DEATH's GT2 Progress [Updated 01-24-13], 6 years/60k? Miles and FCUKING RIDICULOUS!!! Options

[DEATH]

As the topic says my car wants to die on me. Actually before I get to the current problem I'll detail my 4 day weekend/Gremlin attacks:
1. [Thurs - day one of a promising 4 day weekend ] I should mention first that noone ever works on my car but me - but I've had it with opening the engine for at least a few months so: Got the intake cam set properly finally by a Toyota dealership for the cheapest price anyone quoted me! I went to Joe Myers Toyota as the last shop I was gonna try just for sh*ts and giggles and through some stroke of fate I got the coolest service manager ever. My budget was to be $200 tops with the work done in one day. First shop tells me all kinds of BS that I know isn't true about the 3S and he quoted 4 hours labor [$400] and 3day wait. I laughed and left there . After shopping around 4 different other shops the best price was $210 with same day service. As I already said I went to Toyota for the hell of it [and to pick up some oil filters for the oil change I was planning for Fri morning] and they looked it up and said it's 2.5hrs labor at $100 each so $250 - over budget so I was gonna try to talk the $210 guy down to $200 tax included. Then the service guy said "well if I charge you for a timing belt job it'll still be $250 but I can take the cost of the belt off since your belt is only 2mos old. So that took the price down to $180+tax - perfect. To make things even sweeter I got to request my old friend NachoNismo [Toyota Tech at JMT] and he and his team did a beautiful job on it and even gave me free diagnostics, trouble code print out and several other freebies [BTW only code showing was 42 - Speedsensor not giving the ECM a signal within 8sec after hard driving? Could this be the same problem that won't allow my speedo to work? GT Tranny BTW]. When I went to pay my bill I got another pleasant surpise - $150 including tax!
So I got invited to the TX2K8 [Annual North American Supra Meet] dinner and meet at Frank-N-Steins and went there:
2. [Friday night] Blew my turbo coupling [the first one attached to the compressor outlet] into tiny little shreds so had to limp home with no boost [not a fun way to spend a 45min drive with a grouchy GF, two sleeping teens in the back seat and a pissed off Mega Chihuahua on the back hatch cover at 2:30 in the morning]. Got home and fixed that but discovered the coolant return line from the Turbo was spraying coolant [evidenced by the pancakes smell of burning off Toyota For Life Coolant]. Put a clamp on that and refilled the coolant with another $10 worth of coolant. So I need to take my GF to a Fetish Ball [Not like I wanted to go or anything ] clear on the other side of Houston about an hour away:
3. [Sat Night] So I get all the Gremlins slayed and start the car with the hood open, observing all the fixed problems and the gauges until the car warms up. So I back out of the garage and turn the lights on and Bam! - the car trys to die and generally runs like sh*t. Turn off the lights and idle returns to normal. Hit the brakes and the idle again drops and the engine runs like sh*t. And here's the real slap to the face - roll down the window and the car wants to die! So the GF is pissed again cause she's been looking forward to this for 3 months. Luckily for her Havok and his lady are going anyway so they offer to drive us and drop us off later [Thanks again Bro!] and we go to the FB and altho I usually enjoy myself immensly at these things my mind is with the car back in the garage and I ate something bad and felt like puking [almost did several times actually - Dry heaving FTL ]
4. [Sun] Woke up at 5PM with absolutely no energy and no drive to work on the car

So after that long dissertation I'd like to thank this guy for the very interesting weekend:

Fcukin asshats always playing games under my hood

Now to my questions [Alltracman - help me out buddy]:
1. WTF is up with that code 42 and what should I check to get it diagnosed and fixed up and hopefully finally have a working speedo?
2. WTF is up with that electronics gremlin that makes any powered accessory cause the idle to drop and almost die? My first thought is bad ground connections - sound plausible? Ideas, theories or [hopefully] past experience?
3. Why can't I just go a whole week without something fcuking up on this car? Damn I miss my trustworthy, never fails to start and run like God designed it 5S.

Now this my friends and potential swap owners is why you have no business owning a car that you yourself did not swap [or like in my case - have already swapped a Celica in the past and felt like skipping the initial headache portion of the process]. If you don't know the 3S-GTE and all you've ever owned was a 5S or 7A - don't even consider having someone else swap your car - the experience and famliarity with the engine you will gain by swapping it yourself or with some friends is priceless. Seriously.

This post has been edited by DEATH: Jan 31, 2017 - 8:23 PM

[alltracman78]

You sort out the wiring yet?

Bingo. You actually supposed to have a factory ground wire there. For some reason yours was missing.
This made me realize something... the stock alltrac has a metal torque bar that bolts from the top of the alt bracket to the chassis of the car. This probably doubles as a really thick grounding point for the whole motor! Since we leave those torque bars off when we swap (wont fit) it wouldn't be a bad idea to add an extra ground wire there.

Btw, dont waste your money on a 200$ apexi grounding it. Its a total rippoff. Just buy more battery wire from the car parts store, like you did and add any grounds you might want.

Give me some time to look through my wiring notes and see whats up with the speedo wiring.

That's not a torque bar that you see there, it is just a motor mount stiffener. It just goes from the alternator bracket to the top of the engine mount (on the motor side, not the chassis side). It wouldn't aid in grounding...

That said, the ground strap on that side of the motor is really important. I'd connect that point to the chassis (not on the strut tower, use one of the bolts for the power steering reservior). The most important ground is on the back of the intake manifold. An extra ground wire there might also help out.

-Charlie

Cool thanks. Where at on the Intake Manifold? You got a pic or anything?
I did actually ground it to the bolt holding the powersteering reservoir down - that's where it's supposed to be huh? Good guess I guess. That other pic was just for testing and illustration purposes but It would have worked perfectly if I had left it there. Moving it to the PSR wouldn't change anything about the way it works - just looks better.

The ECU grounds [wiring harness] bolt to the underside of the #2 intake runner, as long as the connection is good and the wires aren't damaged [the insulation likes to crack from the angle of the curve of the wire] you can't upgrade it, but you can ground the intake manifold directly to the chassis or to the trans, it won't hurt anything.

That ground strap on the alt bracket is fine bolted to the strut tower. That's the stock location and is part of the chassis. However it normally doesn't bolt to the strut mount stud, it's normally bolted to the side of the strut tower itself.

I guess your right, I always remembered it bolting to the strut tower, but i guess it goes to part of the motor mount. Either way, its there to help the engine not move around as much in the engine bay and eat up motor mounts (like our 6th gen swaps do).

It still bolts to the motor mount, that in turn, bolts to the chassis providing a ground.

It does nothing to stop the engine from moving, it only adds bracing to the engine mount itself. Look at how it's positioned, it CAN'T brace the engine in regards to the engine bay, it would have to bolt to the chassis to do that.

And it also physically cannot provide a ground, the engine mount center is rubber. The brace is bolted to the engine side of the mount.
The chassis side [steel sleeve] is insulated from the engine side by several inches of rubber.