-Totenkopf-
Nice one, PS, regarding performance central man, I get alot of spam email through advertisers replying to my ads.  I am sure it'd give most people the ****s, maybe need to make it a little hard to get access to peoples emails so bots can't spam people.

Hey Mate, Unfortunately I wasn't able to continue Performance Central, i've been taking on a bit too much lately and I find myself enjoying the car scene more these days by attending meets and working on the car.

I really appreciate your support.

Here is the clutch pressure plate all torqued up. I used a clutch alignment tool which worked no problems.

 
Throw out bearing was also nicely greased up, but I was sure to not put on too much as it can splash off under RPM onto the pressure plate and clutch plate surfaces.

 
Here is a group of parts that still to go back on the car. Luckily the pile is getting smaller slowly. I can't wait for this to be down to 0

 
Engine from side. Gearbox all mounted, and all engine mount brackets in place. Starter motor also in place all mounted nicely. Mounting the awd gearbox was a huge job. As many GT4 celica owners would know the gearbox had to be twisted on, then put on straight due to the transfer case proximity to the motor casing.

 
My hole for the master cylinder. Unfortunately there is an existing hole in the centre hole which I will need to make a template to correctly drill in the middle.

 
I mounted the 2 shifter cables. I am quite amazed that the shifter cables actually go under floor of the car, all the other cars i've had all went through the firewall if i'm not mistaken.

 
I presumed that 3 out of the 3 engine mount brackets on the auto were going to be the same. Silly mistake on my side, 2 out of the 3 ended up being different.
 
The rear engine mount bracket does fit from the auto, but it uses a damper which won't fit, and it only mounts using 2 holes. According to my readings on Toyodiy (legendary site) that the manual gearbox doesn't use a damper on the bracket, instead it mounts using 3 bolts instead of 2.
 
I found out that the Rav 4 SXA10 and SXA11 manual models shared the same rear mount bracket as the Caldina Manuals. On the off chance I was looking on ebay and managed to find someone wrecking a Rav 4.
 

 
 
I almost forgot to put the second part of the dump pipe in place before putting the rear crossmember in place.
 


 
The part that I was most nervous about was drilling the holes for the clutch master cylinder. I kid you not i've had nightmares about stuffing this part up, once its drilled there is no way back. There are template holes from factory (the firewall is made up of 2 pieces, the interior side of the firewall was the one with the template).
 
The end result was done using the top and bottom thread bolt holes that I made up, then I made a template out of some alloy with a perfect outline of the 2 bolt holes and the centre master cylinder hole, then I bolted that to the engine bay and used the hole in the template to guide the hole saw.
 
I coated the edges so they will not rust, I also got onto rebuilding the Clutch Master Cylinder which went together without an issue. Was a great learning experience to rebuild it. The plate behind the holes is the Clutch Pedal assembly inside the car (wasn't bolted in at that stage.

 
I also got around to installing the shifter which went on without any issues. Its fantastic having 3 pedals now, it always looked like something was missing.
 
The engine will be back in this Sunday and we can work away at filling up the fluids and replacing the rear diff which shouldn't take too long.
 
I managed to munch another axle seal when installing so i'll be off to get another (or 2 lol). I should have greased the edges with some rubber grease when tapping it in as they were pretty hard to get in place.
 
My front engine mount looks like it needs replacing. I am wondering if I will be able to find one easily enough. The rear one also required some attention. The front one had quite a bit of weight on it at this stage so it has sunken down quite a bit more than it would with the car weight.


 
Its such a wierd feeling seeing the clutch pedals all lined up line like this. I've dream't of it. I still need to get to the one bolt at the very top of the dash.

 
I found this canister which doesn't have any lines coming out of it, it was wasn't hanging in the bronze frame either (just rattling around in the engine bay). Once the cars going i'll reroute these back into the vaccum system. Its likely that its a charcoal canistor (but there is another one on the driver side under the coolant bottle).

 
In transit I unfortunately scratched the powdercoat surface of one of my wheels. I'm hoping its possible to touch them up with some paint. It would only be $70-$80 to get the wheel stripped and recoated but its just a bit of unfortunate damage.

 
I spent literally 2 and a half hours trying to work out the mounting positions for the clutch line. I searched all throughout the web to try and find some diagrams. I found this spot here and it appeared to be correct.
 
It also seems that the clutch line that I was using was also bent so it took some time to carefully straighten it up and run the clutch lines amongst the firewall line holders.
 

 
This fitting next to the clutch master cylinder may be familiar to some enthusiasts. Toyota call it an Orifice lol. I believe its designed to smoothen out the clutch pressure applied to the clutch slave cylinder. I opened it up, there is 2 springs and a piston inside.

 
 
I also got around to fitting the axle seal on the passenger side, and taking the rear axles out of the diff to replace the rear inner axle seals. This all went without an issue.
 
It should be another day to get the motor/gearbox and the main components back in another another day to fix up the wiring, get the fluids in and to neatup up everything.
 
Getting close, once the engine is back in, the next part is the really fun part. Servicing the motor and filling up the fluids will be awesome fun.

The engine is in place, didn't take too long to get it all aligned. The hubs/struts are all assembled and together. Just need to loctite the ball joint bolt/nuts and torque it up. The tie rod end is in place and the split pin is in as well.
 
As much as I was taking my time, i somehow managed to pour Brake/clutch fluid into the power steering system. The bottles look nearly identical in the brand of fluid I bought so it wasn't all my fault haha. I tried to flush as much as possible out, will be able to get more out when the car is running.
 
I just need to earth the neutral start switch to the gearbox, install the rear diff and tailshaft, top up Gearbox fluid and install the gear knob hahaha.
 
On the home stretch now:

 
The mail man bought me some lovely gifts. I got a few very rare Caldina specific goodies arrive.
 
The items in the picture are:
A pair of Cusco Stickers I ordered from Malaysia
A pair of Series 2 ST215 Amber Corner indicators (love em)
A Cusco Rear Strut Brace for the ST215
A number of super rare Caldina brochures, all ranging from Aftermarket accessories, to optional radios and what looks like a pricing list for the Caldina when it first came out.
 
These will be sure to be framed, they look awesome.




 

Well I have some awesome updates for a Friday morning, last night I popped around to my Cousins to work on the car a bit more.
 
Neutral Start Switch
The neutral start switch was the one part I was fearing the most, i've done wiring before but its always frustrating trying to work out which wire is which. I had a wiring diagram that helped out heaps, I found that the neutral start switch was a Black wire with grey dots painted onto it. I confirmed that with the multimeter and I was well onto my way earthing the wire so the car will start in Manual now. For anyone that might have not known about a neutral start switch, when the car is normally in Park or Neutral on an automatic car the signal to the ecu (from this neutral start switch wire) is 0-1v (basically no voltage), when the ecu signals this it will let you start the car. It stops you from starting the car in Drive or Reverse for safety reasons. Since the autos don't run the neutral start switch I needed to trick the wire from the ecu to think that it was in Park or Reverse by grounding it.
 
Intercooler Installation And Bending the Engine Lift Hook
The intercooler went on without any issues except for the Engine Lift Hook which was now in the way of the intake pipe, it must have been the force of jacking the engine up that caused it to bend in (the chains that were installed were in an inverted V shape which caused the 2 jacking points to bow inwards). I got the bracket off, into the vice and we gave it an 'encouraging' hit with the hammer to get it back in line. I'd like to eventually get some new hoses for the intercooler.
 
Gearbox Cooler And Lines
This was an absolute nightmare to do. I had to try and find 3 matching bolt holes to mount the manual gearbox cooler, and then somehow tighten up the fittings to the bottom of the cooler from in between the front bumper grille. I still need to tighten up the gearbox side of the lines.
 
Replacing Vacuum Lines
I noticed there was a few vacuum lines which were a tiny bit too small (and hard) to fit back onto the lines. I believe these were signal wires for the boost controller. I found some Vacuum line which was new but similarly sized (since one side of the vacuum line needed to be bigger than the other I just had to push on a smaller vacuum line.
 
I still haven't found an easy way to put on Vacuum Lines (especially when its just one size a bit too small). I might heat it up next time. I did however use some wd40 to lubricate the rubber. Any ideas for next time would be much appreciated. 
 
Diff Installation
This was a nightmare and a half. The way Toyota designed the diff sub-frame means that you have to drop the WHOLE sub-frame enough just to be able to get the bolts out from the diff subframe. We ended up trying this and the diff replacement took only about 10 minutes in the end. Always daunting undoing such big suspension components hahaha
 
Here is the list of things left:
Torque/do up the following bolts/fittings: 3 Ball Joint Bolts/Nuts, 2x Suspension Strut Bolts, 6x strut top nuts, 6x Rear Subframe Bolts/Nuts, 8x driveshaft nuts, 4 prop shaft bolts, 1 steering knuckle bolt, 1x power steering low pressure hose clamp.
 
I just need to lift up the prop shaft in place and top up the gearbox fluid, from there i'll put the air filter box on, fit the clutch pedal assembly top firewall bolt (impossible to get with the car on the hoist), bleed the clutch and power steering then start the car LOOOOOL That will all happen tomorrow yay. I should be driving home tomorrow afternoon in a Manual Caldina ST215. All that hard work for such a rewarding result.

Thats some nice work and detail you have posted up here. 
 
When will this car be for sale??

Dudeman
Thats some nice work and detail you have posted up here. 
 
When will this car be for sale??

I can't believe I missed a reply to my thread. Sorry mate. Thanks very much for the comments. Its a labour of love haha. Ah the old "when will this car be for sale" question hahaha. My track record isn't the best I must admit.
 
I've had 20 cars now in 10 years. Thats one every 6 months haha.
 
I know this has been sad before but this will be here to stay lol. Did I mention I bought a ST162 Celica SX for a weekend project too lol.

 
Well its been a while since any updates (I am still meaning to get some half decent shots of my car too).
I've taken a slightly different approach in life with regards to car modifications.
I bought another project car (a 1985 Toyota Celica SX) which I was hoping to fix up and do the mods I couldn't easily do on the Caldina which involved a neat set of Recaros with new seat rails, higher duration/lift cams, aftermarket ecu and some other various bits and pieces.
It made me think, by the time I spend the money on getting that other car registered (or on club plates), fix up the paint, suspension, interior etc It will end up costing a lot more than it would have cost me to do the modifications on the Caldina. Quite a bit of the work is already done.
So I thought, why not just put the attention on the Caldina. I've never taken it to the next level in any car i've had in the past and here is the perfect opportunity.
Recaro Seats and Seat Rails
After some advice from some great friends I have decided to open up my choices for seats to also include the ones available in locally delivered Mitsubishi Evo's.
My main issue at the moment with regards to the seat rails is ensuring that the seats are designed to function without interfering with the factory airbag systems featured (I love that airbags save lifes, but I hate the inconvenience when it comes to not being able to install aftermarket steering wheels and seats.
ECU Installation and Tune
I've always been a bit skittish when it comes to aftermarket ecus. I always think they will never be as reliable as the factory system and while I have found some honest dyno tuners that i'm hoping to take the car, I still think the cars going to blow up on the dyno and i'm back to square one haha. So far I would consider an E-Manage Ultimate, I have heard great things about them and would hope to let the ecu piggyback on the ignition and timing components and leave the ecu to do the work.
Cams
I've always wanted to install a set of higher duration/lift cams. In previous experience i've heard that some gains can be retrieved but often these are left to the last. I believe Kelford in NZ make some custom cams for this motor, in preference though i'd like to deal with Wade Cams in Melbourne as they have been really nice to me on the phone. Any opinions on going for some streetable cams.
High Flow Factory Turbo
While the factory system is sure to have some limitations, i'm hoping to keep my system as stealthy as possible. Especially with looking for around 200-210kw at the wheels. My only worry is the limitations of machining a turbo which has the outlet/exhaust side of the turbo integrated with the exhaust manifold. The other option here might be to buy a CT20B turbo and a manifold to suit but I am still hoping to keep that area of the motor as stock looking as possible.
I'd love some advice/comments on the plans above if you have a moment :)

The manual gearbox has been going very well the last few months. I've been getting a few last bugs out of the way, the main one has been a lack of boost response. After some investigation I found both intercooler hoses were badly split on the inside, they were made of a combiation stitched rubber hose and for OEM items they seemed to have lasted quite well.
I decided it was a good opportunity to add a small amount of colour to the engine bay and decided to get a pair of aeroflow silicone hoses. One was 57mm the other was 70mm diameter. I ended up getting them both at 76mm length, the 57mm diameter needed to be shortened slightly which was easily done with a hose clamp and a stanley knife.
I used a new set of T-Bolts and reinstalled the intercooler. I also removed the intercooler cover on the top as I am slowly working at straightening up any bent fins.





Might not come up too well in the photo but there are a fair few bent fins, on the last row there is a whole section of fins squashed flat, these ones take a lot longer to bend straight. I use a pair of tweezers and work away at each one slowly. I finally got around to fixing the reverse switch, it appears that I had joined 1 wire incorrectly which was easily rectified and its all working perfectly now.

I took a few photos of the car which i've been meaning to take for some time (the front shot is a bit too over exposed).


I should have the replacement tailshaft on in the next few weeks, that will definitely get rid of the shuddering when on load or accelerating from a standstill.
I am still looking into getting some new seats, I would still love to get some ST246 N edition seats, moreso as i'll have a better chance at getting them engineered.
Other changes to come will be retrimming the door trims with some grey or black suede. The coilovers will be adjusted another inch or so to provide a neater stance.
The biggest thing to come will be installing an aftermarket Dump Pipe, High flow cat and new mid pipe. I have been meaning to take a picture of it to show just how restrictive that system is. At one section it squashes over the subframe down to about 1/2 an inch.

Nice effort man. 

Great thread mate and well detailed conversion.  What is the next project??