It’s already been four years since Tom brought us the perfectly documented Project Thunderbolt LS3 Miata build. While he’s been keeping busy with his Figaro and AZ-1 projects, the time has finally come for the Turbo Garage to start another full build, this time an LS-turbo powered Toyota Tacoma. I can’t wait to see this one unfold with Tom’s token humour and build quality.
Tag: toyota
What I’m Watching – Saving an AE86 Trueno
Watch this crew of knockabout Irish lads pull a sad and sorry AE86 out from mother nature’s grip, and slowly bring it back to life in a series of vlogs. Juicebox are some of the funniest and most genuine guys on Youtube (to me, anyway!), with fast and frantic editing and colourful language adding to the smile-inducing viewing experience. I’ve had some genuine “laugh out loud” moments watching these guys over the past few months, and hope you will too.
Revisiting the ETS Drift Ute
Engineered To Slide; there’s a good chance you already follow Nigel’s blog and know all about his impressive two and four wheeled projects, both past and present. When I first started this blog, I launched it with a handful of builds already published from the get-go, and one of those was the ETS S13 Silvia, knowing that I just had to include something from his stable when I launched Build Threads. Â A couple of years later I was super excited to see his new project taking shape – a scratch-built Toyota Hilux with Nissan S15 running gear – and just had to make a post about it when it wasn’t yet much more than a mockup. After many updates and blog posts over the span of a few years, I had absorbed every image and every word Nigel had posted about his one-off creation. Now here we are, years later, and it’s still just as impressive as it was when it was first completed. Nigel has just posted a retrospective post on the journey with 100 images of his choice, a perfect opportunity to re-live the build…
Project Binky – Austin Mini GT-Four [video build]
![Project Binky – Austin Mini GT-Four [video build]](http://build-threads.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/Binky.png)
The folks at Bad Obsession Motorsport must have a bad obsession with building bonkers cars, because they’re putting together quite the ball-tearing package. They’re taking a Mini (or what’s left of it) and stuffing it full of running gear from a Toyota Celica GT-Four. Yes, that’s a 4 cylinder turbo with all wheel drive. What’s better is that they’re documenting it all on video, with some token British dry humour (my favourite kind). Watching the guys cut, linish, fold, and weld hand-make bracketry and structural sections is making me want to get out into the garage more than ever. “Project Binky” will be one serious little Mini once completed.
I’ll be sure to update this post and let you know via the Facebook page when more videos are released.
Classic Japan 2013
Yesterday in Melbourne we were gifted with a gorgeous sunny day to mark the start of summer. It also happened to be the same day as Classic Japan, a casual car show catering for Japanese cars and motorbikes that are 25 years or older. No prizes, no trophies, no egos, just a congregation of the states oldschool JDM owners and fans. It had been a while since I had driven the datto after experiencing some periodic teething problems since completing my FMIC project, so I was ecstatic to be able to have it back in action just the day before the show and enjoy a full two days of trouble-free driving. I didn’t take my camera with me, but my good friend Tony from The Motor Report was snapping away and has given me his blessing to share his images here. Click the images for full-size hi-res shots.
1UZFE 1986 MKII Supra
What can I say about builds like these? High quality mods, high quality images, and high quality documentation, everything we all love in a thread, steered by my favourite kind of builder; one with OCD! Another thing I love about this particular build is watching the owner’s skills progress and improve as time goes on. The choice of car is something we haven’t seen on the site before, we’ve had Supra’s, but never a MKII, so it’s refreshing to read about a platform that can sometimes go unnoticed within the nostalgic Japanese community. There’s so much quality here, from fiberglassing, wiring, welding and CAD design – and over 50 pages of it – so get comfortable!
Thank to Zac for submitting.
Click here for more Toyota builds. Click here for more of the best builds on the site.
Forum spotlight: JDMST (pt3)
Forum spotlight: JDMST (pt2)
Here’s Part 2 of my insight into some of my favourite builds from the JDM Style Tuning forums.
For Part 1, click here.
Forum spotlight: JDMST (pt1)
I’m a member of many different forums, but I’m not much of a poster. JDM Style Tuning was one of the first forums that I really got involved in, posting regularly and attending meets. While I don’t post there much these days, I still like to read the forum almost daily and make the odd post every now and then. There are a number of great builds on the forum, so I thought I’d do a little spotlight on some of my favourites in no particular order. Please note, this is not a “best of”, it’s just the ones that tickle my fancy. There’s a few builds to get through, so I’ll split them up over a few different posts over the next couple of months in between regular build features.
Greengoon – retro afficionado
Since I’m a regular Ratsun browser from way back, I became very familiar with a certain green 510 wagon belonging to Greengoon, aka Duane. This wagon was always a bit different from the others, especially with it’s folding ragtop. I always looked forward to updates over the past few years, especially enjoying his DIY solutions to getting the ‘goon sitting closer to the ground and various tyre size testing on later-model OEM wheels. Heading over to the Non-Datsun section of the forum made me realise Duane’s penchant for old cars wasn’t restricted to just Datsuns, as he had another 2 project cars under his belt from the Toyota stable, including one very charismatic ’71 Hilux. I’m not the only one to sit up and take note of Duane’s skills, he was even the subject of his own Depth of Speed video, arguably the best series of automotive videos on the net (if you ask me). Head below to familiarise yourself with this trio of vintage vehicles.
Click here for more builder spotlights.