sc_toy

Here's the progress after day one of the FG enclosure... http://www.cardomain.com/memberpage/671312/3 It should be nice when it's done. The entire subfloor will be raised about 4", and all you will see are the subs. Aaron

easiest way is to take out the whole light, I can't fit my hands in behind the light to get them out, but if you could that'd be quicker. To remove the whole light, there's the one bolt on the rad support, the other two are behind the wheel well (you have to remove a few bolts from the inner fender/wheel well and bend it out of the way to get them out). Good luck! Aaron

Not sure if you guys in the US have Tint King, but up here they give a lifetime guarantee on their tints. I believe the quote for my car was just over $200 CDN for everything but the front window. I would make sure the place you go to has a guarantee and they should have been in business for a while. I don't like handing the keys to ANYONE! <_< Aaron

I think I'd do one of two things, if anything. Go full bore and get all the badges that came on the Soarer 4.0 GT, including the rim centre caps, intake manifold, steering whell, etc. Or I might just shave the badges all together. It's already such a clean looking car, with shaved badges it'd be that much more 'stealth'... Aaron

Gotta love a stock toyota part that says "will shock, burn, or cause death"... Looks good I don't know that much about HID but I've heard the 5000k heat range produces the better colour light for visibility. Aaron

^^^ that was my first instinct too... I'd check your main battery to chassis grounds also. Even if it doesn't appear too bad, over time and heat cycling the wires could be getting bad inside. Might be worth running new grounds... Aaron

Click on my cardomain page... first page down the bottom, three shots of the fake woodgrain. I hated it. Second page a shot after I took it out, cleaned all the glue of the console, and resprayed the trim ring black (the texture had torn when the wg was taken off). IMHO the guy above me has a much nicer woodgrain kit, mine didn't fit quite right, the volume knob was hard to turn, you couldn't really see what the words said. I personally think glossy black looks much more elegant than a stick on woodgrain kit... I wish the previous owner hadn't *BLEEP*ized my interior. Aaron

Every once in a while I get a code 28, dunno if those are the after cat 02 sensors!?! Maybe it's trying to tell me my cats are getting stuffed. I dunno it only seems to happen when a tem change happens after I reset the ECU and it hasn't learned. Usually if I roll on the throttle. If I just go WOT it's fine, but rolling on the throttle triggers it sometimes. One thing to make sure is that you've got a good ground to your exhaust. Not sure if the stock 4 or 5 wire sensors (dunno which they are) have a ground wire or if they rely on the current passing up the exhaust, through the manifold, through the bolts, through the heads, etc... Aaron

^^^ he could tell you had traction control from the engine pic methinks... I have never seen a Canadian SC without heated seats and traction control, same with the LS's I test drove for my mom. Aaron

Check page 1 (before) and 2 (after) on my cardomain page... link below. I bought my car with the woodgrain added, what a bunch of junk in my humble opinion. It's laughable when looking at cheap vinyl stick on wood grain when there's already the decent looking factory woodgrain that looks 100 times better. I peeled it all off and tried to restore the dash by paining the console black. It think it turned out alright even if I've got more work to do... Just my $.02 of course, Aaron

1) buy a BGB (big green book, a toyota service repair manual) if it's available, if not buy one of the generic ones. Haynes, chiltons, etc. 2) Sounds like you're low on PS fluid, possibly leaking, check www.planetsoarer.com for tips on rebuilding your pump 3) There are many threads on here already about exhaust, search the past threads and you should get your answers. Basically I see no need to change the rear mufflers, the stock 3rd cat is a restriction though so I think the best bang for the buck gain would be a new y pipe off the first two cats, mating up to the single pipe after the 3rd cat. Aaron

Check the codes, if you get an error code then it's likely not your alt or TC. As for starting that's a whole other issue. A starter that doesn't like to engage is 99% of the time worn contacts in the starter solenoid. If the starter makes a single click when you turn the key to start, but you have to 'click' it a couple times to get the starter to turn, then the contacts in the solenoid are worn and they aren't letting power through to the starter. I have rebuilt about 4 different toyota starters without a rebuild kit, just bending and filing and sanding the contacts and they worked for longer than the cars did! :) but a rebuild kit is cheap, $20 or so, and usually comes with new contacts, brushes, and sometimes a bearing. Good luck, Aaron

1) make sure car is off 2) insert a bent paper clip into the terminals E1 and T1 I believe in the diagnostics port. On the '92 SC400 this is sitting on your intake manifold right at the front of the engine. 3) get in the car, turn key to ON, don't start the car though 4) the blinks will relate to a number, which relates to a trouble code... eg: blink..blink..blink..pause..blink..pause..blink..blink..blink..pause..blink..pause (code 31) 5) report back here, I don't have a service manual with the codes in it, but I've looked them up before, can't remember the address now though... Also it's possible to have more than one code. In this case the computer would tell you the first code, a pause, and then the second code. For example a 13 and 21 would be like this... blink..pause..blink..blink..blink..pause..pause..blink..blink..pause..blink..pause..pause.. I think that's how it works, I haven't check my codes in a couple months (no check engine light recently) Aaron p.s. There's a procedure for checking the A/C trouble codes as well, mine came back with a bad solar sensor and low system pressure.

Believe it or not I noticed slightly the same results when taking off the snorkel from the intake. Not sure if it was breathing warm air at idle, or taking in a larger volume of air, but it would bog in the low end. After a couple hours of driving around it got much better, interesting enough the intake note is getting more quiet the more the ECU learns. It's like it was too rich or lean and now it's near stoich again. If my ecu was going rich from removing the snorkel, it means it wasn't getting as much air for a given TPS value methinks. So maybe removing the snorkel lowers air intake at low RPM. Wish I had a dyno in my garage. I'm not sure what the learning curve is like on the ECU, but it got a lot quicker about a day after I picked up the car. They must have had the battery out for a while when I was paying for the car, and when I picked it up the ECU hadn't learned anything yet. So it was bogging a little, still quick but not like it is now. I did a run at the strip the other day that felt boggy (car was cold, too cold I think) and it was only a 16.3. Ran 3 or 4 more runs right away and each time went down about .2 or .3 of a second while the ECU learned. Last run I did was 15.230 @ 93.75 mph Supposedly it learns quite well to adapt to blowers, even when using the 315 cc injectors and opening up the bypass screw it learns to fuel the car correctly. And luckily the '92 SC still only has OBD-I Cheers, Aaron

Okay, I know it's not the prettiest but this is my current setup and it sounds damn good. I'm pretty picky and this is decent... rear view Side View - stock nak deck and changer - Kenwood KAC-649S 4 ch amp - Kenwood KAC-7201 2 ch amp - Alpines on rear deck (came with car, no idea the model) - Nak or ??? in doors (again I didn't touch them, but both mids and highs are playing) - rear 10" removed - pair of Pioneer TS-W305C 12" subs - dual 12" box, sealed, seperated chambers - 4 gauge wire all around Things that need work: - sub takes up too much room (making fg enclosure) - replacement nak or pioneer components in the doors - replacement 2-way rounds on the rear decklid - need new battery (optima) - battery box in trunk when making fg enclosure - fans under amps blowing up through them - a second KAC-7201, I miss having an amp for each sub I don't have any SPL numbers from the car, it doesn't produce nearly as much bass as my camry did, because the camry had fold down rear seats. Don't get me wrong it's still quite loud, just a lot more controlled and 'perfect' sounding. Much better overall response curve to my ears. I hope I can do enough calcs when building my glass enclosure to keep the volume of the box as close as possible to the box that's in it. I'd hate to lose the sound trying to make it look better. This might be ricey, but I'm pretty much anti-rice and I don't think it's over the top. I'm thinking of recessing a bunch of large red LEDs into the upper parts of my trunk, under and behind where the 10" sub used to be. These would be aimed down at the subs and amps, and of course only be on when I wanted them to be (just when I want that kinda look).... Anyway, Hope this helps, and thanks for any advice. Aaron

laxdude, For a single 12" sub you could build a custom FG enclosure to fit on the left side of the trunk, that would keep the space in there. Also I've heard mixed reviews on those Alpine Type Rs.... the pioneers are a good budget sub (the TS-W305C or 305DVC). I had a pair of the 10" brothers to those subs, the TS-A255C (350w RMS each) and was running a single amp into each (300w RMS @ 4 ohm advertised) in sealed boxes and they were excellent. I've tried a bunch of budget subs in my day and I like these best. But of course I'm no audio authority and everyone has their opinions... The TS-W305C should be about $70-80 USD each sub... Aaron

Sounds to me like one of two things. Either your ECU threw a code, in which case you can check the codes, figure what's wrong, fix it, reset the codes and you're good. (mine throws an O2 sensor code every once in a while, I just pull the EFI fuse for about 10 seconds and it's gone for another few months). The other thing it could be is that your power steering pump has leaked fluid all over the alt, which has now pooched. I believe a dead alternator triggers the same lights. That you can check with a multimeter/voltmeter. Good luck, Aaron p.s. LMK if you want to know how to check engine codes or the alt... all you need is a paperclip to check the engine codes.

I've got a pair of pioneer TS-W305C's in a sealed seperated box. These are 12" subs advertised for 400w RMS each. The enclosure is the reccomended size, I believe it's 1.5 cubic feet per sub, so it's rather large and does take up most of the trunk. The subs are facing rearward, and the box is in the centre, pushed up against the gas tank side of the trunk. Of course I bolted the setup down so it doesn't slide around. The amp I'm running them with is rated for 460w RMS into 4 ohms, but I've got it running into about 2 ohms or so, so who knows how much it's putting out. It is 2 ohm stable but I doubt it's putting out 920w RMS. Anyway, this setup sounds excellent, I've also got a 40w x 4 ch amp driving the mids and highs, and the sound staging and overall response curve is excellent to my ears (and I use yamaha S55 monitors at home for my centre channel). In the next few weeks I will be building a FG enclosure to use the volume of the spare tire well to recess the subs into the floor, also putting a battery box on the left side of the frame rails (where the jack bracket is). I'm going to try to see if I can fit the subs just behind the gas tank wall, and the amps in behind the subs. The entire top plate will be MDF, then the FG will stretch from one frame rail to the other. An MDF divider will seperate the subs. And another divier will seperate the sub enclosure from the amp enclosure. The amp enclosure will be large enough to mount fans under the amps, blowing upwards through the amps. This'll keep the look a little cleaner methinks. I might hinge the MDF over the amps so that I can open it up to do any wiring/settings changes. Finally I've got that rubberized undercoating stuff, I'm gonna spray the bottom of the whole trunk so the enclosure will sit tight against it and not rattle, and I'm going to bolt the MFD to the frame rails. Currently there are a couple rattles that sound like they're coming from the heat sheilds, but you can't hear them in the car of course. I'll worry about those later as they're not in cabin sounds. I've got a couple pics of my current setup but I haven't put them on the net anywhere, my last setup was stolen so I like to be a little more low pro with my new stereo. I've got the digi cam from work so if I make this enclosure this weekend I'll take lotsa pics. Aaron

Not sure if the heated seats would connect up to your connectors or not, but I imagine the seats would be expensive if you found them. I do like the heated seats though, used them tonight. :D I always turn the traction control off in my car in the dry, however it saved my !Removed! in the rain once. I was on a two lane road coming out of a corner behind a slow person with a light rain happening, and I steped on it to pass and the tail started to kick... the TRAC kicked in, grabbed the rear brakes and let off the throttle and the tail drifted back in behind where it should be. Unfortunately my mom abuses the TRAC in her LS400 in the winter, uses it all the time when pulling away from lights and I'm worried all that excessive use of the rear ABS will warp the rotors eventually. I don't like the idea that my drivetrain is trying to push the car, and my brakes are trying to stop all that force at the same time. I will probably mod my traction control and remove the ABS all together eventually. I want my traction control to close the throttle plate just enough to keep the tires hazing slightly. HTH, Aaron

Some people aren't tied up in the americanism mentality that a main stream car company can't build nice cars. That's why GM has well over 10 different name plates to sell cars, it's why Toyota rebadged their higher end models to trick americans into buying them. I won't go to the trouble of getting soarer badges for my car, but I don't get off on driving a lex over a toyota either. I'm a toyota guy, and I would easily pay a lot for a MKIV Supra, would I not be proud of the Toyota name at that point? :D Aaron

^^^ thanks for the reply, I think that's the same company I was looking at (would rather buy within Canada to save on shipping/brokerage/etc) I will only get drilled brembos, and I didn't realize they actually had brembo engraved on them. I'm going to use factory toyota semi-metallic pads, never had bad luck or poor performance from them for street use. Might buy another pad for lapping days but I'll do that when I start going to lapping days. Thanks again, Aaron

The only trans fluid you should put in an SC400 is Toyota Type T-IV (t-4) ATF. It's availaable ONLY from the dealership as far as I know, and it's very expensive. It's not equivalent to any of the Dexron ATFs and I doubt Amsoil has an equivalent to the Toy Type T-4 Aaron

I recently changed the diff fluid (first time ever after some 200K miles on my 95 SC ) but think it was gearoil that the guy at the shop used. What bad would it do to the car if gearoil is used? Thanks, I'm not sure if every SC has an LSD, if you don't then gear oil is fine. If you do, then gear oil won't allow the clutch packs (if it's a clutch type LSD) to grab properly, negating any limited slip effect. If you've got your original owners manual, have a look and see what type of fluid they recommend for it. HTH, Aaron

Rebuild it yourself if you've got a weekend and are mechanical. New bearing $10, seal kit $45, jug of DEX III $10, new SS clamps $5... this is a common problem with the SC. If not looked after it will destroy your alternator after a while. Check www.planetsoarer.com they've got a good writeup about how to rebuild the pump yourself. There's also a screen under the solenoid that can be cleaned, check around this site there have been topics posted recently about this with great detail. Aaron

Thanks, I know brembo's a good name, I just didn't want to buy a knock off inferior fake-brembo off eBay. I've emailed somebody with a camry that bought them from the same place I want to buy them from, well see what he says. It's nice to hear they're not junk, because they're much cheaper than stock, and I get the wow factor of them being cross drilled. :D Aaron