Great that you got it running. It must feel good to have such thing on the road.
And yes, we are interested to hear or see how it performs from 0-60.
Turbo 4age tercel
- Nordical25
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 279
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2022 11:49 pm
- My tercel:: 2 4wd 1987's. One with 4a, other with 3a
- Location: Finland
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
so, i havent done a video yet cause while it ran, it also had a pretty nasty misfire under boost.Nordical25 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:25 pm Great that you got it running. It must feel good to have such thing on the road.
And yes, we are interested to hear or see how it performs from 0-60.
with boosted cars you need to tighten your spark plug gap so you dont have spark blow out. I had done that, but i guess it wasnt tight enough. went from 1.2mm to ~.8mm and all issues went away!
aaaaaaaand then my head gasket catasrophically failed. im getting a bunch of hot air into my coolant. Time for a cometic mls head gasket.
Also, I will need to get some pictures, but I learned that shadow dash, a digital dash board application for the megasquirt ecu, will run on android. With the market flooded with cheap china android head units, guess what? I got myself a single din, 10.1 touch screen radio that will run the shadow dash program so I can have a secondary gauge cluster showing all the other important car vitals!
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
- Nordical25
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 279
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2022 11:49 pm
- My tercel:: 2 4wd 1987's. One with 4a, other with 3a
- Location: Finland
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
No worries with the video. Things like that happen unfortunately sometimes.
Take your time to fix everything properly and then you will be ready for another video. You always learn by doing. Today I learned for example about remanufactured distributor bearings something but more on that on another thread.
A touch screen radio is a great feature especially if you can also monitor car data via dashboard application. I have also touch screen in my Tercel 4wd and it feels a lot newer because of this. So that will be a great update. It will look like another car after these updates.
Good luck!
Take your time to fix everything properly and then you will be ready for another video. You always learn by doing. Today I learned for example about remanufactured distributor bearings something but more on that on another thread.
A touch screen radio is a great feature especially if you can also monitor car data via dashboard application. I have also touch screen in my Tercel 4wd and it feels a lot newer because of this. So that will be a great update. It will look like another car after these updates.
Good luck!
SirFoxx wrote: ↑Fri Oct 13, 2023 6:25 amso, i havent done a video yet cause while it ran, it also had a pretty nasty misfire under boost.Nordical25 wrote: ↑Wed Sep 27, 2023 1:25 pm Great that you got it running. It must feel good to have such thing on the road.
And yes, we are interested to hear or see how it performs from 0-60.
with boosted cars you need to tighten your spark plug gap so you dont have spark blow out. I had done that, but i guess it wasnt tight enough. went from 1.2mm to ~.8mm and all issues went away!
aaaaaaaand then my head gasket catasrophically failed. im getting a bunch of hot air into my coolant. Time for a cometic mls head gasket.
Also, I will need to get some pictures, but I learned that shadow dash, a digital dash board application for the megasquirt ecu, will run on android. With the market flooded with cheap china android head units, guess what? I got myself a single din, 10.1 touch screen radio that will run the shadow dash program so I can have a secondary gauge cluster showing all the other important car vitals!
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
Everything is back together. During the first two test runs, I had my main oil feed blow off the remote filter mount adapter. Damaged the turbo bushings a hair but everything else seems to be okay.
Here is a picture of the radio running shadowdash. I havent customized the layout at all, except changing some of the gauges for more useful ones.
Also, heres that acceleration pull. It'll happily bury the needle and then some, but driving a stick while trying to make a video is not so easy
https://youtube.com/shorts/V4jgECMkvyQ? ... 65WcZWtjuK
Here is a picture of the radio running shadowdash. I havent customized the layout at all, except changing some of the gauges for more useful ones.
Also, heres that acceleration pull. It'll happily bury the needle and then some, but driving a stick while trying to make a video is not so easy

https://youtube.com/shorts/V4jgECMkvyQ? ... 65WcZWtjuK
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
Wow, Keegan!! She scoots right along!
Chris
Chris
Psalm 37:4 "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart"
In remembrance of my friend ARCHINSTL:
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
Mark Twain
In remembrance of my friend ARCHINSTL:
T4WD augury?
"Oh, do not ask, 'What is it?' Let us go and make our visit."
T.S. Eliot - "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"
"Now and then we had a hope that, if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates."
Mark Twain
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
Welp, sad day. This last sunday was the last autocross event. I was planning on going, so to ensure everything was up to snuff, I drove the car into work that friday morning. Car kept misfiring, but I thought it was due to it being kinda cold out, and I really hadnt tuned the car for that. Get to an off ramp, stop, start merging, redline first gear, ecu enabled the redline limiter, shifted to second gear aaaaaaaaaaand now it has a dead miss. Car is now billowing out smoke out the tail pipe. Drove the final mile to work, pop the hood, see oil coming out the exhaust manifold gasket (at least thats where I thought it was), unplugged the dead cylinder injector, went into work.
Limped it home and started inspecting it. I dont remember if I mentioned this in the thread, but I had an injector driver / mosfet / transistor in the ecu fail previously, so I busted out my laptop, put the ecu in test mode, and cycled through the injectors. Cyl 4 injector not firing. Great.
Swapped out the driver on the ecu board with an unused one (ecu is set up for 8 individual channels, but only 4 are being used) and we are back in business on saturday. Great! ......
Took it for a scream around the block and it is laying down the thickest smoke screen ive ever seen come from a car. I'll link the video later. Got it home, oil is pouring out of the exhaust now. Great. Only one thing can cause that much oil leakage -- blown turbo.
Its no surprise the turbo blew. After having the engine main oil feed blow off twice, starving everything of oil, even for a short amount of time, damages stuff. Im sure the engine bearings are not happy, but with my turbo, it uses bronze / brass bushings as the bearings. That style needs to be swamped in oil to not get instantly destroyed. Starve it of oil twice, and its not going to be a happy camper.
The turbines look okay, so a fresh set of bearings and seal should bring the turbo back to life. Unfortunately I busted a bolt in the exhaust housing sooooo that needs to get addressed first. Yay....
I'm real big time sad I missed the last autox event of the year, but there will always be more next year.
More to come...
Limped it home and started inspecting it. I dont remember if I mentioned this in the thread, but I had an injector driver / mosfet / transistor in the ecu fail previously, so I busted out my laptop, put the ecu in test mode, and cycled through the injectors. Cyl 4 injector not firing. Great.
Swapped out the driver on the ecu board with an unused one (ecu is set up for 8 individual channels, but only 4 are being used) and we are back in business on saturday. Great! ......
Took it for a scream around the block and it is laying down the thickest smoke screen ive ever seen come from a car. I'll link the video later. Got it home, oil is pouring out of the exhaust now. Great. Only one thing can cause that much oil leakage -- blown turbo.
Its no surprise the turbo blew. After having the engine main oil feed blow off twice, starving everything of oil, even for a short amount of time, damages stuff. Im sure the engine bearings are not happy, but with my turbo, it uses bronze / brass bushings as the bearings. That style needs to be swamped in oil to not get instantly destroyed. Starve it of oil twice, and its not going to be a happy camper.
The turbines look okay, so a fresh set of bearings and seal should bring the turbo back to life. Unfortunately I busted a bolt in the exhaust housing sooooo that needs to get addressed first. Yay....
I'm real big time sad I missed the last autox event of the year, but there will always be more next year.
More to come...
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
so...
after much testing, tearing apart, and reassembling turbos, i finally got one that doesnt leak oil into the exhaust. great. put it all back together, and it seems to drive okay. I still have an active random misfire that is essentially untraceable due to the ecu limitations. My best guess is fuel as when it misfires, the afr gauge spikes lean before recovering.
I tried doing more research onto the dying injector driver mosfets in the ecu. I reached out to DIYAutoTune about it (the mfg of the computer) and was told to either cough up another $100 for a replacement board, or send it in and they will fix it for more than the cost of the replacement board. I asked about any sort of warranty since its been installed for less than a year, and theres clearly something wrong with my ecu. Nope, I got told its a date of purchase warranty, not a date of install and to either buy a new board or pound sand. The least they could have done is offer $5 worth of injector drivers so i could keep patching their shit back together.
i ended up purchasing replacement drivers from Mouser, and am waiting for them to come in. Seeing as the afr is spiking lean when it misfires, I am thinking ive got another injector driver about to fail.
I also told my tale on the ms3x forum about purchasing when ready to use, and someone linked me to a thread 10 years ago about the same exact issue I'm having. Hell, there were a few posts where people had them fail in the same exact manner as me. All they figured was it was a bad batch of mosfets from the manufacturer.
after much testing, tearing apart, and reassembling turbos, i finally got one that doesnt leak oil into the exhaust. great. put it all back together, and it seems to drive okay. I still have an active random misfire that is essentially untraceable due to the ecu limitations. My best guess is fuel as when it misfires, the afr gauge spikes lean before recovering.
I tried doing more research onto the dying injector driver mosfets in the ecu. I reached out to DIYAutoTune about it (the mfg of the computer) and was told to either cough up another $100 for a replacement board, or send it in and they will fix it for more than the cost of the replacement board. I asked about any sort of warranty since its been installed for less than a year, and theres clearly something wrong with my ecu. Nope, I got told its a date of purchase warranty, not a date of install and to either buy a new board or pound sand. The least they could have done is offer $5 worth of injector drivers so i could keep patching their shit back together.
i ended up purchasing replacement drivers from Mouser, and am waiting for them to come in. Seeing as the afr is spiking lean when it misfires, I am thinking ive got another injector driver about to fail.
I also told my tale on the ms3x forum about purchasing when ready to use, and someone linked me to a thread 10 years ago about the same exact issue I'm having. Hell, there were a few posts where people had them fail in the same exact manner as me. All they figured was it was a bad batch of mosfets from the manufacturer.
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
- Nordical25
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 279
- Joined: Tue Feb 08, 2022 11:49 pm
- My tercel:: 2 4wd 1987's. One with 4a, other with 3a
- Location: Finland
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
Oh, I am sorry to hear that your fine tuning still goes on. Just keep pushing. One day you will get it running properly.
- SirFoxx
- Top Notch Member
- Posts: 329
- Joined: Sun Feb 05, 2017 5:42 pm
- My tercel:: 1981 Toyota Tercel w/ 7age
Re: Turbo 4age tercel
So, got the new mosfet injector drivers in. replaced all 8. car still had a slight misfire. great... left it as is for a few days.
had a few friends come over who are well versed with the tercels ive had. took them around the block, and on the second time around the block, the #3 cylinder injector driver went open circuit...again.
i really dont know how to go about this situation. the guy at diyautotune i keep getting directed to is useless, and all the people ive talked to who've installed megasquirt computers have never had this sort of issue.
had a few friends come over who are well versed with the tercels ive had. took them around the block, and on the second time around the block, the #3 cylinder injector driver went open circuit...again.
i really dont know how to go about this situation. the guy at diyautotune i keep getting directed to is useless, and all the people ive talked to who've installed megasquirt computers have never had this sort of issue.
1988 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon w/ weber (RIP)
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5
1985 4wd Tercel SR5 (RIP)
1986 Base 2dr Hatch (RIP / PARTS)
1986 DLX 4wd Tercel Wagon with ???
1985 DLX 2dr Tercel Hatch w/manual swap
1981 2dr Toyota Tercel w/7age (RIP)
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel w/Turbo 4AGE
1981 3dr hatch Toyota Tercel SR-5