November 8, 2012 Painted my 280Z wheels. These will be my winter wheels. Getting snow tires put on them tomorrow. http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/20121108_155425.jpg http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/20121108_170048.jpg

November 6, 2012
Yay! I figured out my headlight problem! It was something in the turn signal/high beam switch itself. I'm borrowing one from Will right now, but I plan on trying one from an AW11 MR2 to see if that will work too.

November 4, 2012 So I sold my Camry a little while back. I needed the money to pay for bills. I've been working at getting my Corolla ready for DD status. I replaced the leaking clutch slave cylinder, put in a new SS braided line for the clutch slave, a new clutch master cylinder, and a new brake ma...

June 30, 2012 Well, the Corolla is sitting pretty in the backyard again. Registration expires today and I don't have the money to renew it. Also, I need to figure out why my headlights don't work (brights work, but not the low beams :/ ) and figure out if it's the salve cylinder or something else wi...

May 2012 – Some maintenance required Since the summer, I've taken the Corolla out to drive whenever I feel like it. It's nice to be able to drive it as long as I'm willing to fetch it out of the backyard. This winter I've discovered that while the climate control blower motor works, I have no heater...

Winter 2011 - Future plans/goals Ariel needs some coilovers. Desperately. That should be my first focus. Then a new set of wheels and tires, probably in the 15x8” +0 range with some 195/55R15 high-grip street tires for autocross. And I’d also like to rebuild the motor. I’m thinking a high compressio...

September 2011 – Two cars are better than one 10 weeks after the Camry spun a bearing, and 6 weeks longer than it should have taken, I got her running again, after a full rebuild that included shaving the head after the piston slapped it after the bearing disappeared. That meant that I had two runni...

June 2011 – Drifting again! June saw drifting return to MMP’s west paddock area. This time, I put my dad’s worn out Cocker Classics “Red Line” tires on to finish them up. 205/75R14 tires on a 14x7” wheel are enormous on a Corolla! http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/2011-06-031...

May 2011 – Getting ready for summer I had just graduated from college with my Bachelor’s of Science in Applied Physics and had a summer job with the Air Force at Hill AFB and just knew that being graduated and employed meant that I could afford to race every weekend! That means I needed to freshen u...

April 2011 – UtahHondas.net Spring 2011 Meet I joined a local Honda forum to keep entertained online, and when they threw their spring meet, I went took Ariel the 1.2 miles to park near my house they held it at. Two different people took pics of it. http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy137...

December 2010 – Waiting for spring This is how Ariel usually sits during the winter. Utah had an odd winter for 2010-2011, with most of the snow/rain coming during Jan, Feb, March, and even into Apr and May in the mountains. The valleys didn’t see nearly as much snow, but some rain. http://i275.phot...

September 2010 – AutoX & Final drift Not much racing happened during July and August as money was tight and summer school was kicking my ass. However, when summer ends and fall begins, not only do classes start, but Labor Day weekend hits which means one more weekend of racing before school kick...

June 2010 – Second Co-driver June saw me autocross and drift some more. This time I got my buddy Dan (who tried welding my differential the first time) to co-drive at an autocross event with me. http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/DSC_0051.jpg http://i275.photobucket.com/albums...

May 2010 – Tires make a difference One of the things I learned at the autocross, that I had read previously in several magazines and forums, is that tires make a difference. To give myself more of a chance, I picked up some used tires from a couple of autorcossers. I got a set of 4 Kumho V710’s (205...

March 2010 – Transformation Throughout 2009, I had noticed my clutch slipping more and more at each drift event. After the autocross/drift event in October, I knew I would be parking her for the winter, so I finished off Ariel’s clutch by doing some burnouts in the driveway. Not only did I finish a ...

October 2009 – Trying new things The local SCCA has their end of season autocross event as a two-day event at Miller Motorsports Park in Tooele in the middle/end of October. They also have a bbq on of the days. There was going to be a drift event the same Saturday, at night, so I thought it would be...

August 2009 – Lessons learned I guess my buddy Dan was right that he didn’t know what he was doing. But it held for a decent amount of time/abuse. Now I was faced with a dilemma: save up and get a proper LSD, or cheap out and see if I can weld the diff again? Guess which option I choose. http://i275...

July 2009 – Without a trailer Time and money allowed me to make another drift event at RMR in July of 2009, but this time, dad’s flat bed trailer & truck were being used so I had to figure out a different way to get my car their. Luckily, we had a hold tow-bar hitch so with a little work (read=t...

May 2009 – My first drift of the season Another drift event. http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/DSCF2394.jpg All of the drift events I have driven at have been at Rocky Mountain Raceways in their 1/8th mi oval. RMR is the houses the local ¼ mi drag strip, and all of our drift ...

April 2009 – Driving Mom & Dad went out of town for a weekend to go camping, leaving me with the house to myself. Instead of throwing a huge party (did that last year instead), I took the Corolla out for a drive. (Mom & Dad didn’t approve of any illegal shenanigans, especially car-related on...

February 2009 – Lip kit I was bored and a brother was cleaning some things out of a shed since his family was moving, so I took some garden edging and made a “lip” for the car, screwing it to the front bumper. http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/DSC00054.jpg http://i275.photobu...

September 2008 - Paint v1 Just before my birthday (and because my dad was painting a few other cars at the time), my dad offered to paint Ariel. I had previously thought about a blue/black scheme for the car, so I told him what I wanted. Here are my shitty PS’d schemes for the car for my dad to refe...

August 2008 – Exhaust v2 After the drift event, I set out to get the car running right and to give it a fighting chance to pass emissions legally, even in Utah. I figured out a way to route the vacuum lines and hook up all the emissions equipment, including the EGR (which the TRD header has a provis...

July 2008 – Putting it together v2 I ordered an HKS timing belt, think that might be the problem, and put in another largeport exhaust cam and distributor in the head. There didn’t seem to be an issue until I tried starting her, when my dad said he saw the timing belt jumping over the exhaust cam ge...

June 2008 – The build continues This summer I was determined to get the car running and driving. I also wanted to make sure that it would stop, so I picked up the brake kit from 88Rotors via eBay. New slotted and cross-drilled rotors and new pads were tossed onto Ariel, along with new stainless stee...

September 2007 – Putting it together In September, after getting everything together on the engine after picking it up from the machine shop, I had a problem with the distributor and exhaust cam. Without the distributor in the head, I could freely rotate the engine assembly. With the distributor in,...

July 2007 – The build begins In the spring of 2007, Target Financial Services decided to up my credit limit and give me a proper credit card instead of their crummy store-only credit card. I now had a fresh Visa card and a $4000 limit. I was finishing up my first year as Physics major, finally havin...

http://i275.photobucket.com/albums/jj294/spiffy1379/Ariel/2011-06-27170655.jpg May 2005 – Origins I was 22, bumming around in school without a clue what I wanted to really do, working at the local Target store, and just picked up a second job working at a gas station. I was driving my first car I h...

So sad that Club4AG went down, but with it's rising from the ashes, I guess it's time I posted an up-to-date version of my build thread.

I've had my Corolla for almost 8 years now, so our story is a long one. Lots of pictures below, so get ready, cause it's a long tale. I hope you enjoy it.

Hey, awesome! I'm back with my old screenname! This is good because I'm not sure I remember the password I used for my temporary account below. \/ \/ :roll: I don't want to start over! There was so much good tech info here! But I am glad to be back (even in temporary form and under a new pseudonym)