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GTIKole's AE86 Build. (AKUMA86)

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  • GTIKole's AE86 Build. (AKUMA86)

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    GTIKole's 1987 Toyota Corolla Levin GT-V.
    Name- Akuma

    Engine.
    -20v AE111 4AGE Engine.
    -TRD head gasket.
    -APR head studs.
    -Toda Valve Springs.
    -Super Tech valve seals.
    -Toda Timing belt.
    -MRP fixed Tensioner.
    -T3 75mm Intake Trumpets
    -SQ 20V RWD Coolant Conversion Kit.
    -Samco Radiator Hoses.
    -Distubtror Relocation Kit.
    -MSD Over Sized Plug Wires.
    -Jazami 16v header.
    -16v to 20v Exhaust Manifold Conversion Plate.
    -T3 Test Pipe.
    -HKS Sport Exhaust.

    Drivetrain.
    -Exedy Stage 2 clutch.

    Braking.
    -Porterfield Track Pads.
    -Stainless Steel Brakelines.

    Suspension.
    -Fortune Auto 500 Coilovers with True Rears.
    -Fortune Auto 30mm RCA’s.
    -T3 Panhard Bar.
    -Cusco Rear Sturt Bar.

    Wheels/tires.

    -Rota RKR’s, 15x9 -15.
    -195/45r15 Toyo T1R’s.
    -15mm Rear Spacers.
    -Skunk2 Extended Lug Nuts.

    Exterior.
    -OEM Zenki Levin Front lip.
    -Runfree 30mm Rear Fender Flares.

    Interior.
    -Buddy Club P1 seats.
    -Buddy Club Seat rails
    -Nardi Rallye Sport Steering Wheel.
    -T3 Shift Knob.
    -Rear Seats/ Interior removed.


    Hey Stanceworks, Long time no log in.
    After some poking around today I realized that these forums are still running & still seem pretty active. Figured it was a perfect time to get back on here and have a place to update on my new build.
    For those of you who don't know I use to be very active on this forum & shared a lot of my builds over the years on here. Here are a few some of you may have seen.

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    Now lets get into the new story..
    A few years ago I got bored of the Corrado & wanted to try something new to build instead of building my 19th VW. I have always had a little obsession with the AE86 Corolla from Toyota but never got one because I was so focused on Vw's and was nervous to try something new. We'll after finally being ready to sell the Corrado & finding an new owner it was time for me to search. So I started searching for a Japanese Levin AE86. I found an importer in Florida who had one that I liked & tried to purchase it... but its hard to purchase a car that is already sold.

    After that bummer I kept looking for a bit & found nothing. Frustrated & ready fro something new I decided that if I could not have a AE86 then I would get the next best thing, A Scion FRS. I owned & built the FRS in about a year.
    I was loving the change of community & style of car but on thing did happened that has changed me since.
    I found out I really love driving on track.

    I had a fw friends get me into autocross & doing track days. This totally changed what I had loved in cars. I use to be about shows & just building something that looked good & was stylish. Once I started Going to the track that changed. I will say some on my "stance boi" still follows me around to more motorsport based cars. I loved the FRS & enjoyed daily driving it & going to the track on the weekends.

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    Then I had a conversation that with a friend that changed everything...
    I friend told me had a contact in Japan that could help us purchase & import cars to the US ourselves. This really got my gears moving & wanted to learn the process but also it meant I could looking at getting a Corolla again.

    So after a long debate with my girlfriend (now wife) I decided to put the FRS up for sale. I posted it with a price tag I thought on one would jump at because I had no issue just keeping the car but wouldn't you know it.. I kid came with the money & the FRS was gone like that. I had to move fast & buy a beater daily so I had something to get to my jobs. Once that was taken care of I started searching for a AE86.

    This process took much longer than you would like. I think I looked every day for about 2 months straight. I would bid on cars that came up & always loose when the auction would end. I lost about 5 cars & was becoming extremely frustrated loosing cars that I wanted because you could wait weeks for another clean car that was worth purchasing to show up. Then one evening a new listing popped up. A clean All Black 1987 Levin GT-V with low miles (around 60k). The card said it had a AE111 Engine engine swap but had no pictures of the engine bay to see if that was true. I had my contact inspect the vehicle & it came back with a clean bill of health for a 30+ year old Corolla. So I placed a max bid & waited with only these pictures to go off of..

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    My phone rang at 2:30am on a Friday morning. It was my contact to tell me..
    WE GOT THE CAR!!!
    Super excited about finally owning a AE86, I spent the next 3 months as the car was being shipped over seas learning how to do all the importation paper work & getting everything ready for it arrival. 3 months later the car finally showed up at port & a few friends & I went to pick up the car in Baltimore (a nice 10 hour drive from Indianapolis, IN). Once I got all the paper work sorted I was finally able to see my car in person. At the port you'll run into others who are picking up there cars as well & they tend to ask what you are picking up. I told them a AE86, which then one of them said "you mean the black one!" & then started telling me how clean it was as he had already been in the lot to pick up his skyline. This got my excitement super high & was honestly in disbelief when I finally saw the car in person. I could not believe I bought a car in another country & it was now here & I owned it.

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    A few days later we where back home.
    I got a chance to get the car on the lift at work and really look it over & see what condition the car was in. We were amazed how clean the whole car was & how clean the underside was. Parts I order a few month back starting to arrive as well. First thing was to put on a OEM zenki Levin lip which required some modifications to fit the kook bumper. I also got a center console that was missing when I got the car from a nice gentleman in Cali.

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    A week or so later my Fortune Auto 500 coilovers came into the shop. I went which a true coiler rear setup with 8/6K spring rates & fortune auto gives you 30mm RCA's as well which is awesome. I also went ahead & added in a T3 adjustable pan hard bar to recenter the rear axle once the car was lower. Everything went super smooth amazingly for a car that is 30+ years old. I lowered the car down as much as I could on the 14x6.5 Wats. The car looked ok but I knew wanted some more aggressive wheel & tire wise.

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    It was time to really make this car my style...

    Premiere Autosports /Instagram - Kole_Grove86
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  • #2
    So I knew once I saw the Wats they were not the style I wanted to go with for this car.
    They were a 14x6.5 with around +6 offset with some 185/60R14's. Not really the specs you want for a Corolla. I was also on a bit of a tighter budget as the cost of the importing the car & taking care of a few other things. So I went with a set of Rota RKR's in 15x9 -15 paired with a set of 195/45r15 Toyo T1R's. This got me sitting more how I wanted. I had to roll and pull both front & rear arches to make them fit properly with no rubbing. The rear was a bit more aggressive than I wanted but I made due. I also lowered the car down a lot more.

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    I then took car of some maintenance & replaced the rear main seal, added a relay to starter to solve some starting issues & changed the transmission fluid.

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    After that I went to a few track days with the car and really got to feel what I wanted to change on the car.
    Winter was also creeping up on us in Indiana so I went ahead & put the car away for winter at my shop & my fathers in laws shops. Christmas came & my wife got my a Nardi Rallye Sport wheel to replace my MOMO. I then bought myself a few birthday/Christmas gifts for myself. I ordered a set of Buddy Club P1 seats, Buddy Club seat rails, T3 shift knob & T3 E-brake button. I also went ahead and removed the rear seats at this time as well to loose a fair amount of weight.

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    I then took on something I have never taken on, Doing over fenders...
    This was all new to me. I had friends that have done it but I have never one it myself. I ordered a set of Run Free rear flares, I loved the look of the flares as they kind of keep the body lines of the corolla & gives you that extra room. I started mocking them up & fitting them to the ae86. Before I did the cutting I went ahead and painted the flares myself which was a fun time. Then came the day.. cut day. I made a tape line that told me how far to cut & taped up the rest of the area and covered the rest of the car. The process went really well. I cut the rear arches & the bent and cut the inner metal to meet the outer lay & then started welding up the arches. Once that was done I seam sealed & painted the bare metal. Once I was done with both sides I installed the flares. I also got the whole car fully paint corrected & ceramic coated.

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    Last edited by GTIKole.; 10-03-2019, 07:39 PM.

    Premiere Autosports /Instagram - Kole_Grove86
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    • #3
      After finishing up the arches it was around March here in Indy. That meant driving events started happening as well as meet ups.
      The first few events I did in the car were drift events. I have a good group of friends who drive most the drift events in indy so it made me want to join even if I could not keep up with them. These were my first few drift events, so I had to get my skills up & learn how to drive totally different than doing autocross or grip driving.

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      I struggled for those events but slowly got better and better each event. I made 3 drift events before I had a major issue. I drove the 3rd events all day but could tell the car was not having it. I did two more passes and then came in and realized..
      MY CLUTCH WAS ROASTED.
      I could not go anywhere since the clutch was just gone. Luckily I did not live to far from the event so my buddy Nelson flat towed me home in his daily EG hatch.
      Once I got the car home I got the trans out and found my destroyed clutch. It was an OEM style clutch so I was honestly amazed it made it as long as it did. I got the flywheel out and had it resurfaced and got a Exedy stage-2 3-puck clutch which would hold up to driving the car as hard as I do. I got everything back together and went to go for a test drive & the Exedy throw out bearing instantly went out. Needless to say I was pissed, pulled the transmission for the second time and replaced the bearing with a OEM unit.

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      After that whole mess was taken care of I figured it was as good of a time as any to change out a few more parts. I sent my front bumper off with my buddy Camron to have to repainted. It was cover in rock chips and just looked so bad compared to the rest of the car after the paint correction. I ordered a set 15mm rear spacer to bring the rears out a bit more since they looked a bit off after adding the flares. I also switch out the junky gold stacks on the ITB's for brand new Techno Toy Tuning 75mm blacktop stacks. When I removed the old stacks and compared them to the t3 ones I found out the PO for some reason put silver top stack on instead of blacktop ones which have a bigger bore. I noticed a big difference in how the T3 units performed being the proper bore and a better flowing unit.

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      One all that was done I really just enjoyed the car a ton.
      Got invited to Wekfest Chicago, drove a lot of scca autocross and did another drift event.
      In this time I changed the cars set up a few times and also removed the oversized front sway bar because it was causing a lot of understeer for me which was terrible for drifting and grip driving.

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      At this point a bought an HKS sport exhaust and installed it at the shop.
      Once it was on I notice the car had a weird misfire like sound out of the exhaust now that I could not hear before from the old stock exhaust. I changed plugs & checked all my wires and nothing was misfiring at all but still had this sound. Finally one of my coworkers at the shop who was also stumped on this said we should just do a compression test just to see.
      So we did. 180psi, 180 psi, 180 psi &...
      60 psi.
      I was really bummed out to find this but also it was so strange because the car did not feel like it was down a cylinder. It seemed slow off the line but would ramp up at 3500rpm which is common trait of a blacktop with 75mm stacks. so I went ahead and pulled the head because a leak down test, which gave use a 100% leak down, could not pin point where it was loosing compression.
      I then found my issue. One of cylinder 4's exhaust valves was cracked and chipped. I was hoping for a head gasket but still better the the bottom end me toast. I started talking with a man from Portland would everyone on club86 said I should talk to.

      Enter Dan Steinhart, an engine builder who specializes in 20v Blacktops.
      We started talking over a few options like me sending my head out and fully rebuilding it with high end valves but this was extremely expensive. He also came up with the idea that we could use on of his spare heads and build it up with the good valves he had and just upgrade were we could. This is the route we went and I started ordering parts and taking my head apart to send parts to him that we would reuse.

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      He then started on the new head. It got cleaned, bead blasted & resurfaced. We swapped out the poem valve springs for Toda valve springs so I can safely rev the car to its max. Dan got there whole assemble and check clearance with my cams to make sure they were all in spec & then the head got sent back to make and was amazed at the work Dan had done.

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      I may have made this sound super fast but it took about 5 weeks to get the new head.

      A few days later all my parts for Battle Garage RS showed up so I could put the car back together. I can't thank everyone at BGRS enough for their great customer service but also sourcing and keeping parts for 20V 4AGE's in-stock. No me else in the US really does it to the level they do. Here is the purchase list them BGRS..

      -20v OEM gasket set with TRD head gasket.
      -OEM 16 exhaust gasket.
      -Toda racing valve springs.
      -Toda racing timing belt.
      -MRP fixed tensoner.
      -Samco Raditor hoses.
      -SQ RWD cooling relocation kit for 20v's.
      -APR head studs.
      -T3 test pipe.

      I don't really have any pictures of the rebuild as I did it on 6 hours after work and ever thought it would be cool to show what all changed.
      I got everything back together and it felt great to now know the condition of the whole engine & trans. It started right up first crank. I was so excited to have my car back on the road.
      I could tell a huge difference in the engine one the first drive. it felt much smoother and had more power behind it. with the new test pipe it was also much louder so now the itb intake sound is about the same as the exhaust

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      Last edited by GTIKole.; 10-05-2019, 08:11 AM.

      Premiere Autosports /Instagram - Kole_Grove86
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      • #4
        Love the AE in black, but I have to ask you what size wheels/tyres did you run on the FRS? That's probably the coolest stance I've seen on a functional gt/frs

        FB: @DumbassCarCrew - IG: @fruttolo_dumbasscrew

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        • #5
          Have you taken this to Indy C&C at all in the last ~6 months? I am almost positive I have seen this around, maybe even said something to you about it. Car looks great! Had no clue it was you, followed all your old builds back in the day.
          My Build:

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          • #6
            Love it so far, an 86 has always been a bucket list car for me. I was on the verge of buying one before I got my 2002, they’re such rad little rides. Looking forward to seeing what’s next!

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            • #7
              Glad to see you back on the forum....however I wouldnt really call it super active anymore which is sad.

              I hope someday I can see this thing in person, It looks so clean and well sorted. I totally get the change from stance boi to track stance.
              Insta Mintyhinrichs

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              • #8
                Originally posted by Fruttolo View Post
                Love the AE in black, but I have to ask you what size wheels/tyres did you run on the FRS? That's probably the coolest stance I've seen on a functional gt/frs
                Thanks man, I believe they were 17x9 et38 with a 245/40R17 Bridgestobe RE71's. The set up is perfect if you want the performance of the set up but still have your car on the lower side.

                Originally posted by philohlean View Post
                Have you taken this to Indy C&C at all in the last ~6 months? I am almost positive I have seen this around, maybe even said something to you about it. Car looks great! Had no clue it was you, followed all your old builds back in the day.
                I go to C&C as much as I can in Indy. I'll be out there tomorrow for sure.
                I remember you for sure when you first moved to the Columbus area & messaged me. Glad to see you are still on here.

                Originally posted by bwwaaaa View Post
                Love it so far, an 86 has always been a bucket list car for me. I was on the verge of buying one before I got my 2002, they’re such rad little rides. Looking forward to seeing what’s next!
                It was a bucket list car for me as well. I still some days go out to the garage and can't believe I own it. haha
                There is more to come for sure. I still have august 2019- now to writing up to get this up to date. I think ECU & roll bar/ cage is the next big step fo the car.

                Originally posted by hinrichs View Post
                Glad to see you back on the forum....however I wouldnt really call it super active anymore which is sad.

                I hope someday I can see this thing in person, It looks so clean and well sorted. I totally get the change from stance boi to track stance.
                Hey at least people talk on here. Facebook groups its just people liking things and never talking. I'll take what I can get haha
                I would love to get back out that way soon & would love to do that hill climb you do every year. It looks so fun.

                Premiere Autosports /Instagram - Kole_Grove86
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                • #9
                  Haha I remember that I think! Back when I moved to Columbus for a summer. Been a while, moved a few times. Now back in Indy. I'll probably head to gator tomorrow too - give me a shout if you see the M, I'll do likewise.
                  My Build:

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                  • #10
                    Nice! Look forward to seeing the car myself.

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                    • #11
                      Now we are up to date.
                      I spent Monday getting the alignment on the car set up better for track use.
                      Here are the current specs...

                      Max caster on OEM arms.
                      -3.5 camber.
                      1.5mm total toe out.

                      The car feels so planted with this setup and turn in is much better. I'm doing a SCCA autocross tomorrow so we'll see how it feels then.

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                      • #12
                        Originally posted by gotheframe View Post
                        Nice! Look forward to seeing the car myself.
                        Soon enough, I may need to drive it to family stuff more. We always take the wagon

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                        • #13
                          Awesome! How does the new OG 86 compare to the new?
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                          Follow Me on TikTok & IG: Eric_Thiergood

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                          • #14
                            So glad you're back man, I love the Corrado and the panel van build, but I love this more!

                            Car looks amazing and I'm not a overfenders guy, but the RunFree are the only way to go, the looks stock to most of the people!

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                            • #15
                              Wow! Glad to see you're still kicking it GTIKole!

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