Shaun@TDi

Morning Ellz, The bumper has actually turned out really well, despite the amount we had to remove in order to get it to fit. Has Mark sent you pics already? It wasn't just clearancing for the intercooler either, material had to be removed from the driver side fog lamp housing because of the oil cooler. All in all - looks very impressive. It has a certain 'presence'....

Not being picky but this reads like your trying to put one over on a MOT tester surely thats not the right thing to do :) Absolutely not. My apologies is it reads that way Lee, but thats not the case at all. We are supremely confident that the repair section is more than up to the task of being as strong (if not stronger) as the original piece. I've been restoring classic cars for many years now so i'm more than familiar with the 'can of worms' that potentially exists with chassis modifications. Cutting out a section and replacing it is one thing - cutting out and altering that section for a different purpose is something entirely different. Its a shame that the turbo kit didnt take this into mind in the first place. If it had been my kit, or i had a hand in the design of it, i probably would have modified the manifold so it sat the other way up thus giving much more clearance from both the chassis and the engine mount. Shaun

It's about time Ellz's thread had an update i think. We have now repaired the cut chassis section and returned the much need strength and rigidity. Unfortunately, due to some camera/software issues we no longer have the repair pictures themselves but here are some images of the chassis leg in its current form. We have placed some heat proofing over the repair section in an attemp to make the modification less obvious to any future MOT tester. I'm not 100% certain on the comebacks of future MOT's, if the tester is aware that structural alterations have been made. In our opinion - better safe than sorry. Here are some pics with the turbo loosely located. There is now plenty of clearance between the turbo intake housing and the repaired chassis section.

PMSL - you're in London so you're lucky to get to those speeds :P I'm down there tomorrow, luckily I'm on a bus though so I'm going to get drunk on the way to Wembley :D i dont travel at those speeds because of traffic - i choose to! i never go anywhere near london, mainly stick to the dual carriage ways out of town

80?!? blimey, thats what i do when i'm in a big rush. i spend the rest of my time travelling at around 55-60. probably one of the reasons i regularly see 7-8pence per mile. not bad for a 20yr old passat. we cant all drive road hogs

whilst i agree with everything that has been said above........ ....... the BMW M5 has very efficient cup holders! That Mars milkshake never even batted an eyelid...

Sams been riding bikes since he was very young but never on the road. Whilst this isn't what you'd call 'proper experience' he is more than aware of the dangers.# Myself, i very very cautious of bikes. I lost 2 uncles to road traffic accidents in the last few years and my mum (who's in her 50's now :D ) has had a few scrapes so i'm constantly bombarded with warnings and horror stories. I'm more than aware of the what can happen when you're inexperienced and cocky....

both myself and Sam@tdi are taking our bike tests in the next few months. I haven't got a clue what i'd want to ride but Sams been eyeing up Marks 'busa

i've seen an almost identical conversion done to the Vokswagen Scirocco. Just as ugly, but you cant fault the engineering. Extremely well done.

We'e done this kind of cooling solution before. We've found that the overall difference to the radiator temp is either slight or none at all. I'll take some more pictures of the whole front end soon. It's what we refer to as 'donkey *****' :D Its a special heat proof tubing that simply slides over the required section. Extremely effective and much quicker and easier to use.

A few more pictures. We had to heat wrap a few of the heater hoses just to be safe - we know that the Katana manifold can give off alot of heat. Better safe than sorry... After deciding the final location for daves intercooler, it was apparent that it couldn't go where is was designed to (due to the extra oil lines for the other two coolers) so we had to adapted and overcome with some custom made brackets. This one was skillfully added to the top of the intercooler itself. The transmission cooler had to be moved up slightly to avoid having to alter and cut the bottom of Dave's bumper, thus exposing the bottom edge of the Katana intercooler. Heres one of the new brackets for that. Here are all 3 coolers, now mounted in their final positions. Located in such a way, that we have had to make no adjustments or alterations to the bumper. Shaun

Yes, thats correct. The cooler on the left is for the transmission and the one on the right is for engine oil. Dave is going to be keeping his 50mm TTE pipe work. Dave has the standard Lexus front bumper and so far as we can tell, we dont have to cut anything away from the inside edges to get it to fit properly. The position you see in the above photo is pretty much the final location. The intercooler pipes look out of line because they are loose and not positioned yet. The coolers, pipe work and engine bay should hopefully be finished today. I'll post some more pictures as soon as everythings bolted up and finished.

Some more pictures for Dave.... This is the Katana manifold that was bolted on yesterday. Dave chose not to have it heat wrapped in the end. Here we have all 3 of Dave's coolers. The intercooler is loosley mounted at this point as brackets have had to be made as it couldn't sit as high as intended due to the oil pipes for the other two coolers.

HKS Silent HiPower.

here you go Dave, a few pics of the exhaust for your viewing pleasure. i think these look very nice, not to mention the noise..... B)

Hi, We can get them if you want, but there is a delay of around 4 weeks unless you want to pay for air freight?

top film. Shaun Bean's getting on abit now but still a wicked movie. Went to see it last night, then came out of the movie feeling like i wanted to do some chav's over.... Anyone else seen it?

Heres a few pictures of the 575 Marenello we had in last week. Enjoy!

good idea, i'll get right on it. watch this space!! I thought you may be interested in a picture of the JE pistons that we used in Daves engine. Unfortunately we were let down by Cosworth, but that’s another story. These were designed and specified by TDI to incorporate special features that are not considered in the normal JE “off the shelf” design. You may notice that the squish band is chamfered and the bowl is offset. These are critical areas to improve combustion efficiency. We also employed a low expansion material which means that they are a lot quieter than other JE pistons I have heard, and the oil control should be better too. Sorry if this is a bit “techie” but I thought it may be interesting to demonstrate that not all pistons are the same.

lets face it, the i/c that comes with the TTE s/c kit isn't much to shout about, so the Katana can only be a vast improvement!

Dave is currently waiting for our delivery of the new Katana Intercoolers which are due in this month. Looking forward to getting it finished once its run in. Never really been into the Lexus' myself but i must admit, they are growing on me. :D :D :D