Jump to content

Hiro's Ae102


Recommended Posts

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:

post-4-1144738131.jpg

Just after a wash, but only on camera phone

 

enginebaystock4pk.jpg

Engine bay stock, before painting

 

heatshield2ht.jpg

Painted heat shield, about to go on

 

1001308small5me.jpg

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

 

openforbusiness8ed.jpg

Open for business

Edited by Hiro Protagonist
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 months later...
Members dont see this ad

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.

 

image003wl8.jpg

Outside The Caves, parked next to Billie the 55

 

image004op0.jpg

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

 

image005tf8.jpg

 

image009oo8.jpg

 

image012ry5.jpg

 

image016lp5.jpg

 

image018tm3.jpg

Reprezentin' in da hood

 

image020xr1.jpg

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

 

image021ii4.jpg

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

 

image023bs2.jpg

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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.

 

1008061929ht1.jpg

1008061930pf9.jpg

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)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

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

 

 

2109061607ai0.jpg

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....

 

 

2109061723zr1.jpg

 

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...

 

2109061713su6.jpg

 

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

 

2109061744vh8.jpg

 

Well, that was my day.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

^^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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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. !

Link to comment
Share on other sites

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

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 months later...
  • 1 year later...

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

 

P1060131.jpg

 

P1060130.jpg

 

P1060137.jpg

 

P1060138.jpg

 

P1060139.jpg

 

P1060143.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...