Hiro Nagata's AE86 SR5 to

GTS and Beyond Project Report

Written by Hiro Nagata, Translated and Edited by Moto-P

Hello fellow Club 4AG members, my name is Hiro Nagata and I have been contacted by Moto-P to write a short article on the project of converting my SR5 to a GTS spec AE86.  To be out there with the best of GTS with my finished SR5 project.  So here it is...I hope someone will find it useful...

Part One: Let's get the car...  

Lets discuss the process of finding the right car for you.  (It will be quite difficult to do this without an SR5...no?) 

Body:  Obviously when selecting the right car, it is crucial that you find one with a strong body structure.  Since the transmission is the same as on the GTS models, selecting a 5 speed model would be a good choice.  There are more colors than the GTS from which you can choose so that's one advantage of starting an SR5 base.  Whether it's  a 3 door or a 2 door is a matter of personal taste.   My base car is a white 2door SR5 with 180,000 miles but body in mint condition, which I bought from a guy 50 miles away for $2000.  Rather expensive but it was the one that fit my desires...  There are people who claim that the 3 door models have better control beyond limit but from my experiences with 3 other AE86's, I really couldn't tell.  It was more what you did with the car as no one intends to keep it purely stock.  The 3 doors I've owned always had nasty rattles in the hatch and that blinking door warning lamp that never got fixed.  Besides, I know for a fact that the 2 door weighs in at more than 30pounds less than the similar equipped 3 door car.

Anyway let's get on with the mods...  My goals for the car was to make the car fairly fast and FUN at local small race tracks and in winding stages.  Maybe to hound a few unsuspecting big power cars there with agility and sheer speed through corners.  (I'm starting to drool already...) 

With direction for the modification goals in place, it seemed to require quite a bit of fat trimming, and a responsive engine as well as mild predictable suspension for safety beyond limits.  So I went on to the selection of parts necessary and budgeting each of the stages of modification. 

Step 2: Lighter is better...

The first project on my white SR5 was making it go on a diet...  reducing unnecessary weight to the bone...  for ease of maintenance and power to weight ratio.  In case you didn't know about "power to weight ratio," post a tech talk BBS.  Simply though, it is a ratio of how much weight that each of the horsepower must push on a particular car.  A car with twice the weight and twice the power will have the same figures as your car.  This figure, therefore, can be increased by one of two ways...adding power or reducing weight... 

But here's the advantage of reducing the weight way over the increasing power method.  The lighter chassis can also stop and turn faster, which can't be said about cars that have simply more power.  So there I went to it... 

I started by removing unnecessary interior and trim.  The rear seats, carpet, sections of the dash, carpet all came out and into my living room for my Playstation.  Then I saw that that there was an thick piece of asphalt-like insulation which seemed ugly and sticky.  So there I went for that too...  tapping away with a mallet and a chisel, hours went by when I finally got the last of it...  I cleaned it off by dissolving the remains with some gasoline.  Wasn't sure how much weight this stuff weighed but it was significant for me.  The garbage pail full of it weighed several pounds.  One drawback...  it was noisy when I drove!  So with some compromise, I did just stick the carpet back in for a little noise reduction.  And I didn't want to freeze in the winter either.

Step 3:  It's gotta look good right???

Since I wanted to be fairly close to normal with nothing saying "I'm a fast guy." ...  in that direction I set off, first by searching for the right wheel... It didn't take long... I had a set in my apartment!  Ha Ha...  It's one that I carried back from Japan a few years back, a Tom's New Sports in 6.5J-14.  Perfect as the white paint matched my car quite nice...  Offset 16, like I mentioned, not to be too Spartan looking...(though stripped off interior is a contradiction I guess)  It's just me...I'm crazy, but aren't we all if we spend more on parts than the car's value?  If you want your wheels at flush with the body, well I suggest using 0 offset on 6.5 and 7 inch wheels.  I'm currently in search for 15inch wheels too if you guys want to donate a set or a dozen.

I also chose a set of aluminum lugs so I really am sure I took the last ounce off of whatever's hanging in the moving end of the suspension.  This was a Honda set (OK so I have a Honda   piece...)  and weighed 19 grams each...made by Z Speed.

Next came the body work...  Ha!  I had a set of OEM side skirts from Japan in my living room again...so that went on first.  (What else does he keep in that living room of his???)   To give some accent, I ordered an M3 style wing for the trunk lid.  A little larger than for my liking but hey, I couldn't return that thing after it's been painted right...?  I noticed that the wing was making my trunk rattle...  But I also noticed that the rattling stopped at 70mph or so...  Is there some down force???  I decided to keep it on for that effect...  Yes by now, my car is noisy!!! but feels like a GT car in the making...  A fact here, the OEM rear spoiler gave TRD's race car an extra 5km in a high speed corner I read some time ago... so it's also good to have factory spoiler for those who like it...  saying nothing about my M3 wing...Just a suggestion about OEM stuff.

I set off next to bolting on the mirror I got from Japan to each door.  It's a FRP unit like TRD's recent car featured in BM Video.  One mistake, the mirror was designed for a right hand drive so I had the convex mirror on the driver's side...Oh well not a big deal...

Step 4:  Back to the Interior

I chose Nardi Classic steering wheel for it's basic no-nonsense appeal and it's excellent view of the instrumentation.  You should choose no smaller than 36cm diameter wheel so you can easily monitor the dash. 

The following item busted my wallet for the next several weeks but with no regrets.  I chose Recaro A-8, a used one for 50% off at $800!!!  OK, Moto-P was drooling all over it so I had no time to waste...would have ended up in his car if I went home to think about it... Sorry Moto-P and thanks for helping me with it's installation...  Needless to say, it was a good purchase, especially thinking that I can take it with me for my next car when I do get another car...  Light, firm on hold, and very necessary for the racing track conditions.  It even reclines so I can still toss stuff where the back seats used to be... 

The TRD short stroke shift kit proved to be good too.  The shift feeling is much more precise and positive.  The only sort of recommendation here is that one should use a fairly heavy shift knob to keep the lever from rattling.  I did go through 3 shift knobs before I got the right weight.   The 2-3 shift is kind of notchy but stronger tarnny mounts and lots of practice should overcome this effect. 

After seeing many F1 drivers come out walking from a big time crash, I chose TRW-Sabelt as my harness of life.  But little did I know, the belts were too short to go to the regular anchor points so I had to fabricate a closer point to secure the belts... 

A spin-turn knob was next on my list.  Its a little knob that can be replaced with the hand break release nipple to give better control of the parking brake to induce a forced tail slide.  Just as seen on WRC rally cars...  I got this from Japan, but later I realized that you can use the toggle from the rear seat fold release to get the same effect. 

Well that's about time for me to stop writing for the day...  If you've enjoyed this or have complaints, I'd really like your comments via e-mail or through Club4AG's BBS.  Thanks for the time and I will submit following efforts soon.   So until then, I hoping you will enjoy your car-life to the fullest.