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This week we take a ride in Gilles Dicham’s Colorado Orange 1972 BMW 2002 Touring.
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Films:
The Love For Toyota's 86 Is Eternal
i like the sound of the 4a-ge !
however the ae86 was not the best chassis for it, that remains the ae82 fwd corolla gt, especially in rare chris amon tuned spec that was unique to new zealand assembled corolla gt’s. at the time (mid-80s) it would run rings around the other 4a-ge toyotas – ae86, aw11 mr2.
If you are interested in mechanical watches at all then you know that some people like ‘skeleton’ watches, where you can see the mechanism through the face plate. It’s kind of like that. Exposed cams are done, by some, for a functional reason. For those who have adjustable cams, and who are always tweaking them a little, and then taking a few laps again the clock to see if they like the difference, then the cover comes off and maybe never goes back on. People who have cams with adjustable timing sometimes like to show them off, revealing that the engine has a hot cam timing. In terms of the hazard, there isn’t much. There are other belts in that area, and the front of an engine is a bad place for fingers and tools when the engine is running.
These videos which describe and document the diversity and range of the car hobby I find to be part of the magic of this entire Petrolicious series. There are people working off by themselves mining out the possibilities of different chassis and suspension configurations. As a general rule these groups do not know about one another. Some are are top-dollar enterprises and pay as much for a paint job as others of us do for a car or a few cars. But the physics remains the same, and the tools remain the same. Petrolicious helps these different groups understand what we have in common. The straw hat crowd at Pebble Beach Concourse d’Elegance and folks visiting the Krispy Kreme Doughnuts parking lot for cars & coffee share more than we previously knew. Petrolicious shows us that.
In a neighborhood having a racing exhaust is really inconsiderate, and in many States, simply illegal. I am with you on that. This said, there are all kinds of exhausts.
If you have an 80s car your factory exhaust is gone by now. So at this point you have choices. The available exhausts are all aftermarket. The factory no longer sells them. The ones that are are straight-thru types can be very quiet in traffic, and are louder under wide open throttle. This varies. Since you never use full throttle in an urban settling, they tend to be, or can be, only slightly louder than stock, while driving in traffic.
On a track or in a canyon, the straight-thru types, with baffling to the side, and no recursive flow routing, release a little power at the top of the power band, and they let you hear your shift points better. The exhaust note can also tell you a little about the torque load on the drive train at a given point in time.
They are not for everyone.
The AE86 is kind of a different story from the 510 and E30. There is a live rear axle, a panhard rod and optional limited slip on US versions. And this gives the car a different driving dynamic than the rear ends on the 510 and E30. This is a characteristic that either you like or you do not. When you couple that with the fact that the AE86 weighs about as much as an early Miata, you have a car that many find more predictable to control at the limits of traction than are cars with more sophisticated suspensions. They are not faster, just more predictable because the zero camber in the rear can never change with changes in lateral ‘g’ force and body roll. Live axles offer this advantage.
Both front and rear have sway bars. And there are disks all around. This is not something you would necessarily expect on a car at this price point. Unlike the 510 or E30, the shape and angle of the green-house C pillars add meaningful stiffness to the chassis. The traditional, notch-back sedans like the 510 or E30 have a more flexible green house. The blind spots of the notch-back sedans are smaller, but that comes at a price in all over chassis stiffness, or in weight.
So the secret to the popularity of the AE86 is in the fact that it is a light car, with a chassis that is usually rigid for the weight, with true 21st century running gear, except for the live rear axle. However the live rear axle, given the light weight and the high chassis stiffness, seems to work out. In the AE86 you have rear suspension that behaves very predictably at the limits of traction. Further to the point the car was, and to a certain degree still is, quite affordable. Given these advantages, I find it unremarkable that the car has a significant following.
Try this video of a light-weighted AE86 on a wet track. This shows off what the rear suspension of this car does best. Very predictable at (and over) the limit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNCY6hu33XA
AE86 was the car that I learned to drift in. In the 80s. In Japan, on touges, so I did it properly. I crashed it, quite a few times, too, so I have certain emotional attachment to it. What I never expected was the incredible popularity of the car. You see, when Initial D first came out, we knew the only AE86 can be the hero car, I mean, there just wasn’t anyway around, but at the same time, we’d never really imagined that AE86 would become the car that embodies JDM classics and drift scenes. I really appreciate the passion and enthusiasm that echoes with my nostalgia, but at the same time, it’s always ‘just’ a tool to me, too.
I imagine that after market parts available for the ae86 at this point do not offer a lot of choice. Miata owners, by contrast, have a huge choice in exhausts. And over time the resonators have been truly set up right. The right resonator will actually flow with less resistance than a straight connector, and will effectively eliminate the buzz you hear on this car at open throttle.
@Robert in LA
Yeah exactly, there just aren’t any good exhausts for these cars besides the typical ebay junk. Plenty of good options in Japan, but then again thats in Japan.
I recently purchased/currently importing an ae86 at the moment so i’ve been in the market for extra goodies. Options are definitely limited.
I agree, it needs more growl and less buzz, but if it helps with power and the owner takes it to the track then I won’t complain.
This has always been the best sound for the 4AGE to me:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rkgN_Isf3o
