A productive weekend at the shed, finding more Trueno problems, fitting the headlight assembly, checking out Foley’s forgotten S14 and more.
Shed scenes from our day fabricating an exhaust and fecking around with the car outside. It was so good to get this out in the sunlight finally.
After a month of awful brakes on the Trueno, we finally figured out the problem.
We take the AE86 out for its first drive with the new engine set up around the business park, no panels, lots of noise and lots of laughs!
For anyone who has been here before, the feeling as you nervously wait for the engine to fire up, years and years of putting time and effort into this build with friends because this car is a communal effort hoping it will pay off.
After years of building, the AE86 runs and drives! A huge milestone for the project. Also, our shop is finally live and fully stocked!
At the time, I didn’t realise just how important this day would be. In well over three years, the ae86 hadn’t seen the light of day on its wheels. After we fitted the engine and box, we decided to push the car over to Flips to fit the manifold, sort a Flexi pipe and do the exhaust.
A few shots from a random weekend messing about at the shed, sometimes I have to remind myself to take some photos as there is always something interesting going down.
Jumping over 4A-GE’s and the Trueno wiring begins. There is plenty of immature action in this episode, with some interesting information about AE86 production numbers.
A Hidden shed Tour! We take a look at a freshly built AE86 Levin and a shed full of Japanese classics.
I’m very fortunate to work in a place that imports parts from Japan. It’s as much a blessing as it is a curse. Most of our monthly wages never really leave JDM Distro but working here has enabled me to source some of the best parts for my AE86 build over the last few years.
Being able to drop parts at the depot in Japan was once in a lifetime stuff. Here was a Goodline 86 hood, which I had listed after for many, many years. We barely snugged it into the back of the Alphard and drove halfway across Japan to drop it off just outside of Tokyo.
YES! Parts and magazines Arrive at JDM Distro from our Japan in a Van trip, making it one of the best days ever at work.
Here are some photos from the time we drove down to Group D. Group D is the brainchild of Darren McNamara, a well-known legend in the Drift scene. Darren has been tinkering with Corollas for a long time, and he developed a rear coil-over suspension for the AE86 with a company from the UK called AVO. You have probably seen the vlog episode from this day, with the old legend and his lovely little starlet. I had a mega backlog of photos from older episodes that I will throw up on the site every Friday. Enjoy the images of the day below.
We are very fortunate to have people like MR X in the car community. For years, he has been supplying the AE86 community with much sought after parts. He has been breaking Corollas for parts for well over ten years, and it is a necessary evil, sometimes it’s sad to see cool cars he has killed, but most of the time, every last piece of that car ends helping another.
We go AE86 parts hunting at MR X’s stash to find the missing bits for the Trueno build. We also get a quick look at MR X’s private collection.