Squalled

That's interesting, never heard similar cases with the 2ZZ ones. I've had mine for around 60000 kms now and it still bites and drives really nice. I've also felt an Exedy HD on another Sportivo which felt quite heavy which was interesting also. I'd definitely say Fidanza for the flywheel, have heard only good things about them. I know Extreme make a lightweight flywheel but unsure of anyone who runs them. It's pretty tough decision, the only input I have is cams are totally worth while. During my Melbourne road trip, I got to go for a ride in cammed Sportivo (MWR Stage 2). It was running a whole heap of goodies with it too (4-1 headers, 2.5" exhaust, V-Manage etc.) and was a lot lighter with no back seat base, no body kit and light weight rims. It now has more mods since I went in it but it was an entirely different car. It felt strong from low end and pulled all the way through to red line. Like his 3rd felt like my 2nd pretty much. It's hard to describe unless you for a ride in one but it was honestly nuts.

Really keen to follow the build here! Always wanted to see an AE10x chassis with a 2ZZ here, I've seen a few over in Asia and Africa get done. May I recommend the Exedy range of clutches. I've driven both the normal and HD, I run the HD myself and I find the pedal feel to be soft and the bite at engagement to be pretty strong. Most of the Corolla guys run either of these and as long as the master cylinder has the right adjustment you will never have any synchro issues. I did add the extended push rod later on just for piece of mind. Looking forward for the future updates!

I'm not sold on the look overall at the moment. I think the side profile and rear look nice but the front puts me off. The front bar and the headlights just look a little unusual to me, and considering I really did love the F1 concept (although I know attempting to mass produce that would cost a fortune) I was a little disappointed mostly at the front end. I know the MK4 wasn't overally aggressive but I guess I'm just used to the older 80s and 90s shapes. The engine should go very nicely considering BMW have made quite a lot of great turbo 6s over the years. Some great renders have been doing the rounds online which give some hope that once someone modifies one it will look a lot better. I'd rather wait to see one in person before

On the left hand side of the center console, there is a small circle behind the hinge where the spring mounts onto. The spring can than be placed on the flap like the picture attached, you can see how it mounts roughly.

Do you have the small metal spring still that hooks in at all? You have to make sure that is hooked on the flap and onto the side of the center console unit while it sits on both of the plastic hinges at the bottom. If one hinge is broken (generally the left side breaks quite easily) than the spring will make it sit incorrectly and make the flap pop out from its place. You can get a new spring from Toyota, I have the part number 5544512110 which usually goes for around $2.50.

Hey Campbeam, as Ben said Iridiums are definitely the best to use on the 2ZZ. There's nothing wrong with copper but a few people I know have gone copper and haven't had many issues. I use NGK Iridiums in mine from memory and runs extremely smoothly with no issues. As for the ignition coils, there are aftermarket options for the 2ZZ which are quite rubbish to be quite honest. Only heard of negative things about changing them as they seem to fail or go faulty after a few weeks or months. The standard ignitions coils have no issues, even when making more power from what I've seen. I'm sure a few guys in Europe and the US have other solutions for a different coil.

No worries. Also consider how close the MAF is to the throttle body. If it's too close, it can also cause issues as it won't get the correct readings.

"The pipe was 3 inches in diameter". That's the issue. Although you can run a 3" intake on the 2ZZ, to run on the stock ECU and/or piggy back systems it needs to have a reducer at the MAF of 2.75" otherwise you get issues to what you were experiencing. I run a 3" intake but it has a 2.75" reducer at the MAF so there are no issues. To run a full 3", as Ben said you need to get an aftermarket ECU.

Do you have any pictures of your intake setup? Are there any splits in the hoses for the intake or surrounding the throttle body or intake manifold? Did you happen to clean your MAF sensor as well? How does it idle? Do the revs climb than fall and repeat that constantly?

It's that time of the year already for my final post of 2018. I hope everyone had a great Christmas and managed to get time off working if you could. This month has been a big one, I've been really busy with my partner, work, family, friends and it went within the blink of an eye. December has been a little down hill for the Corolla sadly. Not long after my last post, I was welcomed to this when I finished work for the day. I found that the oil had gone onto the front of my side skirt also and when I took a sample with my finger to smell what fluid it was, I sadly smelt gearbox fluid. It may not look like much but here is a comparison to my big size 12 foot. Doesn't look so small after all. I was able to drive it home without issues, didn't seem to feel any different despite the fluid that had leaked out. Once home I jacked up one side and got a torch to have a look where the leak could be coming from. After 30 minutes of looking and a suggestion from Alec, I had found the exact first spot he mentioned it could leak from, the driveshaft seal. Lucky for me, I was able to get the car off to my local mechanic before Christmas and they were able to do it on the weekend without any issues. They finished the car before mid morning and there hasn't been a leak since the seal was replaced. The weekend after I was planning on doing an oil change for the end of the year but I stupidly forgot to order new oil filters after my last change and had to put that on hold. In the mean time, I removed the old intake and the new intake I had received earlier in the month was to go in. My old intake in the first photo compared to the new intake in the second. The new design as you see is a lot smoother and is bigger also. This is a 3" design put together by Ed, which also includes a slight reduction where the MAF point is so there are no issues with running 3". With the new mods (4-1 Headers, Ported intake manifold) the 2.75" was quite restrictive on the setup hence the move to a 3" intake. I also ordered a brand new 3A Racing 3" pod to go with the new intake and spent roughly an hour or so fitting up and make sure everything was tight. All I can say is installing an intake of this size on a 2005 is quite hard with the light been a different shape to the 2003/2004 and having less room. I turned the car over and made sure there were no leaks or any unusual sounds before I went out for a test drive. So for my comparison, my old intake was 2.75" with a more harsh bend towards the headlight. I let the car warm up and I found that straight away there were nice improvements in the mid range. So I made note of what I noticed compared to my old intake setup compared to the new 3" design. Low range 0-3000: Low range felt identical to the smaller intake. I saw this as a benefit because generally a larger intake size can cause lag but, due to the smoother design and also a similar length there was no major loss in power or torque, if anything the car picks up a lot smoother. Mid range 3001-5999: Once in mid range, the car really takes off now. It no longer feels restricted and the pickup before lift is amazing. It pulls extremely smoothly through this range all the way to the lift engagement. Top end: 6000-8200: Once in lift, the car really starts hauling. It pulls very smoothly through the rev range and speed increase is great as well. There is absolutely no restriction in the top end now, I was finding before from around 7000 onward you could actually feel the car was been restricted. The sound is absolutely crazy, it goes from a nice deep rumble and pickup to loud and in your face. It really does scream now. So all up, the move to 3" was definitely worth while to get the best from all the new mods I've got together. Now for my second bit of bad luck. After the recent storms, I found my passenger side headlight globe wasn't working. It has happened many times before when the plug slips off a little and what not but, when I checked I found this.... So in the New Year, I will have to get one of the spare plugs I have laying around and remove this one and get the new one soldered on. As noted before, this side of my headlight harness it quite literally stuck to the main harness it connects to. On a brighter note now, I was able to do my final oil change last week before Christmas on a nice cooler and with no storms around. To finish up for the year, I recently found a twin of my car, well almost a twin. I wish you all the very best in the New Year and look forward to seeing more updates and new builds on the forums! Cheers! Stay tuned for more.

Aye! Why thank you kind sir.

Just another minor update to the thread. In relation to lowering the lift point, this will all depend on the setup that you have prior to installing and tuning the V-Manage. One crucial note is that lowering lift to a lower point, may not always work best for your power band. A good example is lowering lift to say 5800 rpm. Although this makes the 1st-2nd shift effortless to keep in power band, you will find that it may not work as well in higher gear e.g. beginning a 3rd gear pull into lift. This is where VVT tuning comes in and plays and extremely vital role in creating a smooth and linear power curve. This was personally experience with my old and current setup. With the old tune and setup (2.75" CAI, Ported intake manifold, Ported Throttle Body, CES Headers, 100 Cell HFC, 2.5" exhaust) I found in higher gears with 5800 lift that it would flatten out or dip before gaining power again. When I moved to the new 4-1 setup, the lift engagement point was raised to 6000 and VVT was also re-tuned for the optimal setup. This was due to running and tuning with 5800 lift and getting the power before it dropped and picked up again which isn't great at all if you want a reliable and drive-able setup. Once set to 6000 lift engagement, the power band increases gradually and linearly, something these high revving N/A engines get excellent benefits from. So in short, a great VVT tune and optimal lift point are required to get the best power band for your setup.

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.