CHAPTER 5: Yeah, and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its a** when it hopped.

CHAPTER 5: Yeah, and if a frog had wings it wouldn't bump its a** when it hopped.

One day when he was at the end of a freeway junction, the exit between 92 Eastbound heading to 101 South to be exact,



Turtle heard something that he could only explain as an airplane touching down.


Surprised, he began to notice that his suspension was causing his wheels to hit the underside of the fender whenever he hit the right kind of bump above a certain speed. Sometimes it would screech, sometimes it would sound like a very large bird with a cold.

When Turtle bought the car, the seller was advertising INTRAX springs with Tokico Blue shocks. At that time this was a common "upgrade", so Turtle took this as something he wouldn't have to worry about down the line.

It turns out that the INTRAX springs are not adjustable, so Turtle was stuck with what he had. When the springs and the shocks compressed, the wheels would just always rub into the wheel well.

After driving around this car for a few more weeks with that annoying chirp, he began to re-think what he should do about his setup. If excessive, Turtle feared that he might tread a tire and lose control. An extreme, yes, but a danger nonetheless. The rears were not making this sound, so Turtle decided to keep them they way they were, also an INTRAX / Tokico setup. His focus would be to tune in the fronts to acceptable, firmer or taller levels.

During his search, a C4ag friend turned him to a friend of his named Miracle Max, who performs automotive miracles.

This friend also recommended Battle Version coilover sleeves, which were adjustable, and something called Battle Version camber plates, something Turtle only heard of on Gran Turismo. Since Miracle Max was local, he met up with him during an "M.T." corolla meet and Miracle Max showed Turtle his wares.

Miracle Max had Turtle at the magic he was demonstrating, so he bought the BV coilovers and camber plates on the spot. The aforementioned friend installed them in less than an hour after that.


So from then on the setup was different. Instead of a one-height spring, Turtle was now able to adjust the level of the coilover and the angle of the tire.

The chirp was completely gone and the front of the car felt a lot more firm over bumps. A win, for sure. Turtle was told that the springs would settle at some point which would make the front of the car lower, but such was not the case. Now Turtle was faced with a different challenge. The front of the car was now too tall.






Turtle did not want to adjust the coilovers so low that it would blow out the long stroke shocks,
-----

read about short stroke shock conversions here:
http://www.club4ag.com/faq_and...n.htm

-----

so he sought an alternative. He didn't have the money to have his struts shortened, so he found that T3 has an item that will allow the use of short stroke shocks which will shim the top of the shock itself inside of the stock strut casing. After buying stock short stroke shocks (say that 5 times fast) that were made for an SW20 MR2, he contacted Miracle Max again and not only did Miracle Max conjure up the T3 Advance Strut Tube Spacers, he also summoned forth a pair of T3 Roll Center Adjusters, or RCAs, which would correct the overall loss of length of the strut by using shorter shocks (others would say it corrects the geometry of the lower control arms, bump steer yadda yadda).

And now the setup would appear to be a little more complicated than the original spring-and-shock combination. Battle Version coilovers and camber plates operated the ride height and angle of the tires, short stroke shocks are a welcomed addition to any lowered car, and T3 advanced strut tube spacers and RCAs keep the original geometry of the suspension correct, allowing Lola to now be lowered in the front again. Take THAT, annoying wheel chirp!




R

CHAPTER 4: Lola The Fart Monster

CHAPTER 4: Lola The Fart Monster

After paying all that money, Turtle asked his mechanic to give Lola just a simple exhaust. In addition to the TRD 4-2-1 header, he wanted a high-flow catalytic converter and just a normal muffler. Something not too loud. Something that wouldn't attract attention. Shiny mufflers weren't of Turtle's preference. Pulling off a can from a Camry and spraying it black was perfectly fine as far as he was concerned.

When Turtle got Lola back from her engine rebuild, he tried to do one High RPM run. When the RPMs hit over 3500, an ubsurdly loud, disgusting fart bellowed from deep within Lola's bowels!



Effing gross! Effing embarrassing! Every single time Lola would be in the higher RPMs, she would make this noise.



Upon further inspection, Turtle found that in addition to the header and the cat, there was a magnaflow muffler.












Turtle didn't understand why it sounded so bad. Was it because of the 2.25 inch piping he had requested? Was it because of the header? It turns out that it was neither. It was because the magnaflow, a straight-through design, just wasn't enough to muffle the exhaust noise. Turtle found on the interweb that lots of exhaust systems require a resonator to help absorb some of the sound before it hits the muffler itself.

So turtle set out to find a resonator. Turtle looked into glass packs, which he heard made the sound louder in some cases. He then found two suitable candidates. A magnaflow thin muffler and a dynomax bullet-style muffler. Turtle went with the dynomax and had it welded at a place called Golden Muffler in Daly City.





At this point the exhaust note was great. Lola was still a little loud, but sounded aggressive and most importantly, no longer farted at high RPMs.

However, another thing that Turtle also couldn't live with was the fact that whoever did the exhaust work decided to add a long ugly tip that looked like a dong.



This gave Turtle a reason to go with a different muffler. Turtle used a brand called BORLA on Lana back in the day and he loved the way it sounded. So back on the interweb he went and he bought a new BORLA for less than $100. After sanding it and painting it black, Turtle went back to Golden Muffler, where their method of quoting is very simple and their service is quick, well, depending on what time of day one goes.








So now, we have the TRD 4-2-1, the high-flow cat, the dynomax bullet and the BORLA.








Turtle was extremely happy with this setup, but as time went by, his tastes changed. Turtle became more interested in keeping the exhaust legal, so he pulled out his old exhaust manifold, smartly kept from the rebuild, and sought a downpipe. Once obtained, he pulled a catalytic from an old friend called the Turbo Truck and he cut off the TRD header by the high-flow cat. Back again to Golden Muffler to have a flange welded and now we have the current setup.
Stock manifold, downpipe, large stock cat, dynomax bullet, BORLA muffler, and no tip. Another thing to note is that all the way up to this point, the entire exhaust system was one welded-together piece from header to muffler. Not a single flange. With the re-introduction of the exhaust manifold, the system is finally in manageable flanged pieces.



As much as Turtle would like to run headers, He's perfectly content with the manifold. Based on what he could hear, the manifold sounds less efficient. There's a seemingly cheap or hollow sound coming from the exhaust with the manifold, but other than that, if there is a drop in horsepower, the difference is minute.
Sometime down the line, Turtle would like to try his dream setup by running two borla oval mufflers, instead of the dynomax / borla combination, just to see if he could muffle the sound just a little more. but we'll see if this back-burner project will ever happen.

In its current state, Turtle is quite happy with his pieced-together-over-like-six-years setup. Now he can hear himself think. and sing.



R