AE101 4A-FE School cruiser

Hey

My first Japanese car ever..Only driven Audi and Vw before, and this is a real strange experience.
As im going to school now this autumn, i need a nice cheap car to drive everyday.

So the story for converting is:
I've only owned VAG cars before. Alwas somthing to work on. My four pimples are my Audi 200 20vt Avant, my Vw Passat G60 Syncro Variant, my Volvo 360GL and my Golf MK1 2l 16v bike carbs project.
I spent alot of money to get the Audi 200 back to nice shape, newly overhauled engine and everything should be just fine. After some hours on the road, it started makind noises from the head. i asked som friends of mine ( VAG mechanichs) what could be wrong.. The answer i got was that one of the hydraulic lifters was bad, and that i could use it until i got new ones. One hour later and all of my exhaust valves was bent badly..... the real problem was when the old owner changed the timing belt, he forgot the key on the crankshaft. Soo when i was drifting on snow, the pulley desided to loosen and ruin 10 valves pretty badly!
After some days in the garage, i got it back together and tried to start it... not a chance, no spark.. All of the sensors is okay, coil is okay and the brain should be okay as i tried a friends aswell..So really dont know whats wrong.
Then i bought myself a nice 1.1 MK1 Golf which i used half a year before the french carbs went crazy. No rep kit and not a single one for sale at the time it broke.. so i bought a 2l engine block with KR head, some nice camshafts and bike carbs.. but as the lazy ass i am, the car stands there today and i haven't really started the engine convertion as i'm abit stuck when it comes to fuel supply and engine mounts...
The G60 was a true beast. Really good engine, until the G-lader started to make strange noises, and alot of hoses and pipes started leaking oil/air/fuel. Got a good bid on it, and sold it to a "friend"
I then bought a Volvo 360 which i was going to use as a newb drift car. Lowered it and welded the diff. Drifed around one week or soo and really got the hang of 30-40 mph drifts. Alot of snow drifting aswell on narrow norwegian mountain roads, fun as heck!
Then after a while, as my skills rose, the drive shafts started to break... broke some sets before i one day couldnt bear more, and just took it to the junk shop and wrecked it.
So now last week, was sitting here with no car, borrowing my brothers '92 Saab 900 Griffen. Full of rust and not really safe to drive.
Then i saw this green Corolla on a lokal cardealers parkinglot. Clearly the ugly duckling of the lot. Around 10years older than the rest.
Went in to the dealership with my old boilersuit and lowballed them as good as i could.. they accepted the offer and now, im the lucky owner of my first jap! Toyota Corolla 1.6 XLI wagon









So i've had it on the road one day, took some quarter mile dragraces against my (slowest) friends. It did really well!
Outrun a friends Subaru Legacy 2.5, a Ford Transit Connect, Skoda Octavia, Peugot 406 and my brothers Saab 900i! All og the engines are bigger, except the Skoda wich is 1.6 aswell! Really impressed that it beat the Legacy with 154bhp!
if it handles well after it get new rims and shocks, it will compete in some local Autoslalom races

Plans so far:

Service: flush the engine good, and get some cheap oil and oilfilter to run a little week or soo, before flushing it again and get some low friction oil and a quality oil filter. Low friction gear oil. New rotor, rotor cap, new sparkplugs, new copper core sparkplugwires.
Coilovers
Rims
Headlights
Grill
Fix rust on rear wheel arches
Shortshift
2" Exhaust
Exhaust Manifold
Fix rust on some brake lines (aquired to get the licensplates back)

The style im looking for is Euro, not plastic styling..
So what do you guys think? Do you have any tips or tricks when it comes to this car and engine?

Cheers, Vegard

Welcome to the club Vegard! Nice wagon, those are rather rare!!

Thanks!

I guess they might be rare over seas, but here in Norway they are almost as common as anything else!
I have this tradition to wave to anyone who have the same car as im driving, and it's a real challange when driving this, as i meet one atleast every minute or soo! hehe, but that some of the charm of the car.. this is what grannies, and soccerwifes drive, so let's see what a kid can do to this awesome car!

I'm working in the states at the moment, only 2 weeks left at the most. 1 year in Louisiana, New Orleans... Can't really say i like the cars there...

Yeah, the wagon is more rare in the states, at least here.

Welcome to the site buddy! Your story made me smile the whole time. Love the car you chose, and happy you found the site.

Lookin' forward to the progress.

Thanks Mirror!

My father is secretly a VAG enthusiast aswell, he don't admit it.. but the choice is always some vag... So needless to say, he have been out in the garage just as much as his son. Always some fun problem like lately on his Passat 1.8 Syncro Variant '99. Clutch problems, Multilink bushings once a year, new calipers at the rear because the old ones stuck, central locking problems, the oil strainer in the oilsump is clogged and some sensors are crazy so power is down and fuel consumption is up. Windows somtimes go down in the middle of the night etc..
He had a Camry 2.2 XL some years ago. Always when somthing break on his current car, he mentiones that the Toyota was bulletproof, and nothing really happend when he had that. Thats the car he really should driving etc :p

So i hope i get a similar experience with this, just fun work on it and no bad stuff
Let's see in a 2years time..

Is it a good way to give the 4A-FE more power? Like 7A-FE cams, nozzles, ECU and Inlet manifold? ( wild guess )

didnt sleep well today, so i just went out and mounted a crappy cone filter that i had lying in my garage..
Took away a box on the hose to the filter, and there was some sensor in the original airbox that i dont really know whats for.
I started it and its a quite strange noise on idle now with the conefilter.. Sounds just like somthing is grinding in there, but its just air passing through the throttlebody i guess? Normal when installing bad filters like this?


what does this filtersensor thingy do? the one in focus.


Lot of spare parts allready.

Put on the summerwheels, and parked it over the grave to check all the bushings, brakes etc for the periodic control.
The brakepipes to the rear is pretty bad. but it doesnt look like too bad work. Take down the fuel tank and change them.. Altough, im going to get a car mechanic to look if they are safe to drive with, if so i will just paint them to prevent more rust.

hey man the best thing u have eva done in ur life is buy a real car a TOYOTA heheheh they are nice cars man and these wagons are good i started my life with these wagons had like 9 or ten of these man had 2 with 4age 20v 1 with 4efte, aswell..now have the bz touring corolla that have still got..but love to c the mods man....

hello and welcome to the site mate,
just read your story and i was like WOW, but now you have a corolla and hopefully shouldnt see any problems,

its a very nice colour aswell, the 4afe is designed more as an economical engine, however there is a member who turbo'd his 4afe and has over 300bhp (alot of custom work though)
you can always upgrade to the 4age if you want

btw that sensor is for the air temp or something like that and should be connected inside that tube, and no you shouldnt be hearing any grinding noise inside the engine

best of luck with it, and i cant wait to see what you do with it...

i have had your engine washed it must have been gone through tuning it must be the loose tappets try getting them tightened had the same problem on my petrol and after that the engine became silent

do you / can you post a video of the sound?

Sent Miib14 a pm with the vid..."New members are not allowed to post external links or emails for 7 days. Please contact the forum administrator for more information." EDIT.. That didnt work either! Stupid rules

youtube.com/watch?v=EaXklid2Ztc&feature=youtu.be



I quess its just air beeing sucked through the throttlebody and the filter.. doesnt sound that bad irl, altough its noticiable..
I don't think its the tappet clearence at all.. that would be a ticking noice, and not a swoshing noise :p

Ordered a new rotor and rotorcap today aswell. the old ones are fried.
Mounted Copper core plugwires. the whole 5m roll had a resistance of 0.6ohm, and one original sparkplugwire had something like 10k ohm.. Needs some shortening just
Guess it will make my spark stronger, but why do they put this big resistance in the original one in the first place?

Will fit the air temp sensor somewhere it can do its job..
I'm getting some rims tomorrow if possible, BBS RM 6.5x15. Looks shite.. Much wider Ebay outer rings and a coat of paint on the senter and it will be a winner again

doesnt sound bad at all tbh, the high pitch whistle is the only sound i can hear and the air being sucked through, no grinding sound

cant wait to see the rims on it

im guessing the same!
The high pitch is from the "generator/alternator" ( don't know the english name..)
guess it needs to be changed soon.
Tommorow is salary, so i will waste some money on styling and brake lines on this Jap then

What offset would you guys guess is perfect on this?

What do you guys think of a 2.5" Exhaust? Silly big or is it ok?
ebay.com/itm/N1-CATBACK-EXHAUST-93-97-TOYOTA-COROLLA-94-95-96-JDM-/220288447711?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Model%3ACorolla&hash=item334a36f4df&vxp=mtr
Its just too cheap!

A lot of people run that exhaust, Chris (gold) ran it on his rolla. A lot of people seem to really like it too.

I can't seem to get the link working, but I did indeed have a catback on my rolla that looks like it might be that link. It was good quality, and if you like the way it looks, go for it. I had a body kit with it, so it looked OK. I like a OEM style muffler like Kenny has.

I was thinking a 2" exhaust would be more than enough, and this might just be noise..
But lets see if it works out good..

A 2.5" system is just right for a corolla, a 2.25" may work better but you shouldnt be at a loss with a 2.5", plus if you decide to try to push more power through, the 2.5" will come in handy.

2.5" on Audis, is big enough for somthing like 400-450 bhp..
i think its overkill on a 114bhp 1.6litre car :p
I'm going to try it out I might like it

Haha good luck

The stock exhaust works just fine on the Corolla. I replaced the entire thing, as I mentioned, and I lost low-end power. The piping was too big.

What is your purpose in changing the catback? Power? Looks? Sound?

the purpose is all mentioned above. Ideally i would like a 2" system and a straight through silencer.. but the one on ebay is soo cheap that i guess its ok to try it Easy to sell used anyways.
The one thats there now have alot of rust, and the silencer needs replacement soon as its cracked and leaking allittle bit.
The size of the axhaust tip is abit fun aswell.

Todays work..

Had a lip laying in the garage to my Audi 200, from a Renault Laguna
So i cut it and bolted it on.
Looks abit silly, but i kind of like it
Also, picked up my BBS RM project! the center and barrel looks good, so now its just to figure out how wide lips i need and order some new bigger ones!








VW rims.. BBS RM012 6.5x15 that was fitted originally to a Passat G60

WOW! That lip looks amazing! It suits the car perfectly! And you don't even need to paint it. Good idea!

And those rims are only 6.5" wide? They look wide enough, but yeah you can definitely go wider than 6.5"! Out of curiosity, is there anything wrong with the rims that you NEED to replace them, or you just want wider rims?

And I see a road bike in the background that needs some TLC

yeah, i like the looks of lips when they fit nice. Need to cut some on the bumper to make it level.. because now, its tilting upwards, its not that easy to see in the pics bacause the car is standing in a small hill :p

I'm atleast going to widen them to 8" Maybe widen the rear ones to 8.5.. but i need to test fit them and look if that's possible The original lips on the rims are dinted, but are good to use. I just dont like the rims when they are this narrow!
I have no idea what fits on these cars, so it could be that that will be too wide for the front?
Will see over the weekend!

I'm going to a trackday with a friend in his Audi A4 1.8T this weekend, will be soo fun.
Love trackdays with only normal cars driving.. just some guys racing around.. and not the big meetings when all the big fish come with 500bhp atleast :p


The bike in the background is a old peugot racer wich i converted to fixed gear..
Its too much hills around here to use it. To heavy up hills, no brakes down hills and to slow on flatground