lets talk about mainly suspension parts for your ae86 that make it get good times for the 'AE penny pintcher' owner that thinks he/she drives well.
i will be discussing the bare bones needed to be-able to peak your ae86 to 1g and be able to reach the following goals at the local track.
with this set up, you should be able to achieve the following times:*** with condition you are a skilled driver and your ae86 has at least 140hp (very achieveable)
buttonwillow (TA configuration) lower range 2:00 more specific, 2:03-2:04ish
streets of willow 2:25-2:26
big willow, below 1:40
cali speedway???
first off, its important your steering rack is in the tip top condition. no excessive play (will make alignment very hard) everything else in the car is assumed to be in perfect working order
use size 205 nt-01, R888, RA1, or equivlant tire
to make it easy, use a hankook c71 or kumho v710 (un treaded) semi slick
(but those tires are a little more expensive, so lets keep to the topic. budget)
suspension:
lets start with the rear of the ae86.
1. lateral rod: u dont need an aftermarket one, just shorten the existing one at the local fab shop. measure the right amount to cut to center the rear end of your ae86.
keep all the stock control arms, and sway bar. stock busings are good enough.
2. springs: use a swift or TRD japan 6 or 6.5 kg rear spring.
3. stocks: use stock toyota or tokiko blues. you will need to modify these.
take the shaft of the shock, and shorten it on a lathe. rethread the top of the piston u just cut. now u have budget shortstroke. the dampening force will be equivelant to that of the TRD SS shocks on level 1 or 2.
lets move on to other parts of the drive train:
1. a good clutch always helps. exeddy supersingle, OS giken super single, or cusco super single are good choices. i believe the flywheel weights vary from 2-3 lbs of eachother. if your car is NA, use the ae86 sized disc
2. set up the rear end. use a 1.5 or 1 way cusco or kaaz lad with at least 4.778 final drive. i beleive even the shimmed rebuild kit for the OEM lsd might work also.
Front suspension:
use stock control arm and sway bar.
1. get groundcontrol coilover or cusco slip over coilover. these can be purchased for around 200$
use ae86 tokiko illumina or agx shock. of course if u have TRD shocks, this is the best budget shock to go with, but the illumina or agx are cheaper and u can make them work well as long as u think of cleaver ways to get them to work.
2. purchase a good set of NRCA (negative offset roll center adjusters) we are using stock control arms folks, we are going to need the extra wheel track.
3. tein camber plates, if u can get cusco for about the same price, those will work to. becareful when purchasing cusco camber plates. they make 2 kinds. im not going to tell you which ones to get, but i always purchase the low caster ones. the normal ones just dont do it for me.
3. shorten your struts. cut and reweld and mod them so u can fit your coilover sleeve on there. now is a good time to select your springs rate, im not going to give u the magic formula, but for a 205-50 15 tire with aprox tread wear of 70-100 use a 400 to 500lb spring. eibach or swift make good quality springs.
side note: to get your car up to 140hp, all u really need is to bump up the compression to about 12.5 or so, use some 256- or 272 hks cams with a good induction system. and dont forget to get a rom tune. to get your compression high, u dont need pistons or anything like that. just mill the block and head like the thickness of your big toe nail and use adjustable camgears to correct the valve timing. if your pistons oiling hole crushes its not my fault u diddent use high comp factory pistons.
alignment:
secret settings. i'll let u guys figure this one out. start with 0 toe and play with the rest.
pay attention to the teams that are faster out there. maybe they have something u dont. a driver can only drive a car so fast before the car makes a difference.
all these parts are for a budget racer. there are somethings that can be substituted for better things. but this guide line should be used as a bare miniunm.
if your rich, u can also get some better secret things that will make you a whole lot faster than everyone else. but we wont go there.
and of course there are always crazy exceptions (IE; mark english) that go against the norm and pull good lap times with cars that look like they coulnt beat a stock sr5 running all compact spares.
comments welcome just dont ask questions like, "but how much do i cut off my stock lateral rod exactly"? or "i get a discount on battleversion control arms, coulnt i just use those instead of stock"?
