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Jay's 1999 Toyota Corolla Turbo

Not everyday do we get the opportunity to work on a cool little project like this!

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The car has been in Jay's family for a while and used to be a cheap runaround car for daily driving duties. That changed when a lightbulb went off in Jay's head and he decided "why not turn this into a sleeper?" And so the fun began...

 

He decided to not just throw a turbo on a stock motor and hope for the best, but to put together a forged motor built to handle some boost.

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Being mechanically minded, Jay took on the engine build process himself and put together a tidy forged 7AFE 1.8L with some JE goodies and ARP studs, along with some race bearings.

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After running in the motor in NA form for a break-in period, he brought the car to us to get stuck into the finer details.

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We settled on using an EMS EM80 computer with a custom harness built in-house for the application. Intercooler piping was also fabricated, as well as an intake and vac lines, water lines and turbo oil lines.

Bosch 1000cc injectors were selected to give us some headroom for more boost and E85 in the future, along with an OEM Mitsubishi Evolution X fuel pressure regulator.

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The coolant lines were then rerouted away from heat sources and tidied up with Aeroflow fittings and heat sheathing to keep it all protected from the higher engine bay temperatures. The turbo oil drain was also modified to clear the dump pipe and manifold.

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Next up it was time for intercooler and piping. A factory turbo Corolla intercooler was selected and some OEM Mitsubishi factory piping was used to piece it all together and give it the factory look.

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Once the intercooler piping was completed, we then moved on to getting the loom complete in the engine bay and ensuring all the sensors were connected and operational.

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Then it was time for some ECU calibration for first start up!

After some dialling in of ECU settings, the car was up and driving nicely, and ready to hit the rollers for some tuning!

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Some ignition issues presented themselves due to age of components and the opportunity was taken to replace most of the ignition system.

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Once the rotor button, distributor cap, ignition coil and leads were replaced, shes was on song and ready to make some power!

We turned the boost up to 15psi and decided to leave it there until the gearbox issues are sorted (4th gear is non-existent).

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With the small size turbo on the car, we had no issues getting it into positive pressure nice and early to make for a great street car.

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Torque finished up at a touch over 300nm @ 4500rpm, with a respectable 200nm @ 2750rpm.

Next up in the pipeline is a flex fuel setup, upgraded gearbox and more boost!

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We look forward to the next round of upgrades and keeping a smile on Jay's face.

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If you've got a project or an idea in your head, give us a call on (02) 8798 7618 or send us a message through the website to see what we can do for you.

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