9 August 2010

Corolla Spotlight - Finnish KE70

Like most of you, a small portion of my day is taken up browsing through the never ending pages of the Driftworks forum. 98% of the time it is full of the usual S-Body Datsun talk, but every now and again something truly awesome crops up. Wednesday of last week was one of those days.
I spotted a post by a new member talking about their 4k Turbo'd KE70 and i immediately hit the Private message button to find out more!

The owner turned out to be Niilo Hakala who is based in Turku, Finland & this car shows that the Finnish guys sure do know how to make a Stunning looking Corolla!
The car went from 100% stock 1980 2 Door Sedan KE70, to this..

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Niilo described to me how he didn't really like the Blue paint and decided to go for something more suitable...Satin Army NATO Green & I've got to hand it to him. It really does work & suits the style of the car perfectly.

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One thing that i like about the car is that it isn't copying the JDM or US style. It is basically just using the perfect recipe of great fitting wheels & great ride height to achieve an incredibly strong look. Niilo tells me that the wheels are "Smith" 13x7 & 13x8 with a great offset, and they seem to fit pretty much perfect in the little KE's arches. The interior is completely stripped out apart from some fixed buckets up front & Niilo has plans of fitting a Roll cage during the winter.
After Niilo settled with the look of the car, he then moved onto deciding what he was going to do with the running gear. Most KE owners tend to go for the 16v 4AGE swap, but Niilo decided to do something pretty cool & Turbo his trusty old 4K engine.
It runs a Garret T25 Turbo with a 40mm HKS copy waste gate running at 1bar of boost. To make sure the  little old 4K stands up to the power from the Turbo, Niilo changed the pistons & cylinder head to the Higher compression versions from a later model 4K. Along with a Weber dgaw's 32/38 carburettor, Niilo fabricated the manifolds himself & the inter cooler was produced by some unknown Finnish dude which apparently is a nice looking piece of kit. The fuel pump was then salvaged from a BMW E30 325i to complete the set-up. Niilo is hoping for between 150-220 bhp once finished which could be pretty handy!

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For Niilo it seems his Corolla ownership isn't all about his car, it's about enjoying it with his friends. He told me that between him & his friends they have a 3tg Turbo KE70, a 3tg TA22 Celica, a Starlet with a 4age & to top it all off a twin charged AE86. So it sounds like they are building some crazy Toyota's over in Finland! All of which can be found over on their Website No Pokemon Shit!

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Huge thanks for Niilo for sharing some great info about his KE70 with The Corolla Brotherhood & I hope he keeps us updated with any more changes to this Awesome little KE.

James.

1 comment:

  1. You have really done some great things with your car that was liked by every person looking at it for the first time. You are having something that are meant to be new for my car.

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