Roman

I dont think it would be that much. Maybe 5-10 perhaps. But anything extra would be welcome - I was blown away to gain ~6hp from just fuel changes. Incredible! In other news, tonight I have yet again been on the receiving end of some incredible generosity for this project. In exchange for some ongoing engine tuning assistance, I have been given a set of Ohlin coilovers for the Echo. This is better suspension than my Carina has ever had! It's been incredible to be on the receiving end of so many people pitching in to help on this project, in so many different ways. It would have cost heaps to get to this point without HEAPS of people's help along the way. Some of whom have been almost complete strangers who just want to see an Echo living its best life. I'm immensely immensely grateful. I cant wait to see how it drives with these fitted.

It actually would be a bit of fun to make it a dedicated drag car. But then it's the same old problem, need to trailer it everywhere and it just sits around for 99.999% of its existence. Also

This is somewhere around the 800-820kg mark as drag raced (took passenger seat out) Yeah so there's something to be said for average horsepower that a peak number doesnt quite tell the story of. From dyno sheet my motor makes peak torque 5500rpm and peak hp 7600rpm. But it's worth revving it to 9k at the drags, because it means when I change gears it lands into more horsepower. If I changed gear at 7600rpm I'd be landing into 35hp less than what I land into with a 9k shift. Then it takes considerably longer to pull yourself up out of that horsepower hole. And I'd also have to shift into 4th before crossing the line.

I found out the issue with the wideband readings being wrong by heaps. Originally I bought the Spartan 3 wideband from 14point7, and this uses ONLY the LSU-ADV sensor. However canbus didnt work on it, so I got a replacement sent under warranty. The replacement controller was the new version - which can run the LSU-ADV sensor, or, the LSU-4.9 sensor. As they share the same plug. cool right? Except I wasnt aware that it could run both sensors - The replacement was set by default to the 4.9 sensor. D'oh! The calibrations are wildly different between them. The further you go from stoich the worse it gets. I adjusted the controller to the right sensor today, and instantly the lambda values that I was seeing went from 13.9ish down to 12.8ish which is what we tuned for with the tailpipe wideband on the dyno. So thats good, and I'm glad this mistake wasnt the other way around, or it would have run dangerously lean and probably blown itself up. As a side effect of this, all of my VE values are looking more sensible now. Getting a peak VE value of just under 98% at 7500rpm. Here's a visualization of estimated airflow through the motor, with the colour scale being throttle position. Notice how up until about 4250rpm, right down to nearly 50% throttle it's same airflow. Then at low rpm some part throttle areas are flowing more air than full throttle - thought this was weird, but then noticed that on the dyno runs we'd adjusted some full throttle VVTI values, but not reduced them at the part throttle segments too. So I reduced these down so it'll be max at full throttle instead. My next hope of getting anywhere is the nightspeed drag wars in about 2 weeks time. Will have to see if it can go ahead with current restrictions. Today was my birthday so I celebrated by going on some backroad hoons to Waihi Beach for a swim. Was glorious on both counts!

See what other voltage related things you can pull up on the log, and see if they fluctuate So 5v sensor supply, see if its stable Battery voltage, see if it fluctuates See if any other sensors that share the 5v supply fluctuate as well

Fastest run was 100.5 mph I actually swapped the 13" steel wheels onto the back originally, for the drags. As they're lighter than the 14" wheels and R888R. But then figured I'm not too keen on being a bit light on rear end grip while I'm coming to terms with a potentially squishy/wobbly front end. Not a huge amount of weight difference, so would rather just change one variable at a time. 100% not keen on space savers or whatever! I'm looking for some 13" alloys in 4x100, so I can run a set of matching wheels and run these up the front. But need to find some wheels before I buy some, as this looks to be the hard part, finding some in 4x100 13" https://www.summitracing.com/parts/mnh-mss012

A few pics from drags, just in case your eyes havent been punished enough already

Yeah I agree with this, using NOS and you lose some the masochistic charm of NA tuning. Yeah, its just such an incredible difference I dont think I'd want to do it on street tyres again. With the semi slicks you can choose between wheel hop, bog, or spin up. Then it wont stop spinning unless you back right out of it. On these its like a magic carpet ride! Even if rpm is higher it just keeps on propelling you forward. So good! On this car the sound deadening isnt actually stuck to the chassis, its just a thick slab of matting that goes between the carpet and the body. So you literally just lift it out. Then bam 20kg gone! I like some of your other ideas here but reality is I've only got a fairly shoestring budget for this project from here onwards. I'd like to get the carina going again this year. So for the moment I'm just gonna get an exhaust done when I can then worry about whatever else later. And just get some more runs done! And get to a trackday hopefully, which is where I was expecting this car would shine more than the drags.

Nah I'm good for the NOS, realistically my rods are probably on a limited life already! Maybe if I fit those stronger rods though... I think with ITB you'd go for a dry shot and control the fuel addition with with the computer, so you just add injector duty when nitrous is on. Use a secondary fuel map that uses bottle pressure vs rpm as the load axes. Use the ECU to trigger the map change and the nitrous solenoid. Keeps the setup a lot simpler and less messy with extra fuel lines and nozzles everywhere. It's a pity nitrous is so expensive though, it's a cheap buy-in but becomes uneconomical very very quickly in NZ. As we cant buy any of the cheap non medical grade nitrous here unfortunately. In America, nitrous refills are incredibly cheap by comparison, as you can buy "car grade" shitty stuff.

Yeah, after my second run I had a sinking feeling I had some beginners luck and I wasnt going to dip into a 13. I was praying for like a 13.999999 haha. But then when it hooked up like that I just knew. Man it was awesome. And yeah, my last run was the fastest and I only got 3, so it's potentially not even tapped out as it is. Still just blows my mind that it's even possible for a 1500cc NA setup to do anywhere near that sort of time. Also just like my first time going on a track with semi slicks. It goes to show just how important the right tyre is. See people spending $$$$$$ on their car but then on the wrong tyre for the job. Cheapest way to go fast. Especially when you borrow them from @Stu haha I just had a look through logs from my fast run. Looks like after dumping the clutch the rpm falls to minimum of 4500, which is great as below that is the area I really need to avoid. So I'm 100% keen to go back and try a higher launch rpm. And now super keen to get the exhaust done.

Thanks. Honestly I dont think it's even at the point where tweaking the suspension more is needed. I only got 3 runs and I dont think I'm too close to dialling it in yet on those tyres. I reckon launch another 500 or 1000rpm higher and my 60ft would drop even more. Not full street trim, I dont normally have the back seats in, but took out the passenger seat this time.

Last night at Nightspeed. Suuuper busy, but it was really awesome to see a big crowd at the drags, lots of spectators too. Was a cool atmosphere. So first run, set the hoosiers to around 20psi which is very high, but wanted to start out conservative. Ran a 14.092 @ 100.21 mph with a 2.33 60ft. So first run and I've beaten the Carina by every single metric. What the hell! But so stoked! I was convinced at this point that I'd get a 13 tonight. Second run we dropped the pressures a bit, launch wasnt so good and I ran a 14.1 with a higher 60ft. At this point I figured I'd probably cursed myself saying I'll get a 13. Looking at the logs of both runs, the motor was bogging a bit when I was trying to roll into the throttle and clutch. So third run, set a launch limiter at 5500rpm. Full throttle sitting on line, dump the clutch. And holy fucken shit. No wheel hop no big spinning, just felt like stretching out and releasing a rubber band. It felt so much faster than my first run, I crossed the line realizing it must be a 13. Absolutely fucking stoked beyond belief Get my time slip and was blown away 13.83 @ 99.6 mph with a 2.1 60ft Was in about 5000 out of 100 fizz mode, it was so cool. I didnt get any more runs, because it was incredibly busy and was already 10.30pm or so by the time they started the eliminations. But it's incredible to think that it could still possibly go faster yet. Even just doing that time was incredible. It felt like it could have easily launched another 500rpm or 1000rpm higher and hooked up good. Will be back!

I wonder how much people's torque steer comments are just from poor wheel alignment or stuffed bushes. Great milestone!

Nah those guys are just being weiners All of the aftermarket manifolds try to fit into the space of the standard manifold, to make it a bolt on affair. So there's no way you can really have a 4-2-1 in that length. The real solution is to just make a long 4-1 or 4-2-1 and then have the first flange start further back. The hurricane header from Australia looks pretty good, but I cant find a reasonably priced way to get one here.

Okay soooo, DTech in Tauranga offered me some dyno time before the drags, see if we could squeeze a bit more out of it. Much to my surprise, it gained around 6hp over my road tune... By leaning it out considerably! It turns out that because my exhaust is so absolutely 100% miserably shit, the exhaust pressure is so high that it's skewing the wideband results. So my rock solid 12.8:1 on my sensor was actually reading around 11:1 at the tail pipe on the dyno sensor. So we leaned it out and picked up power straight away. Then some minor fiddling with ignition and cam timing gave some minor results, but the fuel was the money maker. Ended up with 141 whp @ 7700rpm. Stoked! Absolutely cannot wait for Friday now. Also it was so god damn loud in the dyno room you could feel the intake pulses hitting into you. lordy. This thing is going to slap dicks once its got a good exhaust on it.

Ewwww nah that's a bridge too far. I hate those black bumper ones. And some of the earlier front bumpers look yuck too. These tyres dont much fit the "stealth" theme but I think I'll definitely sell some junk to buy some of the 13x205 ish wide drag slicks that a mate uses. Then just need to try find a 7"-ish 13" rim in 4x100 which is proving challenging.

These actually have a really flat underbody, which is part of how they get their surprisingly good 0.30 coefficient of drag Gotta have that slipperyness to get good fuel economy!

Oh man the ultimate Vitz fanatic (Pat Norris) lives in Nelson... I think that might be one of his cars? He's got like 20 of them. Including a full blown 1300cc class rally car which is cool as. If you ever meet him, brace yourself for some full blown vitz barrying

Big thanks to @Stu for lending some drag tyres for Nightspeed this Friday. Super excited! More than I have been about car events in a long time. Full fizz! Replacement waterpump turned up today. Awesome.

Yeah I think since manufacturers started putting reversing cameras in, they just dont give a shit about rear visibility any more. Maybe also a bit of keeping the glass weight down too I guess for a rally car base. Like I guess if you are going to make a carbon fibre roof there's no point undoing all that with massive slabs of glass.

As a disclaimer to this oncoming story, and this entire thread - Despite my overwhelming enthusiasm for the absolutely mundane. Yes. Yes I am indeed aware that in objective terms this is not a very fast car by any metric. My work wagon is probably quicker. That's fine. It's not breaking any world records. That's fine. It looks like a melted M&M. Thats fine. And so on. The hilarity and joy from this car though comes from the disparity between expectations and execution. High expectations are very rarely met. Low expectations are easy to exceed. Being an incredibly common, dreary, budget car that's commonly auto and mostly 1300cc or 1000cc. Almost everyone in NZ has had enough exposure to a Vitz/Echo/Yaris/equivilent shitbox to form a fairly robust opinion of how much they suck. I myself drove this car completely standard for about 8 years. So I know. I really do. So to exceed this expectation even by a little, is really good fun. I mean, when I went to the Toyota Festival the guy at the gate was reluctant to let me in when I said I was going to drive it on the track. Haha! Classic. So anyway. My partner has been fostering a kitten, and a local young "car guy" expressed some interest in rehoming it. (Someone I'd previously taken for a drive in the Echo in its current state) After some negotiation I agreed to drive over to his house to drop it off. I drive to park around the back of his house, and there's lots of cars there and a bunch of teenagers looking at me as I pull in. I get out of a Toyota Echo, with a kitten in a crate, wearing some raggedy shit because I'd just been doing some yard work around the house. So not a first impression that screams "Car person" so much as "low tide mark on the poverty line". The guy I knew says to one of the other onlookers: "He brought the Echo! Ohhhh you should race Dave hahahaha" His friend looks the car up and down, and says "Ummm no" with a look of thinly veiled insult. Insulted at the prospect that his car was in any way comparable to something as lame as that. Then he says to me "Dave, he's got a beams Celica" Me: "Nice! Cool." So we go have a quick look at it. Then he says back to his friend: "No really, you should race Dave haha" Then his friend started looking a bit more suspicious, but not quite sure of the situation. I explained that I didnt want to race anyone- just here to drop off a kitten. I think from his perspective, we appeared equally embarrassed and confused by the situation. As in, geez it would be embarassing for me, some weirdo cat man who'd probably not driven fast before to try race a celica and get smoked. Then also why would he waste his time racing an echo? I reiterated that I didnt want to race anyone, but if he wanted to come for a drive, he's welcome. He still didnt seem that keen, but his mates egged him on saying he should. Surprisingly, after being told it had a prius motor in it, with a massive 1500cc big block. He hadnt gained any further enthusiasm. The bonnet stayed shut. So he gets in, and we go down the road a bit like he's about to get Barryed to within an inch of his life. (This part was probably accurate) I keep the revs super low, and drive like uhhh... how you drive an Echo. It just sounds like a standard car while you're driving along normally. I make some chit chat about general car stuff. He starts telling me about projects he wants to do and so on while we amble a bit further out of town. We get to a backroad and I check the mirrors and stop. Foot flat, revs go up, and launch control activates. Dump the clutch. First gear was gratuitously wheel spinny, for a laugh rather than getting anywhere too quickly. Squeals a bit into 2nd. Then we run through a few gears and a few upcoming corners at full noise. "What the fuck! What the actual fuck!" "What the fuck!" "I'm not racing this thing!" "How the... what... jesus" Anyone whos met me in person can vouch for my absolutely punchable smug looking face, at this point I was easily smug level 100/100. Then I go drop him back off and all his mates are having a giggle while he just looks a bit bewildered hahaha. "What the hell. A prius motor. What the hell." And we all have a laugh about it. The end. Also, video as requested

Heh, nah. No exhaust until hoist is in place, hopefully not too long but realistically a month or three. In annoying news, since putting the rev limiter up it seems by electric waterpump has shit itself. It intermittently either stops working completely, or, works but then doesnt respond to speed signal from ECU. I'm thinking that possibly the level of vibrations from doing 9000rpm is too much for electronics that are hard mounted to the engine block inside the pump. As its only designed to do 4000rpm or whatever haha. As this is a near new pump, after I blew up the last one wiring it backwards. So that's annoying. I've also wired up a piezo to a spare output on the ECU as a buzzer. So if the pump stops working while the engine is running, it blares out annoyingly. I'm going to order a new pump and then head to nightspeed on the 14th with 9k limiter and some drag tyres. No other changes are likely in the meantime unless I blow it up or something. But would be neat to run a bit lower in the 14s as-is. Longer term if I decide to keep this car/project (I've got 4 more months until wof/reg runs out) then I'll likely switch to a block with mechanical waterpump that will bolt up to my gearbox properly.

Was that with an EFI engine or carby? I'm surprised that that much of a minor pipe dia change made it run differently. If the tuner managed to recover the lower rpm, then it must have been a fueling issue rather than a physical change. In which case that's no problem here. I'm not expecting to lose any power anywhere on account of a better exhaust/manifold. Yeah might sound grotty though without decent mufflers. I'd expect it might pick up some midrange if it behaves similar to KPR's testing on 4AGE stuff but we will see. What's there is just complete shit / designed to get heat into the cat converter ASAP with the stubby little 4-1 pipes. Doesnt look like any tuned lengths involved. So I dont think it will lose in any way.

Nah I didnt bother, because the amount of material removed was absolutely tiny. I finished all that and got it all back together. Initial results from looking at the fuel map indicated there was hardly anything in it. Not too surprising as it was all quite good to start with, not gross dregs and machining like 80s tech heads. However I did a new full sweep of cam angles. As I figured if there's any low lift flow benefits it will probably want to close the cam at a slightly different time. This showed some surprising differences. It now wants to keep 35 deg cam advance until 7000, then steps down to a minimum of 15 deg by 9000 So ignore the actual AFR on the below graphs it's just the relative difference that's of interest. So if you follow the red 35 deg line towards the 6500rpm area is where there's an interesting difference. Also a bigger spread of results around the 6500ish area. Usually you see the cross over point somewhera round peak torque, notice on the first one that's just past 6500rpm, now closer to 7000. Then after retuning fuel with these new best cam angles, the fuel map wanted to change positively too. Not much just 1% or 2% sort of thing. No huge gains like changing the intake or trumpet length. It's now looking a little more peaky in some areas, for whatever reason. A before and after on virtual dyno is basically within margin of error. Will be interesting to see if there are any trap speed improvements next time at the drags. So I've now completely run out of excuses for not doing the exhaust... crap. After xmas I will order some parts. Then that's probably as many farts as I'll be able to squeeze out of it.

Yep I've got about 37 degrees of usable range, by putting the cam 1 tooth back and adding a stopper in the pulley