Hello from Switzerland

[Ivan141]

Here's some more answers for chumpy:
Yes it's true, red tops produce more power. This was true for stock engines, and even more true when you consider the age difference between them (engines do get tired with age). Was the other car with redtop also equipped with a power robbing catalysator?
Rest assured, you can always fit a redtop head later, it will make better power with a modified smallport manifold than it will with a stock manifold with adapter plate.

About the oil gauge, it sounds just right. It should rise between 2 lines on the gauge, if it's too low or all the way up then something is wrong.

About the brake pedal: hard is good. I cant get mine to be hard enough and my car brakes like shit. Robokill also has a rockhard pedal feel, maybe the brake booster has gotten a bit weak, but I wouldnt worry about it if the brakes are good.

[chumpy]

Thanks for all the answers guys, it really is a big help.

For the engine, the redtop I had tried was without catalyser and I didn't know this at the time, but the car had been lightened a bit. So that would help to explain the power difference. Also it really seems to me that the bluetop had hardly been run in over a year. I just hope it just needs to woken up again and that I am not getting bad compression.

Thanks for the answers on the oil, I was a bit worried, but it seems perfectly normal.

The brakes seemed good and that is the most important. They are completly stock brakes and lines, but I guess I will adjust the pedal to be a bit lower. I have been told that on a good stock AE86, the brakes are described as almost on/off, and htis description fits the one I tried quite well.

So by the looks of it, everything does seem normal and the car is in very good condition. No apparent rust, passed swiss inspection, straight frame from what I could tell. Very few km, around 65 000km (can't believe I found one with so few km ) and a reasonable price.

I'll have it before friday and I'll post up some pics. I'll probably have more questions before then, so thanks for all the info and keep the answers coming. For example, I know the timing belt change is overdue, so I'll have to do that immediately and probably flush the whole system (change all the liquids). Any advice on things I should do when I get the car?

[banpei]

Just a stupid question: what is a reasonable price in Switzerland?

[chumpy]

Well it is within the price range Dorito86 quoted, closer to the lower end. Between 3000 and 3500 euros. What do you guys think?

[banpei]

chumpy Wrote:Well it is within the price range Dorito86 quoted, closer to the lower end. Between 3000 and 3500 euros. What do you guys think?

Very nice!
Consider that I paid a lot less for my car, but already worked a lot on the car to get it into vacation shape. I'll probably have spent another 500 euros in total at the end of this week and then I still have to manage with some minor problems and rust and not so nicely repairs. So if you have a almost rustfree car in, good shape and low kilometers for that price you absolutely have gold in your hands.

[dreja]

If the car is really without rust and the kilometers are real, the price is excelent

Btw my car was also imported from switzerland, in the year '91, and it doesn't have the catalytic converter...

Some of ae86 have a redtop. I'm wondering if they have first the bluetop installed and then swapped to redtop ? Or they came with redtop from factory?

Regards
Andrej

[banpei]

dreja Wrote:Some of ae86 have a redtop. I'm wondering if they have first the bluetop installed and then swapped to redtop ? Or they came with redtop from factory?

According to many sources (billzilla for instance) say the ae86 only had a bluetop. The redtop was AE92 only, eventhough the AE92 had bluetops as well. So consider the redtop more rare. In horsepower the redtop (especially with smallport, thus no t-vis) should be a bit weaker if kept stock, but for hard tuning the redtop (with smallport, thus no t-vis) should be awesome. Further the bigport redtop shouldn't differ that much from the bluetop, except the engine itself is stronger and can be pushed a bit further than the bluetop.
So yes: they swapped the engine for a redtop.

Edited: changed blue into red and red into blue.

[jamiemirror]

AFAIK all AE86s 4AGE are bluetop.

[banpei]

jamiemirror Wrote:AFAIK all AE86s 4AGE are bluetop.

Stupid: I meant it the other way around, blue = red and red = blue...

BTW: I do have a redtop 7 rib engine and it was swapped for the 4AC, so no bluetop -> redtop swap.

[robotype]

So you think swapping the redtop from an AE92 is worth only for hard tuning? I have a red top and I was thinking to do it soon or late...

But now I am more interested in removing the AFM from my car, is it a mess or could be done easily? Was there any discussion about this?