[A70Addict]

While I was having fun doing autocross a few things quickly became prominently a hold back you could say to making progress. I quickly got to a point where I was outdriving the car, and this was primarily due to, the amount of body roll present with just having old coilovers, the factory worn out rear diff not doing its job as an LSD allowing for tire spin on the inside wheel, and a combination of the 3.73 rear end and the somewhat laggy driftmotion turbo causing the car to always be very very far out of the powerband meaning I was pretty much just cruising around the course. I attempted to swap a 3.91 out of a pre89 turbo car into it and it helped, but the turbo and the worn out differentials kept coming back to bite me. I decided around June after a few months that I was going to throw a set of swaybars in it to see how that would help. After doing some research I ended up settling on a set of suspension technique swaybars. I liked the ST bars due to the rear being adjustable and them having good reviews from other owners helped. Since the post 89 cars all have plastic rear swaybar endlinks from the factory I got 4 new moog swaybar endlinks (they are very very heavy duty built items compared to stock), and threw them on the car shortly there after. Got these sleeper designs radiator brackets in as well and threw them on to get rid of the factory stamped steel brackets.

The only picture I seem to have is of the stock one (on top) vs the ST one (on bottom). You can see how much beefier the ST bar is, and it was even more so of an obvious difference when holding the bars, both the front and rear were much heavier, I'm sure due to increased wall thickness. So I was super excited to try them out! Let's just say they were very well worth the money! Now the car didn't handle like an LFA, but the difference was very prominent, so back to autocross I went. Went back to autocross and found that not only was the car much more flat during cornering but it was also much more willing to rotate when needed using the steering wheel, which helps a lot on a little autocross course with decreasing radius turns. Now that I had done this it was time for a new major event for the car.

 

[A70Addict]

Around the end of June 2019 I was driving through town and saw a guy driving that I shared friends with but had never personally talked to. A short while later I recieved a message from him saying that he had a car drop out for the upcoming concourse in his modified class and was asking if I would like to be in the show as a filler. Obviously with being invited to a show as exclusive as a concourse there was no way I could say no, even if the car did have mismatched paint and wasn't the cleanest. So I accepted and spent the next couple weeks cleaning it to get ready for the event in the middle of July. Finally the day came and I came into it not expecting to win anything because the cars in my group were trailer queen show cars, but it was super crazy to just be there participating in a show that I had been going to since I was a little kid. I didn't get to win any trophies, but to be able to say I was able to have the car sitting on the grass with a super eclectic group of cars worth millions and lots of them being the only ones in existence is a bucket list item crossed off in itself.

 

[A70Addict]

I continued to run autocross after this until about mid August when my next purchase finally arrived for the car. After doing much research I decided to order a Borg Warner S257-SXE for the car with a .83 twin scroll housing. The driftmotion turbo never gave me any issue, but for my goals with the car power and usage wise and the fact that it was running a turbo with presumably very old tech in it I decided it was time to upgrade. I decided on the S257 since it's a small size turbo but it still flows 60+lbs a minute and it wasn't water cooled for simplicity sake. Plus the airwerks line from borg Warner are as close as you can get to an EFR without spending EFR money. So I removed the driftmotion turbo, sold it, and made room for the new guy.

The turbo fit much easier in the car being smaller in footprint and once the vibrant elbow was welded on by the same neighbor that made the intercooler piping it was ready to go. I can't stress how much of a night and day difference it was going to this turbo. Not only did the car now make positive pressure starting at 2,000 rpm, but now whenever it spooled it was a very noticeable difference of when it was making power vs not. The driftmotion turbo never really had a "hit" persay, which made the car easy to drive, but didn't have that turbo excitement. This Borg Warner had an aggressive shunt when it was spooled and made the car much more fun to drive. Having now done this, I didn't have the chance to make any more autocross events of the season but I did continue to enjoy driving the car for the rest of the year without doing much more to it.

This era of the last few months of 2019 was probably the most consistent A70 action that has taken place, it was definitely fun while it lasted.

 

[te72]

@A70Addict Two of the very best things I did to my car were the OS Giken LSD and the control arms / bushings. Everything's poly, all but one (my front LCA's) are adjustable, and the alignment I have allows a fairly aggressive tire setup all around, but it looks like you have the 275 game figured out. That really is a sweet spot on these cars. As far as the diff goes, it turned the car from a real tank slapper when you'd rein in a slide to a car that was happy to spin the tires and be sideways until you were done, or smoothly bring it back in and prepare for the next corner.

Believe it or not a Mk3 can be pretty competitive in autocross, just depends on which class you end up in. Locally I just aim for the top class we have, because it's all just for fun. I've never had the Supra win FTD that I know of, but it did pretty well and was only about 1.5 seconds off the pace of the best drivers, all of whom were in MUCH newer cars. In the Utah region, I can run SM, SSM, XP, XS-A or XS-B, possibly something like CSP or a mod class if I am feeling particularly adventurous...

The key as you've discovered, is throttle response. Those top range cams aren't really doing you favors for low end (I have the same issue) but with the right turbo the impact is minimal. Feel free to ask questions or check out the autocross videos on my channel, plenty to watch:

spoogie357 - YouTube

 

[A70Addict]

@A70Addict Two of the very best things I did to my car were the OS Giken LSD and the control arms / bushings. Everything's poly, all but one (my front LCA's) are adjustable, and the alignment I have allows a fairly aggressive tire setup all around, but it looks like you have the 275 game figured out. That really is a sweet spot on these cars. As far as the diff goes, it turned the car from a real tank slapper when you'd rein in a slide to a car that was happy to spin the tires and be sideways until you were done, or smoothly bring it back in and prepare for the next corner.

Believe it or not a Mk3 can be pretty competitive in autocross, just depends on which class you end up in. Locally I just aim for the top class we have, because it's all just for fun. I've never had the Supra win FTD that I know of, but it did pretty well and was only about 1.5 seconds off the pace of the best drivers, all of whom were in MUCH newer cars. In the Utah region, I can run SM, SSM, XP, XS-A or XS-B, possibly something like CSP or a mod class if I am feeling particularly adventurous...

The key as you've discovered, is throttle response. Those top range cams aren't really doing you favors for low end (I have the same issue) but with the right turbo the impact is minimal. Feel free to ask questions or check out the autocross videos on my channel, plenty to watch:

spoogie357 - YouTube

Yeah I'm very excited to try the car next season because as you saw the car at SIV a simple way of putting it is that the setup is way more aggressive suspension wise than it was the last time I autocrossed it. I agree though, 275 squared is where the car seems very very happy and I'm able to run it with lightly rolled front fenders and stock unrolled rear fenders. Due to mods I have to run the RTU class so anything goes on 200TW tires with no aero. It's a competitive class in this region due to a very aggressive AE86. Definitely nice to see another supra being autocrossed though as it is not very popular among the a70 community. The torsen has made the car very very controllable though and as you said not as tank slapper like it was with the stock diff.

 

[ZaZZn]

Was awesome chilling with you Cory, hope you didn't hate the restaurant that we went to that night!! Anyways, car sounded and looked killer at SIV21. Hope I see you again soon!

 

[te72]

@A70Addict I may have missed the post about going to a Torsen, I thought you were still on the stock diff. So, running the 4.10 JZA70 diff then?

And heck yeah, always good to see another Supra getting autocrossed. Both my Mk3, as well as my wife's Mk4, and another local Mk4 have some pretty serious cone counts to their credit. Last time I was in the Utah region, there was a SUPER clean white 89+ running. Mostly stock, but it sure did sound good.

Nothing wrong with having stiff competition though. I've learned that even the best set up of cars can still get spanked by a well driven stock Miata. I've been on both sides of that example, Miatas are kinda my specialty.

 

[A70Addict]

Was awesome chilling with you Cory, hope you didn't hate the restaurant that we went to that night!! Anyways, car sounded and looked killer at SIV21. Hope I see you again soon!

Likewise Eric, how did getting the car home end up going?

 

[ZaZZn]

Ha, you know it just made it back, Thursday last week.....

 

[Micahturbo4]

Amazing car. Makes me miss my 89 supra I built and swapped a 1jz into. Very sad I sold it a long time ago. Glad to still see these being built and driving around. Great work love the white.

 

[A70Addict]

So through the end of 2019 i was heavily driving the car, in saying this though I knew that the time driving the car as it was was coming to an end. The car had begun to show it's age as far as rust beginning to show in the common spots, and not wanting to let it get out of hand I drove it until January of 2020 and decided to spend some time that winter handling the rust. This, is where I can say the snowball that you are about to witness with this car started full steam. This begins the section of how the car became a massive time and money pit over the course of 2 years to what it is today. This is the rust in question that began this all.

The rust shown here is shown at the bottom of the driver side hatch glass in the corner, and in front of the front targa seal on the body around the middle of the windshield. For a car that lived the majority of it's life up to this point in Minnesota I wasn't upset nor disappointed at the rust. I planned to just quickly convert the rust, hit it with some touch up paint then be back on my way for 2020. Then this happened...

This is a picture showing the driver side hatch trim on a good car, compared to the driver side hatch trim once I had pulled it off the car. Now I must say that this happening was none of my fault, at the factory too much hatch glass sealant was installed, it overflowed and sealed the trim to the body in that middle section, destroying the trim to get it off at that point was inevitable. I was upset nonetheless, but what was done was done. This is the point that began it all. Several years prior I had seen the only pearl white A70 that I had seen in my life, to say seeing that car was impactful on me would be an understatement, as from that point I had a very strong desire for a pearl white A70. After removing this hatch trim I came to a realization, I needed to buy new hatch trim, so would I fix all this rust just to put new hatch trim back on the car? Of course not, so I ordered hatch trim and began disassembling the body for a respray. I had made up my mind to go pearl white.

 

[A70Addict]

I began stripping the car and of course began finding more rust as I went. This was to be expected due to the age of the car. Luckily for the most part it wasn't serious enough in most spots to be a major issue, just wire wheeling and it was able to be fixed without metal replacement.

This picture here is a picture of the rust that started all of this on the rear hatch. This was prior to destroying the hatch glass trim.

I continued stripping it and got to the point to be able to remove the glass, I disassembled the doors then had a local glass guy come and remove the windshield and hatch glass. The windshield cracked, but I was ok with this because it had a chip in eyesight that had been bothering me. The rear quarter glass was easy enough to not be a worry of having the glass guy removed so those were taken out afterwards.

Underneath the windshield it had quite a bit of rust formed in the channel where the windshield sealant goes, but again this was also able to be fixed without metal replacement. So I treated all the rust I had found once all the glass was removed.

 

[A70Addict]

There was slight surface rust formed in the spare tire area, so I was able to sand it down, rust convert it, then I proceeded to use an undercoating on the spare tire area to protect it. You can see in the picture the two studs coming through that are for the battery box, I decided to convert the battery box to the rear, and I made super sure before installing that the targa top would still fit in the hatch with no contact since one needs the wet noodle effect easily and on command.

While disassembling for paint I attempted to disassemble the mirrors and they disintegrated in my hands due to age. So I decided to order a set of bomex mirrors from RHD Japan as I really liked the look of them. I also was in a group buy for the kaminari 3 piece v2.0 wing. The kaminari wing came in later and I got the first non carbon version produced. After installing the wing it was evident that the new mold had never been tested on a car per fitment. After going back and forth with kaminari I eventually sent the wing back and they redesigned the winglets and sent a new model that was at least workable when it went to paint. While disassembling I removed the carpet and also found a cool piece of the cars history. This was taken in a past life of the car in an obviously way more stock point of its life.

The last items that were handled once it was stripped and before going to paint were some internal rust spots developing due to water entrance over the last 30+ years. I marked the areas in front of the wheels for replacement, and cut out the driver side behind the rear wheel so I could treat the rust.

About a week after this it was finally time to send it off to the body shop. The fenders, doors, hatch, and hood were all just on the car for transporting, they were all removed for paint as the whole car including jams was resprayed for the color change.

 

[Lagtime]

I am enjoying your journey.

 

[nomiezvr-4]

awesome thread! Very enjoyable to read and amazing work considering your age.

 

[A70Addict]

These are some of the progress pictures I took related to the car while it was at paint. I took this time to take advantage of having an empty section in the garage and it not there to have time to work on other items for it. Being as old as they were I wasn't surprised when I pulled the bumpers off and there was a bit of rust on the crash bumpers and nose support.

The rear bumper was considerably more rusty but they were all surface rust and nothing major. As I did with the body I wire wheeled all rust off of all the parts, treated them with rust converter, then i coated in POR15. This was the end result

I don't have any pictures but all items were coated front and back inside and out to the best of my ability with multiple coats to attempt to help with longevity. I will say, now knowing what I know I do not know that I would use POR15 again, as it is a very brittle paint and will crack on sections that have higher flex in them. A local guy was taking apart his jza70 at a similar time and I managed to snag one of my favorite factory a70 parts, the jza70 style front lip with both brake ducts. To say I was happy to get this was a severe understatement.

My sound performance BTI can gauge came in as well, I had had this ordered for a while before it came in, but I was the first person to order it to work with Haltech so they had to contact Haltech and figure out the can communication items. This is to date one of my favorite items on the car though and I highly recommend it.

While the nose badge on the car was very good condition i found a deal on Facebook in Puerto Rico that I couldn't pass up. The Nose badge wasn't my main attraction to this, the new clip was what peaked my interest.

This was also the section of time that started the lust for rare old school parts. I managed to get a Jza70 ARC intake box on ebay, while it wasn't the best condition it had something a lot of the boxes don't, it still has the ARC metal identification tag on it. This is how it showed up

After a bit of time with sand paper I was able to get the whole box to this finish. It isn't really as clean as I like, so I'm still debating as to whether I keep it with it's minor imperfections or get it redone, time will tell to what I decide as I have yet to install it to this day, but that should come the early part of next year.

 

[A70Addict]

After a month of the car being at the paint shop I finally got a message from the owner. I had intentionally left it and not even as much as tried to contact them becuase I had no desire to make them feel rushed or pressured to get the car done at all. I wanted to allow them to take their time and do it without me breathing down their neck. He sent me a few pictures and said that in a few days time the car would be ready for pickup, to say I was excited to finally see the car in the color I had envisioned it years prior was an understatement. He had put new metal in all the places where I had asked and had spent a considerable amount of time making the kaminari wing fit much better than it did (it isn't 100% perfect, but I'm very happy with it), another thing that was done that i had to have was that all the jams were sprayed to match the body, i wanted this car to visibly look as if it had came this way out of the factory and have no super white present. These are the pictures I recieved from him

Now I'll be the first to say that this paint job isn't 100% perfect, it has it's little things here and there, but the white hides it very well and for the price I paid I certainly cannot complain of the quality of it. To say I was excited to pick it up and see it in person was a huge understatement.

 

[Captain]

but the white hides it very well

White hides imperfections and dirt very well

 

[A70Addict]

While the car was at paint one of my more key items to the car came in from Japan, I spoke earlier on about how I had one wheel peel woes from the stock mechanical LSD (which is no fault of its own). I decided that I wanted to make it a nice factory upgrade and go to a jza70 torsen. So I found a 4.10 torsen out of a manual Jza70 for sale and snagged it. When it arrived it appeared that the front end had been submerged in water, but thankfully it was also full of gear oil, so damage was restricted to super light surface rust on the pinion bearing outer race. I messaged piratetip asking if the jza70 diff took all the same rebuild parts as a usdm differential and he confirmed they were the same. So I ordered a solid pinion spacer and all new bearings, races, and seals to do a full rebuild. I also managed while it was apart to get piratetip some stub shaft measurements for him to compare to the usdm shafts, as the jza70 shafts allow the ability to use a T2 torsen as in the FRS drop in to the a70 housing from my understanding.

 

[Piratetip]

You get it rebuilt?