Hiro

Hi forum readers, my first post here.

We have recently purchased a 2000 Rav4.2. It has done 120k km and has a complete service history from Toyota dealers and independants.

One thing I find odd, the oil specification from Toyota seems to be 5w30, however the owners manual, maybe printed by Toyota Australia, specifies 10w30! The internet confirms that 5w30 is pretty common and 0w20 is an option for better fuel economy, on the later cars at least. I've checked my invoices, the Toyota dealers list "Toyota oil 10w" which I assume is 10w30.

Why would they change from what Toyota specifies? Seems odd. As we drive mostly infrequent short trips and overall, cover very low mileage per year, I want to make sure it has maximum cold start protection more than anything else.

The engine puffs a little smoke on start up which ****** me off a bit because it has had all the servicing specified and then some more. I hope its not because of the use of 10w30, probably not. Searching the internet would discover this is not that uncommon. Did Toyota just get it wrong, is this a crap engine?

My guess is that the 5W30/0W30 is for colder climates like Japan (where it would have been manufactured), and Toyota Australia bumped the rating up to 10W30 for our warmer environs. Definitely not uncommon for world-wide cars to have different oil specs in different countries

That's a nice bit of ammo to use against the people who constantly whinged that it would never be $30k...

gives me a ridiculous 6.6km per litre..

I want that !!

You're mistaking km/L for L/100km

They're rare because they weren't sold here...closest we got was the 75 'cruiser and the SWB Bundera (that Prado is the LWB version of the Bundera)

Isn't the frame number normally recorded on the build plate anyway? I know on the Soarer it is.

When I got the head for my corolla shaved, the dude told me that green coolant causes aluminium heads to disintegrate..

Well that's bull****, I've seen plenty of alloy heads (which is just about every engine for the last 30 years when you talk about Japanese cars) running green coolant. As long as you change the coolant regularly (like every 2 years or so) you won't have a problem with corrosion with green coolant. Red coolants are generally longer-life, but it's not like you can only use one of them in alloy engines.

Is that 1130 Thursday or Friday?

Thursday night, it's a good 10 hour drive with stops so doing a midnight run makes sense, gets us down to Melbourne Friday morning with little traffic and time to rest-up before the Friday night meet.

What you're probably seeing is the cheap crappy fog/driving light mounts you can buy from Supercheap that mount to your number plate, look like a nudge-bar but provide no protection whatsoever. Nothing Toyota-specific there.

whats codemaster?

Last year, I drove with eastern creek on the wet and my skills are not up to challenge, after doing a lot of research and playing a lot of raining conditions in my Codemaster F12011, my skill has significantly improved

I should be down for another midnight special, probably get down to Sydney earlier and crash for a couple of hours

tomorrow i will get my first car

First car you own or first car you've driven? I hope you're not still on your Ps or the like, otherwise this entire topic is most likely useless.

yeah cheers for the input guys. i think i found what i wanted, a hilux trd. big $$ still, they hold their value. i dont really need a ute atm, but have always found them handy, and the trd's look great, have the performance and things like inbuilt gps etc.

TRD Hilux isn't a turbo-diesel though...so have priorities changed then?

GOR cruise does sound good, although it would mean finding accommodation for another night, plus would make 3 solid days of driving (including the 12 hour trip home) in a row...

Oh the irony that F1 cars don't actually have brake lights....

I don't

if i didnt go the RB30 btw i found a cheap RB30 engine thats why i was going to get it. what do you think?

Don't use a particular engine just because you can get one for cheap/got one lying out the back of the shed/mate sold me one for a case of beer. The money you might save in buying the engine will be mere pocket change in comparison to the costs of trying to marry up an engine, gearbox and drivetrain from a completely different MAKE of car, let alone model. As everyone else has said, something like a 1GGTE would be a much wiser swap, plenty of people have done them successfully in the past and they put out good enough numbers to keep you satisfied (and if you're not satisfied with that kind of power, then chances are you wouldn't be doing a conversion on a Corona in the first place).

GTi AE92 doesn't sound right. AE93 perhaps? Very early SXs were AE92 but later ones and all GTis were 93

Mmmm, Supertouring Caltex Seca....

Not too sure why it went like rubbish with no restriction, maybe there was too much flow??? I ain't a specialist soo I'm no too sure

Probably went well up top, but like a dog down low. Restrictions in the intake tend to improve low-down torque at the expense of top-end power and breathing. And technically there is no such thing as too much flow in an intake - the engine draws in as much air as it needs, unless you are physically forcing extra air in (either via a turbo, supercharger or a proper ram-air setup) you can't "saturate" the engine. A big-enough restriction can prevent the engine from drawing enough air in, however.

I would rather see the test done on a 1/4 mile, not on a dyno. 5 runs standard to get a decent average, 5 runs with CAI to get a decent average. Its obviously not going to nock .5 of a second off, but i think it would be a more accurate test of what a cai actually does. I dont think i dyno would be making the best use of air flow.

Mind you, ive never really believed on testing any car on a dyno.

Seriously? Tracks have differing conditions, whereas dyno's can be controlled environments. Tracks also take into account driver error. Dyno's have a controlled airflow with the use of fans as well. They both have their purposes, but in this case a dyno is sufficient for the intended purposes.

If the weather conditions stay consistent, with back-to-back 1/4mi runs (with short cooldown to get intake temps back down) I'd be favouring the drag strip over a dyno for reliably showing improvements. Auto would help to limit variability in launches (or you could do a rolling start like a 40-100km/h test for instance in a manual).

Whilst dynos do have controlled airflow it doesn't fully replicate the airflow that a car would get at the speeds it is going on a dyno (for instance, the Snoarer got up to 190km/h when it was on the dyno), dyno cells can be substantially warmer than outside air (which can defeat the effect of a "cold" air intake), and back-to-back runs almost always yield different power results (from heat-soak etc). I've seen 10-20kw drops on back-to-back dyno runs on a turbo car, despite being run within a minute of each other and the operator flooring it each time.

I'd take that comparison with a grain of salt. Firstly, it was at least 5 years ago (I've seen it as long as I've been posting on car forums) so there is a very good chance that all the filters in the test have changed since then (what company doesn't improve it's product over 5 years?), it wasn't a terribly scientific test, and it could quite easily have been skewed towards a particular product (anyone who's read the Street Commodores oil comparison will know what I'm talking about).

Geez, so is ANYONE actually coming from Queensland now?

Hello. I have a 1994 Toyota Corolla seca Hatchback automatic. It's basically a nice car but from dead cold it seems to take about 10klm before it drops into drive from the overdrive gear. It's definitely not running in 2nd gear and then drops into drive. I'm sure it's the overdrive gear. Any suggestions. Thanks

Doesn't make sense? Overdrive in a 4-speed auto is 4th gear, so it is strange that it would be in 4th when cold. Drive isn't technically a "gear" either but rather allows the gearbox to select any gear, so it can't drop "into" Drive from 4th/OD - the gear selector will be in the "D" slot but the auto can actually be in 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 4th depending on road speed and engine load.

Maybe you're thinking that the transmission isn't dropping into OD/4th from 3rd when cold? If so then it is completely normal, a lot of 90s transmissions prevent the gearbox from selecting 4th/OD when the engine is cold, even if the OD button is pressed in, as it prevents the engine from being loaded up in too tall a gear whilst still cold (and also helps with warm-up times).

Got to be quick with me around...