Jump to content

Lauren

Administrators
 View Profile  See their activity

  • Content Count

    8036

  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    97

Posts posted by Lauren

  1. Posted · Report reply

    18 hours ago, BRZ-123 said:

    Wow this is interesting. Do not judge a book by its cover. Your car is modified right Nik? How will the warranty even work with modified cars, i do not know, even if we get it serviced from/by Toyota.

    The warranty will work as it always has with modified cars. Any failure would be looked at, but it is not necessarily going to void your warranty just because you have modifications. I had no problems with warranty claims despite having modifications. 

  2. Posted · Report reply

    On 6/3/2021 at 6:50 AM, Luke said:

    Yes fingers crossed they make a new one for the UK. I think the facelift during mid cycle will look a lot better and add some nicer interior trims like before.

    Also where is the performance pack with brakes and suspension changes? 

    It is coming to the UK. A bit early for any special editions as such, though there may be a launch edition, will have to wait and see. 

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Welcome aboard, Adrian. I had three MK1 MR2's going back a long time and raced them back in the early noughties. I liked the MK3 and remember having a ball in a turbo'd one round Dijon and Magny Cours. Blimey nigh on 20 years ago now! 

    Glad you are enjoying the car. :)

  6. Posted · Report reply

    4 hours ago, Leeky said:

    As I said, I wasn’t looking to bait. But I’ve never had a manual 86 come past me on track unless I was on a cool down lap or intentionally backing off/going easy.

    And yes its a fact that the auto gears are longer, but seeing as I’m always gaining on all the manual 86’s on the long straights shows it doesn’t appear to be an issue. Logic wise, I’ve always just put this down to not having to come out of drive to change gear.

    Or maybe its nothing to do with the car and I’m just a better driver :) lol

    It's more likely down to your driving. I seem to go past turbo'd GT86's easily enough on track, but there's no way I'm faster than them in a straight line. Bold statement but I don't think I've had another GT86 overtake me on track ever, though I fully expect there'll be someone along to tell me they have. 😂

    General_Kirby and Leeky reacted to this

  8. Posted · Report reply

    On 3/11/2021 at 10:07 AM, MovesWithClouds said:

    Let's see how frequently this issue pops up.  There are subtle differences between gearboxes which make it more or less likely for misshifts to happen. While it is still the responsibility of the driver the design does matter. Just like the design of the buttons for the cooking plates is a factor in how often you turn on the wrong plate or have to look twice in order to make sure.

    On the GT86 I found it not trivial to find the 4-gate when downshifting fast or  in block. Had a close call once when i hit second gear instead.

    It's no more or less likely than any other car I would say. It's simply driver error. It may be more likely with a LHD car due to the seat position. The gearbox on the GR is easier than on the GT86 and going from 5th to 4th, the spring of the gate is all you need. Robert has clearly messed this up. 

    Best tip is to never ever block shift. Always go through the gears. Absolutely essential on track. 

  11. Posted · Report reply

    On 2/21/2021 at 3:49 PM, Shippers said:

    Thanks Lauren, will have a read. I think you also got in there at the right time.  When I was picking up my 86 from the garage yesterday (boot latch replaced) they were saying there is now a waiting list a year long!

    Yep, May 2022 now. It's just bonkers. So much going on as well. Been busy every weekend trying different maps and prototype testing of air filters, exhausts etc. Still, kept me busy! :)

  13. Posted · Report reply

    From the article, posted elsewhere;

     

    Quote
     I really didn’t want to drive the new Toyota Yaris. I’d seen in my diary that it was due to come for a week at the beginning of February and all through January I was filled with a constant, draining need to oil the service revolver and write a note to my children.
     
    The Yaris is a car you buy because you think the Honda Jazz is a bit too racy. It’s for recently widowed old ladies who need something to get them and their friend Peggy to the bridge club. That’s it. It has no other purpose. It’s completely unreviewable and when I learnt that the model I would test had a three-cylinder engine, I very nearly called Toyota to cancel the booking. That, however, would have been a very big mistake because the Yaris that turned up was the GR model, which means that, actually, it isn’t really a Yaris at all.
     
    To understand this car — and you need to because you are going to want one — you must delve into the rule book that governs international rallying.
    If a carmaker wanted to enter a car into a rally in the Eighties, it had to produce 5,000 roadgoing versions, for ordinary people in ordinary showrooms. This is why we ended up with cars like the Lancia Delta Integrale and the Ford Escort Cosworth.
    Later a new rule was introduced that said carmakers had to make only 200 roadgoing versions. That’s why we got the short-wheelbase Audi quattro, that nutty Peugeot 205 T16 and the ridiculous rear-engined Metro.
     
    Today carmakers must produce a whopping 25,000 versions of a car they enter into a world championship rally. Which is why the sport is now full of dreary Hyundais and Volkswagen Polos, and no one watches it. The RAC rally used to be Britain’s biggest spectator event. Now you get more people in the bedroom of someone with a temperature and a cough.
     
    Toyota has plainly decided to do something about that. So instead of putting stickers and some knobbly tyres on an ordinary Yaris, it has built an all-new version — a version that shares almost no components at all with its bridge- four brother. And now it has to find 25,000 people in the world who’ll want to buy one.
     
    First things first. The engine. It’s a three-cylinder 1.6-litre turbo, which doesn’t sound particularly rallyish. But here’s the thing. It does. The noise may be artificial, but as you bumble along there’s a deep, offbeat thrum, as if you’re sharing the car with a snoring dog. It’s tremendous.
     
    Then, when you put your foot down at low speed in a high gear, it’s like you’ve gently woken the dog. There’s a stirring. A sense of enormous power coming to life. And it is enormous. The engine may by tiny, but it produces nearly 260 horsepower, which, in a car that weighs only about as much as a match, means some serious get up and go. Full-bore standing starts are hysterical because it sets off like a ball from the penalty spot.
     
    To make sure none of the power is wasted, there’s a four-wheel-drive system that moves the oomph to whichever wheel is best able to handle it at any given moment. There’s even a small readout on the dash to show you what’s going where, but if you are going quickly enough for the system to be working, trust me, you won’t have either the time or the inclination to look at the dash. Let alone reach for your spectacles first.
     
    This is a car that made me laugh out loud. I took it into my fields one morning and made a terrible mess, but I didn’t care because it was a complete riot. And once I’d got the hang of how it handled and how the system that enables you to choose between Track, Sport or Normal made no discernible difference, I went onto the roads, which were made from sheet ice. And it was a riot there too.
     
    When you feel the traction is gone in a normal car, there’s always a hair-raising moment when you think, “Crikey, I hope I can rescue this situation,” but in the Yaris, with its front and rear limited-slip differentials, you just think, “Oh goody. This’ll be fun.” It’s uncannily easy to control and because of that you feel like a driving god. Like you could win a rally. Like you are doing.
     
    This is one of the most enjoyable and thrilling cars I’ve ever driven. It’s like a puppy dog version of the Nissan GT-R and I adored it.
    Drawbacks? Very few. The interior is a bit Yarisish and because the sat-nav screen sits on top of the dash under the rear-view mirror, there’s an almighty blind spot. Oh, and you do sit quite high up, but that’s because rallyists like it that way. In Formula One the drivers basically lie down as if they’re in bed playing a video game — which they sort of are — whereas their counterparts in rallying like to imagine they’re sitting upright at a desk, working.
     
    There are other examples of this rally thinking too. Instead of an electric handbrake, which would be of no use at all in Corsica or among the lakes of Finland, you get a proper lever; it even disconnects drive to the rear wheels when you pull it.
     
    Then there’s the space in the back, by which I mean there isn’t any space in the back. The enormous front seats mean there’s no legroom, and because Toyota’s motorsport aerodynamicists wanted a sloping roof so they could put a rear wing in the airflow, there’s no headroom either.
    In other ways, though, there’s no evidence at all that it’s a rally car. It’s got sensors that tug at the wheel when you stray out of lane and all the other appurtenances of modern living. Perhaps the most incredible thing is the way that such a sport-focused car isn’t particularly uncomfortable. It doesn’t glide but it doesn’t jar either. And even on a motorway the silly racing tyres fitted to my test car don’t make a racket.
     
    I suspect this may have something to do with the fact that there are 4,175 weld points in the GR Yaris, 259 more than in the normal car, along with 116ft of structural adhesive. The body, then, is as rigid as a cathedral and that gives a sense of great quality and refinement.
    I’ve saved the best bit till last, though. Prices for a standard car start at less than £30,000. Even the one I drove with all the bells and whistles and red brake callipers is only £33,495. I can think of nothing, apart from this newspaper and a McDonald’s Happy Meal, that represents such good value. And that truly makes this car perfectly in tune with the times.
     
    Today people have a problem with privilege. The famous must beat themselves with twigs, the educated must drop their aitches and royalty must fly in the back of the plane. Which is why wealth must be stealthy. You can only swan around in a Ferrari or a McLaren if you have skin thicker than a thick-cut pizza.
     
    You may think, if currently you drive a Porsche 911 or something of that ilk, that the Yaris GR, a small three-cylinder Japanese hatchback, would be quite a comedown, but it really isn’t. It’s that good, but you’ll need to get your order in quickly. Toyota is making 25,000 of them and that’s not going to be enough. Not by a long way.

     

    spikyone and speedy reacted to this

  15. Posted · Report reply

    Another Waze convert here. Works brilliantly well. Only odd thing I've had on occasion is when people put in false information. But other than that, it's been great for getting around and I use it all the time for work and my fairly long 40 mile commute for traffic notifications. The police and camera warnings are handy too. 

    I seem to always be adding 'car stopped' hazards. 27 thanks last month. 😂

  17. Posted · Report reply

    On 1/29/2021 at 7:49 AM, KevinA said:

    Interesting people don't like the 2500's I ran these on sprints and found them fine, too aggressive and you find ABS cutting in a lot. Road use I do very little of so no feedback there I'm afraid.

    I loved the DS2500's as well. Never faded, lasted 45,000 miles. Did everything, was very happy with them.

    gavin_t reacted to this

  18. Posted · Report reply

    5 hours ago, gavin_t said:

    https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-driven/2021-litchfield-toyota-gr-yaris-uk-review/43667

     

    Interesting view on a modified example

    :)

    It's a very, very similar to the map I'm running. Whether the ECU can be remapped remains to be seen and is still by no means certain. that HKS have brought out their own tuning box, tells you something, in that it's going to a while yet. 

     

  19. Posted · Report reply

    13 hours ago, Conscript said:

    Did you only get the noise when turning? I'm skeptical about it being drop links because they are less than 6 months old, and I'm not getting any other noise over bumps, etc. When they failed before (and on every car I've had with failed links), they've made a right racket while driving, but never when stationary. 

    I will check them out though. They would be less of a hassle to replace, so here's hoping!

    I expect one of the boots on your drop links has been damaged whilst being installed. It got diabolical when turning, the creaking noise was just awful. But it was quiet otherwise. It was a tiny split in the boot on the offside where the rose joint bolted into the strut. No way could you see it really without removing it. Once it was off though you could see the rose joint had gone rusty. 

    Conscript reacted to this

  21. Posted · Report reply

    In an update of mapping the tuning box, good progress has been made. Nervous me has had plenty of reassurances from Richard and Gary has checked the fuelling which is nice and rich on full boost at the top end. I have also received information from trusted sources that the stock bottom end will take 500bhp and been advised that I'm barely tickling it at 305bhp. This is good news. I have had some revisions done to the map, to wind back the boost a bit at 3000rpm and make it a bit more linear. The guy at DTUK has been excellent with taking a lot of time to discuss and revise and checking in with me every day this week, when I've been in the car. This has helped and the car is absolutely flying now. The boost increase is 0.2 bar/2.9psi, so it's nothing too crazy. 

    Really enjoyed the EVO article too. :)

     

    gavin_t and Subota Boy reacted to this

  23. Posted · Report reply

    12 minutes ago, maurice said:

    I don't think much of those tuning boxes, the equivalent of fitting Rota's to an NSX. They are very crude.

    Having spent three hours yesterday playing with it, with direct support from the guy writing the files, it does seem to work very well, which did surprise me. The 'tune' had been on the rolling road of a very well known tuner. It delivered the power very well too. Yesterday was perhaps a lesson in understanding the subtle different between three maps before I finally came to a conclusion that as it transpired matched up with what three of the four other's testing it felt. My car does not have the benefit of Ecutek, it may well do in the future. I was quite surprised at how well resolved it was and how well it worked in practice, losing no drivability and in fact improving it over stock. I do think some progress has been made and it does deliver all I'd want from what I'd get from a remap on a rolling road. 

  25. Posted · Report reply

    I've been out doing testing on the tuning box. It's from DTE and we've been liaising with them, cue 3 hours of testing up and down the A34 yesterday and numerous phone calls discussing the incredibly subtle differences in feel between three maps. I guess that is road testing for you. In the end I settled on one map being a favourite, Richard agreed and it turned out so did three of the other four testers. We have a plan moving forward. 

    What's it like. Well that struck both of us is just the crazy way it piles on speed, especially at the top end of the rev range. As expected it's f'ing quick, though the tuning box just adds to the stock madness of the car. It doesn't ruin it and it doesn't make the car feel over powered or dominated by the power which is good, though a stock car feels pretty pokey. I think that this is all you need in terms of power for the GRY. It's a little upgrade and just adds the required amount, a bit like a remap and manifold on the GT. I'm sold on this for sure. :)

    gavin_t reacted to this
×