Monthly Archives: April 2011


8

When you have the right tools, nothing is really that hard.  Making a downpipe, is what I’ve dreaded the most since I started turbocharging the car.  Between the irregular shape of the turbo outlet, and the tight confines of the steering column and frame rail I was quite fearful of screwing up and wasting time and materials.  Hammer forming the […]

Downpipe Dekiru?


2

Well… not quite, but I’m going to look into it.  The truth is… our RAV-4 is actually gross.  It’s more gutless than our Echo even… and it’s not actually getting great gas mileage.  480km on 50Liters is worse than 10L/100km.  The Echo surprisingly… uses about 30% less. But more than that… I’ve been frustrated over and over again, finding time […]

Abandon Ship



3

With Japan in the state that it’s in, my wife traded her summer trip home for a family trip to Seattle.  So I’ve been out of town for the last week and haven’t actually gotten anything done on the car.  I did get in a few minutes before leaving however, to finish off the turbine outlet flange.  As I said […]

Little Progress


2

It used to be the case that all the Japanese hachiroku drivers I knew, scoffed at anyone who needed forced induction or more displacement. It seems that now more displacement is acceptable. This is Masaharu’s response to hearing that I’m turbocharging my car. Somewhere along the way I decided that I don’t like the Beams motor… I did consider a […]

Masaharu Beams