drizzoh

Flushed out the old original factory coolant this weekend. Figured it was past its service live being that's been there since October 2013. Also removed the coolant reservoir and cleaned out all the silicates that have accumulated in there over the years. Made a mess everywhere when draining but no air bubbles or burping issues. Replaced about 5.5q of the 7.2q capacity. Just used the Toyota pink coolant that it's specced with. As expected, the iDatalink gauge is reporting that the car is running a few degrees cooler and not holding the heat nearly as long. Might do it again next weekend though to be sure all of the leftover silicates are flushed out.

Thanks homes! The underbody braces made much more of an improvement than I was expecting - definitely recommended if you enjoy driving at all. Car feels much more compliant and cornering grip has improved pretty drastically considering the price of the braces. Awesome value and I haven't scraped them on anything yet which is nice lol.

Haha the braces are awesome for sure. Don't know why it took me so long to get them. Personally, I can't recommend sways on a daily. Handling improves drastically but the ride quality becomes pretty jarring over uneven surfaces. It's great for a few months but gets old fast. I don't see the tC as a track car so IDK why anyone would think they need them, but I guess if you think youd benefit from them and can find a set go for it. You'll get much more of an upgrade from swapping in quality dampers or coilovers than the sways though.

5econdGenTC

Hey sorry, I am "2ndgenTC" forgot my pw so I made a new account. Haha I think will past on the sway bar if its going to affect my ride smoothness.

Btw you should also get the TB rear strut bar while you at it. Here's mine.

drizzoh

I would consider it if it was compatible with the JL Stealthbox. The box prevents access to the strut tower without removal. But audio > other mods. If I could do that bar though, I would put cut-outs in the caps to make it as clean as possible. ;)

5econdGenTC

Understandable.

You have a very nice car with all those mods.

Forgot to mention I also have a Magnetic Grey tC.

___

joeq

New here, and just found your thread drizzoh. What a great job you've done with your Scion, and also this thread. Very informative, and detailed. And you must be a professional photographer, cause you do an amazing job with your photos. The pics showing your wheel spacers show your panels to be laser straight. Nice.
I also like the fact...."you're still here", posting, after how many years? 5 is it? We really appreciate you taking the time to show your improvements, and progress. It really helps newbs like me, who are just getting our feet wet.

Wondering if you could give me advice? My daughters 2014 TC EB60 6 speed is growling, and am pretty sure it's input shaft bearings. I will be tackling this job soon, and my only fear is pulling out the drivers side drive axle. Is there a sweet spot to pry on, or a special tool available (slap hammer) to assist in getting it out?
I see you posted about changing your gear oil to (I've forgotten already) is it Red Devil,...or Red Bull...or something like that? Anyway, have you had a need to go internal to your tranny? Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
And lastly, what do you tote on your roof rack? Kayaks? Luggage? Furniture? Photography equipment? My daughter does some kayaking, and tried out one brand of rack, but it didn't pan out. For now, her kayak is small enuff to put inside the hatch.
Once again, nice job on your car, and thread, and thanks for your time.

Notsew

Love the build! Taking some notes as I rebuild my 2013 into a 2014. Anyhow, where did you get the Front Toyota badge from?

joeq

I think I saw some other member ask him this, and he said it was just a sticker. Not sure what page it was on.

Notsew

That was for the steering wheel. He did nit mention much about the exterior badges.

drizzoh

Dang, my thread blew up this weekend lol.

Best color

Hey man I really appreciate it. I've ruined a few cars in the past so I really just wanted to make this car better than it started out as. Think I succeeded.

Since this car is low viscosity everything, you need a low viscosity gear oil as well. Been running Redline MT-LV for 1.5 years and no issues so far. Should drain and refill the trans every 30k for best life expectancy and performance. The 11-13's seemed to suffer from those input shaft issues, sucks.

I mountain bike so the rack carries my bikes around until I get a truck to do the job. Here's a kind of old pic of the rack in action:




The Toyota badges are off the Toyota Zelas (sold overseas) and I ordered them from Nigel-JDMParts.com. I don't see them on the site currently, but if you contact him he should be able to source them still. Be aware it can take months to get a set. I have heard some badges from the US market fit, but I am not sure which ones. The front badge also required a fair amount of shaving with my Dremel on the back side to make everything fit up properly in the USDM bumper but the install was fairly straight-forward.

The steering wheel sticker is gone, wasn't comfortable with the idea of driving around with a claymore on my steering wheel anymore in case something terrible happened - and it looked a little tacky.

Notsew

Thanks for the reply. I did some searching around and found one on eBay that was out of stock. I crossed the number and it came out with the one that I already have (for the tC2).
Hopefully it will fit for the tC2.5 update. We will see.

drizzoh

I can't say Notsew, hopefully there won't be any issues that you can't figure out. I like the 11-13 bumpers when paired with the RS/FIVE:AD lip kits, but stock for stock the 14-16 front end is much more aggressive.

So this isn't my prettiest mod ever (and sorry the engine bay looks dirty af in this pic) but it is a very practical one. In effort to get my car as summer ready as possible, I built some brackets and adapted the factory manifolds catalytic converter heat shield to work with the Dezod green's high flow cat. This will help keep coolant temps more consistent and help with the well-being of my ac compressor/hoses and should tie me over until I can get it ceramic coated. I can't bring myself to mod the factory upper shields to fit over the header, they are way too ugly lol.



So far the coolant temps seem not nearly as effected by RPM and the IAT's are a little lower. Thinking about building a heat shield for the SRI next.

joeq

How bout "wrapping that rascal" with some thermo-tape? It looks like it might be painful, but if you have more patience than me, you might be able to do a nice job.

drizzoh

Wrapping is old school. It's not preferred anymore on piping with welds as it isn't good for them (fine for straight pipes) - plus it's super ugly. Doesn't matter much at this point, but the owner of Dezod told me it voids the warranty to heat-wrap them but you can ceramic coat them. So I'll be getting the header and my s-pipe ceramic coated after I get my truck and can have the car down for a week or so.

So far so good with the heat shield. Temps are staying much more consistent vs increasing with RPM - exactly what I was hoping for. AC also feels a little colder but I did get it evac'd and recharged last week while I had access to a Snap-On AC machine and it has a fresh cabin filter.

joeq

LOL. Heat wrapping is "old school?" 1st I heard of that, but I don't get out much...anymore.
I never heard of it affecting welds, but if so, "don't cover the welds". , leave them exposed. Just wrap the other lengths. I've heard of ceramic coatings, "and" wraps for the most effectiveness. But with shorty's like on yours, I wouldn't go thru the aggravation either.

drizzoh

Needing more projects to do to keep me busy until my truck gets built, so started working on making a heat shield for the SRI. Not sure how much it will help but it's worth doing to find out and will also clean up the engine bay a bit more. My IAT's are a little better since reinstalling the heat shield on the high-flow cat, but still hotter than I'd like. Looks like the heat shielding material I ordered will be in early next week so hopefully I will have an update soon. Here's a teaser of what I've got so far though.

drizzoh

Finished my heat shield this weekend. Turned out pretty good for my first time making one. Not enough testing with it yet to write a proper review, but for now it looks really nice in the engine bay and doesn't seem to have negatively effected power or throttle response. Will update after I have some more seat time with the shield.

Construction is 26g galvanized steel 100% wrapped in Second Skin Thermal Block and painted with Krylon Fusion Hammered Black. FWIW I would have preferred aluminum but was having a tough time finding sheet aluminum locally and didn't feel like driving all over town.

Anyways:





Update:

The 2 right mounting bolts in these pics were causing the shield to not be able to move freely with the motor and caused increased NVH. Solution was to drill larger holes and swap over the vibration mounts from the factory airbox. They're not as pretty, but do a great job at keeping things quiet and I feel better knowing the intake isn't acting as a torque damper.

FreedomPenguin

looks very nice. hopefully frees up some hp or mpg during heat soaking type deal

drizzoh

Thanks dude! Good news, the heat shield appears to be working so far.

Considering it's a short ram that is usually a minimum of 15-20 deg hotter than ambient, I just drove 40 min on the freeway downtown and back and my IAT was a constant 5-7 degrees higher than ambient while moving (nearly the same as my previous vehicle with a CAI). This does increase a bit when I am really light on the throttle and of course when sitting still, but still beats the +20-40 degree temps it's been for the last month minimum. It also has considerably less heat soak and the stagnant hot air clears out after 20 seconds or so moving, whereas before it would linger for minutes if it cooled off much at all.

An added effect of this heat shield are that the car feels smoother and the intake sounds a bit louder. Likely due to the box reflecting sound back in the cabin while also blocking the turbulent air produced by the cooling fans. Very happy with the results thus far, definitely exceeded my expectations.

Monitoring this via my iDatalink Maestro on my headunit - it connects to ODB-II and pulls that info, along with doing a bunch of other cool stuff.

FreedomPenguin

Guarantee there's an echo effects reverberating, could be cool though. I actually had Closed intake, then went open intake on my Mustang, then I went back to OEM intake with drop in AFE/KN filter. my Mustang is tuned etc. I found the IAT's to be ridiculous in comparison, the stocker yielded me basically ambient temp, but the open intake
with the Mustang, dude 20 seconds at a light, 70-80-100-130-150 degrees, that's when I decided to go back to OEM, but I believe our tC's don't have anywhere near the heat of my Mustang, I can lift the hood after running idling etc and its not a sauna, the Mustang would almost burn my damn hands touching the hood. stupid stupid car.

___

joeq

Well done Drizz. I like how you kept it simple, and used the factory mounting pad. Now, to top it off, you can turn it into a true cold air system, by using something such as this "Power Bulge" hood, the T/As of the early 80s used. A foam seal on the top of the box, and a flat pan on the bottom of the hood to seal against. It takes cold high pressure air from the base of the windshield, and works well at speed. (Just a thought)