I have a 2007 Corolla CE, as you might be able to tell by the title. I realize that it is a corolla. I won't be winning any drag racing...or any other races for that matter, so my friends like to remind me. However, it is my car, and I am fond of it. I just prefer to have a better performing car, mainly in terms of handling. what would be a good option for suspension upgrades? everything is stock except the K & N air filter, heh heh. I have seen springs available online and such, but will the stock shock or strut or whatever it is called handle it? My friend tells me no, that it will blow it out. the sprint springs are nice, as well as the eibach sets. the stillen website has many options, though I would probably look elsewhere for lower prices. ok this is long enough.
i tried to read through as many pages on the 9th gen as I could, but there was just so many.
please disregard, as soon as I put this post up, i found what i was looking for on page 12 or 13. at least in terms of suspension. what would be the best resource for tires and wheel sizes after i put on some suspension mods, though?
I'd like to address your whole situation. first, your friend is a bit of a simpleton. The problem with just using springs is the ride gets hard, and the shocks aren't set up to rebound hard enough, so you get a bouncy ride (like a carriage on a set of coil springs and nothing else). you need to change the shocks/struts to provide a stronger rebound.
The problem with wheel/tires is you have to select a set of wheels that will 1) fit the car (not hard), and 2) improve the handling. 17/18 inch wheels are quite common these days with the advent of larger cars, but don't be fooled, less rotation and less weight is the key. Especially on a car like this. My plan is a set of 16" Motegi SX5 wheels. They weigh in less than the stock steelies, and the 16" size (1" over stock) really opens up tire options.
As for your K&N filter, did you remove the "air bong" from the air box forward as well? I found it helped engine response a bit (you'll have to keep the filter clean a bit more often. I went from twice a year to three times a year cleaning the filter). Not much, but it gets on a bit quicker (i.e. there's less throttle bog when you start from a stand still and idle).
what is an air bong? how do i remove it? does it require many tools?
The "air bong" is a long snorkel like tube leading from your air box to the front of the car. To remove it, you'll need the following tools:
1) a flat head screwdriver, preferably a dulled one for safety reasons
2) a 10 mm socket and a 12" extension.
3) possibly a pocket knife/utility knife if you're dextrous and careful.
Now, on to removing the bong. unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of the removal, or I'd have posted a quick how to on here.
1) Attaching the very end of the snorkel/air bong to the car is a nasty little two piece fastener. It sits right by the headlamp in front of the battery. Take your flat head screwdriver and firmly pop out the fastener. Now, the first piece is loose. Once you pull away the snorkel, you can replace the fastener quite easily by separating the two pieces, then putting them back in the hole. This isn't necessary, but keeps the area looking a little cleaner. Remember, this is all part of that magic "OEM Plus" look.
2) With the plastic head loose, you'll need to separate it from a thick tube of weaved material. The plastic snorkel (which kinda looks like a parascope sitting in front of your battery) is STAPLED (wtf toyota) into the weaved material. Using your trusty screwdriver, pop out the staples. Now, they also decided to glue this sucker in, so twist and pull on the plastic snorkel until it comes loose.
3) In the front corner of the engine bay, right by the battery, there is a plastic piece held on by a 10mm bolt. Grab your socket, ratchet and 12" extension bar, and remove the bolt. If you can reach in there with your knife, you can try to cut the weaved material tubing. This would make it much easier, but be careful. You're holding a knife near a battery and a fuse box.
4) next, you'll want to open your battery box, and remove the three 10mm bolts under the filter. This gives the air box some wiggle room for the crucial step 5.
5) using your hands, pop out the plastic tube leading into the bottom of the air box. You'll need to push down a notched piece of plastic to make the plastic hose come through the hole in the bottom.
6) Now, if you can't cut the weaved part like I couldn't, this part might get you a little scraped up and, if you're like me, a lot of people will hear a lot of foul language. Pushing the air box out of the way, pull the remaining bits of the assembly around the battery and up towards the air bong. There is no scientific method here. Cut where necessary, and pull on it as much as possible. When it's out of the car, toss it in the trash never to be seen again.
But after you remove the "bong", you'll still want to DIY a cold air snorkel. Because you're still pulling in hot, under-hood air. The real benefit comes from routing some pipe to ingest air from down below the fog light area.
It all comes down to density vs. velocity. air that has a shorter distance to travel will fill the cylinders just as well as air from the wheel well where its colder, because its traveling faster than air that has to run through all that piping, which loses a lot of it's velocity. For the extra $20 in pipe, you're not really gaining anything. What I would to with the extra pipe is make the transition from the air box to the throttle body as smooth as possible using stock sized ABS pipe. You can re-use the stock clamps, and air velocity will be improved because it will prevent air turbulence from the shape of the stock tubing.
When it comes down to it, there are too may ways to do this and get similar results. I've read and posted in a million threads about this on multiple forums, and I've seen every solution possible from the two mentioned above, to a FAI*, using the stock intake off a corvette LT1, attaching a large cone filter to the throttle body (this was more because of space issues in an already extended engine bay because someone stuffed a Northstar V8 in a Chevy cavalier), eBay intakes, brand name intakes, and homemade ram-air and cowl induction systems. All of them work, and all of them improved air flow and horsepower.
*Fresh air intake: This is similar to JasonA's idea, but takes it a step further. The intake tube is re-routed in the front of the engine bay, where a panel filter (much like ours) is placed sideways (i.e. facing the grille). A bit of window screen is placed over the grille opening to prevent bugs and rocks from hitting the filter, then it gets shrouded in plastic, and tapers down to the filter in a Venturi effect sort of way, and then through a wider diameter tube. Supposedly this gives you colder air at speed with a large opening to gulp it in through. Never tried it, not my idea, and I've seen about a text book's worth of arguments over it.
It all comes down to density vs. velocity. air that has a shorter distance to travel will fill the cylinders just as well as air from the wheel well where its colder, because its traveling faster than air that has to run through all that piping, which loses a lot of it's velocity.
I don't believe the velocity of the air through the intake system before the throttle plate makes much of a difference. The potential velocity is slower for sure with a longer tube, but this little engine isn't ingesting air at the rate higher than a 2" pipe can deliver anyway. Heck, it was ingesting through a 1.5" fiber pipe with the "bong".
But as we know, the temperature of the air has a lot to do with engine performance. This is plenty noticeable to me in warmer weather. My car feels much less in hot weather now. In cold weather, it's probably a wash. I ran it for a few days with the bong removed and no cold air snorkel. I didn't notice much of a difference, but it was also winter time, so that may have been a factor.
(And this ABS pipe should cost you no more than about 10 bucks, for everything!)
I don't believe the velocity of the air through the intake system before the throttle plate makes much of a difference. The potential velocity is slower for sure with a longer tube, but this little engine isn't ingesting air at the rate higher than a 2" pipe can deliver anyway. Heck, it was ingesting through a 1.5" fiber pipe with the "bong".
But as we know, the temperature of the air has a lot to do with engine performance. This is plenty noticeable to me in warmer weather. My car feels much less in hot weather now. In cold weather, it's probably a wash. I ran it for a few days with the bong removed and no cold air snorkel. I didn't notice much of a difference, but it was also winter time, so that may have been a factor.
(And this ABS pipe should cost you no more than about 10 bucks, for everything!)
I have to disagree with that. 2" is too small. The throttle body is 60mm at the butterfly. This means you're actually bottle necking by using 2" pipe.
How do you know that 2" pipe is a bottleneck? Giving the size of the throttle body is not enough. What's the size of the MAF? Either way:
The potential flow of liquid through a pipe is the cross-sectional area multiplied by the velocity of the fluid. We know the cross-sectional area of a 2" pipe, but do not know the velocity of the fluid through the system.
Now, we can estimate the volume of air requirement for the engine. It's a naturally-aspirated 1.8L engine. Estimating the volumetric efficiency at 80%, which is probably conservative, we have a CFM potential, at 6,000 RPM, of about 153 CFM.
In order to know if a 2" pipe can supply 153 CFM, at 6,000 RPM, you need to know the velocity through the pipe.
Then you get into the point that this only applies at full-throttle, at 6,000 RPM. What about every engine speed lower than that? The CFM requirement will be dramatically less. At the engine speeds that most of us drive, 2,000-3,000 RPM, the CFM requirement is 51-76 CFM, and that's at full throttle. At part throttle, CFM requirements are much lower.
They physics behind your discussion has been fascinating. However, it is above my level of auto mechanics and I fall shy of understaning what all that means. With that being said...
I have looked at the TRD catalog, and find that there aren't many parts available for the 2007 Corolla. So my new question is this...
Is it better, with the car that I have, to find other aftermarket parts? I would like to stay with the Toyota name for my car. Part of my OCD. Thanks in advance for any answers...
They physics behind your discussion has been fascinating. However, it is above my level of auto mechanics and I fall shy of understaning what all that means.
Shoot, with all the unknowns, none of us REALLY knows either. We can talk theory, but without real data, we can't know positive answers either. For example, we can estimate CFM (Cubic Feet per Minute), but to do that, we need to know volumetric efficiency. Only Toyota knows that. We can only estimate. We also don't know the velocity of air through the intake system, nor the true pressure losses through the system, etc.
It's all fun to speculate, discuss, and tinker around.
They physics behind your discussion has been fascinating. However, it is above my level of auto mechanics and I fall shy of understaning what all that means. With that being said...
I have looked at the TRD catalog, and find that there aren't many parts available for the 2007 Corolla. So my new question is this...
Is it better, with the car that I have, to find other aftermarket parts? I would like to stay with the Toyota name for my car. Part of my OCD. Thanks in advance for any answers...
The thing with TRD is, they're stuff is all REALLY expensive. The TRD strut bar is $400 at the dealer (CAD). The DC bar, which is a better piece, is $120 off eBay. The axle back exhaust is more expensive than having a muffler shop do a compression bent (still smooth like mandrel bent, but not as expensive) set of pipes, and hook you up with a GOOD muffler (Hooker Aerochamber, Dynomax Ultraflo SS, etc.). I've priced it all out. No matter what the part, there is someone making the same thing cheaper, and sometimes better, but usually at least just as good.
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