salted, unsalted, or honey roasted?

Posted on by

I like my peanuts honey roasted.  At least, whenever I’m eating them alone.  We use salted peanuts a lot in Vietnamese cuisine.  It adds a little extra crunch and a slight toasty-ness to meals.  Growing up, sometimes I would just eat rice with crushed peanuts.  nom nom nom.

And in case you are wondering, no this post isn’t really about eating peanuts/peanuts in food… haha

So the “slang” or nickname for the second generation corollas are “mango” and “peanut.”

The mangos are supposedly the sportier ones also known as chassis code te27:

mango (te27)

The peanuts are the “sedans” or family cars also known as chassis code te21:

peanut

To this day, I still don’t see the resemblance to a peanut, buttttt… meh, it is what it is.

I’m getting deeper into the 5spd conversion for my peanut.  I called BRD Racing to talk to them about lightening my flywheel and making a custom clutch for me.  They said the product they offer is good for up to 500 hp.  YES, 500 HP.  Did you know you can crank out this kind of power from the single cam 3tc engines?  (if you don’t know, the 3tc is the big brother to the 2tc, the engine I have in my peanut)

Here’s a taste of some 3tc power in this 86:

I’m hoping to get my flywheel shipped up to BRD Racing on monday and then waiting for the pieces to fall together.  I still need to pick up a clutch master, clutch slave, make a hardline, order a soft line, and make sure all the crossmembers fit.  Then…custom driveshaft etc etc.

Gotta lotta work ahead of me!

peanut is alive and kickin!

Posted on by

So, sometime towards the end of last year, I parked the peanut and put it on jack stands and removed the front brakes (because they were the 86’s brakes).  The torque converter was going out (yes, it’s an automatic).  I could only use 1st gear out of the 2 gears this transmission has.

after one hour of ownership

You may be asking, “Thaison, your peanut has a 2 speed automatic????”  Yes…oldschool technology.  I’m pretty sure this car was marketed to be sold to people driving around in the city.  But regardless, the gears are super long.  1st gear can take me almost to 50 mph!  haha, I have no idea what RPM’s it’s running at though — there’s only a speedometer.  I parked it because, I was working out in Lakeway, so that was about a 30 minute drive through the hill country.  Sooo….needless to say, the peanut couldn’t get enough speed for the hills because the gears were slipping.  So it sat in the driveway.

lowered the car and the wheels were too wide -- open wheel it is!

As of recently, I’ve been getting the itch to drive it again.  I just get this feeling when I’m driving it that I don’t get with my other cars.  The chasis is super light (curb weight of 1,600 lbs).  It’s got a peppy little 2tc engine in it.  The 40-year old seats are SUPER broken in.  I added some asian-style “comfort beads” which are quite comfortable.  It wreaks of gasoline.  AND it sounds like a cammed big block.

made the trip all the way to houston for the nostalgic meet -- toyota reliability right there!

My little brother helped me bleed the brakes last night and after hooking up the car to be jumped and priming the ISH out of the carb, it started right up.  So today, I threw some wheels on it and drove it to work — I work closer to home now, so I don’t have to worry about too many hills.

MAN, did it feel good to be riding around in the peanut.  The brakes are still a little spongy, so I’m going to have to look into that again.  But other than that, it was amazing.  I’ve removed all the seats, so there’s only the driver now.  Half of the car, I’ve removed sound deadening.  So boy, it’s even lighter.

So now, I’ve sourced almost all the parts, I’m going to start the 5-spd conversion.  Using a T-50 from an ae86, a T-40 bell housing to match the 2tc block, ae86 clutch slave, custom drive shaft, and maybe a spec racing clutch.  And maybe a stock clutch master cylinder?  I read on speedhunters, where a guy used a wrx one — which leads me to think that maybe the te21, stock ones are hard to come by?  Who knows…. more research for now and updates to come soon!

So it begins

Posted on by

So it begins…my blacktop 4age swap into the 86.

Just last week I finally got my engine on the stand to really start converting it from fwd to a rwd configuration. This means rerouting the water lines, etc. I decided to go with the sq engineering kit based out of Australia. He makes some really high quality parts for the 20v 4ag swaps.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a 20v 4age is — to put it short, it’s the newer revision of the 86’s original motor. Higher compression, stock individual throttle bodies, 5 valves per cylinder (as opposed to e stock 4 valves per cylinder.

Here’s my workspace:

20120329-023608.jpg

Tonight, I decided to start taking apart my harness. The motor and harness I picked up was being run in an aw11 mr2. So I need to rewire the harness to fit the ae86 chassis and also to mate up with the ae86 harness. Spent a couple hours on it and decided it was time to go to sleep. I’ve got a lottttttt of work ahead of me…

20120329-023921.jpg

track day — more to come!

Posted on by

So this past Saturday, Branden and I went down to Harris Hill Road for the “Mazda Raceway Outlaw Autocross.”  Essentially, a higher speed autocross, where we got to run a section of Harris Hill Road with a couple slaloms down the side straight, back straight, and before the dam turn.

Here’s a look at the track:

A really fun, technical course with elevation changes.  There was a slalom between 3 & 4, 5 & 6, and 7 & 8.  Gridding was in the pit and the finish was right before turn 9.  Needless to say, it was a suuuuuper fun day.

More to come on this event soon!

tearing up the slaloms!

tearing up the slaloms!

clutch job — still not finished

Posted on by

So…the clutch job still isn’t finished.  My slave cylinder decided to blow up.  So it is permanently stuck with the clutch “fully depressed.”  But luckily, I made it all the way home from David’s place — a good 20 minute drive.

I spent tonight with one of my 86 buddies, Joseph, (which I soon will do a feature of his build) and he helped me clean out my garage.  I really should’ve taken before and after pictures.  But…those of you who’ve been to my house know that the before picture was just tons of trash and junk piled into our garage.

After a solid four hours of moving things around, cleaning, and hosing — we got the dead fish/poop smell out of the garage and cleared enough space to fit my 86 in there.  This way, I won’t have to continue working on my gravel driveway…

The car hadn’t been in the garage for about four years — the last time it was in there was when I did my first motor swap, winter/spring of 2008.

Hopefully I can get all my parts in and swap everything in for Saturday.

And in typical Thaison, always doing things last minute.  And then everything blows up in your face, but somehow I (usually) get it done in the end.  Hopefully I can get my 86 up and going for Saturday’s track event.

Image

clutch job

Posted on by

needless to say, i have an oil leak somewhere...

Took my car over to my buddy David Liu’s place to swap my clutch.  So I wouldn’t have to do it in my gravel driveway in the dark….

Clutch was SHOT to hell.  hahah, no wonder it was slipping so much.

Should be finishing it tonight!

wagon fever

Posted on by

So recently, I’ve been wanting a wagon more and more.  I figured it’d be a nice daily — i can throw a tooooon of stuff in the back and lug around whatever I need to.  I’ve always wanted a wagon — corolla, corona, cressida, datsun 620, whatever.  Any old japanese wagon from the 80’s and earlier.

One of the most popular wagons in the corolla scene is Ueo’s corolla wagon.  A rare TWO DOOR wagon:

The te72/ae72 wagons are my favorite out of all the corollas.  The rigid lines and everything make them look sooooo sick.  So one of my buddies, Mudathir, was telling me a couple months ago about a corolla wagon he was looking it/considering buying.  However, things fell through and he never went through with it.

So today….I went and checked out the wagon.  Damn, I really wish I would’ve taken some pictures of it.  But it looks similar to this (minus the wheels and minus the slam and minus the front lip and minus the rear wing and minus the clean).

So the car is 100% stock with a rusted rear quarter panel and busted tail lights.  I talked to the guys there and unfortunately they said they wouldn’t sell it to me today — but maybe in a coupe weeks.  It’s currently one of the shop mechanic’s daily’s until he gets a new vehicle.  Once he gets a new car, he said he’d sell it to me.

If I end up getting it, I want to throw the car on bags and just slam as a daily.  Keep the body as messed up as it is and just drive the ish out of it.  It’s a wagon — family car!

pushing boundaries

Posted on by

My homeboy Angelo’s been pushing boundaries on almost all of his builds.  At least the builds that I know of.

First build I knew of was his blacktop ae86:

Which then became an sr20det86 and then sold to a kid in kansas:

Second build was an S13 that he built in like 3 months (or was it 3 weeks?):

And thirdly, he just traded that S13 for this teg:

ONI CAMBER.  His builds have always been ridiculous, which is very fitting with his character.  Great guy, great personality.

megasquirt tuning

Posted on by

So, those of you who’ve seen my car recently, know that I’ve recently switched to an aftermarket ECU.  DIYPNP Megasquirt to be exact.  I was scared as heck putting it together (because it was my first time soldering anything for reals) but it all worked out.  I took my time and double/triple checked everything I was doing.  The DIYAutotune guys have a LOT of written information out there to get me through it.

Anyways, this whole time, I’ve been running off my buddy’s maps — since he’s got a different engine and stuff, I’ve been running PIG rich.  Like AFR of 10-12 rich.  So this is what I’m starting to get into right now:

megalogviewer

I’ve been reading online and watching youtube videos on how to tune and adjust your VE (volumetric efficiency) tables.  It looks like a giant jumble of numbers to me right now… but I’m still learning!

Nice surprise

Posted on by

So as I’m heading down the route of making my car nice and clean again, I had to source some new parts from club4ag. I thought I was ordering some eyelids and corner lights for the 86 but this is what I got:

Wrapped in Korean newspaper, from Cali.

20120227-224807.jpg

20120227-224751.jpg

I got TWO SETS of untracked eyelids! Ones pair seems to have some overspray, but that shouldn’t be hard to clean up.

From that time I hit a tree, both of my eyelids have been destroyed. Passenger side has a huge crack and the driver side disintegrated. Hahah. Now I have a clean set and a spare set!