Picked up the new ride tonight
 

Finally got it. I work for Toyota so I got it through our lease program. Been on order since mid April.

A few observations from my first 30 or so miles.
1. The clutch with the damn helper spring is WAAAAY to light. Nothing like I'm used to. That spring is coming out as soon as I have a free moment. Some of you older folks will know what I mean when I say it is the equivalent of the '70 Chrysler power steering.
2. I don't think it's underpowered like a lot of people bitch about. I'm staying below 4 grand during break in and it's not bad. I'm looking forward to seeing what it's like in the higher rev band. I'm coming from a Celica All Trac that was running probably 275 HP or so. I'm pleased with what I'm seeing so far.
3. Six gear is a little notchy right now. I'm hoping that smooth's out as it breaks in. The transmission shifts great thought and the gear spacing is really close. The ratios seem to be good so far too.
4. Handling is great. I am not disappointed.

Really happy with the color too. I had only seen one or two on the road and pictures don't really do it justice.

Looking forward to more miles.


http://www.celicatech.com/gallery/fi...t86-resize.jpg

People wont realize how great a car it is until its gone.

Congratulations on your purchase and welcome to the forum ....... :clap:

Nitro, WV ........:confused0068: I have/had a whole bunch of relatives from St Albans. I visited there a lot when I was younger. There was this one cute little female cousin ......... oh, never mind ...... :bonk:

I don't understand the bolded part ..... ??

:)


humfrz

congrats on the new car!

Welcome to the Club and congratulations on your purchase!

Sorry. I meant how freaking light it is. My grandpa had a mid 70s Plymouth Trailduster and you could must about sneeze and the move the steering wheel the power steering was so boosted. No effort, no feedback. That's my take on the stock clutch pedal.

Congratulations ! We love our 86.


22R

That helper spring removal made a huge difference for me.

Are we really just going to gloss over this ?? :lol:

I did something over this....not sure I could count it as glossing though.....

Hey, that was back in the 1950s ..... I lived on a farm in Ohio ....... it was in West Virginia ........ at a family reunion ...... cousins were fair game ....... :D

:iono:


humfrz

Wanna tell us about YOUR family reunion ......?? :eyebulge:


humfrz

I feel like If I were to recount my child hood class reunions it would be like a childs movie compared to yours :P

The clutch is super super light, they only feel ok when you drive fast and rev match with it..:D


Clutch feel actually improves the longer you drive, till you feel your clutch is getting really heavy, that means the throwout bearing is on the way out.

.......and that's probably just as well ...... :D


humfrz

Nice, I see you have the factory accessorie lights. I was going add those to my 86, until I found out I would have to run the wiring harness for them as well.
What color is your 86?
Ron

Looks red (ablaze) to me ...... ;)


humfrz

Actually it's Hot Lava. It's the lighting. That's what I love about this color.

As for the fog lights, I love them. The LED lights are amazing. When I first turned them on last night, I was amazed at how much light they put out. The are better than the factory fogs that were on my IS350.

I was really going to try!:confused0068:

humfrz, I'm amazed that you know about Nitro, WV. Impressed. The cousin thing, well.....

That's my plan. It felt better today the more I drove it but I would like a bit more weight to it. The clutch in my All Trac wasn't truck heavy but it was a good bit heavier than this one. Just what I'm used to I guess.

Well, about the cousin thing ....... back-in-the-day .......we used to say "what happened in West Virginia, stayed in West Virginia"...... ;)

:eyebulge:


humfrz

You two need to stop before you two find out you guys are cousins. lol

chaos out :scared0016:

Congrats on your car, and on picking the best color. Enjoy it. It'll be even more fun once you can wind up past 4k. You'll probably never want to go back down again, lol.

Hard to tell, but no spoiler in the back, correct? Is this your only/daily car? If so, be sure to pick up some snow tires, then you'll really get to have some fun.

Hell, if you go back far enough ....... you will find that just about everybody in West Virginia are cousins, one way or another ......:confused0068:

@chaoskaze is right ....... we should just drop this conversation ....... before we look into his family tree ........ :eyebulge:


humfrz

congrats on the purchase

I must confess that after seeing the lava color in person, I actually like it.

Don't feed the @Tcoat

:laughabove:

I love that color! Not a lot of them on the west coast.
Ron

Currently no spoiler. I'm probably going to put the TRD spoiler on a little later. It's my daily but I've got a Suburban as well so not too worried about winter. Definitely going to upgrade the tires though.

Why is it the only people I hear complaining about the clutch is the North American guys?

Has to be something to do with you being a nation(s) of Auto drivers.

Also new clutches are usually very light and stiffen up as the clutch springs age and harden. Much like guitar strings starting out loose and springy with a rich sound and going stiffer and deader as the metal hardens into it's new stretched shape.

I think in the UK we are so used to jumping out of one manual into another that we just get used to clutches being different in different vehicles. Not just different models/brands, but different individual vehicles within the same model/brand feel different.

I also expect it's a bit of "blame the tool" by those with limited clutch control ability. They get into an unfamiliar manual car and are a bit lurchy so it can't possibly be their lack of clutch control it must therefore be a problem with the clutch.

(I'm bored at work so thought I'd start a bit of a war for lolz ;))

I get what you're saying, I'm on my 14th car and all have been manual (learned how to drive on a stick as well). When I first bought my BRZ the engagement point seemed inconsistent and it made it hard to drive smoothly; every now and then it would jerk and made me feel like a beginner lol. After removing the spring, the experience improved 110%.

Odd. Don't get me wrong here but maybe it's technique.

Personally I consider the "spring" at the top as "slack", so I automatically depress the clutch through that "slack" to the where the actual force begins everytime I put my foot on the clutch. So my foot knows exactly where it is.

If that's the "spring" you mean?

I'm never really had much issue with the clutch. I do get the odd jerk as the clutch fully engages but usually when I'm being lazy and driving on full auto pilot.

My foot muscle memory knows where the bite point is so well without applying throttle I can lift my foot straight from the floor to the bite point quick enough to make the drive train "thump" but not stall or even bog the engine. My performance launch without rev'ing is to do just that and then floor it and lift the clutch the rest of the way almost immediately. Results in a full throttle launch without breaking 1k rpm on clutch slip.

Maybe the clutches are different across the pond? I know quite a few other things are different on each side of the atlantic.

Not the same spring. The "slack" doesn't bother me but rather the vague engagement point.

Aren't we actually talking about a physical spring in the assembly here?

Exactly. I've been driving manual transmission cars for 37 years so I've got a pretty good idea of how it works. Started out on a VW Bug. Like he said, the engagement point is rather vague on this car. Not terrible, but a lot lighter than I like.

I'm going to pull that spring out soon, maybe this weekend. I think it will help based on what I've read.

DANG, there nitro_alltrac ........ was this the last MT vehicle you came out of ...... ?? :eyebulge:

:D


humfrz

For me the engagement point is just at the bottom of the "elbow" point in force. The force required to push the pedal increases up to an "elbow" point - as I call it - then decreases. The engagement point is just where the clutch becomes much heavier to push/hold.

It was the same on my last cars too.

If yours is far below that then maybe adjusting the master cylinder might be better than removing the spring?

You'll wish you pulled the spring out sooner, I love the stiffer, yet consistent, engagement point now.

I did both, remove spring and then re-adjust master cylinder (otherwise there's slack in the pedal).