Squalled

Nothing to update really this month. Car has been sadly neglected since it was last washed in early Decemeber with the unpredictable weather (rain and dust storms), heat, water restrictions and also just running out of time. Car does really need some good loving and will hopefully get a nice wash in the next few days. Everything has been going super well with car, I've been getting better fuel economy then ever lately, ranging from around 640-680 kms a tank depending how I drive which has been nice to the bank account. There have been no dramas with the gearbox since 6th was replaced at the end of 2019. The gearbox has felt better than ever with the Royal Purple fluid which I definitely recommend again for street use. I have managed once to give the car a quick once over with quick detailer and glass cleaner but ironically it rained and basically turned my cars paint into patina a few hours later because of all the dirt. In other news, I've recently transferred the ownership of the car into my name along with insurance as it was previously listed under my Dad's name and I was listed as a driver on insurance. Since I've owned it for quite a while, I thought it was worth while to move it into my name for ownership and insurance. The insurance has since doubled but my mods are now covered and I've also managed to get the agreed value to a more suitable range seeing as NRMA wasn't doing much more when increasing it. Other than that, hopefully next months update will have some photo's and more to update on. Stay tuned.

Had a quick look at mine, it seems to link them to specific posts. Just a suggestion, edit the post and remove and replace the photo that way.

Final update for 2019! To begin, something not mentioned in the last update as it's now been fixed is that I had lost 6th gear again as I had sometime ago when the gearbox was rebuilt. This time, it was determined that the 6th gear and selector hub were the likely culprits causing the issue. After leaving it with the mechanic to do some checks he indeed found that 6th gear and the selector hub required replacement. Since the wait time to receive the parts was between 3-4 weeks, I was able to drive around but drive it as a 5 speed seeing as there were no other issues with any other parts. After a 3 week wait, driving on highways sitting at almost 4500 RPM in 5th doing 100, the parts finally arrived and the car was booked in to get the job done. Thankfully it was a quick job as the gearbox could stay in and the gear and hub could be removed without removing the gearbox. I had also collected some new gearbox oil sometime ago as I was planning to change the gearbox oil before the end of the year seeing as it had been almost 2 years since the last change. After hearing some great stories from multiple people and mates, I ordered some Royal Purple Synchromax. After driving with it for almost a month now, I can definitely say it's well worth the extra coin over Penrite. The gears are so much smoother to engage both up and down shifting and the cold shifts are a breeze now, not that there were any issues but the main difference is how much smoother and less notchy it is when cold. I'd highly recommend it to any Sportivo owners looking for some quality oil for their gearbox. Moving on, the 6th gear felt a little notchy at first but after a 1000kms or so it felt as it was before it was replaced. From what we found, the teeth on both the 6th gear and selector hub were worn down causing the selector to not fully engage the gear and slip off once some load was given. There is roughly 3mm of movement for the selector hub to engage 6th gear and over time like most things, it's worn down although nowhere near as bad as my synchro's for instance. I was able to keep the gear and hub to add to sadly and slowly growing gearbox part collection... A little hard to get the photo's of the gear and hub to show the wear but hopefully they'll give a good idea. I've also found the new 6th gear selector teeth are now even, where as the old 6th gear point on the teeth is not centered so I guess Toyota have redesigned it since 2005. Since NSW is going through one the worst droughts in history, and with the raging bush fires continuing around the state it's been quite hard to keep the car looking clean. I last washed it at the start of the month before using some quick detail and other Bowdens cleaners a few weeks ago to remove most of the dirt and grime. Hopefully in the next few days it will get some much needed love. Here's when it was last cleaned properly at the car wash. Stay tuned for my updates in the New Year. There's still a whole heap more to go proving that this definitely is a never ending project.

A good and somewhat dated option is a Camcon piggyback option, doesn't break the bank and yields nice gains for the 1ZZ. If not, you'd likely need to look into a full standalone option.

You can find the clutch on eBay, since I got mine over 3 years ago the price of them has gone up I believe, well for the heavy duty that is.

Are you referring to the complete lense cover itself to remove it from the tail light? I mean it should be, they should be not much different from headlights which plenty of people have pulled apart to paint and modify before, someone correct me if I'm wrong though.

Hey mate, Let us know how the Sahara is with your non gains Power FC tune that is slower than a stock tune Sportivo. Thank you for you kind comments, I will be sure to crawl over your head some day soon. Cheers

Update time. So not long after my last update, a couple of my mates and I made the drive to Mount Panorama in Bathurst. We were up bright and early and made the trip in around 3 hours with some stops before beginning the day at the Motor Racing Museum and followed by a heaps of laps around the track. What an experience, definitely a must do for anyone even if you don't like cars or motor racing for that matter, it's still a beautiful place to be. We did a heap of laps I lost count, even doing some backwards which was really unusual to say the least. I also had the chance to drive my mates Evo around so he could get some rolling shots and boy wasn't that an experience. Within 10 minutes I was pulled over by a HWP on Conrod straight for "a random breath test" before going on my way again. Can definitely say driving an Evo with a heavy duty clutch, no air-con, no rear seats and a half cage around Bathurst is quite fun, once you learn how to take off without stalling. Got some great pics for the day we were there before heading home. For the last year and a half or so, I've been really contemplating whether to get my current wheels repaired and resprayed or, get a completely new set. I was more or less split 50/50 between the two options since I've really loved the look of the RG2's and seeing as not many people around the globe run them, it's quite unique. I've also been pretty indecisive about wanting to get news wheels as a whole heap had come up in the last year that I was looking at and by the time I decided they were usually sold. So after such a long wait, I finally found a set that I was considering since I was having a bit of trouble finding some other wheels I had in mind in my preferred spec and colour. So, farewell to the Advan RG2's which served me well, and now on to... Yeap, Enkei RPF1's. They are obviously one of the most common wheels in the world but, not in this factory colour I managed to find them in. They're factory Matte Gunmetallic which the first Australian owner was lucky enough to find on Yahoo Auctions just over a year ago with minimal mileage covered while in Japan. The owner was kind enough to accept a small deposit after I inspected them before I picked them up on the Friday which was super kind seeing as I wasn't too sure if I actually was going to get them. They're 15x8 +28 which is 1" smaller in diameter compared to my RG2's and also 1" wider too. I also managed to get them with Hankook RS4's in practically new condition which I will run until they wear down and I plan to go for a sports road tyre like an RE003 since I don't plan to do any circuit work anytime soon. So a week later it was off the tyre shop after work to get the wheels fitted and to save me a huge chunk of time having to jack it up at home. Massive thank you to my mate Kyle and his team for fitting me in so fast and getting the wheels fitted. The following morning I was up early to get the rear guards rolled. I don't plan to go too low anytime soon but I'd rather try and reduce unnecessary scrub if I can. Super happy with the result and have had minimal issues with rubbing so far. Once the guards were rolled I headed over to Alec's work and he got it up the hoist for an alignment. It was the first time since I got my pilot sports over 2 years ago, which is pretty bad of me. Alec was able to get -1.5 degrees of camber on the front and get everything else aligned correctly including my steering wheel which had been off center since I've owned the car. Once it was all done, left the work shop with a straight steering wheel and excellent alignment. The BC's can run roughly -3.0 degrees of camber on the front but we were only able to get -1.5 which turned out to be good enough seeing as I drive it on the daily and -3.0 degrees would wear down the tyres pretty badly too. Massive thanks to Alec for getting it all aligned. And this is how it sits now! Definitely loving the new look. It looks somewhat like a go-kart seeing as the wheels are smaller and wide as well. Seeing as the wheels stick out quite far I will need to be fairly cautious when and where I drive in the future. I haven't had the chance to test the handling side of things just yet but will be hopefully in the coming weeks before the end of the year. Later on the same day, I headed over to my mate Adam's place so he could have a look further into the Greddy V-Manage setup. In the last few months, he's really worked some wonders with his setup in his own Sportivo and it was now time to get mine running up to standard. So as I've mentioned previously, with the low lift enabled my car would tend to jolt around 7500 RPM at random points, it went from a rare occurrence to basically every time I would engage lift. Adam managed to find a way to get it working by using a relay which works by using the stock VVTL-i signal to emulate the stock oil pressure switch. After many hours of checking, wiring and re-checking again along with a slight hiccup with the car rev cutting at 7000 RPM in the first test run which turned out to be on wire connected incorrectly to the relay, we were in business. Lift is now set to 5500, and it's honestly awesome to drive. It's much easier to keep the car in power band between gear changes without having to shift as fast as lightning. I will be doing some fine tuning in the future to improve the power curve once Lift engages to reduce any sort of bogging or flat spots but so far, so good. Also managed to get another shot of the front fitment while the V-Manage wiring was getting fixed up. That's all for this month. I've still got plenty ahead for the car so stay tuned until next month.

Do you have any modifications done to the engine? I've seen issues caused by exhausts and intakes that are too large for the setup and actually decrease the overall performance all round.

Behind the cluster itself is a small speaker that people have removed before which stops the beeping. Only downside is that once removed, you also won't have the headlight and ignition chimes.

At this stage, the Corolla didn't have seat or curtain air bags in place. Depending on what was optioned, you will either have simply the steering wheel and/or passenger side air bag. The newer chassis began to have a lot more air bags.

For the gear boot, you'll need to remove the ash tray compartment and than pull from the top and the shift surround pops out. All you'll need to do is disconnect the power going to cigarette lighter before you remove the trim away. To remove the boot, you may need something to leverage it (nothing too sharp) with as it uses a metal liner to clip in underneath and you'll need to get one side off which will let you get it off the the trim from there.

I've not run spigots on my car, although my offset isn't as low at the wheels you've noted. I've seen plenty of guys run quite low offsets, one of which is running 15x8 +0 on his Corolla and I don't believe he's ever used spigots.

Hey mate, you will need to remove the air con vent trim which you simply put your fingers on each vent and pull it straight out. Depending if the unit has been changed before, you'll need to loosen some screws/bolts that hold the unit in place within the unit mount. Once they're removed the unit should easily come out, just be sure to watch your trims as you do this. A wiring harness makes life a lot easier when changing units. I've had one in mine since I changed the unit almost 4 years ago with no issues. https://www.supercheapauto.com.au/p/aerpro-aerpro-wiring-harness---suit-toyota-app141/11550.html - Something like this, you can find all over the Net.

Excellent, looks like a decent site with all the custom options. They'd definitely be better than the OEM Toyota ones for sure.

Nice update coming for this month, very picture heavy! So in the coming weeks before Toyotafest, Alec had got his hands on a mint condition OEM 6 speed gear knob which I was able to get with a trade, trading him my Super Pro end links as he needed some new ones for the air bag setup on his car before Toyotafest. Luckily they fit, just and he was able to get the car going with them. If you look through all my old interior photo's, my OEM gear knob is quite worn down and I didn't want for fork out the $350 for a new gear knob, and now that these specific gear knobs are discontinued they'll be a lot harder to find. It's nice to see that reverse is red instead of the faded and dirty black mine has always been. I tend to only run this one when I go to shows to hopefully keep it in top condition. So as noted in my last post, I had organised a detailer for Toyotafest. Since I hadn't done much in the years before other than give it a wash a best as I could and with the paint slowly turning for the worst I thought it was time to give it some love. A massive thank you to Arnoub at Turn Heads Detailing who was an absolute pleasure to deal with, answered all of my questions and was extremely reasonably priced for the work that was completed. Another massive thank you goes out to partner who happily drove me to drop off and pick up my car, without her I would've basically been stuck with walking and catching a train to and from. The car was washed using snow foam, clay barred (found the paint was medium to heavily contaminated), swirl remover and gloss enhancer applied before being waxed all round and tire gel applied. Arnoub was also able to perform a headlight restoration which was much needed as the lights had faded and gone yellow fairly badly in the last few months. After leaving the car with Arnoub for a day, I went to pick up the car and was welcomed with this. I honestly couldn't keep my eyes of it. It's honestly the best it has looked since I've bought it. Now it'll be an absolute breeze to wash until the treatment will need to be re-applied in the near future. Below are the photo's taken by Arnoub of the car and the products used. The only major flaw now is some orange peel effect which doesn't bother me as it's in small patches on different panels. After driving back home, I took a photo before the end of the night and before it would get moisture before Toyotafest. The morning of Toyotafest had arrived, and as like previous years I was up bright and early ready to clean the car before heading off to a meeting point to meetup with Alec and first time Toyotafest goer Blake. Sadly I didn't get a photo of Blake's Sportivo at the meet point since we needed to get to Castle Hill Toyota but we luckily got placed together unlike last year, albeit with a pillar separating my Sportivo from Alec and Blake's cars. Toymods yet again organised a great day out, unlike last year the day felt like it went quite fast for me as we were all a lot more prepared with food, drinks and chairs and caught up with a few mates and spent plenty of time at the trade stands. Once 3pm came, there was the mad charge to leave the venue so we all waited for most of the first leavers to head off before we left the venue for the day. Before day was finished, I headed to an industrial area to take some shots while the car was looking it's best. Well, that's basically it for this month. I've got some plans ahead for the remainder of the year which I will hopefully get done before the start of 2020. As normal, I will keep the thread updated. Stay tuned.

Just a quick update to add for September. I've recently passed the date I bought the car 4 years ago last week, and after almost 90000 kms since I've bought I can definitely say it's even more fun than the day I bought it. I don't plan on selling the car anytime soon although, there is the temptation to buy something faster and something bigger, I really can't part ways with a car that's being super easy to own and maintain and especially all the great and amazing people I've met from owning the Sportivo. Anyhow, I finally gave the car a nice wash 2 weeks ago just for it to rain for a few days after. With Toyotafest now fast approaching, I was able to organise a detailer to give the car a nice clean up the day before Toyotafest since I had organised with him before the end of August. He noted the car was a great base to get looking great again with the only main imperfections being the spoiler and roof. I'll need to the leave the car with him for a day or so to give him enough time to really work some magic and I'm really looking forward to the results. Other than that, I'll be updating when I can. Stay tuned.

As campbeam said, just double check the manual but I've run both 10W-40 and 5W-30 (currently running) in Fully Synthetic. I've had no issues with burning on both, 5W-30 barely drops from full between oil changes which is great considering I'm sitting well over 232000 kms. You'll find anything thicker would mean your engine may not be too healthy. I've used Penrite Racing 10W-40 and Nulon 5W-30 full synthetic and I really highly rate both of them. Never had any major issues with either and have seen plenty of other Sportivo owners run it on various kilometers, some even higher than mine on 5W-30.

Unfortunately Toyota have discontinued them for the entire ZZE range as of earlier this year. Apparently there is a newer Corolla version that fits almost identically (unsure of the model code).

Alrighty, not much to update on this month. With some recent changes for work I've been catching the train lately as it's quite a PITA to drive where I'm currently working. Hopefully it shouldn't be too much longer and I'll be driving it on the daily again. Since I've been quite busy over the last few weeks the car has been neglected a little, I haven't given it a nice clean for a while now and still need to attack the interior with a vacuum and give the engine bay a good scrub down. I'll more than likely do it closer to Toyotafest since I've entered again for the 3rd straight year. I may possibly get the beast detailed professionally this year but still undecided at the moment. Most recently I've noticed 2 issues. 1, the crack that I had repaired seems to be coming back and seems a lot more noticeable inside then before. 2, I believe I may have a failing/leaking power steering pump which is a pain because I know it's right at the bottom behind the engine in a tight spot. I have however, received one of the new goodies mentioned in my previous update. BRD engine mounts, I selected the red version which is more suited to street use over the yellow more suited to track. Some of the Sportivo guys and I decided to do a mini group buy since shipping is quite expensive from the UK. I've had the inserts for around 2 years or so and they've been somewhat decent but pop out which is a real pain since you'll need a clamp or washer to keep them in. These mounts require the stock centers to be removed completely and they slip right in and stay in place. I haven't got them installed as of yet but have heard heaps of great feedback about them so looking forward to reviewing them and comparing them to the inserts. I have another part on the way, unsure when it'll arrive but will be sure to update my thread with it. Stay tuned.

A few guys have installed them on Sportivo's but I wouldn't recommend it as it's not exactly healthy for your engine. It does shoot flames and will destroy your cat in the process. Better off practicing launches as I find no one seems to use Bee-R's as a launch control option for our cars.

Nice update Ian! Those MWR pulleys really liven up the response on the 2ZZ, luckily you didn't get the crank one as that causes some pretty major issues from what I've seen.

Update for I believe a new fastest N/A 2ZZ ZZE chassis in Australia (Please correct me if I'm wrong) Time slip listed at the end of the video also. Tyres are 205/50/15 AD08R's. No spare tyre or passenger seats. Mods: - PPE header - Header back 2.5" exhaust with a 2 hotdogs - Competition stage 2 clutch/MWR steel flywheel - MWR alternator/waterpump pulley - 3" Chuned intake - Ported stock intake manifold - MWR billet oil pump gears Also still running the stock ECU and standard tune.

From memory, could be wrong, I remember hearing that stainless generally lasts longer as it won't rust as quickly as mild steel? Not sure on this but I have seen it happen after some time on mild steel systems.

Well 2.5" is the biggest you should go unless you're going cams and onward. The resonator will quieten the sounds and remove the rasp but, the muffler choice is also a big one. A lot of mufflers like cannon style will make it sounds like a bee hive. Literally search up Honda exhausts on eBay, they sure love their "fart cans".