rider

Considering upgrading my stock intercooler to a front mount larger alternative. I've seen kit pricing from £165 on EBay to £1,450 for a Blitz setup. Two questions. It looks like a bumper off job, how many hours labour is required to undertake the fit? Can anyone recommend a good off the shelf kit with pipework that fits. As I said earlier, there are kits out there where the pipework looks different shape and lengths.

£165 a corner, that's with a discount as I was told that the retail through Toyota is over £200 a corner. I did see specialist sites offering them for £10 cheaper but figured that for the sake of £40 I'd go direct to Toyota to ensure they were OE parts. What my baby needs my baby gets. Or in the case of the shocks, what she doesn't need she still gets.

I just changes my shocks and selected the stock Toyota Bilsteins which are more expensive than the Bilstein B6's which are often web site listed as suited to the Mk4 Supra. I did read on a US website that the Bilstein B6's ride an inch higher than the stock Toyota struts which makes the car good for off roading but clearly spoil the ride height look. That's why I ended going through a Toyota dealership for the stock parts.

If its a White Supra (040) I had my BBS RZ alloys refurbed this year with BMW shadow chrome. They look much better than the former silver. More expensive as its a two stage paint process but worth it.

Thanks all for the come back - I've sent Chris an email seeing he must be somewhere local to me.

Looks like I win this one. 78,500 miles in 14 years with the same TT 6 speed. I did 12k per year in the early years but its been pretty much a second or third car for the last decade so only does 3k to 5k a year now.

My 1996 TT 6 speed has done 103k on the original clutch which I reckon is good going but it has the occassional slip. To be honest it first had a slip 5 years ago but I only do a few thousand miles in it each year. The slippage is still very occassional and generally from a low down boot rather than a high rev thrash. I want to line up a replacement for the next service/MOT visit to the garage. You see the occassional one come up on e-Bay but I was wondering if anyone can share a good company or site to go sort out a replacement. The car was dyno tested in the not too distant past and recorded 330bhp at the drive wheels so it has had a BPU in its early life. nothing serious though so a stock clutch will do fine.

Was it still there in the morning?

Maybe those that are closer can buy the food and drinks I think its best if the OP were to just to set a venue at the start of the thread and put an inviteout. Then people can just say in or not in. Bearing in mind half the in's won't make it then if there is insufficient interest just cancel.

I've been hard at work today on my teenage 6 speed TT Surpra that I've now owned for 14 years. Buffed in paint restorer and topped of with a polish. The car still looks good for 16 years though to be honest came across a couple of minor rust spots. I think I'll hold off the respray for a few years yet.

Looks like Nic's the wheel man. Thanks for the useful breakdown. Can I just reconfirm one thing. The +50 offset applies to the import Supra and not the bigger brake UK model. Just need that putting to bed for my import then I should be set to go shopping. thanks again.

This is probably going to look like a numb nut question to many but I'm struggling to find an article to give me a difinitive on this. I have a stock jap import running 17 in BBS alloys on 225's front and 245's rear. They could do with a refurb but I got quoted £600 for a polish job whoch I thought was way too much so looking instead at buying a new set and selling the BBS I have. I'm trying to figure things out so I don't end up with a set that dont fit so here are some questions. 1. The stud pattern is 5X114.3, I figured that one out. 2. If I go for larger rims, say 18 inch then presumably I need to come down 10 or so on the profile otherwise the spedo and milometer will be way out? Am I correct with that assumption? 3. I believe the standard offset is +40 for an import but I can't track down confirmation on that, is that correct? 4. If by going to wider rims, say from 7J to 8J does that change the offset? 5. Does anyone know a web site that lists what width tyre goes onto which width wheel? I think my BBS's are 7J and 8J but thats me guessing as I haven't had them off for a while to read the markings on them. Currently I'm running on 40 profiles and with the roads around here I probably wouldn't want to go much lower than 35's and retain a spine. Hopefully thats my numptyness over for today but any assistance will be gratefully viewed.

Whats wrong with standard Toyota Super White 040. I still can't polish my car outside without wearing sunglasses even though the paint is 16 years old. It looks cool, I don't look quite so cool.

Are you certain the rev guage is reading the correct value as 300rpm is very low to maintain a steady tickover. Does the rpm increase by 300 when you engage the air con? It's easy to check if the guage is reading OK if you don't have access to a tachometer by running at a set speed in gear the rpm to speed will obviously depend on the gear selected and whether its an auto or manual gearbox.

This is an old thread that I'm kicking up but it may be useful to the yellow lens issue to recount my own experience. I bought a lens refurb kit off ebay and tried it on an old lens that I had exchanged several years ago due to it being strongly yellowed. Upshot was it came up pretty good with finger application (no hours of grinding and polishing). The kit had two bottles of treatment followed by polish. The treatment bottle smelled very familiar, Brasso I thought. So I reached for the cupboard and grabbed an old bottle that has sat there for years, same smell and same colour. Off I went to do the second replaced lens and yup it worked too. So a simple finger (in a surgical glove) work in with Brasso followed by ordinary car polish restored the yellowed lights to a very good clarity, I'd estimate 90% of original from a pretty deep yellow. If the Brasso had been mechanically polished into the lens surface the finish may have been further improved or possibly the lenses may have suffered abrasion. I'll leave that for someone else to check out.

I think it comes down to what you class as low miles. My TT6 import is about to turn 16 years old and did 27k km on the original dials and has 85k miles since converting in 1998. I've owned the car since 98 and figure 102k miles is pretty low mileage at 6,000 miles a year average. The last 10 years have averaged more like 3k to 4k per year so with full synthetic oil changes at those intervals the engine feels and runs as good as I remember it did 14 years ago and this Supra did a fair amount of fun autobahn travel in the early years of my ownership. On the price front, those have firmed up over the last 3 to 4 years. There are lots of classifieds around for £8k+ but I'd value my car more around the £6.5k privately as a very good condition example with BPU (330bhp at the wheels when RR tested in 2009). Just bide your time as the very good ones are hard to find, in 1998 when all mk iv supras were still pretty new, I looked a 6 before buying this one and with 14 years of ownership and still enjoying it shows that care taken pays good dividends.

Dyes with a high red content in the blacks will not be colour fast and will fade with sunlight. Paints are colour fast so won't fade otherwise there would be a lot of musky grey cars driving around. The spray cans have a very fine nozzel and so can be dispersed or concentrated dependant on how far from the contact surface you are spraying. I've only ever sprayed fabric materials, not shag pile but I could imagine If you wear gloves then you can flex the carpile pile as you spray to get a good coverage. If I didn't have a black carpet already in my supe I'd go check the theory out myself.

I've used pretty much every make of tyre over the years and found Falkens and Goodyears to be best for longevity with Bridgestone best for road noise and grip so I assume they are a softer compound. Didn't like Pirelli's, wore out way too quick. So I usually keep buyer watches on Ebay for Goodyear, Falkens or Bridgestone used tyres and buy pairs or full sets when they come up with 6+mm pattern left. Usually works out about £40 - £50 a tyre when you aren't in a hurry.

The best as its the easiest way is to use a matt black spray paint. The standard stuff from places like Halfords works well. Its permanent and easy to touch up. Best of all though, it works a treat, can be done in situ and dries very quickly.

According to Wiki its fine "In 1993, GM released new Dexron-III fluid. It is generally backward-compatible with transmissions originally filled with earlier Dexron fluids or with Type-A/Suffix-A fluid."

On a side issue - yellowed plastic lenses can be restored quite easily and very cheaply. Brasso on the lens will restore the lens clarity to probably about 90% of original and follow it up with a normal polish. I tried this on the original light units I had replaced but kept and one was very yellow but came up looking clear again.

I'm with Tomgeer on this, it could well be a sticking piston. Does it grate more when you put the wheel on lock and go when you brake? If thats your symptons then I'd go for a sticking piston in your caliper.