Ive recently aquired this little gem.

1981 Toyota Corolla Wagon

12a (1984) 5 speed, rwd.

Its my first Rotary, and i deffenitaly know it wont be my last. I love how some people stare and go....wth was that, and how the police dont even bother looking. Its literally the best of both worlds.

The motor is very stock, only has 30k miles on it.

I thought id share some pics of it, and see what others think.

At my work, its about 20% haters, 5% know what it is and think its cool, and the other 75% just see an old junky looking corolla wagon.






Im trying to debate on going with a racing beat intake/carb combo, and new straight exhaust, vs looking into swapping in a 13b. I know in the end it will be easier to make more power with the 13b, but im not concerned with speeding right now, i just enjoy the get up and go i have with it now. So i suppose anything i add to it will just make it more enjoyable.

Nice to meet everyone,

Andrew

 

Thing dont look in to bad of shape. i would be work on cleaning it up under the hood a little. looks ratty, replacing some old lines that are rotted and things like that. Then get some shiney parts.

 

Wow that things ~400 lbs lighter than an SA. You put a decent intake and exhaust on it and you have a real sleeper there. Sweet!

 

Its got some home made header on it, but i can feel the restriction in the exhaust, So im either going to buy a pacesetter header, and make new from there to the tail pipe, or buy an rb header, but they seam hard to find for the 12a's. And as far as shiny bits go, im thinking the Racing beat carb/intake combo aught to brighten up the bay a bit. But yeah, ill be re doing the wiring in te whole bay. The last owner tied everything into the wrong places, so thingslike the Fuel pump are grounded to the turn signals. "tsk tsk tsk"

As far as Major requirements tho, i want to have the driveshaft balanced, hopefully on saturday. And trying to find someone to pass the inspection for me should be interesting. lol

 

Remove roof rack, add some tint.
Clean up your engine bay and do a nice wire tuck and you sir will have a badass wagon!!

I have a old school RB header for a 12a it has a lot of surface rust since it sat on my rx3 since 80s.

 

Very sweet! I agree with some of the other comments clean up the engine bay and do a wire tuck bro. Can you get some pics of how the motor was mounted? Oh and the haters, dont worry about them. Haters= Motivation

 

Cool 5% here, nice project car. Any vids of it running, I'd love to hear it! Thanks>

 

If you want to let that header go, you let me know $. Seams these older 12a headers are harder to find.

The roof rack is already off, ill be selling it to pay for other mods on the car.

Tint would be nice, except i live in a very dark part of the city, also i like the fact that i dont draw attention to myself in this wagon. I dont need any more reason for the cops to stare haha. Although, im sure ill end up with some sort of tint, perhaps 20% all around

Wiring will most likely be a project weekend in my dads shop. He is much more knowledgeable about wiring then i am, and he has the room and supplys for me to get things done. Where i live, i have to work outside.

Ill grab some pics of the mounts, cause im interested myself. (13b swap) possibly.

And ill be sure to take a video. The exhaust sounds like a wheasy darth vader. The "custom" header the last owner made is probably usless, cause its just going into the stock corolla exhaust. in 2 weeks, i should be having the new 2.5" fabbed up.

There seams to be a lot of electrical deamons in the car, inside the passenger area, and the engine bay.

But so far heres the list.

1. Balance drive shaft
2. Exhaust
3. Wiring replacing, fixing, tucking.
4. Intake/carb combo
5. New seats, these are old and ratty.

Thats it for now. If anyone else has any suggestions they will be heard and appreciated.

And thanks for the motivation. It helps keep things rolling.

 

High offset /stretched rubber combo and dumpage lol

I would just do a really nice wire tuck in the engine bay take anything out you can or relocate and of course some small power mods

other than that i'd just try really hard to keep it clean

Good buy!

 

Nice ride you have there, I myself have a Toyota Starlet 12a rotary powered engine and is a hell of fun to drive

 

Ive been trying to find a starlet that was under 4k$. But those cars aint cheap. seams like a rule of thumb. the smaller a car is that has rwd, the more expensive it is.

 

The engine will get 10 times louder before it make another 15 whp.

I would daily this thing and not touch it. Maybe just clean everything up and hide wires and vacuum in the engine bay.

 

Should i stick with a 2.5" exhaust? Im only doing intake and exhaust mods for now (as they are the simpleist) but eventually i would like a street port.

Should i go with 2" or 2.5"? since i dont want to have the exhaust remaid after the porting.

 

Ugh, im pretty sure i flooded it this morning, weved had under 30 deg weather for about a week and i havent driven it. Went out this moring, sounded like it was turning over, so i gave it some gas, and now all i get is rrrurrr rrrruurrrrr ruurrrr. Gonna try the easy method first when i get home, automatic transmission fluid in the two small barrels, 5 pumps, and hope for the best.

Any other suggestions? Car was running fine when i last parked it. I think i just pumped the gas to many times this morning trying to do a very cold start.

 

Welp, got the car unflooded, took some Marvel Mystery Oil and put it in the carb, not sure if that was the solution tho, cause it didnt fire up for a while after that. It seams even tho it was flooded it wasnt getting any gas....Which kinda makes sense, cause it all sits in the bottom, and none around the spark plugs.

Anywho, having the key turned, and tippy tapping the gas seamed to make it fire up. I will try and drive it more often even tho its cold out so this doesnt happen again.

 

just by looking at ur engine pic, i could tell your ignition timing is way to advanced. make sue u put a timing light on that engine. to much timing advance will hurt that little 12A

 

jajajaaja. Damn.. good eyes man.

I second the stock ignition timing.

 

PLEASE GOD NOOOOOOOOOOOOooooooooo

 

awesome

 

DOO ETTTT

 

Ok, so small update,

took it thru inspection, and of course they wouldnt pass it. In PA your vehicle has to be 35 yrs or older for you not to have any emmision laws.

Anywho, i found a pretty shady shop that was willing to pass it if i fixed some small things.

1. Backup lights are not functional
2. License plate lights are not functional
3. Check engine light is on (ill be cutting that wire)
4. Too many loose hoses and wires in the engine bay (ill be dealing with that over c break.)
5. Neutral Safety switch

That was all he was really cocerned about.

But along with those things i have compiled a list

Horn
Front center lights need to be hooked up since they're not connected
Front passenger turn signal doesnt function
Fuel pump (Power/Ground) needs to be rewired
Shifter boot/cover is not installed properly, and is just open all around the base
Dash lights are super dim, so i need to trace the wires and find a bad ground or whatever
Rattles rattles everywhere and no idea how to fix
Install the headunit that is sitting in the car not hooked up
Install a Tachometer

Phew, quite a list But i have 10 days off starting on the 25th. Should be able to get quite a lot done over the break.

Also sorry for no pic or video updates, my phone broke, i cant find my camera, and its t freakin cold outside.

We got about 18 inches in philly recently. Just as i was about to pull the diveshaft out.

Oh well, keep on truckin

 

ok So UPDATE TIME!!

1. Fixed the back up lights, basically rewired from the trans back
2. Fixed the license plate lights, the contact was just dirty, used sandpaper and it worked fine
3. Removed the Check Engine light bulb. Solved that problem (wink)
4. Re routed some wires, and zip tied them up against others
5. (did not get to the neutral safety switch)


Installed a new horn button, and wired it. Loud as hell!!
Connected the new headlights so now i have quad lights, and they look awsome compared to the old square stockies
Fixed the turn signals (turns out all the wiring basically needs to be torn out, it all works now but barely)
After i looked at the fuel pump, it was only attached by zip ties, so my father and i modified some brackets to allow mounting of the fuel pump to the engine, also the pressure regulator, and pressure gauge had been re routed, and re installed. this new set up allows for less vibration, and less noise, since most noise gets absorbed into the engine. Along with re routing the fuel lines, it allowed us to take out about 3 ft of extra hose.
Shifter assembly is pretty good, actually used a plate of cutting table to seal up the hole in the trans tunnel, and mounted the shifter boot to that. Hopefully i can get my dad to make me a custom console to fit over the shifter, and hold my gauges
most rattles have been accounted for, here or there, car will always be noisey
the head unit turned out to be pretty simple, none of it was hooked up, but all the wires were kinda on the back of it. Also the speakers that were half mounted in the doors, had no wires, or wires run. So!!! ran all new wires, for front and back, but ony have 2 infinity mid speakers installed in the front, but they sound amazing, especially cause they were free
Tachometer is now installed. And works pretty well. Im surprised to see that i wasnt shifting as high as i thought i was.


Wow, Also in case people were wondering, Working about 12 hrs a day for the last 4 days. Bloody awful but at least its almost done.

Last things now

Go thru inspection

Get drive shaft u joints, balanced, re installed

Get new exhaust system installed.

Oh, and we put on a new cap rotor, and plugs. Car feels about the same, but some jerk put in a normal piston spark plug into the l1 hole. I couldnt believe it when i took it out.

Thanks for reading

Andrew

Hopefully i can grab some pics when i get home. But we will see

OH!!! before i forget, anyone that was interested in engine mounts HAHAHA Its a solid motor mount going across the front case of the engine, going to the fram rails. And a trans mount, no other mounts are on the car.

 

Sick car

 

Just in case anyone is interested the car is also for sale. Just cause you guys know more about it than me, $3500 obo. I still need to get it thru inspection, balance the drivesaft, and get the exhaust made, but if i do all that, the price is only going up.

Thanks for reading

Andrew

 

cars sick bro