ae86 suspension into ke70 wagon

[moses]

i have a ke70 dx wagon project that im in the process of fitting ae86 coilovers and brakes to. im just curious if anyone has done this conversion before and could offer me some assitance as im a bit stuck with what to do as the top hat bolt patern is different and the lower strut bolts dont line up. how can i solve this problem? and do i need a set of rca's to space the bottom?

[d1 mule]

i guess you will either need to get some KE to AE RCAs made ir use the ae86 bottom arm with the steering knuckle unless the KE ball joint is the same stze then you couly just swap knuckles. i would think you can just swap top hats

[NZ_AE86]

the balljoint at the bottom is the same as AE86 so you need AE86 steering knuckles. RCAs are a good idea but not required.
I am pretty sure you can just swap the top hats, I have not done it for a while but it all goes together!

[Mr Revhead]

are you sure about what you have?
i was pretty sure that the KE and AE bits were the same....

[Dell'Orto]

Nah, some KE70 ones are the same as AE86's, some arent. My sedan and wagon have different top hats.

[Mr Revhead]

i thought the difference was in the top of the coil diameter? not the actual bolt pattern on the guard.
and the lower strut bolt spacing should be the same

[Dell'Orto]

Nope, bolt pattern is different as well as coil. Could very well just be the difference between early and late KE70's, but T3 have I think 3 options for camber plate bolt pattern.

[Mr Revhead]

hmmmm

ok looks like the later KE70s have the same tophat as AE85/6
which make sense as why make two types at once.

[AE25]

from what ive found.. 79-82ish ke70 have equilaterally spaced bolts on the top hat, (seem to be same as kp61 and ke25 etc..) '83ish onwards have unequal spaced top hat which is same as ae86.
you can swap from one to the other to suit the car.
a slant front ke70 wagon is the later type.
bolt spacing at the bottom is 87mm on the earlier ones and 85mm on the later ones (85mm for ae86 too). late ke70 wagon steering arms are 130mm long compared to 135ish for non p/s ae85/ae86, or 115mm for p/s steering arm.
also the late ke70 strut is same as ae85/6.. tho may have variations in spring diameter.
some of the earlier ke70 struts have a smaller tube and smaller diameter shock inside. also the hubs are different between the two types of strut.. can identify it by which way the disk/hub bolts are facing. (later ones bolt from the inside, or disk side).

easy solution for you would be to find some late ke70 or ae85/6 struts to do your conversion on if you dont have them already.

a bit hard to pic out.. L to R, ke25, ke70 early, te71 (sim to late ke70 except backing plate bolt pattern)