Squalled

Hey all, For anyone wanting more detail relating to the ported intake manifold, I have created a new thread as below: Happy reading!

Hey TOCA, This has previously been discussed a long time ago about porting the intake manifold on the 2ZZ (specifically the Sportivo manifold as it can be split into 2 pieces). Well, I’m writing this as a review of a ported intake manifold after recently purchasing and installing one. Many people may think that porting the manifold is a waste of time and that you might as well go down the route of turbo or supercharging, or to go for an aftermarket manifold such as the DDP manifold. This is not to cause controversy by any means but is to simply get the information out there for more people to develop their N/A 2ZZ’s to the very best. This what is done to the manifold in regards to porting. The runners are left as is, this is specifically within the plenum and prior to the runners that are cleaned up and ported. I know this might deter people into thinking ‘it’s not a fully ported manifold’, but please keep reading through. The manifold runners are removed and the plenum section is cut open to begin the work. Within the plenum section of stock 2 piece manifold, you will see 2 pillars that are within the manifold that affect air flow to each runner. These are cut out and the remaining metal ground down to reduce any flow interruption into the runners. On top of the plenum, you will see velocity stacks at the of the runners. From Toyota, the casting is poorly completed, Leaving what resembles slanted donuts throughout various manifolds. These are ground down and evened out to increase flow. Comparisons between a stock intake manifold and a port manifold. The combination of the improved velocity stacks and the removal of the pillars is what is completed in terms of the porting on my particular manifold. Now, having this done I can provide what to expect with this style of ported manifold. Once installed, I started the car and checked for any strange noises, leaks etc. With no issues, I let the car warm up and took it for a spin. The first impression was that down low is almost the same as before, I did notice that the response had increased nicely and the revs climb a lot smoother and quicker than before. I decided to do a quick pull from 1st and another rolling in 2nd to get an idea of the gains. Both pulls went to the start of 3rd so within the speed limit. In first gear you notice there is no dip whatsoever in power, it’s smooth all the way until fuel cut and the revs climb a lot faster than before. Even in between gear changes, there doesn’t seem to be the slow rev climb back to fuel cut now. It continues to remain smooth. Another major change noticed was how loud the intake noise became. The crossover into lift is quite loud and very pronounced and at roughly 7000 and beyond it has a nice growl resonating through the intake, currently a 2.75” intake. For comparison's sake to make a little more sense, the sensational increase of power between a short ram intake or stock air box compared to a cold air intake. It’s that gain, on top if that makes sense. As it is a noticeable by the pants gain, it would definitely be evident on a dyno. Overall, I’m super happy with the ported manifold. For those that don’t want to read the whole thing and want a TLDR; installed ported manifold, increased response, increased torque and power, smoother power band, fast rev climb, loud intake sound. You may as well read the the whole review though to get a better understanding of what to expect if you’re really considering going towards porting. My mods are linked in my signature for those wondering what I have done to my car. If anyone is serious and genuinely interested in getting a ported manifold done, please send me a message and I can provide further details into getting this done. Thanks for reading! Sorry for the bold font (can't change it for some reason 🤔)

Alright time for another update! So in the last 2 weeks, I've had some nice new major mods added to car. After a lot of thought on the existing setup, it was time for a change. The two major changes are a ported intake manifold and the change from CES ported headers to a custom designed, 4-1 header best known by the very few who know as the Chuned 4-1s. What began life as mere pipes. Was quickly turned into the 4-1 headers I got, within a week. I know you must think they don't look anything special to look at but, the design is extremely well thought out for the best possible gains for an N/A setup. Let's begin with last Sunday. I headed over to my mate Alec's place to get the manifold installed. Since he'd also got one and installed it a few days earlier, he was pretty familiar with what needed to go. Within the hour, the stock manifold was out and the new manifold was installed, along with the throttle body getting cleaned out. Massive thanks to Alec again for always helping me out with the bigger jobs. Manifold off. New intake manifold on, not too much different on the outside. Here is the main difference you can see from the throttle body side of the intake manifold, stock vs ported. I will be making a separate thread discussing the ported manifold and what is completed since I could really go into some serious detail with it. In short, after the manifold was installed, the response, torque down low and mid range along with top end improved excellently. The change in intake note crossing over into lift is quite a lot louder and very pronounced. There's always time for quick shot together, featuring the new apprentice. As of yesterday, I was up nice an early to head over to get the head over to the exhaust shop to get the headers fitted. Arriving just on time to begin the install. The process was to re-use the old cat, remove the stock headers and pipe before the cat so the new headers could be fitted along with a flex joint for extra piece of mind. The only issue was having 2 resonators quite close made the job a little more difficult but luckily enough, I was still able to retain both of the resonators. 4-1 collector. All finished up and ready to go! Once the install was done, I was very eager to hear the sound change and get driving. Turning it over for the first time, there was no noticeable change in idle note but, once applying some throttle driving you could hear the rushing of air through the headers along with a nice rumble and deeper note down low. Once getting over 4000 RPM you could hear a nice change in exhaust note getting a lot more raspy and than getting to the 5800 RPM crossover where lift screamed. Due the car been tuned for the previous setup without the ported intake manifold and 4-1 headers, a re-tune was definitely necessary. Luckily enough, earlier in the month while ordering the parts, my mate Ed planned to be in Sydney for the weekend which made it easy to pick the header install date. So after the header install, I headed over to visit Ed and we began to work over the tune. After quite a few pulls in the low RPM and high RPM ranges, Ed and I found the 5800 lift to be leaving a noticeable flat spot from 6000-6200 RPM where the power peaked initially before flattening and picking up again. We decided to raise the lift point to 6000 rpm to test and we found this to be a perfect point after some fine tuning was before and after lift to make the power band a lot more linear. Despite having quite a full car with extra parts and other unnecessary things, a 34 degree day with high humidity, the car has improved extremely well all round. Even less throttle input is needed, I can keep the car in a higher gear on hills and inclines with no issues, the power and torque improvements with the 4-1 design and of course the new roar of the beast! The new headers have really brought the 2ZZ to life. I'm really over the moon with the new setup and I'm super keen to get more kilometers down. These new mods wouldn't have happened without the R&D and hard work that Ed has put into both the intake manifold and headers. A massive thank you to Ed for all the hard work getting these parts ready to go in such a short time with no issues what so ever. As we approach the end of the year, I definitely want to keep driving over the Christmas break to enjoy the new setup. I will more than likely do an oil change next weekend before I get too busy along with hopefully giving the car a bath. Stay tuned until next time!

See below.

Anytime mate! If you get a video I could definitely say for certain but mine does have a similar noise when off the accelerator. I'm due for a gearbox oil change soon but even after build it was a tad quieter.

Hey Viet, thanks mate! Sure thing, I'll shoot you a message and we'll discuss.

Long over due update! Have been pretty busy over the last month or with not only work but just life in general. I guess it's just the time of year really. Not much has changed since my last update, just really trying to keep the car clean and running smooth. I've had more opportunities with the better weather to wash it but one week I did a storm came through just as I was drying it off and that's when I just gave up 😂 I've been driving the car a lot more lately just enjoying it now. Here are the most recent pictures taken after the most recent washes in the last few weeks. The week a big storm came through was when I decided to go to a car wash. Other than that, the next update will have some nice major changes coming so stay tuned!

https://axleaddict.com/auto-repair/How-to-Test-a-Bad-Catalytic-Converter this may help with diagnosis. I've never had to diagnose one before so it would be to check elsewhere online in case. You don't have any check engine lights or anything right? Also how's you O2 sensor?

Hey mate, welcome to the forums. Mine actually does something quite similar what you've mentioned. I've had a gearbox rebuild earlier last year and it has still remained after the rebuild. My gearbox was completely inspected at the time and everything else appeared in working order. I've never had gearbox issues other than destroyed synchro's but I believe it may be the diff making the noise. I've been in a few other Sportivo's and have noticed the same sound. I believe it's more than likely a normal diff sound. You mainly have worry if you hear a solid clunk and feel it too meaning the diff is likely damaged and needs replacing. As for the engine mounts, you'd likely feel a large amount of engine movement if they were damaged, it's worth a look to check they are done up tight though. The stock mounts in my opinion are rubbish and after about 20000 kms they will start showing excessive movement. Hope this helps.

What catalytic converter do you run? It's possible that the cat could be blocked somewhere, which happens sometimes. The stock muffler is quite restrictive so unless the aftermarket is even more restricted, I'd rule it out.

As long as you aren't forcing it the gears should be fine. Mine had around 183000 I think when I rebuilt it. 2nd was completely useless when downshifting above 15km/h, 3rd crunched when cold and sometimes warm and 4th was blocking out every now and then and would crunch when cold. My gearbox saw a hard life before me and sadly the adjustment was never done prior to my ownership. Most of these problems are caused by the clutch being out of adjustment not allowing full engagement and disengagement of the clutch. There are products you can purchase to help with this but the best options are to re-adjust the clutch master and also invest in the Speed Source Extended push rod to make it will fully engage and disengage.

The synchro's were gone but it looked like there was some wear on the gear itself. I did get photo's but I can't recall exactly else went wrong with his gears and what not. I mean, I rebuilt my transmission around the same time and my gears look a bit different to his and I was told that they were in good condition and didn't need replacing.

I had a mate of mine with a worn 2nd gear (not broken but pretty warn down) and he was having sorts of issues getting in into gear sometimes.

Well, if crunches and still goes into gear after it's definitely your synchros. If the gears are worn/broken you usually won't be able to get it in either. Synchros are fairly cheap from Toyota so the cost shouldn't be too much more from the quoted price for the extra parts. Gearbox rebuilds are generally fairly tedious and I don't think anyone likes doing them 😂

I sure do, he's not on the forums but I can ask him for you. PM me your questions and I can pass them on.