Hiro

$14 =/= free.

Will you did check the dates on those articles? The oldest is more than 4 months old, and the others 3.....it's been known for ages (and a lot more has come out/been clarified) in the meantime, hardly breaking news.

Valencia Team: McLaren Drivers: Webber, Hamilton Pole: Webber Fastest: Vettel

Voted Other, as I use a variety (usually what is on special :P) No real preference for any one brand as long as it isn't crap, I don't go to anywhere near the detailing level of some of the other guys here but every so often I'll give the car a decent wash. Must say I was impressed with the $6 Kitten cutting compound and carnauba wax, one tin of each and my car was a changed animal - 12 years and the car had probably never been polished in it's life before then. Coming up to 12 months later and you can still tell which panels got done and which ones didn't (rain stopped me from finishing, and I've never gotten around to doing the rest since, although will in the next month or so)

Should tick over 330,000 in the AE102 on the weekend....

We take both our vehicles to Charlestown Toyota @ Bennetts Green,its only 1/2 hour north of Doylo lights. Found it very hard to fault these guys,they are upfront,courteous,being going there now for the last 6 years.Thats probably the reason we have purchased 4 vehicles off them.Yes they do take any issues even minor ones as serious as a major fault.We have a good relationship going with those in the service dept, which to us is just if not more important than buying the vehicle in the first place,but if you work in Sydney surely there is a dealership down there who could do your serviceing whilst you are at work.If your car is still under new car warranty you can have it serviced at any Toyota dealer but if they gave you an extended 3year /175000 km warranty through them at the end of the new car warranty thats when you have to take it back to them for serviceing.I would be inclined to start up a good rap (so to speak) with another dealer and down the track see if they will honour the extra warranty,I dont like your chances though,but what have you got to loose,all they can say is no sorry,best of luck Funnily enough, Charlestown Toyota was where my parents bought the AE102 new from, and it has never gone back there since (various reasons). All warranty work on both my parent's Toyotas was done at Newcastle Toyota (where we bought the Camry a year earlier, and who have been excellent to deal with). Granted, Charlestown Toyota have probably improved over the last 10+ years, and our issues with them was the Sales team not Service, but it still stuck with us............although we did get a free cooler-bag and stuffed Toyota chicken from Charlestown, Newcastle gave us nothing :P

Traction/stability control programs often activate through either the existant ABS system (which is brakes anyway) or via engine management (ignition retard, fuel cut etc), neither of which affect the operation of the gearbox. Clutch pedals are and will most likely forever be completely manual while they still exist (either cable or hydraulic), what is actually happening is the traditional manual transmission is being replaced by either sequential semi-automatics (which don't use a H-pattern, shifter linkages/cables or a clutch pedal and essentially are manualised autos), dual-clutch gearboxes (DSG in Audi/VW terminology) which run clutch pedal-less setups and sequential shifters on a manual-style gearbox, or continuously variable transmissions (CVTs) which are an evolution of the automatic gearbox and don't have a clutch pedal (and will offer an infinitely-variable drive gear and a "stepped" 5/6/7-speed over-ride which is basically just fixing the CVT into particular ratio combinations). In short, the easiest way to tell if you have a real manual gearbox with a physical link to the gearbox (Bowden-cables for FWD or mid/rear-mounted gearboxes), direct- or remote-linkage for front-mounted RWD) is to look for two things; 1) A clutch pedal 2) A H- shift pattern

99% of FWD cars don't use linkages (except on the shifter and transmission themsevles), they use push-pull cables (called Bowden cables, like the throttle cable or the ones you use to change gear and brake on your push-bike). You're probably getting confused and thinking that the cable-shift is electric - the only Toyota I can think of that uses any sort of "electric" control over the manual gearbox is the sequential clutchless manual in the MR2 Spyder, which was still a plain manual gearbox just with electric motors controlling the action of the cables/linkages/clutch.

I see plenty. In fact, there are at least 3 FPVs in my car-park at work, and not one HSV.

Are you using Internet Explorer 7? I get the exact same problem at work, but at home on Firefox 3.5.9 it's all fine.

Toyo-Assassin clone anyone? Although he hasn't started insulting us yet :P

Because a prick is a person who goes around and bursts everyone's fun-balloons :P

You can get spacer rings from any decent (or not decent) parts (Supercrap/Repco etc) or car audio shop

Bit of an in-joke there to anyone who has ever used SAP before

Some I've made over the years

Which is why I've been looking for one for so long....sucks that it's black and doesn't have the indicators or fog lights (indicators I might be able to get off an LG Nova, they look the same, but the foglights will be a mission and a half).

You kidding? He had a lens longer than his car... Hahahahah, I was probably lost in the sea of cars that are better than mine >.> You get used to that feeling after a while, I know I have. Then again, I'm behind the 8-ball from the start for just owning an AE102, the orphan of the Corolla world. Not that it bothers me :P

You got so many shots but I don't recall seeing you running around with your camera at all... You kidding? He had a lens longer than his car...

The 3SGE isn't an easy conversion into RWD at the best of times, unless it's an Altezza BEAMS GenIV. And the VQ25 is a V6 engine, not an in-line. Best bet would be to head over to Rollaclub, they'll probably try and sway you off the 3S or the VQ though as neither are the best conversions for a novice - better bet is to get to learn the car as it is now, service it, pull it apart, do a manual conversion but keep the 3K, and then look at maybe upgrading to something a little more powerful. Hey Hiro I have been offered a half cut altezza with a beams for $5000. But ill hit up the rolla's anyway cheers. P.s I actually ment that i knew the vq25dd was from a skyline. i was considering a 6 in the k as its been done before. If it's a an Altezza BEAMS then most of the hard work is now irrelevant - you'll only really be left with modifying engine mounts/crossmembers, driveshaft, and wiring.

More like 27W RMS per channel for your average MOSFET 4x50W headunit. 7W would be about the power of the loudspeaker on your phone.

AE82 is in permanent residence in the garage (until we can get rid of it) AE102 and ST162 live in the leafy driveway.

Yoko don't advertise it as a long-lasting touring tyre, they advertise it as:

Tyre placards (which dictate standard tyre size and load rating) are usually specific to each individual model.

That is correct. The AT-X requires a higher load rating for some odd reason so you will need to look for other tires. whoa, hrmmm thats news to me... any reason why the atx would need a higher load rating?? adverse effects that could arise from using a 94W tyre on the ATX? Most likely because the stock wheels/tyres on the AT-X naturally come in a higher load rating (bigger tyres and smaller wheels generally do), and then the regs state that you can't put something on with a lower rating than what came standard, and thus the anomaly arises. Same thing used to happen from memory when they facelifted the ZZE, you could put Sportivo wheels on the pre-facelift Ascent but not the facelift (or something like that) due to the change in size and rating of the standard wheels/tyres.

Thankyou,was nice meeting you also, If you had 5 stud rims I'd sell them to you ;) And if I had 5-studs, I'd buy them :P Been looking for a decent set of 17x7s for a while now, offset is the main sticking point as I have +40-ish at the moment but plenty of room in the guards so could easily stretch to a +35, but this is quite hard to get in a 4x100 and a decent style and/or colour to match the 102.