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

random motivational snap!

Unfortunately I have nothing to report since my last blog, I'm still trying to get together some funds to start buying parts for the rebuild.The champion little 4ag is still going, but knowing it needs all this work is always on my mind! The body is starting to show its age too, along with my "winter damage", so a respray is in the planning now too. Meanwhile to keep my motivation going, Kev spotted this very nice shot of my Trueno over on drifted.com. It was a nice reward after spending the evening valeting the car. Delighted!

my 4age is dead. long live the 4age!

Well it has been an extremely quiet month (or two now) at Garage Hachi, mainly because not much has been happening with the cars! For me anyway I have just been daily driving the Trueno, as its nice to have a car that is on the road more than off it for once. Kev has a few things up his sleeve which I will let him blog about soon. Also the weather has driven us into the warmth and comfort of indoors and away from the hachis! But as we come into the better weather the enthusiasm (and some money!) returns and the projects resume again.

My longer term plans for my engine have jumped the queue a little with a tasty head gasket failure last weekend. The coolant in my car was never the cleanest despite many many attempts at flushing the system out, and my uprated temperature gauges revealed a water system that was not the most stable, quite often after a hard drive there would be a lovely mess in the engine bay after the expansion bottle got sick all over the chassis leg! Something that I knew needed addressing but finally has to be done. Now.

So, Kev and I drew up a few plans, keeping with the head-build that is already in progress, and added a few more items, to come up with what will be a very nice streetable but still track day capable (if I ever get there...) 16v T-Vis 4age for my Trueno. So, until the build pics start coming, all I can offer is the planning list so far:

• cleaned / skimmed big port head with port work by Kev
• HKS 256/8.3mm cams with HKS pulleys & HKS valve springs
• ARP head / main / big / flywheel bolt and stud sets
• TRD/Toda 0.8mm head gasket
• block cleaned / bored / decked, to make way for...
• Wiseco 81.5mm high comp. pistons
• new big / main / thrust / spigot bearings
• new Toyota oil pump
• all new Toyota gaskets 
• new timing belt & tensioner
• all new Samco coolant hoses (including new heater hoses soon available thanks to jdm86gtz on 86irl!)
• new standard radiator
• breathing through my full ARC intake system and Fujitsubo Super Ex 4-1
• all thoughts controlled by my AP Engineering Apexi Power FC

If funds allow I might get some bodywork repairs done while the engine is being build, and hopefully sometime soon I will have a pretty fresh hachi for 2011! So here last pic of her we'll see for a little while, turning another corner in the project life :)

GarageHachi 2011

Yesterday we had a little mini-meet at the Garage. Two of the cars were already waiting for us, having spent the winter in hibernation there, but it was the first time all 4 of the Garage Hachi fleet were together under one roof! This photo is also nice because it has all 4 AE86 body styles together, with both 2 and 3-door chassis in Levin and Trueno flavours. We had a bit of a recap of the various jobs awaiting each car, and have some nice plans and ideas in store for this year. There will also be the addition of a 5th car to the fleet as a good friend joins the team to resurrect his Levin, so hopefully we will have lots more interesting blogs this year. Stay tuned. :)

PS big thanks to anyone who read/commented/linked to GH last year, its nice to see it being followed all around the world. Comments and feedback are always welcome!

* Fresh GH Apparel *

I received some nice new GH apparel for Xmas, We will have to get some new GH decals made up again in the new year to go with these, anyway happy Christmas bloggers and have a good one on new year's Eve!!!!

The hidden Corolla.....

Sarah's Levin is also coming out of retirement. I spent all day tidying up the place and trekking around  in the Subaru wagon with the trailer in tow, to pick up Sarah's car and get it to the garage.

Alot of work got done to her Levin earlier this year and last year, but we have a list of jobs that need doing now, to have it just right! Among other things, it will be getting fresh dampers, some work on the brakes and its maybe time to refurb my TE's while we're at it.

Its cool to have them together , next time Dave is about we will have the fleet of 5 ae's together for the first time, can't wait! 

  

Garage Hachi in 3D !

After looking at a few garages to properly set up shop I've finally found a nice place for me to call home.
Its a fair size and in good condition! So last Saturday and Sunday we started to clean up the place.

Pics from early Saturday

Plenty of space for us and potential GH customer cars..

Big thanks to Dave for all the sweeping and tidying up and to Sarah for her painting skillz!!!

Thankfully Dave had the use of a reliable Outback wagon for the weekend , so we got moving up some parts.

It's starting to take shape so after some more security upgrades this weekend the garage will be ready for the Trueno.

* new GH sticker's*

I just picked up our first batch of stickers.
 I'm looking forward to putting one on the drift car when its finished,
for now I tested one out on my windscreen and the underside of my fiberglass Trueno bonnet.....