Monthly Archives: December 2009

From Warsaw With Love

December 24, 2009 in Videos by

Lovely bit of video editing here. Hit the Vimeo page for HD quality! Thanks to the mad Polishman Mark Pakula for the heads up!

8-Second AE86 Duo

December 23, 2009 in Feature Cars by

It’s not everyday in the AE86 world you see hachiroku drag cars, but today is a special day. Mike over @ SPEEDHUNTERS has the downlow on a pair of very quick Truenos from the Dominican Republic.

With a lightweight, rear-drive chassis the AE86 makes a fine drag machine, and Isidoro and Mike of the Domincan Republic have used the AE86 chassis to create two of the coolest import drag cars I’ve ever seen.

With 2JZ power, its not surprising these hachirokus are rockets on the quarter mile.

Speedhunters (via Boostiao.com)

LAWSON (Plus) Levin

December 22, 2009 in Random by

Convienience stores in Japan, or as the natives refer to them ‘konbini’, are a staple part of any Nihon ’86ers life. Be it late night stops while on the road between mountain passes, talking shop in the carpark or stocking up on snacks for that long trip to the circuit, they certainly come in handy.  With names like FamilyMart, AMPM, CircleK, MiniStop, 7-Eleven and Lawson here, these dens of super-consumer-heaven are no shortage of cheap and tasty eats and super bizzarre drinks (Pepsi Ice Cucumber anyone? Bleh!) plus heaps of other particularly Japanese services (post office courier service anyone?).

Rod over at RoadsterDrift snapped this tough kouki Levin coupe on it’s way to Motorland Suzuka sitting pretty in the Lawson Plus (yet another konbini variation!) parking area. Make sure to hit up his site for the rest of the set and bookmark his site too: he’s not just a Miata fan you know!

More AE86 Festivals!? Hell Yeah!

December 21, 2009 in Events by

There’s nothing we like more than AE86 festivals,and as it turns out there is a MASSIVE race/showoff happening on December 26th at Tsukuba Circuit! Featuring official races of N2, N2S, N1, N1.5 and even Group A, there will be nothing short of awesome on the track all day!  They are giving away massive prizes to the racers too, not the kinda prizes you noramlly see either – A 5-speed TRD Cross-mission gearbox sound good? Hell yeah! And 2 sets of RS Watanabe wheels and a bunch of Koyo racing radiators too. Not a bad haul eh? Off the track theres a used parts flea market, a show and shine event and a Q&A session with the top drivers of the weekend!

With more being announced daily, check out all the latest details over at the MercuryEP site!

New Sh*t! Stance AE86 Coilovers

December 9, 2009 in Parts & Accessories by

stance-ae86-coilovers

Just when you thought the GReddy was the only company making kits for the humble AE86, Stance USA comes along and presents us with this very smooth bit of kit.

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The Second Big Leap…

December 7, 2009 in HR Originals by

2ndleap

After the first big step comes the second big leap. Big leap? Yep, a massive leap of faith in trying to find the right engine tuner and having faith in trusting they will do the right thing by you and your car.

Finding the right tuner for you and your ECU of choice is like treading a mine field while being blind folded and people bombarding you with directions. There are some great tuners and workshops out there and some not so good ones.

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Latest Option Magazine Cover!

December 4, 2009 in General by

noriyaro option cover
Alexi posted the latest cover of Option Magazine on his blog. The only think I there is anything that I would like to add to this rendering! ;) I surely hope the red panda scheme would also be available for the FT-86!

Hit up Nori Yaro to see the larger image!

Amp’d AE86

December 3, 2009 in Videos by

amped gts 1
Canadian mobile phone provider Amp’d was featuring an AE86 in one of their commercials before they filed for bankruptcy in June 2007. Recently this video was found by AEU86 member Ivan141 and immediately a discussion was started about all the parts the car was featuring…

It was clearly a zenki 2-door Canadian (USDM spec) C0rolla GT-S with some (badly fitted) widened FRP fenders. During shifting you can see the spin turn handbrake button fitted. The wheels are hidden away behind a cheap set of wallmart hubcaps, but as you can see in the screenshot they are at least 15 inch and 7J wide. At the rear of the car the original US-spec bumper was still fitted and where did we see that front bumper before? USDM Corolla FX AE92?

Check out the commercial after the jump.

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The Good Life!

December 2, 2009 in Community by

impulse

Some people have the life eh? Chris Gray is an Irish lad living in Japan and living the life (sometimes the 86 life too!).  Chris recently got to hitup both the Japanese AE86 tuning powerhouses Carland86 AND Impulse both in the one week!  Talk about Luck of the Irish eh?

Check out Chris’ awesome (and regularly updated) blog ‘MoshiMoshi?’ here!