Looking to upgrade the whole rear end. and was wondering if anyone has done a ae86 rear live axle swap before?

Ive sourced a JDM 10 stud diff ae86 axle which you can buy aftermarket 1.5/2way LSD's from a factory and just bolts up. The ADM ae86 are 8 stud i know they have no lsd available for them.

it just looks like a straight forward swap, just need leaf brackets welded on, possibly shortened, axles are wider so wider U bolts, tail shaft etc... Brakes i haven't looked into to much yet, they came with drums but you can buy disc upgrade kits, not sure if its still cable driven or not. Need alittle more reading..

After all that is sorted and down the line if the rear sway bar can be still used? 4 link? or even a watts link?

ive seen in japan they used to put ae86 diffs in H165's with a big spacer to be able to bolt in the 10 bolts.. I just thought the ae86 swap would be a common swap, got to be a reason why it hasen't. Anyone?

Hi, yes i have done this but have since gone away from it.

The reason was broken axels, the AE86 axels are the same size as H165 so apart from LSD you are not getting any better strength.

I am now using a Mazda RX7 diff with LSD and bigger axels and it would still cost the same to get modified.

were they 25mm axles?

No, only the 24mm ones, but when i looked into the Large axle version it wasn’t even 1mm difference mainly the spline design was different.

So I have gone up to the 26mm Mazda one, you can even get 28mm

ah alrighty, what rear brake setup are you using then? also what series rx7?

I used a diff out of a Mazda Bongo van 4x4 the rear diff is LSD and has an offset centre so one axle is already short.

I then bought a 5.1:1 crown wheel/pinion from a RX7.

Brakes, in the rally car i don’t need a hand brake (as i use a hydraulic one) so i run vented rotor and calliper from a Suzuki Swift GTI.

Now I also had custom 2 piece axles made and run the wheel bearing from the AE86 (big double row) and the drive flange from a Nissan Pintara FWD

cost about $3500 all up but have not had a diff or brake problem in 3 years of hard rallying (set and forget) but you don’t need to go that far.

Well considering the axles aren't any bigger, the diff was only built for a 1.6L and ae86 stuff is about as rare as if gets, there's probably a few reasons why it isn't a common swap. If you are going to pay money for shortening and a brake setup there is no doubt better LSDs with disks available.

well i got standard rear disc brake setup for the ae86 which has the 25mm axles. no lsd for $250. i didn't want to use a torsen lsd and wanted a 2 way LSD, which are plenty TRD ones around for 300-500. Also aftermarket companies still make them brand new. I know they are for 1.6ltr 4age's but still in Japan they use this diff setup on 300hp drift cars.