Tag: 4a-ge (Page 1 of 3)

Toyota Carina GT-R AA63 with N2 over fenders

What looks better on a Carina? N2 or zokusha fender flares? – Carina Sightings

November 27, 2023 / banpei / 0 Comments

Fender flares will give you the ability for a much wider track than with your standard OEM fenders. Fender flares range from the simple bolt-on types as introduced on the Hakosuka Skyline to the bizarre wide creations of the Group 5 and N2 racing. Zokusha were copying racing designs, hence a lot of the zokusha have giant wide fender flares. I found this Toyota Carina GT-R AA63 from Okinawa on Cartune and it actually featured both N2 and zokusha fender flares. So my question to you: N2 or zokusha fender flares?

N2 style

I’ll first start with the N2 Style (not to be confused with the N-style) fender flares:

The N2 used to be a one-make racing series in the 1980s and early 1990s where it was based upon the FIA Group N rules. In Japan, the Group N was already driven as the N1 series which later became the Super Taikyu Series. N2 started out as a racing series organized by Toyota to have the Toyota Corolla Levin AE86 and Toyota Sprinter Trueno AE86 compete against each other. Keiichi Tsuchiya, who just graduated from the Fuji Freshman series, wanted to join the series but was denied entry because he wasn’t an established driver yet.

Commercial Time: Toyota Multi-valve engines

October 28, 2023 / banpei / 1 Comment

When Toyota introduced their multi-valve engines early 1980s, this was advanced technology from another era. No other manufacturer, except for Triumph, was sane enough to put a multi-valve engine into a consumer car. You could argue that Nissan did the same by placing the S20 engine in the KPGC10 and the Fairlady Z432R. However, there were only a few thousand of these engines built! So when Toyota hit the market with the 1G-GE, 4A-GE and 7M-GTE in the early 1980s, this was totally out of this world! This mid-1980s European Toyota multi-valve ad boasts about them:

Carina Sightings: insane 3S-GE BEAMS Carina drift taxi

October 16, 2023 / banpei / 0 Comments

Someone shared a video of an insane 3S-GE BEAMS Carina drift taxi with me! At first I though it was a 20 valve 4A-GE because the Youtube teaser showed “ITB Sounds” but I quickly changed my opinion when I heard the tune of that sweet 3S-GE!

Sweet ITB Sounds

The video was taken at Go Japan! at Brands Hatch three weeks ago on the 24th of September 2023. The driver and owner, Edmard, uses his Carina AA63 as a drift taxi and just drives with various passengers. The footage (cut) is over 35 minutes long!

Toyota 4AGE overview [JDM Trivia]

October 19, 2016 / banpei / 1 Comment

Today’s trivia is about the Toyota 4AGE. I will give you an overview of all the different 4A-GE models, how to recognize them, what their (basic) differences are and on which cars they were available.

All five Toyota 4A-GE NA generations

The video contains all five 4A-GE naturally aspirated generations: from the first 1983 bluetop 16 valve till the last 2000 blacktop 20 valve. We will go over each and every generation with their specifics. Some may have had changes since the previous generation, like the oil squirters in the 4AGE smallport.

I will skip over the details of the 4A-GZE and the TRD/Formula Atlantic engines as I will do a separate video on those engines. Watch the video below: Continue reading

Toyota Carina A60 history [JDM Trivia]

October 11, 2016 / banpei / 2 Comments

Welcome to JDM Trivia #12 where I describe the Toyota Carina A60 history.

Carina, Corona and Celica combined

The Toyota Carina A60 started its life when Toyota decided to combine the platforms of the Corona, Carina and Celica. This delivered a floorpan that was identical for all three cars and some of the Corona and Carina body panels are even exchangeable.

Toyota Carina A60 generation

This generation of the Toyota Carina was produced between September 1981 and April 1988. For Toyota this was considered to be a very long lasting production. It obviously helped that the Carina derived van stayed into production till April 1988, but also the sedan and coupe were available till the end of 1987. Continue reading

TOM’S Angel T01: angel or unicorn? [JDM Trivia #9]

February 17, 2016 / banpei / 1 Comment

JDM Trivia #9

Today’s trivia will be all about the TOM’S Angel T01. Gred_cz guessed the teaser entirely correct: the car in the teaser clip is indeed the TOM’S Angel T01 and the tail lights are indeed borrowed from the E90 generation Corolla FX. I recognized the car in the video from my Gran Turismo 2 days when this car was one of the prize cars you could obtain if you won the Pure Sports Cars Cup located on Laguna Seca Raceway.

TOM’S

TOM’S always has been a tuning garage where they take an existing car, only Toyota in their case, strip and modify it into a high performance race car, or a de-tuned street version.

Mid engined sports car

You could argue that TOM’S counterpart for Nissan would be Tommy Kaira. They also take mostly Nissan cars and modify them into high performance race cars. The analogy even goes further: both have made an attempt to create their own light weight mid-engined sports car from the ground up. Both of them had their mid-engined sports cars manufactured in Great Britain. For Tommy Kaira that car was named the ZZ while TOM’S attempt was named the Angel T01. Continue reading