1985 liftback build in Ohio

dfresh285
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1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:14 am

So, here's my story... I had been driving my EVO VIII for 4 years and loved it, but it was getting up in miles and maintenance and mods on evo's are not cheap. The evo was a great car, but it wasn't as fun as my last corolla.

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I loved driving this corolla and always regretted selling it. So, in August when I sold my evo I knew the next car I'd buy. The first hurdle in the buying process though wasn't the money. It was convincing my 6 month pregant wife that I was going to buy a twenty-seven year old car, fly half way across the country, make the purchase, and drive it back. I'm a lucky man. Whitney was cool with my plans as long as I made it back alive. So, the search started for a car. I knew I wanted a liftback gt-s, but I didn't care if it was kouki or zenki. When I started my search there were a total of eight gt-s liftbacks for sale in the U.S., and seven of them were in California. The eighth gt-s was in Minneapolis, Minn. I really didn't want to drive a corolla back from California, but I also didnt want to buy a twenty-seven year old car from a state that averages forty-nine inches of snowfall each year. What do I do? I contacted all the owners of the cars after reviewing all the pictures, talking to the owners, and learning more about each car. It became more clear that the Minneapolis car was for me.

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This picture was the first of about 150 pictures that the owner sent me via email. After looking at all these pictures and talking to the owner via email and phone, I was sold. We agreed on a price and I bought my plane ticket. I'd be flying out in three weeks. The plan I was to fly in, buy the car, take it to a Toyota dealership to have it inspected, and then make the 763 mile drive back to Columbus.

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Here we are at a rest stop in Wisconsin. The drive home wasn't bad until I hit the Chicago outerbelt. Thankful I live in Columbus and don't have to fight traffic like that.

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First glamor shot when I arrived home. I told my brother, "hang out the window and make it look like a SPEEDHUNTERS picture". turned out pretty good.

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:16 am

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First things first, I had to get that trim painted black. Now this isn't the best way of painting your trim and I should have removed all the trim first. But when Street Life Tour is in three days, you do what you got to do. I actually have a box full of all the exterior trim that I will be painting and installing soon.

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looked so much better after the trim was painted!

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Here's a cool picture from Cars and Coffee. My car was treated like an outcast by the Mustangs, Chargers, and other various muscle cars untill this car showed up!

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:18 am

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Once the weather turned I parked the car and started tearing it apart. My baby boy is due in January and I'd really like to have everything put together by that time. here are my plans:

suspension:
T3 front coilover conversion
T3 outer tie rods and steering knuckles
T3 NCRCA's
new bushings in front
new ball joints in front
Manual steering rack conversion with new inner tie rods

engine:
full rebuild with new gasket set
new piston rings
new rod and main bearings
arp rod bolts
OEM head bolts
TRD .8 mm headgasket
T3 adjustable cam gears
T3 crank pulley, water pump pulley, and alternator pulley
tomei poncams 264 duration on in and ex
customer built header and exhaust

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:30 am

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"working" on taking the engine out. Pizza and Beer makes the process a little slower, but much more enjoyable...

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First thing to come out was the engine. I wanted to get that out so I could clean up the engine bay and wiring. the last owner had taken the power steering pump off and just cut the lines. So, the whole drivers side of the engine bay was coated in gunk. rust protection right?

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:33 am

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I really want to take the time to learn to weld and fabricate, but haven't quite had the time yet. Here's the fabricator helping shorten my strut tubes.

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Here's the finished product. I used the mr2 agx struts, the T3 weld on coilover kit, T3 camber plates. The strut tubes have been shortened 40mm to accomodate the AGX struts.

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:38 am

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Got both the engines on the stand now. On the left is the engine I took out of the car and on the right is the block that I will be using. Once the block has returned from the machine shop, I'll switch everything over

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painted the tension rods and installed whiteline bushings

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painted the control arms and installed new ball joints and energy bushings

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Suspension going back together

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:46 am

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test fitted the steering rack

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and this is why you should at least send your injectors out to be inspected when building an engine. look at the flow rate of the #4 injector before the cleaning!

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painted the block tonight. I used VHT engine enamel in cast iron color. I also ordered main bearings and rod bearings thanks to Herb at Cabe Toyota in Los Angeles. All the suspension is together now. Once I pack new grease in the bearings and install the hubs the car will be rolling again.

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 6:55 am

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I love TechnoToyTuning!

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the picture quality is really gonna improve on this thread as I bought my first DSLR(Canon T3i)

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here's the car as it sits now. more updates coming soon...

Deuce Cam
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby Deuce Cam » Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:00 pm

Nice looking car.

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Your outer steering tie rods are supposed to connect to the underside of the steering knuckles, not the top side as shown in the above pic. Right now the geometry of your control arms/tie rods is like this 'x' and it should be like this '='.

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Feb 19, 2013 1:46 pm

thanks for catching that! I'm pretty sure I called T3 about that, but I must have heard wrong. Thanks for the info

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Sun Apr 07, 2013 5:39 am

its been a while since I've updated this, so here it goes. All the suspension and steering is complete. Once I got it back to a rolling chassis I ordered wheels. 15x9 -15 rota grid v wheels. I raised the suspension a little, installed the wheels and sent it out to paint on Friday. Before its painted the fenders will be rolled and pulled to accommodate the wheels. Here's some more pics...

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Tofu4u
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby Tofu4u » Sun Apr 07, 2013 7:03 pm

Greetings from Cleveland! Good to see another AE86 in Ohio. Your build is coming along quite well. I'm in the same process with my hatch right now.

truenoboy
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby truenoboy » Mon Apr 08, 2013 6:50 pm

Those wheel seem to fit fine on the back without any pulling and rolling. What suspension do you have on the back? I'm going through this same thing now, but I'm at the putting back together stages.

By the way, what are you going to do with the extra set of window trims? You willing to sell them?

noreboy@yahoo.com

Zakae71
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby Zakae71 » Sat Feb 01, 2014 6:43 am

You still live in Columbus? I'm trying to get a toyota meeting this year in Ohio I currently live in Delaware Ohio

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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby yoshimitsuspeed » Sat Feb 01, 2014 9:49 am

Tue Feb 19, 2013 8:14 am
dfresh285 wrote: It was convincing my 6 month pregant wife that I was going to buy a twenty-seven year old car



dfresh285 wrote:Once the weather turned I parked the car and started tearing it apart. My baby boy is due in January


I'm so confused. 15 month pregnancy?

dfresh285 wrote:Once the weather turned I parked the car and started tearing it apart. My baby boy is due in January and I'd really like to have everything put together by that time. here are my plans:


full rebuild with new gasket set
new piston rings
new rod and main bearings
arp rod bolts
OEM head bolts
TRD .8 mm headgasket
T3 adjustable cam gears
T3 crank pulley, water pump pulley, and alternator pulley
tomei poncams 264 duration on in and ex
customer built header and exhaust


If you are still moving forward on this I can help you with all the aftermarket stuff aside from T3. Fawkers won't let me sell their products.
http://matrixgarage.com/products/tomei- ... 64-81mm-ex

I can get a lot of other stuff such as Tomei and HKS cam gears.

joel23
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby joel23 » Sat Feb 01, 2014 11:19 am

nice build man.............................. :mrgreen:

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riddleyo
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby riddleyo » Sat Feb 01, 2014 7:54 pm

Good looking build. Greetings from Dayton. We should definitely have ourselves a OHIO meetup.

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Tue Oct 28, 2014 6:41 pm

holy crap! i can't believe that my last post was April of '13! Actually I can, because that's when I took a new job a began working 80 hours a week. luckily, that didn't last long a life has slowed up a little. Great news! the car is running and driving. I'm working on uploading photos with descriptions now! Lots of pics to come!

EvoSolley
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby EvoSolley » Wed Oct 29, 2014 7:59 am

dfresh285 wrote:holy crap! i can't believe that my last post was April of '13! Actually I can, because that's when I took a new job a began working 80 hours a week. luckily, that didn't last long a life has slowed up a little. Great news! the car is running and driving. I'm working on uploading photos with descriptions now! Lots of pics to come!


Sweet! Cant wait to the new photos! Also if you ever try and Ohio meet up again let me know. I'm in Kentucky and would be stoked to go to a AE86 Meetup somewhat local lol

dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:10 pm

OK, where was I? looks like the last pictures were when the car was about to be painted. I had always liked pictures of all the Origin cars on their website. Every car was a deep red and just looked great! I wanted to stay true to the 80's and burgundy seemed fitting, but what shade? I went with Lexus Matador Red. Here's how it turned out...

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:14 pm

Here are more pictures of the engine going back together...

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:23 pm

While getting the engine together, i was also working on getting the interior pieces painted and back together as well. While the car is an original GT-S, I'm using SR5 door cards. I find these door cards are a little more minimalistic and that's the feel i want inside the car. No radio, no HVAC. Just pedals, steering wheel, shifter, e-brake and seats.

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:25 pm

Here's a pic of the engine finally assembled and sitting next to the car.

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:31 pm

Almost exactly one year to the day I removed the engine, i was able to get it back in! I love how it looks in the engine bay!

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I was also able to pick up a set of 14" longchamps. I had them refinished and mounted a set of old Falken's on them. I now have a set of Nitto NT-01's that i'll mount in the spring for auto-x.

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:33 pm

Oliver loves the Bride seats! unfortunately, these are the fake bride seats as I was running out of money and they were last on the list. I barely fit in them(waist size between 34-36), but they will do until I have the money for real seats.

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dfresh285
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Re: 1985 liftback build in Ohio

Postby dfresh285 » Thu Oct 30, 2014 4:53 pm

So once I got the car back together it was time to start the motor. lots of problems persisted. I was getting fuel to the fuel rail, but I had to jump the fuel relays. Once i got fuel to the fuel rail, I wasn't getting and injector pulse. I first checked the grounds and they were good so I checked power to the ECU. Power was good, so did I have a fried ECU? I was having other issues with the body harness, so I installed a used harness I found on the forum, still nothing... I was running out of time and really wanted to get the car done so I sat down and thought about what my long term goals were with the car and where I wanted to take it. I had always planned to install a V8 and competively drift the car, but I wanted to learn to drive it with the 4age first. Being that I only needed lights, gauges, and power to the engine, I decided to ditch all the Toyota wiring and have a Painless body harness installed. What a great harness! It got rid of all the stupid relay boxes, junctions, etc. Everything is so much easier, plus when I go V8, it will be that much more simpler.

I started the car exactly 2 weeks ago. Fired right up and runs great! after idling for a about 20 minutes, I detected some oil from dripping on the header. I stopped the engine and took off the distributor cap. Oil poured out of the cap, not good. I rebuilt the distributor, reset the timing(still needs work), got it going again. No oil leak from the dizzy!

My wife and I had a cabin reserved in Hocking State Park(Ohio, USA). For all of you Eastcoasters, that's Ohio's equivalent to the Tail of the Dragon. Lots of great roads. Perfect time to get the corolla out and drive it! It's about an hour and twenty minutes from my home so I loaded up the corolla with all nessessities just in case. While heading down, I could see my oil pressure dropping... not good. Stopped and a gas station and found I was two qts low. looked under the car and could see the bottom is coated in oil, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from. I was already halfway down, so I topped off the oil and continued on. Once stopped I could see that oil was coming out from between the engine and trans. I assume it's either the rear main seal or the housing that is leaking. I'll remove the engine, get it sealed up and then reinstall it. Luckily we are coming to Winter here in Ohio so i'll have some to complete the project. More updates to come!

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