LocostUSA.com

It was a friend of mine, kinda a private day but so many people showed up.

Last week went out to streets of willow. Lots of cool cars and cool people. I did get to watch an s14 kinda run over an EFR. It was pretty interesting to say the least but I still cant find video of it.



Sorry I havent updated in a little bit. Been getting home real late and been spending more time on customer stuff then my own laitly. I did however get the motor in.



The famous Andy Yen ladies and gentlemen helping out with the turbo.



Wicked 1 on clublexus saw that I needed the stock guage cluster and sent me one. Thank You Wicked 1!! Pulled the insides of it out and made a backing plate out of carbon sheet, then had this tach from one of my old cars and figured why not have the most famous a biggest tach you can get in there. Took a little bit of work triming it out and I still feel fiberglass in my arms. More guages will be added but this is just a taste.



Picked up a new steering wheel from Sparco, and some seat brackets. Mounted the drivers seat and took it back out cause I dont want it to get too dirty just yet. Goes back to K&W Autobody in a couple days. Should have the paint finished and start working on the graphics soon.

In the booth, spraying the frost.



Then clearing the front.



Got the car back in the shop






The frost that they used on the car is kinda like a metalic that you only see in certain light. You get that glittery look, just dont see the glitter. Here is a closer pic of the hood after and you cant even see it in the pictures but in real life it has a sparkle to it.



Also Casper was kind enough to kick down some of his coopers so I mounted those things up, threw the brakes on the car, and took off the shocks to check wheel fitment and such. Turns out these +1 offsets may be too aggressive for not having a widebody. It really stressed me out when I put the car down. Got a few options right now like change the wheels, run smaller tires, make all new control arms or mod the original ones. Only time will tell whats going to happen next.

Working on the suspension, here is the angle with the spindles cut about an inch.



Worked on getting the front end together, I kinda want to run some zuse fasteners or something so I can take off the bumper faster, but those high beams are held in on the same bolts as the top of the bumper.




Went out to G&J and picked up all the fuel line fittings and such. Mr. Yen has some time laitly and is helping me with the build so we started on the fuel stuff. Ran the hard lines under the car.




We decided the best place to put the fuel pressure reg would be to kinda hide it pretty much under the intake mani. One word of advice if you ever work with Andy, keep him away from teflon tape!



Fuel pump and cell in the trunk. Not many other places to stick it.

Sorry for the lack of updates. Without a working Tig, there wasnt much to do. Now that I can get back to welding, things should be going a bit faster. Finished up the intercooler and mounted it.



Here is a pic from last week when Andy and I were playing with the suspension. At this point the body kit would be on the ground.

Hey, I've been watching this build for a while, but I don't think I've posted yet. Looks great, I'm a big fan of drifting. Your Locost drifting video was one of the very first videos that really got me into these cars.

Last weekend I was at Round 1 of the West DMCC, and saw an interesting car with a Battle Version logo under the rear bumper. One of the very few non-S13/14 cars there.

Thats one sweet corolla. Glad to have my logo on there.

Started on the exhaust. Wasnt exactly sure how I should run it. The outlet on the turbo is 3.5" and the wheel is kinda tight in there. So was thinking of going 3.5 vband and up it to a 4" down pipe, then spit it to twin 3". Reason being is with the tight radius bends on the down pipe, it kinda needs larger OD to keep the flow. Then running twin 3", its just cheeper and easier to get 3" tubing and gives me more ground clearance.




Also started on the hot pipe. For more room I cut the outlet on the turbo and welded on a new end.

Picked up some tubing this morning and got to work again. Made the intake pipes and had the windows put back in. The windshield was cracked before we took it out so needed a new one.



Then got to work on the hot side. Starts off as 2.75" and switches by the sway bar to 3" and goes into the intercooler.





Comes out the intercooler as 3.5" and then goes to 4" at the TB.





And from my friends at club4ag...

Mounted up the oil cooler and adaptor. Originally it had some small pipe thread on the adaptor but welded on some -12 fittings since the oil cooler has -12's on it.

Going to take the car to Spocom this weekend, so started putting a bunch of the small stuff in. The car wont be running of coarse, still too much to get done, so its more important to get the car looking good right now. Did alot today, like finished off the fuel lines, got all the vacume ports in, started running some of the other lines, all while Naoki from Drift Day was working on graphics. Sneak peak time.

Yeah...that's the philosophy I took on my car, too.

-dave "straightface" hempy

Here's some pics from spocom today. Forgive my crappy point and shoot.



This one you can see the metalic on the hood from House of Kolors

nice build, I like that color red for the interior. Do you have vid's in action yet?

Looks great!

looks awesome alex. bring it out to one of the atlanta drift days

Sorry for not having updates laitly. Just been doing wireing for the last couple weeks. I kinda suck at wireing so its taking more time then I thought. Its getting close to running but going to be testing in a different car this weekend. We have an event the second weekend of july in vegas (yeah its going to be hot) and there isnt enough time for my car to be done.