My 1972 KE25 Corolla Coupe

[awex]

So, what am I going to do to this car?

First, I have to transport it down to where I live. It`s quite a drive, I`d probably need two days, so I`m trying to find a cheap way to transport it here without leaving the comfort of my couch.

The window seals needs changing, but the previous owner had ordered them on Ebay, he`ll ship them to me when they arrive. There was a vinyl roof on the car at some point in time, but they took it off without removing the chrome stripes that functioned as some sort of transition between the vinyl roof and the rest of the car. Looks a bit silly in my opinion, so they are coming off. While removing the vinyl roof, the paint has loosened from the surface in some places, leading to small rust bubbles in the paint. I was told that this was nothing major, so I`ll probably just sand the car down and give it a fresh lick of paint, original color or something very similar.

I`m gonna change the grille and corner mouldings into somthing nicer, I`m not 100% sure what I`m going to buy yet. If i find one, I`ll probably change the hood to the other type the KE/TE`s had, with the lowered midsection. I really think this suits the car better, giving it a more aggressive look. This is how I want the front of my car to look:


When I bought the 180B, I started buying a few parts for it. One thing i knew I had to have, was a set of fender flares and proper wheels. I actually bought a set of fiberglass replicas of the stockTE27 flares, comes in pretty handy now


I also bought two sets of 15" wheels from Japan. I love wheels, I really do! maybe too much? I think the wheels make or break a car. The keyword is low offsets and deep lips.

The first set is what I think are 2pc. Work Eqip 03`s. They don`t look like the ones they produce now, but they are pretty similar to the older ones. They are 7.5 and 8x15, I don`t remember the offsets, but they are somewhere around negative 10-15. That leaves room for a nice, fat lip They were restored before they were sold to me, so they look really clean, almost like new!


The other wheels is a set of Work VS-XX, one of the nicest wheels around in my opinion. The fronts have a 6cm lip, and the fronts are around 7cm. They are 4x100 though, so they`ll have a nice 25mm added to the offset because of the spacer/adapter I need to run to get them on my car. I`ll try to restore these myself, should be fun.
F: 6.5x15 et17 r: 7x15 et23


I did sell the VS-XX`s to a friend, who put them on his miata, but he promised me that I could buy them back if I wanted, so I`ll be doing that. At the time I sold them , I didn`t really think I`d need them for years. I`m glad things have changed.

I`m going to put in AE86 struts with KYB AGX`s and a set of lowering springs. In the rear I`m going for flex-a-form fibreglass leaf springs and probably AGX dampers here too. I will also install upgraded bushings and anti roll bars front/rear.

I`d like a proper rear axle with LSD and disc braks too, but I`m not sure how I`m going to solve this yet. A shortened AE86 axle would be great, but I`m not sure how much such a job would cost. We`ll see what i can find, and what I can afford. I`ll probably just redrill the stock axles to 4x114.3 and keep it that way until I`m swapping in a new engine.

When I feel happy with the suspension and brakes, I`m probably going to install a 4A-GE together with a T50 from an AE86, depending on what the authorities has to say about it. The ultimate goal is a 20v blacktop, since I always dreamed about this in my AE86.

While I threw out the interior in my AE86, I`ll keep it in this car. It seems really clean, so I`ll probably just get a pair of used sport seats, and have them retrimmed to match the rest of the interior. I`ve also got a Momo Prototipo steering wheel for the 180B, so now I just need a hub to fit the KE25. Shouldn`t be too hard to find.


So, that`s my current plans for my KE25, any feedback and advice is greatly appreciated. Sorry for the long read, I tend to get a litte carried away from time to time