Mitch's gt86 race car he will never finish

[Mitch.W]

So after abandoning my ke70 race car and still having the itch to build something. 
I took awhile and hunted for some good candidates and ended up picking up this cheap gt86 with minor front end damage not old, but cheap, and parts abundant which is a nice change... and no rust.

 I purchased it non rolling so first port of call was to scour market place and pick up some parts. 
what ive found is the the best part about gt86's is how cheap parts are. 
really trying to build this thing on a tight budget so will keep track in this thread.

-  gt86 shell - $700

it was lookin pretty rough and bare when I first went to look at it but the main damage is very minimal, will most likely end up with a tube upper radiator support/headlight mounts to keep it simple

[Mitch.W]

First thing to do was work on getting this thing rolling so I could get it home. 
 

Started looking for some parts on marketplace place 

- blitz coilover - $150 

- black racing n1 in 17x9 +30 - $500

- grb sti rear hubs to convert to 5x114 - $50 

- gk tech front hubs to convert to 5x114 - $400

now it's rolling I can finally drag the thing home and start digging into it properly. 
 

plans for here are empty the thing out, it still has 90% of its interior so if anyone need anything flick me a dm. 
 

I have a j160 and hopefully a spicy 3sge sorted because it's currently the best/most cost Effictive combo at the moment, I did consider ez30... and ofcourse 2zz, 2gr but still went back to 3sge for how simple/cheap they are. 

a bit of inspiration on ow I would like this thingg to end up looking, the main downside currently is aftermarket body kits are still super expensive and not very abundant at the moment.

 
a guy in Aus has just started making mount kits to throw 3sge's in the zn6 chassis, they look simple enough so I will probably just make my own and try get the motor sitting in a bit better of a position 

[Rhyscar]

This is rad. Super cheap and easy to piece together. Considering how cheap/plentiful subaru parts bin stuff is, I think you're onto a winner. And modern brakes/lines/steering stuff so not making everything from scratch. 

Will be interesting to see how light you can make it, so it works with 3sge power levels. Not worrying about road legal at any stage? cut it up

 

I like the idea of tracking the costs. I run a spreadsheet monthly, and it's scary the small things that add up. I find there are only a certain number of major things you can spend money on - many of which you've already picked up for cheap. 

[Mitch.W]

Annnnnd the last 4-5 months I have been buying unnecessary/necessary things for the car 

- blacktop itbs on 3sge manifold - $250 

- key's racing wheel - $250

- bride zero ms carbon aramid shell and 6 point takata harness - $1500

the bride seat is super co and only 2 years old along with the harness's so still in date! 

[Mitch.W]

1 hour ago, Rhyscar said:

This is rad. Super cheap and easy to piece together. Considering how cheap/plentiful subaru parts bin stuff is, I think you're onto a winner. And modern brakes/lines/steering stuff so not making everything from scratch. 

Will be interesting to see how light you can make it, so it works with 3sge power levels. Not worrying about road legal at any stage? cut it up

 

I like the idea of tracking the costs. I run a spreadsheet monthly, and it's scary the small things that add up. I find there are only a certain number of major things you can spend money on - many of which you've already picked up for cheap. 

Yeah with being the same rear end as a grb Subaru and with the gr86 series supplying a plethora of parts along with gt86 owners being good at crashing its made a good market for them! 

I was considering v10 sti brembos with nice discs and pads as they all bolt up to the car now and again, cheap and plentiful 

I currently have some leads on afew carbon moulds a friend of mine made for someone so hopefully I can get my hands on them! My main focus is getting it light, I would love to get it to around 1000kg which is would be a reasonable weight for the 3s. It was written off due to damage but talking to a panel beater friend it wouldn't be too bad to get complied again, unsure if I want to go down that rabbit hole. 

There will be some big ticket items that I simply can't skimp on if I want the car to be decent, I'm really focusing on getting the car finished then hopefully devolep it with nicer parts as I drive it.... if I ever finish it 

[Roman]

This is sooooo absolutely primo. 

This is absolutely nailing the ideal time to buy a car in its lifecycle for racing activities. 

I cant believe you got a shell for so cheap, amazing! 

Cant wait to see how this goes.

[Mitch.W]

11 minutes ago, Roman said:

This is sooooo absolutely primo. 

This is absolutely nailing the ideal time to buy a car in its lifecycle for racing activities. 

I cant believe you got a shell for so cheap, amazing! 

Cant wait to see how this goes.

Hopefully it works out well. The car should have good potential hopefully! 
 

they are getting really cheap at the moment! Can pick up manual wof/rego cars for $13k or so 

[Roman]

Yeah I've been strongly considering getting one while they're still at that point of fairly low kms, good price and good condition. 

Just to keep as a nice, daily, unmodified car*

*conditions apply

[Mitch.W]

While I'm on a roll

I've been thinking how to tackle the wiring on this car, with it being modern and having canbus etc. the factory ABS needs the ecu to see the speed and all that data to work so the easiest option in my head is to just CTL+ALT+DEL all of the original wiring and abs out of the car. 

I had a link monsoon left over from my old 4age that I've had tucked away, a cartek pdm which is a very simple 4 10a channel solid state relay setup which will be good and to run everything else saw KPR run one of these on his ae85 and thought they looked like a tidy way to do relays/fuses, can't beat aliexpress pricing.

im terrible at wiring so this is going to be the major learning curve for me wiring everything from scratch and I would really like to do it all myself as a challange. 

- link - free? Bought with a 4age setup and kept it/sold the 4age for how much I bought it for minus the ecu 

- cartek pdm - $150 second hand 

- aliexpress fuse/relay box - $58.60

 

 

someone smarter than me will beable to tell me but 10 outputs should be enough, 

tail/brake lights, ecu power, semister/blower, starter motor, fuel pump, radiator fans, coils. Is there anything else I could be missing. 

I've been trying to find some nice but not super expensive switches/button pad too. Not something i reallly want to fail. 

[xsspeed]

Lol Dave as if

Lush to see someone doing it, I've been eyeing rx8s for a while for same reason (time space other projects only rrason why i havent yet - hoepfully with getting shed sorted i can make progress) but gt86 chassis is likely a bigger improvement over rx8

I was thinking road legal (at least reg on hold shell) has benefits, thoughts?

Looking forward to progress! When the beams goes pop Dave will have a 4gr formula for you

[mjrstar]

Very cool.

 

This is what I should gave put my 4g63t and cd009 into instead of tiny little mazda.

Man that seat looks cool!

Here's a top tip for your race car project. Don't buy your race tyres too early and then get sidetracked on other projects or you will end up with 10+ year old semi slicks with flat spots that still have the stickers on them.

[Mitch.W]

34 minutes ago, mjrstar said:

Very cool.

 

This is what I should gave put my 4g63t and cd009 into instead of tiny little mazda.

Man that seat looks cool!

Here's a top tip for your race car project. Don't buy your race tyres too early and then get sidetracked on other projects or you will end up with 10+ year old semi slicks with flat spots that still have the stickers on them.

They are a good chassis! You can always keep an eye out for a good shell 👀 

 

Ive just picked up some cheap 10 year old 245/40 semislicks for mock up purposes for exactly this reason haha

[Mitch.W]

Dragged this thing home this weekend, ripped into clearing out all the parts that had been thrown in it and get the car to a decent starting point 

tail lights - $50 

after a quick clean, Also threw the steering column, dash, centre console and steering wheel to give me a little motivation. 

I found it super weird the lack of sound deadening compared to old cars, I'm not complaining as I hate having to chip that stuff out. 

I took the car to the car wash for a quick blast off before I got it home and it actually cleaned up relatively good, I threw some tail lights I had in there to make it feel like more of a car.

I wish I could have weighed all the stuff I have removed from this but I will get it on scales at some point. 

next up is moutning the drivers seat, along with coming up with a plan where to mount the ecu, fuse box and pdm, I want to make a nice 3d printed pannel for the centre console to mount all of this. 
 

also tossing up weather I need to splash out of a digital dash, or just go with a nice tacho and a link can gauge or somthing minimal.

[Roman]

If you've binned the entire canbus network then it's probably easier to just put something new in. 
 

[Mitch.W]

20 minutes ago, Roman said:

If you've binned the entire canbus network then it's probably easier to just put something new in. 
 

Yeap have ditched the canbus, was eaiser than trying to keep it happy with abs and power steering etc and piggy back stuff
 

I have learnt I can setup the power steering to work in "limp mode" which is what everyone seems to do and have good success with it abs has just gone in the bin too 

[kws]

There are a few projects others have done to run the stock cluster from an external canbus, but unless you're really wedded to the idea of the stock gauges, it makes little sense in this application. Great project though, I enjoyed my mostly stock BRZ and would love a project like this to iron out the issues they have and make it better.

[Mitch.W]

On 29/06/2026 at 13:20, kws said:

There are a few projects others have done to run the stock cluster from an external canbus, but unless you're really wedded to the idea of the stock gauges, it makes little sense in this application. Great project though, I enjoyed my mostly stock BRZ and would love a project like this to iron out the issues they have and make it better.

Yeah I'm not too fussed about stock cluster as I won't use 90% of it. 
 

a link dash would be amazing but I don't feel like spending 2k on a psp i can't play any games on 

[mjrstar]

It may or may not appeal, but if looking for a budget friendly option check out the realdash app.

[Mitch.W]

2 hours ago, mjrstar said:

It may or may not appeal, but if looking for a budget friendly option check out the realdash app.

I was just looking at this today! It seems decent, I I've just been trying to figure out how to get the tablet to charge while in the car as that usually seems to be the issue with running tablets 

[mjrstar]

Yeah the correct OTG adapter is the key for a street car, for a race car I'd say maybe a charge could last a day's worth of activities..

Someone  with some smarts could crack open the case and hardwire the charging supply.

or splice up your own cable, there can't be too many wires some for data and a couple for electricity?