You going to sno*drift this year?

I am - my Cabin is right down the street from one of the spectator sections. I am hoping to have the car done so I can zip around town in style... need to crash the impromptu Subaru convention with a Celica

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Would you and maybe a buddy or two have any interest in crewing for me? Not positive as of right now but it may just be me and my dad making the trip up.

Since its effen miserable out side... time to move inside for a while:

The plan is to start with the ST204 Harness on the cabin end and the ST205 harness on the Power End and meet somewhere in the middle... these harness share more connectors and connector locations than not. So, it appears this plan is far less intrusive then hacking the harness and extended the whole thing 40". The most interesting thing so far is blending OBD and Lambda Sensor stuff - that will be the worst I think...





This post has been edited by qatar11: Dec 2, 2012 - 4:30 PM

Things are far more civilized at this point, next steps are to verify every conductor on every connector, label, tape, ??? , profit!!!

Made an account here just to pick your brain!

I live in Waterford, and am going to school in Kalamazoo, so not far from you at all. I was reading a bit of your blog and actually have seen one of your(?) Celicas at LeMons.

My dad and i have built cars before, first one being my first car which was a 93 Mazda MX-3 with a JDM KLZE and Lantis Type R LSD trans, in case you know anything about them (doubt it). Right now i have a 98 Impreza RS with a full JDM STi swap from a clip. Anyways, i could go on forever..

Why i want to pick your brain:

My dad and i want to build an ST202 into basically a GT-Four, but can't find much info on the project as far as what welding and fab work needs to be done. Read through everything and it looks like you're welding in the driveshaft mounts, and was curious as to what other fab work needs to be done to make a GT-Four driveline (or just an AWD drivetrain) work in the Celica's we got in the US. I haven't had much experience welding (Subaru stuff likes to bolt right in) but have done my fair share of wiring (I'm actually a CE/EE student) and swapping before, and the welding is the only thing holding me back from picking up a Celica and importing a GT-Four cut in half.

I guess to shorten it: On a scale of 1-10, how hard is the driveline to stuff in the car. Looks like you've done this sort of thing a few times haha

Awesome build, i'd love to check it out sometime!

Hey!

I'll go from the top and just answer away....

Are you going to Western? I have fond memories of partying there during my lax years. I am familiar with the KLZE - I had friend putting that into the older Mazda 6. The 98 Impreza RS sounds like hotness...


So I haven't done any of the hard work yet... I harvested the drive shaft mounts from the front 1/2 of a ST205 clip. Those were easy enough to weld into place as the underside of the car is the same between the ST204 and the ST205... Things get really interesting in the back the sheet metal and structure is completely different.

There are two builds I followed on here who have done successful swaps Steve (look for the rally build) and the other escapes me... anyway... the way the four mounting points of the rear subframe are your points of interest... I plan on using the rear shocks, trailing arm, and drive shaft to locate the rear differential and create mounting blocks... the rear most mounts seem line up with the frame rails in the unibody and won't be a problem... the real bitch will be the other two mounts which fall basically under the rear seats... the sheet metal is very thin there and some kind of support system will be needed here... Steve was able to get around this because he built support for those mount locations into his roll cage....

Anyway... hit me up anytime mjcoury@gmail.com when its gets warmer - you are more then welcome to come out and check out the build and the Lemons car!

Are you going with a fuel cell or just modify your spare tire well to fit your oem gas tank/ or gt4 gas tank?

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I will be going with an FIA rated fuel cell... probably 10 or 15 gallons... depending on the real estate left over. I had the GT4 OE tank but trying to get that to fit behind sub frame without basically removing all of the trunk floor sheet metal was a bit of a non-starter.

This post has been edited by qatar11: Jan 11, 2013 - 5:47 PM

Why not jus delete spare tire and cut the trunk out?

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The spare tire is getting cut out to make room for the fuel cell... the problem with trying to use the OE tank is that all of the OE mounting points are missing and the entire trunk in the ST205 is at least 4-8" shallower than the ST204.... instead of cutting out the entire trunk pan... I am only going to cut out the footprint of the fuel cell.

Looking forward to seeing some progress on this conversion. I've been keeping up on the rally car build as well. I am in the process of swapping a 3sgte in my car. I have gt4 rear suspension & differential setup in the attic. Just need to get a trans with the front diff & drive shaft, & I will be joining the GT4 conversion club. Love to see how you get everything in the back together.

Your work is looking good so far. Keep on with the build.

For, lo, the winter is past,
The rain is over and gone;
The flowers appear on the earth;
The time of the singing of birds is come,
And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land.

That has some special meaning for us Detroiters... it also means that the weather has finally broke!

I bought a new rear end setup. The stuff I bought from the UK was completely rusted and f'nasty:



You can seen some of the new gear here:



In other news... got the fuel tank and the rear end out:







I created camera rig to help visualize where the new suspension lands with respect to the original suspension... it will be interesting to see if it worked... won't be able to try this for a few days though.

This post has been edited by qatar11: Mar 30, 2013 - 1:12 PM

I am watching this thread like a hawk.

My AWD conversion will start this summer..
In fact, if you get dimensions of your mounts or able to reproduce them. Please let us know haha
No sense in repeating tedious work.

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theres already a guy selling the rear subframe mounts, and custom fuel cells in the F/S section, just FYI.

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Yeah, I bumped his thread back in February and PMd him multiple times. He (jmeyer) hasn't been on in almost a year..

I am not going to get into a discussion about the qualifications of selling homemade fuel cells but there is only one flavor of fuel cell I am interested in: Fuel Safe or equiv.

This post has been edited by qatar11: Apr 1, 2013 - 5:43 PM

Holy $hit Mike - great to see you back working on a real project! I still got a garage full of parts so LMK if you need something and I'll be watching this thread with interest!

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yea, i would bet that would be your best course of action, i was just pointing out the fact that they were being made.

at any rate, good to see ya still in the game, mike.
even if it is at a snails pace!! LMAO!!!!!!

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Blow me Manny

Started test fitting the GT-4 bits in the rear... after talking to Steve I was curious how the rear end lined up between the chassis codes... sub question: did the chassis mount for the trailing arm move between the ST204 and ST205.

I used some wire and a camera platform to locate the camera in the same spot for some before and after shots:









So it looks like we are good here!!

Also note the APEXI lowering springs

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Wait.... you are still alive?!

Lookin good

That's a pretty cool camera set up

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lookin good mikey!
diggin the cam setup!

nice work! so the rear shocks are pretty much the same between the US GT and GT4?

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Well... it certainly looks the same... but the part numbers for all the bits (Shock / Spring / etc) are all unique to the ST205... so I am guessing that the spring rate / shock performance are specifically tuned.

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cool thanks.

I had pretty much the same plan as you, probably have to make my own subframe mount.

Progress comes slowly....

Are you missing the top part of the bushings? Only reason I noticed was because one of mine has the rubber completely ripped off.

#4 in the link

Toyota Parts

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I think I have all the bits... just not on the subframe at the moment.

Weather has been sick in MI the past two weeks... so progress has been made:




I have a problem with fitment at the moment... the propeller / drive shaft is going past the connection point to the rear diff as if the rear diff is about 1/2" too far forward... not sure what to make of it yet...






Obligatory spare tire space delete upgrade (adds lightness)



I thought maybe the spare tire sheetmetal was getting in the way but that was not the culprit...

This post has been edited by qatar11: May 7, 2013 - 8:07 PM