Ghetto Garage

“How much power is she making at the treads mate?”

This is  a common question you will hear asked around the place,  at the track in the pits, in a car park, or anywhere guys are generally hanging around their cars.
Realistically; are power figures everything?

As an AE86 owner over the last few year I have to confess…. I’m not a huge fan of the little 4AGE 16V… There I said it! I had driven a few 4AGE powered machines and I just wasn’t impressed. So when I bought my first AE86 I slapped a 4AGZE in it (supercharged 4AGE 16V for non-Toyota savvy readers) to feed my hunger for power. IF you want a fun car it’s gotta have power right! And the best way to get power is with forced induction right? …. Well after hanging around Toyota fiends for too long I started to learn a valuable lesson.

With my foot flat to the floor, super charger whining away jamming 14 pounds per square inch of extra air down the throat of the poor little 1600 I looked in my review mirror to see my mate in his Naturally Aspirated 20V AE82 right behind me! Then after a ride in the passenger seat of the little red weapon my eyes were starting to be opened to a new world of all natural motor goodness!

A few years down the track the super charger is gone and I now have some NA loveliness of my own. I have only had the car for 2 weeks and haven’t had much steer time in it, but my mind has been changed, NA all the way! The way this thing drives is just so awesome, the power delivery down low, feeling the cams really come alive with the VVTi at 4200 rpm and just trying to hold on as she doesn’t want to stop revving all the way past 8. There is just nothing like it! 130 rwkw… sounds pretty lame in this day and age of cheap turbos and tunes that can see you with 230 rwkw without breaking a sweat. I’ll take the NA response and drivability any day! I really am a changed man. It’s snappy and responsive way more than I thought a motor could be, you floor it and the power is there straight away. Then there is the sound!!! Screaming down a lonely twisty road with it at full song and the window down just listening to the engine sucking copious amounts of air through the  four throttle bodies is just so satisfying. Having the accelerator pedal nearly welded to the fire wall just to hear that DDOORRRPPPP is really going to get me in trouble soon; from either my neighbours or worse. Then, to cap it all off when the fuel bowser stops clicking over and I’ve struggled to use more that 10L per 100km of fuel, I just smile and know I really do have my cake…. and you better believe I’m eating it too!