Project Crown: The Cycle

05 October 2023

Since its purchase in February 2023, Project Crown has been my favourite car I've owned. To me, it looks amazing, it's comfortable, it's quick, and it's practical. That's why it is so amazing, but also why I'm looking to move on. I feel as though everything I can do to it in my price range has been done, and therefore I've started to lose interest in it. 

To get it ready for its sale, Project Crown got another round of love. First up, finishing the roof rail delete. Ever since it was done, the black bits on the silver roof didn't look the sharpest. 

To fix this, I pulled some Silver Metallic out of the garage, masked the roof off, and painted the pieces needing paint. 

This simple change has made Project Crown 10 times cleaner. Next up, fixing the loss in throttle response when it is cold. I uploaded my issues on JXZ Mechanical Australia, and my top responses were to: change the MAF sensor and cleaning it may not fix it or to change the coil-packs, spark plugs, and ignition leads. Since my dad has an Aristo with the same coil-packs which I could swap out, I decided to change the ignition system first. Being almost certain that the ignition system was the issue, I ordered some NGK ignition leads in Japan, and bought some NGK BKR6EK spark plugs locally. Right before I was about to order some Mature Highspark coil-packs, I decided I'd swap the Aristo coil-packs on first. 

I was lucky I did that because it saved me heaps of money. After installing the spark plugs and coil-packs, my issues remained. 

So if it isn't the ignition system, I thought I knew it would be the MAF sensor, so I did some research and found that the Subaru WRX GDB MAF bolts straight on, is cheaper than the Toyota alternative, and is more reliable than the Toyota one as well.

After the MAF sensor and the ignition leads arrived, I quickly installed everything and confidently started the car, just to be disappointed that the issue remained. 

After doing a bit more research, I found that even though I tested the VVTi solenoid, I didn't bother to clean the VVTi solenoid filter. After pulling the filter out, I found it to be filthy and blocked with little speckles. 

I got some Brake Cleaner and sprayed more than half the bottle at it until all the speckles were gone and the filter was all free and breathable. 

While letting it dry, I thought it wouldn't hurt to take the VVTi solenoid itself off and clean it as well, especially since it's only held on by a single bolt.

For this, I sprayed it down with MAF cleaner.

I disconnected the battery so that it could reset, and let everything air-dry. After a couple of hours, I reassembled everything, and once again, hoping that my issue would disappear, I went to start the car. Luckily, it started up perfectly and drove mint. Finally, the end of my issues! In saying that, even though it's completely drivable now, even when it is not warmed up, the car does feel a bit laggy on its feet for the first wee bit of the drive until the engine is at running temperature. I was told this is completely normal for JZS171/JZX110 though due to the design of the electric throttle body. Lastly, I removed the HKS earthing kit and the Blitz 1.3-bar radiator cap so that it the engine bay is all stock and ready for the sale.

Now that it's all fixed and ready, it's been listed for sale. I'm fairly certain about what I want to get, but we'll have to see whether I get a good price for Project Crown.