Turbo Celica ST185

It`s been a month. And not a bright one. We went a few nights out to the warehouse to practice drift. I got too adventurous and demanded too much from the car. Aggressive driving with the intercooler warmed up is not a good thing. For about 7-8 minutes. Half of them the oil temperature gauge was over 120 and flashing red, but the adrenaline beats down all the warnings when you`re driving. When I drove off the "track", after 5 seconds suddenly the radiator blew up, The car literally was up in smoke. Still idling, but I switched off power, since I thought I blew the head gasket. Not sure which was better, but the car was very hot. Here is a video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9wlbd6dEoQ . After that oil temp sender went up to 150 C degrees (maximum for the gauge) and stayed  like that for an hour. Popping the hood brought another surprise - fire. But someone got fire estinguisher pretty fast and put the fire out. I guess it was the window washer liquid that I use for intercooler spray. It was pouring on a hot rocker cover so it might have cought fire. I`m not sure about the oil temp sender, since the wire was fried up and gave short circuit to the gauge. Some oil leakage here and there. Oh, and it was Friday, the 13th!!!

Old radiator blown

Old radiator blew the top piece off..

Few weeks passed while I was waiting for paycheck and searching for a radiator. I found one at www.autoradiatori.lv for about 100EUR, radiator manufactured by Nissens, so I ordered that. While car was in the backyard of my friendš service ( www.carsound.lv ), some guy drove his BMW into my car`s door. Nice surprise, eh? So I had another propblem to bother about and got a used door from a scratch yard for ~50EUR.

New Nissens radiator

New Nissens radiator oem toyota celica st185

Yesterday the new radiator arrived and it was the time :) Door was replaced, the inner side swapped, since the replacement door had no speakers, just plain door. It also doesn`t have the GT-Four molding. Haven`t installed yet. The door lock doesn`t work with my key, but I don`t care and won`t bother, since I`ve already experienced that nightmare of changing window glass and it is required when changing door locks. No, thanks.

The radiator. The new one is light and looks great quality. Too bad it didn`t come with a radiator cap and the one used on my previous radiator didn`t match. But there was a spare 3sgte engine laying around in the garage, so I borrowed that one :D Already ordered HKS N-type cap.
I was amazed how simple is the radiator replacement! disconect hoses, disconnect fan wire and temp switch, remove top 2 brackets and just pull out. swap the fan and do it backwards..Never did this before :D Anyway, one of the bottom bushings is missing. and the top 2 brackets don`t fit, they`re too high, so some additional material was needed to hold the radiator securely. I`m not sure if I will fight my laziness to fix all these, but I dod order shiny bracket covers from eBay (celica friendly shop: kelsport , I do order other things from them too). Fluid filled, engine started. Hard to hear anything since I don`t  have the exhaust :D But I could manage to hear some unwanted noises. here and there. Especially after smth like 4000-5000 rpm. I hope its not the rings. From what I could hear, I guess the bearings are fine. Seems like alternator pulley or its tensioner is making sounds. Probably it got heated up pretty much, as the Oil temp sender wire was fried against the alternator. I separated the wires and isolated with tape - oil temp gauge works for now.
I`m not sure when it poppud up, but the CEL gave out code 52 (knock sensor signal). I think it wasn`t there when the car was started up, but I`m not sure. RPMS at idle are 1100-1200. So there are just guesses what could have happened. Maybe the car was detonating terribly when drifting in the angar. Maybe the wire was fried. Maybe the sensor is dead. Maybe there is something with ignition timing or main timing belt that causes the car to go lean and detonate. But I`m not sure if code #52 means detonating, I think it means that knock sensor signal is not received at all.
Driving seems good. But cannot drife faster than 50km/h cause I have summer tires R17x9J and its impossible to control the car on snow :D Will change them this evening.
Need to change the oil, since the car is still going on Castrol Formula RS 10w60.. not a good idea at -13 degrees Celsius..
So this whole evening I guess I`ll spend at the garage again..