2012

Happy New Year to all from Garage Hachi! Now that the dust has settled from some hard nights celebrations, time to make some solid plans for the Trueno for this year. Top of the list is new transmission, followed by some motor work, and possibly one or two more bodywork refinements. Hopefully this year will be even better than 2011, with more events, some road trips, and Im determined to see some track time! Cheers all!

Hibernation...

With nearly 2 months since our last update I thought I better do something! I treated the hachi to a slightly overdue cleaning, and a spirited drive in the last few minutes of falling sunshine. Winter is very much upon us now, and all is quiet in the fleet. Garage Hachi is going back to being internet based for now, as Kev has gone to attack Europe for a while in a green, 4A propelled Wagolis, and Sarahs Levin has also gone to a new home, leaving mine as the only road going eight six.

  

For a change I decided to take pics of my favourite angle of the car, as I noticed most of the pics are always from the front. I love that 2-door wedge shape!! Notch-back FTW..

So that is all for now, I am eyeing up companion wagons for the Trueno as I think she nears retirement from a daily driver so we might see some other car features here in the future. Time for Kev to random snap something from the continent!!

Cheers

pic of the day: Garage Annex Track Levin

A lovely track prepared Levin on TE37V from Garage Annex. 

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!

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!

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!

random sunset snappage..

I found a nice bit of sunshine this evening so once again tried to capture the colour on camera!

And once the sun was gone, the colour changes again, its cool..

Trueno resto: 11 weeks later..

..and we have the birth of a new Trueno! We spent last saturday fitting the last of the parts back on the car, cleaned and refitted the interior, and of course mounted the new TE37V for the first time under the new colour. They sit so perfectly under the car, slight mixup with tire sizes 195/60/14 rubs everything so my old Yoko 185/55 are on the front, and I must order some more for the back and centre the axle while I'm at it.

I'm absolutely in love with the new colour, it came out very well, unfortunately the camera (or Irish weather!) don't do it justice but Ill do my best here... But the bodywork is done now, its brilliant having a real car back, and I'm looking forward to getting stuck into the next few jobs on the running gear. Had to give the rear boot lid trim a little coat of satin black so not many pics of the rear end but when I catch a sunny evening I will take some more shots. Ill let the pics say the rest for now!

random snap, garage 4ag Trueno, NOM!!

perfect Trueno on some TOM'S August Feroce, Bump for garage 4ag , keep it up , that is all!

Trueno resto: update #5 **preview**

Reconstruction is underway...

random snap: flashback

The importer of my Trueno to Ireland contacted me recently and kindly gave me some pics he had of the car, including this awesome shot of her, in pre-bodykit guise outside Power Vehicles in Japan. Its pretty cool seeing my little '86 in the same photo spot I have seen so many other cars in on the net!

Trueno resto: update #4

What a weekend.. Finally saw the new colour in the flesh for the first time.. Its a special graphite grey, the code of which shall remain secret but I am really really happy with it, it's exactly what I wanted. The phone camera does not do it justice, a proper photoshoot will be most definitely be in the works when the paint is fully finished and the car is rebuilt and back on the road. This is the finish straight off the gun, the car still has to be "flicked" back and polished up again, and the bumpers, doors, skirts, bonnet etc still have yet to be done.

 

 Also got the new 195/60 Falken ZE912's exploded onto the TE37V's with the help of a bead-blaster, they survived the experience unscathed and have a perfect amount of balloony tyre stretch.. Works very well for the all important Arch/Tyre/Wheel fitment triangle!! These next shots were taken a few days after the earlier shots so the car is quite a bit dustier now, and again the camera does not do the colour justice but the fitment is clearly visible :)

 

All painting and final polishing should be completed by this Friday, and I plan to start rebuilding the car early next week! More pics then. Hope you like the progress so far!

Trueno resto: update #2

Just received some pics of the progress and I'm very happy with it so far. All 4 arches are now flared out, the snow damaged rear quarter and back bumper is repaired already and look great. Cant wait to try the TEVs on under these new arches :)

The little 6.5Js struggle to fill the newly created void but it shows how much the new nines will fatten up the rear.

Even the splitter is getting repaired.... again!