My 93' Corolla from New Zealand (JDM AE100)

miib14 wrote:

ooh cool update,

you need to put it on a dyno and get AFR results now

Thanks! Yeah gotta get it on the dyno. Would be great to see how much power I'm making and what my A/F ratios are

i need to do the same

miib14 wrote:

i need to do the same

I'm dying to see what yours will make with the new ECU

haha me too, theres definetly a difference between the 2 ecus

It's little upgrades like this that don't have to increase HP but definitely increase the fun!

Hmmm interesting

gold94corolla wrote:

It's little upgrades like this that don't have to increase HP but definitely increase the fun!

aka the butt/ear-dyno - no actual improvements but it "feels" faster/more powerful.

Hiro wrote:

gold94corolla wrote:

It's little upgrades like this that don't have to increase HP but definitely increase the fun!

aka the butt/ear-dyno - no actual improvements but it "feels" faster/more powerful.

Oh, trust me, this definitely isn't a placebo effect. The sluggishness when accelerating was annoying the hell out of me, so as soon as I increased the fuel pressure and took it for a drive I could instantly tell that the sluggishness was gone and the the car had much more of a 'sweeping' feel when accelerating.

Awesome, and it looks great too!

Haha, thanks Rachid


I've been toying around with the idea of shorter trumpets/ram tubes lately as the engine bay heat being sucked into my open 110mm tubes wasn't doing the performance any favors. I reverted back to the standard curved rubber trumpets for a few weeks and even though the car felt a little more sluggish, the engine much preferred the nice cold air it was ingesting from the cold air intake.

Curiosity got the better of me and I decided to remove the rubber trumpets and run no trumpets whatsoever inside the plenum for just one day. The result was that the engine didn't really have any power down low, but as soon as it hit 5,500rpm the needle rocketed to redline, as expected. One thing I noticed with the factory rubber trumpets is that they're good for mid-range power, but once you get higher up in the rev range the power starts backing off a bit.

To cut a long story short (no pun intended), I decided to get a set of 60mm trumpets custom made which will fit perfectly in the standard plenum. You can actually fit as large as 70mm inside the plenum but it starts getting pretty cramped, so I decided that 60mm would be a nice compromise.

They arrived today and I was quick to install them. Upon my 20-minute test drive I noticed that the power down low had dropped off a bit, but up high it was all guns blazing. The full power band comes on from about 5,000rpm, all the way to 8,000rpm, which I discovered ends up being a good place to be as the engine is constantly in it's power band for the next gear when shifting at the 8,000rpm redline.

It's certainly going to take a bit of getting used to, but so far so good. I'm going to miss the sound my 110's made, and the torquey-ness of the standard trumpets, but when driving the engine at it's full potential the 60's seem to be a good choice

As always, here's some pics. The first 4 show the comparison between the old 110's and the new 60's, and the very last photo was taken by the metal spinner who made my trumpets, showing the clearance of a 50mm trumpet inside the stock plenum (essentially the same sort of clearance as my 60mm ones) -

Is it really as easy as undoing a few bolts to get trumpets on? I want to get some for mine when summer rolls around.

affliKtd wrote:

Is it really as easy as undoing a few bolts to get trumpets on? I want to get some for mine when summer rolls around.

Yeah on the Blacktop it's nice and simple. Only 5 Allen key bolts and it's off. Only takes me about 1 minute these days

very nice work scott, every little helps doesnt it lol
i just got a deck spacer today and it made a massive difference to mid range power

Thanks Ishaq. It does indeed . Oh nice! Didn't even know such a thing was available for the 3S-GE. Better not tell my Dad or he'll want one for his Celica . I saw your pics on Facebook and it looks awesome!


Ok guys, change of plans yet again.......After using the 60mm trumpets all day today I began to miss my old 110mm trumpets. Although the 60's are great up top, it just felt like there was nobody home whatsoever under 5,000rpm, and since 90% of my driving is in the city this started to get on my nerves......

So off came the plenum, along with the trumpets, and an idea popped into my head. Some of you may recall that I bought a splash guard from the US for the trumpets a while back. I used it for about a week and then took it off, but today I was thinking of ways to prevent heat from entering the trumpets if I reinstalled my 110's, when it suddenly occurred to me that I could try and flip the guard upside down, effectively turning it from a splash guard into a heat shield. To my surprise, everything lined up perfectly and it cleared the strut brace with no issues.

Before going ahead with the install I removed the original 2-layer metal gasket from the stock plenum and put it between the ITB's and the shield. This not only allowed the holes to locate perfectly over the intake ports but should also help to act as a heat barrier between the ITB's and the actual trumpets.

After bolting everything in place and redoing my air supply feed (removing the pod filter from the guard and replacing it with a huge bellmouth) I finished the set-up by applying a TRD sticker I've had lying around for a while. It seems to break up the grayness a bit, without looking out of place.

The first drive was amazing - My mid-range power was back in full force and the induction noise was like music to my ears (I swear it has gotten even louder since fitting the shield). My original problem of having no filtration still remains, however the trumpets feel a lot cooler to touch after driving as the shield helps to deflect a lot of the heat away. It'll never be immune to engine bay heat without the use of a plenum, but with the help of this mod it should help to keep things in check

that actually looks quite good scott

*sigh* thanks for reminding me how broke I am Scott. Loving these subtle detail upgrades bro

Hahahaha nice one Scott! Looking great indeed! And idd thanks for reminding us what you can do to your rolla whilst having to save up for my house

Dang, I must've just missed the pics, if you could see them at 6:59 and I couldn't see them at 7:00

Dutch broadband connection

Aw I can't see any pics

why not aaron, i can still see them

Scott went ahead and paid for his photobucket service, so the pics are back up!

nice upgrades scott it looks beautiful

Thanks guys! . My apologies for the photos going down. Must have happened in the wee hours of the morning as they were working when I went to bed but my Photobucket bandwidth must have exceeded during the night as they were all on strike in the morning . I soon sorted it by throwing some money at Photobucket to increase the bandwidth limit for the month


Couple of small updates - I installed a Carbing front lower arm bar (also know as a tie bar) today. Carbing is a Japanese company that have been around since the late 70's, specializing in aftermarket suspension parts. The bar itself is surprisingly light and the installation only took about 15-minutes.

It's designed to improve steering response and reduce chassis flex, however it's effectiveness is somewhat questionable as the subframe acts as a pretty decent brace on it's own, but after my initial test drive on the same stretches of roads I travel every day the steering response did seem a bit sharper and the cornering more stable. It bolts to the front of the lower control arm, which theoretically should help stop the joints flexing in their cradles when cornering.

The other thing I installed today is a TRD radiator cap. I bought one a while ago but it was the S type, which was unfortunately too small for my aftermarket aluminium radiator. This one on the other hand is an N type, and fit perfectly. It has a higher boiling point than my previous cap (1.1 vs 1.3) and looks pretty sweet at the same time.

Jeez, you could eat off of that radiator!  LOL