Spec Racer Toyota by
Midwest Spec Racer, Inc.

Developed for the Aspen Racing & Sports Car Club

You can see from this first picture that we have not changed the outward appearance of the car.
This shot is of the first testing this spring at Hallett.

I have short video clips of the car at four different tracks. The original run is at Hallett where we are running an open exhaust. The next test is at Gateway International where we are still running the open exhaust. Notice the effortless pass on the Spec Racer Ford. The  Aspen demo car can be seen using the muffler shown below. Finally I have added the 88 car at Laguna Seca with the "Aspen muffler" which is the quietest of them all but still has a pleasant tone.

Here is a rear view of the car that is currently in
Aspen serving as a test vehicle for club members.

This top view shows the header I custom designed to give
optimum power utilizing equal length primary tubing and a tri-Y configuration. The tubing diameter steps up one notch at each Y to improve performance. I am having this part mass produced by DC Sports. You can also see the individual ignition coils attached to the top of each spark plug. This engine is the 1ZZFE from the 2004 Toyota Corolla and three other current US models. It was
first introduced in 2000 and is used in several Toyota models worldwide which makes it plentiful and available for years to come. The engine is a 1.8L twin cam 16 valve with variable
valve timing and full sequential electronic fuel injection.

This is a dyno report from one of our early test runs. The power displayed in this report is at the crankshaft.

This is the original prototype intake system installed into the left side pod where it can draw cool dry air. You will notice that we are bringing in the cool air into the front side of the motor and exiting the exhaust at the rear of the engine keeping under hood temperatures to a minimum.

This is a production version of the same intake system built by AEM.

All of the motor and transmission mounts are solid. This is the left upper transmission mount. Also notice the left forward upper control arm support structure has been replaced by a removable bracket that serves the same purpose. This enables you to remove the transaxle through the side of the frame without removing the engine.

This is another view of the upper control arm bracket. This picture has the upper control arm removed and one of the two transmission mount bolts is missing.

This is the rear lower transaxle mount. We are using the same inboard toe link bracket as before but it has been lowered slightly to maintain proper bump steer with the new suspension.

The front transaxle mount shares
one component with the rear mount.

The upper right engine mount uses a stock Toyota casting attached to a pedestal welded to the frame.

The parts in the lower picture are all that have to be removed to pull the engine out without taking off any transaxle mounts. Besides these parts you simply disconnect a few hoses and wiring master plugs. Most of the parts are from the front of the engine as you can see they are missing from the above picture.

This shot shows the engine lifted halfway out
without disturbing the transaxle.

The engine sensor and control harnesses are compact and use two quick connect plugs, one at the firewall and the other at the right upper motor mount. The only other wires going to the motor are in the area of the starter and alternator. Also included in this picture is the modular fuse and relay panel which is imbedded in the right cocpit panel for easy reach by the driver.

The fuel cell filler is similar to the Spec Racer Ford except
the fill hose has a metal insert to keep the hose from
kinking where it makes a sharp bend.

This is an inside the fuel cell view of the fuel pump assembly. We have chosen to use an in-cell arrangement for many reasons, cost, simplicity and reliability among them. The pump, pre-filter, main filter and the pressure regulator are all included in the white plastic housing which is a stock Toyota part. I developed a bracket that mounts this assembly to the fuel cell cover plate and positions the pickup screen in the proper place. The power wires pass through the cover plate in the same location as the abandoned hole from the SRF fuel return.

The engine management system is by AEM, it is fully programmable and has features like rev-limiter, gear specific shift light, traction control, and 512k of data logging to name a few. The engine mapping can be blocked out from access by hackers if desired.

The oil cooler and the optional Accu-Sump are located in the right side pod. Notice the easy access no mess location of the oil filter in front of the rear tire. A simple drink cooler sleeve will protect it from flying rocks. We are using the same oil cooler package as the SRF.

The drive shafts and drive spindles are custom built for this application by a company specializing in sports compact drag racing driveline parts.

The conversion uses the new style lower suspension package from the original car with the exception of the front lower control arm and clevis. The solid clevis is heat treated and is mounted between double shear plates for strength. This had to be changed to accommodate the different angle of the lower ball joint stud of the front spindle in the next picture. We also replaced the lower ball joint stud on all four corners to match up with the taper of the Toyota spindles.

This is our front spindle and brake from the 2004 Toyota MR2 Spyder. It incorporates some geometry changes which correct the ackerman angles as well as having the lower ball joint set forward to give a better center feel and turn in.

The picture above and below show the brakes and increased brake rotor size. The Toyota rotor is 10” diameter and ventilated pictured with the smaller Renault rotor. We use the same brake front and rear.

In order to accommodate the lower steering arm of the front spindle we have lowered the steering rack with a weld-in square tube spacer which increases the strength of the mount at this location since it is welded to the diagonal tube.

Another modification of the steering rack had to be made by fabricating an adapter which bolts to the end of the rack to lengthen it. We are able to adjust bump steer on all four corners of this car on the outboard end as well as the original inboard location.

Here are a few of the suspension pieces that were replaced including the rack extender, toe links, rear upper ball joint assembly and front upper ball joint bracket.

This is the rear upper ball joint using a 5/8” rod end sandwiched between two plates. Both the front and rear upper ball joint brackets have been designed as reversible to make it possible to achieve camber numbers from +2 degrees to -6 degrees. This range was desirable for the possibility of oval setups or maybe using “slick” tires.

Possibly the best feature of the car is the 5 speed close ratio transaxle from the 2004 Celica GTand accompanying shifter package. This is the stock Toyota shift console adapted to heavy duty truck shift cables.

These fabricated brackets adapt the custom cables to the transaxle in a similar fashion as the original Toyota system. We have adjusted the motion ratios to give a very tight and precise pattern never before seen in any Sports Renault or Spec Racer Ford.

These are the custom machined adapters that allow us to combine the truck cables to the rest of the shift package.

Here is the linkage installed on the transaxle.