The Perfect V8 Swap for an AE86? 1UZ Powered Corolla is the Perfect Track Toy

foreign so hey everyone larry chen here we are at nola new orleans motorsport park for gridlife pretty much i think the last one of the last events of the year and um i saw this car in grid and the time attack grid and kind of really stood out to me i'm a big toyota guy i love toyota so much i've never owned a 86 hopefully one day one day i'll get to own 86 but the owner is josh also known as joshi roku joshi roku so you've been a corolla guy all your life huh for quite some time yeah i mean i've been in the car hobby pretty much my whole life and i got my first corolla around 2002 and i kind of just evolved from there and as the scene changed and everything changed with the cars they just happened to stick with me so you know i was so heavily influenced by japanese time attack in the early 2000s back when we would order a video and wait a month for it to show up and everything we would see was just so i don't want to say foreign but it was just it was like it was from another world these guys were taking all these small powerful cars and they were just they were pushing them to the ragged edge and it stuck with me forever and that's pretty much why i'm here doing it today well we love that we love these old corollas and that thing is loud it's awesome a miata with a v8 yeah we love corollas we recently uh before the shutdown we were in japan and we had a chance to actually shoot so many historic cars including keichi suchia's uh personal 86 with a green hood oh man that thing is so cool um but i forgot what what shop we went to with the purple 86 the time attack one the n2 tech art tech art yeah yeah tech art yeah yeah so we had a chance to check out tech art and i couldn't believe how many chassis they've they had just in their small shop area you know and there's just like that texture on top of that so many all the parts like everything rear ends transmissions anything you can think of that has to do with the a86 platform and they're still developing parts for this old chassis which is incredible it's incredible that the car is important enough to them in japan that they're like we can still progress we can still make 4ags with 250 horsepower and you know it it just shows that the car is a cult classic and hopefully it'll be around for a long time yeah and i think you know part of it is that there's a couple things right toyota is continuing this uh the brand the corolla brand and i think i feel like they've come around in recent years as well to kind of make them more interesting too you know like now the rumors are or at least according to motor trend that they're coming out with like a turbo version right about time yeah exactly which is gonna be really cool i think yeah um but before we started this interview you actually asked me an interesting question um you know i always come to events like gridlife and then you know i'm interviewing as many people as i can uh in fact yesterday i interviewed five people but you're i think the first one to actually start the interview with a question for me what was your question exactly i wanted to know basically what was your favorite car or car experience that you have shot seeing all these incredible pictures how do you compare the 24 hours with a time attack event or this incredible sema build or this garage built machine this guy that's got five of these really cool cars i always wonder from the photographer like what is it that you like the best what is it that got you excited having seen so much you wonder you know what what it is that that pushes your buttons so that's a really good question and i think my answer for you is it's really hard for a certain shoot to stand out per se you know when the shutdown happened this year it was like one of those things where i'm like you know what it's going to be really hard to top the year before because in my eyes you know i'm always looking for that next shoot but with that said it seemed like things turned around and you know with car guys like myself and yourself you you can't hold us down you know like no matter what we're gonna try to tinker on cars we're gonna try to go racing um so things happen like big events like pike speak happen gridlife happened formula drift happened yeah you know which honestly saved our year and we still had really really big shoots for example recently i had a chance to shoot the new z on the streets of la and it's those kind of opportunities that i always look forward to so hopefully uh i can look forward to kind of the next shoot whatever it is um including cars like this you know this is such a pleasant surprise because not too long ago you mentioned the sema show i would walk the floor of the summer show and it you'd be hard-pressed to find anything anything like this on the show you know yeah but our generation guess what we we grew up and we're kind of starting to more influence what car culture is and therefore if you had something like this then it would just be something that um the masses would like now you know and i i think that's awesome i love that so much i feel like these cars are so good to drive that it would be a shame not to use it for its intended purpose i've driven so many other cars and owned other cars that were faster more technologically advanced track cars but i ended up over time just realizing that okay it's really fast it's it's really nice it's not as exciting or as engaging to drive there's no abs the brakes are it's all up to my foot and my hands and my eyes and my brain to get the maximum i can out of this car and when i get that good session and i push and i find a car that's faster that i can chase it's it's the best feeling in the world that's why we spend hours in the garage work nine to five come home work till 10 or 11 at night prep in the car trying to get it ready buying parts hiding the parts from your wife and then and then you know somehow they miraculously end up on the car and you never know it's just it's fun i i still like the hobby yeah i mean because in essence gridlife is a really good snapshot of these type of cars like the 86 in general and the corolla that you have here it was a pedestrian car for the ordinary person right disposable it was never meant to be special and it was never meant to be extraordinary you know who who would have known all these years later you can't even find one you know um and i feel like like i said with gridlife you have the civics you know you you have uh uh i mean miatas yeah you can argue they were meant to be special but they they made so many of them you know and and good luck trying to find a clean n a right now you know yeah i agree they're just they just had all the right elements they were rear-wheel drive they were light they have a lot of room which i need more room and uh the back seat and hatchback and they were just utilitarian cars that with a few tweaks just were just really engaging and fun to drive it's kind of funny because also a big part of it is you know if we just walk around this thing realistically you want to talk about design like simple design it's basically a box absolutely right yeah but we've just grown to love it so much over the years because you can't even build a car like this now if you wanted to yeah i i feel bad for a person who hasn't been hoarding parts for 20 years i recently got online and started looking at little stuff like redline tail lights or or corner lenses and i saw the prices and what people are asking for the parts and i'm like i'm so glad that i have these cars now and and i have my stash and you'll see a lot of the old toyota guys in texas we've actually got like a circle of old-school toyota guys and we all help each other out hoarding parts and and and and helping with things and the community is good i i gotta say between tech no toy tuning weird performance and all the guys that are on the car who are mostly from california they have all just been spectacular in helping me keep this car on the track and try to keep this chassis relevant in a sea of monsters you know the cars now and the in the classes are just incredible uh can we take a look at this car yeah absolutely let's take a look at the engine bay so i was going to be surprised but unfortunately eric ruined it for me and he's like he told me already what motor this is um this is uh really really cool like so this is like your modern take on this car then huh yeah i mean it it's it's strange the the car when i first got it it was a a 20-valve car it was an unfinished project and i finished it and it was a super street car it got featured years ago it left me it came back i took all that stuff out of it in preparation to do a honda swap and it never worked out and i saw a video of a guy in new zealand that had did a one uz swap and through the same corolla network here in the states i got some pointers from a guy that had done the swap and it's it's been in there ever since so about 2009 is when i swapped this car and it's very simple it's got the stock ecu is in the car it's running on the factory ecu it's just tied into the toyota harness my buddy rowdy made some really cool headers and this is actually an intake pipe from an r32 gtr oh yeah yeah so and it just happened to work and and you know it's nothing special it's fc brakes on the front you know that's been converted and i've just taken a lot of time to just try to dial all those parts in um it actually looks really oem i mean besides this yeah i feel like you could probably even make an air box and it would look even more oem yeah i mean it there's actually a lot of room in between the rails and i i built the motor mounts i built the whole car in my garage at home and just just took my time and it's so clean i made it happen so what did you did you take this motor out of lexus or something i did i bought a wrecked car out of oklahoma for a thousand bucks and uh i drugged the chassis home i pulled the motor out cleaned it all up modified the harness and adapted it to a w-58 from a mark iv and slapped it all in there i mean it really fits the the cross member is uh the mounting points are unmodified it it does have a little a little modification um but since it's a front sump from the factory on the ls400 it it just worked it just all went in there and it worked and you know the thing that blows my mind the most is the fact that you have a stock ecu yeah yeah and it works with a manual transmission so when i did that 20 valve car i did a mega squirt and i i had a horrible time and it kind of scared me off of standalones and uh i mean it still works so i'm sure there's more power to be had by going to like a link ecu and eventually i would do something like that but it's not broken so i'm not going to really try to do anything to it currently i mean plus this is a lightweight chassis 2300 is what this car weighs yeah and then you're essentially doubling the horsepower almost 250 is really what it makes and about 250 torque it's just all available instantly if you make a mistake you miss a gear just step back on the throttle and and it'll pull you out of it so i mean this thing is the million mile motor isn't it it really is it's it has been tracked its whole life since it's been in the car this season i pulled the motor out and just did gaskets you know valve cover gaskets uh valve cover seals and everything and when i took it all apart and looked under the valve covers it was all clean and i did a timing belt and water pump and slapped it back in there and here we are um can we take a look at the or talk a little bit about the outside appearance like i absolutely love the old school trd the griffin stripes yeah that is super cool and also build something awesome without a doubt it's really cool techno toy tuning that's their tagline um they actually flew in from california gabe is here today the owner of techno toy tuning and that's really huge for me because i've been a customer of his since 2002 and yeah i was more than happy to have them on the car there's a ton of t3 products on the car and he builds a good stuff and he takes care of his customers and that's really important to me they build all the arms they build pretty much every like for the z's yeah i have all of their stuff on my really nice stuff you know i feel good about its construction and its design and they're just an easy company to deal with so the car if you want to talk about a couple of key things these are cby fender flares um from japan i i got those from them they i'm running the factory side skirt i run a 15 by 10 negative 25 square on the car which is a lot for eight six it's on a 245 tire so it's quite a bit of rubber these are the new nankang ar1 this is a hundred tread wear and this is my first time on track with it and they are awesome they are is this what jackie ding runs i actually jackie helped me get the tires got it so that that's what's cool about the 86 even dudes i've never even met before if they've seen the car they've been they've been willing to to step out and help a little bit which is great uh this is an old shine auto wing um it's got red line tail lights of course but it's kind of funny but my favorite part on this car is oh this is this is is this fiberglass well it's fiberglass but it's also a factory toyota oh racing how what i love that you sealed this dude absolutely no way yeah so the hatch is actually a factory racing piece for the 86 it's it's all fiberglass and it and it had the lexan glass in it i love so many like little things like one of the big things that i noticed is that you kept the interior so clean and as many pieces of it still in the car absolutely it's you know it's a little bit heavy uh compared to the other car and i'm in track mod which is kind of a tough class but it is a full interior car it's a street car it's tagged it's insured i can drive it wherever i want and i and it goes on some road trips here and there i also love you recreating kind of like the old stickers yeah yeah not everybody catches the quadcam 32 and when they do they're like what do you mean 32 valve oh what kind of ricer is this guy yeah all the right and then what about the splitter here did you make this yeah all the arrow on the car is homemade i'll take that uh eighth inch foam poster board and i make everything a template out of the poster board and since i live in south texas there's a lot of circle track racing i'll go to the local dirt track shop and the guy there will bend it out of sheet metal for me and that's how it ended up getting on the car wow same with the hood scoop that was homemade yeah so is there anything on the front end that we can talk about like did you make this to yourself yeah it's a birch splitter that i'm that i made at home um we i use birch it's just a it's just an easy material to work with um and you know the hood the hood scoop was made because i forgot to latch it and it smashed the windshield and instead of buying another hood i just decided to cut a vent in it to cool better and now i've kind of grown a parcel to it i should put a prettier hood on it but no i like it this is a race car sir yeah it's not a show car it is a race car i mean you could tell right there you got your transponder right there um can we take a look at the interior if you can go on that side the first thing that i noticed when i saw this on grid was the stock seat and in pretty good condition yeah behind you like wow so tell me a little bit about the interior it's it's all here it's all the original interior that that came with the car um i went through a lot to try to make sure that i didn't change anything like when i did the gearbox with the w58 there's actually a a different top there's there's like five different tops that you can put on a w58 to move the shifter forward or backwards and i made sure that i had the one that stuck it right through the factory hole i didn't even have to cut it out any bigger that the transmission just fits in there um i've got these garage star uh seat mounts and i really like them they get the seat lower than any other seat mount i've ever had i use the corbeau it's a cheap seat you know it's not very expensive and it is fia legal and it works good i do love my nerdy wheel with the quick release uh i i am a little bit of jdm fanboy so you see my little option sticker on my panel oh that kind of stuff so does any of this stuff work still though all of it works no well actually the oil pressure one doesn't work but the temp gauge and the fuel gauge and the attack wait the tack still works so is it a lower it's obviously a lower run no so for the tac you get the input from one half of the engine and you wired i wired it to the factory input for the attack and it just worked huh so then okay wow so it's actually reading four cylinders instead of eight so but it it gets it right so then where do you shift at that um on the rev limiter yeah usually we're on somewhere around 62 63 so um is this on purpose it is so this is to kind of release some more it's to release a low pressure area that builds up in the wheel well but it is also a modification that a drifter in japan hibino yeah typically would do to his cars and like i said i'm in the japanese style if i see something that i like i might bite it you know so and it's just something that i do to my cars now and it also helps get the the tire underneath the fender oh yeah i see that it brings it out a little bit i bring it out from the bottom and it gives me a little more space here for the for the turning radius and everything on the car i like that what a cool what a cool build let's let's take it out for our spin real quick absolutely yeah oh man what a treat um so yesterday i featured that that white mr2 the sw20 that's rolling around okay and man that thing was so cool too you know being able to i don't know for me it's just at least being able to experience just a small part yeah of all the heart and soul that you guys put into these cars you know uh it's i really do appreciate it and that's that's half of it right because a lot of people ask me what i mean how is it that i stay excited about these things and honestly it just starts with a love for cars it's kind of simple honestly really you know that's that's kind of what keeps us going i don't hate on other builds i like stance cars i like slammed old-school cars i like low riders i like drag cars i like cars of all types and i can see beauty in in the details of a person's build when you look at everything and you look how the car is put together you can tell that that person has taken a lot of time and thought into creating something it's a canvas it's a piece of art it's something that you know that that person has tirelessly assembled over years and that's a huge part of the fun of building a car is is hunting for the parts doing the research looking at the pictures of the cars that you aspire to have and just know that if you just keep pushing and you keep working and you keep doing that eventually you'll get to that goal and don't do it for anybody else but yourself do it for yourself you build what you like and don't worry if anybody else gets it or not well i think if the original creators of the 86 saw you know i mean i'm sure they're able to see now like what they've become you know legendary status yeah um i'm sure it's it's uh pretty cool to kind of see the evolution it's funny that you said that you saw suchia so like a pipe dream of mine has always been when they did the original hot version and they came over to the us and drove our cars in the back of my head i've always been like i wonder i wonder if cchia would hate this v8 this this totally american you know let's put a v8 in it mentality but we kept it with a toyota it's a nice lightweight aluminum motor it's a really good engine and i think that the power and balance are still really really good a lot of purists don't like the v8 swap but looking at the actual numbers and the corner weights and the performance of the car it's pretty hard to argue that it wasn't a good fit because it's worked really well for a long time now awesome well let's drive this i definitely also want to feature your other car i know you have a honda swapped one too the f22c car is is actually probably the more popular car of mine and i've got some stuff coming for it uh for super lap so we can step it up a notch yeah all right cool maybe next time we're in texas wow yeah this shifter is nice so what is this transmission originally out of this one is out of a mark iv uh supra but the w58 was in toyota trucks the old mark ii supras um it was around it came out before the uh the r154 it's the but it's so it's the na version then yes for the mark iv right right the the standard versions had an aluminum center section and they weren't as strong the mark iv has a steel center section and that's probably why this whole transmission has lived for as long as it has and it's pretty easy while you're on track to to like find your gears yeah you know i it may just be because i'm i'm used to this car but the s2000 transmission is a a good transmission yeah but it's kind of unforgiving as far as it's very precise super precise and i'm a little bit ham-fisted so the uh the five-speed works great for me what kind of suspension is this this is annex's uh suspension new company um affiliated i believe with battle garage and uh they they reached out to me before super lap last year talking about they were developing a new suspension for the 8-6 and i got on board with them and i've been really happy this is their fast road pro which is theirs kind of their street uh setup and it's real compliant i mean a lot of the other stuff i've had has been you know stiff bouncy off the shelf type stuff but these guys actually valve this to uh to work well with the car and it's bumpy out there yeah and i'm it's soaking up the bumps do you ever drive this on the street yeah sometimes and what kind of mile an hour are you hitting at the end of this long straightaway probably 1 30 somewhere in that range before we run out of gear really you actually hit the top of fifth i'm bouncing off the rev limiter just as i passed the tower all the way to the brake zone and it's just hammering the rev limiter wow before i jump into the brakes so it's it's moving huh and i guess for most tracks it doesn't really matter for you i mean you're right at that and three tracks i go to max out the car coda wrote atlanta and here so you probably make up the time everywhere else huh oh well i mean i guess it's fast for an old corolla but when i look at the real guys fast times you know it's something else it's kind of funny to hear the sound it sounds like it shouldn't be coming from this car no i like that it's a real easy car to drive wow it's really easy to drive yeah and it cruises nice too yeah it's not it's not vibrating the steering wheel too bad or any of that kind of stuff it's uh it's a it's a usable engine swap yeah so i've had a chance to over the years um follow taka aono you know over the years what you know when he was still campaigning the 86 yeah and at one point you know in formula drift there was a couple of them but um you know as years went on he just kept going with that chassis you know to the he's super he's a legend right he's he's one of my heroes i've got a sticker on them on the mirror over there i'm flying 86 yeah yeah so it's just one of those things where it's it's cool i mean even though he could probably drive way better in uh a modern car he still just wants to keep that spirit alive yeah you know he still has in his strip car which is so cool um but yeah this this is super awesome yeah he's keeping the chassis relevant wow it feels like i'm driving a muscle car yeah it's so crazy yeah it's great it really does it sounds like a muscle car this motor is is not being taxed it's it's used to dragging around a four-door sedan all the time so oh my god yeah that is so crazy it's actually a shame that toyota didn't use this for a sports car i i agree they they definitely make some decisions i don't know that i get behind a hundred percent but their styling and their technology and their heritage is all still really important right and they keep up with that i i like all the current you know cars uh front-wheel drive and rear-wheel drive because like i mean other other than um the ls what else did this come out in the sc 400 right yeah but that's such a heavy car yeah yeah like it's not anything like this no no but look at how many of them are still on the road and you know the ls400 is a is a great car i love that car right oh my god this thing is unbelievable you built a monster oh thank you well how is this not more popular uh i don't know it's just so silly i try to tell other people but you know oh it's a lot of fun out there on that racetrack yeah i mean because not not only does it go fast it turns real good too good too yeah awesome i mean rx7 so what about the rear brakes uh it's factory brakes but i i use ray best house uh track pads and uh it works yeah my that last session was a really good session for me today i got in a nice little battle with a couple of other cars and and that's that's just where it's at man i see but i see like fifth gear man when you're cruising huh it's really high up there in the rpms yeah yeah ultimately i'll run a 390 in the car and that's that's almost like the sweet spot for this power and gear ratio i just i just didn't have one available right now you know if you get the chance to drive the coupe you'll flip out at how completely polar opposite they are oh really but the coupe is so fast and so visceral so is that one turbo or is that n a uh it's n a right now but i just picked up an hks supercharger and i hope to have that on the car by super lap we're at 220 wheel horsepower right now the car weighs 2070. um i'd like to have 350 to the wheels and then still close to the same weight i'm gonna in the current configuration which car is faster the four-cylinder car is faster it's just lighter it's it's it's so hard to beat lightness and it is a lot it's so stripped on the inside and so visceral man that car gets you going because you know we love the f20 f-22c power plants it's just it's just such a good fit for that car right and then now everybody's doing k-swaps right you know i i've looked into it if the supercharger didn't come up for such a good price i really considered going that route but i'm just kind of a guy that lets i i let the universe tell me where it is i need to go next so a supercharger drops in my lap well okay universe we're gonna go supercharge it for a little while oh man this is such a fun car to drive i just can't believe you're you're pushing this on the track ten tenths oh man uh it's gotta be such a pleasure it's a gas it's hilarious also that all the gauges work i think that's such a like it's the last five percent right a lot of people miss detail detailed detail detail detail man i'm i'm i'm stoked that you like it no i love it i love it you know that that's the kind of and i'll be honest it's rare for me to not like something but part of it is that we pick our battles you know we pick the cars that we ourselves could see enjoying right and then that's that's kind of what we do here at gridlife um lucky for us good life is a place where mo a lot of them gather up you know yeah i really like the gridlife event it's it's been super cool um i like the way that they're organized i love the diversity of the builds and normally at the bigger events man it's such a huge crowd because everybody's coming out for a different reason you know yeah it could be for music or it could be for drifting or it could be for time attack or it could be for gltc or it could be for the car show or it could be you know like it's always something else which is i think that's great that's the cool part of it i'm i'm glad the culture is still alive i got to tell you so when i say i'm old school i mean we used to do hot import nights back in the days i mean yeah i was there for those spring break jams in south padre when it was just a giant wild music party with terrible body kits and and and underbodied a bunch of um uh lambo doors yes but you know what it was all part of the evolution of it and and it was all important no matter how cheesy or hokey you might look back on it now it still helped bring excitement to import cars it was special i liked it for what it was i went to a lot of them pretty much before they they stopped doing them yeah i mean it was just a natural evolution to go from hard parking to yeah to driving the piss out of them that's the sound of the the radio you still have a radio in here yeah absolutely oh my god i gotta have tunes yeah um amazing you know the thing that surprised me the most is the steering wheel like i'm sure is that's something that you really worked on huh because it's so tight and it's not loose for such an old car no it's a aw 11 rack it's from an mr2 and uh you know it just it helped the motor fit and it's it's just a good ratio for the car it is tough to drive in parking lots because 245 is a lot of rubber but yeah out there on the racetrack when you're when you're going fast it it feels so positive and it gives you such good feedback from the tires and brakes and that's why you can drive this car so fast and push it and feel comfortable and confident because the 86 communicates with the driver well and i i feel like that's the the the nail on the head you know about the car it's engaging it's rewarding when you get the most out of it and you slide through the last corner and you hammer it all the way to the rev limiter it's just i just don't know anything that's better yeah really i mean i didn't really i didn't take it through any corners or anything but just the slight bends that i was driving it through um i could not believe how much road feel there was and i just didn't feel the heaviness even though the engine is a lot heavier i think than the stock motor i gained about 100 pounds um and that's really it yeah that's well that's not that bad that's not that bad yeah and that's the that's the numbers you know i was like oh but in terms of stock wheel and tire oh it's way way different here right contact patches we went from this to this yeah contact package is much bigger and plus it's so much so much more stickier and this chassis honestly surprisingly it doesn't have that many miles huh no 126 000 miles usually you see these with 300 400 half a million miles well the last 30 000 have been all wide open throttle so good good miles yeah very cool um thank you so much again josh it was a pleasure to feature this car it was a pleasure to drive this thing hey bud this is my job it was this was an honor this is so crazy like that i get to experience these things you're kind of a big deal larry ah please um but yeah thank you guys for watching we're gonna keep shooting here at gridlife um and we'll try to show you guys all the cool cars from here and uh yeah thanks thanks josh and follow josh on instagram josh hiroku joshi roku there you go that's a wrap

Channel: Hoonigan AutoFocus

Views: 568,623

Rating: 4.9278364 out of 5

Keywords: AE86, Toyota AE86, 1uz, 1uzfe, Toyota 1UZ, Toyota Corolla, HachiRoku, hachi roku, tech-arts, 1uz swap, 1uz swapped, 4age, gridlife, gridlife midwest, ginger man raceway, NOLA, Larry Chen, Larry Chen Speedhunters, Gridlife 2020, Trueno, Sprinter Trueno

Id: lyghSThJtFo

Length: 38min 44sec (2324 seconds)

Published: Sun Nov 15 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/falconshkr]

Are you sure its illegal?

[u/Ok_Measurement_3952]

For some reason malaysia is always that of a boring country, anything awesome is illegal.

Making this country as boring and predictable as possible. I can complain for years to come.

But yeah.

[u/jwteoh]

Roadtax will kill you