CBY does it better

Vising automotive web forums can be quite amusing when you take into account that about 75% of the people posting have no idea what they're talking about. To make matters worse, they end up influencing the people who know even less than they do, leading to what I believe will be the downfall of America. If you've seen Idiocracy, you know what I mean (don't bother me, I'm 'batin). Lately, I've been reading some posts on some of the builds that people have going on, and reading the responses. Some of these people really do believe they have the be all end all of builds, but in reality what they've done is barely scratch the surface of what can be done to their vehicle. The build is probably radical to them, but in the large scope of things its usually pretty mild.

This is a clip from CARBOY magazine, which features some of the innovations that Crystal Body Yokohama in Japan is using to improve their N2 AE86 machine. In a class where 200+ naturally aspirated AE86's battle for supremacy, any modification that can give you the slightest competitive edge (whether it be for reliability or improved lap times) can determine who finishes first, and who doesn't finish at all.

Here, we have a transmission bell housing that mates an Altezza 6-speed manual to a 4AG. Crystal Body Yokohama's kit (which is now for sale, and can even be found on Yahoo auctions) includes almost everything you need to run the Altezza transmission including the bell housing, transmission mount and bracket, and other misc. odds and ends. Earn small car show points or get that extra mpg with that 6th gear for most you thinking this will work well on your street car (you are also lame).

Here, we see some good 'ol boy engineering, in the form of making the solid rear axle have negative camber. In order to improve rear end traction, CBY cut and re-welded the rear axle to add negative camber, 1.6 degrees to be exact. Since the solid rear axle design of the AE86 can be adjusted, this small amount of negative camber could potentially shave a decent amount of time off their laps, and greatly improve handling. We'll just have to see if it helps in the '09 N2 Challenge!