Pictured: stranded outside Discount City Carpets
Went and picked it up last Friday. Had a niggling thought that maybe I hadn't tightened the lug nuts after putting the OZ wheels on; forgot about it when I arrived and the battery was flat, wouldn't start off a jumper pack, needed it off a running car. Got it started, went to get petrol, wouldn't start again
Fortunately hadn't gone far and Luke was kind enough to rescue me.Asides from the usual old car noises, nothing seemed amiss... till I got on the expressway, rolled gently up to 80kph and felt the wobbles through the steering wheel. Managed to park up in the emergency lane, sat there idling for like 15 minutes because I knew if I turned the car off it wouldn't start again
I'm a spud so didn't have a tire iron in the car. Made use of my RAA road service for once, but they had to tow me off the express so that it was safe for the techie. Amazingly didn't have to wait long for either the tow or the van. Guy rocks up and asks if it's a Supra and is it turbo Make it home no issues otherwise, figure I'll give the battery the best chance of starting again and disconnect it. Feels a bit loose at the crimp. Without a lot of effort, find that I can pull the cable straight off
Test all the others in the boot, and...
As a wise man once said: 'It'll be something you touched, HTH'
Vectose recommended just grabbing a crimper off Amazon, which shipped outrageously fast (if only Auspost was as efficient). After some stuffing around with Bunnings trying to get some Narva lugs, finally collected some and got all the cables redone. Sanded a bit more on the strut tower where we'd put the negative ground because I had a suspicion there wasn't quite enough bare metal there. Was still surprised that it fired up again first go without having had to trickle charge the battery, and voltage seemed better than before.
Took it out for a spin this afternoon to further dust the cobwebs off, was pleasantly surprised to be reminded of how planted it feels, and how crisp the turn in is with the Evo rack, even with the nothing-special tyres on these wheels. Swear it rides better on coilovers than the Mazda does on shocks and springs, though it does have significantly more sidewall.
Fairly cool day here in Adelaide, but even still, very happy to note that coolant temps were stable, ~87-95°. Certainly wasn't pushing it, but given that it's always run pretty hot, hopefully that means the combination of the thinner/shorter intercooler, what remains of the ducting around the top and sides of it, and maybe even the design of the facelift bumper is contributing. Wish the whole duct could've remained intact around the bottom of it, but didn't end up being feasible. Will probably grab some ABS plastic, and maybe see if I can reuse the mounting holes on the edges of the bumper to made another undertray. Possibly even try to enclose the intercooler a bit more now that it's in place.
Couldn't tell any really immediate differences with the new core, especially given it barely had any appreciable amount of lag before. Will likely put it back on the dyno at some point to see if there was anything measurable. In the meantime, need to save up for paint and panelwork. Or I might just embrace the inner shitbox spirit and leave for a bit longer, since at least I can drive it again. Once this 3 months of rego is out I'll probably put it on club.
Pictured: taking donations to build a 4x bigger garage
