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Andy AKA DeBuG's 91 Corolla GTi


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Hey all,


Some of you met me at the show last week, I brought up loved Corolla GTi. Since i've been browsing on the forums, i've noticed you have a project thread page... So I thought i'd post up my cars restoration I took it through around 3 - 4 years ago..



The story started when I was 17 and I bought a very rusty old 89 Corolla GTi off a friend, unfortunately due to a lack of money and experience I sold it too a scrap yard and ever since then I haven't wanted any other car... So when I got married just over 3 years ago I asked my wife if I could buy an old Corolla GTi as a weekend toy... I also promised her I'd find a mint one for £600 that needed no work doing to it.... Bahahahahahahahahaha



This was the first time I had ever done anything like this, and would do it differently when I come to sort her out in a few years down the line, but I really love the car, and taking it apart and putting it back together just made me love it even more!



So enjoy the story!


The car when I first bought her.



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First few things I had to do, was mainly strip the car out and start taking note of all the MANY holes it had around it, also when I bought it off a very kind dealer it had, 2 bald tyres, a smashed windscreen, all 4 arches were a different colour and the entire roof was rotting.



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The rear arches were gone beyond repair and also once taking the rear bumper off too I found some nice treats that needed to be sorted.



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Notice in the next picture there be something odd looking about the rear quater by the brake light... I uncovered a nightmare tbh!



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Unfortunately it looks like A LOT of water had gotten between the mouldings and the glass, and because my old garage had no power I had to take all the rust and crap out by hand with sand paper... It did take a long time and was very, VERY tedious.



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New rear panels ordered and I was new to welding... eek



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So as mentioned previously, when I started taking away this side panel, it became obvious that the previous owner had made a god awful attempt to patch it up.. and the car had been in a read shunt at some point. Mad to believe all these little gremlins I found.



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Got me some wings from the toyota dealerships! ohh my god!!!



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More to come!

Edited by DeBuGti
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Then I completed the car by fitting the final side skirts



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I then decided... Instead of leaving the car in the garage for 10 months of the year... I'm going to drive from Worthing on the south coast to Scotland and do a 1500 mile round trip :) Which was amazing!



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Decided to leave it stripped because I wanted to do some track days, got me some whiteline parts from Fensport.



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next stage was to sit her a little lower, so I got some Koni's that dropped the car 35mm and I thought looked just right



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JAE 2013 I believe..... That is Me above... Hou and KP... Deary me...



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Moving on... I got a Mongoose exhaust system, and I had to be honest, that was the best buy for the car at the moment. Oh yes and the GTi - 16 badges on the side were finally added again :)



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Next thing I wanted to play with was getting the rear of the car completely covered with some carpet... So thats where wifey comes in and pretends to look happy about it ;)



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And so there she is so far ladies and gents... Another year older.... She's survived 3 JAE shows... and will hopefully live on for many more... It really is a lovely drive and anyone who hasn't experienced the 4AGE engines should definitely try and have a go in one... With only 100 left in the UK now on the road, they're becoming a little gem :)



A few things I want to look at doing this year of early next is.



  • New Wheels
  • 4AGE Blacktop engine conversion

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Edited by DeBuGti
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  • 9 months later...

Haha cheers guys, i'll pop some pics of the interior at some stage.



Haha Pete!! Do you not like the new alloys lol!?



I was torn between restoring the old ones or buying something different :)


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  • 2 weeks later...

Love this thing mate- the amount of work that's gone into it is crazy. we used to have a red gti as a family car and my sister had one the same colour as yours for her first. Nice to see one being saved. I do love the original wheels but I like the black on grey too

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  • 1 month later...

Hehehe thanks for the great comments all, and i'm not sure about the 20v now... I know that you can get a little more power out of the 3rd gen 4AGE... And guess who has one spare in their garage to work on ;)


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Yeah theres a bit of a mix with the 7 rib blocks. Some 2nd gen were 3 rib and some 7. But the afaik all Smallports and 20v were 7rib.

They share rods with the silvertop so are pretty durable. Balance the pistons and rods and Match them to a blacktop crank (very well balanced) with some arp fixings and you've got a cheap rev happy engine.

Some yaris shim underbuckets followers and largish cams with management will see around 170hp.

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  • 1 year later...

Been a looong time since I posted any updates on here....



So I thought I'd ping a cheeky picture up of the old girl sitting proud at JAE.... Was really nice to see it was the only GTi there... I guess Morgey has killed the rest off... ;)



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