THE ART OF THE DEAL
SCREAMING 4A-GE TOYOTA AE85
It’s a practice as old as time. Long before any kind of established currency existed, people realized that there was a much simpler way to source what they needed. Goods and services were exchanged for other goods and services. ‘Bartering’, as it came to be known, meant working with what you had and finding those that needed it. Do it well, and you can find yourself swimming in a seemingly endless pool of quality parts — as long as you can spare a few yourself to trade up. Hoarding away bits and bobs can quickly turn your shed into a gold mine for the right buyer, and using this cache to leverage your way to seemingly unattainable parts is often the only way to get exactly what you need.
Once riddled with rust and on the verge of being sent to the scrap heap, Harry has brought this AE85 back from the dead with all cancer removed and a fresh lick of Holden Hothouse Green (45U) and custom black two-tone
When it comes to cars, Cantabrian Harry Smith learned the ways of bartering at an early age. Trading his way from car to car, he finally found himself inked on the ownership papers of a childhood dream chassis: this ’84 Toyota AE85 (in Sprinter Trueno trim). With a build that’s stretched out to over three years, with more to come, you already know that every inch of the thing has the barter system written all over it, whether that’s been in the swapping goodies for goodies or simply meeting the right people in the process.
It all started when Harry was just a young whipper making his mark when it came to modifying cars. A KP Starlet would act as the catalyst for his eventual affection for Toyota engineering, with him taking a shine to the brand’s simple and straightforward nature, mixed with its legendary bulletproof servitude. The KP would go on to be swapped for a KE20 that was, for all intents and purposes, a downgrade, arriving packed full of rust and quickly blowing the diff followed by the motor. However, despite its ... charm, Harry
What it may lack in outright power, the 4A-GE makes up for in response, noise and feel — singing the song of two giant throttlebodies that sit atop a custom intake manifold
saw the potential and set about bringing it up to standard: “I learned [so much] about cars with that thing, teaching myself how to put together a motor, which led to building a worked-up 5K with twin Dell’Ortos, cam, etc.”
When the KE20 was all said and done, some two-and-a-half years later, it took just the sight of this AE85 to convince him that it needed to be in his possession. It was de-registered at the time and would require a whole heap of work to get back on the road — including a motor — but Harry saw the AE’s huge potential and just couldn’t pass it up. With little in the way of spare funds after having completed the KE20, all he had to offer was the car itself. Believing that his offer would be shot down straight away, Harry was surprised to discover that the seller was more than keen to make the deal happen.
While it wouldn’t be the first time Harry had sent himself deep into project car territory, this time he’d bitten off a big chunk! The AE85 arrived with a bare long block sitting in the engine bay, but
it wasn’t the running gear that got tackled first, as you might have expected.
“It was meant to be ‘rust-free’ but I was young and didn’t really know where to look,” Harry says. “There was quite a bit throughout it, and the more I looked, the more I found. So I just committed and got it done right the first time. Both the rear guards were cut out and replaced with new metal, same with the rear quarters, in the rear hatch, wheel wells, both corners of the boot, a big patch at the front, and the rad support. I knew from the KP that you could do a quick fix and it would look good, but you’d get it coming back later and worse.”
With the car off having the steel cancer cut out, Harry took the chance to get familiar with a motor package that he had yet to learn personally: the 4A-GE. The example that the car had come with was shot. The bearings were run to shit, and there was enough machine work required to build a small nation on. Instead, Harry opted to swap a few garage fillers for a second long block and rebuild that one instead.
Internally, it’s a pretty factory affair, packing fresh bearings and rings, with a bore and hone on the seven-rib block. The head is a big-port unit that has been ported and polished, shaved and decked, with reground cams and heavyduty springs. Typically, the big-port examples make use of the Toyota Variable Induction System (T-VIS), which was intended to aid low-end torque by mechanically restricting airflow with butterfly valves that can either open or close the runner, but it’s now popular to remove the system on worked motors. Harry discovered that his own T-VIS was faulty, causing the freshly rebuilt motor to run rough and bog out. After a conversation with tuner Geoff Dixon, he decided to bin it in favour of a custom set up that he’d only ever seen offshore.
Borrowing the factory throttle body from the motor that the car had arrived with and pairing it with the example on the new, Harry crafted a custom twin-throttle combo that now sits atop a custom intake manifold and makes use of custom linkages that act much like two giant individual throttle bodies (ITBs). Admitting that he wasn’t really sure it would work at the time, Harry tells us that he was surprised at the gains it has netted. Run by a Link G4+ Atom II ECU and paired with an array of bolt-on pieces, the wee 1600cc cranks out a respectable 126kW at the rears. It’s not big-power territory by any means, but that’s never what these cars were made to be. The AE is
The entire fuel system has been ripped out and replaced with AE86 components, with the tank, pump, lines, and regulator working to feed the flowed injectors on the 4A-GE
meant to be simple and effective with all the cornering ability in the world, ready to take on any mountain pass in front of it.
“You put your foot down and hear that deep ‘dort’. It’s like individual throttle bodies only a whole heap louder,” says Harry. “The feeling when you do give it a stab of the foot is amazing, I think it adds a bit of character to the car that is above your standard 4A-GE package. It also means that if I eventually go down the turbo route, a plenum can easily be crafted around the throttle bodies.”
By the time the car came back from surgery, it was covered in primer patches and in serious need of a fresh lick of paint. An automotive paint mixer by day, Harry knows a thing or two about colouring and had tried his hand at laying it down on more than one occasion, so it only made sense that he would jump on the gun once again to get the job done. The previous owner had already covered the panels in Holden Hothouse Green, so Harry simply mixed up a fresh batch to lay down over the modified Vertex bodykit and shell. As a nod to the AE’s Initial D cult status, the bottom quarter was also given a black two-tone.
To get the car on the road, though, there were a few more pieces of the puzzle to sort out. A T50 five-speed gearbox was selected to back the 4A-GE, which makes use of a Toyota Racing Development (TRD) clutch and flywheel package, and sends power back to a genuine AE86 diff fitted with a TRD two-way limited-slip differential (LSD) via an AE86 two-piece driveshaft. Harry tells us that these are pieces that you simply can’t barter for, thanks to their rarity and desirability. Harry did get lucky, however, discovering a few hard-to-find parts while purchasing much more basic pieces and befriending the seller. These 86 boys are a close-knit bunch.
MRP coilovers can be found at the front of the Toyota and a pair of shortened KYB dampers have been coilover-converted with a BC Gold kit in the rear. Stopping power comes by way of S4 RX-7 four-pot calipers paired with Mini Cooper Sport vented rotors, and, with the addition of the 86 diff housing down back, 86 disc brakes replace the factory drums. There’s a swag of other AE86 pieces added too: the likes of front knuckles, plus front and rear sway bars.
In its current state, the Toyota is running and driving on song, recently taking out People’s Choice and Best Toyota at the 2019 4&Rotary South Island Champs, although it has yet to go through compliance again to get it on the road legally. That’s the next big goal for Harry, having now finally realized his teenage dream of owning an AE after hours spent at Time Zone playing BattleGear4. He tells us that this year will be spent focusing on the certification process and having those government black-and-whites issued. After all, this is a car that’s well overdue for a date up in the hills!
Calling on his Toyota connections, Harry was able to piece together a genuine AE86 diff housing that’s been fitted with a TRD two-way LSD (4.7:1). This also rids the rear of drum brakes in favour of discs