Please don’t break your chopsticks and die on your Fugu Sashimi; despite all the GR Supra’s at the SEMA Show 2019, this AE86 alias Toyota Corolla GT-S Coupé was one of the most discussed cars.

The story behind Dai Yoshihara’s “Hero of the 80’s” is quite funny. Actually, until recently, the former worn driven “Trueno” belonged to one of our colleagues. , Chris Marion from KW North America. Chris lent Dai his AE86 aka “JDM Brick” at a track day with the words, “if you break it, you need to buy it.”

As you can see, Dai kept his word and bought the Toyota from Chris after a shakedown lost. For reasons of reverence, we won’t show you the images of the damaged Hachiroku.

But we can tweak up this blog story with one or more “Construction Picture” because the Corolla was still (almost in time) set in the spotlight for SEMA 2019.

Another small detail, at the 2019 SEMA Show the Toyota featured in the booth of Turn 14 Distribution was not quite finished yet; so please don’t be surprised that the engine compartment on the pictures is still free of wires and hoses… – there aren’t any Bluetooth gadgets installed like someone mentioned on Instagram.

The AE86 polarizes. But that’s not because of Pandem Overfender’s from TRA Kyoto that giving the Corolla the shape of a Sumo Fighter on a diet or the BBS “E50” Motorsport rims.

It’s because of something completely different. Since the Initial D Manga and Anime, the old Corolla already belong to the most legendary JDM vehicles you can drive.

Accordingly, high prices for these cars are already a normal thing and modified AE86s are the best way to ignite flame wars in the “Hard parking Realms of Keyboard Engineers”.

Together with Eimer Engineering and Evasive Motorsports, the Corolla was transformed into an “AE86 R” – and the “R” is no accident. At Evasive Motorsports, the old 110 hp Toyota 4A-GE 16V including gearbox and the rest of the OEM parts flew out of the chassis.

For this purpose, a roll cage with additional struts was welded in the AE86 – even the A, B and C pillars were connected to the Formula Drift Cage.

Dai went with Chris’s former “JDM Brick” to Eimer Engineering in Anaheim, California. Chris Eimer has been in charge of Dai Yoshihara’s drift activities for several years as technical support and also built the Subaru BRZ, which Dai uses in Formula Drift Battles.

In the eyes of the die-hard fan community, the Toyota is no longer a “real” Toyota – it sounds funny, but it is, and a look into the engine compartment proves the purists are right. Damn’!

Because instead of a Toyota engine, a longitudinally installed K20C1 four-cylinder turbo engine from the Honda Civic Type R (FK8) works under the hood! This is another reason why Dais Corolla is in the spotlight about among die-hard AE86 fans.

Also, from Honda is the manual gearbox; which actually comes from an S2000 and only fitted to the Type R engine through a custom bell housing adapter plate! The rear axle (M46 including differential) is the hardware of an old Celica XX Supra.

Accordingly, the transmission tunnel, the entire Toyota underfloor and the engine compartment had to be adapted to Honda technology.

Dai opted for the K20C1 because of the turbo four-cylinder with its 320 HP – in the USA with 306 HP – is simply an ingenious engine and offers a lot of potential with relatively little effort. And why you always should do an engine swap with SR20, K24 or the big LS V8? By the way, the yellow valve cover is original spoon hardware.

Of course, we from KW come into play with the shocks. At the SEMA Show 2019, we presented a KW Classic coilover suspension kit for the legendary Corolla AE86 generation. It’s a suspension kit that our colleagues from our Custom Service Department building on request.

Important: As is usual with many older vehicles, the cleaned front axle series suspension struts must be sent to our colleagues for a custom build.

We also manufacture the dampers for our KW Classic applications in our factory. The KW shocks for the Toyota Corolla AE86, for example, has also the possibility to adjust the compression and rebound forces separately.

In other words, as with a modern KW Variant 3 or a KW Clubsport 2-way coilover suspension, you can adjust our pre-dialed recommended setup with 16 clicks in the low-speed range of the rebound stage damping and with twelve clicks in the low-speed range of the compression stage damping. More and more classic cars from Japan have also been profiting from our famous and in Germany handcrafted technology recently, as we now also offer more and more kits for Skyline and other famous JDM cars from the 70ies, 80ies, and 90ies.

If you’re wondering why the pop-off-headlights of the Trueno are gone, it’s easy to explain. Due to the modified radiator support and the carbon bonnet, the front was partially “facelifted” to a Corolla AE86 Levin.

Thanks to the TRA Kyoto Pandem Overfender’s, the BBS racing rims have the size of 15×9” OT-30 and 15×9” OT-75 with Falken Azenis RT660 tires in 245/45-15.

In the rebuilt interior the old dashboard was replaced by a carbon cockpit. Even the steering wheel column is new: It comes from Speedway Motors and the sports steering wheel is removable. The dashboard houses Link MXS Strada Dash.

And so that not only Chris Marion can ride as a passenger from time to time, Dai has installed two Sparco bucket seats with five-point belts.

In the next month’s Formula-D-Drifter Dai wants to finish his “AE86 R” and besides one or the other “Canyon-Tour” and some Drift Events, he also wants to ride his Toyota on the circuit.

By the way, recently Dai won the Global Time Attack Challenge again… – Congratulations!

Photo Eimer Engineering, Automotiv, private, KW; YouTube Hoonigan, Donut Media, KW, Words C. Schmidt