Well, I don't have any pictures, and I don't really update this thread regularly enough, but a few of my friends follow this, so what the hell!
Between now and the last post, I spent at least a solid month of fighting my external oil cooler setup to get it to a state where it won't leak. I ended up having to completely replace all of my lines and fittings with Aeroquip socketless fittings, and it's finally reliably leak-free. The oil cooler is beefy, and the "grab the hose and feel how hot it is" test passes with flying colors. An oil temperature gauge may be in order, but isn't at the tippy-top of my priority list, though it may be nice before the car hits the track next summer. Also, the fuel pump decided to give up the ghost, so it fast-tracked the installation of the Aeromotive 340 I had already purchased. The pump I removed was a generic Chinese replacement. What a surprise. Big shout-out to Steve (toyotanos) for helping install the new pump!
The charcoal canister solution was done - in European Supras, in place of a charcoal canister, they just have a vent off the tank with a valve that allows for just the right amount of pressure to be vented off. I purchased one of those valves, and problem solved!
Transmission leak was fixed. The rear seal included in the DM rebuild kit was awful, and I also replaced the gasket around the top of the shifter housing with an OEM Toyota unit. If I were to do it again, I would purchase all of the bearings and seals from Toyota instead of the bag of cheap Chinese parts the DM kit includes. Live and learn.
My AEM analog gauges (boost and wideband O2) are junk. They're slow to update, and take just long enough to "boot up" when first starting the car to drive me a bit crazy. Having a laggy wideband O2 gauge is really bad; not knowing your exact AFRs in an instant is never a good thing, so I'm looking into new gauge options. Finding some way to roll wideband, boost, and oil temp into my two gauge spots would be ideal, so I'm researching and weighing my options.
Just before storage (the first weekend in October), I took the car to a local Autocross event. It was cold, around 40-45 degrees, and driving was "dicey" to say the least. The tires (Kumho Ecsta LE Sports) felt like hockey pucks, and were totally overwhelmed by the power of the car. I placed horribly, but had a good time driving the car sideways and finally getting to use it again after such a long wait.
The car is now (and has been) in winter storage since October. I brought it somewhere to get it detailed, measured the paint, and found that the paint on the front fenders, hood, and bumper is all so thin that it can't be buffed. It still looks pretty good, but I'm not sure if the perfectionist in me will want to have the front clip repainted and made to nicely match the rest of the car. The driver's front fender is aftermarket as well, which drives me nuts. We'll see how much it bugs me this coming summer.
So now comes plans for the next summer/this winter. It's sort of a revised list of what I posted earlier, and they're my "top 5 concerns".
1. If you notice the threads I've been starting recently, I'm looking into new suspension. The Tokico/Eibach combo is definitely not my cup of tea. The Tokicos feel dramatically "underdamped" in the front, and the car just feels too poorly planted. When autocrossing, it felt like there was a lot of body movement dancing around on top of the suspension. I'm going to get a set of coilovers, but which ones is still subject to debate. Reasonable candidates are Zeal Function Xs, Tein Flex, Ground Control sleeves + Koni struts, and HKS Hipermax II. There's currently a frontrunner, but more on that later.
2. Cruise control still isn't working. It's relatively straightforward, but my personality doesn't work well with custom solutions. Hopefully something can happen in that department.
3. A/C still needs to be recharged. The system should be ready to accept refrigerant, but I don't have the tools or skills to do it myself.
4. The turbo burns oil. I keep waffling between various options, and I'm not sure what route to take. Even though I may eventually go for more power and bigger things, I really don't want to have to dive in right away with a bigger turbo/injectors/standalone/etc. all at once. A stock rebuild would be ideal, but I don't want to get another ceramic exhaust wheel. More research is required.
5. The IC piping is pretty crummy. Ideally, I'd like to get a full IC & piping setup made, and I don't want to make/fab something myself. I'll just open up my wallet to get something done for me when the time is right!
