GT5500

:D:D:D Ooooooh I am getting excited its starting to sound like a good proposition now, another thing I thought is if I buy it and find its too much of a pocket drain I should be able to get my money back. I was starting to wonder if all the stories of 7k bills are from people with modded supe's? it seems as if people with std ones have very few problems. So just to confirm, the toyota red is just pre mixed water and anti freeze? so I could just run a decent anti freeze and normal water?. On a scale of 1-10 how hard is a cam belt change, bearing in mind I have been playing with engines for a few years now, the old man has about 35 years experience of every brand of car going, he has done cambelts on pretty much everything with the exception of v6's and v8's.

Ok I have been trawling through the forums, I have noticed that tyres cost a LOT!! but I really don't think I will be changing them often, I really don't like pulling big wheelspins, I tend to pull away smoothly which must prolong the life of the tyres. I have never really gone through tyres fast in any other cars, now granted none of them were 300bhp but surely they last long enough if you don't go drifting round corners all the time?. Another thing that caught my eye is brakes £400+ for discs and pads? ouch!!! but again surely under normal driving these last a while? So I know I can carry out the servicing myself but some of the service items seem really expensive, £70 for oil, is that right? and what the heck is toyota red coolant and why do you need that? do you really need iridium plugs at £60 a set? (funny story about them, my old man used to be a mechanic, he had a car that had been fitted with iridium plugs. The thing just wouldn't run right and in the end he checked the plugs, all 4 were breaking down from new, he fitted some standard NGK's and all was well!)

Heres the deal I have dreamed of owning a supe since they came out, Ferraris, lambo's oh no they weren't for me, it was that big spoilered monster every time. So a year ago I find that to my amazement I can insure one for not much more then I pay now for a Cavalier GSi (I know, I know!!). But last year without upsetting anyone they were a selling for a lot of money this year they seem to have fallen. I would quite like a UK spec and think I would actually go for an auto, I have never owned an auto but I like the sound of the auto supe. So know I think they are within the price range I want to go to for my next car, I think because I don't drive that much I can afford the fuel bill. But I am very scared because you guys always talk of massive bills and expensive servicing. I like to think I can do almost anything on a car as long as I have a manual or something, but does servicing require specialist equipment or tools. In my mind a service is oil, filters, plugs sometimes brake components. I feel I could do all of these things so would general ownership still be really expensive for me? obviously I know about the worry of the turbos failing, but is the drivetrain going to fall apart without warning?. How are they doing body wise as well, the ones I have been looking at are old now 1993 ish are they going to need constant welding and spraying. Sorry for all the questions its just that every time I think I should get a more sensible car I feel like I am missing out so I want convincing that I should just get the supe!

I find this so funny because its so true my mothers family is asian so I am not having a dig to be racist but most Asian car dealers are worse then sarf london car dealers unless of course they are asian sarf london car dealers. I love it when you phone them up and they make up stories of how they bought the car for their mum and she didn't want it, I once asked an asian car dealer if the car had a/c he said "I don't know I will check" he comes back to the phone and says "no it just has a button that looks like a snowflake" :D I have never heard a good thing said about TC or KTC, I say stick to the recommended importers on this forum.

Ahh maybe it was you? (see above post)

Have you ever been to kent, I am sure I saw a black supe with a Gaz number plate in my home town of Whitstable a while back? if it was yours it looked lovely if not yours looks lovely all the same

My 150BHP cavalier gsi is wheelspinning so much that I thought the tyre were flat then my mate nearly understeered his Pajero 4x4 into a roundabout so I guess it is very slippery. I actually nearly fell over earlier when I tried to cross the road it was like walking across an ice rink.

And all that should give you some idea of why you should just keep you stock air filter

Just thought of another bad point, most aftermarket filters rely on oil for filteration, this can be harmful to AFM's as the oil gets sprayed onto the wires inside and can cause them to burn out.

A jap magazine did a comparsion of loads of aftermarket foam filters and found that all of them offered the engine lower protection then the stock one. And more importantly it seems that stock ones have a larger surface area and flow better then the aftermarket ones. The only thing that normally restricts stock filters is the airboxes and this is usually due to design constraints or knowledge, the box could be designed to be quieter but sometimes they are designed to be restrictive to give a better powerband. Most after market filters are just 'bling' accessories and purely sold on lies that convince average joe that the stock ones can't cope. If they do give a power increase and I don't mean the old placebo "it sounds much faster" but a geniune RR readout the increase is normally due to two things, either the car was never RR'd before mods (so how would you know it wasn't above manufacturers specs anyway?) or the power band is shortened and more peaky so driveability is normally decreased for the sake of 4bhp. Its a sad thing really that airfilters are generally sold by ripping people off, another majorly important factor is that most foam filters are fully exposed to the heat of the engine bay, where as the stock filters is normally in a nice sealed box sucking on nice cold air, remember cold air is denser and equals +++BHP Hope that helps.

Not all BPU will reduce reliabilty you have to remember any car has a lot of restrictions built into it to make it comply with emissions and noise regulations. A lot of BPU will just remove these restrictions and let the engine perform as it was designed to do so it shouldn't be much less reliable. The engine was designed to work without these restrictions so it should work without them, what you hae to consider is that most cars with BPU will be driven much harder. I am only talking about exhaust and inlet restrictions though once you start fettling with the boost the turbos and engine are going to start getting hammered.

Wel I am a bit cynical because of the price but I was a bit curious of what they adjusted? People always talk of garages adjusting camber, toe and castor but I have rarely seen adjustments for most of these things thats why I was wondering what they adjusted. Toe is easy, thats done by the track rod ends, but how did they do the castor? the other thing that worried me was how did they set it to the Toyota settings if they weren't even sure of the ride height as that would drastically affect the settings.

Don't mean to sound cynical but what do they actually change for £76, I mean to check and align a subframe is quite a big job, but equally tracking is quite easy. So what do they actually do to car? and also if it was set back to Toyota setting why did they think it was lowered?

One word- 'Marmite', either love it or hate it! personally I think they look awesome without the spoiler, very clean and fresh, some look like Astons and pistonbroke's red one looks a bit Ferrari 360 at the back end. Needless to say if I get the money together to get a soop the first bit of bodywork will be the removal of the spoiler. I don't think everyone will ever agree on what is best as looks are a personal thing.

Although I have no experience with the 2JZ or any other turbo engine for that matter I do have a lot of experience with a multitude (sp?) of cars. One thing I can tell you is that it sounds like you have an air leak somewhere, believe me an air leak does not always present the same problems for day to day. From experince the car will run fine one day and rubbish the next. Things I have had problems with and would check are, any breather pipes, all vacuum pipes, inlet pipes and one that always gets over looked check the fuel pipes inlet and return. On cars that are getting on a bit the fuel pipes tend to perish round the ends and small cracks can allow air to be sucked in. Also check you exhaust system for leaks, this can cause weird problems as the engine often sucks air back up when you come off throttle and this throws the o2 sensor out. Hope you find the problem.