Monday, September 26, 2011

pic of the day: Garage Annex Track Levin

A lovely track prepared Levin on TE37V from Garage Annex


Thursday, September 22, 2011

new parts: Leen AE86 6MT

We've been monitoring a great thead on ae86irl with interest for a while now, as some really tasty IS200/Altezza 6 speed gearbox to rwd 4AGE kits are being designed, developed, and built right here in Ireland! Time to share with the rest of you if you have not seen them already! The system uses this finely machined piece of 6082T6 Aluminium to mate the 6 speed J160 box found in the Altezza/IS200 directly to the 4AGE bell housing.

The first few units have been made, which I find amazing, many of these well thought projects never get off the ground, and we are looking forward to the initial results which should be soon as they are reported to be testing in car this month.


Leen Gearbox Conversions are behind all this magic and you should really check out his very good website with loads more pics and information. I especially like the very elegant solution for keeping the shifter position in the factory place, no butchering of the transmission tunnel here! GarageHachi is tempted, a tuned 4AGE + 6 speed with a 4.1 final drive for nice highway cruising sounds so good..



awesome vid: runningfree86 onboard

Just in case you havent seen this brilliant little vid... Apart from the angry wasp powering the carz I especially love the steering wheel attack on the straights!!





Wednesday, September 21, 2011

pic of the day: roof lip

Redlines, boot lip AND roof spoiler you say? Hmmmm....
Head over to OMGDRIFT for more pics and a tasty car feature!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

a few pics at Japfest 2011

Last weekend we went to Japfest at Mondello Park, what a great day. Drifting, Time Attack, Drag Racing, club track time, and a whole load of parked up J-tin :) Firstly are a few awesome pics I found of my Trueno. Credit for these great shots goes to an unknown photographer friend of one of the members ae86irl.com! Thanks man :) I really must take the camera off "auto" some day..






I really meant to go taking more pics, but between the cold and the rain  in the morning, and the huge amount of really nice cars to examine, I just grabbed a few of some tasty fellow graphites parked beside us.The standard of the all the AE86s on display was really really good, all body styles and types of tuning, so next time I promise to take some good coverage and not show favouritism towards fellow stealth hachii!



Also a long over due team group shot..


 Big thanks to the "sticker guy" too, who provided some sweet Garage Hachi decals at  very short notice, some nice ones for inside the windows are in production too, but for now one found a home living inside one of Kevs mesh!

Monday, September 12, 2011

random snap,my Levin cleaned up for Japfest 2011

thank you Dave for the snap, and Autoglym for quick detailer

click pic for Moar size......



***Rare Find , 4ag Filters***

A friend of mine , who works in the Toyota garage I used to work in , 
came across these rare Toyota 4age oil filters! 
These filters date back to the 80's ,are unopened and still have the plastic seal over the pre-greased O-ring!
Of coarse I couldn't turn them down so they're now in stock for our future oil changes!!!


 I just love the old Toyota packaging!!!!!!

Monday, September 5, 2011

Pic of the day: Rollin' ...


Last weekend saw a trip up to the big garage to change my dead TRD Blue passenger side insert in favour of some new MCN inserts which I picked up. Second time purchasing a set some of you may remember but some nasty Irish pothole killed the old TRD unit so it was time to try something new! Due to a massive hangover (which was entirely Kevs fault with the help of the Captain) we only got working late in the evening, so I didn't take any snaps of the swap, but the Trueno feels much much better with a fresh set of dampers, no more motorway bounce and I can make right turns with confidence again! A set of Sp-Tec tension rods have also been purchased which can only improve the great steering feel of an AE86 with a manual rack when we get around to fitting them.
 There are some fitment issues with the gland nut/top of damper/bottom spacers that still have to be ironed out, and the struts have a small knocking noise that needs sorting, but its all part of development of an old hachi I guess.. 
I'm really looking forward to Japfest at Mondello next weekend ,so the car will be back in the bodyshop for its final compounding and a big wash and detail on Saturday. Funnily enough it was this time last year we fitted the coilovers before the same show , although she has transformed a lot since then. Hope to take plenty of pics from the weekend so stay tuned!