Most street beaters don’t require you to yank the engine out on a regular basis. You plonk it into the engine bay, hope the first fire goes well, and you drive until unhappy noises return or it’s time to sell the car off for something new. The life of a dedicated race car, on the other hand, doesn’t go like that. Generally, you need to get inside to the rotating assemblies and you need to get eyes on everything. You might be alright, or you might find something that hadn’t made itself known obviously yet. Nobody wants to let the engine inform them that there is a problem…that usually means that you can inspect the problem with a flashlight through the fresh hole in the side of the block. Since that is never a good day, going through the process of engine removal, teardown, inspection and rebuild becomes more than just a cleanup job…it’s preventative maintenance, and a necessary bit at that.

If you are a Drag Week fan or are familiar with the works of Mighty Car Mods, then you know about this particular car. This is the 1987 Toyota Cresta that was built on Mighty Car Mods’ channel and came over to run Drag Week. The Cresta, which is now owned by Ben “Mechanical Stig” Neal, has had quite a journey and many a timeslip over the last couple of years mostly without incident. The turbo Barra and the TH400 automatic have held up tremendously well. But with the car back in Australia, it’s time to yank the Barra out and see just how much wear and tear is present on the transplanted engine. Hit play and follow along to check out what kind of issues can crop up in an otherwise perfectly functional street/strip car!