disappointed in the aftermarket

[car_buff]

I've spent a lot of time looking up parts, trying to gain some bolt on performance for my yaris, the right way, and it seems relatively impossible due to a lack luster aftermarket, and apparently customers content with that.

Until I started looking at parts for my yaris I had never heard of an "axle back exhaust". Seriously, its a muffler and a tip. A relatively minor part of a system whose biggest effect is soumd, which is great, but not what I'm looking for overall. The selection of headers is decent, at least there's that, but why no high flow cats? Easily the most restrictive part of any exhaust system is a shitty manifold followed by oem cats. And all this mid pipe business, why isn't it just referred to as tubing like everywhere else?

The intake side of things is just as pitiful, there's a whole slew of "get rid of my protective air box and slap on a tube and conical filter to the fb". Whoopidoo you have a larger higher quality air filter, with minimal better effect than a k&n oem replacement filter. I've seen a few tb swap ideas, and two custom intakes, by which I mean actual intake manifolds. Why are we content with that when a new manifold getting rid of the silly silencer would be all too easy to make for any manufacturer worth its salt? With the location of the intake portal them selves I'm shocked I have been able to find a real ram air system coming up to a scoop, or down below the radiator. Your kidding yourselves with these "cold air" filters. If you define cold as the ambient temperature surrounding an ICE operating at 170 degrees, then I guess the shoe fits.

Personally I'm not spending the kind of money this aftermarket has grown used to getting for this car. But I'm not content to leave it stock. This won't be easy, but I'm going to start gathering stuff I need to build my own, quality and FULL intake and exhaust systems for as cheap as can be. I know quality and cheap to be an oxymoron in general, but doing the work yourself usually yields the best of both worlds .

Notable mention: NST's underdrive and light weight pulleys are the only performance product out there that I'm satisfied with, a respectable price for a precision machine and balanced product that yields an actual gain? I haven't bought them yet, but they are on the list (soon as I figure out what to underdrive, just lighten, or overdrive according to my needs)

Ps, why are there no brain kits for the auto tranny? I'm a stranger to fwd til now, but surely brain kits will work as well for a fwd as well as a rwd?