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...