Hiro

More torque down low = only a slight increase in max power but at much earlier revs. The 2.0L is essentially a stroked version of the 1.8L.

Was probably heading down south for the Finke...

This extract should be posted out to all those people who think its cool to have that stupid red rear fog light lit up on their clapped out old shi* box hyundai excel when there isnt a hint of fog around.If youve ever cruised the F3 to Sydney and got stuck behind one youll know what I mean::::::::::::::::::: Most of the time that is due to them accidentally hitting the switch and not realising they are on - from memory it is in a stupid spot and may or may not have a warning light on the dash (or the bulb has blown.....then again, idiots drive around for miles not realising that their indicators are still on, so anything is possible)

Mate the only lesson i learnt is how much trouble a 1.8L can cause a 6.0L when 800cc injectors get installed :P :P :P :P Assuming blow-off valve pipes don't, well, blow off.....

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.

Because your one bad experience over-rides plenty of other people's good experiences... My S. Drives have lasted close to 30,000km before their first rotation, and going on the wear that the rears (now on the front) have received they should be good for another 10,000km. Your driving habits will influence the wear of the tyre significantly, and even then there will always be lemons no matter what the brand.

Some photos from the annual meet, showing the new plates

*note to self, start planning holiday for next year. Most of the week off before and afterwards should be plenty :D

You missed my point, on both occasions. Yes there is a distinct difference between fog lights and driving lights, but you specifically said that QLD legislation is that fog lights are always yellow and driving lights are white/clear - I provided documentation from Queensland Transport to directly refute that, and Steven then backs me up on it too. As for the penetration, you fail at physics. There is a difference between how well the light can "penetrate" the fog, and how well it reflects back to you and makes things visible. White light (which contains yellow light, remember) penetrates fog just as easily as selective-yellow, but to the human eye the yellow light might appear more visible to the human eye because of the contrast of the light to the "colour" of the fog, and how it reflects back off road-signs and the like. Effectively, the lights will "penetrate" the fog the same, but in certain circumstances the selective-yellow will provide better visibility. I'll quote a lighting expert here "What explains the persistent subjective preference amongst experienced poor-weather drivers for yellow fog lamps, despite decades of white fog lamp prevalence? Selective yellow light can improve a driver's ability to see in fog or rain or snow, but not because it 'penetrates fog better' or 'reflects less off droplets' as is commonly thought. That effect is known as Rayleigh Scattering, and is why the sky appears blue. However, it occurs only when the droplet size is equal or smaller than the wavelength of the light, which is certainly not the case with ordinary fog, rain or snow. Roadway Fog droplets are several orders of magnitude larger than visible light wavelengths, so there's no Rayleigh Scattering. So, why do yellow fog lamps seem to work better? It's because of the way the human eye interacts with different colors of light. Blue and violet are very difficult for the human optical system to process correctly. They are the shortest visible wavelengths and tend to focus in front of our eyes' retinae, rather than upon it. To demonstrate this to yourself, find a dark blue store front sign or something else that's a dark, pure blue against a dark background in the absence of white light—from any appreciable distance, it's almost impossible for your eyes to see the blue lighted object as a sharply defined form;the edges blur significantly. Deep blue runway lights exhibit the same effect; check it out the next time you land at night. Blue also is a very difficult color of light to look at; it stimulates the reaction we call glare. Within the range of allowable white light, bluer headlamps have been shown to be 46% more glaring than yellower ones for a given intensity of light — see studies here and here. So, it seems culling the blue out of the spectrum lightens the optical workload and reduces glare. For a more detailed examination of this effect with respect to driving in foul weather, see Bullough & Rea's study on the topic."

Funny that, because if you read VSI G 1.0 you'll see a specific mention of fog lights being "white or yellow light". The difference between fog and driving lights is to do with their wiring (driving lights can only be turned on in conjunction with high beams, fog lights just need parkers), mounting (driving lights are traditionally high and centred whilst fogs are low and wide) and beam (fogs are low, wide and with a sharp cutoff, driving lights are high and wide with long range) Ohh, and the thing about "yellow light penetrating fog better than white light" is bull****. It has to do with visibility and reducing glare - both white and yellow light "penetrate" normal fog the same. The effect known as Rayleigh Scattering (the reason why the sky appears blue and what most uneducated people claim is the reason why yellow light is more visible than white in fog) doesn't take affect until the light is passing through a medium of a "size" (in the case of fog, the size of the water droplets) that is smaller than the wavelength of the light, and water droplets are much, much bigger than the wavelength of any of the colours of the visible spectrum

The classics The Corollas The Aurions

My photos were a bit sporadic, didn't take anywhere near as many as I normally do and some sections got left out completely :P but that's what happens when you spend more time talking to people and less time aimlessly wandering. Got to start off with me :P The chicken Charlie is the original Toyota chicken received (along with a cooler bag) when the car was bought new from Charlestown Toyota in December 1997. All new cars from Charlestown Toyota got those items (considering Mish had one on the desk I'm assuming other dealerships did too), and the "mascot" of Charlestown Toyota is a giant crazy chicken statue out the front of the dealership with rotating crazy eyeballs. A car of which I had great pleasure in parking next to and looking at all day :P QLD number plates are awesome. NSW number plates are seven shades of boring in comparison... Pedo-bear at large - kiddies beware

Completely different gearbox, unfortunately. The Tercel gearbox is essentially unique - no other Toyota in Australia has a gearbox even remotely similar, and the engine layout is fairly unique too (the engine is actually north-south even for the FWD models). Pretty sure the gearbox is a Z-series from memory, if that helps.

Just thought I'd lighten the mood by thanking everyone for yesterday, show-and-shine was really well set up and everything progressed smoothly. Big props to Castle Hill Toyota for letting us use their carpark, sucks that we couldn't get a hybrid Camry or a Rukus for a centre-piece though, wouldn't have been surprised if they would have picked up a few sales from it. Thanks as well to Mish, Mark, Pete et al for running the show, counting votes and all else. Great to catch up with a few faces I hadn't seen for a while, as well as the out-of-towners and banana-benders, and to put faces to cars to avatars. Oh, and also props to Bill for his around-the-world cruise for kebabs......well, around the world for everyone except for me, as I was going somewhere 5 minutes down the road afterwards :P.

After parking next to this for the better half of yesterday, I must say that I was impressed - haven't been a huge fan of the ZRE hatches up until now, but this really showcases just how nice they can be made to look Oh, and I want your wheels :P

Friday night - cleaned and vacuumed it the best I could (those who know my car know that it has lead a long hard life) Saturday - drove down to Sydney for the annual meet, then a drive halfway around the world for a kebab, then home via my brother's place Today - Fixed the blown tail-light from a week ago; ripped apart, diagnosed and fixed the blown interior light from god-knows how many months ago (got sick of having no interior light), and diagnosed, pulled apart my centre console, rebuilt the cigarette lighter and replaced the blown fuse from yesterday so I could have sound system, clock and charging capabilities (charger for GPS would have been appreciated yesterday on the around-the-world kebab jaunt). Also attempted to fix the error on the headdeck in the Celica so that it would eject the CD (didn't work), fixed some more of the wiring up, and put some new wipers on

Going to wash and vacuum the car tonight, would have loved to actually give it a proper clean but no time, it's hardly show-worthy anyway but I'm entering purely to fly the flag.

I think a ban on repairable write-offs is a _terrible_ idea, because it relies on the value of the car and the cost of repairs to determine if it is a write-off, not the actual physical damage. A bent front-end that is easily repairable might be covered by insurance on a locally made Falcon might classify as a write-off for an imported 3-series BMW, simply because parts and labour would be more expensive. You can get two essentially identical cars which differ purely on insured value, do the same amount of damage to them, and one will be repairable and one will be a write-off simply because the damage is greater than the worth of the lesser insured car but less than the one with more insurance. Think about an older car you might have owned. Older cars are generally insured for a lot less (because they are worth a lot less) yet damage tends to cost the same regardless of age. I agree there is an issue with cars being declared repairable write-offs and then dodgily repaired by a chop-shop for a quick buck, but the issue is the chop-shops, not the insurance write-off. It's akin to banning roof insulation because of the dodgy installers and fly-by-nighters. Or to quote a classic saying, "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" What you _will_ get now is people not insuring their old cars, simply so they don't run the risk of them being written off in a relatively minor accident and being sold-out from under them.

Canadia-land Team - Red Bull (I still have faith) Drivers - Webber, Hamilton Pole - Hamilton Fastest - Webber

Whilst this might be applicable for small business/tradies, it goes out the window for industry. Almost all industry workers, be they sparkies, boilies, fitters, foremen, supervisors, mechanics etc will wear the same clothes, and the colours will be based around a standard hi-vis strip (usually white or yellow) and then the rest of the clothes will be some combination of the company colours. My old company all the workers wore yellow and olive, and my current company they all wear dark blue and white (both those sets are closely linked to the respective company colours, although in the current case it is the colours of the former incarnation of the company before it was taken over by a bigger multi-national)

At least they look better than the ones that HSVs come with these days...

There is a difference between a repairable write-off and a statutory write-off. A repairable write-off is a vehicle that is damaged to the extent that the cost of the repairs exceed that of the insured value of the car, thus it is more financially viable for the insurance company to "write it off" than to repair it. The vehicle may still be serviceable if it is repaired, and can be registered if the repairs are carried out. The insurance company will pay out the insured value to the owner, and then sell off the wreck for a nominal value to a wreckers, scrap merchant or repairer. A statutory write-off is a vehicle that is damaged to the extent that it could not be returned to a servicable or roadworthy state - ie there is sufficient unrepairable chassis damage, or damage that cannot be repaired without contravening ADRs. The vehicle identification number is struck from the records and as such can never be re-registered, however servicable components that are either repairable or undamaged can be swapped into another chassis.

Toymods would be a much better place, they have a big Crown following there. Rollaclub, as the name suggests, is primarily a Corolla-based forum, and whilst some members would have experience with Crowns, it wouldn't be the first place I'd look.

What I did yesterday: Put my new plates on What I did today: Oil change, front brake pads, and Cara is currently in the process of re-wiring her head-deck and speakers. After that, I get to do another oil change, if I can be bothered (and if she decides she wants to take it to Bathurst tomorrow)

Toymods run Toyotafest there later in the year, but I'm fairly certain you need permission and Red Yard (ie the operators of the whole site) are site-sponsors on Toymods too so they probably have a reciprocity agreement