Ilivfor6

Love to have a go at that custom exhaust when it's done. Hopefully it'll be a twin exhaust, gotta love that look.

The exhaust will be dual chrome tip (thats 2 tips -OO- sitting side by side on the drivers side)

The development is going to cost Peekay and myself 4 figures (materials, labour, Dyno time etc) and a lot of time without our cars. We intend when we get it right to make it available to all the forum at what it costs us to buy (no profit).

After seeing some of the messages Paul recieved over the wings and wanting him to haggle the price down more (people asking for another $10-$20 off) I wish to make it clear that whatever price the exhaust will be posted at there will be no negotiation. If you want it, that's what you pay. Postage/shipping from the manufacturer will be through who we organise at a set price!

As far as styling (and we have already recieved a couple PM's on could we do this or that) it will be up to those putting up the money (thats me, Peekay, Shao who has been supplying great information and spent considerable money on testing other car development items, & Danyther who's donating his exhaust to be cut in half and examined).

Any mods/alterations to our final design will not be possible and will be up to the buyer to take away and carry out themselves

Sorry if this all sounds a litlle blunt but I just want to make it clear and avoid another 'wings' post situation - if you looked at Peekays messages you would understand <_< and be a little p!ssed too. Some here have to learn all this stuff costs money and lots of it. If you do not have the $ then save for it, do not continually haggle the price. It just makes it too painfull to attempt these things and then offer to the group.

And NO we are not rich. We sacrifice in other areas to be able to afford to do these things. Even if it meens we have to work an extra job. I myself can work upwards of 90-100 hours a week!

Stew control Paul please :D

***** mate, not asking much are you

You seen how much bigger than me he is... it'll be like putting a cute little kitten in with a pitbull :D :D

No offence intended Paul... Honest. Truly just some friendly banter. Umm ok maybe I went a little far but it wasn't my fault, danyther made me do it :D

Guys. does anything seem fishy to you? why would a lack of engine power trigger action from ADR over engine noise? unless its the other way around. be weary guys. they may be playing games. Generally speaking, to make things quieter would mean a loss in power right? so does that mean they have a more restrictive airbox and detuned ECU in store? Hmmm interesting. I don't mean to stir the pot but just wanted everyone to keep their heads up and play it safe.

If for instance, they came out and stated that the engine is too loud by Australian Design regulation for a "non sportscar" and all owners now have to return their cars for de-tuning. what kind of reaction do you think they would get? (rhorical question :P ) i have some reservations about this whole "free upgrade" sounds a little fishy.

The reason it was hit for breach of noise regulations has previously been posted. In Australia a car with a at the flywheel figure of less than 140kw must conform to very strictnoise regulations, a engine with over 140kw has a muck higher noise regulation. (Try driving a few other 140kw+ vehicles - an older type are for example - and the engine is noisier.

The problem Toyota faces is as the car was supposed to be it met all noise requirements but as the car has fallen short on specified power it had to be retested at the much more strict regulation.

Trust me it is much easier and cheaper for Toyota to make sure the power figure meet 140kw as to get the car to come under the sub 140kw regulations. To lower the noise level they would need to drop the rev limit considerably and they cannot hide that and redo the exhaust at minimum.

Besides Toyota's legal team would not allow them to fake/lie about a recall to secretly detune cars. The lawsuits they would be open too and the volume of fines that would come from the goverment would be unthinkable. They are not that stupid!

And no they do not fly in black helicopters or have a crashed alien spacecraft at their headquarters :o

Just chill out a little. If you are so concerned spend your money and have your car put on the same dyno before and after to put your mind at ease. I think I will keep my $150 to $200 and put towards the bulk of some C1 wings :D :D :D

hey guys, i wanted to paint my calipers this week sometime,

was wondering, which 'red' is dark red, like same as the brakes found on type-rs?

i dont want that reddish red like in the post above. i want a deep red. if that makes sense :P

a brand and exact color name would be excellent, thanks in advanced.

.

If you want a darker red then think of as a artist/painter.

First give your calipers some good coats of black and let completely dry. Then build up a few coats of the red very slowly letting them dry between coats. Stop applying red coats when you have the shade of red you like. (remember each coat of red will make it a slightly brighter red)

Do it slowly and carefully and you should get a result you are after.

Cheers

Both Peekay & myself have spoken to our dealer regards the cars refusal to go into some gears at times, not so much the notchiness. As the dealership is also a Honda dealer he was able to say they have had a similiar problem with the S2000.

It would seem that Toyota might not have put in a strong enough clutch in the Sportivo, where it does not quite have the strenght/clamping force for the high reving engine/gearbox combination. Why?... so as to keep from having a heavy clutch pedal.

My car is approaching 25000km and I know for a fact, it is getting worse the more km's I do.

The dealer has lodged an official form with Toyota Japan (not Australia - did not know they could do this) and he says they will here back directly from Japan on this issue as apparenty Japan does/must always reply to this form. The only drawback is it can take a couple of months.

I doubt though I can wait that long so will shortly replace with the TRD clutch and the dealer will do the installation for me.

And then you know what confucious shaohaok says "If you do clutch... A wise man also do Flywheel". With pearls of wisdom like that you have to listen! :D

its ok waiting on my silver one for now

The wait does you good. It builds the anticipation!

Most of us guys who bought the Stivo in the just after release period had to wait 3 to 5 months for delivery. That was painfull! :(

But it is certainly worth the wait!

If you have mods already on the car the unichip will still make a good difference as the Toyota remap will not be tuned for them. With a good CAI setup alone a unichip can make a substantial difference.

Besides outright performance the unichip makes a big difference in throttle response, the Toyota remap will still follow their usual setup with only a few incremental steps in throttle positioning unlike a well tuned unichip which has many.

If you look at some of the race focused Porshe's you can buy straight from factory, these cars are already highly tuned compared to a normal Porsche from the assembly line, but a unichip still makes a big difference.

I am still very confident a unichip will be a good investment in the overall driveability of the car and intend to do it. No doubts in my mind!

No... I don't own shares in them either, I have just had them on nearly every car I have ever owned and on every one of them it was well worth it and never disapointed!

Just a tradie =)

apprentice plumber actually..

Cool!

That would make you qualified to check out your avatars plumbing. Lucky b@stard you :D

OK Daydream over. (Wipe drool from bottom lip)

Senior Graphic Designer / Art Director for International Company representing the main US Movie Studio's.

What's this really?... I get to play on my computer all day with things like Shrek, Lord Of The Rings etc, and get to assign all the things I don't want to do or won't be any fun to someone else! :D :D :D

Show women a good time! B)

Sweeeeet :D

And once it's lowered you won't even recognise your own car!

Does anybody think some sort of virus has hit ATOC the last month. Everybody's wheels seem to be getting bigger all of a sudden.

hrm... its dead quiet in here after my reply... i wonder why... B)

Hmmm... if you were a little self concious you might think nobody liked you <_<

Don't worry if you hit Melbourne I'll shout you dinner, make you feel welcome!

In Melbourne we have the country's finest restaurants. Just got to look for those large golden arches out front :D

Knowing both of you as I do yeah I am really convinced ..... :P :P :P :P

Ouch that hurt Peekay

Play nice would ya... and leave me my dillusions

I am actually in the middle of convincing my wife to go a new corolla sedan sport and have the suspension done similiar to mine, larger alloy wheels, exhaust (have to speak to Danz about that), CAI and unichip.

That would be a sweet ride for her (heck for just about anyone) and I think a lot more fun to drive than the SP23. And I will still have 6-7 grand left in my pocket for my car :D

If she goes the sp23 I told her at its cost it would need to stay stock, and she does not like the sound of that!

I have slowly turned her from "It's only a bl@@dy car why do you need to do that to it" (and very loud mind you) to wanting to be one of the girls out Fast & the Furious. She has even started a gym program to try and get herself into similiar shape as them. Big smiles from me, I just keep on winning out of that :D :D :D

visa guy... i dont work at customs

Sorry about that :P

What was that you were telling me... Something about getting staff discounts for everyone on the forum

Now everyone will PM you and intrduce themselves.

You never told me on the phone what colour you ordered!

having just done the same comparisson, i have just bought a silver 2004 model sportivo (there about 30 australia wide left for sale once the "service bulliton" has been acted upon and the are up for sale again).

Sp23 is good but not for 32000, thats the best deal i could get, better than the 34000 tfrom the fish smeeling guy in essondon mazda. (manual drive away).

Bought the corrolla as it drives and the gear shift is infinatley better than the sp.

The sp has teflon coated gears that feel like your mixing glue in a tin of crap.

Thabnks for the tip on the phone the other day stewie, love the site.

Hi mate,

Nice to see you made it to the site. I just hope it does not get to too eager while waiting for your car.

Look forward to seeing you at the next meet

Cheers

The main dispute is that on an engine dyno set to Toyota specifications the engine does not put out at the flywheel the advertised 141kw. This is now a fact!

Toyota is just not talking at present. There is a fix and replacement parts are heading to Aus. Hopefully we will not have to wait too much longer for a free performance upgrade. But it is coming :D

I personally think the SP23 isn't as bad as you may think.... It may suck stock, but is more easilly tunable then the stivo. The 2.3 engine has a much lower compression ratio than the stivo and old SP20 2L engine so I feel would respond quite well to turboing... with a little work I'd be a damn quick car... so just a work of caution before you get a rush of blood at the lights, know your competition.... give them a little respect...

I agree. It is a nice car, it's just not the stock performance car the salesman was trying to make it out to be.

If I was looking at a small car to do forced induction to the SP23 would definately be it. It would be easy to get that thing hammering and an increadible drive with a hairdryer bolted on.

Maybe there's an idea for Mazda to do a real performance model. I'd buy that!

Hey Kcorro,

Isn't that the guys from Faifield / Thornbry way. They are the one's who did Peekays car. It was the first Sportivo they had done. I wonder if that is the car they are refering too.

Seeya tonight

Same here!

Just moved Just Car Insurance too. Cover all my mods which vitually no one else will for about a $100 a year more than what the others wanted for standard!

When I rang them to pay by visa the guy I spoke with had actually jus purchased a new Stivo and was waiting for the fixes to come out so he could pick the car up.

I directed him to the forum so will have to see if he pops up!

Please don't!

Do your suspension properly. This is a part of the car you don't cut corners with.

If you do not quite have the money now, try to save for a little longer. I put off my suspension for 9 months and till I could do what was best. Believe me know I am so happy I did.

Cutting corners on the suspension can really compromise the safety of your car, it's not worth it!

Ay Stewie!!!!! you didnt actually think the dealer was gona drag you now did you???

No that is why I made the offer. But you can live in hope!

If he had of said yes I would have become a little nervous, but in the end I had just driven the SP23 so new it was a safe bet. It just does not have the punch.

Have spoken with the misses about me following in my car while she is on the test drive and will run each other if the oppurtunity arrises. And believe me we will make the oppurtunity arrise!

I would love to see the guys face as he sits next to her and watches me pull away. I will have to get a bigger mirror

This guy has just got my back up a little so now I feel I need to prove a point. It must be my scottish blood

When I posted the picks I did not intend to start World War 3. We have enough other car owners verbally going us & our cars, we do not need to go ourselves.

I just told Peekay to post the results of some tests we ran to compare our cars but he replied why bother if they want to attack they still will. So I've decided to tell what we did and the results!

OK Peekay and I have run some tests after he did the unichip in an industrial estate on a sunday not long after him having the unichip done. The only performance difference between us then was the unichip. Instead of the usual lets just drop the clutch and sprint to a hundred like idiots we did side by side in gear tests so as to remove driver ability from the equation and purely test the cars (the same as I have done with my brother & his type R).

First test: Holding 20km/h in second and flooring it in unison.

Result: Peekays car pulled a car lenght on me by Lift and then almost another in lift. By rev limiter there would almost have been a full corolla lenght between my front and his rear. Same result a second time.

Second Test: Holding 20km/h in third and flooring it in unison

Result: By lift Peekay had about 2 lenghts on me and then in Lift pulled about another lenght.

Third Test: On freeway dropped to 75km/h in 6th gear and accelerate.

Result: Backed off at 120 with Peekay having pulled a few lenghts.

Conclusion: Peekays cars driveability is far more improved with much better in gear acceleration than mine. How does that equate to a straight drag I do not know as we decided a long way back we would not drag each other as we do not want that sort of competitive attitude between us. Instead we are just focusing on improving the overall driveability of our rides. If a much better 0-100 time is a by-product of that even better but that's not the focus.

If this is doubted talk with Danyther as we have had lenghty chats about this very issue of going for driveability over 1/4 mile times.

After these tests and having driven Peekays car many times I have no doubt about the improvements of the Unichip, and to put my money where my mouth is I already have one ordered and are just waiting for the recall on our cars before having it installed.

My last point I would like to make in this long email is that I do not remember Peekay stating his car is ultimate but instead saying it is quicker than it was and considerably better to drive, but I have seen a lot of other posts by members talking his cars performance up more than him!

I really hope this forum does not turn into so many others where everybody just wants to run everyone else and prove who's is faster, better or who is the greatest driver. I think all our cars are fantastic and if someone does more or better mods than me great as I can then learn from what they have done and try to improve my own car more.

But the day we all want to prove who has the biggest ***** them I am out of here.

Now come on kids lets get back to the real issue of US against them, not US against US.

Thats my say..... next

Yeah already spoke to mike (the general Manager at Josh Sady) and they have sold that last red one, besides he said he would not want to sell it to me as 1 sportivo in the family is enough.

He is a really close family friend, always trying to look out for me, and felt that I should consider something a lot cheaper and more family friendly like a sedan. I think he has hopes my wife and I will start a family soon - Cold shivers just raced down my spine :o

But the wife, who is forever saying she has never had a new car, would luv something a little more sporty. I think she's a closet car chick just waiting to burst out :D :D

Have been looking at buying the wife a new car. Have considered a second Sportivo but she really likes the Mazda SP23 sedan. I can't argue too much considering the Mods she has let me do without many complaints!

So I thought I should check the Mazda out before deciding to take the wife to see it

Well I have just come back from a Mazda dealer checking this car out. It goes something like this:

A youngish salesman comes over to me and asks if he could be of help. I tell him the wife is looking for a new car and have been considering a Corolla Sportivo.

"In my opinion" he goe's "having driven both the Sportivo and SP23 the corolla is no competition, the SP23 will easily accelerate away because of its bigger engine and leave the corolla well behind. I found the corolla lacking and so have all the motor reviews in the papers, and after numerous track days with Mazda I have to say the SP23 is a great performance car for the money" These are almost his exact words.

His corolla bashing went on for a few more minutes and then continued on the spirited test drive of a sp23 (demo with 10,000km on the clock) with him telling me to open it up and feel the acceleration. As we pull back into the yard he says "You won't get that performance in a corolla" mind you the breaks had turned very spongy & soft.

Really I said pointing out into the street "see that sportivo sitting way over there... that's mine and it ain't lacking in anything. I've had a couple SP23's go me at lights and let just say they were reading my rear plate from a distance"

"Not if they were serious" his reply. I was growing tired of all his talking so decided to see if he would walk the way he talked and back himself up so made him the following offer.

"Ok then what say you back what your preaching. Lets line the cars up out in the sidestreet (the street was pretty empty) and give them a run, no need to tell anyone. If you can beat me I will come in and sign a contract, no questions asked no haggling. Sh#t if it wins I'll give my wife the Spotivo and keep the Mazda myself."

"Serious if you can prove it is the quicker car I will buy it"

The offer was declined while still protesting he was right. What a *****

Oh and by the way they were asking $33800 driveaway for a manual with no extra's.

Yeah the car was nice, but there was no smile generated on my face as I played with it well into the redline.