Doughie

true enough....

If I didn't know any better, i'd swear people were talking to themselves.

Northway tyres did mine. (a quick 'n' dirty 'n inadequate job at first followed by a very thorough job when i gave them some sh1t). they charged by memory about £110 all-in. toe, camber, castor etc. i did have to go back to them as i said, as they "skimped it" on the 1st visit immediately after i had my Eibachs/Bilsteins fitted. They said that the MAX cost they'd charge for everything to be adjusted was about £155 (+VAT ?? = not sure). so that would be toe, camber, castor, camber, steering angle inclination, the whole shebang. Micheldever i hear do a v throurough job, so much so that they book in ONLY ONE CAR per weekday. that's it. one car per day. no cars for geometry changes at w/e. not sure of cost. but it's kinda nice to know that your motor is the only car that they're setting up the geometry that day. at least they have no reason to rush it.

Or alternatively, Valvoline Synpower is widely use in mkiv's. The oil change is easy, the filter change is a tad more tricky. Do a search for oil change on technical and see what that raises. the detailed procedure was listed in a thread a month or two ago i think.

"Front Castor". erm, Castor is essentially the angle that the front suspension upright makes with the vertical. more castor will generally give more straight-line stability. more castor means that there will be a stronger tendency for the steering to "revert to straight-ahead" after winding lock on for taking a corner. This will probably be felt less on a car with PAS like the mkiv than acar with manual steering. ZERO castor would mean that if you let go of the steering wheel after entering a corner there would be NO "self-correction" for the steering to return to "straight-ahead". All cars have some castor. I'm sure CW can give a better description than me.... Thrust angle is (I think) essentially the angle that the driven axle (rear on a mkiv) is "thrusting" the car, realtive to perfectly straight-ahead. i.e. total rear toe angle. so if the left rear was toeing OUT 5 degrees (hopefully not...) and the right rear was toeing IN 5 degrees (hopefully not...) then the the rear wheels are both essentially pointing left 5 degrees and therefore the thrust angle *relative to "straight-ahead"* would be 5 degrees. (this is not desirable !!). Thrust angle should be zero degrees in all situations.

Dug the settings out from a post on Technical forum called "Excessive tyre wear one side" on 2 Dec 2001 : (note that "-0°34' " is negative 34 minutes of camber which is just over 0.5*degrees* of negative camber as there are 60minutes in 1 degree.) Below are my final settings that i got done yesterday. Note that some of the settings (camber, principally) are a compromise between handling and tyre wear. More negative camber *could* give you a little more grip when cornering hard BUT it will wear the inside edges of your tyres. and they're S-02's so not cheap.... I went for slightly less negative front camber than Wayne would normally do as my last fronts wore badly on the inside edge and less camber should help ease that situation. Anyway here they are : (car lowered with Eibachs/Bilsteins) running 17" stock wheels with 255 rears and 235 fronts. Note that this is in degrees ( ° ) and minutes ( ' ), where 60 minutes = 1 degree : LEFT CASTER : 4°11' RIGHT CASTER : 4°02' FRONT LEFT CAMBER : -0°34' (i.e. about half a degree negative) FRONT RIGHT CAMBER : -0°32' FRONT LEFT TOE : -0°01' FRONT RIGHT TOE : -0°01' LEFT SAI (Steering Axis inclination) : 9°46' RIGHT SAI (Steering Axis inclination) : 9°34' INCLUDED ANGLE (not sure to be honest what this is !) : LEFT : 9°40' RIGHT : 9°42' REAR LEFT CAMBER : 1°16' REAR RIGHT CAMBER : 1°11' REAR LEFT TOE : 0°14' REAR RIGHT TOE : 0°09' THRUST ANGLE : 0°02'

front toe rear toe front camber rear camber front castor thrust angle i will find my specs that i had done. it's a good compromise between tyre wear and handling.

Mark yep I believe that iridium plugs are made by NGK and re-badged as Blitz Iridiums. Like a lot of car parts, there's often very few people who make them...

yeah but i keep crashing karts so i still think i need tuition !

Hi Mycroft I am interested in learning car control technique from you. pls let me know what dosh you will charge and what you can teach me. I've heard about oversteer and jargony stuff like that but i'm not too sure what it all means or what to do when it happens! any advice gratefully received mate. cheers

Nic Yes, i changed the revs using that method on the RLTC. you don't need a laptop (though you can change the setting in there too easily via Graham Rudd's app.) I think the key thing is here (as I found out) is to do it EXACTLY as per the manual. i.e. switch the car OFF, then switch it on again, then go through the procedure you described. It does definitely work cos i've done it. Once or twice it didn't work for me, but then if you do it exactly as per the manual, it does work. (Page 23 of the RLTC manual i.e. section "8.2 Adjuster Program"). give it another go. you can set 2 different rev-settings : Dry and wet. When the slip adjuster is set to 0% then that sets the wet setting, and any other slip setting is the dry setting. For wet, i would stay pretty low at about 2000rpm. depends obviously on how wet the tarmac and how much tread on your rear tyres. Dry - 4000rpm works well if the tarmac is pretty good. On a Jap-spec due to the extra torque, you might want to try it at 3000rpm first.

Nic what slip setting are you intending to use on wet roads ? I would advise 5% max. at first. 10% slip you can get the car seriously sideways on a wet road. I know, cos i have ! Just experiment (safely) if you can on a wet roundabout early in the morning or similar when there's no other cars about. As i say, you need to adapt to how the car reacts to different levels of slip being dialled in. and if you pile *into* a corner too quickly, then RLTC cannot save you as it basically controls power oversteer, and can't help if you've piled in too quick. it's good, but just don't think you're invincible with it cos ..........you're not.

Nic I don't think you'll need a lead at all as the RL lead that comes with the RLTC simply plugs into the laptop. but anyway it's an "rs232 serial port". it's a 9-pin, (5 over 4) connection. So you simply need to get hold of a laptop that you can plug the RLTC lead into (back of the laptop needs to have a 9-pin male port). RS232 serial interface has been around since the dinosaurs roamed. have you got Graham Rudd's RLTCSettings.exe applet yet ? it's only 300k or so and you simply connect up the laptop to the RLTC, start the RLTCSettings.exe and then open an appropriate .DAT file that Phil has sent you and send it to the Racelogic unit in your car and, hey presto, you have new settings.

Yep, it's easy to use the launch function and also easy to change the rpm level at which launch control functions. to change rpm, just press the button twice, hold it in, and rev to the desired level and then let the green button go, and that will set the rpm level for launch. Dry track, high grip tarmac, 4000rpm is about right. dry track, lower grip tarmac, about 3000rpm. Wet track, about 2000rpm is right. If you dial in more rpm than the grip available then you'll sit there spinning wheels. - Ya cannae change the laws of physics, Jim Justin's got an auto. I've got a 6-speed. Phil Wall's got an auto. Martin Fahie's got a 6-speed. (i think) on the auto-box upgrade you'll have to ask someone else on that one, but i believe, yes, it will help cope with big power. (Leon being the ultimate example).

Darren those tires sound very dodgy. get them replaced ASAP. you could have a blowout. Tyres DO have a "shelf-life" and if those tyres have been on the cr for up to 7 years then they will *definitely* need replacing. 2.5mm crack in the sidewall !?!?! christ get them changed now. tyres with flexible sidewalls are not suitable on a heavy car like the Supra and it sounds like they are low-budget anyway. put on Goodyear F1's (or maybe beidgestone s03's or Yoko AVS sports) and you will have a much much better and safer tyre. Running tyres under-pressure is not a good idea especially at high speed as under-pressure tyres is the No.1 reason for highway blow-outs. (ask Firestone and Ford .......... they are suffering !). But 33 or 34psi should not do the tyres any harm. it's on;y when you get substantially below recommended pressures that it may get dangerous. they blowout due to overheating of the sidewall due to huge flex. high temperatures (like in the States) aggravates it. i would replace all four tyres straightaway. (not just the fronts). It's your life !

Monkeymark What Phil and Martin are saying is that although Racelogic will undoubtedly do a great job on the install, the supplied settings file that comes with the RLTC is not suitable really for the Supra. Hopefully RL know this (!) and will install it with suitable settings. The system is only as good as the parameters that it uses ! there are a lot of variables and the key parameters on the settings that come as default with RLTC need amending for a Supra. eg. no. of cylinders, the cut tables, the wheel sizes and no. of ABS sensors per revolution, etc.etc. either way, one of us can check that that you've got good settings on your unit after install. it's very easy to check and change the settings and, although there are quite a few, it all makes sense after referring to the RLTC manual ! hope this helps cheers

Nic it *might* be a setting on your RLTC. Best thing to do is to implement a decent .DAT settings file as soon as possible (Phil Wall can send for eg. or i can knock one up for you) and use Graham Rudd's applet RLsettings.exe to load it in using a laptop with an RS232 connection. (9-pin). It may well be that your wheel size settings are making RLTC think that you're wheelspinning a lot when you actually aren't. But thinking about it, i'm talking rubbish as you said it still does it when you switch RLTC off. ah well.

i've always wondered where the temp sensor is on my uk mkiv. so it's somewhere under the bumper at the front yeah ?? it's interesting cos in summer when it's parked (NOT facing the sun) and then i start it up the temp. says about 35deg.C when it's about 28C. Then when moving it quickly comes back to the "right" temp. Generally i find the temp.sensor very accurate and useful for black ice warning in winter.

sorry to semi-hijack this thread, but i have to say i am in agreement with Chris on 2-strokes. They are great. I race 2-stroke karts and you just get great power from small cc and fantastic throttle response and noise. also the engine's are very simple and not much to them and so are small and light. does anyone know what the largest capacity 2-stroke engine installed in a road-car is ?? or a race-car ?? i would love to try a light road-car with, say, a 2 litre 2-stroke engine. I know, I know, loads of pollution and loads of noise, and porbably a pain to start and bad fuel consumption and high maintenance costs, but wouldn't it be great for a low mileage screamer ??

have to say that Martin is spot-on. The NUR spec is a superb piece of engineering and is *almost* too nice to stick under your car.

ttsupra97 Definitely get the DAT file that Phil is giving you downloaded to the RLTC as soon as possible. The default file that is supplied with the system is NOT suitable at all for a Supra (4 cylinder, no cut tables etec.etc). once you've got a decent DAT file downloaded (all you need is a laptop with an RS232 serial interface (9-pin, 5 above 4), Graham Rudd's interface (RLTC Settings.exe) and the right DAT file and you're in business. Graham Rudd's application makes it a piece of cake to play around with all the settings. Most of them aren't hard to figure out, with some help from the RLTC manual. After downloading the DAT file, try it out on a n empty road on different slip settings to get a feel for how much "assistance" you feel comfortable with. Let us know how you get on. fire away with any questions. cheers Stu

Ian i'll pop out later this morning and check on my UK-spec what the markings are on the fuel pump. cheers

I *might* have a knackered BOV on my car, and i'm going to test it this weekend in the time-honoured way. If it is kaputt, shall i stick an OE Toyota one on ? how much are they ? Or an aftermarket one ? I'm not really a huge fan of that aftermarket BOV noise, but if someone can convince me it's better to get an HKS (or whatever) one than a stock one then .....fine. thoughts and advice please.

yep this does seem to be an "undocumented feature" of UK-specs ! my uk-spec offside headlight also mists up sometimes. when it does, it stays fogged up for weeks and then it clears and all is well again. yep Valvoline Synpower comes in 4 ltr cans, and is available from : www.torqueic.com it's very good oil, fully synthetic and not expensive for fully synth at about £16 per can.

that's 2nd mortgage territory Alex....