Toyota bB hits the US shores! - Page 9

nrmcj · #**121** 05-04-2003, 02:05 PM

aaand... fat, VERY widebody Castrol supras...
(you see the diff rite?)

bluemax_1 · #**122** 05-04-2003, 06:58 PM

Installing an intake or exhaust really isn't difficult mechanically. With the intakes, there are 3 different ways to go and they increase in effect and amount of work to install. 1st and simplest is the drop-in K&N filter. The filter has the same dimensions as a regular air filter on your car but flows better. All you have to do is locate the stock airbox in your engine, open it, take out the old and drop-in the replacement.

2nd of course is the cone filter mod, where you remove the entire airbox and filter assembly, and then just attach a cone filter to the intake pipe that used to connect to the airbox. The 2nd stage can sometimes actually decrease the car's hp because the cone filter is sucking in hot air from the engine bay instead of colder, denser air so it depends on where your airbox is located.

3rd stage is cold air induction. Starts out the same as 2nd stage by removing the stock airbox, but instead of bolting a cone filter directly to the pipe connecting to the stock airbox, you route an additional length of pipe down to the bottom and front of the engine compartment, where the air is much cooler, and the cone filter goes on the end. This can be done easily on some cars, and almost impossible on cars with no space in the engine bay. Another variation is ram air induction, where you use a scoop to force cooler air from outside the engine bay to the air filter. The scoop can either be on the hood, in the front grill or sometimes, underneath the engine bay.

For a NA lower hp car, stage 2 and 3 might not produce much more power than stage 1 so you might as well just go with stage 1 which is a lot easier and cheaper.

As for exhausts, a lift would help, but you can do it without. My VR-4 obviously has a good exhaust on it but my Golf has the ultimate 'unricer' exhaust. The stock pipes on a Golf exhaust are ID ~1.5" believe it or not. And most small displacement 4cylinder engine cars come with about the same, I went to Meijer's (local 24-hour superstore) went to the auto/hardware section and bought several lengths of steel 2.25" pipe and a cherry bomb straight-through muffler meant for a truck and then backed my Golf up onto a curb to get room to squeeze underneath, removed the stock exhaust and used the lengths of pipe to route a new exhaust with the cherry bomb muffler. End result, no huge shiny exhaust tip sticking out the rear to show off, but 2.25 piping all the way and a big straight-through freeflowing muffler. All go, no show, and for a total cost of $60.

And yes, autocrossing is where you race for time through tracks marked out with pylons. Gymkhana can be similar in that they sometimes do race in big parking lots around pylons, but they also do race on small twisty tracks, but the tracks are usually made (pylon and otherwise) wide enough so that drifting round some corners is a necessity for the fastest time, where in autocrossing it usually isn't because the tracks are narrower.

ShadowMage · #**123** 05-06-2003, 02:36 PM

Well I'm not oriental but I *AM* Gaelic...does that count for anything? LOL Anywho...wow...I step away from this thread for a week and there's a good 2 and a half pages of text! Geeeosh!

Strakka - hilarious story!

bluemax - as always posting 1 and a half pages of text per post. LOL So out of curiosity what does your Golf dyno at? Also what all have you done to it other than the exhaust modification? And, as a side question, how does the cherry bomb exhaust sound? I've seen those before and wondered about them.

Pie - And yeah BM is right intake and exhaust aren't hard to install at all. I've put a cheap, home made stage three intake on my truck and BM is right it doesn't help a whole heckuva lot on smaller naturally aspired engines. At least it didn't on my ranger. Of course there are a lot of other factors influencing its effectivness but a) I'm too lazy and b) I'm too cheap to spend the extra dough on freeing up the intake. 'specially with the xB coming.

And as far as exhaust goes...I personally try to stay away from doing that myself. Well, at least on cars that have been run for a while anyway. hehe Call me a wus if you wish but I just don't like having a mouthful of rust when cutting exhaust pipes.

takumi_drifto · #**124** 05-06-2003, 06:41 PM

so u put ur exshuast on from under without a high lift? what if the sucker fell on u...

ShadowMage · #**125** 05-06-2003, 08:32 PM

fell on you? You mean the exhaust pipe? It's not THAT heavy, dude. It's a pipe. hehe

Now if it fell on you right after having been driven for a while then I could see some concern.

bluemax_1 · #**126** 05-06-2003, 10:23 PM

Shadowmage, never dynoed the Golf since I just did a few mods to free up a little power easily. Maybe if also got different camshafts chipped it, I might, but like I said, power wasn't the goal with that car. Aside from those simple mods, it's also got a Sachs suspension kit. Used to love Pirelli P500 tires when they were still available, but they aren't made anymore. im using alloy rims for an Audi and 205 series tires. As for the cherry bomb, I ended up putting 2 on. The stock VW Golf has a pre-muffler, and one cherry bomb was really loud, so I added another. It's still louder than stock but not overly so (i.e., not getting pulled over every other street). For a 4-banger, it has a decent growl when I floor it.

And takumi_drifto he's right, the exhaust isn't that heavy, besides, since it's not on a lift, it wouldn't fall very far to hit me now would it?

I also put it together with pieces of exahust pipe kit so it was in sveral shorter pieces. You can buy stuff like that at Pep Boys if you have those nearby.

strakka · #**127** 05-06-2003, 10:34 PM

rite after youve driven it, it falls on you? LOL its like,
crack, snap, hiss, AGHHHH BURNING, clunk
and if your wonder what the clunk is, its the exhaust rolling off your burnt body onto the ground....

wait, is it really that hot?

ShadowMage · #**128** 05-08-2003, 02:24 PM

hehe well exhausts can get pretty hot. Enough to cause some blistering at the very least. Not sure about catching fire to anything seeing as how I've never tried it...though I could see that it might.

PS - OOOH! LOL And thanks you guys for the magazine recommendations! (I forgot to thank ya'll hehe) I think I'm gonna stick to SS and IT at least for the first year to see which of those I like and I may later on check out SCC. Anyway, thanks ya'll!

Oh and if any of you remember the name of those Japanese magazine please keep me posted. I'd be interested in checking those out (even if I won't be able to read'em).

nrmcj · #**129** 05-08-2003, 08:42 PM

hmmm.... looks like a lot of aftermarket parts are stage 2/3... weaponR intakes are cone intakes... heh, they chose a crappy name, but some mag tested them, and apparently they allow better flow than even injen intakes....

whoa... bluemax.. you cut your own exhaust piping?! @_@ waaaayyy out of our league.... hehe. what exactly is a cherry bomb muffler...? i know what a bomb muffler (eugh ugly..) is, but the only thing that has the name cherry bomb on it is a yoyo... but damn man! that's gotta take SOME sort of skill....! there's welding involved tho rite?

exhausts get pretty damn hot... the tip, maybe not so much, but try avoiding touching things after running for a bit... lol

mmm SS... the new one should be out soon!! gotta go buy it...

great mag. One of the most famous japanese tuner mags is Option.... i think... lol, ask strakka.

strakka · #**130** 05-08-2003, 09:50 PM

option...•Z...option..•Z...option..•Z... yup, i think thats what i be reading... have to wait till my brother comes back to be sure... but from what i can tell... IE all i know in japanese... thats should be it... as for it be most popular... i cant atain to that... i dont know whats most popular with the ppl in jap... but thats the best one i can get rite now.... if i find any others i tell you guys...

whe you guys looka t it does it like dot Z? if it is.... well its suppose to be a jap letter... i have jap on my computer so it works on my comp....

bluemax_1 · #**131** 05-09-2003, 05:02 AM

Pie, at certain stores it's possible to find different diameter steel piping that's either straight or bent to preset angles so I don't have to go to the trouble of press bending or mandrel bending my own pipe. Basically check out the layout and possible paths for my exhaust, and then figure out the jigsaw puzzle. The exhaust that I put on doesn't follow the layout of the stock exhaust in order to eliminate the tightest bends. I have larger radius curves so the exhaust doesn't get held up by sharp angles.

And yes, exhaust piping can get super hot. Near the exhaust headers, after running the engine hard, you could probably light a cigarette off the pipe. That's one of the reasons why my first quick attempt didn't work too well. I used stainless steel flexpipe and it lasted for all of 4 months before it fell off. The heat started it corroding incredibly quick. The steel pipes that I'm using now are much better.

As for the cherry bomb muffler, I think it's the brand name of the muffler. It's basically a straight glasspack muffler and they're always red on the outside no matter what size they are. Decent performance and super cheap. There are lighter alternatives and these things sure aren't glamorous, but I can't argue with a freeflowing 2.5 inch bore muffler for $16. They make them even bigger than that too.

nrmcj · #**132** 05-13-2003, 06:45 PM

hmm... 16 bucks eh... lol, that is one sweet deal.... heh, whoa.. .talk about saving about 200 bucks right there!!

oh, and u guys heard of the new V2 AEM (or was it injen..?) intakes right..? they look pretty sketchy to me... but tests show about double the hp gain on a stock civic (compared to a normal aftermarket intake, again either AEM or injen)... i didnt know resonance could actually help air flow... comments, bluemax?

bluemax_1 · #**133** 05-14-2003, 05:41 AM

Wouldn't waste my money on the AEM V2. Think it was TRP that did a dyno test with the AEM V2, Injen intakes, K&N and a few others. Their results showed negligible benefits over the other cold air induction kits. Small differences, but to summarize, in comparison to the Injen kit, they showed slightly higher hp at different rpms on the dyno and the Injen actually showed higher peak hp, but the differences were on the order of 1-3hp. IMHO, not worth the extra inflated price tag since I think the AEM V2 sells for somewhere in the $300 region.

Also, seems practically impossible to find actual valid literature on studies they've done regarding resonance and efficiency in their airflow aside from the silly little pictures of how their V2 supposedly increases airflow into the cylinders. Resonance actually does play a reasonably important part in airflow with regards to the diameter and length of the pipe at differing airspeeds which is why F1 car have variable length runners to optimize airflow, but it seems that AEM is just full of **** when they talk about their V2 intake. Their pipes are of fixed length and diameter and having 2 different diameter pipes fixed end to end does not have the same effect. i.e. AEM is trying to convince people to spend good money on a product of highly questionable advantage using 'pseudoscience'.

If you really wanted maximum cool air for a Stage 3 intake mod, I would go with a hood scoop ram air kit. Or a front mount ram air. The added advantage aside from the absolute maximum possible amount of cold air would be you wouldn't have to worry about sucking water in through the standard type cold air intake (filter close to the ground) so you wouldn't have to worry about destroying your engine.

ShadowMage · #**134** 05-16-2003, 05:06 PM

Ok...I'm gonna try and leech more info LOL...this is totally off the topic of xB's or intakes but I haven't been able to find any info on this so I'm gonna ask somebody who knows. hehe What the heck is a spoon engine!? I have tried to no avail to figure out what makes a spoon engine a spoon engine! What makes it different from other engines? Any and all info would be appreciated (not just from bluemax). I seriously have not been able to find ANY info on the characteristics of a spoon engine...help a noob! LOL

bluemax_1 · #**135** 05-17-2003, 05:08 AM

Someone watching Fast 'n Furious again?

Spoon is a tuner company. If I remember correctly, specialise in Hondas. They build Honda engines from the block up with con rods, pistons crank etc. Nothing overly spectacular about their engines. If you were wondering what a Spoon engine was because of watching Fast 'N Furious, they just like dropping names in that movie 'cuz they think it gives them more street credibility like the overuse of the term 'NOS'.

An unboosted Spoon B18C could put out about a little over 200+hp and they have an F20C too. Pretty good for a NA engine since it passes the 100hp/liter mark, but in the grand scheme of things, no great shakes. The first Fast 'N Furious movie was a great comedy. Definitely one of the all time best car oriented comedies around especially for people who are into racing and tuning. Unfortunately, I don't think they were aiming to make a comedy when they made that movie.

If you want to find out more about Spoon and Hondas, try searching under "Spoon Sports".