indigoid

210km/h, briefly, in an AE112 Levin on the road between Moruya and Batemans Bay. Wouldn't do it again. 170+ all the way from Canberra to the outskirts of Sydney (Cumberland Highway exit) very early one morning with virtually no other traffic about. In my Volvo 240 wagon. The 240 felt like it was designed for this speed - absolutely glued to the road. There were some corners I had to slow down to 140-150 for, but not many. It's amazing how different some Eurocars feel at speed to Japanese ones. Not to take anything away from the Japs (I've owned six Corollas and am contemplating buying a seventh) but this is something the Euros seem to do spectacularly well. Don't knock it till you've tried it, I say :D j.

buy yourself a toyota workshop manual j.

Yes. Old cars are the only allowed location for chrome. New cars are not. Chrome anything, including wheels, on modern cars looks IMHO ridiculous 100% of the time. Often looks retarded on old cars, too. We Aussies are lucky. The Yanks got big ugly square bumpers with big ugly rubber padding bits for most of their old Corollas, particularly in the 1970/80s. Utterly spoiled the looks. When I first saw the white 2-door pictured above, I immediately thought "bloody hell, why was I wasting time and money on modern Corollas?", and of course bought it on the spot :D They are classics j.

of course! it's just a matter of effort and funds, like any car mod

These look quite different to the 4AGZE supercharger I had. The older ones are rebadged versions of Ogura superchargers. Don't suppose anyone knows the displacement of these TRD items? They say "1.8L supercharger" but I suspect that is referring to the engine they are matched to, rather than the supercharger itself... Of course if they are actually 1.8L displacement superchargers they may be worth investigating. The Ogura items are available in one basic design but with displacements up to around 2.8L (TX28), which is fairly large. The standard 4AGZE item (Ogura TX12) has approximately 1.2L displacement. Links: http://www.corollatoys.com/parts/html/engine/trdSC.htm http://www.oguraclutch.co.jp/english/e_pro...sc/sc_siyou.htm j.

eh, I like cars. How is that at odds? I dislike the whole street racing attitude. It is irresponsible and inconsiderate, and I see no problem at all with the penalties (car impounding, car confiscation), if that's what it takes to stop idiots from doing it. Racing belongs on race tracks. How hard is that to understand? j.

oy, I know some extremely fast Volvo drivers. One of them has a Lexus V8 in his Volvo, and regularly takes it out for track days at Wakefield Park. And errr, he has white hair and looks easily 60 years old j.

My 1969 KE10 Corolla, 2-door sedan. Currently in paintshop. Doing a full restoration. This one is the crown jewel: My 1969 KE11 Corolla, 2-door sedan. Currently building an engine for it and plotting its circuit/hillclimb future. It very probably won't be road-registered: My former partner's 1974 KE26 Corolla, 5 door wagon. Her daily driver. Will become mine when she buys another car. I can't wait, it's such a lovely little car to drive, especially since we put a freshly rebuilt and mildly warmed engine in it: More pics of all of these cars (and quite a few others) here: http://public.fotki.com/indigoid/cars/my_1...e10_first_pics/ http://public.fotki.com/indigoid/cars/my_1...e11_first_pics/ http://public.fotki.com/indigoid/cars/donn...e26_first_pics/ http://public.fotki.com/indigoid/cars/donn..._ke26_20040426/

Sure, I can say with a straight face that I've never, ever been in a traffic light drag. Racing belongs on dragstrips. Only idiots race on public roads. End of story. I haven't actually seen such a traffic light drag around here in ages, but rest assured that next time I do I will be on the phone to the Plod telling them the license plates. Not sure how Plod would treat such a complaint, but it'd at least make me feel content. I'd expect the same if anyone saw me behaving that badly. Nothing would please me more than idiot drivers losing their license and potentially their expensive cars. As for FWD oversteer, my Levin (2001 shape) used to do that quite easily. It happened twice; once on a dry road, and once wet. Both times it fishtailed badly as I'd little experience of such behaviour in a FWD car, and I overcorrected. I didn't like it at all, and now I'm fairly certain never I'll buy another FWD car. My (RWD) Corolla will probably be a bit of a handful (short wheelbase, narrow track, very lightweight, weird front suspension design) in the wet as well though, and I'm not sure what I'll do about that. Perhaps just not drive it on wet days. j.

Of course you can't compare it to the rx8 or liberty, and I wasn't. They are just other cars I would consider buying, as I'm not in the market for only small hatchbacks. Very probably I'd lean toward the RX8. They are wonderful cars Yes, power:weight. Hopefully BFYB will include data like braking distances, lateral g, slalom tests, blah blah blah. There's plenty more to life than acceleration! For what it's worth my Corollas weigh around 710kg, bone stock. They are rather older though :D edit: comparing it to my Volvo isn't as outlandish as it first seems! 2.3L 4cyl engine, 100kW, similar torque to 2ZZ, 1350kg, 4 speed + overdrive gearbox. They are much bigger and barely 100kg heavier, and rear wheel drive, but none of those should really affect cruising rpm! I suspect the major differences here are the diff ratio and "it's a eurocar", so the indicators and wipers are on the correct sides of the steering column j.

A slightly taller 6th (no real need to touch the other ratios, except maybe 1st/2nd/3rd a bit shorter) would be nice, I think. Even a 500rpm drop at 110km/h could be a noticeable improvement in comfort, and perhaps economy too. The ZZ motors aren't so gutless at the bottom end that this would mean extra gearchanges when going up hills, so why not? If Toyota sold an AWD Sportivo wagon here with aforementioned gear ratios I'd buy it instantly. Perfect for skiing holidays (less likely to need chains, plus more luggage space), wet weather, camping (decent luggage space), blah blah. Much more practical than a hatch or *vomit* a sedan. I think that would be truly worthy of BFYB, even though it'd cost more (they couldn't ask too much more though, look at Subaru's Impreza pricelist) I'd better go sleep now. Need to fix the Volvo tomorrow :(

Bloody Volvo drivers indeed. One question I'd like an answer to is "where do I keep my hat in a Volvo wagon?" it has no parcel shelf! :D :D :D Good point about the quality with Renault. Having owned mostly Toyotas and a Volvo I have pretty high expectations in this area. On the other hand I haven't heard anything negative about the Clio build quality and reliability. I had an AE112 (2001 shape) Levin for a while, and wasn't overly impressed when the interior started rattling badly within 6 months. Both of the Corollas I have now are 2-door sedans :D One of my friends has a Sportivo that he drives regularly Sydney -> Canberra -> Sydney, and says that even in 6th it revs too high at highway speeds. That would annoy the hell out of me. At 3500rpm in 5th my Volvo is a bit past 150km/h My prediction is Mazda 3 for sub-30k BFYB 2004 j.

No discussion of negatives? Why on earth not? Every car has faults. Even the Sportivo. I note that you didn't actually contest any of my points. Why not? Were you secretly wishing I wasn't right? True idiots wouldn't objectively consider all of the options available to them, such as the Clio. I've also very seriously considered the Mazda RX-8 (and driven one), and also looked at the Subaru Liberty GT Premium. They are in a different ballpark, though :D For what it's worth, I have driven both the Sportivo and the 1ZZ Corollas. I quite liked the Sportivo (other than the issues I already mentioned), but mainly because the 2ZZ seemed so much nicer than the 1ZZ at all parts of the rev range. I'd buy it to tootle around town in, it'd be wonderful for that, but for driving fast on that kind of money I'd choose something else, very probably one of these: http://www.prbaustralia.com.au/ j.

Sportivo for under 30k BFYB in my eyes is dubious. Why? because they're far too heavy[1], don't have an LSD[2], and make it far far too easy to uselessly spin wheels when cornering. Not really sure what I'd pick instead though. Realistically if you can afford to spend 30k on a car you can very probably afford to spend 34k and get a Clio Sport instead - much lighter, not much less power, and (opinion) they don't look like ****. I love Corollas, have owned six so far, and will be buying more in the future. Already got my next purchase teed up. I don't see the Sportivo as a winner though. [1] my Volvo wagon is barely 100kg heavier (yes, really, I have the roadworthy sheet to prove it), and just look at the size difference! The Volvo is longer than my carport! Sportivo is 124kg heavier than the Levin. That's ridiculous. Where is the extra weight, anyway? Surely it's not all in those seats and other small interior changes, and I doubt that the 6 speed box is much heavier at all than the 5 speed [2] no excuse for this. Other Corolla (and Nissan Pulsar SSS and Q, and Honda Integra) models have had LSDs optional or in some cases standard for ages now, yet it isn't even an option with the Sportivo. FWD sucks in my humble opinion, but an LSD makes it at least somewhat tolerable

"rotaries are unreliable" "hondas are unreliable" blah blah blah. please, if you are planning to make such sweeping generalisations, you should either have hard data (and this doesn't include stories like "XYZ happened to my mate's sister's lesbian partner's mum's car") or not post it at all. I've never heard of hondas being unreliable, in fact I've only ever heard the opposite. j.