* new 4age brain!

I've had this little beauty for a while now, an Apexi Power FC ECU, with Hand Commander. It came at a price I just could not refuse when I was buying the car so I snapped it up for the future project. This replaces the factory ECU and will allow full fuel and ignition mapping which is a must for any serious engine tuning. Apexi never made the Power FC for the AE86 specifically, but they did make them for the transversely mounted 4ag's that live in FWD AE92 Corollas. Luckily, aftermarket companies such as AP Engineering in this case reworked the Power FC for the AE86 and thanks to their neat wiring harness this unit is completely plug and play. No messy wiring,and factory connectors, sensors, and mounting positions are all the same. Speaking of sensors, the Power FC uses the factory MAP sensor, which doesn't suit an ITB application so well but does suit my full ARC intake setup (more on that later!) or even turbo setups perfectly.


The hand commander is a neat little unit that allows you to keep an eye on most engine parameters as well as make a few changes in car such as idle speed and rev limit. (2500rpm is funny to hear!) I have read that it is possible to adjust the maps with it, however full mapping is best done with the correct software via laptop on a rolling road, and I already have my two 52mm gauges telling me everything else I need to know, so this commander will not be on display on the dash.




The one thing that I will have to change to accommodate the new ECU is the injectors however, as the big port 16v uses low resistance 3-4 Ohm injectors, but the small port (ala AE92) 16v uses higher resistance injectors (10-12Ohm approx I think). I found this out when I plugged in the PFC for a test run, the car started, idled and ran fine, but on my first journey up towards the redline the 10amp injector fuse blew. Better the fuse melting than the PFC! Either way, I soon sourced the correct high resistance small port injectors from ebay, and when the new HKS head that Kev is kindly working on is installed, we will put in the new injectors, ECU, and over to Westward Eng. for a remap session on the dyno. Can't wait :)

HKS Head build : pt*1

This is something we've had in the pipe line for a while now , so I decided to get a start on it this week.
The plan is to build up a mildly tuned head with HKS internals for Dave's daily Trueno !

I have a couple of heads in the garage so I pulled out a stripped, large port head and got to cleaning it.
First off its getting mild head work , which involves cleaning up the carbon filled ports and machining the sand casting marks from them. After I have it all cleaned up it will go for a skim.

I have a few sets of uprated cams in the garage, but for this head we chose 256 degree with 8.35mm of lift. It's going to be running in an everyday car with a stock bottom end, so there was no point in fitting my lairy Toda 304's lol.
To go along with these cams we have a set of new HKS valve springs and a pair of HKS adjustable cam gears to dial it all together at the end.

This head will complement Dave's new intake set up and will be tuned in with his new fully programmable ecu , but more on those later............

That's really all for now, more updates when I finish the port work..