LordTD's Swiss 1986 Corolla GTI from Belgium

[LordTD]

New member here I was looking for a good (and active!) AE86 forum to post my ride and learn something new.
My name is Thomas, I'm 27 years old and I live in Belgium. I own a 1986 Corolla GTI that started its life on a production line destined for Switzerland, hence the 'GTI' designation. It's essentially a Sprinter Levin with the lower emission Californian 4A-GEC engine. You can say this is really an international story

It was not my first car. I'm an enthusiast for all brands and styles. So far I owned a 1987 VW Golf, two Mercedes W211 (daily rides), a new Fiat 500C 2-cylinder turbo and a 1998 Honda Integra Type R. However lately my interest is solely for 4WD and RWD cars, so at this moment I own a 2009 BMW 320D Estate, a 2003 Audi TT Quattro Roadster and the AE86.

It's already my second AE86. First I bought a Belgian 1984 Levin Coupe, but it turned out to be a rusty basket case in the back. It also had the wrong interior and a lot of missing parts, I sold it instantly with a profit when encountering the hatch.



The hatchback is a body style that was never sold in my country. Only Sweden, Switzerland and Portugal had more delivered to them. I bought mine from the son of a rally driver in the French speaking part of our country, he found it in Germany. When it arrived at my door it was in a strange state with a humongous sun strip, some leftover wheels, the wrong front spoiler and as icing on the cake, a bunch of washers that posed as hood spacers.



First I started to make it look more stock by removing all the poser crap, installing the Kouki splitter and fitting the 14" Pizzacutter wheels.



It ended last summer with new BC Racing coilovers (5kg front springs and 4.5kg rear springs), RCA's and a set of Impul Hoshino wheels in 14x6.5 ET16. Please ignore the rake stance, I wanted stock height which is impossible at the front with the BC kit.



At this moment it's getting a full overhaul, a lot of new parts at the outside and some preliminary rust prevention. There is luckily no rust on the chassis, a rare thing to find in Europe.

[darkon]

Welcome mate, looks really good!

So is the overhaul mainly just cosmetic or doing a lot of mechanical as well?

[djscheppy]

Awesome ride man! Are these things rare over there ?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[-zenki-]

Welcome dude. I've seen this parked up in Aalst, looks like a pretty solid car.

[LordTD]

Both mechanical and cosmetic. The previous owners has already replaced most of the bushings with Prothane ones. I'm just gonna replace the panhard bar with an adjustable one.
The engine seems to have good compression, so I won't rebuild it. I'm replacing all the fluids, sparkplugs and filters. The cooling system is getting a rebuild because I have a leaky pump housing.

Yes, they are. Not a lot of them were bought back in the day (VW GTI's were more popular) and most of them were trashed by rallying.

Indeed! I wanted to start a thread on TWA, but there's not a lot of activity anymore.