Hiro

Subaru Upper Engine Cleaner - available from any Subaru dealership... As a warning though, these sort of products have a nasty habit on older engines of INCREASING oil consumption and blow-by because they clean out deposits which were actually helping to seal in the first place due to engine wear over time. Newer cars with less wear but still with carbon deposits are more likely to benefit.

Lews dumps got installed yesterday, big improvement in performance especially the top end, exhaust is less muffled too. Real test will be Toymods dyno day next week though. However on a sour note, took it in for a wheel alignment only to be told the right rear had 4deg neg camber and 20mm toe-in, hopefully it is just a bent suspension arm and not anything chassis-related...

^spambot? Picked up the Soarer from Premier Exhaust this arvo, dump pipes freshly fitted :D Of course, Cara got to drive it home so I've yet to experience the difference, but the fkenwoosh she did down the street and the grin on her face afterwards implies a significant improvement... Now to get the rear-end misalignment sorted, hopefully just a suspension arm bent and no chassis-work is required otherwise I'm going to turn green and start wrecking cities.

If I can sort out somewhere to stay for the night I'll be there for this, Toymods Dyno Day is the next morning in Silverwater for anyone who wants to come :D

Being Newcastle born-and-bred I know not to touch Cardiff Toyota with a 10-foot pole. Plenty of stories have gone around about bad dealings and dodgy salesmen, like refusing to hand back keys after a test-drive unless they put a deposit down etc etc. It's not like you don't have a choice though, there are a good 4-5 Toyota dealerships in the greater Newcastle area, 2 of which are within 15 minutes of the CBD (Newcastle and Charlestown). My parents used Newcastle almost exclusively, good relationship with the service manager and excellent service (despite the Corolla actually being bought from Charlestown, the experience with the Camry was enough to keep them going there for both cars). I hear pretty good things about Maitland Toyota too, bit further out of the way though. In the end though, using a bad experience with one dealer as an excuse to rag on an entire car company is a bit rich. There are good and bad places out there, and only experience will tell them apart. It's not Toyota Australia's direct fault that Cardiff are ****holes, and don't let that dissuade you from buying a new Toyota in the future (just obviously don't get it from Cardiff).

The ski-port would be lockable for the reason that split-fold seats are lockable, and the glovebox - so that there are parts of the car where things can be securely stored without being accessible unless you have the right key. This is the purpose of valet keys - they can unlock the doors and start the car, but they won't open the glovebox or boot. In the Soarer for instance (which doesn't have a ski-port OR split-fold seats, since the fuel tank is in the way), there is a button on the dash with a lock built in to it - push the button and the boot locks and can't be unlocked unless you put the master key into the button and unlock it - the valet key won't work, no key will open the boot manually and neither will the boot release lever. One of the advantages of having an electric boot release rather than a cable.

Not just same family, same basic engine (he'll have the 4EFE in the at the moment) just not turbo

You mean 4EFTE :P The 5EF(H)E is the 1.5L non-turbo.

They are the wheels off the HDT VE Commodores, which were a tribute/throwback to the VK SS Group A (aka the Blue Meanie). They then got used on a couple of special edition Retro models, which is what the ute above appears to be

Apparently an older version of the company I work for did a mass redundancy by organising a stop-work meeting, then the CEO got up on stage with the microphone from a portable PA machine and basically said that everyone was fired.

Totally different drivetrain, AL25s have a north-south engine, AE95s are east-west...

I think you're thinking of the Z-series in the AL25 Tercel (ie the predecessor to the AE95). They have a gearbox made of glass and straw. There are inherent problems with running a GZE in an AE95 though as Kebin found out, the supercharger sits just where the vacuum actuator/solenoid is for the centre diff so requires some creative modification (of course, going turbo would get rid of that). Not all A-series blocks have the notch in the right spot either and require some grinding to fit the 4WD gearbox, from memory 20v silvertops are fine. And what would be the point of having an AE95 and only using it FWD? The 4WD system is one of things that helps overcome some of the awkward styling points :P

must be a n00b just spamming his post count so he can post something in the classifieds.....

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I'm down for the show'n'shine, won't come close to winning anything but at least the money goes to the club/event.

Might depend if the QLDers take the inland route or not...

Any evidence of this? Unless you're one of the workers on the workers on the shop floor itself it's a pretty big claim to make. Pretty much all the guys I know who have worked in the car industry (or other manufacturing sectors) take pride in the product they make, even if they are unhappy with management. The ones that don't just tend to slack off or slow down, anyone who is caught deliberately making mistakes is given the boot very quickly.

Nice cases - I think there's actually an old HP case at my parent's place, might see if they want to part with it :P

You're welcome to come round and share one if you're ever in the area.

I also use the non-branded mugs for making cappucinos :D Nothing like half a litre of coffee to wake you up on the weekend.

Obviously we are all here because of our common passion of Toyotas, and some of us even take it to the next level and actively _collect_ cars, but what I'm interested in are those other little curiosities in our lives - what little knick-knack can you just not pass up in the antique shop, store or tip? What takes up a whole bookshelf relegating actual books to a box in the dusty corner or the garage? What takes pride-of-place on your entertainment unit instead of CDs or DVDs? That's right, it's Collectors - TOCAU edition. For me, I've never been a big hobbyist or collector, mainly dabbling in little things here and there like model cars, Lego (although that did grow quite large, but pretty much stopped when I turned 12). However, slowly but surely over my adult years I began collecting a range of beer glassware. I wouldn't normally go out of my way for it, but every so often there'd be a special at the bottle-o or a limited-edition pack would come out, and I'd add another mug or glass to the cupboard. Eventually, it got to the point where I have a glass for pretty much all the main beers I drink, so it gives me that little warm feeling inside to be drinking a particular beer from it's branded glass, especially in the case of a lot of European wheat beers and Trappist ales where the shape of the glass is a design feature to compliment the beer, rather than just hold it. So as I was cleaning the kitchen today, I decided to take a snapshot of my collection (and clean out a few of the dusty ones). Bit hard to see the labels and such (I just used my phone) though. From L to R, roughly grouped: Trappist chalice - La Trappe, Leffe, Chimay Seidel - Lowenbrau x2, Bitburger Wheat bear tumbler - Hoegaarden x2 (1 small, 1 large) Pilsner - Becks Tulip - Murrays, Grolsch Pint mug - a few un-branded and trophy mugs + Kronenbourg Schooner - Newcastle Brown Maßkrug/seidel - DAB, Paulaner, Uni of Newcastle Becks Oktoberfest 0.5L Vanuatu Tusker pint mug + pilsner Weizen glass - Weihenstephan, Erdinger, Schofferhofer And their forlorn resting place in the cupboard behind closed doors - no real room for any more, so we're on the lookout for a bar of some kind to get them out of the cupboard with the rest of the grog and into a proper home. So, what do you collect?

Fuel filter for his model is in the engine-bay, not in-tank like newer Corollas...

Hmm, would need to get the extinguisher fitted then, and I don't have any sort of CAMS license either....

What is required of the car? Bonnet pins, fire extinguisher, battery triangle etc? What about CAMS license? I'm interested but a complete track day n00b

Mmmm, FXGT.....