We have been working hard on two new Frasers recently which has been really cool to get in to, doing what we do best!
Wayne’s Fraser Clubman S is now very close to completion. It’s Honda powerplant has been dyno’d up and made a healthy 216hp at the rear wheels and from the initial test drives, it definitely packs a punch – the kick from the VTEC at 4900rpm is quite brutal! Scotty the trimmer has done an amazing job on it as usual with the Martini livery carried through to the interior with a red feature stripe between the seats and Martini stitching up the centre of the seat panels. It passed it final LVVTA inspection last Friday and we are awaiting notification that it has been made active so we can drop it off for its compliance inspection and get its number plates issued. A few more decent road tests to iron out any squeak, leaks or rattles and then we can hand over the keys to Wayne which is always a great day!
David’s Fraser Clubman S has arrived back from the painters and is looking loud as hell! It is a yellow/orange/mango Toyota colour and now that the parts are going back on and it is coming together, it is really starting to look fantastic! We have set up the ECU, digital dash and fired it up for the first time so we know everything is working as it should, while the trim will start to come together over the next month or so. Then after dyno tuning it will be ready for the LV inspections and eventually ship the car back down to Christchurch where it will live.
On other non Fraser work, Peter’s KE25 Corolla is all finished and road legal. It is sitting quietly under a cover while boring things like insurance are sorted out. We will be handing the car over after easter and look forward to seeing this car out and about. This has been an epic project for Fraser Cars, it turned up as a simple engine swap, but before long I recieved a phone call from Peter with the words “lets just do this properly”. This changed the direction of the whole job and it wasn’t long before a full dry build was underway.
A Toyota 4AGE 16V mated to a T50 was fitted to the engine bay, a wilwood pedal box was fitted under the standard dash, a Ford Escort diff was shortened and filled up with floating axles, a Quaife LSD and new ratio kit. The suspension we chose for this car is for a Toyota AE86, made by Fortune Auto and modified to work with the smaller uprights use in this model. Wilwood brakes were spec’d and fitted and a nice set of 15 inch gold mesh wheels supplied by Performance wheels covered in Dunlop rubber fill the wheel arches. A custom exhaust system, cooling system and catch cans were fabricated and mounted, then the whole car was stripped to a bare chassis.
The 50 year old sound deadening was removed using dry ice, then it was sent off to be sandblasted… what came back was… holey! Extensive rust riddled the underbody, the middle body and all other parts of the body! Peter was not deterred and he repeated the phrase “lets just do this properly.” So the car was mounted to a rotisserie and hour after hour of rust repair work began. Once completed, the chassis went off to our favourite painter, Tony at Full Spectrum Auto Refinish, for a beautiful gun metal grey paint job. Then the fun bit, bolting all the shiny bits back on to the clean chassis.
Once the car was back together, we fitted Jenvey Heritage throttle bodies to the side of the motor, plumbed it and wired it, then sent it off to the dyno for tuning. It made a bout 120hp at the wheels which is about what we would expect from the standard 4AGE with rally spec cams in it. It may not sound like much but it is the perfect amount of power for a light simple little road car like this.
It is an absolute honey to drive! the throttle bodies look and sound just like a set of Weber sidedraughts and it just wants to get up and go! We are super proud of this car and are really thankful that Peter chose us to realise his dream. We plan to put this car in car shows and hopefully some magazine articles will follow so we can show off the amazing jobs the guys have done.
