1980 Celica, 1988 Tercel and some old scooters

[speedy88]

I miss forums. Sod social media. I've been busy. I live in Canada now?

Here's where I'm at:









(We won this) Ichiban!






But lets go back... I've been around. I lived in a Serena in NZ for 3 months:



I lived in a scrapyard for a bit:



Covid happened when I returned home for a "trip". Had to work, hung around for longer than intended, got bored and made this:



Another Rich montana paint special

Then I realised I still hated the UK so buggered off to Canada

I wanted to drift but everything had gone stupid in price so I thought I'd try something modern. This is an Infiniti G35 (350Z engine and drivetrain)



Got really good at drifting. Then the track closed because the owners are curse word.

So now just in motorsport limbo until next year, getting back into low old cars and silly slow bikes until a new track opens or I take up dirt biking/rally.

Expect more in depth updates as we go on!

[speedy88]

Almost forgot, this was my first car when I arrived to get the true North American experience. It was great! But 9mpg was killing me and it was too big even for Canada, so I sold it after a few months. But glad I had the experience.

[mylittletony]

I'm gonna give you a forum 'hi'! Welcome back, looking forward for updates on the fleet!

[misteralz]

In for the ride. Canadia intrigues me.

[speedy88]

Nov 29, 2023 16:09:02 GMT misteralz said:

In for the ride. Canadia intrigues me.

I'm always open to questions, I like to think I have a balanced outsiders perspective

[misteralz]

Questions? I dunno. I've got a few Canadian friends - in fact I was at a Canadian thanksgiving on Saturday - and yeah, all the Canadians I know are all pretty chilled and levelheaded, whereas most of the Americans I know do my absolute nut in. But is that really real, or is it just confirmation bias? Is it actually like Trailer Park Boys over there and all the good folks have moved to Europe?

[misteralz]

I loved NZ, btw.

[speedy88]

Nov 29, 2023 19:07:08 GMT misteralz said:

But is that really real, or is it just confirmation bias? ?

A bit of both? It's cultural and they display in a way that is loud and obnoxious so it's easy to blame their own problems on them. The main thing I've found is, many of the Americans that are allowed/can afford to leave are from a particularly annoying social class so we as outsiders are exposed to those types of Americans a lot more. I've also met an amount of decent, down to earth Americans who love life and people and will open their hearts to you. My main takeaway from visits to the states is they're all getting royally screwed over by the ruling classes and are taught to like it (sound familiar?)

Canadians love to lampoon America but Canada's national identity is arguably based entirely on being "Not America" which stems from British propaganda in the 1800s

NZ is the same, but with Australia. Does that mean any of these countries are better than others? Well, it depends on what you want out of life.

Is it like trailer park boys? Sometimes! Did the good folks move? Well, *I* think the folks here are decent.

There's also more importantly no scheduled MOTs here and lots of rust free old cars.

[speedy88]

Some older pictures in chronological order:

Slow. Noisy. Thirsty.



This was back in 2020 when I was still fresh off the boat. Great roadtrip car.

(Mostly) abandoned rail infrastructure anyone?






This is a few blocks from my house and it's been immobile for over 15 years now:


Mint S13 anyone?

[speedy88]

The G35 wasn't very interesting so I tried to get creative and see if I could create my own mild BN sports kit. But it was much harder than I thought:

[speedy88]

Bought something a little more interesting and better on gas. The guy was Australian and needed to return home as he'd had a better offer for work at his old job. It's a 2 owner local car with only 148,000kms. Rust free and brand new inside!



Polished up nice


Moved to a new shop space with some friends


Also another friend was selling this, it needs some love but comes with a bunch of extra parts

[speedy88]

American trucks are lorge:


This was too cool not to post:



The Japanese yen is so weak right now it's a no-brainer not to buy as much as you can:





Bought another Tercel for the manual transmission. My 3 speed with overdrive is OK around town but it's not sporty enough:

[speedy88]

Tyre sizes are hard to get here for small wheels, best you can do normally is a 185/60/14. But a friend of mine had some old 165/55/14s that he donated to me as long as I did something cool with them

[Davey]

In for the ride.

[PhilA]

Nov 29, 2023 21:26:13 GMT speedy88 said:

Nov 29, 2023 19:07:08 GMT misteralz said:

But is that really real, or is it just confirmation bias? ?

A bit of both? It's cultural and they display in a way that is loud and obnoxious so it's easy to blame their own problems on them. The main thing I've found is, many of the Americans that are allowed/can afford to leave are from a particularly annoying social class so we as outsiders are exposed to those types of Americans a lot more. I've also met an amount of decent, down to earth Americans who love life and people and will open their hearts to you. My main takeaway from visits to the states is they're all getting royally screwed over by the ruling classes and are taught to like it (sound familiar?)

Canadians love to lampoon America but Canada's national identity is arguably based entirely on being "Not America" which stems from British propaganda in the 1800s

NZ is the same, but with Australia. Does that mean any of these countries are better than others? Well, it depends on what you want out of life.

Is it like trailer park boys? Sometimes! Did the good folks move? Well, *I* think the folks here are decent.

There's also more importantly no scheduled MOTs here and lots of rust free old cars.

Canada has a rather stymied view of America, as said, because of these early colonial rule.
Do those people exist? Yes. But the same as observed slovenly or obnoxious types appear (think Wayne and Waynetta, or Onslow from Appearances) but not everybody's loud and outspoken (Yorkshire mines Union pib-dweller) nor Oxford prim and proper.

There's a wide spectrum here and in general the masses are pleasant people- and often you get to find that out because they're far more open about life than most people in the UK. Do not confuse loud and obnoxious for speaking the truth.

Is Canada nice? On the whole. The bit in the middle they don't talk about much because they're much more like Americans, only French.

Phil

[Rich]

I'm glad you stared this thread. Excellent reading in the making

[speedy88]

Do S13 coilovers fit a Tercel? Yes*

I'm a big fan of BC Racing coilovers on all my cars and they are available for a Tercel. But for $1500CAD (875GBP) they're a little spicy for me. Especially when I have a shop full of tools.

I want you all to stop and appreciate how much the UK is the center of trade. You don't like the price of something? A little searching around and you'll find some company making the same thing for 1p profit. The UK has another advantage - population density. Which gives more opportunities for small engineering shops and hobbyists to do custom work with competition to keep prices down.

One of the main financial killers where I live is remoteness. I don't just live in Western Canada, I live on an island in Western Canada. We have access to *some* things in the states, but you'll need to tac on a few hundred dollars every time you want something shipped here. And they're more hot on taxing imports here, we'll get on to that another time.

I noticed at local drift evens that a lot of the cars have pretty wacky engine swaps. M52 swapped into a Cressida, 1JZ swapped into an RX7... But it took me a while to realise a lot of this is necessity. Why pay for rare replacement engines to be shipped in when you have an E36 right here?

Back to the coilovers. I went looking around for something cheaper that might fit. MacPherson strut front and pin to eye on the rear. Same arrangement that's also cheap? S13.

It gets better, measuring shows it's really close. Rear is very close to factory, fronts will need a little cutting and drilling. I decide it's worth the risk.

It gets better, all cheap S13 coilover kits are all on sale now because nobody can build cheap S13 drift cars anymore. Advantage Speedy. I find a kit for $300(175GBP) with free shipping! Score. Maxpeedingrods are OK for cheap coilovers and should be fine for this project.

The spring rates are going to be a slight issue at 8kg/7kg front/rear. Kerb weight of the Tercel is about 850kg. I've found some cheap 4kg Tein springs that should fit but I'm holding off because cheap coilvers are an unknown anyway. We'll have to try and see! The main thing is we're doing the hard work first and springs will be easy icing on the cake.

On to the coilover modifying:
S13 coilovers have a really wide MacPherson strut bracket which leaves lots of room for activities. For this application I hacked off around 20mm and drilled new holes using a masking tape template from the factory strut:



Top mounts fit but needed some new holes drilled for the 3-post layout.



Handy dandy camber plates will help get the camber correct, the factory strut exists in a very tight space and is quite narrow. The coilovers are much more thicc so need a little creativity to get in the hole while still clearing everything.

So that's the fronts. The only thing the rears needed was a quick 5mm hole file for the top mount posts and some kind of solution for the eyelet bushings:



I cut down and pressed in some OEM bushings, I have no idea how long this will last but it's OK for now until I find something better.

So, do S13 coilovers fit a Tercel? Yes, kinda.

I'll report back on ride quality.

[speedy88]

Tercels are 4x100 like a civic so I've been playing around with a few different wheels in 4x114.3. Looks like I'd have to run a 6J Advan with unknown offset with the 25mm adapters


7J Enkeis with unknown offset are too much


I've ordered 15mm adapters instead, all the wheels have the space for factory studs to protrude into so we should be OK.

The Work Equip wheels are 6.5J but all the offsets seem similar across the board for all the wheels which is handy for guess work.

I'd like to avoid re-drilling hubs for now so I'll make what I have work with some mild arch rolling.

[joem83]

Nov 29, 2023 22:40:52 GMT speedy88 said:

(Mostly) abandoned rail infrastructure anyone?

They say it's a small world, I have seen pictures of this bridge taken by my work colleague when he vistited his son who moved to Canda.

[redratbike]

i was watching the bosch Tv series the other day and saw a blue tercel one of the characters was driving

thought to my self that would look good lowered and when was the last time you saw one !!

subscribed

p.s. Bosch is on prime and well worth watching 👍