birdie

Anyone done this recently? I'm considering doing this now... I'm going to be keeping my car for a couple of more years at least... so I'm wondering if anyone has supercharged their Camry recently? If so how much did it cost roughly? (US exchange rate has to help right?) Is this something you can do yourself if you have a bit of mechanical knowledge and experience? or is this something you need to get a performance mechanic to install and tune? How hard is it to find a TRD supercharger these days? and how much?

I was having troubles with my car surging, and running generally rough at idle and not under load... (like going down a rise). It was fine under power though... Now I had my car serviced at Toyota today, and they found a couple of vacuum hoses disconnected, and one had to be glued back onto the air-box... it explains the problem now that it was to do with vacuum and reason why it was fine under power... Now they also said the VSV valve was faulty (which I googled and found to be vacuum switching valve)... Now they quoted me $515 to get the part from Sydney and replace it (so labour and parts)... now I got a price for the part is only about $155 and I can get it cheaper again through my dad's trade account at Toyota. So I'm wondering why its so expensive to fit the VSV... is it really time consuming or hard? Or is it a job my dad and I could do? (dad used to do a lot of the mechanical work on their cars, utes, and tractors when we lived on the farm...) The part number is: 90910-12174 The car is a 2002 Camry Sportivo, 1MZFE V6 Manual...

I tried my iPhone on one at the local Toyota dealer after posting this last year, and I couldn't get it to recognise my iPhone via USB... I wondering if it was that it didn't support the newer iOS version? It worked via Bluetooth but no song title display, and you had to control the iPhone playlists via the iPhone. Anyone had any luck with this one recently?

Ok, I have got a 2002 Camry Sportivo (V6, Manual) (MCV36R), and soon after getting the car I removed the factory 6 disc in dash stacker and installed my Pioneer Single DIN headunit from my previous car... now this works fine, but it doesn't have bluetooth and doesn't look very factory. Is also has a fairly small screen... So I played around for a while with a carputer, I had bought a new dash surround and custom molded in a 7" touchscreen for the carputer. I also bought Centrafuse (software with GPS, media support, etc) but then just as I was ready to install the carputer I discovered Centrafuse doesn't support the iPhone... big deal breaker for me... so i've gone back to just the Pioneer headunit I've got, which does work with my iPhone via the Pioneer iPod Adaptor, but it dosen't charge it... Now I've also been looking on eBay at the Chinese double-DIN GPS/DVD/iPod/etc headunits, but for me none of them seem to have a consistant interface, they all have a different interface for the GPS and the audio system, etc, so that's turned me off the idea of them. So I was thinking after being in a friends new Kluger and discovering that it had iPod support, that maybe i should look at getting a newer genuine Toyota Headunit, and upon investigation, it appears I can get a genuine Toyota headunit (PZQ60-00051) which has a 4.3" colour LCD display , 6 disc in dash stacker, bluetooth, usb, ipod, and rear camera support... Now I'm wondering if anyone had one of these headunits, or has experience with them? What is you experience with how well it talks with the iPod/iPhone? Does it read the playlists directly from the iPhone? and does it display the Song Title on the screen? I've seen someone has managed to mod one to move the USB port to the rear of the headunit, and add RCA outs for connecting to an amp: so that's a couple of my questions answered. I guess my final question is, does anyone have one that they have upgraded from that they want to sell?

A while ago my sunroof started to rattle, but Toyota fixed it when they did my service on my car, but its rattling again, and its a while until my next service is due, so does anyone know what needs to be tightened to stop it rattling?

Hmm, the guy looked at the King catalouge yesterday while i was there and he showed me that they had lows and super lows... but i didn't see if it mentioned only being for the front or rear... so what are you saying? are you saying that I would have super low' in the rear, and lows in the front? Well its not the bodykit cracking, just the paint... it could have been a dodgy respray job from when i had to get my car fixed up after buying it... long story, but basically I'd owned the car for about 5 mins, was leaving the house of the person i'd bought it from and a stupid lady in an old commodore backed out of her driveway without looking behind her, and back straight into my drivers door... so yeah i had to get the door replaced and they resprayed a the front guard, and the rear door, and i think they did the front bumper as well... and i haven't been 100% happy with their attitude and the job they did, so yeah that's probably why the paints cracked of the lip so easily...

Well I got my new shocks installed yesterday, I went with the KYB Excel-G shocks. So I got the 4 new shocks, new bump stops all around, a new rubber boot for one of the front shocks, and a front wheel alignment. Total of $1175 fitted... The guy told me my rear passenger shock was completely stuffed, you could push it down fairly easily but it was hard to pull back up, aka rooted... and the bump stop was non-existent on it... and the other rear shock was well and truly stuffed too, and the fronts were stuffed as well. Definitely a noticeable difference in the handling and ride now... A lot smoother and quieter :) The car is sitting higher now though, but the guy said they will settle down over a couple of months. And he checked what springs I have and they are King Lows, not super lows that I originally thought... (they were already of the car, so I had no idea)..

Well I got my new shocks installed yesterday, I went with the KYB Excel-G shocks. So I got the 4 new shocks, new bump stops all around, a new rubber boot for one of the front shocks, and a front wheel alignment. Total of $1175 fitted... The guy told me my rear passenger shock was completely stuffed, you could push it down fairly easily but it was hard to pull back up, aka rooted... and the bump stop was non-existent on it... and the other rear shock was well and truly stuffed too, and the fronts were stuffed as well. Definitely a noticeable difference in the handling and ride now... A lot smoother and quieter :) The car is sitting higher now though, but the guy said they will settle down over a couple of months. And he checked what springs I have and they are King Lows, not super lows that I originally thought... (they were already of the car, so I had no idea).. Now just to fix the couple of rattles that I have (one being the sunroof) and get my car tidied up again... I need to get a few parts resprayed on my car... The rear bumper needs doing, someone has clipped my bumper in a car park at some stage and didn't leave a note, my front body kit lip has got the paint cracked and has fallen off in a couple of spots (probably due to hitting stupid high concrete blocks at the front of nose-in car parks around town (some of them are way too high ) and I have a new rear driver's side door handle to get painted as the one on the car broke one day and the back part of the plastic where it pivots broke... And while I'm at I'll get my bonnet resprayed to fix the stone chips and a couple of spots where a had a bird crap eat through my clear coat So that's the next on the list of big bills for my car (hopefully my last too)... :(

Why the new bodykit? What's wrong with your original one? Please don't get those mag's, you'll make me too jealous... :-P S/C and nice mag's... you're not allowed :P What size were you planning? I'd love a set of 19"s on mine...

But weren't you concerned about paying a little bit extra for proper shocks for you Camry? If that's the case, are you even willing to put the money in for a supercharged setup? These S/C's are rather rare at the moment. The SC is a want... and it is not something i would actually be getting short term... we've got too many other bills to pay and loans to repay before i can seriously consider a SC... If i'm completely honest with myself... by the time we can afford a SC for the Camry (plus the rest of the gear to do it properly) I'll be probably wanting to upgrade to a new car (maybe a TRD 3500SL)... but doesn't mean i can't dream, and hope to win the lottery (impossible since i don't gamble at all) to pay of our loans (wife's car loan, and wedding loan are the main ones)

Andrew, out of interest what are you getting rid of your KYB struts for? updgrading? what to? what sort of $$$?

Thanks man, but most of the research and hard work was done by our (Brisbane's local) Camry king Dave. Can you PM me your email please? I'll take some pictures of the bay tomorrow in detail + descriptions for you. I'll PM you my email address too, I've got pretty much an identical car... Man, V6, 02, Sunroof, High Spoiler, Lowered on King Springs, I just NEED the S/C :-D

Long time since an update... Been slowly making a bit more progress on my carpc... the screen mount is just about finished... been trying to make it perfectly smooth (had a couple of tiny pin holes i had to fill with spot putty) and its nearly ready to paint... got some silver paint mixed to match the climate control surround... and will also repaint the door handles (interior) as they have lost a bit of paint in its life... mainly from fingernails i'm guessing... I've also been working on a mount for my Pioneer CD player for down in front of the gear stick... I've got to make fibreglass face for it so i can mount the cd player... If anyone's interested I can post some photos of my progress so far... Also on a sad note, a couple of weekends ago, I had to pull out my Focal speakers from the front as they are playing up... :-( the drivers side one was making a distorting sound with bass (most noticeable with male's speaking), and when i pulled out the passenger side as well it seems the coil in it is seized inside the magnet... so I've got to price getting them repaired versus getting them replaced :-( So back to the stock 6x9"s in the front doors for now... Also got stuffed shocks atm, in the process of getting quotes to get them replaced... leaning towards KYB Excel-G stuts at the moment...

Here's my car btw: http://au.toyotaownersclub.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=23883&st=0&p=349385

Ok, I've been around town for a few quotes... Toyota wanted $1157.25 for genuine struts (and a bit less than a $1000 for trade), just for the struts... not fitted... Went to a local suspension place, they use KYB shocks, and recommended them, he recons they will handle the lowered springs... He wanted $200 per stut, plus $70 for the bump stops, labour of $195 and $60 for a front wheel alignment, so a total of $1125 fitted... That's for the KYB Excel-G shocks I'm pretty sure (the quote doesn't list the model, only the part numbers: 334424, 334425, 334426, and 334427)... Does that sound reasonable? AutoBarn has Monroe shocks for about $150ea, or the KYB shocks for $180ea plus $20per pair... so they end up same as the suspension place... but they also said that the KYB Excel-G shocks aren't actually lowered shocks, and that they are the standard shocks? but I said i knew someone that has this combination and they said well you are probably ok...