Hiro

Are they road-car tyres or light-commercial tyres? Quite a common problem with leaf-sprung utes, the rear end is designed to operate properly when fully loaded (~1 tonne payload for instance) which then compromises unladen performance. Compound that with light-commerical tyres which are designed for load carrying rather than grip and you'll quite easily spin the tyres.

If it's 5-stud it'll be 5x114.3 which is the same as Falcon (and pretty much all 5-stud Toyotas too), I've seen plenty of Hiaces with Territory steel wheels on them.

Foggies shouldn't be too hard as the top-spec models came with them

as a rule of thumb, same time as the belt :)

That's mainly to save on labour though, as to change the pump you have to take the belt off on a lot of cars.

resetting your ecu after doing mods like intake or exhaust is a good idea. Modern ECU's are capable of 'learning' to a degree and a reset will help

The easiest way to do this is drop the negative off your battery, then stand on the brake for 30sec, then reconnect the negative.

Most of the older Toyotas (ie pre-OBDII) you could reset the ECU by removing the EFI MAIN fuse for a couple of minutes, that way you don't lose your radio settings etc from disconnecting the battery. Not sure if it works on the newer models though as I've never had to try it on something with OBDII

Offset = distance from centreline (width-wise) of wheel to mounting face

Cold(not yet started), or once the majority of oil has has returned to the sump for the most accurate readings.

Engine oil does not really expand or contract due to heat as much as automatic transmission fluid, so realistically as long as the oil is back in the sump the you will get a more accurate reading.

Fortunately, the warmer the engine oil is, the faster it will drain back to the sump too :P (which is why it is recommended to do oil changes when the engine is warm)

Hey y'all, just wanted to know how do you paint letter on tyres white?

More or less what to use and where i get it from, i want more JDM awesome points from it

Cheers

If anything, white lettering is an American muscle car thing, not JDM...

October cruise cancelled

There are too many maybes for Oct cruise so difficult to organize food and stuff, so on behalf of Pete I'm cancelling it..

Normal Sat night meet on 27th saturday now.. Thanks

Dang, was just about to confirm as well, had cleared my schedule and there was a chance of grabbing the keys to the Soarer too :P

would you not just buy a turbo glanza?

EP91 Glanza Vs are quite rare here (all imported), much more so than EP82s, so it is more common to convert a normal EP91 Starlet.

Time for a bit of an update, nothing really much has happened of the last couple of months except for fault-fixing, here are the anti-Cliff Notes presented in fairy-tale form:

A long long time ago in a land far far away, a skilled blacksmith and his faithful apprentice warned the princess of the castle that the diff was starting to leak in the faithful steed, and that they should look at replacing the seals. Figuring that this would be a good idea since the diff was a bit overdue for a service anyway, the prince went online and bought some genuine KAAZ LSD oil, and then managed to get a set of diff seals from the kingdom of Amayama. Seeing as how the kingdom was short of time and money, these sat in the boot for a few months waiting for an opportune moment to be installed. Then suddenly one day an evil gremlin snuck out during the night and begat mischief on the steed, and from that day on the steering wheel sat about an eighth-turn to the left when the lion was travelling straight, as well as some devilish sideways action mid-corner. Figuring it was also time for a wheel alignment, the princess booked it in with the “wizards” at Bob Jane for a wheel alignment and wheel rotation. The magic wizards then proceeded to tell the princess that the right rear wheel had eleventy billion degrees of toe-in and so much negative camber that it was on as much of a lean as an Adidas-wearing 180SX driver’s front seat. In their infinite experience and wisdom they explained that they couldn’t carry out the wheel alignment, and that the rear suspension and/or chassis was most likely twisted into the shape of a pretzel.

Disheartened by this news, the brave princess and her stately prince returned to the castle with their heads down. After much deliberation and inspection, no discernable damage could be discovered, so a second opinion was sought from the local sorcerers of suspension, a place of apparent repute and masters in dark arts of understeed dynamics and geometry. When it was apparent that some work was to happen on the rear end of the steed, it was decided that the diff should be serviced at the same time, as well as the seals replaced. Almost immediately the sorcerers confirmed our suspicions that the chassis was indeed straight and true, and that the true damage lay in the bushes, which were worn from the years of supporting the powerful and burly steed. Since no bushes could be found to replace the worn ones in short time, the alignment was adjusted to the maximum extents allowable, which was just enough to allow the steed to track straight and no longer bolt for the hills under even the slightest provocation mid-corner. Whilst disappointed that the problem had not been fixed at the source, the prince and princess were nonetheless relieved that the steed could again be ridden in confidence.

However, within only a matter of days it became apparent that the newly serviced rear-end of the steed was not behaving in a manner befit of a royal steed. Whilst she would track straight and true on a flat level road, there was an almighty clunk from the rear end in even the slightest of corners under power, and the kick that had previously been a mere annoyance had become wickedly vicious. Inexperienced in the mysterious workings of a 2-way differential, the prince hoped that this would calm over time as the freshly serviced diff was once again tamed. With the royal wedding fast approaching, the prince and princess could not afford the time nor money for the steed to be laid up in the blacksmiths, and from that moment on it was left in the stables as much as possible, only to see the open road when absolutely necessary and ridden with extreme care.

After the stress and turmoil of the royal wedding died down, the now king and queen decided that it was time to fix the steed’s evil ways once and for all. Having considered the possibility that the diff was beyond repair, and having a spare factory diff still in the box from the previous owner, the steed was stabled once again at the renowned Nova Auto Innovations blacksmiths shop where this tale began, with the prime intent of getting her re-registered for another 2 seasons, as well as finally getting to the bottom of the curse that was vexing the rear end. With much delight (and surprise) the skilled blacksmith and his faithful apprentice informed us instantly that the heart of the issue lay with the left rear wheel bearing, with a full ¼ inch of float which would explain the wicked kick and god-awful clunking, quite possibly caused by incorrect fitment when the diff was serviced. Despite having to wait over the long weekend for parts due to the peasant’s holiday, it was assured that the faithful steed would be prepared in time for the following Wednesday. And so, a quarter moon after she was first delivered to the stables, the mighty steed was returned to the king and queen fully cleared for registration and exorcised of her demon troubles. It was with much rejoicing that the queen gleefully accepted the return of her steed, and whilst she still has her foibles (the exhaust still scrapes on any bumps larger than a pebble, and the paint needs touch-up after a few unfortunate scrapes as well as a strange discolouration down her left flank) all of these were momentarily forgotten and left to be fixed another day.

Cliff Notes:

Diff leaked

Wheel alignment went funky, bushes were stuffed

Idiot 1 said the chassis was bent, got second opinion

Saviour 1 said the bushes were stuffed, fixed the diff

Saviour 1 possibly turns into Idiot 2 as rear end now kicks and clunks horribly

Left untouched due to expensive and stressful upcoming wedding

Post-wedding, re-regoed and rear end kick and clunk attributed to stuffed wheel bearing

Wheel bearing and hub replaced, now hauls **** once again.

First one is Paso de los Caracoles between Chile and Argentina, second one is the Transfagarasan in Romania

That's ridiculous! Red is the highest and that only gains 25kW

2 coats my friend, 2 coats...

I've said it before, and I'll say it again - full red tailights look sooo much better...

Due to the Hydrogen cell mod on my hilux i would like to keep carby power as modding the h20 system for EFI is a expense/ head stuff im not up for yet. :(

Please explain...

To be honest, I see that grille on just about every single done-up Hilux around.

Part of having heart and soul is individuality, uniqueness, something that your car can provide that no other one can (or few others).

Omg miss out again :(

Just bum a ride with someone

And another little bit of JDM bling (that will mostly be hidden). Apparently these are getting harder to find now as they stopped making them, but I managed to get a brand new one from the UK relatively cheap

The old Momo logo

New one fitted

Probably won't see much daylight as I normally keep the horn pad on so I don't attract undesired attention, but still a nice little rare thing to have.

1: Nix19

2: Hiro (maybe, would meet up part-way at Richmond)

Tried to install catch-can yesterday, hit a big brick wall as I couldn't get the bracket to fit anywhere in the engine bay (mainly due to my CAI pipe and TRD strut brace). Looks like I'll have to get a custom bracket made up to mount to the old airbox/transmission mount bracket as that is the only real space in the engine bay big enough, then get new lines and fittings to suit.

Also changed all the drive belts (Alt-WP, AC, WP-PS) which is a real pain, but now my engine is squeak/whistle free :D Culprit looks to be the pin-hole in the WP-PS belt, that and the fact that both the AC and WP-PS belts look to be original factory items (confirmed by the original owner, my dad) :P The amount of things on this car that haven't had to be replace in it's 15 year ~370,000km life continue to amaze me, especially the clutch and brake rotors.

The reason why you have oil in the breather line is that the PCV system only works properly on part-throttle (ie vacuum conditions). On full throttle (ie no vacuum) the PCV won't open and any cam-cover pressure will force the vapour up the breather line instead.

Weight I think is a definite killer, you're getting the same sort of times as an AE102 which has ~15kw less at the flywheel and 1 less gear (but 200kg lighter).

Black car looks alright, blue one looks horrible (but I'm fairly sure it's just a crappy photoshop effort). These could look alright, but I guess the proof is in the pudding.

Going by this:

http://www.cuscousai...plague-the.html

My Cusco logo is right-way up, it looks polished not chromed, the blue rings on the sight-glass are name-branded (although looks like a Chinese name), the hose is white-Teflon braided (well, it's definitely white) not metal. Don't have all the brackets so can't confirm what colours the L-brackets were though, and a couple of websites have said that the "Made In Japan" etching is relatively new (if you look at the product photos on Nengun for instance, you can see that the Made In Japan logo isn't present).

Best bet is to ask fillit, he bought it second-hand off Yahoo! Japan about 6 months ago :P If I had to hazard a guess, it's a genuine one, just an old one

I didn't buy it new :P