AE 86 Road Race

[StupidDeep]

I am currently looking at ae 86s to turn into a track car. I was wondering if anybody has had lots of experience with them as track cars. I wanna know a good place to start (other then stripping it and all the safety requirements.)

Money isn't a huge issue as we have 3 drivers/crewmembers who all have decent incomes.

I want to start with brakes, suspension and handling first. I wanna give it power last. Why have a shit load of power if you can't keep all 4 wheels on the road?

As I don't have any experience with toyotas I was just wondering if I would need to do anything specific to make it track worthy. For example, in my BMW I had to throw in cross braces so the thing could take a corner at speed without the inside front tire lifting.

[hardtopte72]

Originally Posted by StupidDeep

I am currently looking at ae 86s to turn into a track car. I was wondering if anybody has had lots of experience with them as track cars. I wanna know a good place to start (other then stripping it and all the safety requirements.)

Money isn't a huge issue as we have 3 drivers/crewmembers who all have decent incomes.

I want to start with brakes, suspension and handling first. I wanna give it power last. Why have a shit load of power if you can't keep all 4 wheels on the road?

As I don't have any experience with toyotas I was just wondering if I would need to do anything specific to make it track worthy. For example, in my BMW I had to throw in cross braces so the thing could take a corner at speed without the inside front tire lifting.

More info will probably be found on club4AG.com and 3TCgarage.com

You are going to definitely want to cage the car. Depending on how serious you are depends on how much you will spend.

Common things are:
Sub frame connectors
Caged engine bay
Seam welding
Coilovers (either Ground Control, QA1, Megan Racing, or GReddy)
Brakes (usually handled by a Big brake kit from technotoytuning.com or theracingstore.com)
Rear end (even if you have a GTS the rear end is very weak depending on how much power you have. I like the Ford 8.8 rear end and a Toyota truck 5 Lug rear end (from 86-95 low body)
Various Arms and Bars (rear 4 links, panhard rod, adjustable top hats, Roll center adjusters, tension control rods, controls arms, sway bars, tie-rods, strut bars and all ususally come from Cusco or technotoytuning.com)
Springs (depends on a lot of things. Swift, TRD, Megan, Tein are options)
Wheels (panasports, or any real high quality road race wheel)

And that should get you started.

[StupidDeep]

Thanks! I don't think we will be going the big brake route quite yet as most people that race out here are just running street brakes with drilled slotted rotors and a more aggressive pad. We aren't running on many actual tracks either it's mostly airports. The local dragstrip has started construction on a road course which is really nice and hopefully will be done by next year!

[ariel_86]

The best thing I can suggest is replace any wear items before the go out, or pack some spares for if/when they go out at the track.

I'd look into getting:
stainless braided lines for the brake lines and clutch slave
New clutch master and slave, new brake master cylinders
fresh wheel bearings
fresh bushings on any items you don't replace (i.e. if you go with a T3 4-link, you won't need new 4-link bushings, but if you don't replace the sway bar, get new bushings for it)
either a short throw kit or rebuild the shifter bushing (T3 has both, TRD should still offer their short-throw but it is much more expensive)
proper gauges (depending on how you like to monitor your engine vitals)
clutch
high quality fluids like Redline or Royal purple in the engine, transmission, and differential and fresh DOT 3 or 4 brake fluid
and consider rebuilding the brake calipers depending on the condition of the car. As long as you use some good rotors and pads (I keep hearing great things about Brembo blanks and EBC pads on these cars), you shouldn't need much else to upgrade the brakes

Just remember that when an AE86 is really just a 25 yr-old economy/commuter car that has gotten a second wind as a drift/track toy. A "cheap" 86 is going to need TLC to be road-worthy, let alone race worthy, and the T-50 transmissions in them are prone to break with excessive abuse, wear, and neglect.

[StupidDeep]

We are also going to replace the whole cooling system. New thermostat and radiator at least. It is going to need a new motor or the current one needs to be rebuilt. The motor we have is the 4AGE 1.6L 16valve. We also need to have a rollcage and a fuel cell and all that safety stuff.