That is supercar fast, in fact it's faster than we've ever gone before. We've built some crazy cars in the past, but what we're attempting to do now, is go faster than we've ever gone before. Now the first thing that we need to do is buy a car. Then we're going to assemble a team of our mates, and all of the mods we're going to need to run a 10 second quarter mile.
It's gonna be ridiculously fast, it's gonna be mad, and probably very dangerous. Now all good stories have to start somewhere, and this one starts, in Japan. A while back we jumped on a plane with our mates, Benny and AL, and we made our way to the north island of Japan to Asahikawa We've made some great friends here, including this guy, Tom Sato who runs a car dealership. He'd found us the perfect old school, 80's japanese car, to take on a roadtrip across the country.
What is it man? It's a Cresta, so similar to a Cressida What do you think guys? Yeah, I love it. Very good. Just giving it a bit of a polish and clean How good is this thing? This is great. Mr Sato had arranged five days of temporary registration so we could make our way south.
So first up we had to go to a fireworks shop, because Japan. Look at this. Like, this is about 30 bucks ($30) We think we'll probably get these because the young man was just saying, these are blue balls that explode... Is that right? Exploding blue balls? That is ridiculously awesome We had to stay the night in Sapporo so we could catch the ferry to the mainland the next day.
Road tripping a thirty year old car, with unknown history, over half the length of Japan will require some tools. And to get off the north island, we'll need to get a ferry. This is a two hour ride across open water, followed by another 1500km through highways, toll roads, rural areas and small japanese towns. Which will eventually get us to our final destination of Matsusaka.
Now we say goodbye to the car, and it sits here. Robs going to put it on a truck, then its going to get put on a boat. Mr Sato's going to do all the de-registration stuff. Then it'll be high at sea, for a few weeks.
To understand why the Cresta exists we need to shift our minds to the early 80's, when Japan was beginning it's golden age of car manufacturing. The economy was booming, and customers couldn't get enough. Wanting the latest gadgets, plushest rides, and the performance to match. The Toyota Cresta was positioned just below the famed Toyota Crown in terms of luxury, and shared it's X series platform with the Toyota Chaser, Mark 2, and the Cressida we got here in Australia.
This was the kind of car that hire car businesses, taxi companies, and even government agencies would buy A typical four door sedan to cruise around in comfort and style. The engine however, is not mad. And is not going to cut it to go faster than we've ever gone before, so it's going straight in the bin. While we get started on finding something better to power this thing, Benny is going to strip out the engine, exhaust, radiator and transmission.
We've now got an empty engine bay, ready for something much more epic Now there is no way that festy old 80's Cresta engine is going to allow us to beat any supercars. And we won't be pulling 10 second quarter miles, which is why we've got our hands on this. This is an Australian made Barra inline six, four litre ford engine The turbo charged ones start at 240kw. Now these engines here in Australia came delivered in the XR6 Turbo.
But we're gonna be working on this engine which was made in Australia, by Ford, then sticking it in our Cresta that was made by Toyota in Japan. The Ford Barra engine has and iron block and alloy head with double overhead cams With a four litre capacity it is capable of delivering huge power when combined with a turbocharger, and some basic mods. The first thing we're going to be doing to our mad engine is putting in some heavy duty valve springs, to help keep those valves shut under high boost pressure. Now where is that high boost pressure coming from my friends? It's coming from a massive turbocharger that we're going to be installing on a custom exhaust manifold And we're going to have some awesome electronic wizz-bangery to run the whole thing.
Now the wizz of course is from the turbo and the bangery is coming courtesy of ethanol. To get this engine ready for boost we're going to pull off the rocker cover to get access to the valve springs, and head studs. We're going to be replacing our sump which has the well at the back of it, with a sump off an earlier BA/BF Falcon, which has the well at the front, which is going to suit our chassis much better We're changing the sump configuration because it will allow us to get the engine as low down into the engine bay as possible Next to come off is the water pump, timing cover and the oil pump which we will be upgrading. While we're working on our engine, Benny, and drag car expert Pauly are getting started on the rear of the Cresta We're going to be fabricating a ladder bar rear end That means there will be room for big tyres, and a big diff to hold big power The 1985 factory diff was never designed for 10 second quarter mile passes The ladder bar rear end plants the tyres hard into the ground under power, which means we'll be able to put it all to the ground and smash out some mad times There aren't any off the shelf parts for an old GX71 Cresta, so all of this will be pieced together with various parts, and fabricated from scratch The ladder bar setup, and rear axle has to be tied into the original chassis of the car So steel box sections are cut up and welded to fit the floor and hold everything together Meanwhile we're changing our valve springs and head studs which means we have to take the front of the engine apart, and then pull off the timing chain, pulleys, guides and finally the cams This is all way easier to do with the engine out of the car, and doing it all now means we can boost our Barra motor as hard as possible These engines are built super strong from the factory, and with the modifications we're going to do we should have more than enough power to fly down the quarter mile Next we're putting in our valve springs, we've got a special tool here to hold it all down We're also putting compressed air into the cylinder via the spark plug holes to help hold the valves up while we do it Now while we've got the top of this engine off we're also putting in some aftermarket head studs, these are gonna help hold the whole thing together when it's under high cylinder pressure.
So all of these aftermarket head studs have to go up to 100, which is a big hit on one of those We've got our spark plugs in, our aftermarket valve springs are in, so we're getting close Martin We've also got our rebuilt oil pump which is ready to go on, and importantly, which is what makes magic possible, our front sump So once we assemble this and put it all back together, this stuff is pretty much ready to go in the car And the car itself should almost be ready to receive this almighty and magical engine The type of rear end we're building for our Cresta has been tried and tested over decades of drag racing It requires some fabrication and knowhow to get it done, but it's also simple and durable And one of the main aims is to be able to fit massive tyres in the back for massive amounts of grip We'll also need custom driveshafts, diff housing, hubs, disks and calipers to make it all work With the rear end in position we can begin to tie it all into the car by making mounts for the arms, and shocks Toyota never intended their car to be so powerful, so while we're at it we're going to make a six point roll cage This is both for safety, and rigidity Another benefit of the cage is that it will allow us to install racing harnesses in the front seats Next we can pull the dash, and the rest of the interior out. And with that our Cresta is just about ready to receive it's australian made, boosted six. It is a new day, and i'm off to pick up something that makes time-travel possible. This upgraded turbocharger will be the perfect match to our four litre engine I'm back with a Garret GTW turbo, and next up Marty's off to pick up another important part of our project That's right, we're going auto With this modified Hughes turbo 400 gearbox This kind of transmission was born in the 60's, and are tough and reliable It's been machined to fit our Ford engine, and is capable of handling up to 1000 horsepower So the engine is all back together, and we've picked up our turbo so it's exciting times But we're still missing one vital component That's right, it's big, it looks like a fridge, and it's got a pretty serious rear end.
That's right, it's our Cresta, and it's arriving with some special guests Making this thing fast is going to require many hands Ben and Al are no strangers to making fast cars But they've never attempted something like this With our team now all in the one place, we've only got a couple of days to get this car ready for the dyno, and then ready for the drag strip The first thing that we need to sort out is the empty engine bay Which will soon be home to our modified turbo engine So it's time to get this old car into the air and start modding First up we're filling and fitting our torque converter Which transfers the power from the engine into the transmission We then need to mate the engine and box together, and pull apart the front of the car to clear some space We're going to make the top radiator support removable, to make the installation a lot easier, because racecar. Anything else in the engine bay that looks like it might get in the way, including old engine mounts are going in the bin We have to test fit the engine to make sure it actually fits And then measure it up for some custom engine mounts These Ford engines are big and they're tall, so this is going to be a tight fit But we need the bonnet to close, to try keep the car as stealth as possible And with some gentle massaging of the transmission tunnel, it looks like it just might fit A tape measure and a level ensures that the engine is centred and flat The next step is to make some custom engine mounts, using plate steel and some thick walled tube These will form shackles, that will be welded to the existing engine crossmember With the engine positioned we can start to test fit our bolt on performance parts to test for clearance, and finish our custom engine mounts In some ways it feels like we've come so far with this car already But, none of this is in it yet And all of this has to end up inside it So we're talking ECU parts, position switches, hoses , injectors, fittings. Erm inlet manifold, which is pretty cool, it's got some protective tape on it, but that's pretty rad billet Erm what else have we got? We've got this thing OMG it's so heavy, Exhaust manifold (Hoses, Piping) So many bits required to make a car go this fast, so many Can you just buy a car that goes this fast Martin? I guess you can buy a supercar can't you, you can buy a Mclaren For a lot of dollers, and a guess you'll get into the 10's, maybe with some of them That's mad, So good It's black, I like it when they're black Martin Because there's just something about them, that makes them good Look at it Martin, Look at it go (Pretending to play the Harp) That sounds like fast, that's what that sounds like. Sounds like (Harp sound effects), sounds amazing.
With the clock ticking we've got our fuel system to make, engine mounts to fabricate and a whole lot more So it's all hands on deck We lost our fuel tank when we cut up the rear of the car to make room for our massive tyres So now we're replacing it with an aluminum fuel cell that will keep the supply going, even under high G-forces, and it's safe for ethanol. Now that everything is measured and we know it fits The engine can come out so we can finish the mounts and fit our transmission blanket Which is basically like a bulletproof vest, so that if, and when this explodes, things don't just cut through the floor of the car and cut our legs off. So we have ourselves a mad strong turbo 400 transmission We also need a way to shift gears, the old Toyota one's not going to do the job for a couple of reasons This uses a linkage which is not going to work, but also importantly it's got a 'D', which means you can put it in drive and drive around and it'll change gears for you Our transmission is still an auto, but it's a manualised auto, meaning we need a shifter This aftermarket shifter, we'll put it in there, install it with a cable. Then that means you've got to select gears Actually each time you want to change gear you've got to choose it with this thing.
No more drive mode, but lots of power. We're using a GFB pressure regulator for our fuel system, and four inch stainless steel tube for our dump pipe. Al is leaving it to us to weld it together, while he rewires the factory harness to work with our Haltech Elite 2500t, that will run the whole show We're running the shift cable for our automatic transmission out through the floor, re-assembling our interior And then starting work on mounting up our black front mount Meanwhile Pauly's back to help us install our nine inch rear diff, driveshafts and brakes With the lower mounting tabs relocated, our Nissan radiator slots perfectly into the nose of our Cresta And we're using some second hand fans from a Subaru to keep it all cool Next up, our plush 80's spec seats can get installed back in the car When we're on the street, and importantly when we're on the dyno we've got ourselves these Potenza RE003 tyres, which we've fit onto our mad 15 inch wheels But when we're on the drag strip, we've got these dedicated drag radials, these are 295 wide and super soft, which is going to help us get that ridiculous power to the ground Going fast is one thing, but we also need to stop Which is why we're installing a performance braking system that is designed for high speed With that done we can move onto the cooling The worlds collide as we install fans from a Subaru, on a Nissan radiator, to cool our Ford engine, inside our Toyota. Once that's done we'll be able to plumb up and install our front mount intercooler The car is really starting to come together The rear and the inside are just about done, and now we have to sort out the intercooler You can't buy a piping kit for this setup, so we need to make our own out of aluminum bends.
We're going to rotate the front cover of our turbo to get a better angle for the piping In just one day Al has made a full custom wiring loom, which is now ready to be fit up to the engine So the next part of our puzzle has just arrived from Oklahoma In the United States of America Apparently a lot of fast cars from there I've heard that Martin, what kind of fast cars do they have? Fast drag cars Really? Yeah, there's a bit of a scene there from what i've heard Martin what's in here might actually let us almost finish our build Deatschwerks have sent us over a bunch of fuel system parts, including some 1500cc top feed injectors These will slot directly into our intake manifold, to supply our engine with all the ethanol it needs to make big power Our Aeroflow fuel tank comes with a built in hanger to fit three of the DW 350IL fuel pumps And with some AN fittings it can all be plumed into the fuel lines that Benny has made with some basic hand tools So our 80's spec gauges are not going to be good enough when we're flying down the drag strip So we've got a dash that will communicate directly with the ECU. So anything that we need to know that's important, speed, revs, voltage, positions, sensors, warnings all that kind of stuff We can programme into this, which is really important when you're going that fast Because you don't have time to be staring down at your dash You just want it to light at you, and glow in your face and tell you that you're doing awesome quarter miles We're making some serious progress, turbo yoda has finished the wiring loom And our mad intake manifold can go on for the last time This means we can plug our injectors, take off the protective tape And work on plumbing the s14 silvia radiator to suit our engine Next up we're installing our fuel, oil and vacuum hoses, that are custom made out of braided hose One of the final pieces of the puzzle, a custom made one piece three inch tailshaft, to go from our mad auto into our mad diff This goes in the car and we're almost ready to go We're running this car on e85, which means we can add more boost, and extract more power from our engine than we'd be able to with regular unleaded petrol And with that, the bonnet on and all we need now is an exhaust system, and then see if we can get it to start So it was a very long push to get our car all the way down here to Castle Hill Performance But now it's an exciting day because it's time to do an exhaust Now there was talk of just going straight out the bonnet, but we've done that before There was talk of going out the side, but we've done that before So we're actually just going to do a straight pipe straight out the back, it's going to go from four inch down to three inch, and just straight out the back Exactly right, we've also got to fix our screamer pipe We've got our big external wastegate currently that's just going to be shooting exhaust on the lines which we don't want So we're going to run a little bit of pipe that gets it out, and under the car And then once the exhaust is on we can actually plug a laptop in, press some buttons, turn the key and see if it starts. Which would be a bonus. The exhaust system is done.
So now we can plug in a laptop, tell the computer it's running a Barra engine and then turn the key (Car Starts) Our car is loud and it's obnoxious Now it's time to throw it on the dyno and see just how much power this thing will make with a proper tune Dale it's been a busy couple of days to get this thing ready, what do you reckon? Mate, I reckon this is the best thing you've have ever done This is cool, yeah, odd looking car that you never see and it's got that Barra in it Can you give us any tips or pointers for new players? As far as making this thing go down the quarter fast It'll be quick, I think you're underestimating how fast it's going to be We're aiming for 10's Yeah that's not going to be a problem Not going to be a problem? Nah Lets see what it does So this is it, the moment we've all been waiting for We're doing some light load runs to make sure everything is working and the car isn't leaking anything With that done successfully, what's coming next is the big one A full throttle, foot to the floor power run that simulates exactly what this car will be doing on a drag strip We've made 600 horsepower at the wheels Which is more than six times what this car originally shipped with So now it's time to see if this car truly is a 10 second Cresta And that means getting from the start of this drag strip to the end, 402 metres away in 10 seconds Oh I'm nervous So am I. We're staged up Martin. This is it mate, you know what you're doing? You turning it down or up? Up HOLY SHIT. OMG OMG HOLY SHIT.
That's unbelievable Dude that's on like, second lowest, third lowest setting How do you feel? Good, but I did get scared Yeah? You backed off near the end didn't you? A little bit, yeah We've made our way down the drag strip in one piece, so now it's time for another run Cresta time, here we go Nice dude, you've got this Alright, staging up In the JDM Cresta Sleeper There we go, here we go, let's do this Martin Alright Yes, Yes Yeah dude YEAH! We're going so fast That was good That was so awesome We've done an 11.6 Which is faster than we've ever been before That's fast man While we've been busy testing our Cresta, a new battle is looming With another car wanting to challenge us down the drag strip This is a modified Chevrolet Camaro, also known as Bumblebee And it's come here, to win. Alright so here I am in a Bumblebee style Camaro, and it's myself here vs Martin in our Cresta Deep breaths, deep breaths But we're on the same team this time kinda I'm good to go I brought my Transformers toy from when I was a kid, this is like legit 1980's good luck Transformers charm. Look at this. And I've brought my 1980's car, it was around when Transformers was a year old And it's going to be my little good luck thing today.
So lets do this people, let's have a race, let's have a good time, and have a bit of fun. Alright here we go, doing a skid (Laughing) That felt really good I am staging up Lining up Bumblebee, it is a perfect day for drag racing. Both lights are on, this is it people. Oh he's gone, OMG!, He's gone We are flying, I'm going to pull the chute I'm slowing down Absolutely smoked by the Cresta What I think is frightening is i'm pretty sure this car has got more in it too But that Camaro, just got chopped And we've done it, we've got a 10.6 10.6! Incidentally you get kicked out of the dragway at 10.5 0.1 Of a second too slow Wow, we have ourselves a 10 second car, that's amazing Any faster than this and we will get kicked out, but can our Cresta actually go any faster? There's only one way to find out We've done a 9.979, Faster than we ever thought possible.
And all this started with a $2000 Toyota Cresta in Japan, and a bunch of mates..
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