Recently, I had the honour of being invited to Perth to get a bunch of cars tuned.  There were some modified Civic FN2s, and also an Integra DC2.  All modified and needing a tune to maximize the potential of these venerable Honda engines. It was also a good time for me to take a break from work after many a frantic month since the start of the year.

Instead of boring you with the intricacies of the tuning details, engine modifications, blah blah.  Just share a little of what went on during my short trip.

I rented a car at the Perth Airport from the good guys at Hertz Rent-a-Car.  I was determined to be an environmentalist this trip and preserve Australia’s nature as much as i could.  After all, I am quite the advocate when it comes to driving souped up cars around without a catalytic converter.  For now, let me try to build up on a little bit of good karma…. By going GREEN!!

I rented a Hybrid vehicle albeit it being a little pricier than the regular sedan, but what the heck, it was only for a few days.  I will just try to drive more sedately during this period to save some on gas to make up for the higher initial outlay.

This was my first time in a Hybrid.  Pretty cool stuff I must say.

Always my favourite icons.

BAD BAD BAD

The acceleration on this Camry is really zippy!  From a standstill, I estimate that it would out sprint most regular 3L sedan.  I think, it would even give a built K20 motor a good run for its money; till about 80km/h that is.  Which actually is all the speed that you need on our restrictive local roads.

Where I was put up.

And what a beautiful view.

Pictures of some delightful dishes I had for this short holiday.

Menu from a regular restaurant

versus an amusing menu that I took when I was in Zhuhai, China for tuning on another trip.

For once, an entry that I hope is more palatable with my readers who are not so technically inclined.  I thank you for your time here with my humble blog and hope you will be back for more soon.

Now, finally, here is the article as posted by my customer in an International type R forum.  I trust they should be pretty pleased with the outcome of the tune.  You can read more about it here.

After 4 months of driving around with the 4E-FTE engine… we decided that we need to “improve” again on what was already very good. And since there is no replacement for displacement (or so they say), we put in a 5E engine instead, paired with a TD04L from the Subaru WRX. That way, we will have a good mix of low end torque from the increased cc and good high end power with the bigger turbo.

Since I was at it, might as well put in a set of Wiseco forged pistons for added reliability. These should be able to sustain some high boost and resist to some hard engine knocks without breaking apart. In actual fact, it was supposed to be a budget build, and no expensive items like forged pistons were planned for. UNTIL, the machine shop broke my stock 4E pistons while pressing out the wrist pins! @$#%$# HOW DID THEY EVEN DO THAT?!?

While rummaging through my store, we also managed to pull out some Mitsubishi front mount VR-4 intercooler and some blitz intercooler piping that suits the Starlet body just fine. We had to custom make a couple of charge pipes, but that is easy enough with help from our friend Sam who is a superb TIG welder with stainless steel materials.

Custom metal head gasket was also ordered and installed at the same time. The standard head gasket was some sort of graphite sort which does not look at all impervious to high boost at all! The new Multi Layer Steel (MLS) one definitely looks like it will stand up to the task

MLS head gasket for my inline 6 starlet

HAHAHA, GOT YOU! That was for the 2JZ!

Here is the actual one.

Engine was also refreshed with all new ACL bearings for the mains and conrods with specs that were just a little bit looser than stock. We hope to be able to make some power with high boost on this turbo.

On the engine management side of things, we added in a piggyback unichip to control both the ignition and fuelling. It got rid of the speed limiter in the JDM ECU, and gave control to the much needed extra fuel on the higher end of the rev range. Granted we had forged pistons in there, but we sure didn’t want to have to drop out the engine again and have to find out we melted one of them!

After everything was done and put together, surprisingly, there was virtually no lag in this turbo at all. We are able to get full boost by 3000rpm and the car is a blast to drive. I guess, 800kg is a great advantage when it comes to short distance sprints. Perfect for everyday city driving use, and good fuel economy.

I was in the market for a cheap car… and I mean CHEAPPPPPPP!  Like a car below S$10,000 so that I can afford to buy it without having to take any loan.  at first, I thought it amounted to a mammoth task, what with the tax structure of cars in Singapore, and also the prices of used/new cars.

Well, low and behold, I actually came across an example of a relatively cheap car, with the characteristics that I was looking for.  It was

1.      CHEAP! $10K for a car that has 4 years of life left.

2.      in a straight enough condition

3.      minimum corrosion

4.      Toyota brand – for maximum reliability

5.      Sport (Small) / Lightweight / Kompact   (like my friend’s SLK)

6.      cheap on fuel.

There was a problem though… albeit a small one.  The car will not MOVE!  Don’t ever try to beat a red light with the standard Carburetted 1 litre engine in there, before you can even get it up to speed, the red light camera would have already captured you.

So, the search begun… for a healthy dose of power enhancement.  What started out as a cheap roundaround vehicle… is starting to take shape as my next project.  A prime example of a starlet GT turbo was found

4E-FTE engine

Hi/Lo boost button

Rear disc brakes

So, after the conversion, we had 140hp from a stock engine…but.. after a while, we got sick of the power again and had to improve on that….  Click here for more updates