My "Initial D" 86

[Djim]

No, the title is not meant to be clickbait - continue on to understand.

2017 Hot Lava 86 6-speed





Exterior

• Zenki OEM front bumper swap ("FR-S")
• Zenki OEM wheels ("FR-S")
• Zenki OEM 86 fender trims ("FR-S")
• Zenki OEM tail lights ("FR-S")
• JDM OEM exhaust tips
• JDM OEM clear sidemarkers
• OLM wide-angle tinted side mirrors
• 3M Ceramic IR 50% tint all windows including windshield

Interior

• JDM OEM black door grabs
• JDM OEM black steering wheel trim
• JDM OEM black A/C vent trims
• JDM OEM black kneepad trims
• JDM OEM black shifter ring and toggle console
• OEM carpeted trunk mat
• EUDM OEM black center console armrest (gray stitching)
• Shift Solutions Co. KR-3 shift knob in black (weighted; stainless steel 580g)
• Shift Solutions Co. V2 reverse lockout lever in black (aluminum)
• XcessMotors nylon black floor mats (front and rear)

Electronics

• Pioneer AVH-ZL5150BT headunit
• Pioneer TS-WX70DA subwoofer
• All non-LED bulbs converted to Diode Dynamics LEDs
• Govee interior footwell lighting

Modifications

• TRD lowering springs
• Eibach wheel spacers (20mm front, 25mm back)
• MTEC shifter spring
• MTEC clutch spring
• Diode Dynamics tail-as-turn module for tail lights
• Engine oil, brake fluid, transmission fluid all switched to Motul

[Djim]

During my college years - similar to many others - I was obsessed with the Initial D franchise. As I graduated and grew up a bit more (note: began earning money), I began collecting a bunch of ID-related goods (this isn't even half of it; just the ones I had photos of on my phone and doesn't include the rest of the print mangas, stickers, model cars, etc.), and told myself if I ever got to a point where I could afford a car while still living in San Francisco (which, is very expensive, if you didn't already know), I'd get my hands on a Hot Lava 86 - not only because it's the shamelessly-plugged advertisement car at the end of the anime series suggested to be eventually owned by the main character, but also to rep The City which I called home for a decade (orange cars are very common in SF; I don't think I need to explain why).

A lot of time and money has gone into this car, and several of you may be scratching your heads wondering how/why, seeing as 95% of the work could've been taken care of by simply finding a Hot Lava FR-S. Due to my fanatic-levels of Initial D love, however, I couldn't accept the idea of driving around a Scion FR-S masquerading as a Toyota.

Now don't get me wrong: there is absolutely nothing wrong with Scions - I just wanted the car to be a "true" 86 so I could work toward the pre-facelift Japanese version portrayed in the anime. This obviously meant Subarus were entirely out of the question as well.

Aside from the silliness pertaining to what the car was officially titled, I had been a multi-year lurker of these forums, and understood that the 2017 refresh of these cars were a noteworthy update. I wanted the benefits of all the initial quirks of this car worked out on the Toyota-branded refresh, but 100% wanted the pre-facelift styling, so I went back-and-forth for months on what to do.

With Hot Lava only being offered for the first year of 86s (versus the stretch of the FR-S's life), they're extremely hard to find for-sale; so much so that I had initially given in to the idea of going with an FR-S. I looked at a couple, and was building a list of what I would need to "Toyota-ize" the car, with the main obstacle seeming to be the airbag assembly on the steering wheel. I was aware people were sticking Toyota/86 badges on top of the Scion one, but if I was going to do this, I was 100% deadset on importing an airbag to swap out the badge, as I wanted everything to be as OEM as possible.

In my searches for an 86 specifically, I managed to find a couple which I paid attention to and began correspondence with the dealerships for: one was located in Seattle, and another all the way in West Virginia. The paint code was crucial enough for me that I was looking up flights and such to potentially pick one of these up. It was such a logistical headache to achieve all of this though, that I even considered simply picking up a new-at-the-time 2020 GT in Halo, as I thought having a last-model year car with the nice black/red interior (that you Subaru owners enjoyed for many years) in addition to the cool TRD fixings would serve as a good base to just work toward a panda AE86-inspired build instead.

All throughout this process, I was updating my father of my shenanigans (he's responsible for my love for cars); he was completely befuddled as to why I would go to such lengths to get this specific color. He was super weary of the West Virginia one due to differing climates and the distance, but seemed to have accepted I was going to do what I wanted anyway, and at least the Seattle option wouldn't be too bad to drive back down if that one worked out.

A good six months into my search, I had a scheduled flight down to Orange County (where I'm originally from) to visit my immediate family on PTO and update my father on my 86 manhunt. I had set all the auto-notifications I could on sites like Autotrader, Cars, etc. to notify me of any orange 2017 86s in manual that became available across the country, and on the week of my flight down, it happened: a 6-speed Hot Lava 86 popped up for sale... in Orange County.

I canceled my flight back up to SFO, and basically committed to purchasing this car and driving it back up to The Bay assuming all checked out; my family visit basically turned into me and my dad going to this dealership repeatedly instead.

The car was, as noted, a 2017 Hot Lava 86 with a 6-speed manual - bone-stock. It was formerly a lease by someone in the area, and the timing was just perfect, as this was happening summer 2020 when their lease had expired.

I had a pre-purchase inspection done by Toyota, and drove off with the car the day it was conducted.

[Djim]

As I mentioned in the last post, the purchase took place during summer 2020 - the height of COVID lockdown. I had a lot of time on my hands, so I began gathering all the parts and pieces I needed to build my dream 86.

The overall idea behind the car

Aside from an enormous portion of the idea circling around creating the orange 86 seen at the end of Initial D (which of course was simply a stock JDM Hot Lava zenki 86), I didn't buy into this platform purely for that. There were a lot of factors about this car specifically that I wanted, as it felt like one of the last examples of "car" in how I understood them growing up.

The car absolutely had to be a manual transmission. Despite opting for aftermarket CarPlay implementation, I didn't want a modern climate control system, and wanted analog gauges and controls. Hand brake. Naturally-aspirated. Wanted a turn-key, no push-to-start ignition.

Every car nowadays has exceptional creature comforts and technology, to the point it's hard to find a "bad" car, at the cost of some character. The ZN6/ZC6 platform has so many antiquated aspects that seem to have largely been received as inadequate, but they were the things I wanted, and basically couldn't be found without looking at older cars. This car gave me a warranty'd modern vehicle with none of the fuss.

As much as I appreciate the endless aftermarket cosmetic options for this car, I truly enjoy how the stock body looks. With how loud the Hot Lava paint is already, the car has enough impact that simply having a really clean example does enough for me. A lot of these cars get super done-up or get beat to shit - both likely attributed to the low entry cost to get one - so in the same way I turn my head when a rare stock-looking S14 240sx goes by, I wanted a sort of preservation of the 86 amidst all the heavily modified ones.

Interior

I actually had already begun purchasing some of the trickier parts to acquire beforehand, as I had certain things I didn't want to budge on. The hardest thing by far to get my hands on was the headunit, and I was going to tackle the interior of the car before moving outward anyway.

With the unusual 200mm sizing, I didn't want to compromise getting a standard double-DIN and stuffing it in with the side fillers that some people do. This is not a knock against doing so, but I wanted a headunit that fit completely flush purely for aesthetic reasons. In trying to stay as close to OEM as possible, I also wanted the components to be Pioneer, as the stock headunit is manufactured by them as well. Obviously also wanted CarPlay.

I specifically wanted a wired connection, as I was prioritizing sound quality for music and the added trickle charge of my phone simply being plugged in. I don't have my old computer with all my ridiculous Notepad files of endless lists of potential parts and such, but Kenwood had a good alternative I considered, but the AVH-ZL5150BT from Pioneer was the one that ticked all the boxes.



It took four months of contacting sellers from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Philippines, and Malaysia to find this headunit, but I tracked one down, and got an accompanying TS-WX70DA sub to keep it within Pioneer and add a little more thump to music without dedicating a large portion of my trunk to it. This sub is "ruggedized" as well, so in addition to allowing me to maintain folding down the rear seats if necessary, the encasing is meant to take a beating, so I wouldn't have to worry about scratches and such (I think it was advertised as a compact sub for trucks/SUVs).



I did consider the OEM Subaru subwoofer for a while just to keep it "OEM," but this had two problems: one, the sub is by Kicker (again, I wanted to go all Pioneer for no reason besides consistency), and two, it couldn't be mounted 100% if you opted for the OEM trunk mat. Some people elect to kind-of mount it with the carpet mat anyway, but I just wanted everything to be as flush and as neat as possible.

In the process of installing the headunit and armrest, I drilled another hole above the 9V in the center console to install a USB port. This allowed me to eliminate the USB/AUX plug at the front center stack (which I replaced with a blank cover) and have no cables showing.

The 9V which was never being used now powers the Govee interior lighting kit, as I was bored and didn't like having the plug empty/disconnected.



All steering wheel controls as well as the OEM backup camera work.

All of the interior trim pieces were gathered through sites like FTspeed, 86worx, and Japanparts. As listed in the initial post, only the shift knob and floor mats aren't OEM. I originally purchased the accompanying black JDM shift knob to match the rest of the interior, but disliked the plastic feel of the stock one to begin with, and this was just a different color version of the same thing. I used it for a bit, but ended up going with a much nicer weighted one. This in conjunction with the MTEC shift springs completely changed the shift feel, and I highly recommend the change to anyone considering doing something similar.

The original floormats that came with the car were the only weakpoint of an otherwise near-pristine car I bought, but I was murdering out the interior so much that I went and found some all-black ones to better fit the look. They lack the 86 circle badge on them, but I was unsure if I was going to completely re-do the interior at the time, so they were picked up and haven't been replaced.

[Djim]

Exterior

I spent quite a bit of time trying to figure out every part needed to do the front bumper swap, as no one had published a guide. Plenty had switched their old front ends to the facelift catfish bumper, though, so it was essentially doing the process in reverse.



The main takeaway was that the headlight brackets are incompatible between the two bumper covers. I ordered new parts for as much as I could, though, as I felt it was appropriate to replace everything to eliminate wear from the removal/installation.



Before I got the bumper switched, I had the Eibach spacers and TRD springs installed; here's the last photo of my car with as the stock facelifted version:




Once the bumper along with the fender trims were painted and installed, I pretty'd up the car as much as possible before officially christening the car again with brand new Toyota/86 emblems!

Note the car still had the facelift wheels on at this point.



I didn't have an issue with what to do with turn signals since the facelifted headlights have them integrated, but I didn't want blank/non-functioning ones where they came on the FR-S, so I had them converted into DRLs.



I initially hoped to install some switchbacks there to function with the facelift headlights, but there isn't enough juice to power them for both. The bulbs installed are still the switchbacks, but just shine white in conjunction with the stock DRLs.

You can tell in the photo post-lowering, but the car came with 30-35% tint initially. While I like the dark look, I wanted a lighter tint to eliminate the possibility of getting a fix-it ticket. I didn't want to run a front plate either, so I tried to minimize the list of potential obvious no-no's.

I also knew for sure I wanted to do windshield (another no-no), so I had 50% done, as the windows stay just blue enough where I've been able to fly under the radar while still benefiting from the tinting. It's a personal preference, but I don't like gradient/differing tint levels for different windows (for example some people do 35% fronts, 15% rear, etc.). The tint shop guy was really confused as to why I didn't want to run 50% on the windshield and keep darker tints for everywhere else (or 35% everywhere), but I wanted all the windows to have the same percentage, and 50% was a golden middleground that I'll likely run on all my future vehicles.



Coincidentally the tint guy owns a BRZ, and was basically begging me to go darker. I love how it looks, though, as the blue-ish color works with the blue-tint side mirrors I installed:



With the hard part out of the way, I only had two major things before the car was convincingly a zenki: wheels and tail lights.

What ended up happening first was the wheel swap. I was running the stock facelift wheels for a while, and on an errand with my buddy to go pick up his at-the-time new M2 Competition from being ceramic coated/clear bra'd, I got a flat from a huge nail on the side of the road:



In a ridiculously generous gesture, said friend found a set of beat-up FR-S wheels on Craigslist and brought them over to my place so I wouldn't have to roll around on a donut. I later swapped the tires that were on the FR-S set for better ones.

I found a local set of the old tail lights through a user on these forums, and picked them up shortly after the wheels were installed. I got Gasket Ninja replacement gaskets to ensure a good seal:




During this installation, I went ahead and switched all bulbs in the car that weren't LED, as I was installing the tail-as-turn kit from Diode Dynamics that would swap out the ones in the tail lights anyway. This included everything from license plate lights to the interior dome light.



Here's a snap with the old and new tail lights side-by-side:



The old tail lights get a lot of flak in the 86/BRZ community, but I personally adore round/circle tail lights. They're quintessentially "sports car" to me, and I didn't feel like I was retrofitting them just for the sake of consistency. Tail-as-turn is also a bit controversial for dedicating two indicators on to one light source, but at least it isn't another no-no that cops are looking out for.

[Djim]

With all this done, the car has sat in this state for a good while now. The initial pictures in the original post were taken just last week, so nothing has changed as I reached a certain "checkpoint" where I felt the car could stay at while I considered other options/routes.

What were some other things I considered?

A full interior swap-out. While I love the black/gray as a personal choice, a true replication of the pre-facelift 86 would be to have the black/red styling. While the combination of red with the already bright orange is a bit much, red accents also touch on that "quintessential sports car" aspect in my head.

Rather than do a 1:1 copy of the zenki interior, I had considered getting the nicer faux-Alcantara and leather black/red bits that BRZs got, as I wasn't going to sacrifice the steering wheel music functions. I do listen to music in the car, and prefer the look of the newer one anyway.

Along my searches, I realized that finding a set of new (or used) FR-S seats were quite costly - to the point that they were almost just as expensive as getting the seats reupholstered. Katzkin has a set that replicates the FR-S seats with the red shoulder bolstering in leather, so going for a luxe version of the original interior coupled with the nicer BRZ parts did get some consideration.

Others?

Longer-term ideas were to replace the intake with the TRD CAI, just to have more red things to match the potential interior swap and other details like the manifold cover. I am aware that the CAI isn't a performance gain versus the updated intake on the facelift 86s, but I didn't care for the sound tube, and if I was going to eliminate it, I didn't want to do the DIY method that leaves a plugged end on the stock one - not clean enough.

Other stretch goals included things like the TRD sway bar, just to further the OEM/red combination. But I reached my "checkpoint," so the car has been as-is while I prioritized other things in life.

Any inconsistencies?

The floor mats not being OEM (though aesthetically very fitting) has been on my mind for a bit. The other thing is while I've done a decent job of replicating the JDM car aside from being left-hand drive, the U.S.-spec FR-S tail lights have a reflector on the side that the Japanese ones don't. I could theoretically open them up and try to get these off, but I would've preferred to just get a Japanese set.

Why are all the "future plans/considerations" written in past-tense?

Well, unfortunately, the car is going up for sale. While I did consider this to be my forever-car, a lot has changed in my life in the past year, and with shifting priorities, I'd rather have the financial flexibility of what these cars are worth.

I wrote all this up now - a good year or so after I've really done anything else to the car - because I was referencing all of my notes/files regarding the car in preparation of posting a listing. If I am accused of posting this as an inadvertent listing for this vehicle, I have no real rebuttal. But with all the elaborate widebody/aftermarket builds this platform sees, I thought it was important to provide an example that tried to exemplify all that was already great about this car, and really cherish it for what it was/is.

Like I said earlier, I think this car is going to be the S14 of the future, and it'll be a shame when clean examples of 86/BRZs are near impossible to find. Cars like the IS300/Altezza fit a similar bill.

So,what's next?

The reason the car is for-sale is my girlfriend and I are planning on moving to New York in a few months. This all wouldn't have happened if not for this car, though, as I actually began my relationship with her because of my 86.

Here's my car with hers:



Yes, she also drives one. I basically hounded her once I found out what she drove, and here we are now. With hers being also a MY 2017 (though automatic), I've basically been able to enjoy both sides of the coin - zenki and kouki, manual and automatic.

What's the next car move?

Assuming things go well after the move, my eyes have been on the GR Supra since they added the manual option. I was actually leaning more toward the Lexus RC as a big-brother step-up for the 86, but the introduction of the 6-speed for the A90 completely changed everything.

I do not want to give up the ability to row my own gears: I did it in San Francisco, arguably the worst city in America to drive stick, and I loved every minute of it.

If you took the time to read through the walls of text or even scan over the pictures of progress - thank you. I wouldn't have been able to do all of this if these forums weren't an absolute gold mine of information.