here we go! AE101 from Uruguay [new wheels, page 4]

Sick motor rebuild and I like the location you had while doing it

well an update is needed over here

after the rim change the car was looking like a monster truck


as you knew, I had bought an spring kit from AG, and also a new set of dampers because the old ones where kinda loose, and so we began ona beautiful march evening among friends


first wheel out


and we already have to start puling things


pffft and out




we started with the spring compresor


and now there is a little cut in the pictures because i had a small panic atack, what I thought I removed from the box was the rear damper, and when I tried to put it on it wasnt anything like, so when I started to put everything togheter to go to complain, I realized that I have everything correctly, it just was a mistake on my side when opening the boxes, so... back to work

new and clean shocks


and the springs, the front on the left and rear on the right (remember this picture for the future)


a friend working on the back


and after a while it was done


then I proceed to the front


I took the whole suspension and check everything


We asambled everything


now, there should be a picture of a beautiful and lowered Corolla, but it just didnt want to go lower on the front


Thee back it was beautifil, but the front was like stock and on the rear the wheel was rubing, so I made a decition, I put the original springs on the back and leave the "lower" springs on the front and give them some time to seetle, thing that didn't happen but that is story for another post.

I wasn't everything bad, the car now feels great, it feels much more planted and it transmit a lot of confidence

Check Sebastian tRUFA Machado, on Flickr[/quote]

Well as I told you there was more information, so of we go

I left the springs over a month and the car didint change it height, it was like stock but with blue springs, so I dismantle everything again


I removed everything, also the brake disk that needed a trip to a friends lathe, but after I disambled everything I took some measuerments, from the fender border to the center of the wheel tere was 38cm's, disamble everything, cut a 1/4 ot a turn, asamble again, measure... and 38cm's again, disamble everything, now a little braver cut a 1/2 ot a turn, asamble again, measure... and 38cm's again


since I couldn't go back, I dismantle the other side, and cut a 3/4 of a turn, and asamble again hopeing that with both sides it will lower a bit... silly me... 38cm again


Then it was getting late, so I did some other things on the car, I just give up on lowering the car by cutting. I fixed some the inventions that some genious had done on the driver window guide, and now it's working great. I also change the sway bar end links with ones from superpro and that get rid of a tak-tak noise on uneaven ground


Loose, remove the old ruber, put the new uretane ones

Everything great, but stock height


A week after all that, back to my parents house, and back to disassemble everything again, but now I was decided to lower the car, the first 3/4 of the week before and, two tests, cuting half a turn each time, assambly everything in beetween, a time consuming process


but that work paid of, in the first cut 37cm and on the second 36.5cm, and just look at it


the universal ideal measure


comparing to the original spring


and now.... the D'OD moment


After I have the right height, it was looking gorgeous, lovely, it ride great, didn't have any noises, so I proceded to cut the other spring, so I disassamble again and cut, I had measured everything, the turns, and wire lenght, so I took the spring, made the same measurements and cut it.... as soon as I loose the spring from the press I knew that something was wrong, I was a stubby spring (the picture with the other spring after I go back to stock


It took me a while to think what had hapened, but I came to the conclusion that I cuted a spring from the bottom to the back, and the other one backwards, so given that they are progresive springs, they change the spacing beetween turns... now the damage is done, so I will have some custom springs done and thats it.

That didnt stop me from trying the xtra short spring (it didnt reach the seat by 1cm), likewise I took it for a spin to see how it ride, and there was an awefull noise from the side that had the xtra short spring. But it looked great




this side had the short spring, you can see how it raises the rear


Not ever thing was lost that weekend, at least I put new pads an disks, and I can change the springs in an hour or so


Now, before somebody sais "you need to change that corner" a liitle box arrived at my place


a box, with more boxes


but there is some thing wraped


and yes! they are the clear headlights, sadly are the chinese copy


Sadly I'm with exams and stuff and couldnt put them on, I also have bought this to change the original one that is too dirty


I also find this old girl and tried to see if it was working...

Good job buddy

And then this happened


I went to see a friend and give him a hand with his car and sudennly my car was like this


soo lets change them






the headlights arent 100% plug&play, I have to do some triming and adjusting but they fit just right, after that a little work on the wiring and done





As always I don't have a picture of the finished product, but this a pic from a meeting
img]https://fbcdn-sphotos-f-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpf1/t1.0-
/10434216_10152948982172846_1991183361236627178_n.jpg[/img]


another change is the radiator reservoir, the original was very dirty and for 17 dolars I got the new one, so that was another change, now I can see the water level without the need of guessing

Good stuff man. Keep up the good work. Makes me want to start tearing apart my motor and clean out all the old gunk that's been sitting around in there

Nice! Love those head lights.

well another update, as I had already show you I have an Megasquirt I V3.0 stored and I will use it some day but my car doesn't have an Oxigen Sensor, and for the Megasquirt it's a great add-on and it helps a lot with the tuning, so I started looking for a wideband and I came along this one http://www.14point7.com/products/slc-free that also goes with the DIY spirit, it comes dissambled and ready for you to solder it, so after a while this arrived at my house

more detail of the screen and the Bosch LSU4.9 sensor


and on a weekend I started working on it


after a while the first one was in


while others where hungry


A lot of legs


control, patience, control, patience, control, patience


a few minutes after


soldering smoke, dont breathe this


aaaaaaaaaaaand it's done


the remains of a lost battle


lets jump a few days ahead because that weekend I just assambled the controler I didnt try it or anything , after a few days I gather strenght and finished the cable, and I lets put 12v on it...


when I say that I finish the cable it's because the whole kit its DIY, you have to assamble the cables too, the kit comes with all the connector and pins, you just need to buy the wiring and solder everything. Here you have the sensor and and the controller end under a long sleeve




after I have the controler working and the wiring done I just needed the sensor on the exaust stream


and finaly I made a little box for it


and done, it's working

Wow very nice work! I can definitely appreciate the effort that goes into assembling those things lol. Do they offer a pre-made version?

gold94corolla wrote:

Wow very nice work!  I can definitely appreciate the effort that goes into assembling those things lol.  Do they offer a pre-made version?

This version is very cheap (U$S85 with the sensor) but you have to assamble it yourself, and they really don't have another solution with a display in this price point. Now looking back I would have gone with the spartan sensor because I just want the 0-5v wideband signal for the megasquirt, and the screen is nice but I don't really look to it.

You can check their site over here http://www.14point7.com/pages/products



well, time for another uptate. Now is the time for the thermostat, a while ago I had the idea that it wasnt working as it should, and on a trip to Cordoba (Argentina) my feeling as correct, at highway speed with cold weather the temperature starts to drops too much, so I decided to tackle that item

here the old thermostat, as you can see all the rubber is dry and swollen




I think that is was my fault when I removed the head and put it on thinner for clean up, I didn't removed the thermostat and it was destroyed

Luckly I was able to find a new original thermostat, with that, red antifreeze and some destiled water, I was ready to change it, and also do the same job on a friend's Civic


new thermostat in place, I cleaned both surfaces and put a lick of black silicon as said in the FSM


Put everything together as per instructions, filled with pink water, started the car and wait for it to get to temperature. While I was waiting I decided to move the wideband controller to another place because the light was kinda distracting at night, a little hole in the glovebox and everything is better


while I was at it, I pulled the sparkplugs and one of them had this rare crust but they all were looking good. I cleaned all of them and they keep working flawlessly


on the trip back to my house, the temperature sits as it should





and now some pics of the trip to Cordoba






those roads put dirt everywhere!


the car did almost 2000miles with 4 adults and bags and no complains

now I need to keep with this

Nice work on Megasquirt! This is the first time I've seen anyone set it up on 4/7AFE engine. I'm sure there will be some performance benefits to it. One day I will be doing this to my engine but I'm not quite ready to just dive in head first. Especially when not many people have set these boards up for 4AGE blacktops and did any DIY on it.

WOW MAN!!!

Impresivve work you have done!!!

Any Updates?