Toyota E153 transmission swap

[Lex]

Thank you for taking the initiative to start this driveline swap. Like the guys in New Zealand who offer a Celica GT4 conversion kit for the BG GTX/GTR, you'd be in a good position to offer a conversion kit or at least the adapter plate to make some coin to offset the R/D costs. As you can already see by the amount of people subscribing, you'd have a good lineup of people willing to perform the same swap if all goes well. Keep up the great work!


Yah.. you know those NZ guys with their kits? That's where this orig. adapter plate came from. The one that sucks and had to be redone. Tim Taylor is making these new ones so that they don't suck, but the fact that that NZ plate was so far off makes me question everything else about their "kit". Jon and I both should be getting our adapter plates soon, and when mine arrives along with my modded oilpan, I'll start a build thread for the AWD crowd.
My gearbox is (finally) done and in my garage. It started out as a pair of deaders, one with a bad xfercase and the other with dead synchros or somesuch. A machinist wizard who used to build gearboxes for the factory rally team when they ran Paris-Dakar took 'em apart, combined stuff, and used lotsa very hard to find new guts to put it together as a RC185 close ratio spec but with the ST205 shorter final drive. He's so confident that it can handle more than 400ftlbs day in and day out he's warranting the damn thing. All I know is having seen the internals of this box, it's so much stronger than the POS BPT box it just ain't funny. For instance the centerdiff ring and pinion are bigger than the ring and pinion in our rear diffs, all bearings are in steel plates instead of pockets in the alum. case, it's pressure lubricated, man oh man Toyota didn't screw around. We looked at the rav4 thing but I hate locker centerdiffs on dirt, been there done that. And it's enough weaker than the alltrac box to justify not going through the hell of installing it; custom mounts, modding an alltrac propshaft, and who knows whatall else but at least the toyota halfshafts will talk to gtr hubs without mods. We're gonna miss Wild West but maybe just maybe we'll have it all together in time for Mt. Hood the end of October, maybe...

Just BTW ol' Mr. Taylor is underwater on this project and I bet he wouldn't mind at all trying to get some of his investment back if some of y'all wanted to have him make a few more non-sucky adapter plates!
And oh yeah Jon, can you gimme details on that clutch? Looks like just the thing!

I really appreciate what Jon and you are doing for the community but I get to a point where I must ask - why - why not just get a Toyota and be done with it? Why not just buy an Evo and have the factory reliability of a car that was designed and engineered to be competitive.

This is a little bit of a personal frustration as I am having a hard time pushing forward with a 91 Escort that has no components that were designed to be reliable at these power levels - from tranny, to brakes, to chassis ... and that has no aftermarket following. I have never broken it but I hate having that feeling that something will let go and that I probably shouldn't turn up the boost to 20psi on my built motor. And Vancouver is not the greatest for finding shops/people that are experienced or obtaining parts.

[Georonimo]

I really appreciate what Jon and you are doing for the community but I get to a point where I must ask - why - why not just get a Toyota and be done with it? Why not just buy an Evo and have the factory reliability of a car that was designed and engineered to be competitive....

Why not?

It's cheaper and more fun this way than lets say... any evo, or even a clapped out wrx. At least for me.

[1992tracerlts]

I really appreciate what Jon and you are doing for the community but I get to a point where I must ask - why - why not just get a Toyota and be done with it? Why not just buy an Evo and have the factory reliability of a car that was designed and engineered to be competitive.

This is a little bit of a personal frustration as I am having a hard time pushing forward with a 91 Escort that has no components that were designed to be reliable at these power levels - from tranny, to brakes, to chassis ... and that has no aftermarket following. I have never broken it but I hate having that feeling that something will let go and that I probably shouldn't turn up the boost to 20psi on my built motor. And Vancouver is not the greatest for finding shops/people that are experienced or obtaining parts.

Well for someone like me, I got my tracer for free. So thats the main reason is I can spend 10,000 dollars building it, and make it faster than a evo/wrx/mustang whatever. In a straight line on road that is for me. I dont want a rally car, I dont really care if my car turns although im going to work on that a bit, but my main goal is going to be fast in a straight line. For me its kinda just a financial thing. I have no car payments. And we have good motors. Say I go buy a evo, well then I have car payments, and if the car breaks then Im still making payments on a non working car. Dont get me wrong, if I had the money I would have a ls powered turbocharged foxbody mustang.

[jbuddy]

Great thread, very interested. Down here in florida we tired of breaking trannys, so if this works out great, u gt a few ppl who interested. Cause built gears r nt cheap, thought about, bt the the case becomes the nxt issue, jst nt worth, hybrid tranny much better

[therieldeal]

i think having a unique vehicle makes this worth it. plus i'm probably going to spend less on the conversion than say Dan spent on his PAR gearset...

[Turpro]

Great thread, very interested. Down here in florida we tired of breaking trannys, so if this works out great, u gt a few ppl who interested. Cause built gears r nt cheap, thought about, bt the the case becomes the nxt issue, jst nt worth, hybrid tranny much better

Can you start making complete words? This isn't texting and there's no set limit on how many characters you can use.



Sorry. Had to rant. Back to subject

[jbuddy]

Can you start making complete words? This isn't texting and there's no set limit on how many characters you can use.



Sorry. Had to rant. Back to subject

Sorry, lol.. Bad habit.

[me109]

I thought maybe some of your vowel keys didn't work.

Great worklog! Got me wondering about rav4 diff upgrades........

[jbuddy]

i think having a unique vehicle makes this worth it. plus i'm probably going to spend less on the conversion than say Dan spent on his PAR gearset...

That's why I have a escort Got tired of my hondas getting stolen. I spoke with the owner of cp boost, about his 3rd an 4th gear, nice guy, told me they should hold 500 plus. Sounded great bt I cnt spend 1800 buks, an have to worry bout my transfer case splitting open

[Darryl]

hi guys as far as i was aware i was the only guy in nz selling adapter plates and kits. in this thread i havnt seen i person ive sold a plate to or a kit to yet. or a plate ive made.
i have a very comprehensive jig for making my plates i use one of my plates in my own gtr with over 500whp at 4 wheels ive never had clutch problems and ive never spaced my TOB ive never had abnormal wear on my input shaft or clutch spline from an off centre plate i have a few customers whos cars ive fitted my conversions in one of witch is a race car. the picture of the plate on the first page is not a plate i made where did it come from?

i would also arrechiate people not generalising about kiwi engineering or fab work each of my kits gets completely assembled on a dummy engine with a big shaft through the main tunnels and through the bearings of a toyota box to prove accuracy

[yunvmyegt]

dont worry darryl, i honestly trust more people in your country than i do in ours, you guys had everything long long before us. i know alot of people over there that have had work done by you , and i havent heard a bad thing about ya, besides your always busy.... i wouldnt base one persons thaughts as everyones here.... keep up what your doing..... were obviously going to try and copy your work anyways...... only thing i can say about jon doing this, is that the more people who start doing it, people will always find new and better ways to improve stuff. so at that, take our copy of your plate as a compliment.... no one here obviously thaught it up....

[jay]

Yeah roger that. I just checked, the plate Tim T. has came from Sweden. it needed reworking...and I bet one of yours would not. I'd have bought one of your setups if it weren't for shipping expense.

[therieldeal]

darryl i was going to buy one of your kits if you recall, but the shipping cost and the way it took you forever to even reply to my messages kind of deterred me a bit. in the end there you just stopped responding and other people on the forum were telling me that you were too busy to even build kits right now. thats about when i gave up, since i kind of want to finish this thing sometime this year.

i'm sure your plates are pretty darn close (definitely closer than the swedish plate, which even had a dowel pin in the wrong location!) but i still dont think that something made on a jig could ever compare to the accuracy of a cnc cut part.

[SPENONE]

Sub'd. WOW.

[Darryl]

a cnc is only as accurate as the data put into it.
i think you may find the accuracy of my plates surprising

i dont sell kits anymore i will do a conversion for someone if they bring the car to me but i do not sell conversion kits anymore i cant be stuffed with postage hassles

i may be inclined to sell plates on request but that will entirely depend on work load