Full-Throttle

I got these aftermarket LED door lights in the mail today. They're designed to be a direct plug-and-play replacement for the original door lights and are a lot brighter and, of course, whiter B). Installation only took about 10-seconds per light. They fit a number of different Toyota/Lexus models, so if anybody is interested in getting a set for themselves here's a link to where I bought them: http://www.aliexpress.com/item/2pcs-Super-Bright-6000K-White-Car-LED-Door-Courtesy-Light-for-Camry-Tundra-Land-Cruiser-for/32238275181.html And a random shot at the gas station

The TRD calipers are red and are etched with the TRD logo (photos care of Google) -

Usually I'm not a big fan of stickers but when I saw these 'V6 DUAL VVT-i' stickers I just had to have some. They were originally for the 2009+ Toyota Landcruiser Prado with the 1GR-FE engine, but can be bought from an Australian seller on eBay very cheaply and in 10-different colours. I opted for the metallic silver (hard to tell in the photos below as they make it look white) and they go with the rest of the car nicely. I've only put the one sticker on the rear windscreen for now, but if I can find a suitable spot for the other one I'll use that too :)

Sounds like a pretty sweet deal for someone! However the condition from the prospective buyer about sourcing a factory stereo and reversing camera to make the sale sounds rather strange. I can understand that they may prefer the OEM one, but I would tell them it's their responsibility to replace it once they buy the car. The factory reversing camera is somewhat unique to any aftermarket one as it has it's own plastic mounting bracket that goes through the metal in the bootlid, so if you didn't have one installed from factory you'd have to cut a rectangular hole for it and change to the factory connectors to suit the headunit. It all sounds like a bit more trouble than it's worth to be honest, and there's no saying that the guy won't bail out of the sale at the last minute, so if you do decide to go ahead with it I'd strongly advise getting a decent deposit from him first. Good luck with whatever you decide! :)

I got the VVTi oil line replaced today (the one on the back LH side of the engine) as over the last few days I've noticed a few drops of oil on the garage floor, despite cleaning it up every day, so after reading how common the problem is with that poorly designed hose/line I decided to get it checked out by a mechanic to diagnose it properly on a hoist - Sure enough, it was that infamous line causing trouble, so I ended up replacing it with the full metal line that Toyota brought out for the last of the facelift models and latest GSV50 shape, so it will never leak again. It cost me a couple of hundred bucks in labour, but it's a fair trade off compared to thousands of dollars for a new engine, so all-in-all I'm happy :) These photos are courtesy of Google Images as a reference to the line I'm talking about: One more very minor addition that arrived a couple of days ago - OEM style shank-type lock nuts. Finding lock nuts to suit factory alloy wheels was harder than I expected as most of the lock nuts on the market are made to suit aftermarket wheels, so lack the built-in washer and shank style flute that recesses into the wheel. After shopping around on a few international sites I finally managed to find a set on AliExpress, so these should help keep the wheels safer from any would-be thieves

Got my TRD center caps in the mail today. It's funny how the smallest things can sometimes make the biggest difference. Now, usually people would cringe at someone doing this, but in my defense the wheels actually are genuine TRD 18" Kappa's, and only some of them came with TRD center caps (which were rather bland looking), so these aftermarket caps definitely make it that little bit better :). The first photo shows the original center caps as a comparison:

I certainly agree that the speedo and revs are much easier to read on the facelift cluster (I guess a lot of people must have complained about it on the pre-facelift moddel, and something that took a little getting used to when I first got my Aurion) but it just looks so 'bland' in my opinion. Very generic and like every other late model car out there. The bright blue bands and floating numbers give the earlier cluster a certain 'wow-factor' that I just didn't get with the revised version.

Vertini Dynasty for sure.

I managed to get around to installing my front camera today. This is the same unit as my reversing camera except in matte black, and will help to get into my garage without hitting the wall with the front bumper (since the Aurion only JUST fits in today's modern garages). It gets activated by pressing the AV1 button on my aftermarket headunit. The hardest part of the install was getting the wiring through the factory rubber bung in the firewall, mainly because the RCA plug is much larger than an ordinary wire. So what I ended up doing was poking a straightened out coat hanger through on it's own first, and attached the opposite side of the cable to that and then pulled it back through into the engine bay. Should make life a little bit easier getting into the garage, when parking in front of high concrete car-park curbs/bollards and when going down steep driveways B) I also decided to see what a facelift instrument cluster would look like, but I wasn't a fan so quickly swapped back to my original pre-facelift cluster: