Started FWD Now We're Here

[CadillacMazerolle]

I purchased this 1984 Turbo Diesel Toyota Camry to use as a unique commuter while i destroyed my pickup (seen here: https://www.pro-touring.com/threads/...st-Holy-Empire )

Turns out this was even more rare than i thought. This one had been shipped in from Honduras. When i began to research it the only information i really found was based around THIS SPECIFIC CAR with links like this that basically said it is junk but cool because it is different.
http://cheapcarsdomain.com/rare-find-camry-diesel/

Well i hitch hiked from NH to Baltimore MD and bought this car at 11pm. Made it a few miles down the highway and blew a head gasket. Fast forward 5 months to when my parts shipped from England to repair it.



















It was right when i got the cylinder head unbolted that i noticed how large the engine bay was!!!!

[CadillacMazerolle]

This happened at the same time i was cutting the frame out of my pickup. A few minutes with a tape measure took me from "no way" to "DUDE!! this could fit!!!!".



Having spent the money on parts to repair the Diesel Camry engine i fixed it and sold it on craigslist. These guys drove over 2.5 hours away and showed up at 10:30pm in a crown victoria. I couldn't believe it when they loaded the engine and trans in the trunk and the boot latched!





Ever tell yourself "don't touch that. its hot!" and you touch it anyways? Well i measured and said i need .750" more when i actually make the cut and didn't listen... Remember but more on that later.



The whole idea was to do this as quick and dirty as possible with free parts i had laying around but as you'll eventually see, things just got out of hand!



Sitting on the bump stops with the bigger Pickup tires, it rolled out on its own weight 6 hours later.

[cbpldc]

I like where this is headed.

[NOT A TA]

"Well i hitch hiked from NH to Baltimore MD and bought this car at 11pm."

A couple weeks ago I was thinking of all the long distance hitch hiking I did in the 70's up & down 91 and 95 or across the Mass pike. Haven't seen a hitch hiker in probably 25-30 years now.

Looks like you're in deep on the projects, keep at um!

[CadillacMazerolle]

"Well i hitch hiked from NH to Baltimore MD and bought this car at 11pm."

A couple weeks ago I was thinking of all the long distance hitch hiking I did in the 70's up & down 91 and 95 or across the Mass pike. Haven't seen a hitch hiker in probably 25-30 years now.

Looks like you're in deep on the projects, keep at um!

hahah Thanks. Yeah, i'm a rambling man of sorts....

I am ALWAYS in deep with projects. I can never just leave anything alone....

[CadillacMazerolle]

so i had the front clip... sorta installed. it was time to cut a trans tunnel and MAN what i nightmare it was trying to cut through all those layers of sheet metal and internal gusseting!



Here we see Fat Erik in his natural habitat, destroying sawzall blades


A sneak peek at Toyota sorcery


Finally opened up








Its SO wrong but it feels so right!

[Motorcitydak]

It fits! Nice. So what are the plans for the rear end?

[2ndroundko]

So much win going on here.

[CadillacMazerolle]

It is at this time my mother told me if i was going to ruin this car that i should use the 6.5L turbo Diesel engine taking up room in her garden shed. so out came the clapped out small block chevy.










My wheelbarrow has more stance than your Jetta bruhh...

[CadillacMazerolle]

The wheel wells in this car are super small but i was able to cram a 2wd Toyota pickup rear axle under it with 1.25" wheel spacers and a set of jeep cherokee wheels. I use front lower toyota land cruiser control arms. They are heavy but they're a super compact design and also act as an anti-roll bar.



This is a neat piece. It is the mount for the chassis side of the panhard bar. it is slotted to adjust roll center height because i wasn't exactly sure how low i was going to be able to get the car to sit. The neat part is that both parts are exactly the same just flipped and mount to a downward sloping frame rail.





You can see here the shock mount is integrated with the control arm mount.



Not knowing if i was going to need a slight bend in the panhard to clear the diff i had chosen to run a grease-able bushing at one end, instead of a heim, to prevent the panhard from flopping around

[Cudablack2004]

WOW! interesting build....subscribed!

[sdg0080]

Super sleeper... lol

[Cribby]

That is awesome! Keep up the good work.

[CadillacMazerolle]

Thanks for all the kind words guys. almost makes me feel like i'm doing something right.

I made some rear lower control arm brackets that french into the floor.





I love welding thick metal to sheet metal... NOT!!!

[CadillacMazerolle]

I'll box in the axle side panhard mount when I tear it down for finish welding and paint. I placed the panhard like this to achieve a higher roll center height. I want to run a lower suspension frequency for daily driven comfort but with a high roll center and my trailing arms acting as a swaybar it should be torsionally stiff in the rear. I pretty much have the opposite going on in the front which will make it sloppy and have lots of body roll up front. I have a tentative plan for an adjustable swaybar up front to combat this. I have put lots of thought into this because I would love a dialed suspension system but in the end of the day, it doesn't matter! I'm not racing it and all I want to do with it is smoke the tires off. hahaha



Here you can see my junk Ebay coil over shocks


Initially I thought I was gonna have to cage the car front to rear to maintain the structural integrity of the car. That was way more work than I REALLY wanted to at this point BUT I was able to come up with a solution that will easily allow me to properly distribute the loads through a cage when the time comes. For now, I am actually kinda excited to retain a complete, factory interior.

[neongreen]

You are my kind of lunatic.

[chunger]

I'll box in the axle side panhard mount when I tear it down for finish welding and paint. I placed the panhard like this to achieve a higher roll center height. I want to run a lower suspension frequency for daily driven comfort but with a high roll center and my trailing arms acting as a swaybar it should be torsionally stiff in the rear.

What does "lower suspension frequency" refer to? I'm not familiar with this term.

[CadillacMazerolle]

What does "lower suspension frequency" refer to? I'm not familiar with this term.

Everything has a natural frequency. Picture an old cadillac with blown out shocks rolling over a speed bump. It will continue to bounce up and down in a wave pattern. Measuring the distance between peaks of this wave is the frequency. Now imagine a lowered civic with stiff springs and blown out struts hitting the same speed bump at the same speed. It will be much more violent and bounce with a much more rapid frequency.

It is pointless to speak in terms of spring rate because the car's suspension frequency is a culmination of its mass and wheel rate. The wheel rate on the rear of my car is 1:1 because the shock is mounted vertically and directly to the axle. The front however, has a motion ratio. If the coil over were mounted perpendicular to the control arm, 50% the distance of the ball joint and chassis pivot, I would have a 2:1 motion ratio. This effectively makes my wheel rate half of my spring rate. Tipping the shocks in also adds to the motion ratio. A shock tipped 45* off the line of action makes it only 70% effective. The same goes for the dampening effect as well.

I hope that made sense. I'm not always so great at explaining things.

You are my kind of lunatic.

HAHAH good! guys like us need to stick together!!!!

[chunger]

Everything has a natural frequency. ...<snipped> ...
I hope that made sense. I'm not always so great at explaining things.

It does! I had the kinda general understanding of what you were going for, but didn't want to make any assumptions.

Thank you for the explanation and keep up the craziness!! Loving the build!

[CadillacMazerolle]

Like i said before, initially this was going to be a very quick and dirty swap just to do burnouts but while I was on Ebay searching for rear suspension solutions I "accidentally" oredered 4 coil over shocks. So instead of trying to mount a cross member and torsion bars that would have mounted inside the drivers compartment and going through the floor... Now i just had to modify the upper control arms to clear the new coil overs... ORR..just steal control arms i build for another project.







Powder coated.

"Ever tell yourself "don't touch that. its hot!" and you touch it anyways? Well i measured and said i need .750" more when i actually make the cut and didn't listen... Remember but more on that later."

WELL!!!! I accidentally cut the frame shorter than I intended which brought the tire closer to the firewall. This may have been fine except if I want to put a sizable wheel/tire package on there some day, the firewall would not allow it. The Toyota pickup specs out at like 1* caster so this actually left me room AND gave me an excuse to build custom lower arms with more caster and move the tires away from the firewall!!!