dmxsoulja3

Hey guys, name is Josh, glad to join the community. I pick up my car may 3rd, 05 Flint mica tC. I have trolled the forums reading everything I could and now have a few questions.

Can you guys tell me how you went about breaking the car in, what toyota recommends as far as milage for first oil change, what you guys recommend otherwise. What rpm did you keep it under/for how long. etc. This is my first "new" car so my first experience breaking in the motor.

Ok, so I make it through the break in, and I'm ready for some bolt ons, I have read just about every exhaust thread, the HKS is to slanted for my tastes, the TRD is nice, and I personally like the DC sports, it looks like it fits well, and also sounds good, is there any general consensus on what to get, based on performance, and fitment. I don't really want my bumper melted, or to look/sound like a ricer.

Intakes, I'm a long time Honda guy, and AEM is where its at. I haven't actually found the AEM 2005 tC application, does it exist? I read alot about the K&N system but haven't found pictures, can someone shed some light on the intake side of things.

Well I will leave it at that for my first post, thanks for the wealth of information I have already learned from your posts. Look forward to everyones help.

Josh

speddlysmitt

Breaking it in is easy, for the first 1500 miles drive normal. Don't stop on the gas or rev the rpm high. You can shift around 3000-3500. Most importanly don't slam on the brakes for the first hundred miles. Also don't keep the engine at a constant speed aka cruise control, for a long period of time (30 mins or more). I was told my first oil change would be at 3000 miles which is weird. As for exhuast i bought the TRD, no real gains on anything but it sounds really nice. I get compliments from all age groups. Real easy to install 2 bolts and 3 hangers and it won't void your warrenty in any way. I got it for 374 shipped. The AEM is not out yet, last I knew there where having trouble geeting CARB approval. Once it gets approval it should be aconsidered a Scion OEM part meaning it won't void your warrenty. The K&N is out there but is not considered road legal. You could get a ticket like once person did and the dealership could use it against you saying it voided your warrenty on your engine. The Secret weapon intake is a short ram and not a true CAI.

CELL

Just so youre not scared away by any after market parts, i'm just going to add onto and correct what speddlysmitt said...
NO AFTERMARKET PARTS WILL VOID YOUR WARRANTY!
Not to be a a$$, but I dont really think you trolled the forums and read all you can at all...Theirs stickys about the break in period for your car.
Either way, welcome

dmxsoulja3

I saw the stickys, but again I have also read people post you should follow the beat the Sh out of it approach, and then the baby it approach, just seeing what you guys did. I would be interested to know what sites you guys are purchasing parts from so cheaply, I haven't found the TRD exhaust that cheap anywhere.

speddlysmitt

Go to scionpartspeople.com

CELL

As far as a break in period, I didnt do anything...I drove it like how I normally do. EXCEPT I didnt stay at one speed for long, I tried to get it open to all speeds. Hell, I learned how to drive manual in my brand new tC

Thrawn

lol... trolled is probably not the best word. I think you meant lurked. ^_^

I did not follow the Toyota break-in guidelines which simply specify not to "race" the engine for the first few thousand miles. I followed this break in procedure. The theory behind it made a lot of sense. Later on in the post, the theory behind some of the more extreme break-in procedures is also discussed, and why those may not work very well in the car world as they do the bike world. The biggest question with the procedure I followed is, does the manufacture even leave things like piston ring sealing to the owner anymore? I've heard some people say that they don’t, and that its taken care of at the plant, but I've heard others say they do nothing at the plant. But, better safe then sorry.

Before we get into mods, lets clear up the issue about warranty. If you're extremely concerned about warranty issues and want to follow everything to the T, don’t expect to get bolt on’s that give much performance (short of the TRD S/C), because you'll be restricted to Scion approved accessories, and having them dealer installed at a premium price. In actuality, no matter what modification you make to the vehicle, only the part modified or replaced is actually "voided." Meaning if you replace the stock air box with an aftermarket intake, and the intake malfuctions, of course Scion/Toyota will not cover repairs for it (it would be covered by the manufacture of the intake’s warranty). Also, any problems that may arise in the vehicle cannot be denied warranty coverage simply because of a bolt on part. It has to be proven that the aftermarket part caused the damage due to improper installation, defect, and or by design of the product. The regional manager also has to get involved, IIRC. There are some dealers who will install aftermarket parts for you and claim that it if any issues arise your warranty will not be affected. However, what they fail to mention is that that dealer may in fact honor that, but if you have to take it to any other dealership, they may (and probably will) try to find out if the part did cause the issue and deny your claim. Simply put, a dealer might give you trouble about aftermarket parts, or they might not, but legally they cannot deny your claim outright.

Now, with all of that said, back to your question. None of those exhaust are going to offer you much in the way of performance. They are all axle back exhaust. And if you were to add an aftermarket header in addition to them, they would probably all develop a raspy sound especially higher up in the RPM range. If you're truly looking for performance, then you want a complete header back exhaust that either deletes the secondary cat or replaces it with a high flow cat and replaces the stock s-pipe. There are 4 in development right now that I know of. One from Creative Compacts, Draxas, Alphawekrs, and ScionSpeed. The ScionSpeed and Alphawerks are still not listed on their website yet but are definitely on the way. Those will all be direct bolt on parts, no welding, and should have excellent fit and finish. The Creative Compact exhaust gives you a choose of mufflers to choose from to cater to your taste in sound. My guess would be that any of those 4 exhaust will give you a nice tone, so, I would wait to see proper dynos for each of them. Proper meaning that each product tested should be tested on the same car that was used to establish the initial baseline runs for that company, the test should be on the same dyno as where the baseline runs were established, they should be SAE corrected and there should be multiply runs, stabilizing the intake inlet temperature after each, to get a proper average. If each company conducted their dynos in that way, the gains could be legitimately compared. Magnaflow also has an s-pipe-back exhaust in development, but according to their installation instruction will require a cut to be made a few inches in front of the secondary cat.

The AEM intake status is unknown officially, they haven’t made any public announcements. Rumors are that it is still waiting for CARB approval (stupid Cali). The K&N intake according to several members of this board suffers badly from heatsoak, and my guess is the AEM will too. Weapon R's SW intake dynos show an average of a 6whp gain, the same as K&Ns. There will also be a cold airbox available for the WR to help protect the filter from the heat in the engine bay. Personally, I'm waiting to see Volant’s, Alphawerks, and Injen’s intakes. Volant’s is made out of a material that far more resistant to heat soak then metal. Alphawerks has done some extremely good work on other tC products and seems to dedicate a considerable amount of R&D into their products. Injen in general seems to know how to make a good intake. If I were to guess, I'd say gains will probably be same, around 6whp, for all of them, and the biggest difference will be how they affect low-end torque, and their resistance to heat soak. To be perfectly honest with you, I haven’t seen dynos for any intake that were conducted in a manner that would produce realistic numbers, making it hard to get solid proof of gains. Eventually, once all of the intakes are out, I think I'll try to get together an independent dyno comparison session for them all.

With all of that said, thanks for doing research before posting. And welcome to the boards and to the tC and Scion communities. ^^

fivepointnine

for your info, between intaks there is very little power difference between full cold air and short ram, like 1hp or something....and a bigger headache to install the CAI

kwc5811

I would say that Thrawn has been pretty thorough!

dmxsoulja3

yeah definitely summed it up. Now tell me about this, should I warm the car up for a minute or two before driving it? Is there an RPM to stay under while the car is not warm? I'm just trying to take every precaution I can.

RockstEdy

iTrader: (1)

I let it warm up till the needle gets to the first mark for the temp.
By then the idle has subsided to normal. About 3 minutes in 50 degree weather...

dmxsoulja3

it states not to lug the engine in high gears, but also not to give it high revs, typically on my other cars I would stay under 3k when its not warm, I guess some what lugging the motor..I'm lost as to what to do on this break in period and I'm a week away from ownership

Serialk1llr

Just drive it easy I know, you wanna take it out for a joyride real bad, I'm the same way with mine (had it less than a week). Even if you can beat it to hell right after buying the damm thing, it wouldn't do any harm to be cautious for the first 1k miles. Just my 2 cents.

toastbox

dude, what are you doing reviving a completely dead thread like this??

87na

no kidding, this is an old thread!

toastbox

this is an old thread, already completely answered, that was revived for some silly reason. Please do not continue to reply to this [/bangs head]