Turbo 4age tercel

[NWMO]

Looking good Keegan!

Chris

[SirFoxx]

Looking good Keegan!

Chris

Thanks Chris!

Continuing to push forward. Made a frame out of a piece of metal from my roommates Toyota pickup for the secondary fuse box. It's ugly, but you'll never see it once it's mounted. Probably will rivet it to the shock tower to keep it away from the heat. Still need to trim the bottom side so it's not as long.

Also ran more vacuum lines. Blow off valve, fuel pressure regulator, and the Mac valve / boost controller all got new rubber. Stuff is good for 30in/hg, but I'm not sure if it'll do positive pressure. I doubt it'll see more than 10psi so it should be okay.

Also need to figure out the pcv valve. The 4age ran everything to before the throttle body, which is not great to begin with, but once you add boost, even if you add a pcv valve, it'll blow all the oil seals out. Probably will run a catch can, then vent to a frame rail like the good ole days.

Buddy is modifying the t stat housing, giving it a 90* bend so the lower hose can be rerouted away from the alternator and belt.

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[Nordical25]

Looking good again!

Did you weld yourself that exhaust? The weld quality looks excellent.

[SirFoxx]

Looking good again!

Did you weld yourself that exhaust? The weld quality looks excellent.

Ha no. Someone in Florida made it. He made them originally for the mr2. As far as I know there's only a couple of these manifolds made.

Got more done with the wiring. Got most of the ignition coils wired in except for the ignition triggers for the ECU, got the injector power wired in, ran a new wire for the alternator to handle the 120 amps that it can put out, got the ground for the block hooked up, and am looking at what radiator fan I should use. Probably going to use a name brand 10-in electric puller fan as I don't think the original fan is meant to be a puller or will fit in the space anymore.

The power feed from the alternator is just the main power feed that used to be included in audio amplifier installation kits. The one I'm using is 6 gauge, but I don't think they include 6 gauge wires in with the audio kits anymore. Either way, it also has an inline fuse holder which will be handy for in case anything weird happens

Should have my rock auto parts here tomorrow, which hopefully will have a throttle cable that works, in a proper automotive v belt for the alternator.

[SirFoxx]

Oh hey look, more wiring! Also got me a throttle cable from a 99 v6 Camry. Still need to wire in fans, IAC, boost controller, and a handful of other things.

Ordered exhaust flanges today. Turns out the reman turbo I got is an industrial / agricultural turbo used mainly on Isuzu diesel engines. Luckily there was someone on eBay making a diy style exhaust flange for it.

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[Nordical25]

Well the guy in Florida knows then how to weld. It surprises me how well you find good parts from many models. I have been modifying some minor things but this build is something different in a positive way. Keep up the good work. Soon weather can start to improve and you want to test your Tercel.

[SirFoxx]

More wiring progress. Added a big boy buss bar, hidden solenoid, cooling fan, starter wiring, etc. I had to fix the oil feed line. I had originally used a compression fitting in the mess of adapters to go from a brake fitting to npt, however I just decided to use l solder the fitting to the brake line. Easy to do with silver solder and flux.

Had a buddy modify the lower coolant fitting / t stat housing and used an 80's Camry coolant hose, cut to fit.

Still need to crawl under the car and wire in the fuel pump.

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[SirFoxx]

A bit more progress. Started cleaning out the interior and fixed some rot holes on the shock towers, and patched shut a hole I had opened to fix a sub frame nut. I wasn't able to get as much done as I wanted as I got a nasty case of food poisoning this weekend. Yay...

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[SirFoxx]

So...I picked up a laptop, a battery, topped up fluids, finished up misc wiring and vacuum line routing and started poking around with the ecu software. TunerStudioMS. Pretty easy to work with, but can get very overwhelming, though there are a lot of videos and resources out there to help with that.

After fixing one small wiring issue with the fuel pump relay, and bypassing the automatic safety wiring (manual trans in auto car), I went about setting the fuel pressure. Aaaaaaaaaaaaand....fuel pump is bad. With the regulator completely shut, it took about 30 seconds to build to ~10psi. I need it to be around 43psi, instantly. After priming / purging, having the regulator shut should dead head the pump to max pressure instantly. To confirm it wasnt the FPR, I opened the adjustment all the way and pinched off the return with hose pliers. Same issue...

I've had the pump for almost a year now so I doubt anyone will want to replace it without a hassle (Jegs, or the mfg GoEFI). Ended up getting a 255lph walbro that I've used in the past from summit racing. Should be here wednesday. . . . .

[NWMO]

Thanks for the update, you still have 5 months

Chris

[SirFoxx]

Well, the fuel issue turned out to be an issue with the pick up. I modified mine to use 3/8" hose vs the stock 5/16", and the tube was not low enough in the gas. The walbro pump I put on exhibited the same symptoms but it was able to compress the air in the lines to 40psi lol.

After fixing that and an issue with the crank sensor due to a wiring inconsistency in the diagram, she runs! I had to fiddle with the fuel and whatnot to keep it running. It will get static tuned hopefully this week so I can take it for a spin.... After I fix the brakes and align the front end lol.

https://youtu.be/vLaOpgfAdZY

[SirFoxx]

Started the static tune process with a buddy. Unfortunately the turbo needs a doctor. I had to combine two different turbos to make something work, and I ended up putting new bearings inside of it. However, I'm not sure if I forgot an oil seal or something on the exhaust side because it's dumping raw oil out the exhaust pipe. Probably something I should fix before I test drive it and do tuning on it. I think it also fouled up my oxygen sensor so I need to get a replacement one as well. #projectlife

[Nordical25]

Small challenges can emerge occasionally for everyone who build something new.

On the other hand your project is proceeding forwards since your garage had a first smoke of your build. So good job anyway!

[SirFoxx]

Had the turbo checked out at a shop. All the seals were there, and while he did mention the gap in the dynamic seal on the exhaust side was a bit big (the "seal" is just a tiny piston ring), he didnt recommend changing it. I think all my oil issues came from having a bad oil drain angle, and too small of a drain. After correcting the angle, the smoke got a lot better, but was still present. My drain was 1/2". I used 1/2" NPT fittings, so I was able to jump up to 3/4" hose size without any modifications. After that, no more smoke!

I also had an issue with the ECU. During the first few passes down the abandoned street in mexico, things were fine, but it eventually started running pretty rich, even with the computer in self learn mode. I kept manually tweaking it, but things kept getting worse. I took it home to let things cool down as one of my calipers started smoking. The next day I took it out again, and again, it ran really rich, then all of a sudden it developed a dead miss.

Took it back home and started diagnostics. Compression, 190psi on all 4. Spark, good. While checking for spark I learned it was the #3 cylinder that died. Ran a diagnostics test mode, and that injector was not injecting. Thinking it was due to me buying cheapo injectors, I opted to buy legit rebuilt injectors. Aaaaaand...that wasnt it. Turns out, one of the injector drivers died in the ECU.

I emailed DIYAutoTune, and they told me that either I can buy another board (~$115) or try replacing the driver with one from an unused channel. The part was a surface mounted mosfet, which can be a bit tricky to pull off without a hot air station. Lucky for me, Ive had to do that before at my work, so using my skillset and tools at home, I managed to get the part changed and #3 came back to life!

Took the car back out again to tweak the fuel table again, aaaaand the clutch wont hold the power (I mean, it wouldnt even before the dead cylinder issue lol). I need to switch to a 200mm 4age flywheel. I am currently using a 190mm tercel flywheel with a SPEC pressure plate and a stock disc. My 4age started its life as a 4afe, which I thought would be better and easier to deal with since it has the 6 bolt crank. nope... ACT make a clutch that will hold the power, now I just need to convert the 200mm flywheel to work with the 6 bolt crank.

Also while doing test passes, I was able to see that the wastegate on the turbo was set to ~12psi. Doing rough math, stock 4age is 112hp. I'm running 10.5:1 compression, which is inline with the small port 4age -- 120hp. Every 14.7psi theoretically doubles HP, so 12psi @120hp is ~225hp.

Here are a few pics of the oil drain that got upgraded.

[Nordical25]

Wow! Again interesting mod work. This info may come handy to all who want to use 4A-FE as a start point for their engine builds.

Is 200mm flywheel possible to use also with Tercel 4wd? Or is it only suitable for your 1st gen Tercel gearbox?