My relationship with this car began more than 3 years ago. When I bought it it looked fresh from the outside but the engine and transmission were in pathetic shape. It had the notorious 5th gear pop out, shifting into second was a grinding nightmare. The engine ran, but it was burning a bit of oil and couldn't hold idle. Despite knowing all of this I bought the car. I thought it would be a fun learning project. It became a large part of who I am today. Here's a bunch of pictures of the car when I first bought it.
With zero previous experience working on cars I started tinkering, replacing things like spark plugs and doing other easy jobs with my newly bought 9$ socket wrench set. I seriously thought back then that it's all I need. I soon realized that tinkering on this car is the equivalent of trying to chop down a tree with a butter knife. So I clad myself into some old clothes, printed out the factory service manual and decided to drop the engine. I did it alone using wood for the job. 
It was my first time ever droping and engine out of anything. Half way through the drop my chain hoist failed and I droped the engine to the floor juggling it between two jacks and bouncing it off both sides of the engine bay. I came home around midnight with oil and other car fluids in my hair and ears. I went to the garage a a boy that day. I returned a boy, but a boy that wanted to work on cars and spend unreasonable amounts of money on said endeavor. I also decided to make videos of my journey. Here's my YouTube channel, 3 years later it's full of videos (all the links in the text are links to videos), just like my garage which now has a 100l compressor and other tools that are together probably worth more than the car. I still keep the 9$ socket wrench set to remind me how far I've come, and that whatever you think today might be just a joke tomorrow.
My tinkering turned into a full scale engine and transmission rebuild. The engine block got 0.5 overbored, decked, got new pistons, new rings, all new OEM bearings, a new oil pump, water pump, and every possible gasket. I ported the cylinder head myself with tips from experienced people. The head also got new mild but sporty catcams camshafts, new HKS valve springs and new valve stem seals. The valves and seats and the head were all machined to spec. To make most of the setup I also got some adjustable tehcnotoytuning cam gears.
The transmission got a full rebuild kit with all new synchros, bearings, a brand new fifth gear, fifth gear sleeve and selector fork. I wisely chose to hand the transmission rebuild over to a profesional.
Everything else was sandblasted and either zinc plated or painted. The whole effort lasted almost 2 years. You know day job and all.
Here's a video of all of that effort condensed into 2.5 minutes.
https://www.youtube.com/embed/Nw2UJnnqs9Y
After quite a bit of troubleshooting I managed to fire up the engine. The moment the engine sprang to life was beyond words. After weeks of troubleshooting and adjustments I figured out that my engine is a Frankenstein of different generations of Toyota's mighty 4a-ge engine. This made timing adjustments and many other things a pain in the bum. But eventually I got the engine running pretty decently. It was not perfect but good enough to enjoy a spirited drive. But back than I did not know that each breath my engine took was a dying one.
In the pursuit of idiotic cosmetic prettiness I sand blasted my engine block during the early stages of my restoration. It came back to haunt me. I went OCD when it comes to washing the block before assembly, but my compressor powered washer was apparently not enough to get all the tiny blast media out. Just a few remained but it was enough to wreck my oil pump and bearings over a course of 1000 and few kms. One day I drove through a tunnel and heard a nasty banging sound from the engine bay. I instantly knew it was rod knock. I tried to find other culprits for the next few days, but after eliminating everything else, I droped the oil pan and saw the gruesomeness of bearings that were scrapped of several of their layers.
Out came the engine again. The failure was definitely painful, so I decided to overcome it by using it as an opportunity and build something more fun this time around.
After thinking about what I like when it comes to cars I decided to do a bike carb conversion on my 4age engine. Why? I like engines that sound cool (who doesn't) and I love the feeling of a revvy responsive NA engine. The carbs are going to give me the amazing sound, plus the looks and should be super responsive when tuned right. Yes, the MPG will suffer and they are fiddly and need more attention than electronic fuel injection, but I don't care about the drawbacks because this is not my daily driven car. I decided to go with bike carbs instead of something like twin Webers because they are cheaper and should provide better responsiveness, performance and MPG than Webers, of course when tuned properly.
So far into the bike carb build I have almost all the main parts I need.
I got a complete bike carb conversion kit from a company in the UK called DanST engineering that specialized in bike carb conversions. I initially thought about doing the whole thing DIY, you know sourcing a set of bike carbs from a junkyard, welding up a manifold myself, etc. But after I considered the time and patience I will need for all of that I decided to drop the DIY route for once and get things that are professionally made, look right and are compatible with everything else. Here's some pictures.
In the pictures you can see the complete kit. The carbs are 37mm HondaCBR600 Keihin carbs. Many people use Yamaha R1 carbs but apparently these smaller ones are actually better for the 1.6 4AGE. The intake manifold is tig welded aluminum and looks amazing imo. The kit also contains a bike fuel pump, it's nothing special but it will work and be super easy to replace if needed. I decided not to use a fuel pressure regulator and a bunch of hoses, because I think the bike fuel pump is a more elegant and reliable solution. Supplied is also an intake manifold gasket, fluoro line silicone hoses that won't deteriorate in contact with fuel and the vacuum balancing bar. The kit is definitely a high quality product and I am super pleased with it. It's also super convenient that the carbs come ultrasonically cleaned and with approximate jetting so you can at least start the car and get the carbs tuned. Only thing I can complain about is the sillicone hoses and the clamps for them. The hoses could be a bigger diamtere because installation was a bit of a pain, and the clamps should be smaller, so there isn't any overhang and it looks perfect. Here's an unboxing video of the kit.
Thinking ahead I also got a lightweight crank pulley and some injector plugs from Techno toy tuning. The crank pulley is the thinking ahead part because it will make it easy to setup a crank position sensor for a standalone ignition controller. My initial plan was to use the stock ecu to provide timing advance at higher rpms but now I'm actually considering to go with a standalone ignition controller right from the start. The pulley also looks super cool, is perfectly balanced to 11.000 rpm and should remove a bit of the rotational mass to make the engine spin more freely. The injector plugs are a nice solution to the holes left in the cylinder head after removing the injectors. I think interference fit freeze plugs are stupid for this and prefer the safety and simplicity of these plugs. Unboxing videos here and here.
Here's the pictures:
Another piece of the puzzle is the AEM x-series air fuel ratio gauge. A no-brainer for me considering AEM's R&D, reputation and the fastest response at this price range.
Unboxing video of the gauge here.
So the parts are there. What I have done so far is ground down the crank 0.25, got oversize bearings and ordered a new oil pump. I will son begin assembling the engine and will update this thread when there's more neat stuff. Sorry the first post is a mile long.
Hope this will be a fun one!
