Truenotch's BEAMS AE86 racecar

Truenotch · April 30, 2021

Getting there now.

Truenotch · May 9, 2021

Got the car back together just in time for CJC Gripfest at Manfeild. I mounted a passenger's seat and took a few people for rides including @Mitch.W and @Snoozin. It's the first casual trackday this car's done since Nats 2013, so was nice to get out there and have fun cutting laps. There were a few cool cars to play with! Scott embarrassed me by passing me in his EP71 Starlet (looks like a regular old EP, but is B18C powered).

The front bumper is still a work in progress, but I'm happy with the over all look.

Thanks to Emma for the photos and videos .

Truenotch · May 29, 2022

I've been chipping away at a few things on this. Had some panelwork done and made myself super itchy doing fibreglass work. Should have it ready for paint soon .

Took it for a skid to blow out the cobwebs anyway.

Truenotch · August 8, 2022

One job I've been wanting to do for a long time is update the bumper mount to make it quicker and easier to fit. It needs to be removed every time it goes on the trailer, so my requirements were that it needed to be strong and tool-less to install.

Nick at SAFEngineering bent up a bar out of offcuts for me and I've used quick latches to attach the bumper to the bar. The flares connect with little 1/4 turn motorbike fairing fasteners.

I've also picked up a couple of modified engines to get my engine upgrades moving. One is from a TRD NZ Altezza touring car that ran in the NZ Touring Car series in 2001/2. They had limitations on cam lift and compression, so it's not an all out race build, but should work nicely for what I want to do and still allow full use of VVTi.

The cams definitely have some lump to them:

I bought a cam setup kit to measure everything up and be able to re-set the timing if the VVTi can't be used for some reason. This allowed us to work out the cam specs, which is around 264º at .050" and 313º at .010" (advertised duration). @CXGPWR is helping me out with the engine project. Thanks John!

Now it's off to the panel beaters for a final bit of bodywork and some fresh red .

I'm looking forward to seeing it in colour again! And I'm sure Taco's keen to spread his fur all over the seats when it gets back.

Truenotch · August 10, 2022

And off to the panel shop it went. It needed a little bit of bog to straighten out one or two bits.

I removed the fuel tank cover and filler neck for the first time since I've owned it.. it's grubby under there!

Emmett's been working in the booth already and sent a couple of teasers... I'm really looking forward to seeing the end result!

All going well it'll be back home by the weekend :grin:

Truenotch · August 10, 2022

A few old pics of my car surfaced last year. These are from from ~2001-2003 and show the old N2 look. This is a bit of inspiration during the tidy up.

Truenotch · August 12, 2022

Picked this up after work today and spent the evening fitting trim and panels.

It's bright! Emmett did an awesome job spraying this one. He's a panel beater, not a painter, but is getting good on the gun now!

It feels like someone else's car at the moment. The red on red combo will take some getting used to!

Truenotch · August 14, 2022

Fitted a few more parts today. Still haven't rolled it into the sun yet.

Truenotch · August 15, 2022

Snuck home at lunchtime to roll it into the sunlight:

Truenotch · August 27, 2022

Threw some fresh tyres on my other wheels and have been getting it ready to race next weekend.

Few more jobs to do tomorrow and then it's pretty much ready to roll!

Truenotch · September 6, 2022

I made it to Manfeild for the Manawatu Car Club's 75th Anniversary Meeting. It felt great to have the car amongst the GT Cup grid again.

I had an overheating issue on Friday in testing. It would run at 100 or so and slowly build up to 110°+ which meant it pushed out quite a bit of coolant.

I gutted the thermostat, replaced the coolant and repaired another small issue that might have been contributing and it ran bang on 80° water temp for the rest of the weekend.

I was double classing in the MX5 too. Busy weekend!

The car turned a few heads and received loads of positive comments from people all weekend. Over all, the consensus is that all red looks awesome :grin: .

I also met an old owner of the car at the meeting! He's the one featured in most of the old photos in this thread. He owned the car in the early 2000s and raced it in SS2000 and Manfeild Winter Series events. We had a good old chinwag. It's so good to hear old stories about the car's life.

He mentioned he might have the original logbook in his stash of old race memorabilia... which he found on Monday and is sending it up to me! It's the original logbook that dates back to August 1994, so I'll have a complete list of every event the car has ever competed in.

Here's a few more pics. I didn't achieve the same times as the 2020/21 summer season, but had a great weekend doing battle with much more powerful cars.

Truenotch · January 23, 2024

I've had this out for another couple of hoons since the last post, but it's mostly been sitting while I renovated my house and raced the MX5.

Here's a couple of shots from December 2022:

And @Iggy made this awesome thing for me on the laser at his work. That's going straight to the pool room!

Then I moved to Queenstown in June and left the car locked away in my garage in Palmy for another 6 months. My new job has a full workshop and some other cool things (like a dyno), so I've been itching to get it down here! That mission came together over the Christmas break. I bought a 1KZ Granvia in the North Island, flew up and towed the 86 down at the end of my holiday.

I loaded it with as much stuff as possible and filled the van with even more. There's an engine, gearbox and a few other fun parts in the stash, so I'll be building an engine in the next wee while. Very keen to see what a Beams engine can do with bigger cams and more compression.

The poor old Granvia was loaded!

I stopped at lake Pukaki for a photo op with Aoraki:

Made it to Queenstown safe and sound. I only have half a garage here, so have to be pretty careful with my hoarding (it's probably for the best). Feat a wild @TimShadboltfan27

Looking forward to getting out onto all the South Island tracks this year!

Truenotch · January 31, 2024

Dad dug this photo out of his archives this week. Finally, a photo of the car racing at the final Bay Park race meeting - Easter 1995 :grin:

Truenotch · February 1, 2024

The vault has been opened

More photos from Bay Park 1995:

Truenotch · April 2, 2024

About 2 weeks after I brought the car to Queenstown, I broke my shoulder riding the XR250... So for the last 8 weeks I've been staring at this in my garage without being able to touch it.

The sling came off last week. I'm still a one armed bandit for anything heavier than washing dishes, but I still wanted to feel like I was making progress. A couple of mates helped me get the car to work over Easter weekend so I could wash it and start on a few small jobs.

Much better.

One job I really want to do is update the exhaust. The old side pipe has cracked and it had a bad habit of hitting the ground over ripple strips etc. This time I'd like to go full stainless and exit out the back of the car, with two mufflers.

Going under the diff will be tricky because of my droop travel and lowered panhard rod mount, so I'm thinking of heading over the diff instead. It looks like it'll work - this is with the LR shock at close to full compression:

Rear muffler location will look something like this:

I'll run the smaller reso/muffler just before the diff and might run a V band up the front because the old flanges I've been using are pretty tired now!

Taking the exhaust out the back makes me feel old. My ear drums will love me for it though :lol:

Truenotch · August 3, 2024

Got the car onto the hoist today and made a start on the exhaust.

Brandon was an absolute legend and spent the day fitting pipes and tacking things together. It's coming along well!

Welded a new 2.5-3" transition onto the headers with a V band first:

Then a few hours later we had this:

We used pre made pie cuts for some it and a couple of mandrel bends. It's so nice only having to make straight cuts with the bandsaw! Feels like cheating.

Had to throw one of my TEs under Brandon's starlet to see how it looked...

Not bad!

Hopefully we'll have it close to finished tomorrow.

Truenotch · August 10, 2024

The exhaust is all done. I'm absolutely stoked with the how it fits.

Sounds good so far and it should be even better on the racetrack

Another quick family photo while these 3 are together in the workshop:

Truenotch · August 11, 2024

The car dropped some coolant out the back of the head after running it up to temp last night. I knew my coolant pipes back there were pretty dodgy and had them on the list to sort out anyway.

The old setup was a combination of hoses, hose clips and a bit of Altezza hard line. Ugly and was never good.