qkslvr

it's sad to see a long time member go. you will be sadly missed. good luck with everything.

hey where should i get my 50,000 service done? how much and what happens if a need a clutch adjustment??

Oz, you lucky SOB. the heart of the Sportivo in an anorexic model's body Too bad ur not in Sydney. How much are these cars going for now roughly? it may handle better, but the time u save in getting to the destination is lost trying to crawl out of the bugger

it's all go to do with meeting the new emmissions standards. it's not peek power i'm interested in. I wonder what has happened to max torque and the torque curve.

Mate, you can improve the handling of any car regardless of the make/model. the camry is really not that different to the older accords. And yet the accord is a more popular choice for mods. it's just all marketing BS. if you like the car and enjoy driving it then it's worth modding.

hahaha. i'll be interested in playing poker. I'm crap at poker (or maybe i'm good and trying to lead on that i'm crap) Hmmm. we'll see.

I got my friend's bucks night on. Maybe next time

reading that post is like trying to crack the davinci code. i only really understood half of that and the post wasn't even really that long. Yeah. let us know how it goes. if the 180 goes anything like the 200sx (S15) then you have no chance. i got my ar$e handed to me by my friends stock s15

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=10...87438&q=corolla check out the video.

fits neither pre or post face lift .. its the US one D@mn! i thought if it doesn't fit my car at least someone with a facelift could get it. oh well

hey guys. just came accross this on ebay. i don't think i suits the pre-facelift but they look nice. I think they are D.O.T approved also http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/03-05-COROL...1QQcmdZViewItem

YEah didnt i find out the hard way with the metal plate that is blocking the other bulb i was trying to take it out and slipped and put a nice big slice in my finger that went straight to the bone!!! <_< It was a very messy exercise blood went all in the inside of the hatch lid!!!LOL :P ouch!!!!!!! :o for some reason i got tingles whilst reading that. I did that once putting a computer together. never get cheap computer cases. anyway, what bulbs/LED's do you use to replace the stock ones?

Hey dude. I think i've seen you around before. i recognize that number plate

I saw one like that in Matraville near the airport once. really nice pre-facelift. Black with gold 18" rims looked hot!

hahaha, hey just cos i don't use the handbrake to get off the line :P Give me a chance to get used to the car first! Hahaha. what's going on? beaten? huh?

geez. glad ur ok. sounds like a hairy moment. the throttle cable probably got stuck inside hte sleeve. take it back. that is an unsafe defect. if it is the throttle cable. get them to replace it. u'll find they might just spray some WD40 on it. pretty poor considering it's a relatively new car.

i can't speak for everyone else but it would be cool to see some other cars there and chat to ppl with different makes and models. I can't speak for everyone but aslong as there is no hooning until we get further outside the metro area i have no probs. Oh BTW nice to meet you, Sunny. great to finally put a face to the car :)

that's gonna look hot dude! post some pics when ur done.

It was great to meet you all. t'was a great cruise. imagine what the monaro driver was thinking when all of a sudden an entire pack of corollas just came rushing up his ar$e. i think he was taking it easy. You know, with all that weight, rear wheel drive, shinny red paint...etc.

yep. the reports are true. the parts don't fit quite right. i got a copied TRD sports grille from them and the grille sticks about 8mm outward from the nose.

The time is drawing near boys (and girls) should be a fun night. i don't know about you guys but this has been a terribly long week.

got my set of wheels and tyres just two weeks ago. Now that the tyres are nicely scrubbed in, i would like to offer my views on the Nankang branded tyre. Since my search on google for reviews on these tyres resulted in a million pages of some Falcon or Commodore driver saying that these tyres are "Really good" or "these tyres are cr*p" and not explain why, where, or how i thought it would be cool to do a proper write-up. which means that is Looooooong. so if you hate reading hit the "back" button now. =) Some of you may have read my previous post which i had not such nice things to say about the tyre. Since then, the tyres have been nicely scrubbed in and i would like to retract my opinions. The tyres I have are the Nankang NSII 215/40-17. I have heard reports that they are alot better than the older NS1 tyres which are no longer available (my source works at HOT4's) Ok, now that i have the formalities out of the way, lets get on with the juicey stuff. Firstly the tyre gives good traction off the line, ofcourse with a wider width than the puney 195/55-16 Turanza, you will notice an improvement in both traction and lateral grip. Since we are comparing apples and oranges I will just say that you get much better launches and that chirp you get from 1-2 and 2nd-3rd gears changes is not as noticable, which translates to better accelaration into each successive gear. this also means more strain on the driveline; namely, the clutch. You'll notice it slipping more into the next gear. This leaves us only with rating the responsiveness and feel of the tyre. I thought to properly test these tyres out I would need some road, some really twisty roads. Fortunately, the local council thought it would be really neat and against the grain if, instead of making the local backstreets grided, they would employ a amputied, one-eyed, alcoholic architect who suffers from tremors to draw the street layout. Which is perfect for the sportivo =) first, a long sweeping right hand turn, late at night, no traffic. maintaining the turn at an undisclosed speed, the car felt like it had plenty of lateral grip. no signs of understeer under moderate power though the entire turn. then at the end is a short and sudden right hand hairpin through a railway underpass. On the brakes, steering wheel goes around, initial turn-in is excellent but halfway through the hairpin some understeer develops. A little more lock on the wheel and lifting my lead foot of that throttle slightly brings the car around. As soon as the car straightens up, hard left turn. Again, hot on the brakes and line up for the next turn. The most amazing thing about this budget tyre is definitely the turn-in. they bite the road. they fade away slighly as the corner progresses but still hold on. you can hear the tyre squirming under the car as you haul it around the corner. Hooking the sharp left, you can feel the car holding on. with the sportivo on these tyres riding on lowered springs, you can feel the slightest hint of oversteer. It's almost as if the car is on 4wheel steering. Because you're sitting fairly midship in the car, all you feel is yoursef almost spinning about ur axis as you go round the turn. It's actually so much fun you want to go back to do it again =) Some may say that Nankang's are a cheap budget tyre by Yokohama, they wear too fast, too noisey...etc and the list goes on. However, for almost half the price of a "good" performance tyre you definitely get more than half the performance. and even if they wear twice as fast it's still worth the smaller initial outlay. Ofcourse, another factor in tyre performance is consistancy. Some of the boys have taken the stock Turanza's to the track and said that they go soggy after a few laps. Since i can't really test this aspect of the tyre on the street, i'll omit this "minor" detail :) and leave it for another day. The NSII may hold up or they may get as soggy as an oil slick in a bubble bath, i'm not sure. i guess we'll have to wait and see. So in conclusion if you want a high performing branded tyre for the track, the Nankangs may not be the one for you, but if you want a good street tyre that gives good turn-in, minimizes understeer for the sportivo and quite frankly, makes the car more fun to drive whilst still sticking to a budget, then get the nankangs. Your wallet will love you for it. :) And on a side note: the stock shocks on the Sportivo are fine with lowering springs for around town driving. But on even slightly stiffer spring rates, the stock shocks rebound damping abilities (or lack thereof) can bee felt. the bumping absorbsion on the outside corners of the turn are fine, but as you exit and straighten up, the weight shift away from loaded corners causes the stiffer springs to "kick" back. since the kick is harder than stock, the dampers have a real hard time damping the motion and as a result, the car literally pounces out of the corner. Not the safest way to exit a turn. So beware those with stiffer springs on stock shocks. sorry for the lengthy post guys but i thought i'd do a proper write-up since there is a none on the entire p*rn-infested internet :) Hope this helps those currently making an informed tyre chose.

hahaha. Mate a bottle of coke is much better than a guilty conscience.

Yeah. chill it guys. MrGen3, northy's a good bloke. I'm sure everyone is just clowning with you (abit of tongue in cheek) no need to get personal. Chill pillz everyone! with that said...I took my friend (a VK Calais owner) out for a ride in my car last night. he wants one now! hahaha

in the MRS vid, the second-last run he does where the camera is focused on the exhaust tip, you can hear the distinct change in engine tone as it engages lift. pretty cool.