I’ve been putting the car together. The new sway bar is in. The inner fender got a clean coat of undercoating while everything was out. The struts got a good clean up and I cleaned and painted a few other little items. That doesn’t mean everything looks good. It looks better, but this car will never be a show car. Under the hood, everything is in place except for the engine and transmission. That’s not much I guess… but we did have almost everything out when we welded things up. I’ve started putting the interior back in. We had it out with the plan of caging the car… but that never happened, and I don’t have money for that anymore, nor is that something I desire for the short future.
My powerplant plan… which I’m somewhat hesitant about (I wonder if I’ll actually find the energy to do it), is to take the small port motor in my AE92, which makes 185 psi on all four cylinders and runs excellently, and put it in the AE86. Rated 20hp higher than the 3rib motor I figure this is a pretty good bang for the money (ie. free + a couple gaskets and modding intake manifold). I’d run the motor with basic breathing bolt-ons and MegaSquirt. But… if the Megasquirt proved too intimidating, I could always just run it off the stock ECU. Cake.
In a different chassis, it’s somewhat dumb to compare motors. I was not initially impressed with the small port. I know the the AE86 with stock motor was a lot quicker than the 92 was… last fall. I have since made some minor adjustments and changes on that car, and it’s totally different now. I think it would destroy the AE86 as it was back then. That said, it really doesn’t rev as freely as the 3 rib motor does. I’m not sure how important of a point that is.
The big disadvantage of this plan is that I don’t want to pull the motor out of the 92, and then throw it away. I’d have to take the 3rib motor and put it back in the 92. In which case I’m doing two swaps. Paying for two sets of gaskets, doing double the work, going with out ANY car for a certain period of time etc etc etc. Then… for all I know the small port motor will blow up after a couple events of flogging… cause I really haven’t done much of that yet.
The other thing to think about, is that the small port motor takes me out of Street Prepared, in my auto-x classing, and bumps me into SM. I’m not sure how much a care about that either, but there’s something else to be said about my “pride” as a driver using the “stock” motor in AE86. Somehow, the stock motor with basic bolt-ons and MSNS is more appealing. Maybe the smart thing to do is just to throw my tired 3 rib back in, and build a fresh one to swap in when ready. A little bit more money. A lot less work… at least IN THE SHORT TERM.
Also on the to do list. My BV rack spacers arrived. I’ll wait and install those when I do a wheel alignment. I ordered some paint for the JDM bumpers, which I haven’t installed yet. One of the rear brackets is broken. I need to repair or replace. I also ordered a big section of sheet metal, so I can fab something up to reinforce the rear shock towers. They have some problems which I will detail further in the future. All that… put the rest of the interior in and I’m good to go.
Assuming I can figure out what to do about a motor.