New to Toyota - 2005 Corolla Sportivo!

[Squalled]

1 hour ago, TommyViceCity said:

Awesome car mate!

The photo quality is top notch.

Thanks for taking the time to not only update the forum with your progress, but for putting effort into it.

I was really keen to buy a Sportivo but unfortunately I couldn’t find one in good enough condition while looking for a new car, so instead opted to get a 2015 Corolla Ascent (CVT)

Reading through this post and seeing all the progress you’ve made on the car is inspiring to say the least, especially seeing you go from your green Ps (which I’m on currently) to full license while keeping the Corolla just goes to show how fun and reliable they are.

I haven’t done much to my Corolla apart from installing some Stedi LED headlights and replacing all interior lights with LEDs (since it’s a newer car with ~ 40,000 kms on it and I want to keep it relatively stock to sell in a couple years) but this really makes me want to do more.

Look forward to seeing future updates!

Cheers

Thanks a lot Mitch!

I hate saying it's literally just my Samsung S7 camera but it is. 

I honestly like keeping my post updated, forums have so much more value and information compared to social media pages that are a lot more popular these days.

I'll be honest, nice Sportivo's for reasonable prices are getting harder and harder to find now as they go up in age. I was originally only to keep it until I reached my open license but I'm far too attached to it to let go of it! Coming up to my 3rd year of ownership next month actually but I'm looking at getting something else in the next year or 2.

Good to hear you've got the newer model corolla modified, it's always great to see the newer shapes get some mods happening. Look forward to seeing some pics if you ever start a thread!

Thanks for reading!

[Squalled]

Update time!

So just got back from my road trip from Melbourne yesterday evening. The drive to, during and from Melbourne all went smooth with no issues what so ever! I've managed to add another 2000 kilometers or so to the odometer in the space of week so I have a new record now for distance traveled in a short time. I had a great time with my partner site seeing, shopping and getting to meet a few of the Melbourne Corolla guys who are absolute legends to say the least.

Melbourne was so easy to get around compared to Sydney that within 2 days I felt more confident driving around than I do in Sydney most of the time. But the 6 days went so fast that it literally only felt like yesterday I drive down.

I had the car checked over the weekend before I was set to leave. No issues found and the car had a service while checked over. Now running Nulon 5W-30 full synthetic which is running really well so far.

Before heading down, I gave the Sportivo a nice wash and clean inside and out.

I also decided to put a new car scent to the test. Safe to say I'm super happy with Platinum Potions products.

My partner and I were up nice and early the next morning to leave at 5:30AM for our road trip.

We made a few mandatory stops along the way, which usually resulted in a photo or two...

Until we arrived at our destination

The following afternoon, after realising my mate Ed literally worked across the road from where I was staying (which wasn't planned), he had a part ready to install once he finished work.

Out with the old.....

In with the new. Massive thanks to Ed for porting it by hand and taking his time after work to install it. While the old one was out, Ed also did the coolant bypass mod, essentially removing the coolant lines from the throttle body. There are quite a few tutorials online and it's not too necessary for me as I don't live in cold area.

The throttle body has been ported slightly, not in overall diameter so to speak but the butterfly valve itself has been smoothed down as you can see from the photo to allow smoother flow of air. One of the symptoms of this is that you get higher idle for a week or two (Only a few days for me) while warm and it will generally sit at around 2000 RPM. The main difference I noticed was the snappier throttle response and the revs seem to pick up quicker also.

I was also able to meet some of the Melbourne owners at the popular Glenny Kebabs. It was great to meet them all since I've only spoken to them via messaging.

The car now sits with a whole heap of bugs that need to be cleaned off, a job for this afternoon before I head back to work tomorrow. 

Other than that, there's not too much else to add. I have sent some parts to get some work done in Queesland so I should have them back next week or so and I have also got my entry into the 15th Annual Toyotafest so also another even to look forward to.

Stay tuned.

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by Squalled

[jeffy]

ohh... hmm... that was your car !! Looks nice and clean in the flesh :]

[Squalled]

8 hours ago, jeffy said:

ohh... hmm... that was your car !! Looks nice and clean in the flesh :]

That was definitely me! Thanks a lot for you're kind words mate! I was probably enjoying my snack pack a little too much for you to see me

Judging from your photo's, you were the Camry that came in? Mate it looks awesome! We we're talking about it and heard it was manual when you took off, making us even more impressed.

What wheels we're you running by the way? I was guessing some sort of Aurion rim 

[Squalled]

Update time again.

So in the last few weeks since I've returned from my road trip, I was able to clean the front end of all the bugs but still haven't given the car a proper wash. Hopefully I'll be able to give it some love this week. On another note, it's being 2000 + kilometers since the last service and there has been no significant oil loss or discolouration.

So last week, I had received my parts back after some changes were made. It left my interior looking like this for a little while.

I have wanted to do some interior mods for some time and I was definitely inspired by my previous car, the Honda Prelude.

As you know, here is the standard look of the interior (except the recaros of course)

And here is what I chose to do to it...

I went with a carbon fibre hydro dip, which was the same sort of style that was in the Prelude. I of course got a spare set to do this too, and it was only a matter of changing over the switches and other items from the center console and door trims.

I also had a spare gear boot which I gave a nice clean and leather treatment. The treat been on the left, and my original on the right..

Once that was all done, I re-installed it and I have now have my new interior look...

Overall I'm super stoked with the job and look I've given. A massive thanks to Wayne from Aztec Liquid Art Hydrographics in Queensland for the awesome work and fair pricing.

I will have another small update tomorrow marking a nice milestone with the car. The car will be on display at Toyotafes this year again so pretty excited and really looking forward to it!

Stay tuned.

[Squalled]

So a special little milestone today. Exactly 3 years ago today, I purchased the Sportivo.

I bought it with 144, 9xx kilometers and it now sits on over 214 000 kilometers. It's been great owning this great little car, all the ups and downs which has been an awesome learning experience. The car has never once let me down, even if it had problems it still soldiered on! It's now done it's first road trip with zero issues, except some minor scrubbing.

Here's a little throwback from the early days till, until now

I'll put the mod list that will change a lot, hence the edited post.

Engine & Management:
- Edjen 3" Cold Air Intake
- Ported Throttle Body
- Ported Intake manifold by Ed
- Chuned 4-1 Headers
- 100 Cell High Flow Cat, 2.5" piping, 2 resonators, single tip varex muffler
- Greddy V-Manage piggy back featuring VVT and lower lift tune Adaptronic E420D - Tuned
- Spartan 2 Lambda Controller

Drive train & Gearbox:
- Rebuilt gearbox featuring new synchros for 2nd-4th, new bearings and seals and new 6th gear
- Exedy Heavy Duty Clutch
- Speed Source Extended Pushrod
- Speed Source Solid Shifter Cable Bushings
- Speed Source Solid Shifter Base Bushings
- Custom Short Shifter by Ed

Exterior:
- Advan RG2 in Hyper Black - 16x7 +41 Enkei RPF1 in Matte Gunmetallic - 15x8 +28 - Hankook Ventus RS4 Bridgestone RE003 205/55
- JDM Runx Tail lights with custom harness.
- LED license plate lights
- Black housing headlights
- Custom painted brake calipers
- HIC Weathershields
- Stubby Antenna
- Rear guards professionally rolled
- De-badged boot lid (only the Toyota logo has been left in the center) 
- JDM Runx front badge
- Custom fog light trim intake duct
- Genuine TTE spoiler

Handling & Braking:
- Michelin Pilot Sport 4 - 205/50 Hankook RS4 225/45
- BC BR Gold Coilovers - 6kg front, 4kg rear - BC DS Gold Coilovers - 5kg front, 4kg rear
- White Front Upper Strut Bar
- White 22mm Rear Torsion Bar
- DBA T2 Slotted Discs
- QFM HPX Pads

Interior:
- Mitsubishi Evolution 8 MR Recaro's mounted on Bride RO type rails
- Hydro dipped interior trims.
- Center console light mod
- Lufi X1 OBD Gauge JRP AFR Gauge
- RHI Design CNC Alu Gear Knob
- Custom cup holders
- Optional Sports Pedals

I.C.E
- Clarion VX440 Double Din Headunit
- Focal 6.5" Speakers in all doors
- Clarion 12" Subwoofer
- Option Audio Mono Amp

Other:
- Energy Suspension Engine Mount inserts Brook Racing Development (BRD) Engine Mount Inserts
- Coolant bypass mod (For throttle body)
- Some stickers

I'd like to thank everyone that has helped and supported me over the build process. I never thought I'd meet so many mad people and learn so much over this ownership. Looking forward to the future years ahead.

Stay tuned!

Edited September 15, 2023 by Squalled

[jeffy]

Interior looks great with those new dipped trims ! 

keep up the good job, cars lookin nice and neat !

 

 

On 9/10/2018 at 9:48 AM, Squalled said:

That was definitely me! Thanks a lot for you're kind words mate! I was probably enjoying my snack pack a little too much for you to see me

Judging from your photo's, you were the Camry that came in? Mate it looks awesome! We we're talking about it and heard it was manual when you took off, making us even more impressed.

What wheels we're you running by the way? I was guessing some sort of Aurion rim 

Didnt know you were in the forums ! also, im not as active as i used to be 😛 soo im not even so sure whod on it now haha !

Yes it was i hehehe, thanks man  :] ! #savethemanuals ! and yeah manual is more fun 😛

also,  that was the night i got the car back after getting exhaust installed, that was a random drive and didnt know the sportivo guys were meeting up 😅

 

Running 18" TRD Kappas

[Squalled]

On 10/14/2018 at 12:56 PM, jeffy said:

Interior looks great with those new dipped trims ! 

keep up the good job, cars lookin nice and neat !

 

 

Didnt know you were in the forums ! also, im not as active as i used to be 😛 soo im not even so sure whod on it now haha !

Yes it was i hehehe, thanks man  :] ! #savethemanuals ! and yeah manual is more fun 😛

also,  that was the night i got the car back after getting exhaust installed, that was a random drive and didnt know the sportivo guys were meeting up 😅

 

Running 18" TRD Kappas

Thanks a lot mate! Really loving the new look and still getting used to it as well.

Yeah it seems a bit quieter these days but I still love keeping the thread updated. I really love reading through threads and going back through mine seeing how much the car has changed.

Fair enough fair enough, the made the meet since I told them I was down there for almost a week. I knew most of them from the Facebook page.

Oh awesome, they look great!

Updates to come in the coming days!

[Squalled]

Alrighty another update.

So the long weekend has now come and gone, most of it spent cleaning the car in preparation for Toyotafest. I gave the engine bay a clean, the interior and thankfully there was great weather and the car had never looked better after washing with some Meguiars wash and wax. It made it look in my opinion the cleanest it has been in a long time. 

A new Gorilla Industries sticker added after it was the casualty of my Melbourne road trip.

The day had arrived and the pre-meet done, with almost the same spots as last year before heading to the show. Sadly, I was stuck in the corner and away from the other Sportivo's and didn't get many decent photo's while I was there. It was a great day none the less with some amazing cars on display and great chance to catch up with a few mates too.

Even the day after it still looked super clean!

As of recently, we've had some pretty wet weather in Sydney and haven't had the chance to keep the car clean at all. Last week, I organised a small meet with some mates at a local Kebab shop to have dinner with some fellow Melbourne friends as they were in Sydney for the weekend. Not long after our feed, we headed out to the industrial area for some late night banter and some photo's.

Alec behind the lens with his camera got these amazing shots in the rain!

So as of recently, I've been dailying the car as normal again with my ever changing locations for work and it has been running smoother then ever, just ticking over 215 000 in the last week. I do have a few plans in mind but, I'll keep those for another post.

Stay tuned!

Edited October 18, 2018 by Squalled

[ben yip]

Are you planning for an engine rebuild soon? 215000km is quite high. I would not use it for daily as traffic jam makes driving unenjoyable. My car is not daily driven as well, as I think I am wasting mileage on traffic jam. Especially spending a lot of time and effort to it.

Edited October 17, 2018 by ben yip

[Squalled]

19 hours ago, ben yip said:

Are you planning for an engine rebuild soon? 215000km is quite high. I would not use it for daily as traffic jam makes driving unenjoyable. My car is not daily driven as well, as I think I am wasting mileage on traffic jam. Especially spending a lot of time and effort to it.

Not required, doesn't burn oil or coolant. These engines are easily capable of over 350000 before a rebuild. It has no issues and most of my driving is on highways these days anyway.

Not to sound rude or anything but a mate of mine bought one with 360000 kms and it had well 200 psi compression (dry) across each cylinder. It was completely stock and kept up with a bolt on Sportivo (CAI and catback) which also had a vmanage tune too. Food for thought 🙂

Edited October 18, 2018 by Squalled

[ben yip]

11 hours ago, Squalled said:

Not required, doesn't burn oil or coolant. These engines are easily capable of over 350000 before a rebuild. It has no issues and most of my driving is on highways these days anyway.

Not to sound rude or anything but a mate of mine bought one with 360000 kms and it had well 200 psi compression (dry) across each cylinder. It was completely stock and kept up with a bolt on Sportivo (CAI and catback) which also had a vmanage tune too. Food for thought 🙂

Very good to know. Highway miles are good to engine. I know some people using non synthetic engine oil and have engine oil consumption at low mileage. I use synthetic nulon 0w-40 and no engine oil consumption at all.

Are you keeping the car for long? Looking after it and you can drive another ten years I suppose. 

Edited October 18, 2018 by ben yip

[Squalled]

13 hours ago, ben yip said:

Very good to know. Highway miles are good to engine. I know some people using non synthetic engine oil and have engine oil consumption at low mileage. I use synthetic nulon 0w-40 and no engine oil consumption at all.

Are you keeping the car for long? Looking after it and you can drive another ten years I suppose. 

Well the 2ZZ, like most Toyota engines just needs good servicing and they can last a life time.

I use full synthetic 5W-30 now and mostly ran 10W-40 (All noted in the owners manual as been suitable) and have ran 5W-30 without any dramas. Well, I've owned it for just over 3 years now and plan to keep it for a few more but we'll see how life goes ☺️Now that I've done all the hard work in getting it where I want, I may as well enjoy it!

Edited October 18, 2018 by Squalled

[Squalled]

Long over due update!

Have been pretty busy over the last month or with not only work but just life in general. I guess it's just the time of year really.

Not much has changed since my last update, just really trying to keep the car clean and running smooth. I've had more opportunities with the better weather to wash it but one week I did a storm came through just as I was drying it off and that's when I just gave up 😂

I've been driving the car a lot more lately just enjoying it now.

Here are the most recent pictures taken after the most recent washes in the last few weeks. The week a big storm came through was when I decided to go to a car wash.

Other than that, the next update will have some nice major changes coming so stay tuned!

[VietPhan1]

Hey, really nice car

I just bought an 05 Sportivo Silver (same as yours but stock)

Was wondering if you could give me a tip on where to buy your mods (ie. intake) 

 

Thanks in advance 

[Squalled]

1 hour ago, VietPhan1 said:

Hey, really nice car

I just bought an 05 Sportivo Silver (same as yours but stock)

Was wondering if you could give me a tip on where to buy your mods (ie. intake) 

 

Thanks in advance 

Hey Viet, thanks mate!

Sure thing, I'll shoot you a message and we'll discuss.

[Squalled]

See below.

Edited December 2, 2018 by Squalled

[Squalled]

Alright time for another update!

So in the last 2 weeks, I've had some nice new major mods added to car. After a lot of thought on the existing setup, it was time for a change. The two major changes are a ported intake manifold and the change from CES ported headers to a custom designed, 4-1 header best known by the very few who know as the Chuned 4-1s.

What began life as mere pipes.

 

Was quickly turned into the 4-1 headers I got, within a week.

I know you must think they don't look anything special to look at but, the design is extremely well thought out for the best possible gains for an N/A setup. 

Let's begin with last Sunday. I headed over to my mate Alec's place to get the manifold installed. Since he'd also got one and installed it a few days earlier, he was pretty familiar with what needed to go. Within the hour, the stock manifold was out and the new manifold was installed, along with the throttle body getting cleaned out. Massive thanks to Alec again for always helping me out with the bigger jobs.

Manifold off.

New intake manifold on, not too much different on the outside.

Here is the main difference you can see from the throttle body side of the intake manifold, stock vs ported.

I will be making a separate thread discussing the ported manifold and what is completed since I could really go into some serious detail with it. In short, after the manifold was installed, the response, torque down low and mid range along with top end improved excellently. The change in intake note crossing over into lift is quite a lot louder and very pronounced.

There's always time for quick shot together, featuring the new apprentice.

As of yesterday, I was up nice an early to head over to get the head over to the exhaust shop to get the headers fitted. Arriving just on time to begin the install. The process was to re-use the old cat, remove the stock headers and pipe before the cat so the new headers could be fitted along with a flex joint for extra piece of mind. The only issue was having 2 resonators quite close made the job a little more difficult but luckily enough, I was still able to retain both of the resonators.

4-1 collector.

All finished up and ready to go!

Once the install was done, I was very eager to hear the sound change and get driving. Turning it over for the first time, there was no noticeable change in idle note but, once applying some throttle driving you could hear the rushing of air through the headers along with a nice rumble and deeper note down low. Once getting over 4000 RPM you could hear a nice change in exhaust note getting a lot more raspy and than getting to the 5800 RPM crossover where lift screamed. 

Due the car been tuned for the previous setup without the ported intake manifold and 4-1 headers, a re-tune was definitely necessary. Luckily enough, earlier in the month while ordering the parts, my mate Ed planned to be in Sydney for the weekend which made it easy to pick the header install date. So after the header install, I headed over to visit Ed and we began to work over the tune.

After quite a few pulls in the low RPM and high RPM ranges, Ed and I found the 5800 lift to be leaving a noticeable flat spot from 6000-6200 RPM where the power peaked initially before flattening and picking up again. We decided to raise the lift point to 6000 rpm to test and we found this to be a perfect point after some fine tuning was before and after lift to make the power band a lot more linear.

Despite having quite a full car with extra parts and other unnecessary things, a 34 degree day with high humidity, the car has improved extremely well all round. Even less throttle input is needed, I can keep the car in a higher gear on hills and inclines with no issues, the power and torque improvements with the 4-1 design and of course the new roar of the beast! The new headers have really brought the 2ZZ to life. I'm really over the moon with the new setup and I'm super keen to get more kilometers down.

These new mods wouldn't have happened without the R&D and hard work that Ed has put into both the intake manifold and headers. A massive thank you to Ed for all the hard work getting these parts ready to go in such a short time with no issues what so ever.

As we approach the end of the year, I definitely want to keep driving over the Christmas break to enjoy the new setup. I will more than likely do an oil change next weekend before I get too busy along with hopefully giving the car a bath.

Stay tuned until next time!

Edited December 2, 2018 by Squalled

[Squalled]

Hey all,

For anyone wanting more detail relating to the ported intake manifold, I have created a new thread as below:

Happy reading!

[Squalled]

It's that time of the year already for my final post of 2018.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and managed to get time off working if you could.

This month has been a big one, I've been really busy with my partner, work, family, friends and it went within the blink of an eye. December has been a little down hill for the Corolla sadly. Not long after my last post, I was welcomed to this when I finished work for the day.

I found that the oil had gone onto the front of my side skirt also and when I took a sample with my finger to smell what fluid it was, I sadly smelt gearbox fluid. It may not look like much but here is a comparison to my big size 12 foot.

Doesn't look so small after all.

I was able to drive it home without issues, didn't seem to feel any different despite the fluid that had leaked out. Once home I jacked up one side and got a torch to have a look where the leak could be coming from. After 30 minutes of looking and a suggestion from Alec, I had found the exact first spot he mentioned it could leak from, the driveshaft seal. Lucky for me, I was able to get the car off to my local mechanic before Christmas and they were able to do it on the weekend without any issues.

They finished the car before mid morning and there hasn't been a leak since the seal was replaced.

The weekend after I was planning on doing an oil change for the end of the year but I stupidly forgot to order new oil filters after my last change and had to put that on hold. In the mean time, I removed the old intake and the new intake I had received earlier in the month was to go in.

My old intake in the first photo compared to the new intake in the second. The new design as you see is a lot smoother and is bigger also. This is a 3" design put together by Ed, which also includes a slight reduction where the MAF point is so there are no issues with running 3". With the new mods (4-1 Headers, Ported intake manifold) the 2.75" was quite restrictive on the setup hence the move to a 3" intake. I also ordered a brand new 3A Racing 3" pod to go with the new intake and spent roughly an hour or so fitting up and make sure everything was tight.

All I can say is installing an intake of this size on a 2005 is quite hard with the light been a different shape to the 2003/2004 and having less room. I turned the car over and made sure there were no leaks or any unusual sounds before I went out for a test drive.

So for my comparison, my old intake was 2.75" with a more harsh bend towards the headlight. I let the car warm up and I found that straight away there were nice improvements in the mid range. So I made note of what I noticed compared to my old intake setup compared to the new 3" design.

Low range 0-3000: Low range felt identical to the smaller intake. I saw this as a benefit because generally a larger intake size can cause lag but, due to the smoother design and also a similar length there was no major loss in power or torque, if anything the car picks up a lot smoother.

Mid range 3001-5999: Once in mid range, the car really takes off now. It no longer feels restricted and the pickup before lift is amazing. It pulls extremely smoothly through this range all the way to the lift engagement. 

Top end: 6000-8200: Once in lift, the car really starts hauling. It pulls very smoothly through the rev range and speed increase is great as well. There is absolutely no restriction in the top end now, I was finding before from around 7000 onward you could actually feel the car was been restricted. The sound is absolutely crazy, it goes from a nice deep rumble and pickup to loud and in your face. It really does scream now.

So all up, the move to 3" was definitely worth while to get the best from all the new mods I've got together.

Now for my second bit of bad luck. After the recent storms, I found my passenger side headlight globe wasn't working. It has happened many times before when the plug slips off a little and what not but, when I checked I found this....

So in the New Year, I will have to get one of the spare plugs I have laying around and remove this one and get the new one soldered on. As noted before, this side of my headlight harness it quite literally stuck to the main harness it connects to.

On a brighter note now, I was able to do my final oil change last week before Christmas on a nice cooler and with no storms around.

To finish up for the year, I recently found a twin of my car, well almost a twin.

I wish you all the very best in the New Year and look forward to seeing more updates and new builds on the forums!

Cheers!

Stay tuned for more.

Edited January 1, 2019 by Squalled

[Squalled]

First update of 2019!

Alright, since my last update not all too much has changed on the car. A few days after posting my last update, I noticed that the car sounded a bit different from normal and realised I have an exhaust leak. I've yet to get the chance with Sydney's unstable weather to go underneath and have a look where it is coming from but it does sound like it is coming from the headers towards the passenger side.

The car recently went through rego without any hassles, I still need to get the headlight plug sorted and get both headlights working as soon as I can, I have a spare plug waiting to get put in and it's only a matter of getting it done now.

Last fortnight was the first time this year I've had the chance to was the car, gave it a nice clean inside and out which was great until it rained that night. Luckily it wasn't dirty rain and the car still doesn't look too bad as of recently.

Over the long weekend, I was finally able to go on a quick drive which I haven't done in a long time other than for work up to Springwood. My partner and I waited till it cooled down towards the end of the day and went up to the lookout. Sadly, a whole heap of slow traffic ruined the twisty experience which is why I seem to end up there at night.

So this post is quite short mostly because I haven't done all too much at the start of the year. I do have some plans coming for this year and as always, there is a to-do list as below:

- Repair headlight plug

- Fix the exhaust leak

- Re-do black housing headlights with original lights

- Keep the car neat and tidy all round

- Remove excessive and unnecessary weight

Looking forward to the year ahead, continuing the build and seeing everyone's builds coming along. I'd hopefully like to get a run on the dyno and maybe even a few runs down the 1/4 or roll racing for some off street action.

Stay tuned!

[Squalled]

Another quick update.

Before the new mod, achievement unlocked.

Made it to this earlier last week and it only feels like yesterday I saw the same distance shown in my old Honda Prelude.

Now onto the new mod, I actually forget to mention this in my previous post and actually forget I had laying around since the end of last year. After a lot of thinking and seeing my Sportivo's give enough grief when I met up with them, I finally got a short shifter.

This is a custom made one, so it's not the MWR or TWM short shifter which sits quite low and has very little play in it. Seems there isn't anything that Ed can't make, with a shifter already to go in the base for a simple and easy installation at home. Funnily enough he actually reminded me I had it and that I should install so last weekend I started nice and early before it got too hot.

So I took the extra time to take some rough measurements of the throw distance between 1st and 2nd gear. Sadly I didn't measure the height difference which also different between to the original shifter.

So here is the original shifter throw from first to second.

After I measure the throw distance, I removed the center console surround which made access a lot easier to all the bolts and shifter cables. I removed the shifter cables from the bottom and side of the mount after removing the clips and than twisting the mechanism at the front to remove the entire cable from the assembly. I than removed the 4 bolts and did have a bit of trouble getting the Speed Source base bushings out as some of them had actually stuck to the bottom of the shifter assembly.

Once I got them out the base was free and I gave the area a quick clean. Safe to say the log books are definitely right about the 1st owner been female as I found about 3 bobby pins randomly around the center console area.

After the clean, it was matter of doing the steps in reverse which was quite easy now that I knew what I was doing. Once the cables were all mounted, the bushing lined up and tightened down I tested the feel to make sure the gears were engaging. I was worried at first but after sending a video or two to a few mates they confirmed all was good.

Gave the center console a nice clean for the normally hard to reach areas and bolted it all back down before re-measuring. As you can see, the shifter is a lot shorter as I tried to take the photo from the same height and this is now the throw distance between 1st and 2nd.

After taking the measurements, I went for a drive and thankfully no issues with gear crunching or engagement and all is going well. Overall I'm quite happy with the shifter, it's not too low and the throw is not excessively short like some of the other aftermarket ones out there. I've had in almost a week now and have gotten used to it pretty quick, not used to how quick the shifts are now.

I did try out the taller chrome gear knob I have shown before in some older photo's but it literally made it feel like a stock shifter again so I put the stock gear knob back on.

I've got a few things planned to get done off the checklist hopefully very soon so stay tuned!

[magneticpop]

Nice setup!

[Squalled]

16 hours ago, magneticpop said:

Nice setup!

Thanks mate! Appreciate it ✌️

[Squalled]

Another update to add. So last week was a successful week in crossing off some major to-do list fixes that have been on-going for some time now.

Last Friday Alec made his way over out to my suburbs to get the headlight plug replaced. I have a spare set of headlights that I never installed as they were in pretty bad condition so, the headlight plug was cut on the current harness and the spare headlight, the new plug soldered on and the globe replaced. The headlight now works as it should, with one more thing to add which is getting the backing cover to fit due to the intake size which will hopefully be this weekend.

After the first success, I thought it was definitely time to find the exhaust leak that had been plaguing me for a few months now. Last Sunday I got the car up on stands and went underneath to see if I could see the source before having to start the car and listen to which I saw this.

When the leak occurred I was doing a 2nd gear pull onto a motorway and noticed it sounded odd after slowing down, looked to be that the weld weakened the leak was made. I got some exhaust leak repair and spread it over and just around the leak area. I also saw another area which looked suspicious and added some there in the case of a future leak. I let it set and than took it for a test drive and success! No more horrible flappy sounds under throttle.

With all the success over last week, I was pretty happy that the most major issues are now fixed up. Later on Sunday I gave the car a good wash, seeing as Sydney had a pretty bad dust storm a few weeks ago and some poor weather in the days after.

So in the coming weeks, I'll have another mod to update on and hopefully even give a separate thread review on. Stay tuned!