Knowing that the car was going to be torn down and most of it rebuilt, we were only looking for a clean, reliable shell that had minimal rust. Unfortunately, the car was not entirely rust free – with rust in the common rear wheel arch area and front rocker area, but this damage was not going to prevent the car from being a race car, as it had been used as a daily driver and solo car for years previous.

We picked up the car minus a lot of the suspension components and parts that the previous owner had installed, knowing we were going to build up the suspension to the max of the rules.

With nothing more than a bone stock 1986 black on black coupe with only lowering springs, no lsd, worn rubber bushings and stock brakes, the crew at PDM set out on a task to transform the sedate street driven car into a serious competitor.

During the winter of 2003/2004 the rules changed, and the car was re-classified into D/SP, meaning that it would be competing against faster cars not originally anticipated, so the crew had their work cut out for them to build the car.

After discarding the stock Pizza Cutter 14” rims and all season’s tires, Don found a set of used Toyota Supra rims with well worn Falken Azenis he slapped on to drive the car around on the street while the arsenal of parts were collected to start the transformation. “Coming from a Nissan 240SX background, I was familiar with the rear wheel drive layout of the Corolla, but did find the ride quality and creature comforts not up to par for a daily highway driven work car.”

The small 1600cc engine lacked a lot of torque that his 240SX’s and RX7’s possessed, so he knew he had to change that. Plus with a car nearing 20 years of age, many of the original suspension bushings, and components were definitely showing their age when pushed to the limit.

First on the agenda was to open up the tiny 1.5” pee-shooter exhaust that the car was delivered with, so it was decided to build a true race exhaust. Pondering on exhaust size, it was boldly decided to build a 2.5” 304 stainless system with free flow muffler, high flow catalytic converter, and small resonator muffler for sound. Many felt that 2.5” would be far too large and lose too much bottom end, however there were more plans in store for the Battle Coupe than just an exhaust. PDM designs and builds custom mandrel bent 304 stainless exhausts, which are purged inside with argon to create a smooth and corrosion free weld. Also to minimize weight and exhaust restriction, an under-axle system was also designed.

Next, the car’s breathing needed to be improved to feed the new 2.5” exhaust, so a true cold air intake was fabricated out of lightweight thin-wall mandrel bent aluminum.

- The stock AFM was retained, but using one of PDM’s MAF adapter for Toyotas, they necked down a 2.75” mandrel aluminum pipe into the MAF, then 3” down into a hole cut in the right inner fenderwell, to drop the air filter into the front inside of the bumper assembly.

Not wanting to re-invent the wheel, it was decided to retain the spring position in the stock area, however making a new spring perch area on the rear axle housing and the upper chassis area to accept a much smaller 2.5” i.d. ERS race spring.

So the rear axle housing came out, and was stripped and cleaned, and all new bearings and seals were replaced.