When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
^^Lol but that's no fun man. This car is pretty much complete now aside from upgrading things when maintenance is needed.
Which coincidentally just happened :p
Just swapped in the OEM leather sports weighted shift ****. This thing is a chunk! The stock **** has absolutely no weight to it and this one is similar to the weight of a soda can. It shifts effortlessly, but I'm not sure if I'm sold on how it feels in my hand yet. I was a big fan of the stock **** but it started creaking (shift ***** don't last forever in Phoenix) so this is definitely taking some getting used to. Will give it bit and see if I can get over how different it feels, but it really looks good in the interior. Also debating removing the Toyota emblem from the steering wheel, there's too many things inside that say Scion on them now, it's starting to look out of place.
Apologize for the dirty car and cell phone pic, but this tread was begging for an update lol.
My 1st car was a '72 VW Rabbit. Stick. Had a friend who worked at the local bar so he tossed me a huge, wooden beer tap. Sucker musta been 12' long hahaha. Think i had to keep my fingers outta the way when shifting into reverse or they'd rap on the windshield...
Lol I love tap handle shift *****, just too big to be practical usually. If this were any higher it would be uncomfortable but I'm really starting to like it. The weight is perfect for the tc paired with an STS.
Decided to pop off the steering wheel badge. I'd still love a Zelas airbag, but with how clean the rest of the interior looked the fake badge was starting to bug me.
So my car got jealous of me commenting on another thread where someone else needed a battery and decided it needed a new battery too. DG #3 installed Friday.
Not much else is new other than having the windshield replaced and fully tinted with 70% ceramic and an 11" 5% visor (as always). Also had my guy throw 35% nano ceramic tint on the panoramic sunroof and together it's been making a huge difference in heat soak and the car has been cooling off miles faster.
Then took a new interior cell phone pic with it all finished after testing to make sure it actually ran so this update wouldn't be boring. I really need to go do a new shoot with this thing.
So my car got jealous of me commenting on another thread where someone else needed a battery and decided it needed a new battery too. DG #3 installed Friday.
Not much else is new other than having the windshield replaced and fully tinted with 70% ceramic and an 11" 5% visor (as always). Also had my guy throw 35% nano ceramic tint on the panoramic sunroof and together it's been making a huge difference in heat soak and the car has been cooling off miles faster.
Then took a new interior cell phone pic with it all finished after testing to make sure it actually ran so this update wouldn't be boring. I really need to go do a new shoot with this thing.
When installing the Maestro idatalink, did you only need to splice for the backup camera? In other words, if I don't have a backup camera, would I still need to splice to get gauges and steering wheel controls?
Thanks
When installing the Maestro idatalink, did you only need to splice for the backup camera? In other words, if I don't have a backup camera, would I still need to splice to get gauges and steering wheel controls?
Thanks
Hey dude, for the Maestro everything is PNP except whatever I said earlier about the cam. You get the gauges from the ODB2 plug (I added a ODB2 splitter to keep the plug
in the stock location for emissions and ECU flashing w/ my OV tuner) and the Maestro has a plug for the steering wheel controls. I didn't have to splice anything for them.
Here's a link to the splitter I grabbed. Snapped into the stock location perfect:
Haven't done much to the car lately but as of Saturday I hit my 5 year cariversary so I thought I should do some nice things for it.
Bought a buffer shortly after Christmas but for Christmas I caught little bit o the Covids so I had to wait to post this until I recovered.
Spent a few hours yesterday doing a 4 stage paint correction on the front end. Got rid of some hard burned-in water spots and scratches that have developed over the last couple of years that I just could not remove by hand. Stoked with the results.
Also threw on the Megan Racing S Pipe at the end of year.
It's not a drastic difference compared to stock. Both stock and Megan pipes start at 60mm and end at 50mm, but where the stock pipe immediately sizes down to 50mm after the collector (shown in above pic), the Megan pipe stays at 60mm the entire length and only sizes down at the very end to connect into the stock midpipe. Power-wise I don't think there's a noticeable difference - maybe slightly more oomph on the high end - but the exhaust note did get a little louder and a few Hz deeper. The most noticeable difference is how much smoother the car accelerates now without the bottleneck of the OE pipe immediately sizing down from the header collector. Overall am happy with it for the price I purchased it for and happy that it had perfect fitment. I don't think it would be worth it to replace unless you have a header though.
Next up are some of the TB Performance underbody braces. Hopefully they'll show up tonight.
So I installed the TB Performance Mid Chassis Brace v2 & the Rear Mid Chassis Brace last night. I have heard good things from other users that have installed them but am absolutely shocked by how much better the car feels and performs.
tl;dr - these are awesome and you should buy them.
Most noticeable and useful for daily commuting is the change in how the car reacts when going over uneven dips in the road (drainage ditches, entering driveways, etc. where each wheel contacts the dip independently). I didn't have any complains before and attributed the noodley and somewhat jarring (at times) behavior to the lowered suspension and short wheelbase of the vehicle. These braces make the car feel much more composed and the chassis gets substantially less upset. It has much better etiquette now and I noticed a huge reduction in my elbows flopping around when going over uneven surfaces while in a relaxed state (if you've experienced this, you'll know what I mean and how annoying it is). There's a twisty airport road by my house I drive almost daily and always take the twisty section around 80mph. At around 83 the car starts to feel unsafe and like it will break traction if pushed any harder (the DC front strut tower bar increased this from a max of about 70-75mph and provided better steering feedback). In the same sections I was close to hitting 95 last night and that's only because that's as fast as I could get the car up to as I wasn't expecting this much extra performance. This upgrade also helped with steering feedback and I feel like I can really tell exactly how much grip and contact the front tires have now. The car just felt incredibly stable and was asking for more. Confidence-inspiring modifications for sure. It's also more compliant around 90° corners and I can carry greater speed thru them as well. You can feel the benefits of these immediately even when just backing out of the driveway. As an added benefit to these. the suspension should also be able to work more efficiently as it doesn't have to compensate as much or chassis deficiencies.
All in all I am very pleased with these chassis upgrades that I only purchased because I was bored while saving for my truck. They compliment the coilovers and strut tower bar beautifully. Definitely recommended if you enjoy actually driving your vehicle and they make driving the tC more fun. No increased NVH, literally only benefits. The only negative is that ground clearance is reduced by about 3/4", but as long as you aren't regularly going over speed bumps head-on this should not be much of an issue.
Braces before installation:
Rear Mid Chassis Brace vs OEM (took this just because I haven't seen a side-by-side comparison of these and thought it might help if you're on the fence):
So I installed the TB Performance Mid Chassis Brace v2 & the Rear Mid Chassis Brace last night. I have heard good things from other users that have installed them but am absolutely shocked by how much better the car feels and performs.
tl;dr - these are awesome and you should buy them.
Most noticeable and useful for daily commuting is the change in how the car reacts when going over uneven dips in the road (drainage ditches, entering driveways, etc. where each wheel contacts the dip independently). I didn't have any complains before and attributed the noodley and somewhat jarring (at times) behavior to the lowered suspension and short wheelbase of the vehicle. These braces make the car feel much more composed and the chassis gets substantially less upset. It has much better etiquette now and I noticed a huge reduction in my elbows flopping around when going over uneven surfaces while in a relaxed state (if you've experienced this, you'll know what I mean and how annoying it is). There's a twisty airport road by my house I drive almost daily and always take the twisty section around 80mph. At around 83 the car starts to feel unsafe and like it will break traction if pushed any harder (the DC front strut tower bar increased this from a max of about 70-75mph and provided better steering feedback). In the same sections I was close to hitting 95 last night and that's only because that's as fast as I could get the car up to as I wasn't expecting this much extra performance. This upgrade also helped with steering feedback and I feel like I can really tell exactly how much grip and contact the front tires have now. The car just felt incredibly stable and was asking for more. Confidence-inspiring modifications for sure. It's also more compliant around 90° corners and I can carry greater speed thru them as well. You can feel the benefits of these immediately even when just backing out of the driveway. As an added benefit to these. the suspension should also be able to work more efficiently as it doesn't have to compensate as much or chassis deficiencies.
All in all I am very pleased with these chassis upgrades that I only purchased because I was bored while saving for my truck. They compliment the coilovers and strut tower bar beautifully. Definitely recommended if you enjoy actually driving your vehicle and they make driving the tC more fun. No increased NVH, literally only benefits. The only negative is that ground clearance is reduced by about 3/4", but as long as you aren't regularly going over speed bumps head-on this should not be much of an issue.
Braces before installation:
Rear Mid Chassis Brace vs OEM (took this just because I haven't seen a side-by-side comparison of these and thought it might help if you're on the fence):
Both installed on the car:
I added the rear TB shocks bar and my shocks are rubbing . I think I might have to remove it.
Toyota Racing Tri-Color Heritage badge installed. Made a super trick bracket for it to keep it stealth and looking OEM+. Think it flows really well with my build.
Also just got the car retinted in full Suntek CIR ceramic tint, absolutely worth the price <3. Amazing heat blocking abilities. Just in time for it to get to 116° next week. :/
05-29-2020, 04:31 PM
