LRegvall

Dang, I can't find it but somewhere out in this great site someone posted a nice table with all the springs, thier lowering height relative to stock, and thier spring rates, including if they were progressive. I'd swear I saved it somewhere but for the life of me I can't find it. Can anyone else help?

 

This includes it but it is wrong for the Rallitek rear drop. Should be .9".

 

http://www.subiwiki.com/wiki/index.php/BL_%282005-2009%29

See the attached link http://www.flyinmiata.com/V8/ for inspiration and amazement. Who would have thunk it, but once you have, props to you for taking it on. The 3.8 Buick V6 has had a reputation as one of the best motors ever out of Detroit - OHC or pushrod. Good luck...

what like this one ? hahah

 

my boss went down to california to buy it .. left deposit then the guy "broke the tranny " and decided to keep it ..

 

This looks like a clean and tidy installation. How was it that the Cobra got started?

Ambitious undertaking. Very cool. By way of comparison, attached is a pic of a Porsche 912 with a small block Chevy. The guy who did it said his research showed that the Chevy motor was actually lighter than the Porsche boxer 6 that he was going to put in there. He also said it didn't suffer from tail heavy oversteer. He raced the car for a while.

Need good, reliable, professional work on your car? Need upgrades, installs, maintenance or repairs? Even custom modifications?

 

Shoot me a PM or an email at msprank@yahoo.com.

 

Just paid for my vendorship here on the forum and going into business. I make house calls for your car. Work can be done at my place or yours. I am in SD N County, but will travel 100+ miles to you. Looking to open a full service shop in the future. INSANE pricing.

 

Check out my thread in the So Cal forum.

 

-Mike

 

I'm in West LA and don't know if it's within your range. But I'll check in with you when I need work done. Congratulations and good luck with your venture!

Dealbreaker. Any other recommendations?

 

 

 

Don't be spoiled now. Think of your car. I even cheer for SC sometimes.

o ok well i still got the stock tires on for now so i think i should be fine.

 

The stock tires are 215/45-17 so they're going to be harsher.

http://www.yelp.com/biz/crestview-service-center-los-angeles

 

Great Yelp reviews and an extremely convenient location for me! Thanks for the tip!

 

I hadn't used Yelp before. Thanks. They are deserved good reviews. There are two Steves there. Steve Krieger (sp?) and Mike are owners and (big) Steve and Chris are service writers. As one of the reviewers said, they work as a team and try to take care of their customers. Tell them Leif sent you. You may have to cheer for UCLA though.

Anyone know of a decent, honest place to take Toyotas for normal maintenance and repairs in the West LA area? I've been letting my wife take her Highlander to the dealer for years because I've been too lazy to research private mechanics, but it's off warranty so no more dealer for her.

 

Crestview Service on Pico near Doheny. I've been going there for years. Good general mechanics. Reasonable and honest.

For cost savings sake, I might just go the A/S route for the next two years. The Michelin's Pilot Sports seem to get great reviews. Where have you found the best price(s) for this tire?

 

Anybody else have any great experience with an A/S that has not been mentioned. I have been spoiled with summer tire performance for the past two years

 

I switched from the BFG KDWs (I've used both first and second gens) which I really liked. They had sharp and precise turning with as much predictable communicative grip as I am able to deal with. They were a bit on the noisy/howly side which was annoying at times but they did deliver 30K-35K life.

 

I find myself driving the Sube in heavy rain at times and occasionally in light to medium snow so I decided to switch to A/S tires. I picked the Goodyear Eagle GTs based mostly on the Tire Rack test results, very few TR negative reviews, and the bang-for-buck tradeoff. Although they don't have the ultimate grip of the BFGs, I'm not driving for timing and scoring. I like their handling. They are pretty crisp and precise at turn in. They still have very good grip and they are communicative and predictable. Certain freeway surfaces (generally longitudinal grooving) will make them growl (as opposed to howl) a bit, but they are generally quiet (much quieter than the BFGs). I would definitely buy them again (unless of course something else gets my attention).

Kinder - I missed what kind of springs you have. Also, what size tire do you have on? Thanks for the pics.

I agree that the best thing about these forums is exchanging information about what we do with our cars, what seems to work and what doesn't. Everyone's tastes are (hopefully) a little different and there is no right or wrong approach.

 

I opted for the coilovers because some were available at only a little more than new struts and springs. I got mine from Import Image for less than $1,000 and it seemed new springs/struts were going to be at least $800. I've never used coilovers before and wasn't sure what to expect. The BC BRs seem to be built really well. At first though they were either pretty harsh or pretty bouncy (depending on damper settings). I think this may be due to inadequate spring/damper travel relative to some of the others available. But I learned a bit about using preload (mostly from motorcycle websites) to compensate for this (it basically enhances the amount of spring travel avail for bump absorption)and now find them to be pretty civilized. I haven't usually been that adventurous about working on my cars but playing with them has really been a learning experience for me. I'm now figuring that I could actually do the install myself.

 

I have them set at a pretty modest ride height (not too pimpy or too DTMish) of 13.75" front and rear, measured from fender arch to wheel center. I have my AVO 20mm sway bar set to full stiff. The car sticks amazingly well even with my new Goodyear Eagle GT all season tires. It's definitely a lot more fun than the stock springs/struts especially on twisty mountain and canyon roads. I've got a little more understeer than I'd like and need to talk with my alignment guy to see if some of it can be dialed out with some toe or other adjustments.

 

Overall I'm pretty happy with them at this point. Since I haven't tried a strut/spring combo on the car, I don't know which best optimizes the ride/balance tradeoff. One thing I really like is that you can adjust ride height generally independent of spring travel. And you can easily adjust the dampers and ride height (lowering the center of gravity) if you want to focus your driving more on the handling side.

 

I'd post pics but haven't figured out how to attach my 2-3mb jpegs to the posts.

I've seen some pics of lowered outbacks that look pretty good. But it does seem like fighting mother nature. But there have been more perverse attacks on mom than lowering your outback. On the other hand lowered wagons and sedans do seem to look better when they are lowered (even though I initially resisted the concept). The front especially is too high on both. And Eibachs, Ralliteks, HTechs and Pinks seem to be the mild lowering alternative (I went with BC BR coilovers that are working pretty well). I think confusing sexy and ghetto was the same problem Hugh Grant had.

Rallitek's website quotes:

 

IMO it makes the sedan look sexy and the wagon look pretty ghetto.

 

 

Same drop = sexy and ghetto???

I don't think there are any springs other than Pinks (.5") that don't drop close to an inch at least. Some coilovers will let you get close to stock. The car will look better with at least the front dropped a bit.

I get 20 - 21.9mpg on my stock turbo with 300tq it spools up to fast that's why I eat all the gas up so fast.

 

That's better than I get on my unmodified motor. What did you do to get it to spool up faster?

The Eibach website doesn't list them. Ralliteks seem like the closest alternative.

They are showing up as a special order item when I look. But only for sedans and not wagons even though they work on both.

WHAT?!?! That sucks!! What are people like me going to do who are just about to pull the trigger??

 

That sucks!!!

 

BTW - as of today the Eibachs don't show up on the Tire Rack site.

Last I looked they showed up but not if you search for an LGT wagon.

If any of you guys need a good tire place let me know I will hook you up.

 

Can you post it?

HB Speed in Fountain Valley. Can do it all. They installed my LCA bushes and the WL Roll-Center Kit, in addition to the Bilstein/Swift conversion from stock setup. They also recently tuned my stage 2 bits and will be installing and tuning the WBR FMIC FP18G setup.

 

HB installed my coilovers and I was impressed at their work. They did a great, conscientious job. I'll go back to them for the things I'm not ready to do myself (many things). I'm in West LA so I'd prefer they were Culver City Speed.

I have been getting a consistent 25-28 mpg average for the last couple tank fulls and a 26.4 average on the trip that is over 3k miles right now. I'd say about 50/50 highway/city driving in my '05 LGT.

 

I have measured the actual mpg vs the info computer dash gauge and found that my actual is about 1 mpg lower. I really can't see how people can be reporting such low numbers like 16 or even 20, unless you're doing some crazy stop and go for whole tank.

 

Sometimes I reset the trip while on a long highway cruise and usually come out in the low 30's.

 

I usually find the same 1mpg difference between the computer and measured reality. Not surprisingly, I have a hard time understanding how many of the folks on this thread are getting such good mileage. As I mentioned above, my driving style will maybe make a 1mpg difference (like 15mpg vs 16mpg), never 3-5. My driving pattern (city, hiway, number of stop-and-goes, etc) will account for the 16mpg to 22mpg swing. This thread (and other mileage threads) seems to have about 75% reporting very decent mileage and 25% reporting crappy mileage (or thereabouts).

 

I guess the question I have to pose to SOA is the one I mentioned above - take a random sample of 100 LGTs and what will the mileage distribution be like if run on the identical dyno test cycle. I'm sure they'll have a good answer.

Do you guys have the latest flash to lean out the whole fuel map ? SOA apparently was running excessive fuel on the northamerican and canadian Turbo models, so much so that this was the reason for the hesitation between 3-4 k rpm. The new map uses the optimum lean mixture while still being rich enough to give the correct mixture under full boost. I have noticed a lot more power and a savings of approx. 2 litres/100km

 

I hadn't heard of it. I'll ask my dealer service department about it. Has anyone else heard of it? I do think I'm running rich. My brother has an '06 LGT with absolutely clean tail pipes while mine are thoroughly black. His mileage is better than mine. Who knows whether that explains it or not, but it is interesting. Thanks.

Ah yes. My dense. Cruise control.

What's CC? I'm probably being dense. I've tried most mileage saving techniques that you talk about. They will usually account for about 1 mpg. The only thing that seems to matter between my 16 mpg city and my usual hiway trip 22 is how many times my foot goes from the right pedal to the middle pedal. The angle of attack (abrupt or hard acceleration vs easy acceleration) or the duration (staying on either pedal for more or less time) doesn't seem to matter much beyond around 1 mpg.