Rota Wheels AE86 rebuild in Manila

[rota wheels wrx]

We originally got the gar to compete in the amateur drift series. My younger brother wanted to try out drifting and my plan was to rebuild the car after a year of drifting.

Well, it turns out that drifting was very hard on the old Corolla and a season of it would surely "kill" the car. I decided to give it a reprieve and spare it from drift duty and rebuild it to cherish as well as enjoy!.

This is how we got the car. From pictures, it looks decent but at closer inspection, you know there is something wrong. The body looks swollen with all the body filler the former restorer put on the car





Since the car already came with a GZE and the original engine long gone. I decided that it was never going to be a concours car so a "resto-mod" was in order. Plan was to make a GT-V Trueno clone with a 20V black top

Let the madness begin

[rota wheels wrx]

Just some of the parts sourcing I had to do

From various surplus importers in Manila. A Trueno nose and 20V Blacktop. A lot of stuff from yahoo JP auctions too.













I know the seats and door cards are from a GT-APex, It's just it's easier to source them than the GT-V parts. So it's now a GT-V with GT-APex interior =)

[rota wheels wrx]

Sealed the sunroof to avoid future leaks and the weight reduction by taking off the sunroof assembly is a nice bonus



I was prepared for the worst judging from the body filler this car had. It took 7 gallons of paint stripper to peel off all that filler.



Surprisingly, rust was acceptable. Nothing serious really. The usual areas, edges of the running board, wheel arches etc...

A lot of previous rust repairs were wrong so they had to be repeated.



Unfortunately, the AE86 was never officially imported into the Philippines so body panels are rare over here. Shipping a big panel such as the fender would cost tons plus take forever so the front fender had to be repaired locally. This was the most major rust repair on the car

[rota wheels wrx]

The hatch was terminal. As luck would have it. We were able to buy a BNIB Geniune Toyota part hatch locally! Really pure luck! I guess someone imported the wrong part or someone special ordered it and didn't pick it up



Crappy hatch on the right, new one all primered up

[86stroker]

nice project ... !

[gtapex]

brilliant read and project..

more pics please

[oldskull]

nice project.. keep it up!

[rota wheels wrx]

Bumper and headlights mocked up to check for fitment and gaps





Stripping the sound isolation since they were all cracked up already and repairing some parts of the floor.

[eighty-six-trueno]

doing things the right way

[rota wheels wrx]

Don't be alarmed by the amount of body filler. We usually wrap a big portion of the body with filler then sand it down once again to a thin layer to make the surface totally even



Mocking up the 20V



A Japanese friend which happens to be a race engineer did not believe in dizzy relocator kits so he said to just go with the stock distributor. He used to work for TRD before moving to SPWRT (Subaru Production World Rally Team) so who am I to disobey him.

We just made room for the dizzy on the firewall