best advice for ta22 upgrade

[o_man_ra23]

Hoppers kit requires 16" wheels, and is overkill for your vehicle to the stage that it isn't really worth the extra unsprung mass that it brings. It would also change your front end to 5 stud.

Suspension... there is SOOOOOO much in this. A set of swaybars is a good start, you would be wise to research this very indepth, but a good starting point would be 24mm front, 18-19mm rear in a whiteline or similar. Adjustable is your friend here, at least on the rear, so that you can get your roll bias right (otherwise you could end up with bad oversteer or understeer). Springs are another point of much debate. Changing rears to coilover is difficult and hardly worth the cost unless you are competitively racing the car. Front coilovers will help you to finetune the suspension to suit the rear springs you choose, but a well matched front rear set of springs is likely a much cheaper option. A strut brace is highly recommended. NEVER think you are going to make the car handle anything like a WRX, there is simply too much chassis flex and too many years of development between the 2. Oh, a set of adjustable strut tops will help you to remove the factory positive camber. Adjustable shock absorbers is advisable if your budget affords it.

And buy good rubber. Your suspension and brakes are only as effective as the grip they have on the road. Avoid Nolathane products like the plague, they use a Nylon blend rather than polyurethane, and they just crumble very quickly. Superpro bushes are said to be quite good (and are made from polyurethane). There is a lot more to polyurethanes, but I don't think you will be able to find the bushes in the good stuff... so best to stick with commercially available bushes made of something half reasonable.

EDIT: an adjustable panhard rod will help you to bring the diff back closer to the centre of the vehicle. They move to the left on compression, and become permanently left of centre when the car is lowered. Check out Sleeka Spares in Pooraka, contact is Dave Wong on (08) 8359 6446, he is very good to deal with and has many of the components you may need.

[punkture]

ahhhhh good man, i spoke to him a while ago about 2tg gaskets etc.. good contact for this stuff, pity the website doesn't reflect it haha. yeah i was thinking rear adj, sway bar, front 22mm, and strut brace to help rigidity.

-yeah i figured they were two different cars, rex on rails sleeka on side.. haha but should be an interesting advneture with it anyways, any preference on tyres for it, being a much lighter car i was thinkiing pirelli's?

[o_man_ra23]

Have not had enough experience with new tyres to say. Michelin XM1's have a good rap (from an independant unbiased friend who used to fit tyres for a living... he is normally skeptical too). All brands have good and bad tyres, best to read up on forums... google would be a good starting point. Find out what tyres are available in the size you want, I would say 205/65/14 would be a good starting point for a track based TA22, and then start looking at their reviews (magazine articles are often published on the web). Again, research will be your best bet, and don't take just one person/article's advice, as somebody may be biased toward one brand. Also, since a 14 requires a decent sized sidewall to get any sort of rolling diameter, so you should look at a tyre with a firm sidewall to reduce tyre flex.

[punkture]

LOLS, wealth of knowledge, well basically im after a safe stopping distance in case of the obviously in experience, dont wanna go hitting walls as such. that must include suspension too, is the sway bars and pan hard rod bush etc enough to make her turn nicely? oh and obviously tyres, not slicks haha

[o_man_ra23]

swaybars, panhard rod, strut brace, springs, shocks, bushes, ball joints, tyres and brakes should help you keep the car going in the direction you want and prevent it from hitting anything you don't want. Of course, the main contributing factor to accidents isn't the car itself, more the nut behind the wheel. Get that one under control, and the car will be quite safe.

[punkture]

lol, i read up on these forums that the power out put will be around ~92kw atw.. it doesn't seem like much at all.. then a mate said it'll be about 120 atw??? what kind of driving style am i taking on here, an uncontrollable beast, or a smooth power delivery?

[o_man_ra23]

smooth power... don't know all the factory specs, but they have a fairly high power band NA, then the supercharged version gives it torque, so it should actually be very pleasant to drive, and with the light weight of the TA22, it will be spirited as well (Definitely not uber fast or anything, but quite enjoyable).

Of course if you start changing things like compression ratios, cams, supercharger pulleys, ECUs etc, then the changes can be profound, and you may end up with something that is a complete pig to drive.

[YLD-16L]

NEVER think you are going to make the car handle anything like a WRX, there is simply too much chassis flex .........

If he's got any model up to the end of MY00 (or whenever they went bug eye) then it'll barely if at all be stiffer in the chassis than the TA22, drive one wheel onto a sloped gutter/ramp and watch the Suby twist......a lot. They were renound for the chassis flex, that's why the increase in chassis stiffness when they went bug-eye was some phemominal figure, not becuase the bug-eye was so good but because the earlier ones were so bad. Comparing post MY00 then the TA22 will be much further from the game as already pointed out by Owen

i read up on these forums that the power out put will be around ~92kw atw.. it doesn't seem like much at all.. then a mate said it'll be about 120 atw??? what kind of driving style am i taking on here, an uncontrollable beast, or a smooth power delivery?

A dead stock 4AGZE with factory ECU will be in the vicinity of 80rwkw, with a pulley wheel to increase boost and still on the factory ECU/standard engine you can expect between 90 - 100rwkw (check out the old Toymods Dyno day results from a few years back when the ZE was popular and you'll see the results).

Your mate is on crack if he thinks a standard 4AGZE will make 120rwkw, they barely made that at the flywheel when new and that was an overinflated Toyota figure.

A bloke on here with aftermarket ECU + other mods using the larger SC14 makes about 120rwkw.

If you are thinking it'll be an uncontrollable beast you be sadly disappointed unless you only drive in the wet, it'll be smooth and tame if setup well.

[punkture]

Okay cool cool, so itll still be drivable then? haha, yeah i have an My99, haven't noticed any chassis flex, then again it lives on dirt and tarmac, not gutters haha.. i was thinking of perhaps an 12~16psi pulley but may hold off, as this started because i wanted an efi engine in the ta22, and the gze was an idea from the past lol, so she'll barely spin in second?

[YLD-16L]

Okay cool cool, so itll still be drivable then? haha, yeah i have an My99, haven't noticed any chassis flex, then again it lives on dirt and tarmac, not gutters haha..

Take it to the track Or just jack one corner and open and close the doors and check out how the alignment will be way off.

i was thinking of perhaps an 12~16psi pulley but may hold off, as this started because i wanted an efi engine in the ta22, and the gze was an idea from the past lol, so she'll barely spin in second?

12-14psi maybe, 16 is internet fairytale stuff on a SC12 and stock ECU.

Will it spin in 2nd depends on how good or bad your tyres are. I doubt it will spin second on purely accelleration but if you slap it into second it'll spin for a bit and may chirp 3rd if you throw in another brutal gearchange.

The SC12'd 4AGZE's tend to get a bit dead after 5500rpm too, they'll continue to rev but just feel flat after that point.

[punkture]

Hmmm, it's sad i want it powerfull, but realistically the best thing is leaving it just QUICK!, hence why im selling the wrx, cost too much while im working and at uni. whats everyone doing for insurance, because i doubt it will pass engineering..

[YLD-16L]

Why wouldn't it pass engineering if done well?

Just leave the SC setup on for now, turbo later for a relatively easy and cost effective power-up.

[punkture]

Good point i wont worry about the pulleys etc then, ill just bide my time untill i get sick of the power haha. well my mate whos just finished putting an 13bt in his ke20 said you need copper fuel lines etc for it to pass, and we had to cut the engine mounts..?

[YLD-16L]

There's a lot more to passing an engineers inspection that hard fuel lines and modified engine mounts.

Adhereing to these guidelines would be a good start:

http://www.infrastructure.gov.au/roa.../vsb_ncop.aspx

Scroll down to the PDF attachments and read the ones relevant to the work you are planning to do.

[punkture]

good man, i was looking for one of these!