Project Manual Lexus GS300 skidder

It took fucking ages, but I have went through and replaced all of the photos that died when Photobucket got greedy. It was annoying but I really wanted to get it sorted because a build thread is so handy when someone asks for the details of the car, just post a link.

The thread is WAY behind the car right now, but not that much has happened since.

I think it picks up at me getting home for summer 2017. I had identified some things I though could be better with the car and went about sorting them.





The shifter got a bit sloppier over time. Typical of the BMW single shear linkages ovalling out the nylon bushes. I ordered pretty racy shifter and planned to make my own double shear selector rod.

Old setup out.





The new shifter has a longer handle, and the pivot point sits higher, so I was able to get it in a much better position.





I wasn't able to run a shifter boot with the old setup, and I wanted to sort that out. I got a BMW shifter boot, cut out the hole in the tunnel, and then fitted it upside down. I was then able to clearance the bottom of the shifter and it fit perfectly.




Some of the catch can lines had started to harden, (even though they were rated for oil and fuel), and the vacuum at idle was pinching them. That all went too, I was also planning to do race car things with the breather setup.





I strengthened the AC deletc bracket I made after seeing MotionAutoTV have issues with his bending and throwing the belt off.





I pulled the valve covers for like the fifth time. The tapping in the head is still present, but it hasn't got any worse. I checked valve shim clearance again only to find it was still within factory specs.





I read that the the BMW selector bushing was 20mm wide. I got some 20mm x 20mm aluminium bar and bolted/glued steel plate to the sides to make double shear selector rod, (DSSR), version one. This turned out to be false, and sanding the steel out to size ruined the accuracy in the fit.





It had less play, but still too much, back to the drawing board.


I also stripped and greased the throttle body as it had started intermittently sticking when drifting. Here you can see the throttle wheel I machined in uni. Its since been swapped back to the one that came with the kit as I got fed up of chasing this issue.

 

Thanks man! I actually haven't been to Knockhill yet, funds are usually tight during the semester. Do you get to drift the actual track or is there a skid pad?

I've been to the Crail oval, really liked that.

 

That makes sense. I've seen BDC footage of Knockhill and that blind entry to turn one looks pretty scary.

Yeah, I really want to go to Driftland seen so much about it, but Crail is so cheap and I'm always skint.

 

Cheers man! Yeah, my instagram is drift_gs. Is that your white soarer?

 

Continuing from the last update...

I decided to pull the intake camshaft so I could lift the buckets out to see if there was any scoring or weird wear on the sides. Found nothing as usual, and so the tapping lives on.











Had to do a bit of improvising with the timing belt tensioner when reassembling everything.







I painted double shear selector rod version one before I fitted it, purple obviously! I had a play about with the shifter and decided there was still a little too much slop. Scrapped that and started thinking about version two.





When I originally built the first gearbox mount I was in a rush to drive the car and I was just using the materials I had access to. It was a big ugly and heavy. Since making it I had read about a better way to index the gearbox with the propshaft too, so I wanted to redo it.

When I removed the old one, I supported the back of the gearbox with a jack, removed the propshaft, and then refitted it without the rubber guibo. I could then measure the distances from the outside of the prop shaft flange to the outside gearbox flange with vernier calipers at several points around the circle.

Adjusting the height and side to side position of the jack allowed me to get to the point where the measurements were all identical, meaning the two flanges were perfectly parallel.


Then with the position of the gearbox set I used 5mm steel plate to build chassis and gearbox flanges, then connected them with 20mm thick wall tube.







I primed them with a spray can I had lying about and then put on a thick coat of blue hammerite. I got some nice polyurethane gearbox mounts to put in it too.





I really like how it turned out, its way lighter and I'm willing to bet way stronger than the old one. Looks pretty race car too!

 

Nope, still running the original ECU

 

Cheers man! I've been over in Edinburgh for uni, but I'm coming back to NI for summer. I come down Malinhead direction on runs fairly often, we should link up at some point! Is that a Cefiro I see, that thing looks SICK.

 

I'm going to write a detailed post on on it soon. There is one problem with the PMC kit, the extension for the input shaft isnt up to the task. I've been through a couple of iterations trying to fix it. I think I have a solid solution now that is fairly cheap, but again, I'll post about this in a week or two when I know more.

Apart from this little problem, everything else in the kit works exactly as it should, no drama. If this thing I am trying with the input shaft piece works I would recommend the kit.

To be fair though, my budget wouldn't stretch to the ABC kit, if I could have I would have. The twin plate clutch means you have a really small diameter flywheel and pressure plate setup. Rotating mass is at a smaller moment arm so it should lead to a faster revving setup as well as holding twice the power. I think they also have a baller slave cylinder/throwout bearing setup.

 

Really? Thats disappointing considering the price. It has all the specs of a really solid kit too.

Going to try update this a bit now, are you R154 at the minute?

Thanks man, one day it will be as sick as yours!

 

Mega update time!

Version two of the double shear selector rod sorted all the issues. There is a slight bit of play in the shifter, but it is all in the gearbox now. I ended up bolting small pieces of 5mm steel plate around the shifter and caging them in. Then just connected them with a tube. I had to weld extremely carefully. I found out any slight warping tightened the cage on the shifter to the point it wouldn't rotate.

When it was done I swapped out the bolts for pins.








Got everything bolted up. Looking sick. The gearbox mount was designed to provide good bracing at the bottom of the chassis.





At this point it was time for the Donegal Rally, the car had been on the road for a while now and I had fixed or improved all niggly issues from the initial build. Finally time to weld the diff and do some skids.

My uncle offered to weld it because he has a decent MIG. Welded on the friday after work, got to the house at half nine to throw the diff back in and get up to Letterkenny. Left the house at half ten, Rebecca waxed the car as I was putting the diff in.




I somehow don't have any photos of the GS from the weekend, but rally stages all morning, and hundreds of modified cars taking over the streets was insane. Done my first skids in the GS, fell in love with the car. I've done a lot more to this, but the difference between this and the CLK was insane.

On the Saturday of Donegal rally I realised a front wheel bearing was going. Went to change it and found that brake dust had been getting into the bearing through the ABS sensor hole. It mixed with the grease and formed a NASTY black clay haha.

Woke up early on Sunday, scraped all the clay out and packed it with grease to last the day. Went down and killed some more tyres.





After the rally, I changed both the bearings, and 'temporarily' plugged the holes with plastic from a debit card, bolted and sealed. Writing this has just reminded me I need to make some aluminium ones as the plastic is still there.




I done my first drift day after that. There is a track local to me, but its just a straight bit of old airfield made into an oval. They wet the track several times a day to stay below noise restrictions too. I was getting back into the feel of drifting with a bit of streeto, but the track was like glass with water laid down on rubber. Landed down late and spun lots.

Had to drive down in a set of drift wheels because my XXR's didn't have tread depth on the tyres.






Centre console was out because I was wrapping it with Zilla Life print.




It looked absolutely sick, but the wrap went white in places where it was stretched, and it was really easy to scratch. I'm probably going to change it out soon, it dosen't keep well.


My gearbox developed a noise when I took my foot off the clutch in neutral, I had recently done a pilot bearing, so I found a cheap getrag box and ordered it. Parcelforce kept to there shocking reputation by breaking it, and refusing to pay for it because I didn't have photos of the outer packaging before I opened it. Sound...







Seen a sick S14 at Tecsos one day





On the search for skid spots, I stumbled across a GOLD MINE. About a mile from my house, out back roads, an abandoned recycling plant with a gate we closed behind us. Completely undisturbed skids! It is a bit small, and you cant use the whole area due to stuff sticking out of the ground, but we names it paradise and spent so many days there over the summer.













This place was perfect, it now has massive concrete blocks covering the entrance due to dicks illegally dumping down there, but don't worry, we have a plan. More on that later

Here is a video from when we first discovered it, little first gear stuff, we cleared more of the space after and had some proper fun.

Eglinton Airfield got shut down, able to throw one last drift day. Perfect second drift day, me and Rebecca head down. To be honest spun a fair bit early in the day, but by the last few runs I was really getting the conditions, and we were one of the fastest cars on track, proper throwing down. Loved every second of it.









Eglinton ended up reopening, but with fourth year of uni, and currently in the middle of a massive rebuild I havent been down since.


Rebecca, her family and I rented a little cottage in Kerrykeel near Portsalon for a week. Pier jumping skids and a drink round a fire at night. Loved that trip! Here is a selection of pictures of the GS I took out windows haha. I have a problem.







I am going to get this up to date it it kills me, spoiler though, I'm stitch welding the chassis at the minute. This car is going to come out so hardcore.

I saw a helicopter once.

 

After the Last ever Eglinton drift day, I decided I wanted a bit more castor in the car. The wheel wasn't self centring very well, so I ordered some Superpro offset castor arm bushes.













I was pretty disappointed when they showed up and didnt fit. The hole is different diameters at each end of the inner sleeve in the stock bushes, the superpro bushes had a constant diameter hole. I got a partial refund, took some measurements on the standard bushes and took the inner sleeve to a machine shop to be put on a lathe. They fit fine after that, little annoying though.







I dont think I ever put pictures of my revised oil cooler sutup with the in line thermostat.











I managed to convince my uni to let me do a dissertation with the title, 'Optimisation of Suspension Geometry of the JZS160 Platform for the Application of Drifting'. I have no idea how I managed it but I thoroughly enjoyed my dissertation. It started with measuring the geometry of the current setup.

A mate with a sick SR20 RX7 let me use the carpark his RX7 is parked in.