Hiro

1GR comes with a nice factory supercharger kit though

The 2GR in particular has come in in RWD format in the IS, GS and Crown overseas (with direct injection too), but if you want something local the only options are the 4.0L 1GRFE in the Hilux and Prado, and the 2.5L 4GRFSE in the IS250

Don't forget the Firepower pills, and the rare-earth magnets for the fuel-lines.

Doesn't that article specifically not mention Gen1 3SGEs though?

Very nice, did you take any photos in the disassembly/fitting stage? The lower-right corner of my brake pedal cops a lot of abuse from heel-toeing, so a new set of pedals would be a worthy investment.

Trim levels can easily be changed from country to country. And technically all their Aurions are imported, as they are made here in Aus. We've been exporting Camrys to the Middle East for years, along with re-badged Commodores, all in LHD too.

Most CVTs have "preset" gear ratios to simulate a sequential auto, as well as a full CVT mode. All a bit of faff really unless you dislike the sound of the engine maintaining constant RPM whilst road-speed changes (and since I drive a manual 100% of the time, I hate that sound as it feels like the clutch is slipping).

Proven to be BS/old wives tale etc. It has more to do with illumination and the eye recognising differences in colour than it does actual penetration of the fog (all visible light penetrates fog the same amount, you need to increase wavelength massively (ie so it is the same order of magnitude as the size of the water droplets) for there to be any sort of colour-specific filtering/scattering effect.

And on Sunday, the saga came to an end.....

Undo those two screws, remove the ash-tray and just firmly pull the whole section towards you - it's clipped in fairly firmly down near the ashtray so might need some leverage fron a flat-head screwdriver, just remember to not bend it too much otherwise the trim will snap (has happened on mine), it's a real bitch to get out sometimes. where would i be able to buy one of these cup holders to install ^_^ Just go rip one out from a wreckers - I think just about every ADM AE10x had them as standard

Undo those two screws, remove the ash-tray and just firmly pull the whole section towards you - it's clipped in fairly firmly down near the ashtray so might need some leverage fron a flat-head screwdriver, just remember to not bend it too much otherwise the trim will snap (has happened on mine), it's a real bitch to get out sometimes.

Until I see a nice clear side-shot in daylight with a decent camera, I reserve my right to say that those wheels look _awful_. In my mind, rims should only be black, white, a shade in-between those two, and if they absolutely have to be coloured, then a bronze/gold. Nothing else works, and things like bright red or lime green just look too NFS/FnF.

I'm always skeptical about the claims that you should fill up when it is cool, the ground is an EXCELLENT insulator and the tanks are buried several metres underground (take a look at a servo being built or ripped up, and you'll see the size and depth of the hole they have to dig) where temperatures are actually constant all year round (within a few degrees) regardless of above-ground air-temps. It is this reason that you have wine cellars in, well, cellars, because the underground temperature is constant and cool compared to the fluctuating above-ground temperature. Same thing goes for heat sinks for air-conditioners (not so much in Aus, but a lot in the US) where the heat absorbed from the room is dissipated into the cool ground during summer, and drawn from the ground and used to heat the room in winter. As far as the tank in your car is concerned though, it is designed to take into account the expansion and cooling of the fuel with regards to temperature (unlike the ground tanks, the in-car tank is exposed to significant temperature ranges), however the time it takes to fill the car is relatively short and thus the fuel won't significantly expand until the tank is full or close to full (so you're not loosing anything at the bowser). However, modern fuel tanks are designed to cope with this expansion, which is the entire reason that fuel-tanks in cars are vented - this allows the air trapped above the expanding fuel to vent back to atmosphere (through the charcoal canister, to scrub out the petrol vapours) and to draw air in to equalise pressure when the petrol contracts (via a one-way vent in the fuel-cap). The way the fuel tank is also designed is such that there is always air above the fuel even when the tank is "full", this is called "ullage" The clicks you feel in the fuel bowser are generated by backpressure from the fuel flowing in blocking off the return venting of the ullage space. Higher-flow fuel bowsers tend to "click" earlier, and this is why if you hold the handle at a funny angle it can "click" even when you haven't filled the tank. By trickling fuel in after the clicks (or by not fully inserting the handle) you can overfill the tank, but at the same time you are circumventing the in-built safety mechanisms both in the bowser and fuel tank designed to stop fuel filling at the correct tank volume.

Don't feel bad about leaving Fitness First, in the end they only want you for the money - most large commercial gyms are like that.

Thankss, one more question. If the compressor cools the air, what happens when you turn the knob to maximum heat with the a/c on? Is the compressor always off..? If you're just referring to a manual A/C system, then yes the air-con compressor still runs even when you turn it to full heat. The air that you get out of the vents will be slightly cooler than what you could get if the air-con was turned off, but the added bonus is that the evaporator acts as a de-humidifier and dries the air (which is why you should always put air-con on when trying to demist the windscreen).

Is this the same for the manual a/c? Or when you turn the a/c on in the manual one, it continously runs? Anything involving the operation of the air-conditioner compressor will affect fuel consumption, be it manual or climate-controlled. I was making the assumption earlier that the climate control was acting independtly of the air-con (as you said the air-con button was off), especially since the temperatures you were quoting were well into the "warm" range and thus don't require an air-con to reach.

In theory it shouldn't, you're just regulating the distribution of the hot air, so I can't really see it using any more fuel than just normal (there is electricity required but there is no load on the engine).

Started the AE82 for the first time in close to a year today - battery in it was completely dead so swapped over the healthy one from the AE102, got it started and cleaned out the lungs before taking it around the block to the servo to pump up the tyres, then a quick blast to say good-bye (which managed to take me straight past a cop at a speed-trap *ouch* - wasn't speeding, but even though he was on the other side of the road he could have noted the plates and checked up to find that the car has been unregistered since last September). Even though it still had half-a-tank of year-old fuel it still ran the best it probably ever had, which makes it seem even more of a shame for it to depart our presence tomorrow - nice healthy fun rev-y engine let down by a rusty shell and several half-****d former owners who put half-**** effort into half-**** work (the number of corners cut and bodgy things is phenomenal) Farewell Rosie, we will miss you.

Actually it seems like the seller/manufacturer is making exaggerated claims about what it can do - the majority of the people in this thread are skeptics, and the main one spruiking it is the seller themselves.

Comments like that really irk me, because these days Lexus IS Toyota. The engine wasn't designed for Lexus by Lexus and then converted back to Toyotas, it was designed for the whole Toyota/Lexus range by Toyota and exists in many variants to satisfy the requirements of each implementation. In fact, the GR series was first used in the Hilux and Crown, not in any Lexus vehicle.

The surface doesn't necessarily have to change, if could be the thickness of the glass and the shape of the reflector behind it that can change the way the mirror reflects.

That picture shows a current-gen Matrix, which has never been sold in Japan (an earlier generation, badged as the Voltz, was between 2002 and 2004 though). It is made in Canadialand for the North American market only (was previously built at the NUMMI Toyota/GM joint-venture plant in California)

The tyres are safe in the respect that they meet a minimum safety standard. However, that minimum standard may not be the same as YOUR minimum standard - one man's "poor handling, crap grip, squeals like a pig" is another man's "I only drive around town, rarely get to 60km/h, never take a corner in anger, and don't want to pay $300 a corner for a tyre for my bog-stock 4-cylinder econobox". In short, they are only going to be "dangerous" if you ask more of them than what they are designed for. Remember that 90% of road users are simply commuting from A to B and care nothing about how they get there as long as they do get there, and it is for these people that the cheap Kmart/Bob Jane tyres are designed for. Obviously you can't take those sorts of tyres and expect them to handle well under the punishment of an enthusiast, in the same way that you can't take a performance tyre and expect it to live up to a penny-pincher's expectations for wear life, noise and cost.

And within a day it was sold, to be picked up this weekend. Never thought that someone would want the whole car but I suppose the price I put on it was less than the cost of the parts inside (didn't really care, just wanted it gone) and it's easier to drive a whole car away than to rip out 4 seats, 4 door trims and pillar panels and also full carpet.... Going to be sad to see it go, that is assuming we can get it started :P

Private vehicle being operated on a public road though...