Soldato
I totally missed that message till now
I've had a nosey under the bonet and it appears they ran out of paint during the construction. Solar Orange is so limited they didn't use it in the engine bay. What is that all about!?
On a positive I still love my car. Still getting to grips with driving a rear wheel, haven't messed with the traction control options either yet or if I'm honest had the car sideways as the electronics jump in quite harshly to get you straight again at the slightest hint of a rear wiggle. Will have to figure out which modes do what when I have some quiet "private road" ahem.
My only real niggle is the lack of sound out of the exhaust... Oh and the stereo. So plan is to get a cat back and a panel filter and sort the stereo ofter that.
Can anyone recommend a cat back? I will be going catless UEL and remap in the future but not while I have so muck warranty. I like the blue burnt titanium style but it's not a deal breaker. Have seen the Invidia Q300 - apparently it's tame on a standard car but great when the UEL goes on. Also looked at Cobra and saw some people here mention RRG Macclesfield fitting non Toyota parts. I'm guessing it's a dealer lots recommend?
As for audio - what are people doing there to make it sound better? Head unit upgrade? Speaker upgrade? I've seen the Oem+ system from across the pond. Seems awesome.
ANYWAY this post is getting long
Alex
The engine bay thing tickled me, all of them are like it. Bit naughty really but I suppose it's a way of them using up older shells.
Exhaust as mentioned is something to be very, very careful with. These cars get VERY loud without too much effort to the point where you'll get chucked off track days.
Obviously certain exhausts are louder than others, but you need to research this carefully and think about your longer term goals. I have a Cobra resonated catback - quite a few people dislike these for a number of reasons (not the prettiest of welds and even the resonated is pretty loud), but they're lightweight and fairly cheap since they're made in the UK. You don't have any issues with welds cracking (cough Milltek), they have a lifetime warranty and they do provide a small power increase unlike some of the others which cost about 1200 quid and don't add any power (I'm looking at you HKS). But as said they are loud, to the point of being possibly annoying to some. When I just had the catback it was about right, throaty but not droney. With a 1st defat, over pipe and UEL manifold, it's right at the point of being silly now. WOT is properly silly at higher RPM and I can imagine this not being for everyone. So be honest, if you're thinking manifold and remap later on, do yourself a favour and consider resonated catbacks at the very least.It's worth clarifying, when I say research I mean going to a meet and actually listening first hand to a few cars. You can't judge exhausts well by Youtube videos since the dynamic compression of the audio makes them all sound broadly similar in volume, and that's before we've even got into microphone quality, placement etc.
RRG Macc fit aftermarket stuff yes - they'll do pretty much everything apart from remaps. It does effect your warranty officially if it can be proven that the aftermarket part caused the failure. In practice though, most of what they fit isn't going to cause a failure. They also have a trading agreement with Fensport, so they can get anything in Fensport sell which is handy if you're not in the eastern side of the country.
Speakers and proper high end audio in an 86 is a bit of a waste imho. Due to the lack of sound deadening spending loads on speakers is a bit of a waste since road noise masks much of the improvement. As said the Focal direct fits are a good compromise between price/quality/improvements but much beyond that and you need to really think about lining the doors, rear arches etc which can add some serious weight. Personally that's not a compromise I'm willing to make, but can appreciate to some it's more of a priority.
