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My names Chad, 3 years this past NST drift event I've been absolutely enthralled by the art and motorsport of drifting, this is kind of personal but how have you guys thrived thrrough tearing apart, building , buying, gaining knowledge, keeping up with your projects or builds? , I'm consistently tryinto just find and ensue the right car to drive like a maniac ( on the enclosed sport driving or drift course of course) I've lurked on many forums and besides the douche bag talking,trash talking, I know more than you discussion, the ae86/ corolla community seems most welcoming. I have owned, built and failed one corolla, but I don't want to stop there. I am 21 and I do not have my own place, I have to keep the car (user rayrays86 te31 rotary racin) corolla in a storage lot while I save to purchase, learn and drop in a 13b rotary i do not have a lot of background mechanical, auto enthusiast heritage. My dad slightly introduced me to the world of motorsports, auto racin but he wasn't around enough to give me a hands on lesson or two. This thing that consistently evades me but lso continues to entice me. I have a passion for it and I don't want to let it go. Like I said this is kind of personal and I'm sorry if this annoys anyone but because of my lack of experience, tools, hands on, I have to ask questions to excel in learning about all I can for the sake of auto. Knowledge. Sorry mods of this a waste of forum room. I'm just taking a leap and Hoping for some direction

I am not entirely sure what you are asking, but I guess I will throw my 2 cents in.

Thriving as a young car enthusiast might be the wrong choice of words ... at your age I was building DC5 accords for road racing (the circuit variety), and accomplished it by trading up parts, working multiple jobs, eating primarily Top Ramen, and cutting class to work on them or catch up on sleep (not advised, leads to extending duration Top Ramen meal plan).

Not intended as an affront to you, but I personally am not a fan of drifting because it tears up the cars. That being said though, finding replacement parts for corollas can be very difficult. If I were in your position I would look at a car that is cheap to work on and can be found in just about every you pick junk yard ... like a 3rd or 4th gen Celica, or even a Datsun 2xx is fairly common (though parts are more expensive).

To keep with this theme you might want to reconsider the 13b, at least for the time being. Rotary motors are very difficult to work on as an amateur mechanic, and that includes those who mostly know what they are doing.
I learned on H22a motors. The first one that I blew up (detonated from trying to compensate for high compression by advancing timing to much instead of using a more powerful coil) only cost me $650 from an engine importer ... this was before Brian O'Conner's failure to double clutch made the bolts on his floor pan explode. My next two costs 2k and 4.5k respectively. #2 threw a rod after a race bearing presumably spun due to me not changing it out when I should have because I lacked the funds. #3 had a timing belt tensioner failure that wrecked the head of the motor, demolished the pistons, and cost fortune to tow home. I successfully built 4 11.5:1 compression motors that I would conservatively hold 10k RPM after this. I sold each of the cars those were in for significant losses after the maintenance costs began to climb past me being able to keep the cars running consistently.
I could have left the stock F22 motor in that first car (and the subsequent cars for that matter) and killed $400 motors, but I wanted the best when I still could not afford it. I would have graduated college in half the time, and probably not be quite as abhorrent of Ramen.

After the full retard detonation of motor #1 (pun intended ... err something) I started accumulating books which I studied more than school work. I also at some point started volunteering to help work on others peoples cars as much as possible to learn from what they did (several times from what happened after you do not clay test a high compression motor or do not delay spark enough on nitrous etc)... it turned out that learning what and what not to do from helping others was a whole lot cheaper.
As a side note, there is no real way to accurately explain the noise or shock value of witnessing a sprayed motor shoot a crank through the block.

Hopefully something in all of those antidotes helps you out. To recap though, my suggested formula is this:
- buy books ... and study them
- help others make mistakes
- find a cheap car with readily accessible cheap parts to tear up
- stick with cheap engines while you are learning
- focus on driving skills
- restore frame on corolla to ment condition in spare time
- build corolla the way you really want it when you can afford to make mistakes

2 cents might have turned into a whole dollar ....

ChadDavis wrote:My names Chad, 3 years this past NST drift event I've been absolutely enthralled by the art and motorsport of drifting, this is kind of personal but how have you guys thrived thrrough tearing apart, building , buying, gaining knowledge, keeping up with your projects or builds? , I'm consistently tryinto just find and ensue the right car to drive like a maniac ( on the enclosed sport driving or drift course of course) I've lurked on many forums and besides the douche bag talking,trash talking, I know more than you discussion, the ae86/ corolla community seems most welcoming. I have owned, built and failed one corolla, but I don't want to stop there. I am 21 and I do not have my own place, I have to keep the car (user rayrays86 te31 rotary racin) corolla in a storage lot while I save to purchase, learn and drop in a 13b rotary i do not have a lot of background mechanical, auto enthusiast heritage. My dad slightly introduced me to the world of motorsports, auto racin but he wasn't around enough to give me a hands on lesson or two. This thing that consistently evades me but lso continues to entice me. I have a passion for it and I don't want to let it go. Like I said this is kind of personal and I'm sorry if this annoys anyone but because of my lack of experience, tools, hands on, I have to ask questions to excel in learning about all I can for the sake of auto. Knowledge. Sorry mods of this a waste of forum room. I'm just taking a leap and Hoping for some direction

Hey whats up bro.

Corolla and rotary? are you puerto rican as well? ( I am )

my cousin has the same corolla with a 13bT
using for drag but im changing his mind on to doing it for drifting.
we shall see what happens.

but if you have any questions about rotary then please let me know

Thanks but since I do not have a solid place to keep the car its not going to happen.... I'm generally upset but I must keep searching for a sale, milchmann that was awesome info. I kind of needed some direction, it was humerous I got a couple of good laughs in and I hope to learn some stuff from you as well as any other people that insult me but help me out at the same time hahaha I just need a damn 86 or ae71 shell to pick up! And hate my 7 even though the corolla/rotary combo isn't working out I'd still like to generally learn about rotaries for use of knowledge later. Man you guys have no idea how much this irks me, I was leaving tomorrow to go pick her up from Lawton, ok again, thanks guys

Hey Chad, glad to see you swing by again.

It's difficult to work on cars if you don't have the basic necessities in life (rent, utilities, food, gas) down or under control...in a simplified fashion of course. What I mean to say is not having any of those things as a point of stress and as an insurmountable hurdle will facilitate your nagging interest in these cars (any interests for that matter like even music).

If you're committed enough, you'll need to sacrifice something to get the ball rolling and then to keep a manageable roll for yourself.

You don't want burn out in anything. So pacing yourself is important.

I say get the corolla in a simple running state. If that means getting a factory motor that'll plug and play then so be it. When it's running you'll be happier and have some modicum of success to imbue you with confidence and the will to go further.

It never hurts to ask your fellow 86G brethren here for a little help but as a contingency plan and not as your primary solution.

The biggest thing I could tell you is to decide what you want to get out of drifting before you start. If you want it to be a casual hobby or more than that will make some decisions easier moving forward. For me it was pretty simple I went to my first event in 2006 and watched the competition and got to ride in a few cars. I decided afterwards that I wanted to try it out. After finding the 86 and driving in my first competition/event I decided that’s what I wanted to do as much as possible. So i invested pretty much everything into driving/drifting afterwards and have been doing it ever since. I love driving a lot though and its way more than a hobby for me. If you just want it to be a casual hobby you do every couple of months then the car and mods don't matter as much imo. If you want to drive every event possible then the mods and car matter quite a bit more. If you are driving at events all the time keeping the car together and reliable becomes the most important thing above all else. So starting with something that is solid and reliable becomes very important. I would try to stay away from half way finished projects and oddball swaps and get something that is more or less in oem running and driving state. Then spend most of your time and effort into making it run and drive 100 percent in oem form. You can always mod it later having it run all day at events is more important. As for wrenching goes most of the knowledge comes with time, trial, and error I just sort of dove in and had decent luck lol. These are just my opinions hope they make sense lol

^^ +1

I think the biggest mistake many people have is they get too ahead of themselves at the start. If you look at a lot of really nice builds, like kind you see in magazines, its YEARS spent getting to that point. You may spend a whole year building the suspension on your corolla then the next year could be wheels, seats, and a rear end, etc. The average I see for a good solid DIY build is 3-5 years. I guess what I'm trying to really say is just keep at it, even if you have to sell the car and buy a new one to start you are still moving forward. As long as you have an idea for what you want to build you are moving forward. Even if that means driving a minivan to and from work and school as your corolla sits in the driveway and parts start to pile up in your room.

^^^^ all of that! haha!

I got my car in Dec of 2010, and I finally have all the suspension swapped out minus the sway bars. It's coming along, but it definitely wasn't an overnight process by any means. My car is still beat to shit with crap paint. I figured I would be about to the point of having the body work started and be on my way to paint about now, but I've still got a ways to go yet. After all the stuff thats in the car that no one can even see... I've been down that road of being discouraged. Just gotta keep at it!! Like Tedd stated about taking 3-5 years... that aint no lie. I've put it more time that I could have ever imaged into a car. It's been quite the journey though! I've meet some people, talked to others, and some people that I talk to quite a bit like McKenney... that I have never met in my life haha!! This forum and looking at others build threads keep me motivated, because I want that! I want an awesome AE86!! Keep pushing through the crap and keep your head up man. Stay up and live Toyota!

I'd like to post because I think you and I started in a similar position. Single mom raised, didn't know jack about cars until fairly recently compared to a lot of guys of here. I mean, when I got my 86, I drove it close to two hours home yet I didn't even know how to drive stick and had to learn on the highway. I didn't even know how to change a spark plug ( lol ) To this day, I don't think I even own a socket wrench but the reason I can work on it is because I have the good fortune of having a friend's garage and his 30+ years accumulation of tools. So I started off pretty much from scratch and while snooping around other people's build on here and magazines etc. The main thing that keeps my motivation for me is being able to drive my car. The more time you spend with something, the more attached you get and while working on them when they are not running certainly counts, the fact that it can't be on the road starts to chip away at you. Plus, it's hard to feel your progress when you can't drive it so what I do is make small attainable goals. That way you check on how you're doing and see that the work you put into it is not for naught. You can do this even without getting drity by soaking up as much knowledge as you can about your car. For example, if I'm reading something and you were to ask me what it was, 9 times out of 10, it is corolla related. Besides, when you drive a corolla, you're always the underdog so seat time and getting your technique straight is probably one of the biggest advantages you can get when its comes to drifting but you can't do that if your car is down... To me, getting the car on the road is always the top priority and while it may sometimes seem like a detour, it is much more gratifying to collect parts when you can drive it, than to buy up all these cool things but not being able to use it. So I suppose this counts as my origin story and my opinion coming from a young guy with very little mechanical background and tools.