Impulse's Sportivo [WA]

[ImPulse]

Hey all, decided to update this thread with a little introduction to myself and my history with car modification.

My name is Alfred and I have always seemed to have an interest in cars. It may have started as early as primary 3, where I remembered reading this big blue RAC guide to cars and DIY maintenance that was passed to me by my dad. I still have it till this day (albeit the cover has fallen off). Then my interest in drift started after buying performance car magazines during my high school years (as well as being introduced to Initial D :P ) At this point I was adamant i had to have some sort of RWD Nissan, so I could go and mod it up for drifting.

My first car after getting my licence after 18 was a green AE92 Corolla 5 door hatch, was fun, and really let me learn a thing or two about driving. I used to work a nightfill position at Big W, and I still have fun memories of the rainy nights where I had to drive home past midnight. She handled decently (for the power that was put out through the 4A-FE 1.6L anyway), and even though the rear brakes were drums, I still managed to get a feel of the 'drifting' I so craved for during the rainy season :P

Modding was the usual 18 year old stuff, interior blue neons, cannon muffler, HIDs in reflector housings etc. I look back and laugh, but tell me, who didn't go through this stage :P I found it funny on one drive home my '5Zigen' performance cannon muffler decided to de-attach itself from its welds to the chassis and then bounced up and down on top of the axle until I had the stock muffler reattached.

"Performance" came after saving up enough to afford a cheap S13. It ran the aging CA18DET, but was the Sileighty every Initial D fan wanted, albeit not in blue. But it didn't matter, i finally had my 'dream' car - a Nissan RWD chassis capable of fulfilling my need to slide. This was fun for the 2 years or so I owned her, but as time went on I realised how much of a financial hole these old cars could be. It seemed like I was forever pouring money into fixing the thing rather than modifying. I did do the usual breathing mods, pod, 3" turbo back and FMIC. Also ran coilovers as my last major mod.

Unfortunately, in my final year of uni I decided as much as I loved the notion of taking my car out to the tracks for drift practice, I could not afford to maintain her anymore. The reason for the change was that S13 didn't cut it in the reliability stakes, and being a student, I didn't want to keep pouring money into it. I never really ended up doing much drift at all :/

So I picked up one of these, and took it down to Albany with me as I needed to go rural for my final placement of the pharmacy course.

This is a photo of my previous ride before I made the switch to an '04 Corolla Sportivo (pre-facelift). She was a KPS13 Sileighty running a CA18DET.

Stock as a rock when I picked her up, i immediately went about transplanting in the audio equipment I carted over from my S13. The plan was on doing suspension and handling mods first, then power, having learnt from past experiences. After 2010 finished, I started my intern year (as a pharmacist), and that gave me a bit more income to finally start doing useful modifications.

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Now, as of Dec 2011, I have fully graduated and qualified and have a position as a community pharmacist (aka a drug dealer :P ), which further opens my scope for modification. At the moment, I know it is fairly futile chasing big power, so i just want this car to be an enjoyable daily which I can take the the track every so often. I'm possibly looking to swap to a Toyota 86 in the next 5 years or so.

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This is the modification list as she sits so far.

CAR

Toyota Corolla ZZE-123R Sportivo.

ENGINE

2ZZ-GE 1.8-litre 16-valve fuel-injected inline-4

Power: 141kW at 7800rpm

SUSPENSION

BC Sports BR Type RA coilover suspension

6kg/mm Front

5kg/mm Rear

Ultra Racing Braces

- Front Lower (3 point)

- Front Strut/tower

- Rear Lower Bar

- Rear Sway [19mm]

Whiteline rear anti-roll/torsion bar 22mm [bTR77]

AUDIO

Alpine CDA-9886 receiver

Alpine MRP-M450 450W monobloc amplifier

Pioneer 12" Subwoofer

JL Audio XD200/2 200W 2-channel amplifier

Axis XS-622 6.5" component speakers [Front]

Stock speakers [Rear]

INTERIOR/ELECTRONICS

TWM short shifter

TWM alloy shifter bushings

TWM "Desert Eagle" shift knob

APEX-i Rev/Speed Meter Black edition

APEX-i EL2 60mm gauges [black face | Black Bezel]

- Oil pressure

- Oil temperature

- Water temperature

BRIDE Cuga recliner [Grey graduation]

RECARO SR3 recliner [black]

BRIDE RO-type Seat Rail [Driver's] (Part Number: T187RO)

Domo-kun plushie

EXTERIOR

OEM Sportivo bodykit

De-badged rear

Blacked out Toyota badge

TRD copy sports grille

Mazda CX-7 antenna

JDM Corolla RUNX tail lights

Genuine wakaba leaf

Domo-kun hang toy

ROLLING STOCK

OEM Corolla Sportivo 16x6 +45 (x4)

Work Emotion CR KAI 16x7 +38 (x4)

Work RS-R open-ended locknuts [blue anodized]

CONSUMABLES

Crankcase oil: FUCHS TITAN SUPER GTO 10W-30

CASTROL EDGE 5W-30

MOBIL 1 5W-30

Oil filter: Toyota OEM part # 90915-YZZE1

Enough talk, photos:

Edited February 5, 2012 by ImPulse

[chicken]

nice. Good timing as there is perth member and1 selling his stivo and possibly parting out too.

[and1]

nice. Good timing as there is perth member and1 selling his stivo and possibly parting out too.

Yes I will start parting out soonish when I can be bothered LOL.

[Mole]

Nice ride, and if your interested in power, don't forget a PowerFC to raise that rev limiter and lower lift engagement *cough*.

[CME-LFT]

Nice and clean, now get to changing that green center console to red :D

[ImPulse]

Thanks for the comments guys mods will have to come slowly while I'm still a student. I should be wiring a set of aftermarket splits into her in the next 2 weeks or so, will keep this thread updated.

A few more photos for now, just something I do as a hobby:

[ImPulse]

Got around to updating - firstly the audio.

Head unit, taken from my S13, old school non touch screen JVC.

No F*king idea why Toyota would pop-rivet these in, but ohwell.

Making spacers out of 16mm MDF.

Monobloc Alpine taken from my S13, driving a 12" Pioneer sub

[ImPulse]

Sort of an impulse buy - JB hifi were doing a 30% off car audio night. >.<!

200W x2 channel, JL Audio - packs a punch for its tiny, tiny footprint.

(Apologies for fail iphone pictures)

Laying the wiring

And done, just needs to be tuned

[benji4138]

Sweet ride. Be good to see the finished product with your future plans installed

[ImPulse]

Minor update, just ordered these off JustJap

With all the public holidays coming up, I'm hoping to have them in just after the new year. Fix that Hilux ride hight of mine :P

[ImPulse]

Cannot believe how quickly these arrived, esp with christmas so close! Very happy with Justjap.com :D

6kg/mm front, 5kg/mm rear

Camber tops

Can't wait to install them!

[LEGEND888]

hi mate! if u dont mind me asking, how much did justjap charged you for these BC coilies? including shipping..

Cheers :)

[ImPulse]

Just a couple more pics from a proper camera :P

Rear vs Fronts

Hopefully I can install them sometime this long weekend, if the weather stops being so hot >.>

Legend888: I ended up just paying the list price on JustJap for the gold series ($1300), but if you want I could possibly hook you up with somewhat cheaper coils. Also I have a mate who deals with Racing Logic and Megan Racing. If you're interested PM me.

Update: Thanks to And1 i now have a hot (literally) shift knob.

Edited December 27, 2010 by ImPulse

[ImPulse]

So just an update - more for the information of others as I find there wasn't much information on BC coilovers.

For those who have followed my 'help me' thread in the other section, you would know that when I pulled out the stocks and compared them to the BC's, I found that there was an extra bolt getting in the way of installation.

I tried with a moderate amount of force to remove this, as it did look removable. Used a hammer, and even a mate's vice to try to push out this interfering bolt.

This is the chassis-welded nut that is in the way of seating. While the bolts line up perfectly, the fact that this is a threaded nut prevents me from inserting the coilover properly.

The stock arrangement uses a bolt from the underside, hence that welded nut.

I did not want to damage the coils, so i called it quits and put the stock suspension back in (as its my daily driver). Called Justjap on tuesday (first day back after the long weekend), who contacted BC sports in Taiwan, and as of Wednesday night, I'm eagerly awaiting their response.

For those who are doubting Justjap at this point, don't, I have found their service to be extremely good, I received my coilovers in 3 working days (just before christmas as well!). They have been helpful looking into my query, we are just waiting for a response from BC Sports at this point.

So that's the info for anyone considering BC coilovers (the BR GOLD series), I wouldn't at this point, until they sort it out. I'm not too keen at grinding the nut OR the coilover bolt for that matter. Interestingly enough, a bit of googling seemed to indicate that the V1 (RED) series - at $100 cheaper - do not suffer from this problem. Without knowing anyone who's tried these on the ZZE corollas I can't say. But a thought to bear in mind :P

Cheers.

[ImPulse]

On the bright side, I managed to score this second hand.

Plan on using the bottom DIN slot to mount my A'pexi RSM.

[JG24688]

Far out! You have been busy!

Great to see the progress photos - intriguing!! You're off to a good start - it's looking awesome already! Good luck with it!

[ImPulse]

^ Thanks man, loving your optional grille (in your photo) - considering one but i prefer to mod handling wise before cosmetics

Well. Finally I've had success. I headed over to a mate's workshop where he had a hydraulic press. Which we didn't use :P We just used a BFH (big Fk-ing hammer)

This was the outcome.

After a bit of stuffing around, we finally got the rears in (they didn't line up perfectly at first, the bottom mount was angled a bit weirdly.

Original front ride height.

Stock vs BC aftermarket.

And we're done on the front too.

Whole car, with proper camera :P

Will have a final tinker with it tomorrow morning, front's a bit lower than i'd like it to be, and the rear needs to be dropped more. But went for a quick drive (dampers set at minimal hardness) and seems relatively comfortable for a daily. But I used to drive an s13 so that probably doesn't say much haha.

Thats it for now :)

Edited January 10, 2011 by ImPulse

[and1]

Much better now Alfred! Good to see you got it all sorted out.

Need more parts?

[RedSportivo]

Congrats looking great keep up good work

[GTL05T]

Awesome man!! Loving it..

[ImPulse]

Thanks for the comments guys :)

Andy, I thought I'd throw away the modding after selling the S13. Sadly it keeps running through my veins, I can't leave a car stock it seems. So I'll definitely let you know if I'm keen haha.

Question, feedback is welcome: CAI or rear sway bar first?

Thinking of INJEN and an ULTRA RACING one respectively.

Cheers :)

[ImPulse]

So, this is where my username comes from. My impulsiveness >.>

Picked these up second hand off a seller on SilviaWA. Couldn't turn them down at the price.

Profile is 55 rather than 50, but the tyres are too good to throw out. Still has heaps of tread.

So I'll be raising the front a bit tomorrow morn so she doesn't scrape.

Looks like my plans for a short shifter and CAI will be put on hold for now haha.

[QTOOSEEMEE]

very nice man. keep it up :)

[ImPulse]

very nice man. keep it up :)

Thankyou :) It's always encouraging cos I try to do whatever I can myself, being a student doesn't help >.<

For now, I present her as she stands (nice and dirty...)

Cheers

[sikwitit]

nice looking rims mate btw how is the ride on the bc coils?

sean