mndsm's new... (toy)olla!

I've long since professed a love of all things corolla, Especially the AE101 chassis, which was the last generation (at least overseas) available with the 4ag family of engines. Once they went to the AE103 designation (the last of them built by Nummi, also the only "chevy" prisms out there) they actually had a 1zz, a smaller relative of the 2zz combo found in the Celica GT (yes, they swap). This is NOT however, about the pig of a 103 my wife drives daily and it burns oil and leaks from the sunroof, etc etc.

It's about my new best friend.

[URL=http://smg.photobucket.com/user/mndsm/media/IMG_20140109_150702_3981_zps705cefe4.jpg.html][/URL]

Meet Miyuki. Miyuki is a 1993 Toyota Corolla wagon. Also known to me as a Unicorn. The story of my acqusition of her is rather strange. I was emailed by a grm forum member (I'm sorry Vince I totally don't remember your SN) and told that I had made mention I liked his car once. Of course I did, it's a Corolla, and it's a wagon! He further told me that she was going to need a new home and she could be mine for a price that was WAY beyond too good to pass up. There was only one, small itty bitty tiny little hitch. Car's in Maryland. As evidenced by my S/N, I am not. As fate would have it, my parents live 20min from where the car is, and they have PLENTY of room to park it at, so that works out in my favor.

Arrangements were made, in typical mndsm fashion, my life went all to E36 M3 (I almost had to give up the car) and at the last possible moment, we made it work. Tomorrow, the car leaves Hagerstown MD for its temporary new home in Chambersburg PA, and at the end of next month, it makes the long journey to its final destination in St. Paul-ish, MN.

Now, for what's going to happen? Who knows. I've been wanting to experiment with LED lighting, and I have a guy who's an arduino fiend. So the possibility of programmable lights in the car is real. Getting lowered on fat tires is a guarantee. Beyond that, I am not sure. She's a real cute girl in a bit of a frumpy dress, but I like that kinda thing. Plus I will never stop extolling the virtues of 5 door hatches and small wagons. I'm an addict.

I'll be watching, all wagons are good.

I will subscribe. I have a special place in my heart for AE92 wagons, but AE103s are cool too.

I miss my Rolla wagon.

i also love wagons, and early 90's toyota engineering! Strange part is i grew up in hagerstown

Yeah, this will be an interesting contrast. I want to have fun with it, but I can't lose the utility of a wagon- that's the whole reason to buy a wagon. So I can't totally ruin the suspension, but a 2" drop is standard in my world. The problem is no one makes coilovers (good ones anyhow) for 20 year old Corollas. I'll figure something out. These are pretty popular overseas and there was a performance hatchback model that was kinda hotted up so I'll probably crib notes from that once I get them into english. I also know a 4ag 20v swaps in... so there is that.

I like thick girls with fat dumpers.

are the wagons different than the sedans suspension wise? google brings up plenty of photos of this gen wagon lowered so it shouldn't take you long to figure out what others are doing.

failboat wrote: are the wagons different than the sedans suspension wise? google brings up plenty of photos of this gen wagon lowered so it shouldn't take you long to figure out what others are doing.

Yeah, Ill get her back home and crawl under it and give it a good look see to make a plan of attack. A good friend of mine/co beer enthusiast is also a lowrider monkey and he's put the idea of bags in my head. I could lay rocker then, which would be pretty neat, but that ruins the performance quotient, and I always swore I wanted to build a sleeper-ish wagon out of one of these. I know coilovers EXIST for them, I'm just not sure what my plan of attack is yet. Car is still 1200 miles from me.

I worked with a guy who dded one of these that was a 5 speed in mint condition. This is my favorite fwd Corolla.

Miyuki is parked next to your FB. I put Sta-Bil in her tank and topped it off before I dropped her off, just in case.

I'm glad she's going to a good home. Got a little choked up dropping her off. Lots of memories.

My FB? Do you know something I don't? Last I checked that was my brother's car and he swore he wax reviving it.

mndsm wrote: My FB? Do you know something I don't? Last I checked that was my brother's car and he swore he wax reviving it.

Oh, I thought it was yours! Also, there was a 2-door K-car in the driveway, which made me jelly.

That K car is a 2 owner car too- It was given to my brother Nick from the original owner (his grandfather) who purchased it new. There's a whole lot of fun things around there. I don't know if you saw my moms' Trans Am under the cover, she got bored one day and bought a 3rd gen TA with the 305 and a T-bar roof, she loves that car- but its got a dead fuel assembly and she's broke and my dad's too busy to fiddle with it.

The FB is my brother Chris' old car, he sold it to my Dad for 500$ when he bought his DSM, a 91 6bolt- that ended up getting totalled by some goober.... and he ended up using that cash to get an LT1 Camaro, which inexplicably turned into a....2.7l Chrysler 300m that's on its 2nd driveline. My brother Andrew is the current keeper of the FB- and it IS a GSLSE car, which makes me want to rescue it- it has both roofs and everything- it's been beaten, it needs a rebuild, purportedly it's rusty as E36 M3 underneath, but no one will give me pictures and thusfar Andrew has fended off all attempts of mine to purchase it and ship it BACK to MN so I can do terrible things to it. It may be a lost cause at this point.

Oh this is gonna be good! I love these wagons!

I can't stand 5 door hatches, but wagons make perfect sense. Try to figure that one out...

Making a small wagon like that into a sedan delivery would be cool.

I don't know if I'll go that route, but you bet your sweet hiney that the glass will be as dark as humanly possible. i already have a legal script for 20% which is a bit of a rarity in MN (my wife has one too- we're good at that game!) and I know for a fact that "wagons" can be argued as "suvs and vans" in court, which means everything but the front two windows can be limo dark in MN- it's a neat trick I learned a long time ago. Now most cops don't believe my ms3 is a wagon, but the glass is 20% all the way around there, so NBD. I usually just tell the cops the windows are that dark if they start peering through them. It throws them off. What's REALLY funny about the whole thing is I'm fairly certain that the rolla and the ms3 have nearly identical cargo room, just due to auto bloat over the 14 years between build dates in the two cars. But one is a wagon and one is a 5 door hatch, and they both do the EXACT same thing.

I would be willing to bet the Toyolla has more cargo room:

That would be four (4) 18x10s with tires, with quite a bit of room to spare. I can't find the picture, but I actually had those wheels and tires all in the back of the Toyolla when they weren't mounted, as well.

The back seat folds flat. Flip the bottom of the seat up towards the front, then lay the backs down.

5-door hatches aren't wagons. Just look at the first-gen Ford Focus, which had 4-door sedans, 3- and 5-door hatches, and a 5-door wagon. Wagons are the shiznit. The Ford Fusion/Mondeo is available as a wagon in Europe, and I'm piiiiiiiisssssssed I can't get me one of them.

I've had similar in the ms3... it has a shocking amount of room, I had 4 mounted 17x9's plus a 3ton floor jack, 4 stands, etc. But yeah, wagons kick ass.

My 95 AE101 was, of the cars Ive owned, by far my favorite. Crank windows, manual locks, no sunroof, no ABS…as stripper as a girl named "Mercedes". A 5 speed momentum car with decent suspension and got nearly 30mpg. Reliable as gravity and parts grow on trees. Brake pads and belts could be purchased for the change under the seat.

The only issues I had with mine were:

• the crank pulley is 2 pieces - a center aluminum hub, a flat rubber ring, and an outer aluminum ring that the belt rides on. The middle rubber ring (think fancy rubber band) is in there to damp vibrations. Over time, the rubber shrinks with age. When that shrinks, the outer ring can slide laterally (parallel with the crank)and this will eat belts in short order.

• The fuel system hard lines are prone to oxidization when combined with salty winter roads. This was the Achilles heel for mine, and ultimately why she had to go. I sold her to a Cert. 'yota master tech in the family, and he fixed her up and his daughter is still driving her.

I installed a no name ebay header, some DIY urethane mounts, short ram intake, iridium plugs, nology wires, DIY cold air intake, 2.5" Axleback exhaust, advanced the timing, put her on some 16" wheels, and drove the crap outta that thing. Even with 93 octane, 30MPG kept costs down. She knew I cared, and appreciated the attention - girls always like to get gifts. She repaid me with much increased throttle response, a bit more pull deeper into the redline, and never stranded me.

I always wanted to put her on a diet, put her on some lower springs, and install a lighter flywheel, but it was never meant to be. Great car, would own again!

^ This guy gets it. I was a terrible owner to my first one, and it gave up its motor at 88k. I threw a new one in it, and sold it shortly thereafter for my DSM.... and that's when I learned what that car meant to me. My wife had a 99 (AE103) when we met, and my dumbass thought it was a good idea to sell it after we bought the MINI. I always kicked myself for that, and when it came up for sale again (yes, the exact same car) I bought it on the spot. I like it, it's reliable as gravity and it just ain't care- makes a killer ghetto cruiser for my wifes' job... but it isn't a 101. 101's are where my heart always is. I understand that the 92 might actually BE sportier, and so on and the 86 will always be on my list, but to me this is the holy grail. Seriously. I spent a lot of years wistfully hoping for a wagon. There were a few near misses, then a certain immigrant population in MN absolutely RUINED the Toyota secondary market- making 101's nigh unobtanium at any price. Combine that with the fact that wagons are thin on the ground here as is, and I had all but given up finding a good one. (Miyuki's worth roughly quadruple what I paid once she hits the MN state line. Seriously.) I had a line on one and I told the owner to sell it to me before she traded it- and it was PERFECT, 5 speed, beige, strippo..... I drove past her house back in august and there as a brand new Juke in its place. I was crushed. Then I got the PM from Sky- and i took a swing. I wasn't letting another one get away. And with the support of my wife, the forgiving nature of my mother (she gets the hoarding cars gene, every single one of us does it, except my sister, but her husband does it for her) and Sky being a total dude on this one, we have landed a whale. It seems insane that a 23 year old basic ass commuter car could make me THIS happy, but I'm seriously more stoked I think than when I first hit boost in my ms3 7 years ago.

That's a 4ag/6speed BZ combo....from the factory. Things just got interesting. There be parts out there somewhere.

mndsm wrote: Yeah, this will be an interesting contrast. I want to have fun with it, but I can't lose the utility of a wagon- that's the whole reason to buy a wagon. So I can't totally ruin the suspension, but a 2" drop is standard in my world. The problem is no one makes coilovers (good ones anyhow) for 20 year old Corollas. I'll figure something out. These are pretty popular overseas and there was a performance hatchback model that was kinda hotted up so I'll probably crib notes from that once I get them into english. I also know a 4ag 20v swaps in... so there is that.

The trick is to buy a used set of Megan/KSport/D2/Tein/Whatevertheberkeley for cheap, send them to FEAL for rebuild/reworking.

Receive magic back in the mail. Win at life.

http://www.ae101ownersclub.com/f13-ae101-wagon

Saving this for personal use.

Woa...I didn't know I liked these.

You do. You all do. Just like you like F2T cars.