29-Jun-2014
So after some weeks of working on my Celica ST185 RC and humming and haa-ing about how to get this hole cut, we both looked at other areas of the car to get sorted. Just some shots of the bay and car sitting in my garage doing nothing for a couple of weeks.
18-Jul-2014
It's been bitterly cold recently, and not much work has happened. It's pretty low motivation to work in the garage that ranges between 6-11C. Anyway I went with the tried and true method of drilling a series of holes and cutting out the excess portion. Then cleaning up the hole to the right dimensions.
First remove the old wastegate flange and extension. Extension came off first.
Measuring the WG hole size, it was a pitiful 32.5mm internal diameter. This could be considered a lesson in that these cast units are not the largest in size, especially if advertised as 35 or 38mm
Next step was to remove the casting for the flange. Using a cutting disc and grinding disc, I removed the main flange and then sliced the remaining casting so I could chisel/bend out the remaining bits.
19-Jul-2014
As Nick wants a 3" exhaust, I had to get under the car and measure if the exhaust would be able to fit between the subframe and body. Initially we had planned to run the exhaust under the subframe, but after measuring this again, I am confident that we can get the exhaust through this space with no issues.
Some inquiries have been made to get a 2nd hand 3" exhaust from the cat back, shipped from Australia to New Zealand, but the guy hasn't got back to me, and as I'm in the fabricating mood, I'm just going to fabricate what we need. For me, I tend to save time and effort by spending the money to get the parts needed. This isn't as easy for Nick, with his young family and all, and as I am not working, I can afford the time to spend fabricating stuff up. More mucking about, but it will be cheaper for Nick.
90mm space should give a decent amount of room for movement. We'll use brand new poly hangers to minimise sag of the exhaust. If we used the original hangers and bushes, then the exhaust will knock. May as well spend a little to minimise issues later.
19-Jul-2014
Hole traced out ready for drilling and cutting the holes out. Had a couple of false starts as my drill bits were dull, but after getting a sharp drill bit, the process was much quicker. Always pays to use cutting oil for these types of jobs.
20-Jul-2014
It took a while to slowly cut out the holes. I was at the drill press for a couple of days, positioning and holding the manifold in places while trying to secure it with G clamps. Quite a mission to secure the manifold due to the weight.
21-Jul-2014
I quickly turned my attention to the muffler. An extension was welded on previously for his original plans of a side exhaust. The welding wasn't even finished on it, so it was reasonably easy to clean up and remove the extension.
Here is the extension I had previously welded to the turbo outlet flange. Spot welds removed with a 1mm cutting disc.
Back to the WG flange. Using chisels and a jigsaw with a metal cutting blade, I managed to remove the centre section. Man that was a pain in the... had to make a wooden flange so the jigsaw wouldn't bounce around. Otherwise it was using a small round file to cut the the sections between the drill holes. Finally out though.
Then I did something rather silly. I started hand-filing the excess material out to make the WG hole round. 4 hours later, and this is where I ended up. From previous experience, air driven grinders and cutting tools use a lot of air and I only have a small compressor. I haven't invested much in air tools, due to the need to have a larger compressor, but after spending 4 hours hand-filing, the next day I went out and bought a die grinder and carbide bit. Having to wait for the compressor to recharge after 1 minute of use is time consuming, but nothing compared to wasting the time on hand-filing..
