Sloth

What engine do you have in there at the moment? I'm assuming probably a 4AC. Stock the 86s are a relatively capable and fun car, but if you want to take it on the track you are probably looking at something a little more powerful than the 4AC. For a bit of info on the engines, wikipedia isn't a bad place to start http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_A_engine for a bit of info on the different A engines available. Like any car the sky is really the limit with engine choices (depending on your budget, what you want out of it, how much you can do yourself and how easy you want it to be to register/make legal). You can go anywhere from a 16v 4AG to a 20v 4AGE to a 1J, CA, SR or something crazy (like a v8). I'm in a similar boat (wanted a street car that I could drive every day, but still take to the track) so I was tossing up between a 4AGZE and a 20v 4AGE and ended up going with the 20v Silvertop (as it would give me reasonable power without any hassles of forced induction, but had room for some aftermarket mods etc if I got the power bug). At the moment I have the Silvertop, FTO seats, Pedders "sports" shocks and it's lowered a little and it's plenty fun to drive. If you are new to modifying cars I'll warn you that they end up sucking a lot out of your wallet (and even if you've done it before watch out as most people with 86s get the bug and sink a lot of money into their cars). You mentioned that you had an idea about what you were after, what did you have in mind (anything apart from a rebuilt carby engine and coilovers)? Do you already have the car or are you looking at purchasing it (there was a recent thread on here talking about purchasing 86s that might be worth a quick glance http://www.rollaclub.com/board/index.php?showtopic=46042). Welcome to Rollaclub!

In hindsight I should've bought an imported 86 or an already modified one as doing the work yourself (or getting it done by someone else like I did) is just wasted money.

I picked up mine for just over 2, but it was a bit of a rare find (one female owner, bought it the day after she got her licence). Mine had no mods whatsoever and 550,000 on the clock along with a couple of other little surprises, so I've already spent a fortune on it (just changing over the engine to a 20v). I'd say you wouldn't pick one up for less than 3k (and that probably wouldn't be anything spectacular). Realistically you are looking 5 - 15 for just the car, depending on exactly what you want and what you want it for. They are beautiful cars (and I absolutely love mine, it's great to drive) but super overpriced and getting rarer. I'd budget 10-15 total at least in case there is something extra that you want to do after you get it. You can check my thread and see the pics of mine when I got it.

The new lights you will probably be looking for a H4s (I think I picked mine up for about 40 or 50 each). Once you've dropped them in just fit higher intensity bulbs. I did this to my Ke55 a while ago and they are definitely brighter than the stock sealed lights, but still not as bright as most cars on the road. The globes I chose were the brightest/whitest ones that were still recommended for road use (or maybe the next one up), according to the little display at Autobarn. I've got a feeling there might be some extra step needed (doing something with the headlight wiring) to get the most out of them, but they are still a lot better than they were.

Damn! I can almost afford one, if only I had the space for it, I could lower it, put on king springs.... it'd be fulli hectic bro. That would be my advice. Most people go through the process of illegally installing the engine, drive til they get defected and then go and see the engineer and realise that they need to replace/upgrade something. Have a chat before you start to some engineers, pick one then do everything through that person so you don't get conflicting stories. Vic roads can be the same, I've heard all kinds of different things from different people about different engines into cars (everything from drive it down and we'll swap it over on the rego with no problems, you'll need an engineers cert for that, and nope you can't do that at all!), unfortunately the best response usually isn't correct. You don't want that fear when you are driving around thinking that all the police are about to pull you over and defect you :fuzz: (I guess you already know what it's like with the MX5). Welcome to Rollaclub and congratulations on making a decent post instead of the usual "I want a fulli-sick dorifto pig, what do I need to do?" post :)

@seabiscuit : When was this? I haven't been to the deep south in a couple of weeks :D @chappo: Would love to see some pics of the rally car (got a soft spot for rally cars, would love one, but I'm too poor and not motivated enough to actually use it).

Why didn't he keep driving? 'Sif that that would kill a KE!

Cheers, I'm a big believer in doing what you want with your car and not caring if other people don't like it. It's always good to have something a little different/unique, really makes the car yours.

Everyone installing a 20v into an AE86 comes across the same sort of issue (even without the dizzy the engine is right against the firewall), but the solution most people go with is relocation of the distributor, which saves cutting into the firewall. My guess (purely speculation) is that you would definitely need an engineers certificate for it. A friend of mine as an S15 and a small portion of his battery tray was cut out so the pipe to the intercooler could fit and he needed a cert just for that, in my mind to firewall seems a little more important than that. Hopefully someone else can shed some more light on this. I'm also a little worried too about asking these sorts of questions to VicRoads or an engineer etc, as one person can say it's all good and another can say that it's no longer possible to register the car or defect it.

The console I used to have for the 55 hid that area around/in front of the shifter, not sure if there is something similar for the 70s. Aside from that your interior looks clean as!

EDIT: Didn't realise this was just a KE70 thread... oh well: Here's my KE55 interior. I don't have any great pics of my interior, but I'll put up what I have. One word.... RICE The seat covers are just shitty $30 ones from Kmart from my old KE35. At first we went for a black theme; sprayed the door cars, roof lining and all the panels/trim black. We then put in black carpet. After that came some blue neons in the footwells. Next came the blue check-plate dash. Then the red sparco fixed back seat. Next came matching blue check-plate mats. And finally the red Momo Trek steering wheel. I had a black console in there with sound system, but that got stolen a long time ago.

Thanks for the ideas LittleRed (sorry I've been too lazy to respond). I'm pretty sure the VVT is turning off (if I remember the dyno charts I think you can see it). Can be a little hard to road test, as it's usually going pretty quick and loud at 6000RPM :laff: As for the ticking, I'm taking a bit of the "she'll be right!" approach, but planning to get it properly looked at at the next service. This is probably a bad thing, and this approach in the past has caused me lots of issues (it'll be already -> car ended up having a loose rod and running on 3 cylinders, it'll be alright -> fell through stairs), but this time I'm sure it will be fine ;). I had new leads made up when the engine got installed, as for the plugs though I'm not quite sure... I think they are new, but I don't think they are iridiums (towards the end the mechanic was trying to cut costs a little bit as the price had blown out way more than we had originally expected, so there are a couple of things that are ok for now, but we need to go back and replace with new parts, for example the timing belt needs to be done at the next service).

Fuses Had a big trip down to Melbourne a couple of weeks ago (had to drive from Canberra to Melb, then Bendigo then back to Canberra). Before I set off I decided to take a quick look at the fuses and see if I could get the cigarette lighter working. Turns out there were 3 blown fuses (one of them looked perfectly fine, but changing it made the horn work?). Unfortunately none of these fuses got the cigarette lighter working (leading to some interesting times when both my phone and GPS were low on batteries and I wasn't quite sure where I was). But I made it in the end and so did the car (found out later I got a speeding fine to :fuzz: :bash: ). Next Steps Things have been moving very very slowly lately, due to lack of funds :( . I was hoping to have new wheels and tyres on the car by the point and be looking at sound systems and some more performance oriented mods (brakes, suspension etc). I do have a stack of 15 inch S13 stockies in the garage that I picked up, but I don't really think it's worth putting them on (as they look like crap and are all mismatching). The car is about due for a service (and I wanna get the tune and other issues looked at) so that will be the next thing it gets (probably before the wheels and tyres). Hopefully around the new year I will have a little more cash floating around and be able to give her some long deserved attention. I drive the 86 almost every day though and it's always a pleasure to drive. Just got back from a 2 week trip overseas and missed cruising around in the 86 so much.

If it's a 20v 4AGE (which I doubt it is as) you will lose the VVT by replacing the cam gears or cams themselves.

That's epic dude! What a story.

Evo engine in a rolla sounds like it could be some awesome fun. How does it drive?

I love the persuader behind the drivers seat :wink: Pretty cool looking car. The red rocker cover does look a little rice for the rest of the car, but it's all good. My KE55 is sort of a mash of themes but I still love it. Just do what you feel is right for the car and ignore all the haters.

I got mine (for the KE55) from a carpet place in dandy a couple of years ago. Cost just over $100. Didn't have too many problems fitting the new carpet, the main one though was the holes for the seat bolts, we didn't make them big enough and when we put the bolts through it became a tangled mess of bolt and carpet/underlay threads. Oh yeah, don't forget the underlay :P (made that mistake, had to drive back and get some before we fitted it).

Pretty mad 30! Just got back from a holiday to Phuket. Some pretty pimp cars over there. Most of the cars I saw were a bit newer though. Have you done anything to the engine? Any more plans for it?

Hmm.... those would go quite nice on the sprinter..... Was thinking of going 15s, but 14s are still probably better than the stock 13s that are on there. I have no idea about price when it comes to rims, PM me with what you want for them, although I'm rather poor at the moment (just got back from a long holiday which I still have to pay off) so I'll probably have to pass :( Poor sprinter probably won't get any more cash poured into it until the new year.

I think from now on I will refer to that diagram whenever trying to explain how turbos lag to someone. Back to Unnas original question; the point I always bring up is: will you be doing all the work yourself (and just spending the money on parts), some of it (ie installation yourself, but replace internals or getting it tuned elsewhere), or none of it (basically a drive in/drive out situation, which was the case with my AE86 and ended up costing a lot more than I'd originally planned)? These can impact the cost dramatically. A lot of the members here do lots of the work themselves, so prices they quote (overall) will be for things that a knowledgable backyard mechanic couldn't do and a lot of the more basic stuff (dropping the motor in, connecting things up etc) would be done by them. If you've just bought a KE30 and want to put an SR20 in (but have no mechanical ability) the 6k might not even be enough to purchase the engine, box and get it installed (will be even more if you want it engineered). If you already have the KE30 with the SR20 installed and were just talking about mods then that's a different story. I'll also be the voice of reason and ask if you actually need crazy power (ie is it a drift/drag/burnout car or just your daily and you wanna be able to keep up with all the other cars). I'm pretty sure SR20s into KE30s have been done before, so it's probably worth a search around the site and ask some of the people who have previously done this so you don't fall into the same pitfalls.

I've got a mixture of S13 stockies if anyone is interested (was going to put them on the sprinter until I got some better rims, but I think I'll hold out). Pretty much free if you want em. Can you post up pics of the meshies you have John, I also have to random meshies that I'd like to find partners for (or at least something that sort of matches). I'm pretty sure the pair I have though are volks.

Lookin nice John! Which my 86 looked that pretty :S I'm keen to hit the skidpan soon. Went with nissansilvia last time and had a ball (was the only toyota that time).

Not really sure atm. Probably at least a strut brace and replace the sway bars with adjustable ones.

It's awesome fun. I had fun out there and I don't even have an LSD or decent suspension set up.