Tec-Art’s and a legendary AE86

Alex Gut - June 13, 2014 - 3

Today I have the great pleasure to showcase a car that has been influencing people across the globe for the past 2 decades. This car belongs to no one less than the old man in green, Keiichi Tsuchiya. Tec-Art’s, the shop that is currently this Trueno’s home is a major player in the AE86 scene as they have their fingers in everything that has to do with racing AE86s. Tsuchiya entrusted his beloved car to them a couple of years back after his very own mechanic Sakurai of TRD passed away.

Tsuchiya’s goal has always been ‘total balance’ over raw power but after reaching ultimate balance with his Trueno he has gone up against other well tuned cars and even though he was able to beat plenty of stronger opponents, it was deemed he needed more power. Unfortunately the 1600cc 4A-GE had to go. Tec-Art’s recommended a 7A block in order to increase the displacement to 1800cc, combined with the same AE111 20 valve head that has previously been used on the 4A.

The result was just above 200 horsepower which may only be around 20 more than the 4A had in the end, but the increased torque made a significant difference. There was a funny story when Tec-Art’s themselves were highly surprised when taking the 4A’s head apart as they were going to use it with the new block, to find that Sakurai-san has been using balanced OEM cams. He made roughly 180hp in the end with just stock cams and off the shelf TRD parts. He was admired as a highly skilled tuner.

The list of modifications does not stop though; various sets of Work Wheels had been installed over the past couple of years, right now it’s sat on 15 inch Work Meister CR-01s for the authentic oldskool look. The ITBs are naturally made by TODA which are essential to a car driven by the King himself. Tec-Art’s also removed Tsuchiya’s old DG5 coilovers and installed one of their own to tighten up the suspension again. Every time I see this car it seems to have another exhaust system as well!

Nonetheless, Tsuchiya was very pleased with the result. Tec-Art’s now also offers complete packages similar to Tsuchiya’s hachiroku – for those that have the necessary pocket change at least: A complete Tsuchiya spec engine is nearly 3 Million Yen which are around 22000 Euros! I’m sure the prices are justified somewhere, this thing must be an out-of-this-world pleasure to drive! Thanks to our photographer Tristan we had the chance for a quick look at current state of things.

Here’s to our continued following of the evolution of this very, very special AE86.