Larry Chen Sneaks a Peek at Toyota’s GR Corolla-Swapped GR86

In one of his latest in-depth videos, photographer and hardcore automotive enthusiast Larry Chen gets a peek behind the curtain of one of Toyota’s upcoming builds set to debut at the industry-only 2024 Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) show in Las Vegas. Mike Chang from Evasive Motorsports is the tour guide. Located in Cerritos, California, his shop is orchestrating the build on behalf of Toyota.

Toyota will be bringing plenty of one-off builds to its SEMA display, and last year it even featured some amazing owner-built 4x4s, but the AWD GR86 built by Evasive Motorsports may be the most interesting of the bunch. As Chang shows in the video, the flat-four engine of the coupe was removed and in its place will be a GR Corolla’s turbocharged three-cylinder as well as its entire all-wheel-drive system.

Toyota designed the car to highlight its rally heritage by recalling the AWD Celica GT4. Other GR86s have been converted to AWD, but this will be the first time a swap of this kind has been done. To help with the massive fabrication project, Evasive Motorsports called in Chris Eimer from Eimer Engineering to lend his experience.

Eimer and Chen get into the nitty-gritty details of fitting a transverse inline-three into an engine bay designed for a longitudinal flat-four. Even though the engine bay is wide, and can easily swallow a longitudinal V-8, getting the three-cylinder and its transmission into position requires a bit of finesse—and a custom-fabricated subframe. To properly locate the axles and clear the hood of the coupe, the engine sits about half an inch lower than it does in the Corolla. Below, the new heart of the GR86 is protected by a skidplate appropriate for a rally car. Out back, the differential of the Corolla was adapted to bolt in where the GR86 one used to live. According to Eimer, everything fit remarkably well.

This ambitious build has come a long way from where Evasive Motorsports started, with a pair of stock Toyotas, but there are still lots of problems to solve and pieces to fabricate before SEMA begins in early November. The next time we see the AWD GR86, it will be in Toyota’s booth, and we’ll bring you some on-site shots so you can check out the end result.

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