Specs (as of 05/04/17):
1997 AE102R Conquest - "Charlene"

Engine-related
7AFE 1.8L, 178,000km young
TRD ignition-leads
Painted cam cover

HPC-coated 4-2-1 extractors
2" engine pipe to stainless 2.5" hiflow cat
2.25" mandrel-bent stainless exhaust through hotdog resonator
Stainless Lukey Ultraflow rear muffler, 3" dump tip
Combo dyno'd at 71.7kw ATW on Dyno Dynamics dyno in Shootout mode

Suspension/driveline
C52 5-speed gearbox w/ custom short shifter 
KYB Excel-G shocks
Lovells low springs all-round
Stock sway-bars (rear Ultra Racing sway bar waiting to be installed)
AE101/111 TRD 3-point 3-piece strut brace

Exterior
JDM AE101 FXGT front bar with lip extension and foglights
Hella grille (2x high-beam lights, yes it was a factory-option in Europe)
17x7 Speedy Lite-5 wheels

Interior/ICE
JDM AE101 FXGT factory-option Momo 4-spoke leather steering wheel
JDM AE111 BZG Levin front bucket seats
TRD leather gearknob
AE111 G6R leather shifter boot
JDM Centre console with flip-out cupholders
AE102 Sprinter dash clock instead of dummy air vent
Kenwood head-unit
VDO Dayton MPS-1300 5-1/4" front splits, tweeters on the side-mirror covers
JL Audio TR600-CXi 6" rear 2-ways

Still to be fitted/re-fitted
- JDM Clean Box
- JDM CleanAce roof-mounted air purifier
- BZ Touring-copy black crystal headlights w/ clear parkers instead of indicators
- Ultra Racing rear sway bar
- AE101 Levin Superstrut 275mm twin-piston front brakes
- Power folding mirrors
- Genuine JDM slimline weathershields

 

Old pictures time:

Just after a wash, but only on camera phone

 

Engine bay stock, before painting

 

Painted heat shield, about to go on

 

First lot of painting done, time to run the engine to cure it

 

Open for business

Edited April 25, 20179 yr by Hiro Protagonist

After many months of hesitation, lazyness, prodding from the g/f, and other factors, I have finally gotten around to buying a set of wheels for Charlene (Full Metal Jacket/Simpsons reference), my 102.

 

Outside The Caves, parked next to Billie the 55

 

Took her down to the foreshore again with Billie for another photoshoot

 

 

 

 

 

Reprezentin' in da hood

 

Large amout of space in the front wheel-wells indicated un-lowered car.......suspension is next on the list

 

Much lower at the rear due to boot being packed full with 4 stockies + tyres

 

G/F is bored and wants to go home.....

:P little bit of dish for good measure, love those rims.

:P little bit of dish for good measure, love those rims.

 

Much prefer the JDM look to big thin spoky wheels (like ROH Adrenalins) or chromies....

Much better ;)

Much better ;)

 

Rears look good, front dosen't quite gel because the wheel arch splays too much....would look much better in real life rather than photoshopped though. Not looking for a huge decrease in ride height, probably about an inch from Whiteline Control springs and KYB/Koni shocks

Was originally going to leave this until after the weekend, but in a split decision I decided I needed a cordless drill anyway, so bought a Ryobi Plus One 18V cordless, a couple of drill bits, tap & die and proceeded to fit up my EL Falcon Momo gearknob.

 

Basically, the problem lies in the fact that the EL knob is 10mm, whilst the Corolla is 12mm. So, I bored out the whole depth of the knob to 11mm, and tapped a M12x1.5 intermediate thread. The knob took a fair bit of effort to screw on, so I'm tempted to believe (couldn't be bothered measuring) that the stock thread is 12x1.75, not 12x1.5 but it still works. I then proceeded to countersink the hole out to 13mm, to allow it to fit over the 12.5mm shaft and get the knob to the right height.

 

Whilst the boot doesn't quite fit up to the bottom of the knob, it is a lot smaller than the stock one so the heights are just about identical, should be sorting out a short-shifter soon though.

 

Snapped a couple of photos on my phone, but it was dark and I was in a hurry so the quality ain't great. Feel of the shifter is heaps better than stock though, fits the hand better and isn't as slippery when hot.

 

Yes, I know my car is messy, I'm cleaning it out tonight (middle of the night, as I'm going to Sydney straight after uni Friday)

Small update, strut brace is now installed, every time I go over a bump or come to a stop there is a thunk from the firewall area (which turned out to be the AC idle-up valve hitting the firewall, which I had unbolted to put the brace in, has since been cable-tied down awaiting permanent solution). Handling isn't that different, then again it's hard to tell on stock suspension and a boot-load of crap

 

In addition, centre console and lower dash panels have been painted a satin black, so the dash now matches the black and grey seat covers, not as dark as I'd hoped so it'll be getting another coat in a few weeks time when I do the door trims too

 

Speakers also installed, 5" VDO splits at the front and 6" JL 2-ways at the rear, sound is much much improved over stock

Got up early this morning to take Cara (MI55KE) to Kurri, got back and had plenty of spare time on my hand so decided to attack some more things. And for once, I got them all done (even though it was dark before I finished)

 

First thing was to remove the exhaust heat shield and rocker cover, plenty of swearing later I'd finally managed to get the bloody sealing washers off the bolts, and she slid off without a worry. Degrease, wire brush, light sand then time for the paint. Gloss Silver engine enamel went on first, 3 coats on each with a light sand inbetween

 

 

After third coat

 

Whilst I was waiting for the paint to dry, I decided to do an oil change. Getting the oil out was easy, but as everyone with an A-series engine knows, the oil filter is in an absolute bitch of a place, and the last person to do the change had done it up bloody tight, so I couldn't remove it by hand.

 

2 hours later, after jacking the car up and removing the splash guard, several attempts to piece it with a screwdriver, I decided to get the drill out. At this stage, I knew I had to get the damn thing off before I could drive again, so I put my back into it. 20 seconds later, a nice neat 10mm hole was drilled into the oil filter. Insert jack handle. Lever as far as you can.........still not undoable by hand........Drill another hole, insert jack handle....lever......repeat until filter can be turned by hand

 

At the end of it, the filter was in a bit of a sorry state....

 

 

 

So, new filter in, new oil in, and all was good......time for more painting

 

Masked off what I didn't want painted, then added a gloss black stripe of engine enamel down the middle of the rocker cover. Let dry, then did 2 more. In my opinion, turned out quite well...

 

 

and everything (except the wiring loom) installed back into the engine bay:

 

 

Well, that was my day.

^^I put my back into it. 20 seconds later, a nice neat 10mm hole was drilled into the oil filter. Insert jack handle. Lever as far as you can.........still not undoable by hand........Drill another hole, insert jack handle....lever......repeat until filter can be turned by hand^^

 

Bahahaha i stabbed mine on my seca with a screw driver and turned it off.

 

That rocker cover turned out great. :D

ive got an oil filter tool & breaker bar which fits perfectly into the space :) - takes all of 3 seconds to do a filter change lol. But ohh i know, what its like to have a hard one. Try a Toyota kluger oil filter from the TOP of the motor, or even bettter - a dihatsu copen.

 

its lookin nice :D Oh, and as per the bosses words at toyota, those are the best of the FWD corolla's ever made. !

the rocker cover looks great nice job a quick yet great looking upgrade

ive got an oil filter tool & breaker bar which fits perfectly into the space :) - takes all of 3 seconds to do a filter change lol. But ohh i know, what its like to have a hard one. Try a Toyota kluger oil filter from the TOP of the motor, or even bettter - a dihatsu copen.

 

its lookin nice :D Oh, and as per the bosses words at toyota, those are the best of the FWD corolla's ever made. !

 

It's not that hard if the person who put it on before didn't tighten the bejesus out of it........and always make sure the engine is cool, so you don't burn yourself on the exhaust. Apparently though it's a hell of a lot easier with extractors, which I don't have yet

done a good job cleaning up the engine bay :D and the alloys really suit as well.

 

Later in the year I might be down that way with a friend so it'd be great to see it in real life.

Wow, didn't realise it had been so long without updates.......

 

So, here are some updates.

 

First:

Car now has full exhaust system installed, care of Davo's now departed granny-spec 102

Thusly,

 

HPC coated extractors

2" engine pipe to cat

2 1/4" through hotdog resonator to s/s Lukey Ultraflow

Big dumpy tip

Much better sound

More power

 

Was dyno-ed at Toymods Dyno Day #16, hit a new high of 71.0kw, which is either an increase of 2.1 or 10kw, depending on which previous dyno result is taken. Personally I'd estimate the actual value to be somewhere around the 5kw mark

 

Since then, it has also received a nice not-shiny CAI (also from the ex-Davomobile) and K&N pod behind the front guard, comes complete with ghetto-spec cable-tiedowns for the battery as it no longer lines up with the pre-drilled holes in the body (really should fix this, but can't be bothered for the moment)

 

Some photos