AE85 questions

[rollaholic]

hi all, i've finally gotten myself a car that im excited to own, after 9 months driving a 2E corolla. its an AE85 notchback with the AE86 pack thrown at it. being reasonably unfamilar with these cars, and RWDs in general i have a couple of questions.

are there any easy front brake upgrades avaliable? presumably the stud pattern and stub axle setup limits my choices to some degree. it has solid front rotors at the moment, vented would be nice! have 14" rims and dont want to change them.

secondly, the car has an adjustable panhard rod - whats this supposed to achieve, and whats the process for adjusting it?

lastly, the car has a PS rack in it, but no pump - the piping has just been crimped shut a few cm off the rack. can i get an easy swap non ps rack from somewhere?

cheers

[Meadzy]

the adjustable panhard rod is used to center the diff as when you lower the car the diff can move slightly out of centre due to it being solid rear end not irs, someone correct me if im wrong here

a set of decent new pads and disks would work wonders or you can upgrade to ae86 struts and brakes but they are extremly rare nowadays

hahah your setups same as mine but my ps lines are looped not crimped. again a non ps rack can seem rare to find, best bet would be on trademe or post your intrest to buy one on here or garagedori.com forum

ps check out the ae86 meet in the auckland section if your in the area

[Rick]

1: The easiest front brake upgrade would be the front brakes off a AE86, but trying to find some are hard, they still sell them new through toyota. You could always just upgrade the pads and brake fluid on the factory brakes.

2: When the car is lowered it make the diff sit more to one side, the adjustable panhard rod corrects this.

3: As far as I am aware about the ps rack you cant just swap the rack over you have to change the engine crossmember and rack from a non ps AE85/6 and you may have to change the steering column aswell, and also I dont thing you can pass wof with the power steering disabled

[l1ttle_d3vil]

as a side note - ae86 brakes/disks/calipers etc (the ENTIRE brake setup) will bolt straight onto ae85 struts, you don't need the ae86 strut tower too.

and yes, they would be the easiest upgrade.

[strap-on]

Richie put celica/supra struts and brakes in his car, they are vented disc's and seem to do him quite well.

If your interested i can ask him for more info for you?

[Dell'Orto]

Possibly Cressida ones? They're a good upgrade for KE's etc

[Rick]

Richie put celica/supra struts and brakes in his car, they are vented disc's and seem to do him quite well.

If your interested i can ask him for more info for you?

I also did the same however they do not just bolt on

[rollaholic]

are the AE85 calipers different from the AE86 ones? i kinda assumed the caliper would be ok, i'd just need new discs and a different cradle. the celica / supra setup sounds interesting, but i think the AE86 swap will be more within my budget range. might have to make some calls tomorrow. i believe the car already has AE86 struts in it.

i had a bit of a look on trademe for a non-PS rack, no joy though. i did briefly entertain the thought of trying to get a pump and having some lines fabricated, i just thought a non-PS rack would be cheaper and easier.

cheers for all the info!

[Stealer Of Souls]

ae86 discs are wider (being vented) than ae85 aren't they? Therefore a set of ae86 discs wouldn't just slot into the ae85 calipers?

I'm actually wondering this same thing for my other ae85.

[l1ttle_d3vil]

yeah like I said, you need the entire brake setup off the ae86 to be able to bolt it onto the ae85 struts. you can't bolt just the disks on or something liek that...