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'80S KID Part II: Ed's AW11 SC chit-chat


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Were the main spring rates changed at any point between versions? 

 

If the later model ones had slightly stiffer springs it may have negated the need for a rear swaybar.

 

Or perhaps they just removed it to make the car more understeery because the general public are shit at driving mid engined cars.

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Or perhaps they just removed it to make the car more understeery because the general public are shit at driving mid engined cars.

 

Rear shocks and springs were changed when the SC version came out because of this reason. It's why I also find the "random luck" theory for having a rear swaybar extremely unlikely.

 

The 11mm chopstick will do the job for now, just need to find suitable new shock inserts for the rear struts before installing. Twosrus have an adjustable Koni option that looks ideal.

 

I really should have measured the rear swaybar on the last AW I had, it was easily the most balanced handling one of all (being an ex-autocross car certainly helped).

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I picked up an 11mm swaybar off've a very early 84 na import from PAP.

You'd have to think it was an option at order, none of the cars I have seen without a sway bar have had the tabs for one on the struts. It's unlikely it was a dealer option with that in mind.

 

Perhaps they were horrendously overpriced...

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What is it about the handling at the moment, that you are looking to change by adding a different swaybar?
 
I find it helpful to try think about handling in each of the different scenarios, individually.
If someone says "Does your car understeer or oversteer" its hard to answer if you're thinking about everything together.
 
My car is something like this:
 
jd4szzqg.1q2.jpg

If your car understeers there might be 5 different ways you can adjust suspension to decrease it. 

But out of the 5 one of those options best helps your problem area while minimally disrupting the others which are currently good.

Sometimes its hard to think about in the heat of the moment, but I find looking back at in car videos from trackdays helps quantify things.
 
I wonder if Toyodiy provides any clues about the swaybar thing. Although that's pretty much done and dusted now that pics dont load :(
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Pics don't really matter but if you really want to see them use Firefox and browse using a Russian proxy. Pics load that way.

Ahhh awesome! Thanks.

 

It's been helpful for figuring out where parts go when putting a car back together haha.

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That's the ideal plan Richy. Twosrus have the part numbers, so I should be able to source them through Stocks.

 

What is it about the handling at the moment, are you wanting to change by adding a different swaybar?
 
Does it push the nose into corners?
Understeer mid corner? 
Understeer on corner exit? 
Oversteer on lift off? Oversteer on corner exit? etc etc
 
I've found that its good to make a mental note of what the car does on corner entry, mid corner, and corner exit, and then write it down.
Then thinking about what I'd prefer instead for each category.
Then see what options there are in terms of changing spring rate / alignment / etc to better suit.


I wonder if Toyodiy provides any clues about the swaybar thing. Although that's pretty much done and dusted now that pics dont load :(

 

See this post, I did some ToyoDIY sleuthing but the results were inconclusive.

 

As for the handling it's pretty much the same result as the other non rear swaybar equipped AW11 SC I've owned:
 
Power on corner entry - understeer
Power mid corner - even more understeer
Corner exit - understeer
Lift off - understeer

 

So I don't doubt the theory Toyota dumbed down the handling to play it safe.

 

Tyretech actually set the wheel alignment up with the "TRD" specs that a lot of enthusiasts recommend (supposed to induce slightly more oversteer and give more bite into corners). The shitty tyres probably aren't helping though.
 
My AW11 SC with rear swaybar fitted could be pushed into corners and stayed amazingly neutral and sharp. The only other change it had had in the rear was the addition of adjustable damper shocks; the springs were standard. Interesting to note that the wheel alignment on that car was all over the place, but it did have better tyres than the one I have now.

 

I suppose right now it's not a huge deal as the car is still great to drive! I'll get around to "stage 2" of AW11 tinkering once some shamefully overdue Skyline work has been completed :)

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As for the handling it's pretty much the same result as the other non rear swaybar equipped AW11 SC I've owned:

 

Power on corner entry - understeer

Power mid corner - even more understeer

Corner exit - understeer

Lift off - understeer

 

So I don't doubt the theory Toyota dumbed down the handling to play it safe.

Haha, crackup! 

Even understeer on lift off, wow.

It's weird that they would dumb down the AW11 towards the end, and replace it with the early model SW20 which had the worst reputation for oversteer out of the lot.

I found that tires made a huuuuuuggggeeee difference on my SW20 towards reducing understeer.

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Ahhh, interesting. I always thought 11mm = N/A, 14mm = SC and it didn't matter if they were auto or manual. The rear swaybar I got from Nick is an 11mm one off his old pre-facelift manual N/A.

 

Even more confusing is whether Toyota made the swaybars optional after changing the suspension for facelift models, or if they "ran out of stock" like people on forums will tell you. I should have a closer look in the catalogues but it seems strange/unprofessional that if you bought an AW11 brand new after August 1986 it would be some sort of lottery whether you got a rear swaybar or not

Yeah I looked into it and found the auto ones were a tad bigger, no idea why

And yeah seems strange to why only some had them and some didn't.

Friends Pre facelift AW had factory struts and one had a mount for a sway bar hanger and the other didn't.. And the part number on the one without was the same as a spare we had with a bracket

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  • 4 months later...

sweet pics! the gentle annie is a lush drive. it only gets a million times better from that bridge! would have easily helped yourself to some roadside snow along the way.

 

would love to do it in a car like yours, a golf or fxgt etc, hi-roofed hiace vans make for quite the body roll on some of those corners

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  • 3 months later...

Damn those seats look lush!

Any links to instructions on how best to stripping the recaros down and doing the swap etc. I've been searching for ages for some alternative seats for the Viva to replace the momos. Something that holds me in better. All the recaros I find are buggered in either the centres or the bolsters. Good to know I can swap bits!

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  • 3 months later...

Valve stem seals and rings should be fine as the engine isn't smoking or eating more than its fair share of oil (4A-G lyfe, haha).

However now that the engine's out of the hole, I am definitely going to pull the sump and see what condition the big end bearings are in. The last few times I've started the car from bone cold it's made some noises that sound suspiciously like knock knock, who's there?

The car's also done 108,000km so I wouldn't be surprised if they needed refreshing.

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Love seeing your car. Its how I want to get my one, one day. I bought the $600 supercharged aw11 with auto trans from that Ohaupo a couple of years ago. I had to do the cambelt and water pump, but stupidly id it without dropping the lot. Was a big job in the end. I've got  a full mk1a interior I'm putting in mine. I too like the earlier steering wheel. The earlier interior looks more sporty in my opinion.

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On 20/04/2017 at 20:12, HR30liner said:

Love seeing your car. Its how I want to get my one, one day. I bought the $600 supercharged aw11 with auto trans from that Ohaupo a couple of years ago. I had to do the cambelt and water pump, but stupidly id it without dropping the lot. Was a big job in the end. I've got  a full mk1a interior I'm putting in mine. I too like the earlier steering wheel. The earlier interior looks more sporty in my opinion.

Nice score! I did wonder where the supercharged one from Ohaupo ended up, have you put it back on the road? Sounds like it didn't need all that much to get running again. I actually prefer the less garish and more streamlined interior of the later (Mk1a) AW11, but the extremely brash looking Recaros were too good not to install, because, hey, '80s car :)

Unfortunately I received a bit more bad news about the AW this morning, and a project thread update will be along in due course to elaborate.

In the meantime however - does anyone know how much work a SC14 upgrade would entail, and how well would the factory ECU cope with it? How about a SC12 from the later 4A-GZE with the smaller pulley?

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