Yesterday was a very long day. After flying into Norway from Tokyo it was straight to Fredric’s house just outside Oslo for a rendezvous with the soon to be completed 86X. Fredric and his crew have been working literally non stop for the last two and a half weeks putting together this impressive 2JZ-powered 86, which will be unveiled at Gatebil Rudskogen. After seeing all the weekly progress posts that Fredric has been posting up, I was really excited to see what this mean machine was looking like. Fredric, along with Mad Mike who had flown in earlier in the day, had taken the car to the sticker shop where the custom graphics would be applied. As ever when it comes to projects of this nature delays followed…
…and it sounded like it would take a few hours of extra work to finish things up and get the car back at Fredric’s place. It was a good time to relax and have a chat with Thomas, one of Fredric’s friends who has been involved in the project since the beginning. I was surprised to hear that the 86 as well as the Supra had all been built in the garage-come-workshop under Fredric’s house, which is packed full of all the tools one would ever need to put a pro drift car together. Even around the house there is plenty to see, like random parts stored away as well as a few toys.
With jet lag setting in pretty hard my head was attempting to make sense of the unusual amount of light that was still out at what must have been 10 pm. Made for nice shots of the lake behind Fredric’s house!
Fast forward a couple of more hours and still no sign of Fredric and Mad Mike, who were still at the sticker place finishing up. By about midnight the rest of Fredric’s crew had assembled in the garage, ready to get to work as soon as the 86 would arrive. There was still lots to do like fitting the turbo, fabricating the intercooler piping, the front pipe and the screamer pipe, fit the seats, mount tires on wheels…needless to say it was going to be a very long night with little or no sleep to be had for all of these guys.
At around 1:30 am Fredric arrived, and the newly painted and stickered-up 86X was quickly unloaded from the trailer and slowly moved down…
…the driveway…
…and into the garage.
It had been a long wait but well worth it as the car was looking phenomenal with the new livery.
Miura-san of TRA Kyoto has been a true sport in supporting this project, sending Fredric the masters of the soon to be released 6666 Custom Rocket Bunny overfenders. As with all of TRA’s aero, which is designed in CAD and the molds CNC-machined to high standards, was a perfect fit and really gave an altogether more aggressive stance to the 86. At this point the car was still on the stock wheels, with the Federal tires getting mounted on the rims later on in the night.
I was impressed at how well these guys made the 2JZ, taken out of Fredric’s Supra, fit in the somewhat compact engine bay. At this point the engine was still missing most of the ancillaries on the turbo side as well as the intercooler…
…which Bjorn from SWR Performance was finishing up here. Bjorn originally built the 2JZ and cooling system in Fredric’s Supra and with the motor’s swap over to the 86X lots of fabrication was and still is, as we will see further down in the post, required to make everything fit.
Literally within one minute of the 86X being pushed into the garage everyone got to work, it was almost like I was back in Japan witnessing efficiency first hand. There is obviously a lot of passion and pride at stake in getting this project not only completed in time, but performing straight out of the box.
With the clock quickly approaching 2 am the place was buzzing with energy and plenty of noise; it’s a good thing Fredric’s closest neighbors are some way away but even so some complaints followed!
Attempting not to get in the way I took time to check over the car in more detail, from the various sponsor stickers that had been applied to the front glass…
…to all the big Speedhunters logos on the side of the car.
The car looks awesome from the rear with those rear Rocket Bunny overfenders, but obviously needs the proper wheels for full effect!
Mad Mike, after traveling close to 30 hours from New Zealand, had arrived earlier in the day and gone with Fredric to pick up the car from the painters and bring it to the shops where the stickers were applied. By 2 am he was looking understandably exhausted but nonetheless pumped to be out here in Norway. The MadBull is already at the track waiting to get unloaded from the container and do its thing around Rudskogen!
The hood was removed and put in a safe place…
…allowing better access to the engine bay so Bjorn could fit the recently rebuilt Comp Turbo CT3B on the cast iron S-Max exhaust manifold.
Also the two bucket seats from the Supra needed to get moved over into the 86. Above you can also see the massive lines that bring coolant to and from…
…the rear-mounted radiator, positioned in the trunk so as not to interfere with the intercooler’s airflow up front as well as to experiment with a bit of weight distribution.
This is the rendering that Fredric posted back before the build started and it’s cool to see that the 86X has ended up looking exactly as planned.
I crashed out at 3 am, leaving Fredric and the guys to get on with it. This morning after waking up I went down to the garage to see how things were progressing and found Bjorn still busy working away on his fabrications. The seats are in, the wheels shod with the Federals…
…and the turbo almost ready to be plumbed in place.
As I type this, the front pipe and screamer pipe are getting welded up downstairs and they hope to turn the engine on in the next hour or so. Then, later in the afternoon it’s on to Gatebil Rudskogen to begin setting up.
The next few days are going to be wild. Make sure you keep up to date with all our goings on!
86X Build posts on Speedhunters
-Dino Dalle Carbonare