Just a quick video, taking the 86 around the city. Still on the base tune, but sounds healthy. I haven’t heard any backfire or stutter in the motor. Seems like the motor pulls all the way to 7k. I don’t go up to 7k often. Since the motor is still fresh, and needs more miles to fully break in the motor.  No smoke coming out the exhaust and that is another good sign, things are going smoothly.

Stay tuned.

For the past month, I have been ocassionally driving the 86 on the base tune. Haven’t driven too far, only putting about 10 miles in each drive. Currently I have a small oil leak on the welds of the oil pan, and on my oil pressure sender. Not really a big deal, more happy she runs.

I did another oil change after 35 miles of driving and thankfully no metal particles. Oil still looked pretty clean. One of the perks having a AE86 is the maintenance items are a lot cheaper compared to my former M3.

I pulled the plugs to make everything is looking good, and all the cylinders seem to running good. Not too rich or not too lean. The only issue I have with the motor running, is the idling a bit high at 2100 rpm. Not sure how to fix it, but I think the ITBs needs to synced up.

After comfortably driving around, and having enough confidence the motor won’t blow up. I went ahead and tidy up the interior wiring. I made a wire harness for the RPM gauge, and reinstalled my stock cluster. The only thing that works in the cluster is the speedometer, and everything else isn’t connected because it is all controlled by the ecu.

I redid my fuse/rely panel set up to something I can easily access and wire up. For the future, if want to add extra gauges or sensors.

Next on the list is getting a more refined tune then the base map, and hopefully hit the tracks for the 2020 season!

Finally, the 4age Big Port motor is all freshen up. Now its time to put the new heart in.

First step in anything, is alway prepping. I double checked all the bolts where tight, no missing hoses or bolts. This is the best time to check because once its in the engine bay, space can be tight in certain areas.

Unfortunately none of my friends was available at the time, and put the motor in all by myself. How hard can it be?

With prior experience in pulling the motor out, I had a general idea on how to put it back.

The weather was sunny and fall like temperatures. Perfect for putting a motor in.

This was probably the hardest part, because the transmission had to be moved downward, while pushing the motor forward. Hard to do myself, but I was able to get it done. Pushing the car out the garage really allowed plenty of space for me to move around.

Almost there.

I always stopped every few inches, just to make sure the motor and tranny wasn’t snagging on wires or resting on something it wasn’t supposed to rest on.

I don’t know if it was luck, but the motor mount slid right in. Like a glove!!

Thankfully no issues! Toyota knew what they where doing when they built this car.

Next was just plug all the connectors in, fill up the fluids, and prime the oil pump!

The 4AGE and the AE86 is a combo thats a match made in heaven. Even looks better with ITBS.

For the initial first start up, I you want to use conventional oil because synthetic is too good at lubrication for the piston rings to set properly in. This is rebuild so it has a new bearings and rings. If this was a used, unrefreshed motor, then I would have done synthetic. Once the piston rings are properly set in, then I will switch to synthetic.

Last piece to the puzzle, a brand new OEM overflow tank.

Again I made sure no loose parts, all the bolts are in the correct place. I double check to make the timing is aligned right, and made sure no oil leaks in the motor.

She started right up!!!! Im really glad of this moment. I just want to thank my friends for helping me out and motivating me to finish this car. Im almost there, next is to break in the rebuilt motor.

Stay tuned.