Hey all,

Just joined Rally Anarchy with the hopes of advancing my experience/knowledge of building/driving cars off the pavement. I'm a 27 year old long time autocrosser and jackass. I started Rallycrossing with the Indy region SCCA earlier this year co-driving a friends Saab C900 and quickly drug out one of my very ratty AE86 Corollas for dedicated dirt duty.

Car is a 1985 AE86 SR5. Ghetto Budget mods for now:

Tires- used Hankook Ventus gravel tires that are too big for the car (or mud terrains on the rear during the last event)

Front Suspension: stock GTS springs - lengthend strut housings 3/4 in. - celica inserts

Rear Suspension: front springs from an 88 BMW 325es - E46 dampers

Engine: Rebuilt 4A-C with Schneider camshaft and dual valvesprings - weber 32/36

Drivetrain: 5-speed conversion - welded differential

Chassis: lots of corrosion induced weight reduction - relocated battery to rear due to aforementioned corrosion

This is the car:



This is what I do with it sometimes:



Its slow and ugly, but I love these cars and it"s still fun to drive. I am taking it to one more event on Dec. 9th and then it's going under the knife. I hope to expand to WOR and OVR events next season.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2012 08:02PM by chestercopperpot.

RWD for the win!

Welcome to Rally Anarchy. Thanks for following the rules

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Slowwpoke
RWD for the win!

Welcome to Rally Anarchy. Thanks for following the rules

Racing loves rules!

Fine ride dude. Lissen --talk about your plans early. I say "think with a pencil cause pencils have erasers".
Look up the seeminly calm, nice guy who is really a raving lunatic John Reed. He's a smart guy and he listened to somebody smart and dropped in a whole stinking Lexus whatever the hell the RWD car ISxxx was 2.0 engine and trans and the car goes like stink, but better than you could ever make a 4AGE go and for 10s of thousands of bucks less...

There's plenty of build experience in these pages, and lots of good juicy photos or the build and mod process.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

I will definitely check that out, thanks for the tip!

Big power would be awesome, but I am not trying to be super competitive and am limited to Rallycross at the moment. The next step will probably be a lightly tuned 16 or 20 valve 4AGE since I already have those laying around. A shorter final drive and correctly sized tires are also on the list.

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chestercopperpot
I will definitely check that out, thanks for the tip!

Big power would be awesome, but I am not trying to be super competitive and am limited to Rallycross at the moment. The next step will probably be a lightly tuned 16 or 20 valve 4AGE since I already have those laying around. A shorter final drive and correctly sized tires are also on the list.

Well if you have them laying around. I guess. But I wouldn't spend much money on them when there's motors fully 25% larger and just as good rotting in those ugly sLexuses.

And I want to just remind you that the 20v power is really mainly from the itb LIKE MANIFOLD, not to 20v. As we saw so well with VW 20v motor, they are cam limited because of tiny bucket diameter: get a fun profile and the cam rams into the side of the bucket and wipes the head...

16 isn't just "good enuf", 16v is just about perfect---and all anybody uses in real racing.

But if the rules allow....400cc more is MORE..if you can find a IS whatever.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

It probably will be the 16v, seeing as I already have all the needed electronics.
The Lexus IS you speak of with the 3SGE does not exist in North America. It only came in FWD format in Celicas and Turbocharged format in the MR2. Very awesome engine but that swap is out of my price range.

Welcome!! RWD in general, and Corollas specifically are such a blast (I think anyway).

Here is my take on the engine situation:

To start out stick with a stock 16V, just make sure it is in good condition (this means take it apart and check everything over/freshen as needed). I am finding out it doesn't take a lot of power to both have a blast and be semi-competitive with one of these cars. Keep it affordable, reliable and get seat time.

I agree with what John is saying about the 20V, but here is the flip side of it. I have seen a lot of guys try to "lightly" tune the 16V only to get on the slippery slope of buying cams, pistons, porting, doing this, doing that and next thing we know we have WAY too much money into our engine making 130-150whp if we are lucky (and as things go we probably made it less reliable to boot). If you need more power, I highly recommend just putting a 20V in (AND THEN LEAVE IT ALONE). Silvers make 130whp or so, Blacks make 140-150whp and either can be had for under $1000. Sometimes well under.

As for my BEAMS 3S-GE, not sure of the wisdom driving that decision. More like the voices in my head, which should never be trusted. I had always wanted one of those engines in something and when I saw the Corolla I have now up for sale, the idea suddenly had a place to land. The rest as they say is history, but it isn't something I would recommend doing to start out with. There is a fair bit of fab, electronics and other details to sort out and getting parts is a PITA. I am loving it, it has a lot of advantages and hopefully next time out I will finally have it at something close to full power but just a warning that it probably isn't the path for everyone.

---

John Reed
John Reed Racing
www.johnreedracing.com
johnreedracing@gmail.com



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2012 10:18PM by John Reed.

If I end up using the 20V I had intended to keep it stock. Its plenty of power for what I want to do right now, which is have fun. After all, the only reason I continue to collect, modify, and drive these cars after 11 years is because I think they are so much fun.

It has been my experience that there is a drastic difference between a stock 16V and one made slightly hotter with basic bolt ons. I recently drove a completely stock 87 GTS then drove my 87 GTS that has a fresh engine with intake/header/exhaust/TRD head gasket/lightweight flywheel and wow what a difference! (Still slow but you know what I mean.) I love those engines but the money you have to spend on them to make real power is better spent on a good swap. Due to the power/dollar ratio and parts availability, I would never consider the 3SGE. Maybe one day when I'm rich or single again. I am more likely to swap in a Lexus V8 or an engine from another manufacturer.

Every 4AG I use gets rebuilt. It's wonderful how cheap the parts are and that they rarely require heavy machine work.

too bad about the corrosion, and it won't take many jumps like that for a car that old to start bending its spine.
They are fun cars, reliable, and (between you and I) easy to drive.
It took about 6 years of driving (the last 3 upgraded to 100 wheel hp) before I decided that the lack of power was holding me back. With a 5.3 ring and pinion, you can make a little power go a long way.
well it wasn't even that. It was just getting harder to keep the honda civics and 2l VWs behind me.
Now there's this fun little BMW M3 to race against.

Also, listen to John, the ideas he takes credit for are rarely bad ones (though he really dropped the ball on the 5-point harness thing).

---

"I put the hurt on dirt" - adam crane
http://CraneRallyCrew.com
corolla gt-s "Patches"
Op: S.S.

I'm always open to suggestions, especially effective homebrew mods. I spend more money on gas/travel then I do on the car at this point, and that's just Rallycross. My wife would just laugh at me at this point if I showed her what you guys spend on Stage Rally.

Get her in the co-drivers seat, and it sudenly becomes a whole lot easier to spend the money.

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phlat65
Get her in the co-drivers seat, and it sudenly becomes a whole lot easier to spend the money.

Ha! Fat chance! She is terrified of driving anything other than a snails pace and doesn't like the great outdoors.

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chestercopperpot
I am more likely to swap in a Lexus V8 or an engine from another manufacturer.

I keep seeing cheap Lexus....uh....Whatever Lexus calls the Toyota Soarer they imported over here...yeah...pop up on CL for pretty cheap, and every time I see one I wonder how hard it would be to find a manual to swap in and how fun it would be to have a relaible-ish Japanese V8 rally car. Looks like it's an SC400. So I'm assuming it has a 4.0? Maybe 32 valve? Just guessing because I don't have any interest in Jap-mobiles beyond having one as a rally car. Being interesting doesn't win races. Most times.

http://columbiamo.craigslist.org/ctd/3429014196.html





This one is like $5k so it's not rally material, but you get the idea. 100K ORIGINAL MILES!!!111!! It came with the VERY rare factory option of already being driven for 20 years! DON'T MISS OUT!!!!!!11!

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Something about something....dirt.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2012 07:46AM by Houdini91.

One of my DDs is actually an old LS400 with 275, 000. Those Yota V8s are bulletproof. I also have a spare LS400 drivetrain that I have been planning on swapping into my 1979 Coupe for quite some time. Most guys get an adapter plate for a supra or celica 5speed to bolt to it. It's becoming a common swap around here. IIRC the 1uzfe is also about the same weight as a 22r, so its not much heavier than the smaller than the T and A series.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/26/2012 07:24AM by chestercopperpot.