My Engine Bay Renovation Thread, AE111 ECU conversion, wire tuck, and more... Options

[celicaST]

thats a lot of work for cosmetics, but it would look sick . only thing i wouldnt do on that list is paint the engine bay yellow, would be too much in my opinion. keep it black. also curious, why swap back to the st's tranny? different gear ratios? i assume they would be shorter on the celica.

This post has been edited by celicaST: Feb 13, 2007 - 3:59 PM

[Coomer]

thats a lot of work for cosmetics, but it would look sick . only thing i wouldnt do on that list is paint the engine bay yellow, would be too much in my opinion. keep it black. also curious, why swap back to the st's tranny? different gear ratios? i assume they would be shorter on the celica.

Actually, most of all, I want the bay to be yellow, even if it's not wire-tucked or anything...I think it looks bad when the engine bay is a different color as the car.

And the AT200 actually has a taller fifth gear, so I'll be cruising at lower RPM when I'm on the freeway. Plus, my AE101 C52 is completely shot...it's just a matter of time before I can't shift at all anymore...stupid weak C-series trannies.

[celicaST]

thats a lot of work for cosmetics, but it would look sick . only thing i wouldnt do on that list is paint the engine bay yellow, would be too much in my opinion. keep it black. also curious, why swap back to the st's tranny? different gear ratios? i assume they would be shorter on the celica.

Actually, most of all, I want the bay to be yellow, even if it's not wire-tucked or anything...I think it looks bad when the engine bay is a different color as the car.

And the AT200 actually has a taller fifth gear, so I'll be cruising at lower RPM when I'm on the freeway. Plus, my AE101 C52 is completely shot...it's just a matter of time before I can't shift at all anymore...stupid weak C-series trannies.

i usually like it to match as well. but with the yellow, i just thought of this pic. its just too much in my opinion. also yellow and black go well together. now if your engine bay was red, id say paint it. but then again its not my car



also, have you thought about getting a ae111 6-speed c-160 gearbox?

This post has been edited by celicaST: Feb 13, 2007 - 4:26 PM

[Coomer]

That is a lot of yellow, but that bay is also very busy, and has a lot of high-contrast blue.

Mine will be much more empty and won't have any blue at all really, so I think it'll look pretty nice.

But I'm unsure if I want to commit to doing this, as it's a TON of work.

Also, I don't think it's worth spending a lot of money for a C-160 tranny. Would be cool, but I can't afford it.

[phonex98]

"
# Replace flywheel with a lightweight one"

I think i read a very old post in which you complained about using a lightweight flywheel on your dailydriver because it was sort of a pain. Wasn't that you ?

[Coomer]

I think i read a very old post in which you complained about using a lightweight flywheel on your dailydriver because it was sort of a pain. Wasn't that you ?

That was me, but I mis-diagnosed my problem. The shaking and jolting when starting from a stop turned out to be my solid front motor mount, not the lightweight flywheel. Quite the expensive mis-diagnosis.

[phonex98]

Good to know I was going to put a light weight flywheel in but didn't as par your device... I guess ill go for it now when i change my clutch!

[Coomer]

Today I checked the timing again, and it looks like it's still advanced ten degrees to me. But it still pops occasionally when you freely rev it up high.

I also tried running with my nice polished velocity stacks shown above, and the car hesitated and had less power at low RPMs, and didn't seem much faster up high. So I went back to the stock plastic velocity stacks, and I think I'm just going to stick with those.

I can't decide if I want them to point up towards the hood, or down towards the ground though.

Anyway, I'm off to work, but I've got some pictures to post up later.

[JesterDC]

I can't decide if I want them to point up towards the hood, or down towards the ground though.

I say up, just cause the first thing that came to mind was how race cars utilize and augment the vacuum created under a car to create more downforce for better handling, and vacuums tend to suck...do you want your car to suck?

oh and btw awesome work!

[Coomer]

I do want my car to suck...massive amounts of air that is. I've got some photos as promised.



Some of the stuff that I no longer need in my engine bay.



And the ensuing mess that was previously hidden by the intake stuff.



The engine bay, with the AE101 factory velocity stacks. When I finish the bay I'll paint them all black, and possibly get two more so they can all be the same.



There's the AE101 velocity stack compared to my aftermarket velocity stack.



And finally, my working vacuum line setup. The little line with the screw in the end was the uncapped one that was hidden away and causing all my problems.

[JesterDC]

A little orginization would not be a bad thing, lol, and having all the wires tucked away and organized could make diagnosing problems easier, PLUS it would make your car that much More Awesome

[Coomer]

A little orginization would not be a bad thing, lol, and having all the wires tucked away and organized could make diagnosing problems easier, PLUS it would make your car that much More Awesome

Yeah, it'll all be organized and clean soon. Though I think having wires tucked away will make diagnosing problems harder. That said, every joint is soldered and heat shrunk well, so I don't think I'll ever have any problems.

I need a break from school and programming, so I may pull the motor this weekend and begin work over the three day weekend. The worst part will be removing the stupid fenders and pulling axles.

Also, I'm wondering if anyone would be interested in an AT200 to AE101 conversion harness, along with a '93.5+ AE101 ECU, AFM, coil, and ignitor. Let me know if anyone thinks they'd be interested.

[x_itchy_b_x]

i read some where that they intentionally stagger the velocity stacks.
it had to do with the invisible funnel of air and its more turbulent when they are closer together because the air cant decide which stack wants it more so its being torn between the two nearest ones. if you stagger it the air is being pulled to one source instead of being torn between two hard to explain ill see if i can find the article.

picture water going down a sink. now put two drains side by side.
the vortexes collide and lose there spin and the drains just kinda fight between each other on who gets to suck down the vortex.

[Coomer]

Well, they're sure not staggered much.

I was under the impression that they were designed differently to fit inside the plenum. The two black ones are the ones that are made to go on cylinders 1 and 4, which is where the manifold slants in, while the maroon ones are made to go on cylinders 2 and 3. I have them the way they are now because a black one will not clear the throttle cable when it's aimed up, but a maroon one will.

[x_itchy_b_x]

Well, they're sure not staggered much.

I was under the impression that they were designed differently to fit inside the plenum. The two black ones are the ones that are made to go on cylinders 1 and 4, which is where the manifold slants in, while the maroon ones are made to go on cylinders 2 and 3. I have them the way they are now because a black one will not clear the throttle cable when it's aimed up, but a maroon one will.

one could make the argument, maybe the plenum was designed to fit the stacks. not the stacks for the plenum.
ill see if i can find the article.
in any case im sure the benefits if any are minimal and your setup is amazing!

These have the shortest velocity stacks. Each airbox has two short stacks, and two long ones. Once you have 2 boxes, you will have two full sets of velocity stacks to help you achieve the best powerband down the road.

this isn't from the article im still searching for it.

This post has been edited by x_itchy_b_x: Feb 16, 2007 - 3:13 PM

[Coomer]

Interesting...that doesn't seem like it'd be an optimal setup, as the stacks are different lengths. That means that two of the cylinders will get different intake air (the longer the stack, the lower the tuned RPM will be) than the other two.

Though your mention of competing for the same air makes sense as well.

It seems like the optimal setup would be to instead use some sort of curved stacks and point them in different directions, like this:



If money were no object, I'd definitely have stacks like those, but they're probably a custom job or some expensive JDM setup.

What I could try, I suppose, is pointing two of the stacks down, but that'd be ugly, and the stacks would be drawing in different air temperatures, so the temperature that the IAT sensor returns would be wrong for two of the cylinders, regardless of where it's placed.

[95CelicaST]

A friend of mine has velosity stacks, and his are equal length. 2 different lengths doesn't make much sence.

[Coomer]

Yesterday I went ahead and started working on the car to clean up the bay. I pulled more of the car apart and pulled the motor.

No process photos, but here's what it looked like a few minutes after I got done pulling the motor.



But the garage was a mess, so today I went ahead and cleaned it so I'll have room to work and can find stuff and whatnot.





And the motor out of the car. That's one dirty 4A-GE.



The engine bay is also filthy, and ugly. That will change soon.



That's it for now. I may begin cleaning the engine bay tomorrow in preparation for paint, but we'll see.

[x_itchy_b_x]

LOL coomer im cleaning my bay out so it looks like your "dirty one" lol
when you clean that mess up its gunna look AMAZING!! jeeze.

[Coomer]

I ended up coming home last night, so I wasn't able to work on the car anymore today, but I've been planning some stuff.

Here's a tentative list of what I need to order:

• JUN/Toda Flywheel (I want a quality chromoly one, so I'm stuck getting a 200mm one unless I spend a fortune)
• New Clutch (not sure what I want to go with just yet)
• OEM AT200 Axle Seals
• New Battery (something small, Odyssey or Buddy Club)
• Remote Battery Charging Terminals
• Battery Kill Switch
• New Velocity Stacks (either a set of AE101 OEM stacks or some longer aftermarket ones)
• New Fuel Filter (Sentra SE-R OEM Nissan filter)