Josh McClain's personal blog

"If I'm going to all this trouble, why not go a bit bigger?" was my thought.

So I grabbed a junk yard 2.2L 5s block from a 2000 Camry.

Continue reading "5s Doner Block"

I started tearing into the ST205 rear calipers that I plan to put on my ST185.

Continue reading "ST185 Rear Brake Upgrade"

So I have this pile of inventory I'd like to unload from the old 185 Performance days, and I'm letting it go at silly prices.

If you see anything below you'd like, email me directly (if you know my address), or use the contact form here at this site. Feel free to comment below with any questions you may have.

So here's the list. I'll keep it updated as things sell.

Continue reading "A Pile of Parts for Sale - SuperPro, Whiteline"

I've begun the process of pulling the engine out of my 1992 Toyota Celica All-Trac Turbo (ST185). It has what sounds like rod knock, either in cylinder 1 or 2, so out with the engine! Continue reading "Pulling the 92 Celica Engine"

I finished my install last night. Both valve cover breathers were connected into a catch can. I cut a 9" piece of 3" aluminum pipe to replace the stock airbox, to use a large cone filter. (I still need to get some shielding around the filter, so it doesn't suck on hot engine bay air.) Here are a few pictures: Continue reading "It's Alive!"

The new Bosch 318cc/min injectors arrived from URD Racing as scheduled, so I put them in last night! Here are the new clips I need to solder onto the stock harness, replacing the stock injector clips. The heat shrink is in place, too (red for positive, black for negative). Continue reading "Injector Upgrade"

A few weekends ago, I completed the boring work on the Tacoma: new water pump, timing belt, thermostat, and all accessory belts. Then I pulled off the supercharger / intake manifold assembly. I have a remanufactured supercharger from Magnusun to use, since mine was still noisy after the snout bearing replacement last year. Continue reading "Tacoma Fuel Upgrade Progress"

Since the TRD supercharger delivers a lot more CFM to the engine over stock, and since others have tested and proven the stock fuel pump to be inadequate, I've upgraded the fuel pump to a Walbro 190 lph. I raised the bed, letting my engine hoist do the heavy lifting. That gave me access to the fuel pump bracket. I removed the fuel pump bracket. Here it is with the stock pump. And here is the Walbro 190 lph kit. I soldered the old and new wiring harnesses together, then protected the joints with heat shrink tubing. The Walbro pump is a bit taller than the stock pump, so with a tube cutter I shortened the fuel delivery pipe about 1/4". (Sorry, no picture.) Then I mounted the Walbro onto the bracket. I reinstalled the bracket to the fuel tank, and the engine fired right up and ran smoothly. Next up .... some maintenance.

I've decided I don't have the time to put into getting the Celica put back together. So up for sale she goes, either as a big project for someone, or it will be parted out. Here is the for sale ad: CLICK HERE

I guess I didn’t mention that the whining noise coming from the Tacoma never went away with changing the snout bearings. Upon closer inspection, and more careful listening, I suspected it was actually the supercharger belt tensioner pulley. So I took the belt off the supercharger yesterday, and gave the tensioner pulley a spin by hand. Oh! Even at that small rpm it made an awful noise – bad bearings! Doh! I’m an idiot – I really should have checked this before ever getting into the sc snout bearings. So a replacement pulley was ordered, along with a belt, and some long-needed starter contacts.

This weekend the Tacoma finally felt some lovin’. She had her supercharger snout bearings replaced, spark plugs replaced, and a new override brain installed. Ok, I’ll stop calling it “her”. For quite a while now … ok months … there’s been this awful, howling noise coming from the engine bay, and it is directly related to RPM. I rev up, its pitch goes up; down, down. So after some listening up close, I decided this 174,000-mile engine needed some help. (Remember, I bought this truck at just over 105,000 miles, and the Gen I supercharger was already in place. For all I know, it had been on there since day 1; the dealer who sold it to me didn’t know.) So I ordered a bearing kit, with a new seal, and supercharger oil. I replaced it all, made a dumb mistake that will require me to replace the outer snout seal [again], and put it all together. It runs great and slightly quieter, but the noise is still there. I’m now suspecting the supercharger tensioner pulley is to blame. It’s so hard to tell exactly where the sound is coming from, but I’ll check with the various 5VZFE communities (Tacoma, 4Runner, T100), and see what they’ve experienced. Since I had a free day today, I decided to also wire in the MAP ECU2, from http://www.mapecu.co.nz as well. Other than the hot sun beating down on me while I made the connections to the oem ECU harness, everything was pretty painless. I soldered every joint, and heat shrinked where possible. I have it wired and set for learning mode at the moment, so I can build a decent base map. I have an Innovate LM-1 wired for wideband AF logging (verified working) on O2 input primary, and will use the O2B circuit (MAF input, analog #1 output) for O2 correction. Once I’m done with Learning mode, I can put O2B input on the MAF input. Once my 3-pin external MAP connector arrives, I’ll switch to an external MAP sensor (hopefully, this one I have from a 7mgte), and use the internal MAP sensor for baro adjustment. The IAT sensor I tapped into the stock intake tube, just pre-TB. It’s connected to the 2-pin connector hanging off the 16-way connector at the ECU2. I’ll be doing IAT correction. I’ve verified I can adjust timing. I can’t wait to start tuning! It wouldn’t start with the jumpers in the default positions, so I switched the drive jumper to HIGH, and she started right up.

I finally managed to source a used injector resister pack from a MkIII Supra Turbo to use the Supra 440/430cc injectors in my Tacoma. See, the Tacoma ECU’s injector drivers expect high impedance (resistance); for that matter, so does the Supra’s. So how does one use low impedance injectors, you ask? Use a resister pack! And here she is. The seller even left the MAP sensor attached.

And now I present a freshly rebuilt Gen 1 CT26 turbo (single entry), complete with a mild T04E/46 compressor upgrade, a 7M-GTE turbine housing swap, brand new seals, and full balancing. See where the compressor housing inlet was bored out and slightly ported for the T04E/46 compressor wheel? And here is the turbine housing from the Supra 7M-GTE CT26. It is has a larger A/R than the original Celica 3S-GTE Gen 1 CT26, and will, therefore, allow a greater CFM relative to back-pressure than the stock housing. This may hurt low-rpm spoolup, but that can be offset with an unrestricted turbo-back exhaust upgrade.

I love clean parts, and so does my st165! Yesterday, FedEx brought me a new manifold from Toyota. I really appreciate the lack of cracks. Here’s the old manifold outlet—see the crack? Then today, UPS delivered the injectors, all cleaned and flow-tested by RC Engineering. Prior to the test, at 43 psi: - 1 : 436 cc/min - 2 : 429 cc/min - 3 : 411 cc/min - 4 : 428 cc/min After the test, at 43 psi: - 1 : 441 cc/min - 2 : 440 cc/min - 3 : 439 cc/min - 4 : 440 cc/min That will work just fine, and the two highest-flowing injectors will feed cylinders #2 and #3.

My Tacoma’s supercharger has been howling for a while now, which indicates bad nose bearings. I was anticipating spending $200+ (up to around $750 if more than the nose bearings were bad), plus shipping two ways, to get my 1st gen TRD supercharger rebuilt for the Tacoma. And then there would have been the downtime of my truck, too. Then, thanks to the forums at Custom Tacos, I discovered an Ebay seller with the rebuild kit I needed for under $100! Woohoo! So now I can do the rebuild without pulling the supercharger off the truck—though I may anyway just to clean things up. Update – April 9, 2006… The rebuild kit arrived yesterday.