My weekend upgrades

[Altitude]

Had a busy weekend with bolt-ons and maintenance.

• Changed the oil (Royal Purple)
• Installed Fumoto oil drain plug
• New spark plugs (NGK Iridium)
• New belt (Dayco)
• Microimage lightweight pulley
• DC Sports header

She's just over five years old now and still low mileage (about 29K) but it feels like a brand new car The engine is so quiet and smooth at idle that I can hardly tell it's running. Smoothed out the acceleration and improved general responsiveness quite a bit. I recommend the pulley and header to anyone considering upgrades.

Installs were fairly painless - ended up soaking the header bolts with PB Blaster overnight and that helped a great deal.

I've got a bit of a brake squeal I wish I could get rid of. Took advantage of the removal of the front passenger wheel to apply some anti-squeal to the disc pads but the squeal is still there - not as bad - but it still happens. It might be the rear passenger drum and I'm planning on adjusting those in the coming days so I'll see if that helps.

Getting the car ready for a cross country trip and looking forward to the improvements!

Up next; complete and thorough cleaning of the interior, wash, clay bar, polish, wax, dress up the plastic, trim pieces and engine bay.

[tk-421]

Nice mods! That pulley alone should bring a big smile to your face.
Do you have a bigger intake and/or exhaust to complement that header?

[MadMax]

Funny, my 2008 LB has about the same mileage (29K)...

[Altitude]

Originally Posted by tk-421

Do you have a bigger intake and/or exhaust to complement that header?

Yes I do .

When I put the intake on some time ago (Simota carbon box) it didn't make a ton of difference. I wasn't expecting much then as I knew I really needed a header to compliment it. But I don't get much time to do these things and at the time the header was more than I wanted to tackle.

I ran the NST pulley for a while but pulled it off a couple years ago and have been running the stock since. I gotta say though - with the NST the engine was still lacking something from a dead stop. Now I don't know if it's just MI's pulley or the combination of that and the header, but starting from a dead stop is much easier and I don't need to feather the throttle so much if at all. The idle has greatly improved as well.

All in all the car has a little bit more muscle now. Not a lot more, but enough to feel the difference and that makes me happy.

Originally Posted by MadMax

Funny, my 2008 LB has about the same mileage (29K)...

It's my DD but I work from home so I don't put a lot of miles on it.

I've got a '97 Wrangler that I bought in '98 and it's still under 90k. I use it primarily during the winter and for trips to the mountains but it's been a bit neglected since I've owned the Yaris. I'll be giving the Jeep some love soon though.

How's your Wrangler doing btw?

[MadMax]

Originally Posted by Altitude

It's my DD but I work from home so I don't put a lot of miles on it.

I've got a '97 Wrangler that I bought in '98 and it's still under 90k. I use it primarily during the winter and for trips to the mountains but it's been a bit neglected since I've owned the Yaris. I'll be giving the Jeep some love soon though.

How's your Wrangler doing btw?

Mine is doing well, but I "bumped" a guy in a Nitro at a stoplight a few weeks back and destroyed my foglights. They also pushed back into my fenders creasing them a bit. Still, it's a Jeep, so some scars only give it more character. I just gotta come up with a good trail story to explain the damage...

As for Sprocket, I do drive it to work about three times a week and it's an 18-mile commute each way; but outside that and a few road trips for gun shows and whatnot, it doesn't get a lot of miles on it. It also helps that I travel all the time, being away from home a week or two every month. Whereas I do miss driving it, that gives me a chance to "test" drive other cars like the Mazda2 rental we had last week that I took up Pike's Peak.

Cheers! M2