Samwise

I need some more Lukeism in my life then! Yeah the KPMF colour looks pretty good, can't wait to see it myself either. Definitely won't be doing the wrap myself, there's a skill behind working with the stuff to get a decent finish, so i'm just going to take it to a shop to get done Been doing my research as there are plenty of shops out there who still do a pretty shoddy job, think i'm going to go with a company called Monster Wraps in Southampton

Cheers! Yeah it is a bit rediculous, it's not even the best bit of glass fibre work the world has ever seen either. I had a similar spoiler for my subaru that was a 3rd of the price and a much better bit of kit.. Ohwell! Never ask to see my spreadsheet with all the costs of the car on it! ☠️

Haha I think there's optimism and then there's "Lukeism" Yeah with the car out infront of the garage I could work on it but it's hardly ideal jacking it up on that slope and also gives me no option of leaving it and walking away if I can't progress for whatever reason aaaand i'd likely have to take the arches off every time I wanted to get it up and down the driveway. Also I think i've shown you the colour i want to go for my wrap? It's not that lairy, Google "KPMF Black Red Iridescent" There's a serial number sticky on the bottom of the spoiler and that's it, could very easily copy it! i'm surprised no one has actually considering how many "Style" spoilers and body kits there are but i'm pretty sure there's only one Liberty walk GT86 in the UK and that's the one they made to market the kit over here as no one else is mad enough to spend that much on it 🤡

Finally the time has come! The update i've been waiting since September to finally make, the Rocket bunny kit is finally here! but before I get on to that I'm going to turn this in to a bit of a double whammy as I forgot to make an update about another part that arrived recently, i'll keep it short and sweet to get on to the big bits! I've always been a big lover of ducktail wings/spoilers rather than alot of feeble OEM wings or huge boot/chassis mounted ironing boards (BGW for short!) but i'm a bit picky when it comes to them and truthfully alot of the offerings for the 86 aren't to my taste but I found one that fit the bill.. (duck bill?.. i'll get my coat.) and ironically it turns out to be the Liberty Walk wing. The rest of the kit looks tragic but the spoiler is perfect to me and i'm sure i'll have someone tell me its sacriligous to mix Liberty Walk with Rocket bunny but who cares, it'll look epic! However the fact that what is essentially just a fairly simple glass fibre piece was eye wateringly expensive and comes with it's own certificate of authenticity says more about Liberty Walk and their Target audience than me I think.. Now to get on to the main attraction.. Had a rather fun start to the week as I took a 700 mile round trip to Germany and back over Monday/Tuesday to go get the kit. A bit unnecessary but it was my own fault for organising it this way with the supplier all the way back when I raised the order in September. I had the idea to turn it in to a week long road trip holiday, visit Bruges, Nurburgring, etc on the way but after the headache of not knowing when it would show up and various delays I decided just to forgo it and just make it a simple there and back thing and put off making a holiday with it until the spring (I still have a booking for a track car hire and Eurotunnel trip i couldn't cancel!) Anyway so here was the route, pretty easy in reality for my first time driving in Europe and surprisingly fast on the way home. When I finally arrived on Monday evening this was waiting for me. I just about got the 200cm x 75cm x 55cm box in to my Dad's X3 which I had borrowed for the trip and set off to my hotel for the night. The next morning when it was a little brighter and less windy/rainy in the Hotel car park I had to get the bits out to well.. Have a look of course! but also to fit them in the car a bit better so I could actually see where I was going! And finally after a quick trip back home I was able to get the obvious pic of the bumper sat infront of the car. Now I just have the next monumental task of trying to find a decent Garage/Barn/Unit to rent to store and work on the car. It became painfully obvious just how undersized the old single garage is when I tried to move the car about taking me a whole 15 minutes just to inch it down the drive way backwards, turn around and then inch it back up backwards again to get these pictures. The car will be milimetres at best from the walls either side between the houses with the arches and wheels are on and I think it will have 15-20cm at most between the car and the walls of the garage once it's in there so a bigger area to play is needed! but then again it feels as though I may be wishing for a lottery win instead with how difficult it's proving to find somewhere in my area... Hopefully i can get back on to giving more regular updates now that I have all the pieces to crack on but I don't really want to start any drastic work without the space available. Fingers crossed to finding somewhere SOON. I was even thinking of making a few youtube videos of my progress as it was something I wanted to do alongside this Project thread when I started but chickened out of the idea down to lack of space again and being a bit of a wuss

I'll be there, albeit likely not in the 86. Make way for the Suzuki Alto 1.0 Daily! 😎

So the other update from this weekend is everyone's favourite, more new car parts! Just before Christmas I ordered a set of big Front & rear brakes from PB Brakes and they recently arrived in this fantastic Anodised silver finish. I opted to go for the largest specs I would be able to fit behind my new wheels, 6 pot Calipers with 330mm discs on the front and 4pot calipers with 330mm discs on the rear complete with their sport pads. I always love the look of a big set of brakes poking out from behind an equally nice set of wheels and with my future plans the extra stopping power will be very welcome (and my current brakes were getting close to limit! can you tell i've been justifying more purchases in my head? ) When it comes to brakes there's of course plenty to choose from with the likes of Brembo, AP racing, Alcon which are often massive money but are proven to definitely be up to the job if your car sees race or heavy track use. Personally for me however as it's not my intention with the car so I was happy to explore cheaper options such as K-Sport/D2-racing (who i believe are one and the same) and that lead me to also find PB Brakes. They are a relatively new-ish brand I believe and as a result there isn't massive fountain of knowledge in regards to them however there are some decent reviews when you search around. Also having spoken to them in regards to fitment when ordering my wheels I can safely say their customer service is pretty fantastic so I decided to bite the bullet and go with the lesser known brand. This is where the pictures do the rest of the talking

😂 as dumb as it might sound i'm happy to wait to reserve my judgement as to whether the car handles or not or understeers or not. The fact of the matter is i've not built the car to set lap times and im not trying to be a racing driver so it's neither here nor there. Currently with the power output of the car it's definitely not going to spin the rears unless its major standing water and I also don't see it pushing the fronts any time soon. Anyway! Another couple of updates on the way. First off, nothing overly exciting just a few more pictures of my new wheels. Popped down to Fuel Coffee House just round the corner for their first Jap Vs German meet as it gave me a chance to take the GT86 out for the first time in the last 6 weeks but I had no time to wash the car, so I figured why not take the best looking bits of the car with me, the yet-to-be-fitted wheels! Got to chat with a few people about the car and its little story and the journey it's had and check out the wheels in the sun & rain and just gush over them a bit more if im to be quite frank. And yes, driving to a meet with just a single wheel is a bit mad but it's a good laugh and look's just as silly as you'd imagine with it on the passenger seat!

A few more goodies I got recently but i'll save the best for last! Along with my wheels I got a full set of rear adjustable Camber, Toe and Trailing arms from Driftworks. There are loads of these on the market but some can be pretty wildly expensive as they're likely made from all sorts of billet aluminium or titanium and others come in some rather funky colours which im not fond of. These arms are made of Steel so a bit heavier than the various billet options but also a fraction of the price and are finished in a nice subtle black powdercoating. As well as this to go along with my new wheels I picked up some tyres. it was quite tricky to find the exact combo I was looking for without breaking the bank but the Federal 595 RS-R's were the perfect size and an incredible price. I wanted to go with 245/34/18 on the front and 285/30/18 on the rear to keep the rolling radius of the wheels almost exactly the same as stock and exactly the same front/back. The rear size is quite rare with any form of performance tyre as most are made for 20 inch porsche wheels, etc and being able to find these Federals at £400 for all 4 corners was a great price for so much rubber. They're also a light semi-slick track tyre in essence as well and i've always heard incredible things about them along with the Nankang NS2R's when searching the web for good track tyres as they always come up in conversations as a good budget alternative to tyres such as the Toyo R888 and Yokohama AD08R's which we previous ran on our VX220. I Don't really plan to do loads of track days in the 86 but it should be good to see how these handles and later down the line i'll most likely need the extra grip when i've got a few extra cylinder's up front! Another small one as it was a Christmas present was a set of TGR Motorsports wheel nuts. I had met these guys previously last year (2019) at JAE Festival and it was good to have a chat with the owner and check out his products. I've always quite liked fancy wheel nuts but i've never been fond of their price tag. Alot of lesser wheel nuts can rust pretty quickly after use or even be made from Aluminium (definitely not what you want!) and previously i've used Muteki SR48 which are a high quality, well priced product from japan however these TGR nuts are made of a durable steel construction finished in gunmetal with an internal drive and a small aluminium beauty cap to finish them off, i went for black in this case to keep things subtle but they come in all kinds of colours. One of my favourite bits about them as well is they also feature a free sprinning collar at the bottom of each nut which should prevent any damage to the wheel nut seats in the wheels, this is quickly becoming quite a big feature of alot of wheel nuts brands but i've not found any so easily available in the UK or at this price (£45) with this little feature. And finally.. but by no means (or all means!) least.. Another christmas present, this time modelled wonderfully by Yours truly. My brother bought me a set of Overalls for christmas to wear when working on the car and kitted them out with a few custom patches, i particularly like the custom name tag!

Haha yeah it is a little like that I almost just want to keep one out on display until they go on the car but im worried about them being scratched in the house. Probably going to take the time to Ceramic coat them just to keep the extra protected, probably a bit over the top but it seems easy enough to do

Merry Christmas to me! Just received my wheels and I couldn't be happier with them! They're a set of Work Meister M1 in 18x9.5 on the front and 18x11 on the rear. Struggling to bring myself to put them away in the boxes for now but I haven't really got much else to say about them, I think the pictures speak for themselves really!

It's been a rather long time since I updated this but I wasn't expecting things to drag on thiiiiiiiiiiis long! I clearly have some sort of ill-omen when it comes to ordering expensive car parts as it never seems to go smoothly for me. The more I spend, the bigger the drama it is, whereas if i buy something for £5 I get it in a couple of days. So my wheel order is hopefully going without hiccup, there were a few funny oddities when it came to ordering a set of 3 piece "Custom" wheels only to be told they don't actually make them to ANY offset and it seems to go in stages jumping from -8 offset to -21 with nowhere in the middle and that some offsets aren't available in some bolt patterns, etc etc. A small drama but once I sorted out my options hopefully they should be coming eventually and should fit fairly well. But the biggest drama has by far been my rocket bunny kit. It hasn't helped that rather than get it delivered to my house I had planned to book a little road trip to pick it up from germany, go to bruges, etc along the way and do a couple of rental ring laps at the Nurburgring but clearly I just have the worst luck ever - don't ever ask me to come to a casino with you! Having ordered the kit back in September (and paid for it!) the first trouble came in October when parts of the kit had to be re-made due to the moulds for the parts going bad. No big deal really as this happens with glassfibre parts and it just means my kit will come from a nice fresh new mould rather than one that's been through the ringer but at this stage I had already started booking and paying for things like eurotunnel, Nurburgring rental etc and annoyingly these things can't be cancelled so having to reschedule them is a pain. Go on a couple of weeks and I hear that the kit is made and has been shipped from japan - Happy days! So I had rescheduled my roadtrip for the end of November (next week) and would expect 3 weeks would be plenty for it to arrive via plane, get through customs and arrive at the Seller in Germany but back luck strikes again as the kit was routed to Brussels instead and customs there simply decided to Seize it due to a lack of paperwork either on the Sender's (Greddy in Japan) side or the receipient (seller in Germany's) Side. Having spent all week worrying about it I finally heard late last night that it's not looking good and they would have to speak to Japan to get them to produce and send another kit. Bummer.. So now i'm expecting i'll be lucky to see it this side of 2020. It's a real disappointment but i'm surprisingly mellow about it at the moment, I think with things leading up to Christmas and the fact that I don't actually have anywhere with sufficient space to work on the car currently it's dampened my urgency for things. I guess the last update of the year will probably be a picture of the car sat on some rather rediculously wide looking wheels with no arches to cover them at this rate! Also no progress on the engine I'm afraid, I was never really planning to do any work on it until next year as i'd rather order any parts I need from the US or such in one go 😴

anyone that's somewhat handy with a set of spanners could swap a replacement FA20 in without any issues as long as they did their homework beforehand. Considering a used FA20 costs in the region of 2-2.5k it really wouldn't cost much at all. This is all assuming it is as dire as the engine going pop.

Personally I don't get alot of Subaru Personality from the FA20 seeing as it doesn't rumble from the factory and isn't fitted with a turbo, and I still own a Subaru WRX for both of those things I've looked at turbos but like i said to get big power from them is so much money and to take 2 steps back and fit an EJ20 would just be a bit of a headache considering they themselves aren't particularly bulletproof engines and no one's really done it so you'd run in to the problems with wiring and tuning it to work with the 86's Canbus systems. I think the only "easy" Swap (no swaps are easy) would be the Fa20DIT from the 2015 WRX but that would be a load of money for no real improvement over a bolt on turbo kit.

Haha yeah i've been doing my research quite a bit. The Transmission tunnel will require me to remove the OEM gearbox mount which is just a folded piece of sheet steal spot welded in to the tunnel and give it some gentle "Massaging" with a mallet but thats fairly common amongst alot of swaps like fitting a 1J/2J in to a Silvia chassis, etc Shouldn't have any issues with the bonnet, might even be able to fit it under a strut bar. The K24 swap looks really enticing too as its such a common and well documented/strong engine but im adamant to go V8 at this stage

We Interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you this Breaking News So as a bit of a sudden change of pace I made another big purchase recently for the car.. People often ask me what I plan to do power-wise to make the "Go" as big as the up-coming "show" the car is going to have and I often always give a bit of a half assed answer as I don't want to either give too much away or sound like a bit of a dreamer who gets far too ahead of himself and likely won't follow up on those plans so recently I decided to cement those plans in place and purchased this.. So I imagine there's going to be a bit of confusion, alot of questions and so on so i'll do my best to explain Just to keep the suspense and confusion building i'll start with my reasons first - I personally really love turbo cars as some of you can likely tell from my Subaru and the Vx220 but If i were to go down the turbo route on the 86 i'd want something a bit more than 300bhp, something like 350-400 and whereas this is very possible it's quite expensive being that you'd most likely need to build the engine with forged internals, buy the turbo unit, get a stand-alone ECU & tune it and then after all of that you're still left with a gearbox that will likely throw up its guts at the thought of all that power and torque. The FA20 is a fantastic engine in reality but I'm not a race team who has the funds to run a high powered boosted FA20 which is then left quite high strung and high maintenance.. which would also require another £3-10k to rebuild if it ever went pop and I kind of wanted to try something with a few more cylinders for once. So i bought this, it's a v8 obviously and the reason why i started this post with the strange "interuption" notice is just to preface that this will likely not get anywhere near the 86 until Autumn 2020 at the earliest that said, I just wanted to commit to it, get my foot in the door and of course it gives me something to tinker with, clean up, paint & work on over the next year and also these engines are quite rare in the UK so it will easily hold it's value if things all went a bit pear shaped money wise for me for whatever reason next year... i dunno a meteor strike or something? So to give a few details as to what you're seeing: This is a 6.2L all aluminium L92 engine previously featured in great hits such as the 2008 Cadillac Escalade and Chevrolet Tahoe. It shares it's architecture with the LS series of engines, specifically the LS3 which often lives in the Corvette C6, Vaxhaull VXR8 (Holden Commodore) and Camaro. The similarity of these engines is so close that the Aluminium block and heads are identical featuring a nice desireable well flowing head with square intake ports and a chunky 6.2L displacement as well as the fact that almost every part for the LS3 or made for the LS3 will bolt straight on without any hassle including Cams, intakes, accesories, the lot. The reason why the aluminium part is important is because this engine is essentially the exact same weight as an NA Fa20 With both engines being around 170-180kg in weight once fully dressed up meaning that unlike alot of popular 2JZ (230kg) swaps it won't ruin the weight of the car which was one of my biggest fears as I don't want to ruin what is an incredibly well handling car and a fantastic chassis. So my plans with this over the next year are to of course clean it up, paint the block and heads to tart it up a bit. Swap out the cam to give a bit more power (should expect around 400bhp NA with this) and remove the VVT and Low-end torque focused cam designed for the big heavy trucks and SUV's this engine was previously in and eventually drop it in around this time next year. I'll find a T56 Manual gearbox to go along with it and should be able to easily fit with with some bolt in engine/gearbox mounts from the likes of Sikky Manufacturing and Motec M150 Plug & Play package from Pure Automotive in the states which will retain all factory functions including push-start, Speedometer/Rev Counter and I believe even Cruise control & AC! This was the main reason for picking something as common (In the states atleast) as the LS rather than the more readily available 1UZ/3UZ Lexus engines we have over here as like most things I plan to do pretty much all of the work myself so it has to be something that doesn't really require alot of welding and fabrication or making an entire wiring loom. Of course this all sounds very expensive but from what i've planned for it should work out roughly similar if not actually cheaper than a 2jz swap or High power FA20 turbo build.. plus i get to make v8 noises! So that's all i can really think of to say so far, this'll be something i'll update slowly over time as I work on the engine and of course the next big posts will likely be the receiving and fitting on my rocket bunny kit.

I'll be going 18x9.5 ET0 on the front (hoping to move out the track width by around 20mm on the front and 18x11 ET-20 on the rear

Well yeah the idea of fitting any wider arches is to fit wider wheels under them. therefore you have to cut away the existing arches so you don't just destroy them with your new wide wheels. Not sure about a video haha, the M23 isn't as picturesque as some of the highways and coastal roads of Australia 🤣 What german 86 parts are there? Not that I have the money for it anymore

Around 3-4 weeks. I'll be taking a road trip to germany to pick it up just because I fancy a bit of a holiday this year It was always on my mind to fit it myself, as you can probably tell I very much enjoy doing 99% of the work myself. It's half the fun of owning the car to me!

Well the trick will be to fit the Body kit to the hire van before bringing it back in to the country! 😂 Plans for the wheel arches will be to cut them likely with a Nibbler attachment for a drill as they're cheap and far more accuracte/safe than using a rotary or saw tool. Once they've been cut i'll employ the help of my fabricator friend for a few beers and we'll make a new bit of sheet metal and he'll weld it in to seal up the rears then we'll run seam sealer just ot be sure and i'll likely use some cavity wax on the inside of the arches. For the fronts i'll even stick with the normal arch liners and work them a bit to make them fit the new shape of the inner arches or i might just employ his skills again to weld up the gaps on the inside of the engine bay looking in to the wheel arches. Going to keep the bolt/rivet on look. Hoping to do as much of it myself and i don't really want to deal with cracks between the panels in the future, and personally I don't mind seeing the bolts poking out

It was a really good turnout and a very enjoyable relaxed meet, we'll have to do it again some time. Thanks to Keith for organising!

Oh you won’t see me there now I’m afraid, that was referring to before it was cancelled back in August but I believe you’re going to the meet at the Fuel coffee house tomorrow? In which case you’ll see me there!

Haha yeah these things are always quite divisive and I agree that the aero attachments there are a bit too much for my liking. I should've linked one like this to be honest.

It's not dead yet! i'm bringing this topic back from the dead for another very big and very exciting update but I'll just let this do the talking... That's right, i've just ordered my Rocket Bunny V2 Kit for the Car. I have to say it was VERY expensive being that alot of sites online don't include the 20% import Tax or even Air-freight from japan costs in to their online listings for it but to me it's well worth it. To some this might sound silly but this kit was one of my reasons for getting a gt86 in the first place and was the primary reason i went for a write-off, afterall why cut up a perfectly good example? Some of you might also be rolling your eyes and having lost interest (if you haven't already from the air lift) but im hoping that the 3 people who are still following (hi mum!) keep watching. This was a bit of a goal for me and i'm really pleased to make it a reality before the end of the year. I've purchased it through the official Rocket bunny EU supplier who are based over in Germany and rather than have them deliver it to me will be making a bit of a holiday/road trip for myself as I go over there to pick it up with a mate, should be fun! Also just to finish thing's off seeing as i've always found the Greddy/Rocket Bunny renderings really lackluster here's one of my favourite cars with this kit belonging to Connor_lol

Brand new, only removed from packaging for Photos. Located Down Brighton/Henfield Way Came with my Air lift kit but I also had some whitelines ones so used those instead. No Branding on them unfortunately but will be very similar to the items that come with most other coilover kits, etc. Recommended to fit when lowering car to remove/adjust preload that gets put on the Anti Roll bar. Looking for £75 Including P&P to the UK

SOLD