My Toyota Corolla GT (AE86)
Discussion
Hi everyone,
Thought I'd finally stop being a lurker and sign up.
Pictures below are of my AE86 which I bought in Jan '04 and have now finally driven (once, as I broke it). I'm using the car for drifting this year and have been involved in drifting since day one in UK. I was organising practice days as far back as 2001 and won the D1 Championship in 2002. Not done a lot since then except test drive for Renaultsport/Racecar.com and done a few of the Gold Track days in various old sheds that I've owned throughout the years.
The Corolla is almost done now but still needs a bit of work. The 4AG engine was thrown in the bin and a 2 Litre Vauxhall XE on throttle bodies was put in its place. This particular engine is a bit lathargic and is only making 174bhp at the fly, but once money allows I will be giving it a bit more poke, prob around 220bhp mark. Enjoy the pics. I have videos too which I'll dig out for your viewing pleasure
I'm fully clothed in them all so don't worry!
Started off like this. Unmolested completely stock Japanese import
Then I started doing silly things to it...
Like fitting a Vauxhall engine
Then BTB made me a lovely roll cage
Then I made a Blue Peter style cardboard template...
and BTB made it into this
Then they made lots more bars to stop me from dying for when I inveitably roll it
Then I took it to my friend Wayne at M.W. Bodyshop in Olney and he did this to it
Then I got it home and put it all back together
After that I used it a bit in a drift competition and finished 3rd due to retirement. Since then it's been parked up while I save money to put an Atlas axle in it.
That's about the long and short of it. Bit depressing to shorten the long time it's taken into this post but hey ho. I'm now sponsored by BTB Exhausts (Rollcage, manifold and system), Racecar.com (Racing suit, replacement engine, man love from Ross) Angel Works Technologies (Just made me a lovely wiring loom).
Pictured here with some of my sponsors logos in the workshops of Angel Works
I'm hoping to have the axle fixed in time for the Gold Track day on Feb 17th at Silverstone so hope to see you all there.
Thanks for reading
James
Thought I'd finally stop being a lurker and sign up.
Pictures below are of my AE86 which I bought in Jan '04 and have now finally driven (once, as I broke it). I'm using the car for drifting this year and have been involved in drifting since day one in UK. I was organising practice days as far back as 2001 and won the D1 Championship in 2002. Not done a lot since then except test drive for Renaultsport/Racecar.com and done a few of the Gold Track days in various old sheds that I've owned throughout the years.
The Corolla is almost done now but still needs a bit of work. The 4AG engine was thrown in the bin and a 2 Litre Vauxhall XE on throttle bodies was put in its place. This particular engine is a bit lathargic and is only making 174bhp at the fly, but once money allows I will be giving it a bit more poke, prob around 220bhp mark. Enjoy the pics. I have videos too which I'll dig out for your viewing pleasure
I'm fully clothed in them all so don't worry! Started off like this. Unmolested completely stock Japanese import
Then I started doing silly things to it...
Like fitting a Vauxhall engine
Then BTB made me a lovely roll cage
Then I made a Blue Peter style cardboard template...
and BTB made it into this
Then they made lots more bars to stop me from dying for when I inveitably roll it
Then I took it to my friend Wayne at M.W. Bodyshop in Olney and he did this to it
Then I got it home and put it all back together
After that I used it a bit in a drift competition and finished 3rd due to retirement. Since then it's been parked up while I save money to put an Atlas axle in it.
That's about the long and short of it. Bit depressing to shorten the long time it's taken into this post but hey ho. I'm now sponsored by BTB Exhausts (Rollcage, manifold and system), Racecar.com (Racing suit, replacement engine, man love from Ross) Angel Works Technologies (Just made me a lovely wiring loom).
Pictured here with some of my sponsors logos in the workshops of Angel Works
I'm hoping to have the axle fixed in time for the Gold Track day on Feb 17th at Silverstone so hope to see you all there.
Thanks for reading
James
Just one question, why did you opt for the Vauxhall engine? Is there a particular reason not going for a jap engine again? 
Hi all,
You can get one imported through Japaneseusedcars.com but they're like Mk. 2 Escorts in Japan. Cult status and even standard ones are going for £4k plus so expect to pay £5k landed. I was lucky with mine as it was only 400,000 Yen which is a good price.
The decision to go for a Euro engine was simple really. To get any parts for the Toyota engine is expensive and takes 6 weeks shipping from Japan. For the XE almost anything is next day from SBD or QED. And with the 4AG engine to get 200+ bhp is going to cost a bomb where as the torquey XE doesn't cost much at all to get to 220+ bhp
Thanks for the comments. Should be getting the car back at the weekend. Really tempted to get it MOT'd and use it on the road
You can get one imported through Japaneseusedcars.com but they're like Mk. 2 Escorts in Japan. Cult status and even standard ones are going for £4k plus so expect to pay £5k landed. I was lucky with mine as it was only 400,000 Yen which is a good price.
The decision to go for a Euro engine was simple really. To get any parts for the Toyota engine is expensive and takes 6 weeks shipping from Japan. For the XE almost anything is next day from SBD or QED. And with the 4AG engine to get 200+ bhp is going to cost a bomb where as the torquey XE doesn't cost much at all to get to 220+ bhp
Thanks for the comments. Should be getting the car back at the weekend. Really tempted to get it MOT'd and use it on the road
Driftaholic said:
Hi all,
You can get one imported through Japaneseusedcars.com but they're like Mk. 2 Escorts in Japan. Cult status and even standard ones are going for £4k plus so expect to pay £5k landed. I was lucky with mine as it was only 400,000 Yen which is a good price.
The decision to go for a Euro engine was simple really. To get any parts for the Toyota engine is expensive and takes 6 weeks shipping from Japan. For the XE almost anything is next day from SBD or QED. And with the 4AG engine to get 200+ bhp is going to cost a bomb where as the torquey XE doesn't cost much at all to get to 220+ bhp
Thanks for the comments. Should be getting the car back at the weekend. Really tempted to get it MOT'd and use it on the road
You can get one imported through Japaneseusedcars.com but they're like Mk. 2 Escorts in Japan. Cult status and even standard ones are going for £4k plus so expect to pay £5k landed. I was lucky with mine as it was only 400,000 Yen which is a good price.
The decision to go for a Euro engine was simple really. To get any parts for the Toyota engine is expensive and takes 6 weeks shipping from Japan. For the XE almost anything is next day from SBD or QED. And with the 4AG engine to get 200+ bhp is going to cost a bomb where as the torquey XE doesn't cost much at all to get to 220+ bhp
Thanks for the comments. Should be getting the car back at the weekend. Really tempted to get it MOT'd and use it on the road
Ah, I allready thought it had something to do with spare parts. Thanks for the answers!
Grtz
Erik
negative creep said:
although drifting doesn't float my boat, that is still a very cool car
Here's a video of the car drifting. It's all quite slow stuff but its all good fun
www.youtube.com/watch?v=DO_0YCkd9ow
Quite possibly. I am trying to get the go-ahead from my local airfield. They used to be fine about it but recently some idiot banker from London moved into the village THEN started complaining about noise issues. Erm...why move next door to an operational airfield if you can't deal with a bit of noise. I will keep you all informed. Will be small numbers of cars, maybe 10 maximum. Less than £100 each for the full day.
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