Having finished the car in the Autumn of 2021, and with a photoshoot and a shakedown completed, I thought it was about time to do a retrospective build thread of my AE86 race/track/show car.
So here goes…(the back story first)
A few years ago, I had a pretty decent but relatively standard AE86 road car. It was a JDM car, black over white, it had the usual stripped out rear interior, a basic bolt in roll cage and some low suspension. Although in pretty strong shape and a solid little car, it was a long way from any sort of the competition car I wanted to build. The goal was a fun, useable, high-quality car with no real restrictions on any of the build details and parts used. This was going to take a lot of work to get it there.
Obviously cost would play a part, when does it not? But in my mind, spreading it over a time was the best way to create what I wanted to build.
Having grown up driving MK2 Escorts on farms and around fields, I really wanted to build an ‘anything goes’ Escort. But with so many amazing cars already out there, and with their popularity so high and so many crazy builds already complete, it would have been highly likely to have just gone down an already well-trodden path. An Escort was off the list.
In all honesty, my AE86 road car hardly got used. I opened the garage one day and the decision hit me square in the face. Build a cool Corolla.
Commence step 1 of the new build; decide on the main parts required, and source them!
Some years before, around 2008 in fact, I had already been involved with putting a Honda S2000 engine in a Mk2 Escort rally car, and instantly I knew that was the choice. With 9000rpm available as standard, a couple of ‘off the shelf’ throttle body kits to choose from, and complete engines still available at reasonable prices (this was around 2018), I just had to go for it.
Fast forward a few weeks and I pushed the button on the first of the big ticket items. A Honda F20C, complete with 6speed gearbox and all ancillaries including wiring harness, ECU, gear linkage, prop shaft flange and even some home made engine mounts, arrived on a pallet. I had found a very helpful seller who needed to take the Honda engine from his recently built race car and change to a Ford engine, as the regulations of the championship he was intending to compete in had changed.
Had I heard it running? No. Did I know the seller? No. Did I have any idea the engine would run, or even be delivered? Not really. Had I broken every rule in the ‘second hand car parts buyers guide’? Absolutely.
It would be some time before I had any idea if my money was well spent or not….!
At this point, I had already decided on one other thing. The car wouldn’t have a sequential gearbox, at least for now. I knew the Honda gearbox would be easy enough to fit in the car and be plenty strong enough as it was designed for that engine and by the Japanese. It would be fine.
It also saved a big chunk of money which I knew would be needed elsewhere pretty quickly, and the Honda ‘box wouldn’t need rebuilding every ten minutes. It was an easy decision.
So here goes…(the back story first)
A few years ago, I had a pretty decent but relatively standard AE86 road car. It was a JDM car, black over white, it had the usual stripped out rear interior, a basic bolt in roll cage and some low suspension. Although in pretty strong shape and a solid little car, it was a long way from any sort of the competition car I wanted to build. The goal was a fun, useable, high-quality car with no real restrictions on any of the build details and parts used. This was going to take a lot of work to get it there.
Obviously cost would play a part, when does it not? But in my mind, spreading it over a time was the best way to create what I wanted to build.
Having grown up driving MK2 Escorts on farms and around fields, I really wanted to build an ‘anything goes’ Escort. But with so many amazing cars already out there, and with their popularity so high and so many crazy builds already complete, it would have been highly likely to have just gone down an already well-trodden path. An Escort was off the list.
In all honesty, my AE86 road car hardly got used. I opened the garage one day and the decision hit me square in the face. Build a cool Corolla.
Commence step 1 of the new build; decide on the main parts required, and source them!
Some years before, around 2008 in fact, I had already been involved with putting a Honda S2000 engine in a Mk2 Escort rally car, and instantly I knew that was the choice. With 9000rpm available as standard, a couple of ‘off the shelf’ throttle body kits to choose from, and complete engines still available at reasonable prices (this was around 2018), I just had to go for it.
Fast forward a few weeks and I pushed the button on the first of the big ticket items. A Honda F20C, complete with 6speed gearbox and all ancillaries including wiring harness, ECU, gear linkage, prop shaft flange and even some home made engine mounts, arrived on a pallet. I had found a very helpful seller who needed to take the Honda engine from his recently built race car and change to a Ford engine, as the regulations of the championship he was intending to compete in had changed.
Had I heard it running? No. Did I know the seller? No. Did I have any idea the engine would run, or even be delivered? Not really. Had I broken every rule in the ‘second hand car parts buyers guide’? Absolutely.
It would be some time before I had any idea if my money was well spent or not….!
At this point, I had already decided on one other thing. The car wouldn’t have a sequential gearbox, at least for now. I knew the Honda gearbox would be easy enough to fit in the car and be plenty strong enough as it was designed for that engine and by the Japanese. It would be fine.
It also saved a big chunk of money which I knew would be needed elsewhere pretty quickly, and the Honda ‘box wouldn’t need rebuilding every ten minutes. It was an easy decision.
