Toyota Corolla Ke20 two door coupe anyone?

[Charith Kaushalye]

Hi there!

I'm looking to build a restomod of Toyota Corolla Ke20. I particularly like the aesthetic of the two door coupe variant. If anyone knows a two door coupe for sale please let me know/ DM 🙏🏼

And also your suggestions and recommendations for this project is also appreciated.

About,

1. Recommendations for good restoration places

2. Engine options etc.

Thanks in advance. 🤞🏻

[Twin Turbo]

Hi,

It's a good starting point , but would be better to gett a 4 door saloon for it willhave better resale value

TT.

 

Edited September 23 by Twin Turbo

[Charith Kaushalye]

19 minutes ago, Twin Turbo said:

Hi,

It's na good starting point , but would be vbetter to gett a 4 door saloon for betterg resale value

TT.

 

Hi! Thanks for the reply. I'm intending to keep this as my daily driver. Planning to keep it for the foreseeable future. 

4 door varient is also a nice looking car. Commonly available. But there's something about the sloping roof line of the coupe 😁

[Twin Turbo]

Recommeend a KE50 - better   suited for A/c installaation

[matroska]

3 hours ago, Charith Kaushalye said:

Hi there!

I'm looking to build a restomod of Toyota Corolla Ke20. I particularly like the aesthetic of the two door coupe variant. If anyone knows a two door coupe for sale please let me know/ DM 🙏🏼

And also your suggestions and recommendations for this project is also appreciated.

About,

1. Recommendations for good restoration places

2. Engine options etc.

Thanks in advance. 🤞🏻

best bet  - keep checking the classified and facebook marketplace (and the various facebook groups) - 2 doors are a bit rare so they get snapped up soon if the price is reasonable. I'd suggest to go for one where all the bits and pieces are available - will be very difficult to source cosmetic parts. 

Body Condition>availability of cosmetic bits (grilles,bades etc) >Drive train should be the order. 

as for engine swaps - Toyota 7k would be a good choice. 

[Charith Kaushalye]

8 hours ago, Twin Turbo said:

5 hours ago, matroska said:

best bet  - keep checking the classified and facebook marketplace (and the various facebook groups) - 2 doors are a bit rare so they get snapped up soon if the price is reasonable. I'd suggest to go for one where all the bits and pieces are available - will be very difficult to source cosmetic parts. 

Body Condition>availability of cosmetic bits (grilles,bades etc) >Drive train should be the order. 

as for engine swaps - Toyota 7k would be a good choice. 

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll check it out. Do you know the usual price range for the two door these days?

[iRage]

On 9/23/2024 at 12:26 PM, Charith Kaushalye said:

Hi there!

I'm looking to build a restomod of Toyota Corolla Ke20. I particularly like the aesthetic of the two door coupe variant. If anyone knows a two door coupe for sale please let me know/ DM 🙏🏼

And also your suggestions and recommendations for this project is also appreciated.

About,

1. Recommendations for good restoration places

2. Engine options etc.

Thanks in advance. 🤞🏻

So, SL is quite tricky. There are only a handful of coupes in the country. There was one for sale recently on FB. There are quite a few more 2-door sedans which, quite funnily, is also sold as coupe . Most of the coupes are KE25s so has the 1.2L 3K engine. I know of only one TE25 with the 1.4L T engine.

So make sure you are buying an actual coupe.

Now....parts for the coupe is as rare as hen's teeth. When you do come across actual parts they are quite expensive. So restoring or resto-modding it won't be a walk in the park. So make sure you get one with the most intact exterior and interior with all the trim bits.

1. Where to do the work....you will have to run around a bit. There won't be a one-stop shop. Well..there are a few but they tend to prioritize high-value restorations. Also, you need to be aware that in SL, you don't get anyone who is specialized in the Corolla platform (i.e., there are no geeky know-it-all done it all type of techies for E20/30/50/70/80 Corollas as you get for Imprezas and Evos). You will get people who have experience working with the cars but not walking talking encyclopedias. Depending on the type of restomod you are doing you will need access to such an encyclopedia (e.g. you need someone who knows what would happen to X,Y,X is you change R, and why R was setup the way R was before changing it). So take a hard look at how much resources you have and frame-out the exact restomod you want to do.

2. Engine options...

Should we be alarmed that you are only considering engine options ? With the engine you are going ot have to upgrade the brakes and even the suspension so that you can take full advantage of the engine upgrade (brakes would be a must). Depending on what you want you might want to do upgrades to the existing engine (e.g. upgrading the carb setup, cam upgrade, etc). This would be the least invasive and probably the easiest. Considering that it is a light car you really don't need that much power.

Alternatively you can put in a 1.6 2T engine which came in the Levin/Trueno bt those are hard to come buy.

You can always consider a 4K engine from an E70 Corolla but by going that route the only benefit you gain over the 3K is you will have more options with the cam and things like carbs with a little bit more stock power to work from.

You can go the 16V 4A-GE route but to be honest these engines are simply not worth the money anymore. Also, maintenance is quite hard because parts are not easy to come by. Newer versions of it are going to require a lot of fabrication work. Plus you have to get a gearbox (T50)...then if you really want to put the power down you will have to upgrade the rear diff (but manageable with the existing open diff as long as you are not going to be too crazy driving it)

My suggestion would be to look into tuning up the existing engine.

Either way you will have to upgrade the brakes. How much so will depend on which route you decide to take and how much power you make. 

Ideally, you should also look into sorting out the suspension. This includes things like strut bars. 

I hope you get to start this soon. Its going to be an interesting project.

[Charith Kaushalye]

On 9/24/2024 at 10:24 AM, iRage said:

So, SL is quite tricky. There are only a handful of coupes in the country. There was one for sale recently on FB. There are quite a few more 2-door sedans which, quite funnily, is also sold as coupe . Most of the coupes are KE25s so has the 1.2L 3K engine. I know of only one TE25 with the 1.4L T engine.

So make sure you are buying an actual coupe.

Now....parts for the coupe is as rare as hen's teeth. When you do come across actual parts they are quite expensive. So restoring or resto-modding it won't be a walk in the park. So make sure you get one with the most intact exterior and interior with all the trim bits.

1. Where to do the work....you will have to run around a bit. There won't be a one-stop shop. Well..there are a few but they tend to prioritize high-value restorations. Also, you need to be aware that in SL, you don't get anyone who is specialized in the Corolla platform (i.e., there are no geeky know-it-all done it all type of techies for E20/30/50/70/80 Corollas as you get for Imprezas and Evos). You will get people who have experience working with the cars but not walking talking encyclopedias. Depending on the type of restomod you are doing you will need access to such an encyclopedia (e.g. you need someone who knows what would happen to X,Y,X is you change R, and why R was setup the way R was before changing it). So take a hard look at how much resources you have and frame-out the exact restomod you want to do.

2. Engine options...

Should we be alarmed that you are only considering engine options ? With the engine you are going ot have to upgrade the brakes and even the suspension so that you can take full advantage of the engine upgrade (brakes would be a must). Depending on what you want you might want to do upgrades to the existing engine (e.g. upgrading the carb setup, cam upgrade, etc). This would be the least invasive and probably the easiest. Considering that it is a light car you really don't need that much power.

Alternatively you can put in a 1.6 2T engine which came in the Levin/Trueno bt those are hard to come buy.

You can always consider a 4K engine from an E70 Corolla but by going that route the only benefit you gain over the 3K is you will have more options with the cam and things like carbs with a little bit more stock power to work from.

You can go the 16V 4A-GE route but to be honest these engines are simply not worth the money anymore. Also, maintenance is quite hard because parts are not easy to come by. Newer versions of it are going to require a lot of fabrication work. Plus you have to get a gearbox (T50)...then if you really want to put the power down you will have to upgrade the rear diff (but manageable with the existing open diff as long as you are not going to be too crazy driving it)

My suggestion would be to look into tuning up the existing engine.

Either way you will have to upgrade the brakes. How much so will depend on which route you decide to take and how much power you make. 

Ideally, you should also look into sorting out the suspension. This includes things like strut bars. 

I hope you get to start this soon. Its going to be an interesting project.

Thank You very much for the comprehensive reply. 😊

I'm a newbie to this vehicle restoration honestly. Still in the stage of gathering ideas.😅

I looked around the internet. As you said two door coupes are very rare. Owners tend to keep them. And what's on sale are two door sedans pretending to be the coupe and they're very pricey.

I noticed there has been a growing interest in Nissan sunny B211 car in Sri Lanka in recent years. That also has some design elements similar to a coupe. Do you think that car is a good option for a restomod? There are some people who do a full restoration on that car and says the parts are widely available unlike Toyotas.

I guess I'll have to do a whole lot more research before getting into this. Hopefully will try to get it going at least by next year. 🤞🏻

[iRage]

21 hours ago, Charith Kaushalye said:

I noticed there has been a growing interest in Nissan sunny B211 car in Sri Lanka in recent years. That also has some design elements similar to a coupe. Do you think that car is a good option for a restomod? There are some people who do a full restoration on that car and says the parts are widely available unlike Toyotas.

Yes....there seems to be a crowd who like to turn them in to transformers characters and various over the type mods with these. There was a time when the B211 was significantly cheaper than the Corollas so that was another point of attraction. No idea what the prices are like now. Personally I feel the Sunny is good in in its natural form with just very modest barely noticeable updates.

As for parts availability....irrespective of who says what, expect a 50 year old econo car to not have body parts. Because of the lesser popularity the Sunny might have slightly more parts/donor cars around than the Corolla. The mechanicals are simple enough that you can find generic parts easy enough. Just so you know...back in the day Nissan was a lot more advanced than Toyota. They had NAPS with fancy carburetors and emissions systems, etc...by now they all would have been screwed up by maka baases. Even if you find a car in good shape. Finding a good technician to properly tune and maintain a carburetor (irrespective of the car) is going to be a pain in the a$$.

You could start looking in to putting in a late 80s early 90s fuel injected Nissan engine. This would still need the same thngs done as the Corolla.

 

What is your budget like ? Are you sure you are not interested in a late 80s, early 90s type of car ?