Sibu Pride: Turbocharged Levin AE86

Like I’ve already mentioned in my previous post, Sia, a friend of mine and also Johnny, recently just finished his long overdue AE86 rebuild!  The entire rebuild took him more than 2 years to complete, although very time consuming, but he did most of the work all by himself (very similar to Johnny) and the end results are DROOL WORTHY!

Here are some cellphone pictures that I’ve took while I was at his house picking up my tires:

Turbocharged Red AE86 Levin with 2 Way LSD

Sunroof still in working condition!

A very clean and tidy Engine bay!

Packs with many goodies, like these multi coil ignition system!

Turbo overkill anyone!?

Front wheels are 14" Watanabes

Interior shot, all business!

The 300+hp madness is done and powered by MicroTech

This cockpit view is all GO!

This car has been driven on Sibu streets, but it is currently facing some oil leak issue so I didn’t really get the chance to be a passenger and experience how it felt to be in the legendary tofu car with a bigass turbo.

The owner also has a set of UltraRacing bars waiting to be fitted onto the ride, and when he finally got his oil leak issue fixed after CNY, I’d be sure to call him out for a more in depth look and experience in the car while it’s rolling, HOPEFULLY!!  Stay tuned! ^_^

Drifting with 14″ Tires

Not just any usual sized 14″ tires, but the ones from the Toyota Avanza, which comes in 185/70/R14!  Now that’s what I call fat! LOL!

Anyhow, Sia called me up 2 days ago and told me he had 4 Avanza tires that he needed to get rid of, so I’m the first guy he thought of contacting, wise choice my friend, wise choice indeed.  While I visited his home to pick up the tires, I also spent a good 10~20 minutes checking out his monster spec AE86, but I’ll get to that in my next post.

 

Charmant rocking 185/70/R14 tires at the rear

After I got my tires, I went straight to my usual playground, called up a new friend whom has been bugging me to give him a drift ride or two, and began my long awaited drift session!

Drifting on 14″ tires was definitely a first for me, I didn’t knew what to expect, but that uncertainty feeling disappeared as soon as I popped my clutch in first gear, ‘Hey it’s pretty much the same!’.  And so I went and did a couple of donuts and figure 8s in first gear, just to get myself warmed up.

After feeling more comfortable, it was time to move up to 2nd gear and do some choku doris down the straightaway.  Now the 1st gear was piece of cake, but doing it in 2nd gear was way different, I was having a hard time to snap my rear out with barely any angle, without any Ebrake to assist me, I tried hard on clutch kicking, feint and also power over (worst technique to attempt in this situation though, LOL!) and somehow none of the techniques felt right.  When I did managed to get in some good angles, I’d usually spun at the following transition, ewww!

After 5 minutes of non stop attempts in some louzy ass choku doris, I noticed that my water temp gauge is not working, I parked my car at the side and got down to check on my engine, and the view was shocking!  I have oil ALL OVER my engine bay, I was petrified!  The first thought that came to mind was “OH MOTHERF*CK! HAVE I JUST BLOWN MY 3RD ENGINE, AGAIN!!??”

But thank god that was not the case, I knew there’s something wrong, but the engine was still running very smooth and healthily at the time, so I was suspecting it could be a loosen fuel hose or something, but I just don’t know where the leak was, I quickly packed up my tires and gears and drove straight to my mechanic for help.

 

Messy and greasy engine bay

The picture above doesn’t show much justice on how messy it was as I snapped this the day after the incident… Anyhow, back to the story!  After a quick check from my mech, he told me the leak came from this…

 

The yellow hose is actually hanging loose to the bottom end of the engine bay

Notice the yellow hose coming out from my valve cover?  Well that was supposed to connect to my intake manifold, the one where I have a brown hose tucked on it…

 

The yellow hose supposed to go to the Intake Manifold!

Since I’ve modded my intake manifold, the 2 holes are now misaligned and although I can still connect them both with the current hose, it would not be wise.  And that’s why my mech decided to simply point my hose towards the bottom, as he didn’t expect my driving would spill oil all over the engine bay!  Another possible reason could be the fact that I’m now running higher fuel pressure from my regulator, which sorta made the matter worse, I guess…. (someone please correct me or my mech if both of us are extremely wrong!)

Long story short, I am in urgent need of an Oil Catch tank if I wish to do more drifting, oh and about the water temp gauge not working problem, it was just my sensor socket came loose, LOL!

In the end, I’m glad it wasn’t much of a serious issue, thank god!

The thing about Old School Cars…

They constantly bug you with all sorts of problems, mechanical, electrical and etc which all lead to a lot of frustration, sometimes even depression!

Nowadays, my car drives like it’s falling apart in pieces, the roads in my town are getting much worse since they first started ‘upgrading’, which usually takes more than 6 months to complete, or even longer if there’s an election coming soon, all the projects would be put on hold, and depending on which side wins, that would probably be the main factor in the completion of these projects, politics, bah!

So, my car is out from the garage, it’s in my house, I’ve been driving it 1-2 times per week, driving it to jog, to my usual basketball place, normal routine, not much drifting nowadays, of course if it’s raining while I’m driving, you bet I’d be dumping my clutch once or twice on certain corners, IF there’s no traffic around of course, hehe.

Good things don’t last long, and my car started misfire since last 2 weeks, my first suspicion comes from either the Spark Plugs or the Plug Wires.  But since neither me or my mechanic friend had any spares, we couldn’t do any simple diagnostic on the fly, so I left my car at the shop and let my mech checked on the fueling side of things, well… just to be sure… and guess what, there WAS a leak in one of my fuel pump hoses, got that fixed but then the problem soon haunted me back.

4AGE not feeling too well.

I was fearing for something worse, but LUCKY me, it was only the plug wires that caused me much worries, my mech finally found some replacement, so got that settled with and now my engine is running well again, I even did a couple donuts in front of the shop, yep, felt good!

After I had my Charmant’s little hiccup fixed, I visited another friend of mine, whom was managing a car wash business downtown, and do check out his ride…

Toyota Cressida 1G-GTE

The driver was driving only a Wira Aeroback a while ago, after he caught the Drifting bug thanks to me, he got himself a pretty mint condition Cressida, found a 1G halfcut and off the car went to a nearby workshop and started the engine swapping process.  My friend also painted the whole car himself in Matt Black, which IMO looks a whole lot cooler compared to my Charmant though, LOL!  Heck he’s running on much better wheels!

The only thing lacking right now from this Cressida is some proper bucket seats and a LSD, I’ve been suggesting my friend to simply weld the axle since there are plentiful cheap Cressida axle’s to be found in Sibu, yet he’s still hesitant about it, I don’t blame him though, not everyone is as drift crazy as me in Sibu, I assure you that!

Lastly, one of the rear tires is leaking air, although slowly, but I’m planning on visit my old playground and so some tire ripping to just get rid of it, now where could I find any partners….hmmm…