Celica Gt4 St165 Rally Car

[FlatOverCrest]

Dear All,

I am a newbie to this forum and GT4 Ownership!!

My second car was a Gen 4 ST165 Celica 2.0 16V Car which I really enjoyed for a couple of years when I was 21/22! Ten years on, my stable now includes a Porsche 968 Club Sport K Plate 93, owned since 1996, a Subaru Impreza WRX 53 Plate with a few mods as my daily runaround and now......a brand new addition!

I used to compete on the National Tarmac Rally Championship in the Mid 90's and after 7 years away from the sport I have returned having purchased a Toyota Celica GT4 ST165 which we hope to turn into a very useful "Club" Specification Group A machine for use both in the UK and in Belgium!

Our first event was at Abingdon CAR-nival Stages, and I first drove the car 4am on the Saturday of the weekend event! A few late problems you might say!

I ran the car on the Sprint on the Saturday as a shake down and apart from a few niggles began to get a flavour for the car and the great potential it has!

Come the morning of the event, we had applied the former "Works" Style Castrol Type Graphics and began an adventure into the world of GT4 ownership and to find out what we had as a base car!

We did have a slight concern over the brakes! We were running standard callipers with Pagid Blue Pads. The first stage back after 7 years, we set a 15.10 time over the 10 mile stage at former RAF Abingdon. We overtook four cars but gear change was becoming tricky! The second stage we hit dramas! Third corner into the stage at 100mph into a chicane, I hit the brake peddle and nothing...foot went to the floor and we did not stop much!, Bang, wallop, cones everywhere and we managed to carry on.

Later in the stage on the second lap the engine was overheating and starting to sound iffy, so half a mile or so from the end, I backed off, hazards on and crept round at about 20 - 30 mph just to get it into service! We managed to get it there to find even though we lost so much time, we had the same stage time as the first run!! Had we not had the problem, we would have been running in the 30's out of a

100 car entry, which as we started car 85, we were quite pleased with as a starting Gambit!

Things got worse though and a previously repaired crack in the Manifold, opened up again and we were losing pressure and after some running repairs, and bled the air from the brakes, we headed to stage 3. Immediately upon starting stage 3, we had no power and again no brakes so we peeled off cut across the course and took a maximum to get as much service time as possible.

Stage 4 and we still did not have the car fully sorted but we gave it a go. After just one lap we had the same problems and so came in taking another stage maximum and after a discussion with my co-driver Rob, felt it was better to retire than destroy the engine!

So...all in all a little disappointing, however we now know what we need to do, we have so much weight to lose, as the car is very heavy. We also need big tarmac brakes, better suspension and more work to the engine and box! But this will come one step at a time. Currently the car is running an ST205 Turbo on a ST165 engine, although the lack of heatshield probably had something to do with our overheating!!!

Having obviously been put together rather poorly, we are now going to probably add a MOTEC M4 ECU, New Injectors, New Uprated Fuel Pump, Water Spray injection cooling, Paddle Clutch, Revised Brakes, Bespoke Adjustable suspension platforms using the existing cases and Bilstein inserts, Lowered Tarmac Springs and HUGE amount of weight saving, plus other odds and sods!

The basis is good though, the car looks great, it handles fantastically and I think we will have a lot of fun with it! Fingers crossed we may give one or two Lancers and Scooby's a reminder of the Toyota's former pedigree!

Picture from the stage at Abingdon, which as it was a former RAF Base, it seemed only proper that we should try to take off!! ;)

http://www.rallygallery.com/whole_events/a...img_6382_ms.jpg

The next targeted event is a Rallysprint in Belgium on the 3rd and 4th of September!

Hope this post was of interest and more than happy to update on our modifications and progress as we get used to the car and get it into better specification!

Regards All

NDC

[daktari]

Welcomr to TOC Sounds like your going to be busy for a while. It`s always a bit of a gamble driving an untested and unknown car for the first time competitively. Sounds as though you got away quite lightly. :D

[knowlson]

Hope this post was of interest and more than happy to update on our modifications and progress as we get used to the car and get it into better specification!

←

Welcome to TOC , The car sounds good mate keep us informed

[FlatOverCrest]

Many Thanks for Welcome!

Just noticed a suitable smiley for our "Pirate Motorsport" team! :arrgg-matey:

Dak, may have got away lightly....but the wallet is about to feel it!!! Particularly the Motec unit!! Arhgrhrgrhghg!

NDC

[yvvan]

Hi and Welcome,

very nice GT4 you have there!

I suppose it's the VAS Rallysprint in Reningelst you're going to attend? Has normally a very nice line-up of proper rallysprint cars. Some very narrow tracks though with nice slippery grass and ditches on the sides. :o You may wish it doesn't rain too much!

Yves.

[FlatOverCrest]

Yves Hi and yes it is that event.

The last event I competed on in Belgium was the Monteberg Rallysprint in 1998, where we took a 1600cc class award, however I suspect we may be hard pushed to achieve a class result again, in only the second time out in the car, however my Co-Driver and I, love the Belgium events and hope one day to do Ypres, maybe not in this car, but at some point!

Fortunately you kind Belgians provide your public roads for us to rally on.....Chips with Mayo!...and Leffe Blond, Duval and Palm Beer!...Perfect attitude to life really!

Maybe If we can get the car ready in time, you can pop along to come say hello! Providing I keep it out of the ditches of course! :o

Regards

NDC

[Cubic Incubi]

Hi mate, sounds like you had great fun in the old girl.

I'd sure like to here how you get on with the build and modifications, I'd also appreciate any info on track events in the UK or Europe, I'm hoping to have my ST165 track car worthy by next summer.

Replace clamped and cleaned rev 2 engine, rev 2 G/box, strip interior and sound proofing etc, roll cage, suspension, brakes etc paint and livery.

So much in common :D

cheers

Karl