Of all the nice front-lip options out there for the AE86 (and other platforms), there is ONE that I hate with an absolute passion; the “Home Depot” lip. Sure its cheap, but no matter what its installed on, it looks terrible.

Last year as I was vinyl wrapping the Corolla I went with the ‘home depot’ lip option and here was the result:

UGH….. horrible. Within 10 minutes of installing it, I ripped it off and began my search for another (cheap) option. Back to Home Depot I went and this is what I found.

Look familiar? Probably not. Its the inner lining for a door frame and it too is at Home Depot for a mere $5. They are on the same isle as the doors (or close by) and usually in a very tall bin. Unlike the Garden-frame (or whatever its called) variation, this liner is flexible yet VERY sturdy. This is actually my second lip of this type. The first one lasted well over a year and went through a lot of abuse; ie course cones and being smashed while loading the car on a trailer.

The process of putting this lip on is very simple as well. All you need is a Dremel (or cutting utensil of some sort), drill/screwdriver, and a few screws.

Using your Dremel, cut the tabs off one side of the lip.

Make sure the tab-less side is facing up and fasten the lip to the bottom or your bumper using a few screws. On my previous lip, I also used Double-Sided 3M tape which helped out a good bit too.

Its obviously not required, but I rounded off the edges at the bottom.

Its not a JDM Kouki lip, but it’ll do for now.

J.Weaver snapped some pretty good shots of everyone from the T.O. event that went down a couple of weeks ago. He even got a few of the ‘Rolla.

Got around to working on the car this past weekend. Finally started installing the XS Power D680 and replaced the busted lug bolt in the left-rear hub. For now the battery is in a “mock-up” stage. Im going to verify a few more things with the XS Power folks and then finish bolting everything down this weekend.

While working on all this stuff, I came to the realization of how dirty this car really is as you can see from the picture below. Im all for battle-worn abuse but this thing is beyond my tolerance. It will be receiving a thorough cleaning very soon.

Im sad to say that the DMGGASD hood is no longer For the last 6 months, its been kept outside and subjected to Mother Nature’s wrath. Honest, Im really bummed that it ended like this. When the car returned from Memphis I was hoping to pull the hood and hang it on the wall in the garage. I don’t know, I guess I still could. Never the less, a new one is under way.

To be honest, the whole damn car needs a lot of TLC. The logistics of the TO Event really took its toll. From the front bumper to the wheel lugs and LSD (needs rebuilt), the next couple of weeks/months will be spent bringing the car back up to mediocrity.

Im sure to your disappointment, neither of these runs include the tire debacle. Never the less, Im happy with how the car was running despite all the body roll. My 6k/4k on GR-2s setup just isn’t cutting it anymore.

On the first run, I kept my line high-and-tight which brought me in real close to the clips but I lost a lot of momentum doing so. For the second run, I took a wider, sweeping line. Although I was able to keep the RPMs up I missed the clipping points by a mile.

Oh and if you look closely, you can see why the car has been gone for 6 months

Was running 5mm spacers on the rears with Celica Supra wheels. Apparently, this combo sheers lugs fairly often. It snapped while I was initiating into the first corner. Pretty scary shit. I sold the spacers to another Corolla owner 20mins later.  We got it fixed up and I was able to pull out a Top 8 finish in the comp.

More info about the event and the car later.

Still waiting for the Corolla to come  back from Memphis. But in the meantime, this will do. And, yes, those are Crager Smoothies (ie Moon Wheels). Deal with it.

The Corolla is still in Memphis being awesom-i-fied and I got laid off from XS Power a few weeks ago. I haven’t posted anything about it on here so I figured I should at least mention it. No big deal though. Uncle Sam is sending me a weekly check in return for me sitting on my ass, play xbox, and “look for work” Not really. Im actually hitting the freelance market pretty hard which is going ok. Little slow on the Studio Rhoad front, but it’ll pick up. In the meantime, Im giving the Studio Rhoad site a much needed makeover.

After 3 months of neglect, the Corolla will finally have some work done to it. But not by me. LOL.  She’ll be back in a few weeks. That’s all the info you get for now.

Front and rear brackets for JDM AE86 Kouki; front and rear. $200 + shipping. You know where to find me.