I remember reading an article somewhere about this guy who was able to upgrade his vehicle's electrical system by replacing the stock grounding wires (the black ones in the engine bay, such as the one leading from the battery holder to the transmission, then to the alternator, etc.) with 4 gauge wire, which is basically the same gauge as battery cable. What you do is buy about roughly 8 feet of 4 gauge wire, some eyelit terminals that will fit on the ends of the cable, and cut-to-fit the 4 gauge cables, thereby replacing your stock ones. I own a 1991 Toyota Camry and I myself have tried this. I haven't done actually drug out any kind of voltage meter or anything to see if it really did increase my electrical system, but from what I can tell it has definitely improved and I've had not a single problem with it. Oh, and by the wire, make sure to buy some heat resistant convoluted piping to cover at least the 4 gauge wire (should you decide to go through with this) that leads from the battery tray to the transmission. Mine was too close to the exhaust header and was starting to melt but I caught it just in time and put piping over it and also moved it as far away from the header as I could and secured it to another bundle of wires using some of those spiffy zip ties.
Of course there's also the usual stuff you can do, such as washing the car and vacuuming the interior and spraying some form of UV protection on your dash and such. You can also do like I did and get some good engine degreaser and spray it on your engine (make sure you do this when you engine is cold, NOT HOT!!!!!) and then let it sit for about half an hour then wash it off gently with a hose and then get some engine detailer and spray it on there to make it look all shiny and new.
Oh, and another thing about wires...although my car is 12 years old and the wire harnesses in the engine compartment haven't given up on me, I decided to secure them with zip ties. I read in a Sport Comact magazine about this Nissan car whose electrical system was starting to go out cuz of all the vibration from driving was causing "fatigue" in the wiring harnesses and such. (of course, this was a race car, but still, it's better to be safe than sorry!
Some of the first things I did with my lil' Camry before putting mods on her was to pretty much bring the car back up to speed (no pun intended
). My Camry belonged to my mom, then my older brother, and now to me, but since my mom and brother didn't really take care of the car like they should have, it was showing signs of neglect, especially in the engine compartment. So before I went out and added stuff that might have otherwise blew my ancient-looking 3S-FE engine to smithereenies, I "restored" it by spraying engine degreaser on it, changed the oil, belts, refilled the completey empty refrigerant charge (yay!
), drained, flushed, and refilled the coolant, added a transmission cooler, replaced a lot of old yucky wires with much better ones (such as the ground wires), and basically did major tune-up on her.
Oh, and there's yet another thing! I'll first start off by giving credit to Hotwheelharmer for sharing this with me. One way you can help out your Camry is by running some tranny fluid (dexron 3) through one of the vacuum lines, which basically causes it to run through a lot of other lines in the engine compartment, cleaning build-up and carbon and such outta them. I'm not as familiar with the 5S-FE engine as I am with the 3S-FE engine (in terms of appearance), so I'll do my best to describe what to do on the 3S-FE engine and hope that it'll work the same for your engine:
Locate the throttle body. On top of it are some hoses. There are 3 that are pretty close together, and then there's a 4th one that's a little ways away from them. This hose is the one you're looking for (well, it was the one I used, and it worked fine). Anyway, what you do is start the car, then take the end of the hose that's plugged into the throttle body and unplug it. You may notice a rise in your engine's revving, but is no cause for concern. Anyway, back to the point. Take an extra piece of spare vacuum hose you have lying around, and put one end into where the now-unplugged vacuum hose previously was, and then put the other end into a bottle of tranny fluid. The engine will start to suck in the tranny fluid, and may begin to make some strange sounds at first, so it might be in your best interest to start slow. You'll soon notice smoke coming out of your tail pipe, along with what kinda looks like black soot. This is the enemy; this is carbon build-up! Anyway, let the engine suck up the tranny fluid until almost half the bottle has been sucked up, then take the end of the hose that's in the tranny fluid bottle out and put it in a bucket of water. This'll flush out the transmission fluid that you just ran through, any leftover build-up, and pretty much put the finishing touch on things.
Well I sure hope all this helps! Didn't expect my reply to be this long, but hey, that's a good thing right?
Anyway, if you decide to do any of this stuff, make sure to reply back and lemme know how it's done for your car. I've done all this to mine and have had not problems since!
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