Lauren

Great to see you, Adam. I could tell you were pretty much shaking with excitement picking your car up. It was palpable. I'm sure that drive home was a lot of fun. Lose the metalwork and enjoy.

Had it on for 25K miles and about 18 months.

Bit of a lapse since the last update! Oops! Not a lot to report but I had my 120K service a couple of months ago. I've been umming and aahing about whether to do something about my exhaust. With having no cats and a a resonated TD system it felt like the raspy sound you get under load between 3-4K rpm was getting a bit irritating and seemed to be getting a bit louder. I had a word with Mike at TD and asked him to have a look at it for me. He found a possible slight blow and took the decat pipe out and resealed it. This didn't quiten it some and took it back to where it was. However, whilst the raspy sound is fine when you're in the mood and very good at scaring cyclists (if that's your thing), it was still annoying me as I found I was driving around a lot of the time trying to keep the revs under 3000 just to avoid the raspiness. Mike said he had a reasonated decat pipe I could try as a silencer at the front end of the system is what makes the difference. After a bit of thinking I decided to go ahead with it. I had it fitted today and as you can see from the pic, it has two small silencers. This drastically quietens the exhaust down and totally loses the raspiness. When I drove it home, it was almost like I couldn't hear it! This is of course all relative and reminded me of how loud it was before. I can actually hear some induction noise again and I haven't heard that since I had a stock manifold and Milltek on! There's a part of me that wonders if it's too quiet, but I think I'll get used to it and appreciate that it's pretty well non-intrusive when you're cruising around, but you can still hear it when you hoof it of course. Maybe I'm just getting old! 🤣 A huge thanks for Mike for a speedy and efficient service as always. I did ask if he wanted to be in the pic but he declined. 😂

It will be much better directly connected as using FM, limits the quality to FM quality which is not as good as DAB as you are converting digital back to analogue of course.

You still have to pay VAT as you do with parts bought in the UK.

Is the DAB thing connected to the head unit or does it use FM?

I think it just happens occasionally. I've had this when I haven't had the clutch depressed for long enough then it takes a few more turns to start. Not necessarily anything to worry about. Twice in a week I wouldn't worry about unless it's taking a lot longer.

The MacPherson struts on the front are no differnt in dimensions to the zenki. 245 I would say is seriously over tyring your car. I'd agree with Will that the better option is 18x8 with 225/40.

As Will says, definitely go a bit lower on the offset. 35-38 will look great. It will be the 'sweat' spot. 😂

I'd try it first because with the 17" wheels fitted with the PP they are very close to the brake calipers. I know that stock wheels won't fit on my very similar AP four pots on the front. Stock wheels are definitely 7" width. My best guess is they won't clear the front calipers. IMG_7362 by Lauren Blighton, on Flickr

Or to put another way for example a Rays TE37 was designed by Rays Engineering (originally for the AE86 where in 14" guise it weighed 3.7kg, hence the '37' moniker). It is a forged wheel. Rota et al., copied it in cast form which is of course a lot cheaper to look like the Rays wheels and now all the others, JR etcetera have done the same.

Now you know how I feel when people buy Rota Grids! 🤣

I'll give you a few weeks before you'll want to change those springs. 😛 Don't worry about some of the rounds being up north, just book the Premier Inn with the rest of us, it's one of the other really good points about the sprint series, the social in the bar the afternoon and evening before. We normally have a table for dinner for 15 or so, it's great fun. The best circuits are up north though, no getting away from that.

Good work and glad to see you didn't go for the louvres. I was going to spend £500 on the TRD rear window louvre years ago, but I'm so glad I didn't now with everyone and their dog putting ebay copies on their cars. And don't even get me started on the side window louvres. 😂 Good to see you got some decent wheels that are not fakes. Kudos for that. 255's with PS4's means you'll never run out of grip, not so much fun though. I recently put PS4's in stock sizes on my car and I can barely unstick it. Very reassuring and all that, but it's lost the fun factor for me. Trouble is I need to be competitive for the sprint series. Will give it a bit longer and see what I think. 10kg spring rates are way too hard I would say. Anything over 6kg is going to be too much on the road really. See if you can get lower spring rates that will still work with the dampers I would say.

They do, but that doesn't work on our cars at least if you want a full service, so diff oil etc. That's what I've found anyway, so the service prices haven't got cheaper now my car is six years old.

Coolant doesn't need changing til 140k miles so scrub that off the list. I had my plugs changed for the second time and I have the TD NA kit, it was a total non-issue. They only have to lift the engine a very small amount. Gearbox oil doesn't need changing either so lose that too.

The spark plugs are due to be changed at 60K miles not six years, so your service is just the same as a full service. If the dealer is telling you that they need to change the plugs as it's six years old, they are wrong. The TD NA kit should not cause any problems with getting the service done. Loads of us have it after all and I've yet to hear a Toyota dealer refusing to do the work because of it.

It's likely it will take well over a year to get done anyway, so you don't have to all rush into your dealer if you don't want to.

I think though a lot seem to go for it with the turbo package from TD, not many take their cars on track! I'd go for a plumbed in one, that doesn't vent to atmosphere as they do offer that option. Bedford is very tight on noise limits. Most of the other tracks though allow a fair bit more.

The car is sensitive to tyres and well it's RWD of course. It's not necesarily an issue, but I would budget for a new set of decent tyres.

Some pics. Have tweeters in top of the doors as well rather than atop the dash. Most people buy Focal 165s as a plug and pray replacement for the terrible front door speakers.

I ditched the lot for a £3K pro-install. That was 6 years ago now. But went Alpine for the head unit, Focal 3 two way components Hertz three channel amp, 12" JL sub and Audison Bit 10 DSP. Have a rebuilt boot floor in MDF which is sealed with sound deadening where it all sits. It's quite an improvement though it has rattled the car to bits, so have to watch the bass!

It's shite. I ditched my complete stock audio system when my car was a month old.

Blimey. You don't need to run race pads, just use DS2500's or similar. Absolutely fine in all conditions. Pointless having two sets of pads and dicking around having to change them. Mine work fine in all temperatures. There is no issues with running the AP four pot Reyland kit whatever you do with it.

IIRC about a week or so. Only weird thing is you have to phone up and pay over the phone which feels very weird these days with no email confirmation!