Remembering Japanese cars from the past
A couple of days ago I received an email from John Coakley with the subject “My two Carina GT-Rs!” and a link to a topic on ae86irl.com. Of course I immediately opened the link and found these two beautiful Carinas!
So what’s better than owning one GT-R? Owning two GT-Rs!
So let’s kick off with the white one on the left: Continue reading
I’m not very fond of Volk racing rims nor led headlights on (modern) nostalgics, however I do think they suit this white Carina GT-R well:
White Carina GT-R E-AA63 with led headlights
The Carina is a five speed manual with an AE92 4AGE engine swap, controlled by a Freedom ECU. Too bad the owner did not post up more pictures, info and specs of this Carina, so it is unknown which 4AGE (smallport of bigport) it is… :(
I haven’t seen many red Carinas so far… Of course I’ve seen the infamous Carina Firevan, but not a factory red Carina…
About three weeks ago Kyteler sent me an email about a red Carina for sale at the Toyspeed.org.nz forums:
Red 1985 Carina GTR AA63
Unfortunately I could not get in touch with the seller since the forums need approval of your account and I still haven’t been approved so far… :(
Lucky enough Roman posted the same Carina at AEU86.
The Carina itself looks good if you consider its age and mileage:
Red 1985 Carina GTR AA63
The car is already 24 years old and an average of 11k kilometers per year. The car travelled 270000 kilometers so far!
Red 1985 Carina GTR AA63
According to the seller the hood (and fender) have been repainted prior to his ownership. Most probably with a roller or a brush…
The engine may look good from the outside:
Red 1985 Carina GTR AA63
But from the inside it is not that great anymore: blue smoke is seen when cold started or put under stress. In other words: either rebuild the engine or put in a new one. I’d go for the new one: rebuilding a 270k engine doesn’t make much sense. ;)
Red 1985 Carina GTR AA63
The interior still looks amazing after 270k!
If you consider all the extras (14×6 Work Equip 01 wheels, torsen LSD, 4 new Monroe Shocks and a spare boot lid) the car is not that expensive for an asking price of $2000! (2800 NZ dollars)
After last weeks posting about the Toyota Carina GT-R AA63 cluster I could not leave it on the shelve anymore…So I opened it up:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: opened up
First thing I spotted under the tachometer was this:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: check engine light
The check engine light! I already thought it was missing! ( ? ??)
And when continued to unbolt plate from the backside I saw this:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: identification
Some sort of identification for the cluster. The 4cyl must be useful information for the tacho (pulses devided by four) and the RH must mean it is a RHD cluster. The other two numbers don’t ring a bell. ?(‘?`?)?
So with everything unbolted I was able to access this:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: odometer internals
The odometer internals!
When pushing the black gears between the numbers to the left you can just change the odometer number on the left of it to its right position. Be careful and use something soft like a toothpick: I damaged one of the (not really important) numbers this way because I used a screwdriver! ?(???;)
I also saw this on the backside of the backplate:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: speedometer calibration
It is used for calibration of the speedo- and odometer! 637 revolutions of the speedocable is equal to 1km. If the cluster has the same number of revolutions as my current cluster it will be an easy swap! Otherwise I probably need to have the speedo recalibrated to the value on my current cluster…
On the other side you could see the fruits of my work:
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: odometer adjusted
I adjusted the odometer from 171178 to 081178, which is quite near what the current cluster is at.
Carina GT-R AA63 cluster cleanup: closed up again
So, all that was left was a good cleanup of the backplate and perspex and put everything back together. ?(ยด??)?
I was just wondering since I was browsing http://auctions.yahoo.co.jp for Carina E-AA63 parts and I came across two very nice Carinas for sale. A coupe for 198000 yen (1650 euro):
Toyota Carina GT-R E-AA63 Coupe on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Interior of the Toyota Carina GT-R E-AA63 Coupe on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
This car drove 165000km and looks like new!
And a sedan for 200000 yen (1700 euro):
Front Toyota Carina GT-R E-AA63 Sedan on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Rear Toyota Carina GT-R E-AA63 Sedan on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Interior of the Toyota Carina GT-R E-AA63 Sedan on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
This car drove 235000km but still looks like new. As admin of AEU86.org I’ve already seen hachis with more kilometers (350000 was the highest!) on the odo meter than this car without a rebuild so that should not be a problem. ;)
Now if I compare that with the average Corolla Levin AE86 in the same state you will pay about twice as much. Most Corolla Levins are already modified and trashed by boy-racers and in much worse state! I did find this trashed Corolla Levin AE86 for 150000 yen (1250 euro):
Trashed Toyota Levin E-AE86 hatchback on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
Trashed Toyota Levin E-AE86 on auctions.yahoo.co.jp
As you can see the hood, lights and grille are bent, an ugly bodykit has been installed, the sidelights, seats and taillights are all kouki so I suspect the car has seen a lot of action in its life!
So, then the big questioin arises: why import an AE86 over an AA63? Is it the weight? The Carina AA63 sedan only weights 115kg more than the Levin hatchback and there is more to save weight upon with the Carina… Is it the weight distribution? Should be almost the same as with the Carina Coupe… Is it the handling? Carina should have better handling with the independent rear suspension… Is it the aftermarket parts? Carina should have a large aftermarket parts shared with the Celica… Is it the ease of modifications you can do on the hachi? Carina should even have more space for big engines than the AE86…
Only good reason I can come up with is that the AE86 is a notorious and famous car which earned its credits in the past while the Carina is the unknown raw gem you can find…
I found this recent video of a dragrace on 24th of august 2008 with a final between a Volkswagen Polo (called Gol here) and a Toyota Carina AA63 in Peru.
17 seconds Final Round August 24 2008 CADEPOR
Spoiler: unfortunately the Carina AA63 does not win this race (0.6 seconds) but I think it is very nice to see that the AA63 actually made it to other countries than Japan!
As you can see in the picture below it is a LHD car, so it is not imported from Japan:
The side of the car has the “Twincam 16” writings on it, it has 15 inch Celica Supra rims and the rear lights look kouki to me. In other words: this a genuine left hand drive AA63 outside Japan. :)
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