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There are a lot of things that can motivate or kill that motivation when it comes to doing a big car project.  This 20v swap in my ae86 has proven to be a rollercoaster of that.  Starting out with really strong motivation and drive to get my swap going, followed by a dry spell, back to motivation.

As of the last couple weeks, I hit a wall with my swap.  The engine was in the chasis and was awaiting all the little things.  But I simply just did not have any motivation to get it finished.  I KNEW it was just a bunch of small things that were left to do…but I just couldn’t get myself to do it.  My motivation was lacking.  There were nights where Joseph was going to come over and help me finish the swap, but I told him I was too tired after work to do anything. Continue reading →

motor is in!

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So on my day off this past wednesday… I ran around picking up little parts I knew that I’d need to finish my motor.  Sadly, I got called in to work around 5pm :[  Story of my life.

I worked a few hours and Joseph came to the shop and grabbed some sushi.  Once business died down, I was free to go and it was homeward bound to drop my motor in!

After some Dreyer’s Dibs ice cream that joseph picked up from the gas station, it was time to get going on the motor.

ready!

I had to be really careful with the engine, so I don’t scratch the paint on the bay.  But as careful as I was, once it was secure in the mounts, the engine leaned backwards and my fuel return barb gauged the back of the engine bay :[  Luckily it’s behind the engine, so it’s a bit more difficult to see.

After a couple tweaks here and there, I got the headers in just to see what it would look like!  (in case you’re wondering about the headers, I got them used from club4ag.  they’re old JSP Fab headers.  Made by Formula Drift driver John Russakoff.  I think he might have run them in his old 20v competition 86)

go pho it!

 

By this time it was like 2 or 3 in the morning.  Joseph and I decided to call it a night.  He had to get up early for work and we were hungry as heck.  So we went inside the house, nommed on some eggrolls leftover from work — which wasn’t enough so I made some spring rolls to fill our bellies.

All that’s left to get the motor running is hooking up the radiator/oil cooler, finishing wiring up my coil on plugs, tucking the harness, then brake/clutch lines.  Almost there!  Everything that’s left is just super tedious.

in all its glory

 

long awaited update…

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So, if you’ve been following me on Instagram, you might be caught up on my swap.  If you want to — follow me @thaisonnguyen.

I started this about a month ago and REALLY wanted to do a clean swap.  My inspiration?  The Car Peace ae86 from the Hellaflush meet in Japan late last year:

car peace ae86 engine bay

car peace ae86 engine bay

The first thing was to pull the motor — thanks a bunch to Joseph Dann for helping me so much with the swap.

joseph d, mounting the 16v

Soon enough we got it all removed and it was time to start removing everything and prepping the engine bay… Continue reading →

CCM13 Part 2

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To our readers I need to apologize. I know myself have been extremely busy with many things in life. To inform you all I just recently purchased a 2012 Honda CBR250r to commute to school and work. In addition I’ve been spending lots of time at work and school and yes….. playing Diablo 3. For neglecting you all I sincerely apologize and am making  a promise today to create more frequent updates!

But back to the cool stuff. I finally am ready to show you all the second installment to our CCM13 OKC adventure!

Continue reading →

After much anticipation, I present CCM13 part 1

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Sorry for the long wait guys and gals, I had a final I was studying for on top of being busy with all of the end of the semester things. So here it is. I want to break this up into at least a two part ordeal since we have TONS of photos. My apologies for things not being edited, but I don’t want to make you all wait anymore. If you use/take any of these photos please tag us, and give us credit! Thanks!!

So for the journey we all decided to meet up at my place in Round Rock the Friday before. To my surprise Thaison had gotten in the stickers which we thought weren’t going to make it in time. Since they did we slapped them on before rolling out. This was my favorite picture which just happened to be on Cody’s sweet wagon. Don’t you just love the sparkles?

Continue reading →

too many projects…

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I get people telling me “You have too many projects” alllll the time.  A lot of the people tell me to sell my other cars and just focus on ONE.  And I tell them — no fuckin’ way.  I can’t sell any of my cars.  And if I did, it’d only be to people I know and trust — that way I can still see my car, help build it, and get to drive it!

too many or not enough? i say…not enough

While I’m getting my blacktop swap together for the 86, I’ve been looking up parts for the ae71.  I’m gonna start transferring over my old (stock) ae86 parts onto the ae71 — yay the benefits of having the same chasis!  I also just ordered a bunch of parts from Malaysia.  Why Malaysia you ask?  Because in the southeastern Asia, people LOVE their Corollas!  Especially the older ones.  And because of that, there’s a huge market for Corolla parts.  For craaaazy cheap, since they’re OEM reproduction parts!  So I’m talking like $100 chrome bumpers, rather than $300 OEM JDM chrome bumpers.  And like $30 tail lights.  Crazy cheap.  Hit up Kay Parts for your OEM ke/te/ae70 parts.  He also has a bunch of oldschool JDM wheels and access to other old Japanese parts! EDIT: DO NOT PURCHASE FROM KAY PARTS.  I ORDERED MY PARTS MAY 2ND, IT’S NOW SEPT 5TH AND NO PARTS, NO EMAILS, NO COMMUNICATION FROM KAY PARTS.

E7 Slant Front

E7 flat front

So I’m essentially converting my ae71 to a “GL” model.  What’s a GL model you ask?  It’s the “last” trim model of the E7 Corolla generation.  They look a lot like ae86 Levin Sedans is the way I like to think about it.  They made them in flat fronts and slanted fronts.  Unfortunately, stateside we never got these cool GL models.  But they did in Austrailia, New Zealand, Japan, etc.

The “slant fronts” are commonly known as the ugly ducklings of the E7’s, however I think they’re quire nice looking when set up properly.

So coming soon, will be my slammed ae71 with chrome bumpers and GL flat front conversion.

blacktop swap progress

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So the blacktop swap into the 86 is about to go full swing.  I’m waiting on a couple parts to come in from the mail!

I found a deal on a harness that I could NOT pass up.  So I ended up buying this harness from a gentleman on club4ag, rather than rewire the aw11 harness that currently is on the engine — I’m just gonna sell that harness instead.

I’m also waiting on some exhaust parts — a jsp header and a buddy club spec ii to be exact.  Meaning, this car is going to make babies cry and your ears bleed from exhaust tones.  So my set up will be 110 mm velocity stacks, jsp headers, straight pipe, buddy club spec ii.

jsp header

My parts should all be here tomorrow!  I’m excited to get started on this swap.  Should make for a completely different car

peanut is alive and kickin!

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So, sometime towards the end of last year, I parked the peanut and put it on jack stands and removed the front brakes (because they were the 86’s brakes).  The torque converter was going out (yes, it’s an automatic).  I could only use 1st gear out of the 2 gears this transmission has.

after one hour of ownership

You may be asking, “Thaison, your peanut has a 2 speed automatic????”  Yes…oldschool technology.  I’m pretty sure this car was marketed to be sold to people driving around in the city.  But regardless, the gears are super long.  1st gear can take me almost to 50 mph!  haha, I have no idea what RPM’s it’s running at though — there’s only a speedometer.  I parked it because, I was working out in Lakeway, so that was about a 30 minute drive through the hill country.  Sooo….needless to say, the peanut couldn’t get enough speed for the hills because the gears were slipping.  So it sat in the driveway.

lowered the car and the wheels were too wide -- open wheel it is!

As of recently, I’ve been getting the itch to drive it again.  I just get this feeling when I’m driving it that I don’t get with my other cars.  The chasis is super light (curb weight of 1,600 lbs).  It’s got a peppy little 2tc engine in it.  The 40-year old seats are SUPER broken in.  I added some asian-style “comfort beads” which are quite comfortable.  It wreaks of gasoline.  AND it sounds like a cammed big block.

made the trip all the way to houston for the nostalgic meet -- toyota reliability right there!

My little brother helped me bleed the brakes last night and after hooking up the car to be jumped and priming the ISH out of the carb, it started right up.  So today, I threw some wheels on it and drove it to work — I work closer to home now, so I don’t have to worry about too many hills.

MAN, did it feel good to be riding around in the peanut.  The brakes are still a little spongy, so I’m going to have to look into that again.  But other than that, it was amazing.  I’ve removed all the seats, so there’s only the driver now.  Half of the car, I’ve removed sound deadening.  So boy, it’s even lighter.

So now, I’ve sourced almost all the parts, I’m going to start the 5-spd conversion.  Using a T-50 from an ae86, a T-40 bell housing to match the 2tc block, ae86 clutch slave, custom drive shaft, and maybe a spec racing clutch.  And maybe a stock clutch master cylinder?  I read on speedhunters, where a guy used a wrx one — which leads me to think that maybe the te21, stock ones are hard to come by?  Who knows…. more research for now and updates to come soon!

So it begins

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So it begins…my blacktop 4age swap into the 86.

Just last week I finally got my engine on the stand to really start converting it from fwd to a rwd configuration. This means rerouting the water lines, etc. I decided to go with the sq engineering kit based out of Australia. He makes some really high quality parts for the 20v 4ag swaps.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with what a 20v 4age is — to put it short, it’s the newer revision of the 86’s original motor. Higher compression, stock individual throttle bodies, 5 valves per cylinder (as opposed to e stock 4 valves per cylinder.

Here’s my workspace:

20120329-023608.jpg

Tonight, I decided to start taking apart my harness. The motor and harness I picked up was being run in an aw11 mr2. So I need to rewire the harness to fit the ae86 chassis and also to mate up with the ae86 harness. Spent a couple hours on it and decided it was time to go to sleep. I’ve got a lottttttt of work ahead of me…

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track day — more to come!

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So this past Saturday, Branden and I went down to Harris Hill Road for the “Mazda Raceway Outlaw Autocross.”  Essentially, a higher speed autocross, where we got to run a section of Harris Hill Road with a couple slaloms down the side straight, back straight, and before the dam turn.

Here’s a look at the track:

A really fun, technical course with elevation changes.  There was a slalom between 3 & 4, 5 & 6, and 7 & 8.  Gridding was in the pit and the finish was right before turn 9.  Needless to say, it was a suuuuuper fun day.

More to come on this event soon!

tearing up the slaloms!

tearing up the slaloms!