Tag: 4AGE (Page 3 of 4)

Carina Sightings: Lucky Seven!

July 7, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

Today I own my TA60 Carina for exactly three years! I bought it on the seventh of the seventh of the seventh (07-07-2007), so in other words: lucky seven! This is what the car looked like when I bought it:

When I bought the Carina TA60
You can even see my old AE86 parked in front of it!

I bought the car after my girlfriend (in the meanwhile she became my wife) became pregnant of our son. When test fitting the child seats in the AE86 it was clear that the only way to fit the child seat was to put it in the front seat. Since everyone trying to sit in the back of the AE86 was complaining about every speedbump I took, cramps and more of that I realized it would be impossible to keep the AE86. So I tried to find a four door Cressida, Corona or Carina and found this Carina in a good deal. Basically the TA60 Carina can be considered a four door AE86 with a puny engine: it has (almost) the same axle, the same gearbox, the same steering rack, same front struts and the only difference is the absence of a 4AGE and a LSD!

Carina TA60 Enginebay: the indestructible 2T engine!
About the Carina itself: when I bought it it had only 73000 kilometers on the odometer. It had been imported from Germany and I am the third owner of the car. The car belonged to elderly people living near Koln and the car is exactly how you would expect elderly people to buy a car in the early 80s: lowest spec possible and automatic. :(
Actually the car having an automatic gearbox saved the Carina from being exported to Africa: they only want manual cars for export to Africa.

Celica Supra (Celica XX) wheels
The car is basically still the same as when I bought it: it still has the same engine, autobox and open diff. Only upgrades done were shocks, brakes (mintex up front), Marchal yellow foglights and Celica XX alloys. I do have plans for engine and gearbox swap, but I still haven’t made up my mind yet on which engine and gearbox… Could be a 4AGE, 2TG or even an 18R-G.

My Carina: Marchal yellow foglights
Normally it is impossible to get it sideways, but on rainy days this car is a hoot and I love it when I manage to get it sliding! Also people do not expect such an old clunker to do stuff like that and certainly not a family car! The car learned me much more than the AE86 could ever have done! ;)

The Carina brought me luck so far: never had to spend large sums of money on it and it only failed on me once because I neglected to buy gas in time… Currently the age of the car is showing its toll: the bootlid and the roof have start to show some rust so there is definitely a need for a respray sometime soon!

And this is how the Carina looked this morning at 6:00:

Carina TA60 headlight and foglight
She is cheerful, isn’t she?

WTF: AE86 N2 with a 4.5A-GE?

July 3, 2010 / banpei / 0 Comments

You probably are (very) well known with the 4A-GE, you may have heard from the 7A-GE or even heard from the 5A-GE. But a 4.5A-GE? Probably never!

RS YASU 4.5A-GE
To clarify some things: the 7A-GE is a 1.8 litre engine made by combining a 4A-GE head and a 7A-FE bottom. The 5A-GE is a 1.7 litre (1720cc) engine made by replacing the crank and conrods with a (HKS) stroker kit. Both engines increase the capacity compared to a normal 4A-GE but because of their longer stroke they are renowned to be slower in response…

The 4.5A-GE is a standard 4A-GE with oversized pistons (83mm instead of 81mm) bringing up the capacity to 1.7 litre (1675cc) and is just as responsive as the normal 4A-GE. RS YASU is renowned for doing this conversion and of course the engine in the picture above is their showcase!

And here is the monster that is powered by that engine:

RS YASU Corolla Levin AE86 N2 4.5A-GE
Yum yum yum! Can’t wait to hear what that engine sounds like! :)

AE86 Trivia: Viscous fan

June 23, 2009 / banpei / 4 Comments

As being an admin of AEU86 I’ve seen a lot of questions, facts and fun stuff about the Toyota AE86 (hachi roku). I also see a lot of questions returning even though we documented it on the FAQ already.

AE86 Trivia
This time we feature the viscous fan of the stock 4AGE!

So what use has a fan for the engine in general? Well, the engine heats up and is cooled through the water system. The water is cooled through the radiator and the radiator only works well when there is enough airflow (moving the heat from the radiator).

Most of the time when a car is driving it will have enough airflow to cool down the radiator, however during city runs and traffic jams the radiator won’t cool down enough. To overcome this problem a fan is mounted to ensure a airflow through the radiator. This can either be a fan driven by the engine (belt or clutch type) or an electrical fan.

The stock 4AGE has got a viscous fan installed on the waterpump. It is driven through the multibelt (crank, alternator and waterpump) and is driven through an internal clutch system. The clutch system consists of a small reservoir containing oil which reacts on heat. If the engine heats up the oil will get thicker and the fan will rotate faster.

4AGE 20v blacktop with viscous fan mounted

The viscous fan of the AE86’s stock engine is driving the fan constantly, so even though you have enough airflow from driving it will also generate extra airflow from its fan. This is not an effective way of using a fan, but back in the early 80s a viscous fan was cheaper than an electrical fan with a thermostat controlling it. The thermostat is able to turn on the fan when it is needed, so 95% of the time it will remain silent! :)

Another reason for switching over to an electrical fan is an engine upgrade: all transverse mounted 4AGE engines (7 rib big and smallport, 4GZE, 20v Silvertop and 20v Blacktop) have a different waterpump. The waterpump of the transverse mounted engine has weaker bearings which will fail after a while when you mount the fan on it. So either you keep the waterpump and have the chance it will fail, you switch over to the old longitudinal mounted 4AGE waterpump or best option is to switch over to an electrical fan!

So upgrading your 25 year old system with an electrical fan is a good upgrade: it will save you fuel (not continuously driven), increase engine power (not driving the fan anymore) and will lighten up the engine (revving becomes a little bit faster).

4AGE RWD/FWD and 4AC waterpump differences

Nowadays you can find electrical fans (and thermostats) plenty in the junkyards! For the thermostat the easiest solution is to buy an AE92 16v 4AGE bigport thermostat: it is external and easier to mount between the waterpump and the radiator. Also the 1988 Camry V6 radiator is a good upgrade of your stock radiator and already includes a big electrical fan!

4AGE AE92 thermostat adaption for AE86

However there are also some doubts upon the numbers of increase of performance: some people even claim 8 HP increase after switching over to an electrical fan. This is very unlikely: 8 HP of airflow is moving more than 10000m3 per hour! Also the viscous fan is driven by a clutch, so it probably won’t rotate too fast at the higher revs as expected unless the engine is overheating! If you get 8 HP increase after removing the viscous fan most probably the clutch system is stuck and the fan rotates at the same speed as your waterpump (or slows down your waterpump)! More likely it will be somewhere around 1 or 2 HP increase. But that’s still an increase of a few percent!

This one already got its viscous fan substituted by a electrical fan:

Images taken from:
[Club4AG]
[ Golberg’s 4age 16v Cooling Guide on RollaClub]

Other resources:
[Camry V6 radiator upgrade]
[Guide how to hook up an electrical fan to the 4AGE]

Thanks to Edgar for correcting me with the word viscous! :)

Hilarious: Drifting with 4 people in a KE70

April 3, 2009 / banpei / 0 Comments

I really had to laugh about this video:

Ken Nomura, Daijiro Inada and Manabu Suzuki start drooling over a nicely 4AGE carbed Toyota Corolla KE70 with SSR Longchamps and the driver offers them a round on the circuit. The KE70 still has the rear bench, so why not cramp all four of them in that 4 door Corolla?

Inada sits, of course, shotgun while Nomuken and Suzuki are doomed to sit on the rear bench. This requires some squeezing by Suzuki to get in (I recon it was no trouble at all to get inside for Nomuken! ;) ) and as you can see there are no seatbelts in the rear. :D

When the driver takes off it starts snowing and you can hear at the straight all three shouting hayai. The driver probably must have scared them a bit!! :D :D

Carina Sightings: Carina AA63 20v Sedan on Goo-Net

February 25, 2009 / banpei / 3 Comments

I found this Carina AA63 on Goo-net:

Carina AA63 20v Sedan
I know what you probably thought first: that must be a scale model!

Well, it is not! Have a look at this:

Carina AA63 20v Sedan
That looks a lot better, doesn’t it? ;)
I have no clue what the photographer did wrong in that first picture, but is surely looks weird. Maybe it is the combination of the garage floor and the rollcage creating an illusion of a reflection in the windscreen…

4AGE 20v blacktop with a set of ITBs
This Carina GT-R got its heart swapped for a nice revving 4A-GE 20 valve Blacktop. As you can see the radiator has been upgraded as well. Also the owner did not bother to swap the cooling fan in the process.

Funny thing: I just realized that relocating the waterpump and distriubutor are not necessary for the Carina AA63: it sits more in front of the firewall than in the AE86! So all you have to do is reroute all piping of the radiator to the back of the engine! I verified this by looking at Revolverdrift’s AA63 20v setup.

Unfortunately his Carina got stolen last week. So, if anyone has seen his car, in or outside Malaysia, please let him know! I hope it will return soon!

Talking about theft:

Anti fuel theft?
Looks weird… Only logical explanation I can come up with is that this car either has a fuelcell (not visible), a weird D1SL or MSC rule I’m not aware of or an anti fuel theft method. I suspect the most probable is the last explanation.

Rollcage, bucketseats and new tach
The rollcage is of the removable type so the cage itself is placed a bit annoying nearer to the center of the car. The rear bench has been stripped and a set of bucketseats have replaced the original front seats.

The car is sitting on a set of deep dished SSR Mk. IIs. The rims can’t be much wider than 7J because they don’t stick out of the fenders.

You would think: what’s so special about this car then?
Well, the car itself isn’t that special. It is more that the surprise picture caught my eye, then the anti fuel theft and then I also realized the 20v problem didn’t apply to the AA63 Carina. So that’s worth a Carina Sightings posting I guess. ;)

My old AE86 is going to have a good destination!

October 10, 2008 / banpei / 2 Comments

It is clear what will happen to my old Trueno:

This Daihatsu Charmant A35 is owned by a friend of Eircamae86 and he was looking for an upgrade of his 4K engine. He decided to put a 5K engine in it, however given the opportunity of swapping a 4AGE with T50 made him decide to go that way.

Everything should be an easy plug and play: the Daihatsu Charmant A35 was based upon the KE70 chassis, so everything should fit. In the two pictures above the suspension already has been swapped upon the Charmant.

Eventually it will start doing this again:
Daihatsu Charmant A35 drifing

But then hopefully a bit better than this:

Too bad the shell can’t be saved, but at least this is a good destination for the usable parts of my old AE86. ;)