Lauren's 1985 Kouki Trueno

[Lauren]

Okay, a bit of an update. Despite plans to fit a GZE, I decided to shelve these as it was going to cost me a fair bit in sorting the issues around the GZE, but really I wasn't sure that a GZE is what I wanted in the car at the end of the day.

Yes, I know we have Mark's blue-printed GZE sitting in the shed and that ought to be a good engine with the care and attention he paid when he put it all together, but I couldn't help but feel that an AE86 really is about being NA and though it would mean less power, I prefer the feel and sound of an NA.

Also it was going to cost me a grand or so by the time we had figured out some of the custom bits for a GZE swop and after the car being off the road for three months, I was determined to get it back on the road for the spring.

So with all that in mind, we opted to just do a quick fix. The plan was to whip the head off (hope for a stuck valve) and likely do bit of honing and fit a new set of piston rings. However, it didn't quite work like that as you shall see.

Still, the car is back on the road for the grand total of around £200 and a lot of hard graft!

Here's the tale as it happened:

It all started on the 27th February with a space cleared in Mark's new workshop:



The next day, Tuesday 28th Feb:

Hmm, after a whole day of stripping things down, it looks like the bore on No.4 has some nasty scoring.

You can see on No.4 from here:



And here:



Mark has some much better pics. It looks like the scoring may be too much to repair by simply honing alone. Also whatever we do, it looks to be pretty difficult to do anything with the bottom end in situ due to the crossmembers and steering rack being in the way. It couldn't be worse as far as No.4 cylinder is concerned.

Looks like I'll be taking the rest of the engine out tomorrow, so will need a crane after all.

Not sure what I'm going to do tbh as the car really needs to be out of the workshop in a week.