Guest Blog - Kevin Reilly

Hello there my name is Kevin Reilly. Me and a friend of mine Killian O’Brien are the idiots behind the Team Tekno 86. Being 90’s kids the early love of the corolla began with the awesome gran turismo ps1 game. Even there it was a cheap fun car! Late in school when the Internet was becoming popular and we discovered D1 in japan and more importantly Ueo’s 86 one of the coolest most famous 86’s ever. This car and others like Hibino's 86 etc were major inspiration to become part of the corolla life..


From there the love of naturally aspirated screaming 86’s became an obsession and in 2005/6 Killian bought himself this 20v Levin at the age of 15(leaving school early rocks!)



So much was learned from working on this car and since then he’s replaced pretty much everything!! The car now looks like this which is awesome to say the least its amazing what taste blood sweat and tears (and epic wheels) can do for a car!





I'm sure Killian will get an opportunity to do a full post on his car sometime...

In summer of 2008 (I think) we made the trip over to Birmingham and bought this off Phil Morrison. Instantly fell in love with the car sporting a goodline bonnet and late bumper early lip combo and some 9j ssr mesh…



Its basically a clean shell complete with healthy 16v, cage, lsd and coilovers perfect track car! Around this time the whole team tekno and gar-4-age 86 thing was used as a team name just like the awesome teams in japan like mouse and t50 Japan. So it was abused for almost 2 years..through that time the car was lowered, fully stripped, the arches were finished, hydraulic handbrake and fibreglass bootlid fitted, a trust manifold and straight through pipe was fitted which sounds epic! and a variety of wide ssr's used! The car never gave a minutes trouble in all the drift days showing what a corolla is about simple fun and taught us so much about driving/drifting here's some pics of how it changed over that time...













Here's pics from its final drift day when it was still white some of you may recognise this pic from the ae86 in the snow post on speedhunters…The car felt like it had 300hp in the snow made for a change to say the least!!





Finally this summer another major overhaul was done on the car when we stripped it some more fitted homemade plastic windows and sprayed it green and gold!! Although there are hundreds of styles that make a corolla look awesome that 90’s look has always been a favourite so we stayed with it for the time being…







Here's some pics from the last track day in Mondello






Over the past 4 years working and playing with these cars you get to know them inside out and get ridiculously attached to them. To me they are the ultimate in grassroots drifting and only a real ae86 purist could understand why owners stay with the 4ag engine be it 16 or 20 valve these cars aren’t about competing or winning for me there about raw driving fun and hoping the car is looking sh*t hot while doing it!! Not only that but the people you meet along the way such as James that started this blog, it's just as cool to look at someone else's 86 looking good and getting thrashed as it is trying to the same with your own.
Brother Kevin