Production Toyota FT-86 Details and Design Previewed by Toyota Sports Vehicle Boss

[Aki]

Call me old fashioned, but I still have CDs in my car. Have an iPod too but the audio quality sucks. Wouldn't shed a tear if it didn't come standard with a CD player though--I'd rather it come stripped than bloated given a choice.

[Dimman]

Originally Posted by OldSkoolToys

Shigeno-san based much of his hard facts on well...truths. Yes, there is a bunch of 'fantasy' in the series, but he's a certified car nut like the rest of us, especially AE86's. Tsuchiya-san was the official race supporter/fact checker/blah blah for the series too.


In any case, the AE86 and CRX were fierce competitors in the 1600cc class races in Japan back in the early-mid 80's.

Good to know, I wasn't too sure on the AE86 vs EF Civic, but I've watched a lot of the early seasons (when Takumi was clueless about cars he was more interesting), and am fairly impressed with some of the stuff. My interpretation of the water glass, is that his dad tuned the handling so it has a near-perfect friction circle, and that is a 'karate kid'-type G meter. Heh.

Now that you've confirmed the Civic is the natural prey of this car, all they have to do now is price it $1k less than an Si, to go for the jugular.

[Spiritama]

Im sure if someone wanted a CD player they could go to Best Buy and get them selves one installed.
It saves cost for those who don't want it (me included) and weight.
and if u do want it then u can pay for it.
Win Win all around if you ask me

[Random_Art]

Originally Posted by Aki

Call me old fashioned, but I still have CDs in my car. Have an iPod too but the audio quality sucks. Wouldn't shed a tear if it didn't come standard with a CD player though--I'd rather it come stripped than bloated given a choice.

after 6 ear surgeries, my hearing isn't that great. I can't tell the difference between CD and MP3 so I'm not too concerned with audio quality.

[colHolm]

Originally Posted by cyde01

a square 86x86 bore/stroke would be ideal imo, but that would be a completely new engine.

Well, it is a completely new car...

And just think of the boxer '86' logo - 86 inside two horizontally opposed pistons. Maybe the 86 there denotes a square engine (a "true" boxer)?

[Levi]

I don't care about the CD player. Depending on how much money I have and on the aftermarket, my FT-86 will en up by being an only track-car, or maybe still street legal, but as I said, even no airbags, dry sump,....

[cyde01]

someone posted an article from best car saying that the car would have a square bore/stroke, but i HIGHLY doubt that report. all the reports so far have said the motor is based off either the fb20 or ej20. if the bore and stroke are so drastically different can you even say it's based off the motor? i can't seem to be able to find the post..

[madfast]

Originally Posted by cyde01

someone posted an article from best car saying that the car would have a square bore/stroke, but i HIGHLY doubt that report. all the reports so far have said the motor is based off either the fb20 or ej20. if the bore and stroke are so drastically different can you even say it's based off the motor? i can't seem to be able to find the post..

well moto did mention that it was "re-cast"... and if you're talking about 2.0L 4's i'd say 86 x 86 is perfect. consider some engines that use this bore x stroke: SR20, K20, 4B11T... not to mention the 2JZ was also 86 x 86...

[Matador]

Originally Posted by madfast

well moto did mention that it was "re-cast"... and if you're talking about 2.0L 4's i'd say 86 x 86 is perfect. consider some engines that use this bore x stroke: SR20, K20, 4B11T... not to mention the 2JZ was also 86 x 86...

3S....

[nate89]

That would be kinda cool to have a 86x86 boxer engine, and it works out very nicely to 1997.21584 mL or ~2L displacement. I wonder what else we could squeeze "86" into...?

1. 86 spoke wheels (J/K)

Hopefully something more along these lines:
1. Chassi code with "86" (to reference the AE86)
2. 8.6s to 100mph
3. 8.6 months until it's on sale
4. $8.60 for a Fugiwara Tufo Decal

I'm sure someone else can think of more lol

[Spiritama]

86 concepts before production??

[Random_Art]

Originally Posted by Spiritama

86 concepts before production??

[Dimman]

So about SOA Blog on NASIOC:

I've stated before that I believe they are just a marketing tool, and not the hard-core insiders that others seem to think. I do however believe that they are official from SOA.

With that out of the way, their response to being asked about Yamaha after Moto 'leaked' it (but it was pretty much known/expected from the beginning...)

We'll find out if they are involved in the project and let you know but as we said OEMs use specialist vendors all the time, so there's sure to be a list of companies involved in the development of this car. What really matters is how the overall package works and that's our engineer's job; to deliver a fun, light great handling vehicle - we think they'll succeed.

This sounds very much like a 'stock' PR response to something that they don't know anything about. They can identify that Yamaha is a Japanese company, but don't seem to recognize the significance of the question. It supports the "interns getting passed sanitized info to post on NASIOC about" theory over the "hardcore insiders that look at engineering drawings all the time" theory. Plus the fact that Moto took some heat from what he said also indicates a reason why SOA Blog might have been caught with their information pants down.

It was followed up today with this:

OK, the story on this is that the engine work is being done by FHI with support from Yamaha. Quite how Moto heard this as "Toyota" isn't for us to say. Perhaps they we're being liberal with the word "we" or perhaps "we" meant the project team. But for us, "we" means FHI and we are developing the engine for this car.

So if they are dedicated insiders, they would have known about this for sure. Hell we pretty much all did, and we're not even on the engineering team...

They are still making the case for FHI being 'the boss', but as we know the Yamaha connection points directly at who is calling the shots on development. They can say all they want that it is a FHI motor with 'support' from Yamaha, but does anyone care to speculate as to how that relationship came into place?

But if that's 100% official confirmation, that's awesome.

[nate89]

Yamaha + Toyota = Best engines ever! FHI can say they're callin the shots, but we all know who's behind the curtain pullin the strings.