Squalled

Alrighty time to update this with some more findings. Seeing as I've had the V-Manage installed for well over a year and it's coming up to a year since I first started the thread, a lot has definitely changed in not only my setup but also the tune for the setup as it progressed through its changes. Here my additional findings to add on to this list - Lower Lift causes more dramas than what it's worth: Yes, after almost a year of having low lift, I've honestly not had much luck in it being consistent and reliable without the jolting. Ed did warn me about using lower lift and although it might seem like a good idea, reliability and consistency wise it isn't. I did make quite a childish mistake and I'll soon be removing the lower lift. - Windows XP needed for tuning: If you have the software to do tuning, you will need to have a Windows XP machine available as it will not work on any newer operating system. It's worth buying a dedicated small laptop with Windows XP or running a virtual machine to run on a newer version as another alternative.

This car was formally owned by a TOCA member a long time ago. It's not in bad condition but the body does look pretty rough in some areas so I'd definitely go and have a look at it in person. The sales posts always have the best of how the car looks and generally will look a lot different in person. Things to check with the cars is of course the gearbox, commonly downshifting from 3rd to 2nd gear to check the synchro's aren't busted and checking for overall feel. Also check the condition of the oil and if blows smoke anywhere in the rev range which could indicate a wide variety of issues. The Sportivo is a great car and really underappreciated these days. There a whole bunch of fun in the twisties with the right setup, easy to drive, sound great, economical and a honestly great bang for buck car. Any questions man, shoot me a message.

Update time. Not long after my last post, I was driving in to work on the motorway. As I merged from the middle lane to right lane to over take a slower car, my windscreen was hit by a rock or something solid and left me with a small crack right in my field of view. Annoyingly enough, as I was merging the slow car moved over to the left so if I waited half a second longer it wouldn't of happened basically. So I was left with this for a few weeks. Luckily it wasn't too bad from other cracks I've seen happen from flying debris. I eventually got on the phone with O'Brien who advised I should bring it around to their head quarters not to far from where I work and have them inspect and check if it can be repaired or if a new windscreen is needed. After an inspection, they confirmed that the crack was repairable and they were able to fit me in before I got into work for the day. The end result. Yes, this was taken after the repair. In daylight you can still see a mark from where the crack was which is obviously quite hard to cover up but O'Brien did an excellent job repairing the crack and I've had no issues so far since the repair. Other than that, I've still got some plans for some minor additions to come and just keeping the car reliable and as clean as possible. Of course, I'll keep this all updated.

Those are the C-One wing tips, quite hard to come about these days but keep an eye out on eBay for them.

Update time, so not long ago I purchased the newest mod to the list. Although when I first saw it in action months earlier I was a little worried but now that issues are sorted I was definitely keen to build further. So with the addition of the new mod, it will give even more benefits from my current mods and any future ones. The Greddy E-Manage, another piggy back unit that allows control of redline, timing and fueling. Combining this unit with the V-Manage basically gives the full options of a stand alone ECU but they work as a piggy keeping all the nicety's of the standard unit. Once I got the unit, it was packaged and sent down to Melbourne, where Ed worked his magic with the harness and basically made it a plug and play unit (in the photo above). Ed made the harness, checked it all and put on a tune for my mods along with the final test which showed all was working. After receiving the package yesterday afternoon, I was obviously super keen to get it installed. After a confirmation of how to get it installed correctly, I gave it a crack this morning. I basically disconnected the main harness plugs, connected them into the E-Manage harness which connected onto the ECU and had the E-Manage patched in. The install was done and I turned the key to make sure all was working. I struggled to get the unit hidden within the glovebox so I've taken it out for now and will work out a cleaner method. More to come.

I ran a Ultra Racing strut bar on my Honda Prelude I owned previously. Felt a nice improvement in rigidity on the front and it was relatively cheap when I got it at the time. I never ran into any issues with legality. I think their products are excellent and they do offer quite a wide range of bracing.

Will likely need to be a custom item since the dimension are different between the two models. Most E120 chassis rally cars ran a standard spoiler or had a custom spoiler made up, completely different to that of the previous generation.

Another update to add. So last week was a successful week in crossing off some major to-do list fixes that have been on-going for some time now. Last Friday Alec made his way over out to my suburbs to get the headlight plug replaced. I have a spare set of headlights that I never installed as they were in pretty bad condition so, the headlight plug was cut on the current harness and the spare headlight, the new plug soldered on and the globe replaced. The headlight now works as it should, with one more thing to add which is getting the backing cover to fit due to the intake size which will hopefully be this weekend. After the first success, I thought it was definitely time to find the exhaust leak that had been plaguing me for a few months now. Last Sunday I got the car up on stands and went underneath to see if I could see the source before having to start the car and listen to which I saw this. When the leak occurred I was doing a 2nd gear pull onto a motorway and noticed it sounded odd after slowing down, looked to be that the weld weakened the leak was made. I got some exhaust leak repair and spread it over and just around the leak area. I also saw another area which looked suspicious and added some there in the case of a future leak. I let it set and than took it for a test drive and success! No more horrible flappy sounds under throttle. With all the success over last week, I was pretty happy that the most major issues are now fixed up. Later on Sunday I gave the car a good wash, seeing as Sydney had a pretty bad dust storm a few weeks ago and some poor weather in the days after. So in the coming weeks, I'll have another mod to update on and hopefully even give a separate thread review on. Stay tuned!

I do remember the instructor lessons counting as triple but that only accounts for 10 lessons I believe, unless it's changed since I got my license. I know the Safer Drivers course came in a year or 2 after I got on my P's as optional way to get hours.

I believe there is some form of mandatory law for learners in NSW to do an advanced driving course, could be wrong though.

Thanks mate! Appreciate it ✌️

Another quick update. Before the new mod, achievement unlocked. Made it to this earlier last week and it only feels like yesterday I saw the same distance shown in my old Honda Prelude. Now onto the new mod, I actually forget to mention this in my previous post and actually forget I had laying around since the end of last year. After a lot of thinking and seeing my Sportivo's give enough grief when I met up with them, I finally got a short shifter. This is a custom made one, so it's not the MWR or TWM short shifter which sits quite low and has very little play in it. Seems there isn't anything that Ed can't make, with a shifter already to go in the base for a simple and easy installation at home. Funnily enough he actually reminded me I had it and that I should install so last weekend I started nice and early before it got too hot. So I took the extra time to take some rough measurements of the throw distance between 1st and 2nd gear. Sadly I didn't measure the height difference which also different between to the original shifter. So here is the original shifter throw from first to second. After I measure the throw distance, I removed the center console surround which made access a lot easier to all the bolts and shifter cables. I removed the shifter cables from the bottom and side of the mount after removing the clips and than twisting the mechanism at the front to remove the entire cable from the assembly. I than removed the 4 bolts and did have a bit of trouble getting the Speed Source base bushings out as some of them had actually stuck to the bottom of the shifter assembly. Once I got them out the base was free and I gave the area a quick clean. Safe to say the log books are definitely right about the 1st owner been female as I found about 3 bobby pins randomly around the center console area. After the clean, it was matter of doing the steps in reverse which was quite easy now that I knew what I was doing. Once the cables were all mounted, the bushing lined up and tightened down I tested the feel to make sure the gears were engaging. I was worried at first but after sending a video or two to a few mates they confirmed all was good. Gave the center console a nice clean for the normally hard to reach areas and bolted it all back down before re-measuring. As you can see, the shifter is a lot shorter as I tried to take the photo from the same height and this is now the throw distance between 1st and 2nd. After taking the measurements, I went for a drive and thankfully no issues with gear crunching or engagement and all is going well. Overall I'm quite happy with the shifter, it's not too low and the throw is not excessively short like some of the other aftermarket ones out there. I've had in almost a week now and have gotten used to it pretty quick, not used to how quick the shifts are now. I did try out the taller chrome gear knob I have shown before in some older photo's but it literally made it feel like a stock shifter again so I put the stock gear knob back on. I've got a few things planned to get done off the checklist hopefully very soon so stay tuned!

That's the side they usually break on, it's a massive design flaw they never fixed and I believe it's because of the spring placing extra pressure on that side. Other than trying to re-glue the hinge, you try using a bit of copper or some sort of metal and try to heat it on and melt it onto the plastic to match the dimensions of the original plastic one. I've seen this done before but the main issue is if you heat it up too much, it can distort the shape of the storage compartment, Another method I've seen that's not as neat is putting a screw through from the inside of the compartment to act as a hinge. Other than that, if you want the functionality, you'd need to spend a few hundred dollars ($400+ from memory) brand new from Toyota which comes as a full unit (buttons, main board behind etc.)

Yeap that's it. If you put one hand on each vent and pull it'll come out pretty easy since it just clips in.

Yeah just follow those steps. If you need anymore help just shoot me a PM dude.

It's easy man trust me, the harder part is when you have to open up the center console board. You won't break it at all when you pull out, just don't be rough with it or anything and it'll come out fine hahaha.

You can pull out the unit man, it's easy. 1. Remove the center aircon vent, tilt the vents and pull out. 2. Remove the bottom ash tray compartment from the center console. 3. Remove the gear knob which allows the surround and gear boot to be removed. 4. Now hold the top and bottom of the center unit and you can pull it out.

You can do it by hand, no tools needed for the spring. The only time you'll need some tools is if you have to make a new hinge or some sort of mechanism that makes the spring loading work again.

Yeah that hole on the left side, is where it will go into. The straight side of the spring goes into the center console unit, and the booked side on the flap. I don't run the spring as my hinge broken years ago but I'll get some pics for reference. EDIT: Pic for reference from YouTube.

No worries mate. I'll try and get some photo's for you of the hole on the center console unit itself where the spring goes into.

Anytime my friend. No point in holding back info when someone needs it. I only don't reply to a thread if I don't have relevant info 😂😂

Depending how many mods you plan on doing, you have to decide what size piping and what material to use. Most go for 2.5" piping with mild steel, which does reduce rasp somewhat compared to stainless but will have a shorter life span compared to stainless. There are gains to be had with 2.25" exhausts but it's not too much bigger than stock, the main advantage would be the additional flow without restrictions added. I run 2.5" mild press bent, which does cause some restriction but I haven't reached the limits of needing mandrel bent as of yet. Generally moving to high flow cat can get some occasional pops, I have previously ran stock ported headers now on custom 4-1s headers and they still pop every no and than. So look into getting a high flow cat if you have the funds. I have seen some with stock cats also pop occasionally as they do flow reasonably well for a standard item. You will also need to consider the muffler as this completes the sound and will help greatly with flow. Generally the pops are just un-burnt fuel that gets ignited in the exhaust system. I recall even my completely stock exhaust system did it from time to time. EDIT: I completely forgot to mention resonators/hot dog mufflers. I run 2 and this reduces the rasp a fair bit. A budget method many user with 2.5" piping is the VE commodore V6 resonator, as it's 2.5" inside I believe, is cheap and is quite long too. Resonators can reduce the rasp greatly depending on how big, the type and how many you use.

First update of 2019! Alright, since my last update not all too much has changed on the car. A few days after posting my last update, I noticed that the car sounded a bit different from normal and realised I have an exhaust leak. I've yet to get the chance with Sydney's unstable weather to go underneath and have a look where it is coming from but it does sound like it is coming from the headers towards the passenger side. The car recently went through rego without any hassles, I still need to get the headlight plug sorted and get both headlights working as soon as I can, I have a spare plug waiting to get put in and it's only a matter of getting it done now. Last fortnight was the first time this year I've had the chance to was the car, gave it a nice clean inside and out which was great until it rained that night. Luckily it wasn't dirty rain and the car still doesn't look too bad as of recently. Over the long weekend, I was finally able to go on a quick drive which I haven't done in a long time other than for work up to Springwood. My partner and I waited till it cooled down towards the end of the day and went up to the lookout. Sadly, a whole heap of slow traffic ruined the twisty experience which is why I seem to end up there at night. So this post is quite short mostly because I haven't done all too much at the start of the year. I do have some plans coming for this year and as always, there is a to-do list as below: - Repair headlight plug - Fix the exhaust leak - Re-do black housing headlights with original lights - Keep the car neat and tidy all round - Remove excessive and unnecessary weight Looking forward to the year ahead, continuing the build and seeing everyone's builds coming along. I'd hopefully like to get a run on the dyno and maybe even a few runs down the 1/4 or roll racing for some off street action. Stay tuned!

The car I went with cams was running MWR stage 2's which seem to be the best all round, compared to stage 3 which seems to benefit top end more. You can definitely run them on stock ECU no issues but like you said won't get the full benefit. I have seen videos of some on stock ECU with cams and they still go quite well, and that's in the heavier ZZE chassis compared to the AE10x chassis.

Yeah not to mention the current exchange rate which doesn't help too. You can run the cams on a V-Manage piggy back with no issues, they seem to go for around $200-$300 used these days. But than again, it's already going to be a big job like you said to get it all working with the stock ECU.