Why the Toyota 86 Still Matters After All These Years
The Toyota 86 started as a compromise. It was supposed to be an affordable sports car that could live in a regular garage, handle like something sharper, and not cost a fortune to maintain. What happened instead is that people realized the platform had more going on under the hood than the spec sheet suggested, and it turned into something genuinely special. I've owned three of them across different model years. The first one was a 2013 base manual I bought with 87,000 miles on it for twelve thousand dollars. It needed a subframe bushing replacement, an oil catch can I installed myself because the PCV system is a joke, and a full set of worn coilovers from the previous owner who treated it like a daily driver through a gravel lot every Tuesday. The boxer-four engine, code-named 4B1 in Subaru and FA20 in Toyota's naming convention, displaces 2.0 liters and makes 205 horsepower in the United States market. That number sounds modest next to a modern GT86 with a supercharger or a used WRX STI knocking on the door. But the engine revs to 7,400 RPM, has a short-stroke design with an 86mm bore and 85.9mm stroke, and the flat-plane configuration gives it a balance that inline-fours simply cannot replicate. The factory intake manifold is plastic. It restricts airflow above 5,000 RPM and cracks under boost pressure if you ever run a turbo kit without upgrading it. I learned that the hard way on my second 86, a 2016 model with a Greddy turbo conversion. The intake manifold split at 6,800 RPM on a pull through third gear. Took forty-five minutes to replace and another two hours to clean plastic shards out of the charge pipe before I could run the car again. The chassis geometry is where this car earns its reputation. Independent double-wishbone suspension all four corners. Short and long arm design with coilovers mounted directly to the lower control arms. The factory setup is soft, which makes sense for a car targeted at people who want to carry a passenger without spilling their coffee. But the geometry is sound. Camber gain is minimal through the bump cycle, which means the tires stay planted when you throw the car into a corner at speed. This is not something you'd notice driving it to the grocery store, but track day one, it becomes obvious when you compare the 86's behavior to a Miata or an FD RX-7 on the same circuit.
Here is the part most people miss: the rear differential is a mechanical LSD in the manual transmission versions, but the automatic gets an open differential by default. If you are looking at a used 86 and it has an automatic, assume it will spin one rear tire hard in the rain or during aggressive acceleration out of a tight turn. There is no fix for this other than swapping in a Torsen or a clutch-type unit, and that is not a cheap job. You are looking at roughly eight hundred to twelve hundred dollars in parts and labor depending on whether you do it yourself. The manual-only LSD is a limited-slip unit with 200mm clutch plates and a single-pinion design. It is adequate for stock power levels and even moderate builds, but it will wash out if you start pushing past 300 horsepower. At that point, a 2-way adjustable clutch-type LSD becomes necessary. The steering rack is another area where the 86 punches above its weight. It uses a rack-and-pinion setup with electric power assist, and the ratio is fairly quick at 12.3:1. Three turns lock to lock. The feedback through the wheel, especially with the optional Alcantara steering wheel, is honest. You can feel the front tires working through the rim. This is rare in a car that costs less than twenty-five thousand dollars new. Most competitors in this price range either numb the steering deliberately or over-assist to the point where the wheel feels like a steering wheel on a lawnmower. When it comes to modifying the 86, the simplest gains come from weight reduction and tire upgrades. The car weighs approximately 2,800 pounds in manual form, which is light for a sports coupe. Removing the rear seats, the spare tire, and the rear audio speakers saves about thirty pounds. Not dramatic on paper, but it changes how the car rotates mid-corner because you are shifting weight distribution rearward slightly. A set of used OEM wheels stripped and painted black instead of buying fresh ones costs about sixty dollars in parts if you find a pair on Facebook Marketplace. I stripped six wheels myself using a wire wheel on a bench grinder. Took about three hours total and saved me four hundred dollars compared to buying aftermarket Rotiforms.
The exhaust note from the FA20 is decent at idle and low RPM, but it falls flat above 4,500 RPM because of the catalytic converter location and the resonator placement in the factory system. A straight-pipe downpipe deletes the cat and the resonator, but it triggers a check engine light and fails emissions in California and several other states. A cat-back system is legal in most places and changes the sound without altering the O2 sensor readings. I run a Borla ATAK cat-back on my current 86. It is loud, maybe too loud for residential areas after 10 PM, but it does not drone at highway speeds the way some aftermarket systems do. The difference in perceived power is minimal, maybe three to five horsepower at the wheels, but the sound makes the car feel faster than it actually is. One counter-intuitive thing about the 86: the factory suspension will actually handle more power than you think if you upgrade the shocks and springs before touching the engine. I ran 240 horsepower on a turbo setup on my stock dampers and springs for about six months before the bushings started making noise. The limiting factor was never the suspension geometry itself, it was the rubber components degrading from heat and lateral force. Replacing the control arm bushings and rear subframe mounts with polyurethane versions costs about two hundred dollars in parts and a weekend of your time. The difference in handling precision is immediate and noticeable on the first drive. Reliability is where the 86 earns its long-term reputation. The FA20 engine is fundamentally sound. The timing chain tensioners can fail around 80,000 to 100,000 miles, producing a rattling noise on cold start. It is a known issue and Toyota extended the warranty on some markets. The water pump is driven by the timing chain, so if it leaks, you are looking at removing the timing cover to replace it. That is a four-to-six-hour job. I replaced mine at 95,000 miles preemptively because I noticed a slight weep at the pump housing during an oil change. Total cost was about three hundred and fifty dollars in parts and two hours of labor at a local shop.
Get the Full Details
The transmission is a five-speed manual in the base model and a six-speed in the later upgrades. Both are robust. The shifter feel is vague out of the box, and most owners install a short-shifter kit within the first year. A Cusco short shifter costs around four hundred dollars and improves shift precision significantly. The synchros are strong, but if you are launching the car from a standstill in first gear repeatedly, you will wear them faster than a typical daily driver. I burned through a set of synchros on my first 86 after a year of spirited weekend driving. Replacement ran about six hundred dollars in parts alone. The biggest practical problem I encountered with the 86 is the rear window wiper motor failure. It is a design flaw that affects all model years. The motor burns out because of water intrusion into the wiring harness connector behind the trunk liner. The fix is to remove the trunk interior panels, dry out the connector, apply dielectric grease, and either replace the motor or rebuild it with a new gear set. The whole process takes about an hour and costs around eighty dollars for a replacement motor from Toyota. I did this on both of my turbo cars because the engine bay heat combined with summer humidity accelerates the corrosion inside the connector. For anyone considering a track build, the most cost-effective approach is to start with brake upgrades and suspension tuning before adding power. The stock brakes are adequate for street use but fade badly after two to three hard laps on a circuit. Good pads, braided lines, and high-temperature fluid will get you through a full day of driving without issue. Adding a big brake kit is unnecessary unless you are running 400+ horsepower consistently. The factory calipers are four-piston units up front and two-piston in the rear, and they have enough clamping force for a 300-horsepower car if you manage your brake temperature properly.
The 86 became an icon because it offered something increasingly rare: a genuine driver's car at a price point that did not require a second mortgage. It is not fast in a straight line. The quarter mile time is around fourteen seconds at best with the manual. But the chassis communicates, the balance is neutral, and the platform has an enormous aftermarket ecosystem. Every major performance brand makes parts for it, from suspension components to complete turbo kits to engine management systems. That availability keeps the community alive and the parts prices reasonable even fifteen years after launch. If you are looking to buy one, avoid the white automatic models from 2013 and 2014. Those were the first year cars with the highest incidence of the intake manifold crack issue and early timing chain tensioner problems. The 2017 and newer models have minor refinements including a slightly stiffer chassis and updated infotainment, but the core mechanics are identical. A well-maintained 2015 manual with under 60,000 miles will cost between eighteen and twenty-two thousand dollars in the current market, which is fair value for what you get.
