On Earth
New Pressure Plate Bolts
Rear Manual Differential
Driver Side Manual Driveshaft
Shifter Cable Plate (at base of floor near gear shifter, allows cables to go to engine bay)
Steering Wheel (if I want to remove the triptronic buttons eventually)
Dash Cluster (for removing all traces of Auto gear indicators)
75w-90 Gearbox oil
75w-90 Diff Oil
5w-30 Fully Synth Engine Oil
Z386 Oil Filter

The gearbox was ordered from NZ since it was considerably cheaper. 2 months after ordering the transmission conversion kit it arrived. ALL but the Transfer case, for some reason it was removed prior to posting. I spoke to the wrecker and they mentioned it would be sent seperately.

THE DRIVE TO TULLAMARINE

I had to pick up the transmission from Tullamarine. What a big job that was. I went from the transport company, then to Customs, then to a Custom Broker, then to Quarantine, back to the transport company for a quarantine inspection and then I was on my way.

The one part I was worried about the most was having to drill through the firewall for the clutch pedal and clutch master cylinder. I was happy to see that there was markings already there in the panel, they just needed to be drilled out. the previous owner had used this hole to route the boost gauge lines but this will have to be reallocated at some stage.

TEST FIT INITIALIZED

I test fitted the shifter to see how it would feel. Its a bit of extra motivation to do the other parts and get it on the road.

The gear knob has a great weighty feel to it, pity its very worn (some of the stitching on the other side has lifted)

I got the clutch and flywheel from the car in NZ so I will be able to get the flywheel machined (the clutch will be binned)

I got my Manual LSD rear diff. It needs a really good clean though.

The Wrecker in NZ was very comprehensive, all bit and pieces were included.

The glorious manual ST215 Manual gearbox

Parts that have so far come off, In all good time they will go back on.

THE CLEAN UP

I put the gearknob in a container with some washing detergent and hot water, the amount of grease and dirt that came off it was aweful.

I covered the gear boot with some washing detergent and hosed it off. Seems to have worked well.

Great to see the manual shifter in place, the auto shifter is looking on with disgust in the background now that someones living in his old home.

I caught a quick shot of my car taking a stretch lol

MAKE UP TIME

I ended up painting the gearbox and a few of the brackets. Wow what a headache that was. I'm still waiting for my transfer case to arrive, it should arrive any day now. Its been 4 months without a car :(. I wouldn't mind normally but this isn't the first time i've had a car off the road for at least 4 months haha.

Still sitting in the same spot unfortunately :( I can't wait to get it out.

FLYWHEEL MACHINED AND PARTS ARRIVING

My flywheel has now been machined, I love the look of a freshly machined surface, makes me want to frame it and not let it get dirty haha

I have my pressure plate bolts and Form In Place Gasket Orange coming from Castle Hill Toyota. Couldn't say enough nice things about that place. James has been awesome to deal with.

Still waiting for my transfer case and other bits that were missing. Bit of a headache but what can you do. Waiting for an ETA on the delivery as i'm not sure how long it will take further on. Been 5 months without a car and its really getting to me now, especially annoying when having to get to work. I'm still riding my electric chopper bike 10km each way to work, while it is enjoyable I would love to get onto something with more than a kw of power (the bike has about 500 watts of power).

The rear main seal is all ready to replace the existing leaking unit, from what I can tell in the steps Rona outlayed a few years ago the engine out process isn't too bad. Getting the awd gearbox seems like the most frustrating time consuming task yet.

Edited March 21, 2013 by trd_zzt231

[VIPZR6]

Epic story! cant wait to see this back on the road again. Pitty there arnt more of these things boosting around :(

[rollaurion]

Awesome work mate! Thanks for posting, I love reading these stories. Hopefully can catch up at a meet sometime and see the car in the flesh!

[sportivo2007]

nice ride mate !

[kiwi Caldina]

sweet car with some sweet mods. the manual conversion is nice work. st215s are all over the roads in NZ which is good for parts, very few in aus. i just picked up an st246 caldina from an importer in melb.

[woot woot]

Adrian when will this be done?

[trd_zzt231]

Sorry all its been a while since i've been able to get on. I have a heap of updates which i've added in below :)

[trd_zzt231]

Thought i'd pass over a few facts about the Caldina. I think they are most intriguing chassis which has an awesome balance between performance and practicality.

They are powered by a 3sgte Gen 4 Turbo motor which puts out 193kw at the fly. It runs 550cc Injectors standard and uses a similar design turbo to the ST205 Celica (but in this case it uses a exhaust manifold and exhaust turbo housing in one).

Parts wise a lot of the parts swap over from other generation Toyota Celica GT4's, and it uses the same wheel hub of 5x100.

The bodykit I am using is a genuine Toyota design, it was available as part of the Aerial Sports GTT models. Mine was just known as the GTT model which was identical apart from it having the nudge bar (the caldina was also available without the nudge bar but the same design).

The Auto models feature Vehicle Stability Control, but since I am converting mine to manual I have used the manual rear diff which is an LSD design.

The stock muffler uses a system similar to the Varex systems, in which one of the exhaust pipes is closed off under certain rpm to keep exhaust volumes down.

Theres another Caldina which has been converted to Manual in Victoria which is putting out just on 267kw at the wheels on the stock internals, running a nice big borg turbo and an aftermarket emanage (still on stock injectors I believe too).

I was waiting for my transfer case and guess what arrived yay:

Everything seemed to be ok

On closer inspection the transfer case has been dropped, as you can see there is a decent crack on the drivers side output shaft. How frustrating.

With a small amount of pressure the piece ended up snapping off completely. I have another transfer case on the way from a st205 celica which should arrive next week. I've also noticed that i'm missing the 2 transfer case strengthening brackets, both attach to the block and help with some of the twisting load from the driveline. This project will be nearly 6 months in the process, i've been without the car for 6 months haha. I've only had it on the road for 2 weeks since owning it.

5 months without the car, I had it for 2 weeks before the auto went. I was really hoping for a new start with my modification/buying car pattern.

Maybe this has all just been a real test of effort, after this work i'll never want to sell it. Luckily Road and track have sold me a right hand side transfer case housing and new axle seal for cheap. The part number of the housing is the same, but there are some differences internally so I wanted to use as much of the caldina ST215 transfer case as possible.

I'm suprised how easy the transfer case was to split. With a set of Snap pliers it only takes about 5 minutes.

I've delayed my appointment with my cousin for the last 2 months now, hes so nice offering his car hoist.

I've been mucking around with the shifter cables at the moment, on my previous sw20 mr2 I had bought a spherical bearing kit from DeltaV which helps to remove some of the slack on the standard rubber boots. My overall impressions in the past have always been good, I bought the kit in hopes to adapt them to work with the Caldina ST215. Only one of them has been able to be adapted, I didn't realise that one of the shifter ends that go onto the gearbox is considerably larger. I wonder what my chances are like in machining a spherical bearing to suit the larger shifter cable.

I'm also working on a few ways to not only space out the stock shifter higher in preparation for a short shifter. The ones from Deltav were designed for an MR2 SW20 with a metal shifter assembly so the gold spacers didn't fit quite the same. I am currently using a ZZT231 shifter which is only 1cm shorter, but now that I know if fits i've got a good chance of finding a short shifter.

My Transmission oil cooler arrived, a few fins need to be straightened up but that won't be a problem.

I also got around to painting my exhaust/turbo heat shield in high temp satin black.

I'm sure the modifications above may not make a huge difference but it is all part of the enjoyment of modifying, I want to get into some parts engineering, i'd love to get a mini lathe for this sort of stuff. I've been enjoying this car more than ever. Its strange actually keeping a car for once, all the money i've wasted on modifying and spending money on cars that i've ended up selling for cheap.

[trd_zzt231]

This weekend has been huge. I had all the parts I needed and decided to get to work on the Manual Conversion.

To get the car ready for towing I put the clutch brake pedal back on. The foot rest is off at the moment as I am hoping to adapt a full alloy pedal set from a ZZT231 Toyota Celica ZR model.

The gearbox was all ready to take to my cousins house. I had it all strapped up on the plastic pallet. The piece of wood helped support the transfer case. That thing is heavy as.

The Tow truck driver from Nationwide Towing was the nicest i've ever met. I was really worried about the front bar getting smashed as the tow points are about 1 inch higher than the bottom of the lip. I mentioned to the driver that i'd be more than happy to give him something a bit extra to take a bit of extra time to ensure it doesn't get damaged but mentioned it wasn't necessary and he promised me it would be intact and undamaged. He was correct, it arrived without a scratch.

Looks awesome on the back of the tow truck. Will be a photo for the wall :)

I arrived at my cousins house and started unloading the gearbox using his engine crane. Everything went as planned so far with regards to removing the transmission. We had to disconnect the steering knuckle, remove 2 power steering lines, remove the wiring loom and remove the crossmember bolts. Those are some very tight bolts.

Before you know it, I had a 193kw 2wd go kart hahaha. Now the real Challenge starts removing the manual

Once the wheels were off and the engine was hoisted up I needed to remove the rear crossmember. Its great to see the engine out. That Auto Tranmission was huge, not only extremely heavy but very hard to work on, there are bolts hidden away everywhere.

I have to admit I am not a dog person but my cousins dog was keeping me company throughout the last 2 days. I loved it. He was extremely scared of the impact wrench and made some attempts to bite it and nearly me in the process doh haha

Before you know it the 2 were separated, goodbye

One thing I noticed was on the left hand side of the image, the turbo brace has some adjust-ability on the block, you can see that there is 3-4mm distance between the top of the bracket and the turbo exhaust. I loosened the bolts and pulled the bracket so it was flush with the turbo. When I took the dump pipe off I noticed that bolt was just sitting there half wound in. I'll do it straight away.

Here we have a 3sgte auto pressure plate, i'm sure these are similar to the ones on a rav4 auto. Didnt take much to undo the nuts and remove the pressure plate

You will notice the pressure plate spacer. its quite easy to miss and if its not removed it will cause the flywheel to touch the gearbox housing. It just slipped off nice and easy.

Here we have the leaking rear main seal. I'm not sure if I can tell the source of the leak. The leak was very small but enough to be of concern long term. I wonder what the chances are like that the plate surrounding the rear main seal could have been leaking

I had some free time while I decide what to do with the Valeo Clutch, I am thinking of getting an exeedy clutch instead of the Valeo brand one I have at the moment.

I decided to battle the rear sway bar. This was the easiest job i've ever done. I've done rear sways on previous cars and nearly all have involved dropping the fuel tank straps and squeezing the bar through the smallest spot possible. The bar came out really easily.

As you can see there is heaps of room to remove the bar.

comparing the stock one next to the Cusco rear 19MM rear sway bar.

Here is the sway bar installed. I was curious to see that the Cusco kit provided rubber boots instead of nolathane like the whiteline kits. I am still very impressed with the kit. Looks great.

I keep the protective packaging bag in place till the bar is all lined up and bolted in so there is less chance of scratching the suspension.

More progress will come this weekend. I still need to drill out the 32mm Master Cylinder hole, mount the manual shifter and run the clutch lines. The engine and gearbox should go in this week. I am hoping to rebuild the power steering pump if I can get the parts required this week. The master cylinder rebuilt kit arrived last week so that will get fixed up this week too.

[trd_zzt231]

Hey all,

I've got a few more updates from this weekend. Slowly but surely its all coming together.

Here is the clutch pressure plate all torqued up. I used a clutch alignment tool which worked no problems.

Throw out bearing was also nicely greased up, but I was sure to not put on too much as it can splash off under RPM onto the pressure plate and clutch plate surfaces.

Here is a group of parts that still to go back on the car. Luckily the pile is getting smaller slowly. I can't wait for this to be down to 0

Engine from side. Gearbox all mounted, and all engine mount brackets in place. Starter motor also in place all mounted nicely. Mounting the awd gearbox was a huge job. As many GT4 celica owners would know the gearbox had to be twisted on, then put on straight due to the transfer case proximity to the motor casing.

My hole for the master cylinder. Unfortunately there is an existing hole in the centre hole which I will need to make a template to correctly drill in the middle.

I mounted the 2 shifter cables. I am quite amazed that the shifter cables actually go under floor of the car, all the other cars i've had all went through the firewall if i'm not mistaken.

I presumed that 3 out of the 3 engine mount brackets on the auto were going to be the same. Silly mistake on my side, 2 out of the 3 ended up being different.

The rear engine mount bracket does fit from the auto, but it uses a damper which won't fit, and it only mounts using 2 holes. According to my readings on Toyodiy (legendary site) that the manual gearbox doesn't use a damper on the bracket, instead it mounts using 3 bolts instead of 2.

I found out that the Rav 4 SXA10 and SXA11 manual models shared the same rear mount bracket as the Caldina Manuals. On the off chance I was looking on ebay and managed to find someone wrecking a Rav 4.

[trd_zzt231]

A bit of progress since the weekend, I have been meaning to replace the passenger side front inner axle seal, a quick lookup of the kelpro catalogue and I found the parter number 98089.

My biggest nightmare was thinking that the manual diff that I paid $450 for may have ended up being an automatic one after all, from my readings and conversations with fellow Caldina owners that the Auto used Vehicle Stability Control as part of the transmission/transfer case to keep the car in line. Toyota Designed the manual to use an LSD to improve traction and drivability.

In my testing on the Manual Diff, if I spun one side the other side spun the other direction. This usually mean't that it was an open diff. In my research I found that the manual ran a Torsen LSD which works as an open diff when the amount of torque going to each wheel is equal. But the second one wheel starts to lose traction, the different in torque causes the gears in the Torsion Differential to bind together.

I will be using the Manual diff in place knowing this, But I did want to also replace the rear inner axle seals which had the part number 98095.

I've got Thursday and Sunday (1/2 days) to work on the car, the motor and tailshaft still need to go back on the car, amongst all the other components such as the intercooler, battery, wiring loom needs plugging in at the ecu and some general wiring to allow the car to start (neutral start switch) which won't take long to do.

I'm pretty excited to see this stage of the project coming to an end. I'm sure it will feel a lot quicker as a manual since the auto is so smooth through the gears. I'm sure there is a certain amount of power lost from the torque converter too.

[trd_zzt231]

I got the opportunity to do some more work on the Caldina this afternoon. I managed to get both cross members in place and the rear engine mount I sourced from a wrecked Rav 4 (same part number luckily).

I almost forgot to put the second part of the dump pipe in place before putting the rear crossmember in place.

The part that I was most nervous about was drilling the holes for the clutch master cylinder. I kid you not i've had nightmares about stuffing this part up, once its drilled there is no way back. There are template holes from factory (the firewall is made up of 2 pieces, the interior side of the firewall was the one with the template).

The end result was done using the top and bottom thread bolt holes that I made up, then I made a template out of some alloy with a perfect outline of the 2 bolt holes and the centre master cylinder hole, then I bolted that to the engine bay and used the hole in the template to guide the hole saw.

I coated the edges so they will not rust, I also got onto rebuilding the Clutch Master Cylinder which went together without an issue. Was a great learning experience to rebuild it. The plate behind the holes is the Clutch Pedal assembly inside the car (wasn't bolted in at that stage.

I also got around to installing the shifter which went on without any issues. Its fantastic having 3 pedals now, it always looked like something was missing.

The engine will be back in this Sunday and we can work away at filling up the fluids and replacing the rear diff which shouldn't take too long.

I managed to munch another axle seal when installing so i'll be off to get another (or 2 lol). I should have greased the edges with some rubber grease when tapping it in as they were pretty hard to get in place.

My front engine mount looks like it needs replacing. I am wondering if I will be able to find one easily enough. The rear one also required some attention. The front one had quite a bit of weight on it at this stage so it has sunken down quite a bit more than it would with the car weight.

[trd_zzt231]

I finally got around to showing a picture of the three pedals. I still have a little suprise lined up for this area so i'll leave that till once the car is all done hehe.

Its such a wierd feeling seeing the clutch pedals all lined up line like this. I've dream't of it. I still need to get to the one bolt at the very top of the dash.

I found this canister which doesn't have any lines coming out of it, it was wasn't hanging in the bronze frame either (just rattling around in the engine bay). Once the cars going i'll reroute these back into the vaccum system. Its likely that its a charcoal canistor (but there is another one on the driver side under the coolant bottle).

In transit I unfortunately scratched the powdercoat surface of one of my wheels. I'm hoping its possible to touch them up with some paint. It would only be $70-$80 to get the wheel stripped and recoated but its just a bit of unfortunate damage.

I spent literally 2 and a half hours trying to work out the mounting positions for the clutch line. I searched all throughout the web to try and find some diagrams. I found this spot here and it appeared to be correct.

It also seems that the clutch line that I was using was also bent so it took some time to carefully straighten it up and run the clutch lines amongst the firewall line holders.

This fitting next to the clutch master cylinder may be familiar to some enthusiasts. Toyota call it an Orifice lol. I believe its designed to smoothen out the clutch pressure applied to the clutch slave cylinder. I opened it up, there is 2 springs and a piston inside.

I also got around to fitting the axle seal on the passenger side, and taking the rear axles out of the diff to replace the rear inner axle seals. This all went without an issue.

It should be another day to get the motor/gearbox and the main components back in another another day to fix up the wiring, get the fluids in and to neatup up everything.

Getting close, once the engine is back in, the next part is the really fun part. Servicing the motor and filling up the fluids will be awesome fun.

[trd_zzt231]

Well its no doubt that the manual portion of this awesomely fun project is coming to completion (stage 1 of many stages of modifications lol)

It seems like there is still a lot to do, since the motor and gearbox is still out of the car but it only takes about 10 minutes to lift that back in place.

I still need to work out the neutral start switch (I have the ecu pinout, just need to find the wire on the wiring loom in the engine bay and ground it) and which wires to connect to allow the reverse switch to signal the ecu/ reverse lights to come on.

From here everything should go in nicely. I still need to change the diff around, this will be an easy enough task since the seals have all been replaced nicely. All the fluids (apart from the brake fluid) on the car still need to be filled up and checked over.

I'm hoping to be done by Sunday midday/lunch. It should be possibile if I work hard and concentrate.

[trd_zzt231]

Well I have some awesome updates for a Friday morning, last night I popped around to my Cousins to work on the car a bit more.

Neutral Start Switch

The neutral start switch was the one part I was fearing the most, i've done wiring before but its always frustrating trying to work out which wire is which. I had a wiring diagram that helped out heaps, I found that the neutral start switch was a Black wire with grey dots painted onto it. I confirmed that with the multimeter and I was well onto my way earthing the wire so the car will start in Manual now. For anyone that might have not known about a neutral start switch, when the car is normally in Park or Neutral on an automatic car the signal to the ecu (from this neutral start switch wire) is 0-1v (basically no voltage), when the ecu signals this it will let you start the car. It stops you from starting the car in Drive or Reverse for safety reasons. Since the autos don't run the neutral start switch I needed to trick the wire from the ecu to think that it was in Park or Reverse by grounding it.

Intercooler Installation And Bending the Engine Lift Hook

The intercooler went on without any issues except for the Engine Lift Hook which was now in the way of the intake pipe, it must have been the force of jacking the engine up that caused it to bend in (the chains that were installed were in an inverted V shape which caused the 2 jacking points to bow inwards). I got the bracket off, into the vice and we gave it an 'encouraging' hit with the hammer to get it back in line. I'd like to eventually get some new hoses for the intercooler.

Gearbox Cooler And Lines

This was an absolute nightmare to do. I had to try and find 3 matching bolt holes to mount the manual gearbox cooler, and then somehow tighten up the fittings to the bottom of the cooler from in between the front bumper grille. I still need to tighten up the gearbox side of the lines.

Replacing Vacuum Lines

I noticed there was a few vacuum lines which were a tiny bit too small (and hard) to fit back onto the lines. I believe these were signal wires for the boost controller. I found some Vacuum line which was new but similarly sized (since one side of the vacuum line needed to be bigger than the other I just had to push on a smaller vacuum line.

I still haven't found an easy way to put on Vacuum Lines (especially when its just one size a bit too small). I might heat it up next time. I did however use some wd40 to lubricate the rubber. Any ideas for next time would be much appreciated.

Diff Installation

This was a nightmare and a half. The way Toyota designed the diff sub-frame means that you have to drop the WHOLE sub-frame enough just to be able to get the bolts out from the diff subframe. We ended up trying this and the diff replacement took only about 10 minutes in the end. Always daunting undoing such big suspension components hahaha

Here is the list of things left:

Torque/do up the following bolts/fittings: 3 Ball Joint Bolts/Nuts, 2x Suspension Strut Bolts, 6x strut top nuts, 6x Rear Subframe Bolts/Nuts, 8x driveshaft nuts, 4 prop shaft bolts, 1 steering knuckle bolt, 1x power steering low pressure hose clamp.

I just need to lift up the prop shaft in place and top up the gearbox fluid, from there i'll put the air filter box on, fit the clutch pedal assembly top firewall bolt (impossible to get with the car on the hoist), bleed the clutch and power steering then start the car LOOOOOL That will all happen tomorrow yay. I should be driving home tomorrow afternoon in a Manual Caldina ST215. All that hard work for such a rewarding result.

[trd_zzt231]

After 6 months of parts hunting and weekends battling through, the manual conversion is now complete and driving.

We had some troubles getting the car started, i had grounded the neutral start switch wire to the body of the car yet it would still not start. We spent a good 2-3 hours testing everything from the alarm system to checking for fuses. After speaking to my best mate he mentioned that the way I had wired the neutral start switch mean't the signal wasn't continuing back to the ecu. I redid the wire and the car still didn't start after all of that. My cousin suggested to check the fuses, and after all that I had blown the starter motor fuse. Unfortunately I had run out of fuses and ended up having to remove the one from the panel illumination. This mean't driving back with no dash lights.

I did have 3 issues with the conversion which still need to be rectified

- One of the vacuum lines on the factory boost controller snapped off (it may have always been like that from a previous owner).

- There is a knocking/vibration/shuddering sound when accelerating in 2nd and 3rd gear. I believe one of the uni's was playing up when the car was auto, but you didn't notice it since the torque converter helped smoothen out this.

- The tail shaft I used was from the auto model. The front section of the tailshaft is in fact different from auto to manual. While the yoke of the diff does slide in, its not sitting in all the way. I'd like to get this resolved asap.

Now the real work starts haha. So much still to do.

[trd_zzt231]

I thought i'd show a bit of an update. I finally got around to cleaning my garage, the angle of the shot makes it look a lot bigger than it is haha. I am able to fit 4 cars in there JUST if there is nothing else in there but it comfortably fits 2.

The one thing i've never done too well is organisation, I found a great collection of tools scattered around the house and in the garage, I wanted to make up a pegboard so I will be able to easily find my tools in the future.

I tend to be a bit implusive sometimes and one of these was to spray those $15 galvanised shelving units Satin Black (visible on right). Its amazing the difference a bit of paint makes. I will do the one on the left next time I get some paint.

Just one of my car models i painted a little while ago, the body and interior isn't finished yet, so I just sat the body on some wheels hehe

I always wanted a computer in the garage, its great watching mighty car mods while working on my own car. I was watching the Honda Civic build. Those guys are hilarious.

My gorgeous car is back home after so long. It was missed so very much.

The Caldina GTT's have a great ***** lol

The car is very much in need of a clean, I took the time today to give it a really good scrub up.

Washing time, it was like bringing back memories, its great to have a car again after 6 months waiting.

I still need to detail the engine bay but with the wheel turned I was able to get some of the oil that had flicked up from one of the driveshafts which had a tear.

The engine is all looking pretty neat. It still needs a good detail. I would like to do bit by bit. The first thing would likely be to run a front mount intercooler so I have more space to work on the engine.

My newly acquired Clutch Master sitting nicely :)

Warning the next photo shows blood.

I was working on removing my corner lights to replace with my series 2 amber ones and my hand slipped and managed to take a chunk out of my rude finger knuckle. It kept bleeding for about an hour, the photo below shows that the bandaid wasn't doing much lol The actual chunk was about 2-3mm deep but only 5mm wide, the blood around the bandaid was just bleeding out from the centre. Bloody hurt though, at least I got the light off lol

I decided to get started installing the alloy pedals which were from a Celica/IS200 Altezza. The accelerator pedal arm from the Celica couldn't be used as it was shorter, so I needed to hit the pin out of both my original pedal set, and the celica one. It didn't take long before it was all back in place. I'll have an installed photo once I have the clutch and brake pedals in place.

I got onto making an adaptor so I can run my series 2 lights, it involved breaking off the connector off the globe holder (on the right) and running wires to the connector on the left. For some reason Toyota used a different globe holder between series 1 and 2, such a pity.

Inside the connector on the far right, there is a little enclosure (visible in the VERY top right), once you crack this open you will have 2 pins that come out as visible in my hand. I soldered wires to these, and then slid them back in. For some reason this metal was extremely difficult to solder to, the solder would just bead off like water. I wonder if they used some sort of coating. I tried filing it down but I still couldn't get the solder to stick.

Here is a complete loom made up. I still need to get one more connector for the series 2 lights. These are easily available from the wreckers. The AE101 corollas use the same loom plug so i'll grab a few spare ones.

More work will be done this week which include finishing off the series 2 amber lights installation, neatening up the neutral start switch wiring, sourcing out a manual front tailshaft section (since the auto one is still a tiny bit short, still works ok) and hopefully getting onto fixing that faulty uni in the tailshaft.

[trd_zzt231]

Just wanted some updates for this weekend.

There was a few jobs that I was meaning to get onto asap, some were just a matter of cleaning up previous work while other jobs were to add/modify new additions to the car.

The first one which needed to be done the most was fixing up the left over auto wiring. Last weekend I had twist wired the neutral start switch wires so I could get the car back home (we finished the car at about 2am in the morning). At the same time I also needed to connect up the reverse switch trigger. I needed to find out which wires would switch the reverse lights on, I checked all the wires with the multimeter to check for both resistance and voltage. I wired in a fuse in my bridge wire so I would have some protection if I had shorted a connection in the process. It just so happened to be the 2 red wires visible in the pic below. I soldered these and added some heat shrink to neaten up the connection. I also properly looped the neutral start switch wires and neatened up those. There were several wires which will be no longer needed with the manual transmission.

I also got around to installing my IS200/Celica ZZT231 ZR alloy pedals. These were an absolute ***** to install, the accelerator was a breeze but the clutch and brake pedal was very frustrating. I have a feeling they are still not on 100%, looking at the 2 pedals it appears that the Caldina ones are slightly wider so these seem to be a bit stretched. Why they changed something so small makes me sad indeed.

Another difference for the sake of being different is the foot rest. The one on the right is the original caldina one, while the one on the left is the brushed alloy is200 footrest. Unfortunately this can't be used mainly due to the size difference so I will likely just buy a sheet of thin alloy and make up one to suit the original caldina pedals.

The next stage involved dismantling the Auto Cluster to swap over components from the manual, you'll notice below that the auto model displays a gear indicator in both an lcd form and a letter indication. I would have just swapped the whole manual cluster over but the kms are considerably different (234k on the manual cluster as a pose to 164k on my auto).

Everything came off without too much problems. Its going to be extremely frustrating trying to realign the fuel and cooling needles back in place. I've got some markers and photos of the needles in place but i'm sure it will be out slightly.

The pic below shows the auto centre cluster. The ABS light is actually below the cooling temp gauge.

This is the manual centre cluster, you'll notice the ABS sensor is at the top of the cooling temp sensor. Not sure what to do to get that light working. I may end up trying to remove the odometer from the auto and placing it in the manual. Or finding a place that would engineer the odometer change legally if I can prove i'm replacing the cluster.

I've always loved being able to hear the turbo spool, for my driving a little bit of performance decrease isn't crucial, and I wanted to install the pod filter setup for my own enjoyment. same thing goes for the Aftermarket bov. Unfortunately the stock one can't be adapted without a plate welded onto the intake pipe below as the stock bov mounts to the factory air box.

I made a purchase tonight, the bov thats pictured in the above picture had an inlet size of 25mm which was too small. I scored this GFB Blow Off Valve off ebay for $55, its a plumback design so if I wanted to run it quiet I have the choice. There is a piece of pipe at the bottom of the bov in the pic below which is 1" (25mm), if that is removed I have a 35mm fitting further up (where the allen key grub screws are pictured),that 35mm inlet fitting can be changed, I needed a 30-31mm fitting and found that the end bit comes off and another fitting can be put in its place. Only costs about $20.

I'll have more updates tomorrow, I did however do one other modification and i'll post up the pics tomorrow. I'll finish running the wires for the siren and bonnet latch detector for the alarm at the same time.

[trd_zzt231]

I finally got the centre cluster changed over, pretty sure I got the positions in the right spot (only time will tell haha). Its quite difficult to get to since the back plugs are made to the exact right length needed, but not enough to get your hand properly and disconnect them. Took a good 10 minutes in stuffing around to get them off originally. No more Auto Gear indicator visible yay

The complete interior back together. Sorry about the 1/2 shadow, for some reason the flash must been blocked by the roof trim. I need to get rid of that 'trd' shifter knob. Its a cheap ebay item and with good reason its cheap, they didn't even stamp the numbers on the top of the gear knob in the middle lol I have the Caldina one which has an awesome feel (and its heavy too which feels great) but it was peeling quite badly from the threads.

Well here is my latest addition..... My series 2 lights. I think they look absolutely aweeeesomme and couldnt be more happier. I reckon it makes it look like a Starlet GT. Best mod yet

Heres another shot

I found a great spot to store Mcdonalds when working on the car haha. Makes for easy access when on the run.

I got heaps done today and i'm really happy with the result.

The alarm on the car had wires going through where the clutch master cylinder needed to go through so I had to extend a number of wires, 5 of which were from the siren/alarm so these had to be extended.

I went to take a photo of the alloy pedals that took ages to put in but the camera wouldn't allow the photo lol Still not sure why its not taking photos anymore since that photo.

I got the reverse switch wired in nicely now too.

There was a small adjustment made to the Clutch Master cylinder pedal adjuster in hopes for the car to go into gear easier. If this doesn't fix it i'll have to bleed the clutch. Minor stuff though

I still need to fix up the tailshaft, I have a feeling that it may actually be the exhaust hitting the tailshaft which is causing the vibrations through the interior.

Some may know of the later model Toyota Caldina ST246, they were available in a special N edition which featured some extremely nice seats. One thing i've always appreciated on cars is having seats with adjustable rear bolsters to allow better. I had one set of WRX seats in my legacy that were so snug that I had to actually squeeze myself into them haha.

I am speaking an engineer in hopes to get approval to install a set of Caldina ST246 Recaro front seats. They look awesome

I got to work fixing up a few more things. The centre japanese computer has a cracked polorized film so I got to work taking it apart.

The internals were quite interesting. There is a board on the top which must be for the compass (copper windings). The front section of the unit came off nicely.

The screen is actually backlit using a mini neon light. I would have thought LEDs would have been a better choice ,especially when changing the colour of the writing on the screen.

Here is the screen out of the car, you can see the cracks on the right hand side (looks like snow flakes growing).

There were 2 polarizing films (i hope that is what I removed lol), if i'm not mistaken the lcd part is actually in between 2 pieces of glass visible below:

I got to work cleaning up the car as well as the engine bay. Still needs more work though. I did get around to giving the car a full detail which I will be sure to have more pictures tomorrow. Came up a treat.

I had to get my mightycarmods sticker on, those videos by mcm are absolutely hilarious and great fun to watch.

Now i just need to get rid of that VSC sticker since its now disabled. You can just see the finish on the paint, it came up very glossy and soft indeed.

[trd_zzt231]

Well its been a while since any updates (I am still meaning to get some half decent shots of my car too).

I've taken a slightly different approach in life with regards to car modifications.

I bought another project car (a 1985 Toyota Celica SX) which I was hoping to fix up and do the mods I couldn't easily do on the Caldina which involved a neat set of Recaros with new seat rails, higher duration/lift cams, aftermarket ecu and some other various bits and pieces.

It made me think, by the time I spend the money on getting that other car registered (or on club plates), fix up the paint, suspension, interior etc It will end up costing a lot more than it would have cost me to do the modifications on the Caldina. Quite a bit of the work is already done.

So I thought, why not just put the attention on the Caldina. I've never taken it to the next level in any car i've had in the past and here is the perfect opportunity.

Recaro Seats and Seat Rails

After some advice from some great friends I have decided to open up my choices for seats to also include the ones available in locally delivered Mitsubishi Evo's.

My main issue at the moment with regards to the seat rails is ensuring that the seats are designed to function without interfering with the factory airbag systems featured (I love that airbags save lifes, but I hate the inconvenience when it comes to not being able to install aftermarket steering wheels and seats.

ECU Installation and Tune

I've always been a bit skittish when it comes to aftermarket ecus. I always think they will never be as reliable as the factory system and while I have found some honest dyno tuners that i'm hoping to take the car, I still think the cars going to blow up on the dyno and i'm back to square one haha. So far I would consider an E-Manage Ultimate, I have heard great things about them and would hope to let the ecu piggyback on the ignition and timing components and leave the ecu to do the work.

Cams

I've always wanted to install a set of higher duration/lift cams. In previous experience i've heard that some gains can be retrieved but often these are left to the last. I believe Kelford in NZ make some custom cams for this motor, in preference though i'd like to deal with Wade Cams in Melbourne as they have been really nice to me on the phone. Any opinions on going for some streetable cams.

High Flow Factory Turbo

While the factory system is sure to have some limitations, i'm hoping to keep my system as stealthy as possible. Especially with looking for around 200-210kw at the wheels. My only worry is the limitations of machining a turbo which has the outlet/exhaust side of the turbo integrated with the exhaust manifold. The other option here might be to buy a CT20B turbo and a manifold to suit but I am still hoping to keep that area of the motor as stock looking as possible.

The manual gearbox has been going very well the last few months. I've been getting a few last bugs out of the way, the main one has been a lack of boost response. After some investigation I found both intercooler hoses were badly split on the inside, they were made of a combiation stitched rubber hose and for OEM items they seemed to have lasted quite well.

I decided it was a good opportunity to add a small amount of colour to the engine bay and decided to get a pair of aeroflow silicone hoses. One was 57mm the other was 70mm diameter. I ended up getting them both at 76mm length, the 57mm diameter needed to be shortened slightly which was easily done with a hose clamp and a stanley knife.

I used a new set of T-Bolts and reinstalled the intercooler. I also removed the intercooler cover on the top as I am slowly working at straightening up any bent fins.

Might not come up too well in the photo but there are a fair few bent fins, on the last row there is a whole section of fins squashed flat, these ones take a lot longer to bend straight. I use a pair of tweezers and work away at each one slowly. I finally got around to fixing the reverse switch, it appears that I had joined 1 wire incorrectly which was easily rectified and its all working perfectly now.

I took a few photos of the car which i've been meaning to take for some time (the front shot is a bit too over exposed).

I should have the replacement tailshaft on in the next few weeks, that will definitely get rid of the shuddering when on load or accelerating from a standstill.

I am still looking into getting some new seats, I would still love to get some ST246 N edition seats, moreso as i'll have a better chance at getting them engineered.

Other changes to come will be retrimming the door trims with some grey or black suede. The coilovers will be adjusted another inch or so to provide a neater stance.

The biggest thing to come will be installing an aftermarket Dump Pipe, High flow cat and new mid pipe. I have been meaning to take a picture of it to show just how restrictive that system is. At one section it squashes over the subframe down to about 1/2 an inch.

[trd_zzt231]

After visiting a great mate of mine, my boot was full of goodies :)

Pictured, FMIC Kit, RSR Springs and Shocks. I've decided to go for a more permanent lowered option, the coilovers are great (and very adjustable) but I have always wanted to go back to a traditional Shock/Spring setup. The Front Mount kit was on my mates car so I know it all fits ok. Its a Driven Performance Kit from NZ. I believe there was quite a bit of modification required to get it to fit. There is no structural modifications required to fit the FMIC, but I will need to trim the inside of the bumper slightly to clear the core.

Here is the FMIC Kit, Dump pipe on the top right and the Rear Strut brace i've had for a little while now. (not sure if i'll end up fitting it), still ermming and ahhing.

The core is the perfect size so the bumper support will remain unmodified, especially for insurance purposes its a good thing. The pipe to the bottom right of the picture below will be replaced, due to the pipe being a bit too short, and a joiner in between has been used to make up the distance. Its a simple 90 degree bend so its easy to find a replacement.

The new dump pipe uses a 3 bolt flange, the part after the stock dump pipe is a 2 bolt flange so I will need to get the rest of the exhaust modified to fit (the right hand side of the image below connects to the dump pipe), I will get the exhaust shop to remake up this whole section. I have been told that this particular part of the exhaust is extremely hard to replicate in 3" due to the close tolerances to the subframe and motor/gearbox. I hear that this part of the exhaust is the most restrictive.

As you can see in comparision to the new dump pipe (3") to the mid pipe currently under the motor, there is a huge difference. In particular some sections of the exhaust squash down considerably.

Here are the RSR springs and stock shocks. I wouldn't mind trying to find a set of Adjustable KYB shocks to replace the stock ones, but I think I might get them on and get the new shocks later down the track.

Should be an interesting few months ahead. I have also bought a full interior from the same model as my car, so I will be able to fix up the sunroof, replace the torn front seats and practice trimming my current set of door trims (since i'll have a spare).

Got some more progress. Had a test fit of some of the intercooler pipes.

Wow its going to be so much easier to change the plugs now. Seems I might have to paint that cam cover, its lacking a bit of colour now haha. I am hoping to get new Silicone Radiator hoses and a Fenix Alloy Radiator eventually.

Part of the intercooler piping on the passenger side goes near wheel well, and I needed to remove the resonator box that was there to quieten down the intake noise of the stock box. There was quite a bit to it. Should have saved 300 grams or so (MAXIMUM weight reduction SUCCESS!!)

Here is the other half of the resonator box

The intercooler pipes will go under the fuse box, there is a decent size hole under there for me to pass the intercooler pipes through.

I may need a sharper bend silicone hose coming out of the intercooler. The bolts on the exhaust manifold will also need to be replaced eventually, they look aweful at the moment.

I found Silicone Spray to be really awesome for cleaning the Silicone hoses, it literally disolves any dirt and gives them a really natural shine.

More progress on the weekend :)

Sorry I had to make an edit, that fmic I have is an ebay kit from what I can see. The driven performance kit still needs some adjustments if i'm not mistaken.

I will likely loose functionality of my fog lights but i'll find a way around this eventually. The main thing is getting it to fit without having to take off the stock air filter setup for legal reasons.

I found out my RS*R Spring Rates

Front: 3.72kg/mm

Rear: 3.37kg/mm

I have a feeling my Largus Coilovers were 4kg/6kg. Reasons behind returning back to a traditional spring/shock setup was due to the fact that my cars only a daily driver and the fine adjustments of ride height and camber adjustment.

I still need to fix up my radiator system, i'm not using the factory st215 radiator and as a result the top coolant hose is resting against the turbo. Something I want to get onto very soon.

I am in the market for a set of Samco Radiator hoses at some stage too, thought i'd do it all at once.

I've still got so much to do on the car:

- Buy/Install Replacement Fenix Alloy Radiator

- Buy/Install Samco Top And Bottom Radiator hoses with T Clamps

- Install Manual Prop Shaft and Replace Gearbox Fluid

- Install RS*R Springs

- Install Driven Performance Dump Pipe

- Get Mid Pipe Under car redone in 3" (currently about 2" but squashes down very small at some sections)

- Fit High Flow Cat (since factory dump pipe has cat integrated)

- Replace Sunroof Cables (perfect time for summer :))

- Replace Both Front Seats with spare set (due to excessive wear and cigarette burns)

- Replace Center Console Lid

- Replace broken Polariser sheet in center heads up display (tells your economy, compass direction etc)

- Respray Cam Cover

- Retouch up wheels with small marks/grazes on them

- Refit LED versions of interior globes throughout the car

- Get GPS system on Aftermarket eBay Headunit working 100%

[ben yip]

What an impressive work, and I like 3SGE Series very much.

I might be dumb to ask, does this car come with LSD?

[jeffy]

HOLY UPDATE BATMAN !

will read the rest later :P !

nice ! congrats on getting your ride back !

[JDM101]

wow man - very detailed, love the write up and mods.

MOAR of this !!

[sw20_3sgte]

Great work ~ love it very much .

Thanks John much appreciated :) I love driving it every day. I like the fact that its quite unique and doesn't draw too much attention (till they hear the turbo spool haha)

What an impressive work, and I like 3SGE Series very much.

I might be dumb to ask, does this car come with LSD?

Thanks ben :) I too absolutely love the 3sge series, they are great sounding motors with lots of potential.

Theres no dumb questions :), I really appreciate you taking an interest in my car and would be more than happy to answer any questions you might have about it. The auto model actually had Vehicle Stability control, while the manual models relied on a Torsen LSD which works really well. When driving the car off the public roads I have been able to get the car pretty sideways in the wet even though its AWD.

HOLY UPDATE BATMAN !

will read the rest later :P !

nice ! congrats on getting your ride back !

Haha thats for sure, I must admit I have attended a Toyota Owners Club meet in the past but I must apologize I have not been able to get on here as much. Its great to have a car again, it was 7 months that I was having to get to work on an electric Chopper Bicycle. Mind you it was pretty awesome fun in summer when it was going through winter the fun wore off real quick getting to work saturated.

Thanks :)

wow man - very detailed, love the write up and mods.

MOAR of this !!

Thanks :) I wanted to make sure i covered as much detail for any other readers that might have wanted to convert their Caldina. I was inspired by another Caldina like mine which was converted, mind you this was converted a few years before mine. The owner helped me out a lot with sourcing parts and the best technique to try get the job done.