Let the treasure hunt begin!

The Toyota Sports 800 only had about 3000+ models in production in the late 1960s, currently 300+ units are still alive today. If finding the car itself is hard, what about the parts for the car and even if you can find the spare parts, what about the price for those spare parts...

While I'm in Australia, I've managed to find some parts surprisingly. Gasket sets, pedal rubber covers, front bonnet rubber stoppers, and the carburetor air filter service stickers. All these parts are not the original parts unfortunately, but they will have to do in order to keep the car alive.

Hopefully the next few things I can get are the internal engine parts, and some of the rubber parts for the car. 

Something I found in Australia

Hey all, haven't been writing much because I have been busy but I did find something very nice that I haven't seen in my life before. That is, the 1971 Toyota Crown MS75. This car has been restored up to its 90% original condition. All the lights, windows, dashboard are all original as when the car was launched years back. The only non original parts in the car now is the exhaust manifold, the springs, gearbox, steering wheel, and rims. The original steering wheel and rims are still with the owner. The MS75 uses two ventilated disc brakes at the front and two drum brakes at the rear. It has the original radio in the car with the button on the floor next to the clutch that must be pressed in order to tune the radio to the desired frequency, plus the old fashioned hand brake next to the steering wheel. The car is in mint condition and runs really well! No rattles no funny noises. Cruises really comfortably and takes the corners without being a hand full!

The MS75 came into Australia only from the 2nd hand dealers and the exported models of the MS75 came with the twin circle headlamps while the Japanese domestic models had the rectangular headlamps. Only the sedan and wagon versions of the MS60 were built in Australia. The parts however are like any other old skool Japanese car, hard to find and getting more expensive. Some parts are still shared between the coupe, sedan and wagon.





What does MS75 mean:
- The 'M' is basically the engine family that came with the car.
- 'S' means the chassis family while the '75' is the model of the chassis which in this case is the coupe version of the 60. The sedan version of this car would have the code MS60 if the came with the 'M' family engine.

This coupe has the 4M-C engine under it which is the liquid-cooled 2.6L Naturally Aspirated straight six cylinder 2 valve per cylinder Single Over Head Cam Single Carburetor engine thats able to produce 120HP at 5600rpm and 190Nm of torque at 3000rpm. An all cast-iron engine with an aluminum cylinder head. The gearbox has been swapped with a bullet-proof W50 series 5 speed manual gearbox.






Only has 63, 400miles on the odometer which is about 110, 000km! Not much for a 40 year old car!













The interior looks brand new and the car has seat belts! The owner still has the original steering wheel in his place.

Slotted brakes for the KE35!

For a long time, i've been having so much braking problems because the brake rotors that I've been using are the old used AE86 standard brake rotors, which were passed its life. So I bought these endurance slotted front and rear rotors from Race Brakes, New Zealand a few months ago and nearly forgot about it. So it finally it arrived in the mail and I got them fixed up! The brakes on the car even with the standard road pads have improved incredibly(pedal firmness, response of the brakes, and most importantly the brake bite is much more).

The fronts were a bit tricky to install. From the old standard rotors, the off set piece has to be reused and bolted on the new rotors so don't throw away your old rotors before you install the new ones! Whereas the rear solid slotted rotors were a direct fit.

So when buying the rotors, what information that the shop would need are the diameter of the brake rotors you require, its PCD, the thickness of the brake rotors and the thickness of the off set piece. The more information the better.

The top ventilated slotted brake rotors are the fronts and the bottom solid slotted rotors are the rears. 

Original Japanese Watanabes from Klang

Hey all, 

Before this I used these 15inch Taiwanese Works Equip look a like rims that came with my Toyota Corolla KE-35 Hardtop Coupe, till everyone said that it looks horrible with the car and the 15inch were too wide until they were touching the body after a certain steering angle. So I decided to go see my old friend at Klang, Kazuto Garage where I bought my first Watanabe rims for my Toyota Sports 800. So happened that he has a set of Matt Black 14inch Watanabe rims with the standard off set and 6.5J. He quoted me RM2800 for a used set inclusive of touching up and I've never regretted since! Ever since i've switched the rims, the tires don't touch the car's body anymore and the back tends to kick out that slight which is what I've been wanting! 

Some specs of the rims: 

Diameter: 14inch

PCD: 114.3

Width: 6.5J 

Off-Set: Standard 

Santa knew what I wanted this year! :D

Going onto mudah.my in the hope of finding some TRD parts for my 4AGEs, what are the chances of finding something good... Just my luck, I found this; A set of TRD Race Pistons for the 4A-GE 16valve first generation with TVIS, and got it for RM480 a set but without piston rings. 

Called the guy up, said he only has one set left. Went to find him the next day, brought the TRD parts list and also the measurements. And it all matches. These pistons match to the parts number: 13101-AE861. Now the only problem is that its a standard size piston. So if I were to fit this into a block, it needs to be a not too worn out block, if not the pistons are gonna go into the display cabinet... I'd thought that TRD Pistons would cost four to five digits but I can say that this is a lucky catch. 

The Catch of the Year! Toyota MR2 AW11 1985...

One random day, searching for cars on mudah.my I found myself searching for MR2s, most for sale are the SW20 2nd generation MR2 which was apparently not a much success as the 1st generation MR2 which was the AW11 model. So call it what you want; luck, good timing I found one for sale and it was in the same state, same district! I couldn't believe that I found another one for sale after seeing one six months ago go into a friend's hands. On top of that, when UMW Toyota imported the MR2 AW11 model into Malaysia in 1985, they only imported in 20models officially. And this was one of those 20 models! The owner claimed it to be 95% original, kept in good condition, and only 85, 000km done on the odometer.

So me, my dad, and a number of friends who are die hard petrol heads went to see the car. Marvelous the car was, no big issues, everything was working, everything was original, the 4A-GE 16valve in there was spectacular! No strange noises, no funny vibrations and still being able to rev to 7300rpm without any problems.

The only problem was that because it wasn't used much, the water in the radiator was starting to turn brown, and also as the car gets older so does rubber components. Luckily for us that the engine mountings were still in good condition but the radiator rubber hoses weren't doing so well. Also the paint job on it, was just a touch up where the original red paint of the car faded. So nego nego nego, got the car at RM35, 000.

So then we took it to our regular workshop and got a few parts changed. Rubber radiator hoses were changed but it was one hell of a treasure hunt to find them. Brake master pump, clutch pump had to be changed. Brake discs, brake pads changed and the calipers serviced. New Michelin XM2 goes on the 14inch wheels. Airconditioning serviced, all fluids drained and replaced plus the timing belt. So now after 3 weeks in the workshop the very next day a drive up to Bentong, Pahang, then to Cameron Highlands, and back down to Ipoh. The next day back to Selangor. The car handles well, no issues at all taking it that far and back. After I drove this car and my friend drove this car, the question in our heads is, when did cars stop being this good?

As for spare parts availability for this car here in Malaysia... Very difficult. Some parts you can find from a similar Toyota from that time, but stuff like lights, gear knob, sensors, etc very difficult. However, overseas the MR2 AW11 was sold in large amounts,  thus today there are a lot of used parts for sale and some also new old stock.

Some information about the MR2 AW11 1985:

Chassis Model: AW11
Year: 1985
Engine: 1600c.c. 4A-GE 16valve DOHC first gen N.A. with T-VIS, MAP Sensor producing around 120hp
Compression Ratio: 9.4:1
0 - 100km/h: Roughly 8.0 seconds
Engine Layout: Mid Engine
Gearbox: Transverse 5 speed manual C50
Weight: 1060kg
Wheels: 14inch
Steering: Rack and Pinion

Some New Goodies for my Toyota Corolla KE35!

Its been a long time since i blogged, here's the reason why!

Interior:

I found a place in Taman Mayang that does only interior work on cars. The minute i stepped into this place, the only cars i see are all classics! Old triumphs, VW Beetles etc. So since i got some time where i didn't need my car for the running around i usually do, I dropped it off at the interior shop and got the insides all done up! Roof lining, back seats, dashboard, steering wheel. The whole car, in and out is just black and yellow. I didn't realised i only had 2 colours i could use until the interior guy pointed it out... His pricing are as follows:

-Steering wheel refurbish: RM250
-Dashboard refurbish: RM800
-Roof lining ( taking off the old Proton PVC and replacing it with a black cloth ): RM600
-Changing the colours of the back seats from orange to yellow and black: RM500

On top of that, I managed to find real original OMP 4 point road harnesses from the OMP dealer at Johor. He comes down to KL frequently so i got it from him for RM750 if i'm not mistaken. As usual, getting customs to clear them were a big hassle...

My dad also brought back an aluminium number plate for my car, where the alphabets were not pasted on the metal but molded. It was a thin piece of aluminium so we had to go to the accessory shop to get the regular plastic plate glued to the back of the aluminium plate and then only managed to stick it on the car. 

Total FOR INTERIOR ONLY: RM2900.

Now the juicy bit!

The exhaust manifold that i got with the engine, from the half cut shop was crap. So i was recommended to go to this exhaust shop in Segambut, Pakar Exhaust FIMA :) Very small place, one man show but this guy knows what he's doing! I got a used Japanese Manifold from him, FGK 4-2-1 for RM600. Less that 2hrs it was fixed on the car already, with no issues.

For some reason, I found out that I had fake NGK spark plugs that i've been running on since i first started the 4A-GE, and it was causing some misfiring issues. So i decided to invest in some Denso Iridiums, the same one that the Toyota Alphard uses. There is a higher performance iridium plug that Denso has, but I got this because the workshop was carrying this plug, and i know it won't be a fake since it has Toyota branding all over the box, i hope. But so far so good! :) So 4 new Iridium SK20R11 plugs cost me RM220.

The spark plug wire also has been giving me some problems, one of the wires' core had melted so at that time the workshop was trying to fix my misfiring problem and a quick fix for that one spark plug wire that was causing the misfiring issue is to replace it with a used but still functioning wire. I was doing a bit of research on the spark plug wires, it seems to have no benefit in performance but there is a benefit in spark delivery. My idling has improved with new spark plug wires and with the new iridium plugs. I went to Mun Lee, one of the biggest half cut shops in PJ, and they only had Ultra spark plug wires for the 4A-GE, and they are charging RM400 for 4 wires, not 5 with a trade in of your old wires. To me that was a rip off! SO i went online to check for wires, which brand suited the 4A-GE best. Then it hit me! The 4A-GE was a race engine that Toyota used last time, along with the 3S-GTE in the future. So TRD should have developed a spark plug wire for the 4A-GE and true enough, I found the parts catalogue and there was a spark plug wire set ( 5 wires) for the 4A-GE. Now the question was where do I buy them? I found a sit in the US that sells the TRD Yazaki spark plug wires, it costs USD$120 with shipping to US address. So i bought the wires and my grandma was coming back to KL the day the wires were delivered to her house so I managed to get them and installed on the car already! OH YEAH!


One shot, did it all! :) My next aim will be getting a new ECU for the 4A-GE! With all the upgrades in performance, there is a slight increase in power but not alot. Hopefully if i change the ECU it will help. Camshafts from the half cut shops, difficult to find for the standard engine, the standard intake and exhaust camshaft should be 240, with standard pistons and con rods, the biggest exhaust and intake camshaft to use would be 256. Any larger than that, it will be difficult to run the engine on the road.