stripping

   Well, damn.

Plans A, B, C and D had fallen apart pretty quickly, at this point i was being guided down a path of logical decisions that seemed to end up in a totally illogical place. I had gone from 'will I really need that?' to 'I'll need everything' in a few short weekends.

*shrug*

     Buying stuff is the easy part, any idiot is a few clicks away from a JDM blinging body kit or a new set of wheels.  The way the trends are going with the car show crowd is hardparking a GT inspired car at a car show. Basically just form imitating function- goal of adding a splitter and dry carbon parts is no longer lap times or an enhanced driving experience, the endgame for these types is Instagram exposure or a feature on some booby ass blog. Whatever. I can type a length about how irritated I get seeing canards and winged s2000's with 35lb cast wheels sitting in a krispy kreme parking lot.

  I only say this here because even though I was going through the realization that this was no longer a cheap beater; my intention to track it like it still was had never wavered.
  All it did, really, was up the ante on what i was wanted to do. I have seen a very small handful of ae86's done right that are actually used. Now, its true, this is one of the only cars on planet where they look as cool missing body parts and bouncing off of each other as a full race build. But again anyone can do a boro build- and that just not my style, I want to build something that looks the business without being flashy about it then actually go and use it forits intended purpose

     Now I had a blank canvas where as before stuff like "eh, i dont wanna repaint it" and "Its already got a cage" were out the window. Now that it needs media blasting, I would HAVE to get paint, now that it needs paint it opens the door for after market body panels. You see? Now that the cage was verified as crap I had to find a cage builder...

   I had a coupla people come over to take a look and give me price and time estimates. They were respected cage builders and were saying similar things. Thats when I remembered a cage in my friends 911 that i had seen and really liked. I remembered following the progress pics of it when it was being built but I couldn't remember the builders details. I reached out him and a couple hours later I was talking to Art, the guy who had built it.
    It turns out that he himself is a fellow ae86 owner and enthusiast. He had spent quite some time in Japan and understood what I was going for, right away we were on the same page, and it was nice to not have to explain to someone why the hell I decided to build this as a trackcar especially when I already had something like the NSX. Better yet it turns out that we're basically neighbors so he zipped over to have a look at it in person.

Long story short Art is just setting out to start his own fabrication business a project like this was something he was amped on doing. Cool.

Now that ideas were transforming into reality focus shifted to two areas.
1) Find everything on the chassis that would need metal work so Art could know what he'd be doing
2) prep the car for a full medial blast.

  I had contacted a couple places that do soda blasting and media blasting. I had researched and found that acid dipping a chassis like the 86 will weaken to a point of only lasting a few years of hardcore abuse.  I also didn't like the idea of residual acid getting trapped in the frame rails and trashing it in places I wouldn't be able too see and fix. I found a place that was reasonably local and willing to do the entire car. i spoke with the owner and got a list of things that would drop the price if i did them myself. This basically meant removing everything; I was pretty much halfway there already so whatever.

I wanted to take the motor out to have a better look anyways so I rented a  hoist. It was fucking MASSIVE and heavy but did the trick.

Ended up being able to get the motor and trans out together. it involved some tweaking of the rad support, you can see where the PO had the same idea.

Within a few hours with some help from Arman and Mark we had the motor and trans separated and on a stand.

 No I could get the first real look at the 'trans tunnel' and bay. I had seen a spot where the sealant had been eaten away from the strut apron and noticed what looked like rust underneath. Sure enough, now that I could get in there i was able to push a screwdriver straight though it. that was yet another spot that would have to be patched and fixed.

The picture bolow is looking down the tunnel, you can see the top quality welds (guh.) Art and I both took one look at this and agreed with a nod that this would have to be fixed too. So far not so good, but hey- at least the chassis is pulling itself part like my old one.
    Actually its surprisingly straight, never even a fender bender. Good thing too had I found any previous damage I would've had to have a long hard think about scrapping this chassis all together for new one. I'm not happy about the rust spots on this car but fixing and keeping it JUUUST edges out getting another shell on the pain-in-the-ass meter.

Also now that the motor was out I was able to really see how the motor was held in. I had plans to keep the notched subframe and mount set up that came in it sense they were 'working' (and free) but after seeing them naked it seemed like a bad idea and added a JSP f20c mount kit to the list of stuff id need to get. What I don't know is if the driveshaft that came on the car, which at least looks decent and usable, will need to be altered and rebalanced since its length was made specifically to match the boo-boo mounts that are now going in the trash. This is yet to be seen but a small price for not having the motor exit the engine bay under hard braking.

As seen here the sub frame is obviously another issue. Other than looking like shit a quick google of a non altered crossmember shows that mine is missing a good 2/3s of its structure and therefore is 2/3's weaker. Since im running about triple the power output as intended even for the stock piece. Then on top of that adding modern day R compounds tires it stands to reason that the energy it needs to deal with warrants doing it correctly. Add it to the list.


Back on the inside the mystery spot was looking uglier and uglier. To paint a clearer picture Art brought over a spot weld drill bit and I went to work.

Better, but will definitely need some attention

I removed a few no longer necessary cross braces and hinges for things like the rear seats. The rigidity will be more than supplemented one the 8pt cage is in place. It also adds to a cleaner more straight forward interior one its all painted and finished.

You can see here too I was experimenting with aircraft remover on the floor pan before I decided on the media blast. I had even spend a ton of time and removed the majority of the seam sealant on the trunk.

Also the birdshit welded 'pads' for the previous roll cage will be removed before the new one get installed. 

In addition to the braces that were no longer needed I remove the sunroof tray and accompanying bracketry. All together i saved about 40+lbs removing stuff that was no longer going to be needed . better yet  the majority of the stuff were things that raised the center of gravity. ill figure out a sunroof plug when its time, not so urgent at the moment.

More brackets for the rear sunroof...

gone.

Last few steps i needed to do was remove all the glass and trunk. Of course I got about 95% through removing the front windshield before I cracked it. figures.

   All the other glass came out for good and will be replaced with lexan to further lower the CG. Doors stayed on but have no guts since the cage will be running inside them. side windows will also be lexan with dzues fasteners so I can pull then off for track days but still drive the car if I need.

once all this was done I loaded up the car and shipped it off to the blaster.

 

Next episode.....Did someone say spending spree?

Digging in

So, I'd decided that things needed an over haul. Too keep from going around like a chicken with my head cut off I formulated a plan of attack.

 I would start stripping until i came across things that I thought were okay enough to stay, leave them, and contunue on. When finished going over the car in this manner id step back and see what I was dealing with and go from there..

At first I was logging the harness but soon stopped and just started unplugging stuff for removal. I knew that not a single thing on the engine and underdash harness were going to be salvaged in their current state.

Next I got around to the back of the trunk and pulled out the, shitty battery box thing and had a look at the fuel system set up.

The fuel tank itself was fine, it had an AN line fitting and what looked to be a new fuel pump. problem being it had no evap canister and every time I would finish for the night and close the garage door it would make the entire house smell like gasoline. the fuel lines themselves were laughable. They were barbed fitted non stainless tubing that ran underneith the car for delivery and return. these were sheet metal screwed into the floor pan at irregular intervals, some sections had 3" of droop that was a couple inches away from drive shaft and squeezed into a gap underneath the transmission mount. It then made a 45* bend at the steering spline and up to the fuel rail. Return traced the same route back to the tank but the hose was only zip tied onto the OEM single barb fuel return neck, I dont even know if the hose size was matched to the barb, it was a real shit show and clearly needed to all be changed so i pulled the fuel tank and lines off. They would've need to come off or at least be dropped anyways so i could check for rust in the space between.

Pretty soon I was down to just the metal, I knew id want to repaint the interior so I pulled the grommets out too while I was there.  In the below pics you can see where the seat was mounted though the sheet metal floor. thank god no one ever wrecked in this thing. I left the e-brake in for now since I was still rolling it in and out of my tiny garage so I could have a bit more space to work around it.

I also pulled off the USDM bumpers and fenders and hood so I could have more access and take a better look around for rust. The stock bumpers weigh like 100 lbs each and look like an overbite so there was no way those were going back on anyways. You can see a small rust hole forming around the lower drivers side window a coupe pics down. I found it when i was yanking out the window wipers and motor, debating if i'm going to run them in the car final form. I haven't decided yet.

170lbs worth of the US nanny state

 You can see in the above picture too the 'rollcage' that came welded in. At one point it was a 6pt you can see by the picture above that they plinthed some (sharp edged) boxes into the foot wells. what they didnt do was removed any of the under coating or seam sealant  before welding. Im certain that under shock stress they wouldn't have held up and 'boinged' into the leg of the driver. The good news is that before I got the car someone had done half the hard work and removed the front section for me. What was left was a weld in rear section drag race type cage, you can see where they cut and grinded down the connection points for the halo bar. The gap to the roof was a good 2-3 inches and once I'd removed the sun roof frame was going to be even more, either way it was doing nothing therefore was history. I sawzalled the remaining cage out. Add that to the list...

   A bummer was when they welded the rear pads in they didnt clean the under coating so when it was heated it just separated the metal from the tar stuff and created pockets where water or whatever could get stuck and eat away at the chassis. This means that I was at least going to have to remove these sections of under coating so I could see what was going on.

Off came the drive shaft and hard lines  (which had all of 2 bolt holding them on) You can see the brown of surface rust, this is where the pads for the cage are welded to the chassis.

rusty spots under the undercoating

I was also worried about a spot that my friend Mark pointed out. It was up in the rear drivers side well behind the cage where it connected to the trunk divider, it looked like there was something eating away at it, now the question is was it dripping from the sunroof assembly or was it rusting from the bottom up. ill find a better picture but you can see the spot on the far wheel well where the flap is pulling up.
 

  The only way to really tell was to take as much of it off as i could have. I went and got a pneumatic air chisel and sharpened down the blade so I could remove some under coating and see.

my neighbors hate me

Satisfying, but slow going

One single wheel wells worth of undercoat weighed out to 8lbs!

Post-wirewheel pass

You can see the middle hole above looks like the culprit for the rust. To get a single wheel well to this point took a few hours with the chisel and wire wheel then a couple more hours on top of that with a dental pick scraping the sealant out of the seams. All the while I was getting a tweaked back and under coating bits in my eyes. Since I need my eyes for work and couldn't afford the risk of scratching a cornea I started to think that acid dipping or media blasting the chassis was an expensive but 'worth it' solution.

  Since I knew I had to do sheet metal work for rust I had begun to toss around the idea of doing a full seam weld and gusset in addition to the cage... and if that were the case media blasting or dipping would clear all the crevasses completely of the sealant, I'm good at convincing myself of things.

more scraping

Well. Guess its all gotta come out now...

on step farther down the rabbit hole

The initial foray

     Now everything was 'legit' and I didn't need to move the car anywhere anymore I could park it in my garage and properly start to dig in and see what was really going on under the surface.

I'd arranged to leave the NSX with a friend and fellow track enthusiast from work.
  His garage space is seriously perfect and one in a million in Los Angeles.

All tucked in for hibernation while the 86 gets teardown.

    Meanwhile, back at home with my ISS sized workspace I put the car up in the air for the first time. I needed to get my head around what i'd need to buy and whats already on the car that I could salvage. Also, Rust was a big worry for me. I'd never bought or owned an outta state car so I dont know the first thing about any sort of rust repair. Out here in California we're lucky in that regard I needed too see how the frame was holding after an unknown amount of time on salted roads and rain.

   Now I can say I wish I did a more in depth documentation of the original state of its arrival. Basically you can say it was 'as advertised' but there was a lot more jank involved than I was hoping. I'd seen that on day 1 when i first sat in it; but this was the first day I could really see what was what. I'd planned to focus on the interior since I knew that it needed work anyways but now I could find out what was really lurking below.

 I was most curious about the wiring. It was running an AEM ECU for the f20c, the PO had gotten a tune and told me he was never happy with it, I figured that was most likely the cause of the shitty power delivery and wanted to start there for any obvious issues.

  I have no idea who tuned it but after pulling back the curtain to expose the wiring harness i couldn't fault them entirely.

   I'm sure it was missing about half the grounds it should've had and god knows what else. The under dash harness was hardwired directly into the engine harness with butt connectors and in some cases ye' olde twist and tape method. At this point i triple checked the battery was removed and went and printed the Toyota wiring schematics. I tried to make sense of what went where but clearly there wasn't any rhyme or reason to it, there were Honda relays sheet metal screwed into the kick panel and being jumped off of a 12v source from random places like say wiper motor or window retractor. what a mess.  The whole system must've been surging and drawing current in all states . This i'm guessing is why the car also had a battery kill switch fitted, which i found had its metal leads uncovered and exposed ready to arc with whatever you put in the trunk that happened to brush up against them.


There were also some Autometer type aftermarket gauges plummed through the fire wall and tapped into, apparently, whatever was easy to get too.  Then there were the little things like the firewall sound deadening pad that was just ripped off at the bottom and not actually removed. Stuff like this speaks volumes about the mindset of the previous builder.  That told me that whoever had done the original work clearly DGAF about fit and finish. He was likely just testing voltage and tapping wires where ever he felt like. The combination of exposed hot leads and old school organic fiber sound padding were a fire waiting to happen. I'm surprised this thing even ever passed the most minor cursory tech inspections.

The car ran so poorly I had to snap a pic of the serial number to see if it was even running a compatible ecu

Tying to get my head around the wiring

Junk in the trunk. literally.

track ready water set up

sweet trans tunnel.

Seat was bolted directly through the thin sheet metal floor pan, Yikes!

    At this point I started to realized I was looking at something of a more involved build that I'd set out to do. Certainly a more expensive one. I am all about doing things 'on the cheap' when needed or function over form; but it has to at least has to meet some sort of quality bar, at the very least fire safety; call me old fashion.

  Seeing how everything id dug into so far had a running theme of being clustered beyond fucked I started to change my thinking. It'd gone from 'what can i modularity fix as i go' to more of a 'Nothing shall remain' scorched earth policy.
   Echoing lessons id learned from my past cars (and certainly my previous ae86) I knew any stone left unturned would likely come back to haunt me. This is not to mention also im pretty particular about my cars. Just KNOWING something is hacked up, even if it works just wont fly.


 So here was the turning point. It went from 'just something i can track' to something much more involved; all in the time it took me to pull the dashboard. just what i needed.


But the decision had been made, I was already invested, now how far do I take it.











  

Finding the car

 Once I actually knew what I wanted searching for it became much easier. I put the word out that I was looking for an 86 and listed my criteria to a few friends. My buddy Van who also owns and regularly tracks an 86 approved of my decision and said hed keep an eye out.

A few hours later I get a text from him with a link to a SF.bay craigslist that read something like "87 Corolla GTS/honda motor"
      Now, I frequently search for cars and typically see a bunch of these hack jobs pop up here and there. You can usually tell whats up by reading between the lines of the posts, stuff like 'easy fix' and 'getting outta the game' are dead give aways that the car is either half ass built, abused and typically both.  When I clicked on the ad I was surprised to see that there wasn't really much more info than what was in the title I clicked on. There was a couple pictures and something that said the car wasn't even in SF but up in Idaho. price was $7500

      I figured for about $3500 less than I was seeing these f20c swaps go for it was either a pile of crap or it was someone that wasn't sure what they had. I guessed the latter since the ad had so little info on the actual car. I threw the Hail Mary emailed the guy my number and asked him if he had a chance to call me up.



Sure enough about 30 min later a guy calls me from an Idaho number and we talk. Hes an 'older' guy and not at all who'd id expected to be talking too abuot something like this. He'd himself apparently bought it almost on a whim from someone in Portland to use as an autocross car. He didnt know anything about the parts that were on the car or anything other than the very basics. He did however own a independent Honda repair garage and said that his employees and sons do most of the work. fair enough. After a couple more calls and some very poorly taken pictures of some requested areas i said 'fuckit' and wired the guy money and arranged to have the car shipped down.


these were the initial pictures i got of the car, taken by the previous owner to the guy i was dealing with. It looked clean and shiny with some decent parts, "how much can it have changed since then" i said to myself...

Not too bad I though to myself this looks like it fits the bill and the price was right, even after factoring in the shipping and the cost associated in getting it titled here in Comrade California

After about two weeks dealing with some of the most incompetent business/people ever when trying to actually get it shipped for a reasonable price in a reasonable amount of time I'd finally been confirmed that it was on its way. $1000 Sandy Point Idaho to California. *&%#.

 The car showed up 5 days later to my work and before it was even off the rig I noticed a 6" rust hole in the rear passenger unibody. off to a good start..

At least it fired up and ran enough to pull itself off the trailer, which was nice, but it had almost no power and no clutch. For reference it felt about half what my old redtop motor did on a good day and wouldn't engage vtec. ('timing issue?' i thought to myself)

  After a very preliminary poking around on the side of the street i realized that I wouldn't be taking it to the track that next weekend. In fact it was going to take quite a bit more than throwing some wheels id already bought for it on and flushing the fluids like I hoped. Ah yes, the ae86 life. The familiar sting.

literally 5 min after taking delivery..

Just imagine the musty smell, it was worse

ah, check, motor included.

After a very slow and loud drive home from work I had to resist the urge to just start pulling it all apart right then and there. I just sat in it and tried to make a list of things that I would need too do. the list was so big i had to split it up into section of the car then I had to split that up into different functions.  After attempting this for a while i switched making a list of priorities it'd need to be track ready.. I gave that up too and narrowed it down to "what does it need to get me to AAA to have the out of state inspection done" that at least felt manageable and spent the rest of the first day wiring up an external fan switch, removing the seat harnesses and ditching the ignition cover with the Honda logo.

Funny part was having to explain to people that it was worth more than $500. Nevermind getting them buy into its actually semi sought after classic with a pretty robust racing heritage.

 To everyone who was used to the smooth curves of the NSX in my garage or driveway this was akin to assault. I literally had neighbors stop while passing to ask what was the meaning of this. Thats sorta why i love the 86; it just looks like a total hunk of shit. Its 'undercover' in every since of the term and in this case were talking eyesore level 'undercover'. The pièce de résistance was the neon orange tape covering up the seams on the leaky sunroof this perfectly offset the mid 80's western inspired pin stripping.

magnifique...

  Next day at AAA it passed the VIN tag checks with flying colors. I had a headache from the drive down becasue the exhaust was dumping fumes from a 2 inch gap in the collector stright into the 'trans tunnel' mod. this in turn was dumping unburnt fumes directly into the cabin. While smelling like I was just huffing gas in the parking lot before my appointment I told the inspection lady some sob story about the car and how it was ugly now but my plan was to restore it to match the first car i ever owned, blah, blah.... meanwhile (don't mind the roll cage and motor from a different manufacture...)

   guess i'm keeping it..

well guess im keeping it now

Now I have to figure out what the hell im gunna do...