So many times we get caught up in big power numbers, big wheels, big airdams and spoilers, etc, we sometimes forget what a real performance car needs to be effectively used. I have been doing this stuff for some time now and have learned all the HP in the world does no good if it is not usable because the rest of the car is not up the the level it needs to be.

Here is what we are doing to our tC before we turbo charge it and who we are involved with on this very fun project

1)preparing the drivetrain.
a) Aluminum flywheel, Clutch Specialists, to help rev faster out of turns and once off the line down the strip when drag racing.
b) 6 puc SPRUNG clutch, as above, note the caps for SPRUNG, we need a very tough clutch but puc clutches are generally to severe for the street and we do intend to drive this to events. A sprung puc clutch will be the best balance between our differing needs
c) HD Presure Plate, custom built to handle our 300+ WHP goal but not so stiff you can barely use it Again, Clutch Specialists.
d) LSD, Phantom Grip, they have taken great care of us in the past and we are more than happy to have them involved on this new project.
e) Redline gear lube, always worked for us, not sponsored so we just buy it.
f) Motor mounts, we are filling our stock front and rear mounts with Devcon Flexane 80 two part eurathane, this will control the wheel hop issues and help put more of hte power to the ground instead of wasting it twisting the motor mounts, etc.
g) axles, we are going to see but from what others have done they should be fine.
h) clutch stop, we will build one to limit the clutch pedal travel to just barely disingae for drag racing, faster shifts will result.
i) short shifter, allready completed, 63mm for and aft, 48mm left to right throughs.

2) suspension, all parts are on the way and will be installed next week.
a) Hotchkis STB, yes it does work and on a car modified and runing race tires it is even more important to have
b) Front and rear adjustable sway bars, Hotchkis because they make the best and to get the most out of the car we need to be able to adjust them.
c) rear camber kit, Hotchkis, again so we can adjust it for the best results on the track and on the street on the way to the track
d) Tein SS coilovers, have had great success in the past, andjustable damping and rebound is vital for racing in drags, autocross, etc, and nice and comfy setings for traveling to events.
e) Tein Pillow ball mounts/camber plates, so we can adjust to zero degrees for drag racing, 1.5 negative for the street and up to 3.5 degrees negative for autocross/ road courses as needed. This provides the otimum contact patch for the events we are running.
e)Rear STB, we will experiment with a design or two to see if we can gain anything from it.
f) frame stiffeners, basically for SCCA we can only brace from front to rear and not cross from side to side, we will analize and build them once we get up under the car and see what it needs.
g) steering quickener, a gear set that can be installed on the steering columm to reduce the amount of steering wheel rotation needed to turn the tires, will determine if need one once we start racing, can greatly improve lap times on tight tracks.

3)Wheels and Tires
a) Enkei RPF1 in 17x8, +35mm, 15.6 lbs. Lowers unsprung weight allowing for the suspension to keep the tires planted on the road, better braking, acceleration, ride, less wear on the chassis, etc. Offset widens the track effectively lowering the roll center.
b) Lite weight lug nuts, dropped two pounds over the stock units, same benifits as above
c) 235/40/17 Hankook R-S2 summer street and rain race tires, gained a bit of weight back over stock but have a tremendous amount more grip in the dry and rain, alot of super performance tires are a little heavy, sometimes we live with the tradeoffs. 17 rim size so we have some sidewall give to allow for better traction over bumps, less weight pushed out to the outer diameter of the the moving mass.

4) Brakes
a) most likely Wilwood four pot front system, working on a deal with them now. Less unsprung weight or close to stock but alot more braking force for track days and looks cool
b) rear brakes, adequate really but we will do a few things for the looks of the car as long as not penalty in performance, slotted rotors and single pot calipers most likely
c) SS brake lines, better feedback better modulation.
d) brake pads, will be changed according to what kind of events we are participating in, softer for autocross and street, harder for road racing.
e) ABS, will l likely remove it to save weight but mainly it is counter productive to most performance driving, will test it first once we start racing just to be sure.

5)Seats
a) Since this is a streetable car it will have some very agressive but reclining and very comfortable race type seats, last project had Recaro SRD's. We have not decided yet for this one. Very important to good car control when driving on the edge and beyond.
b)Seat belts, again very important to good car control and to safety.


There is alot more to do yet, moving the battery to the rear of the car or at least further back in the engine bay. Carbon fiber roof, either get somebody to build it or do it ourselves, remove sunroof motor and tracks, switcher and wiring. It would take a small book to list the reasons some of this is done and many more things not even mentioned here.


This is how to prepare a car to work well when you have plans to build some real HP to go out and play with, a whole car concept, something that is not done often enough in the import tuner world. Many do some of the right things then counter that with heavy wheels, big wings, etc, etc, that have nothing to do with real performance.

Best thing of all, build it to drive and enjoy looking at when you cannot be out having more fun behind the wheel.

But, if you are not into taking a car to this level, cool, make it what you want, just do yourself a favor and spend your time and money on a setup that works well together and have a more rewarding experience

Rick

 

whats your budget for this car? Sounds like when your done, you will have spent atleast as much as a brand new tC.

 

I hate to think about that part so usually do not do so

It takes doing alot of work and spending alot of money then going to shows, races, getting some publicity, knowing how to talk to manf, etc but finally I get some great assistance on the projects now.

I seldom get anything for free and choose what I want over what kind of deal I can get, then see how well I can get helped out from there.

Enkei, Hotchkiss, Clutch Specialists, Phantom Grip and a couple of more are helping with this project, I still spend alot of money, $8k so far and no where near done, maybe half so I guess you are right. There are a ton of little things that add up to a great deal of money and work that are easily overlooked.

Then you hear at times why not just buy a car already fast like an STI? Well, I love STI's but if I bought one I would mode the heck out of it anyway to make it mine

Taking some thing that is a bit of an underdog but has great potential and making it do well is far more rewarding to me, why I and now we as my son is my partner, why we do it!

Rick

 

i like the small details. good stuff. hope to see some pics and the potential of a true function over form modded tc.

have you also considered doing major mods that include weight savings? i know you included the light weight wheels but the tc needs less weight to truly shine on the tracks.

 

He is swapping the all glass roof, for a carbon fiber one, which will save him A TON of weight.

Also Rick is their any reason you decided to go with Tein coilovers instead of H&R (price difference maybe?)

 

The coilovers save weight, not much saved on wheels and tires but I have alot more rubber and better rubber on the ground, 1.5 lbs less per corner and .25 less just in lug nuts.
Flywheel is only 10 lbs, rotating mass at that. Every single bolt, etc will be trimmed to get ride of excess. Deleted the spare tire, jack, handle, big rear muffler, etc. The seats will weight alot less(working on a plan for 6061 aluminum seat brackets as well) CF roof will save around 70 lbs or more is a very critical area.
There are a ton of things we are adding on but every single item will be carefully trimed to make it work but have the least negative impact on weight gain.
CF hood, painted is in the plans, removing the center rear seat belt, the child seat loops, rear speakers, front center tow hook, already two others, small antenna, possibly acrylic rear and rear side windows in the works. Plastic rear plate frame instead of metal, deleted the resonator, will remove stock deadening and install better but lower weight deadening, many many more things as well.

This car is our company car and we are in the car audio sound deadening manf business. It will have a computer based system but it is being designed for maximum output and minimal added weight, in fact we may coume out ahead

I chose the Tein units because they worked really well for me, I could of gotten some help on the price but did not want to do all the paperwork this time, they helped on the last project, I was totally satsified with their performance. I did get the ones I have coming for a very very good price though


I forget if the H&Rs are adjustable, if not that would be a reason to to have them, fine for most but this is a multipurpose project car.

 

Finally, someone KNOWLEDGEABLE about cars. . .

 

this car will be the most :D

 

Thanks guys, I really appreciate the support If not for needing this for our audio business it would end up alot lighter yet, for SCCA we have to leave the interior in(back seats and seat belt out for autocross is ok).

We need to come up with a name for this project, the old saying you cannot have your cake and eat it too is going to be invalid on this project, we plan on having both.

Maybe I will call it the Cake Project, lol, not so great eh?

Just being silly but a nice theme name would be cool, I may start a little contest with a prize for the best name for it;)

Rick

 

Wow, a lot a work and money. Can't wait to see the final result.

 

ewww phantom grip....

 

Only decent LSD I know of ...course I never really looked into em..hehe

 

"ewww phantom grip"

Might I ask where you are getting your opinion from?

The reason I ask is that I hear naysayers often but when I ask them for first hand or even close experience all they can say is "he said she said" third, fourth, internet gossip, etc. Never any substantial evidence.

The only source anybody came close to even knowing the person, again only through the internet was somebody installed a unit that did not fit so they moddified and and later their tranny broke, ok. Was it the Phantom Grip or was it the improper use of it or was it not even related just a place to put the blame.

If you have real world experience of problems caused by one please let me know, I certainly would be very interested as it is one heck of alot of work to install an LSD and very costly to replace a broken tranny(differential really).

I pwersonally have had real world, very hard core experience with one and it worked incredibly well and when I tore the tranny down it looked perfect, 19k miles and most of which was under boost and with race tires on
Thanks,
Rick

 

sounds like it's gonna be one hot car when it's done. good luck!

 

save your money and keep the stock seats, IMO. you do not need aftermarket seats.

personally I'm not into autox, I really only like straight line performance so I wouldn't spend all the money on sway bars, rims, & some other suspension mods. that money could go to internal work (if needed in the future)

by the looks of everything else it looks like you'll have a great setup.

 

Looks like you are going to build a serious car there! Keep us up to date on the progress. Its good to see that you have put a good amount of thought into it from the start.

 

Seats are one of my priorities, drag racing is fun but so limiting in scope, I do it rarely but I do respect it. Since I like to be able to drive quickly throught the twisty roads in the mountains, only place you can get away with much fun on the road now, I prefer a car that handles exceptionally well. Great seats come in very very handy for that and the right ones are very comfortable on long drives, like across the country as I have done in 36 hours

10PSI of boost is plenty fast in the real world, may be too much for autocross, not even shabby drag racing, no need for expensive internal mods at that PSI

This is one of the main reasons I wanted a tC, strong motor that is easy to get great power from.

Rick

 

Our last project car, little something to make the Matrix a bit quicker.



One day I looked around at all the fun toys sitting at my house I was doing some sort of work on.



Our Tacoma TRD SC, recently published in Mobile Entertainment, etc.

Our autocross Matrix, those are 235/40/17 V700 Kumhos on the car, our street tires as well as autocross

One of the first STI's around, just build an audio system for it, customer car.

A buddies Matrix with TRD SC, pulley, aquamist, unichip, header, exhaust, catless, light wheels, sticky tires, very fast for an auto

 

wow wow wow can't wait for the finished product raamaudio. keep up the great work

 

Very nice work and great write-up. Ive always wanted to do it right (like your write-up) but dont have the money and most sponserships require you to show the car at events and to advertise on your car. I kinda like the sleeper look.

Keep us up to date and if ya have production photos long the way it would be cool to check them out.