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

CHAPTER 3: The Torque of a Wind-up Toy.

CHAPTER 3: The Torque of a Wind-up Toy.

During the daily grind, Turtle was a little unhappy with the fact that, whilst going up hills, he had to shift Lola down to 4th and sometimes 3rd in order to get any kind of response. This car was so weak compared to the MR2 he'd grown accustomed to. He also hated the way the exhaust sounded, so restricted, so worn-out, like it hadn't been changed in over 50 years.



Also, at stop lights, there really was no power to get a good launch. Turtle was often left behind when the lights turned green.



The only explanation for this lack of power must be that the engine is on its last legs and the exhaust system needs an overhaul.

However, this posed a problem. Turtle had very little knowledge about fixing cars and owned almost no tools. Even though he had access to an array of automotive tools, he wouldn't know the first thing about changing or rebuilding an engine. The biggest job Turtle had done to date by himself was an oil change! The only solution then? Throw money at it!



So, by doing some research, saving some money and collecting some needed parts (such as a TRD 4-2-1 header he bought from a guy in Daly City on the night of the worst storm in years),



Turtle chose to rebuild his existing engine instead of replacing it. Having a 4agze, the supercharged motor was an option, but it was too expensive and rare an option at that time. So after dropping $1200 for the rebuild (and a new exhaust and drilled and slotted rotors),



the mechanic he went to promptly made it rain.



Just a little bit more power was all he needed, and Turtle was convinced that this rebuild would do just the trick. Now all Turtle needed to do was wait...



... and wait...



... and wait...



... until finally he was able to drive Lola again.



In retrospect, there was a reason why the MR2, with virtually the same engine, was so much faster than than Lola. There was a reason why the MR2 was able to pull and gain speed whilst climbing up a hill in 5th gear. It is an unbeknownst (to Turtle) fact called:

POWER TO WEIGHT RATIO: The idea that the same horsepower with less weight will yield bigger gains than with more weight. A simple idea, really. The MR2 was few hundred pounds lighter than Lola, therefore, the same horsepower yielded a better response.


So although the put-put sounding exhaust was gone, and the rebuilt engine felt fresh and slightly more responsive, it still didn't compare to the way the MR2 pulled.



Worse still is the fact that Lola was entered to run in the pod races on Tatooine the day after Turtle got her back.



And sadly, Lola finished in last place. Lola was so far behind in fact that the stadium was completely empty when she finished!



Not even a Jawa stayed to try and haggle engine parts...



Oh well. At least Turtle was able to check "rebuild the engine" off the list and move onto the next project.

FTH

Chapter 2: Oh, So THAT'S What a Money Pit Looks Like

Chapter 2: Oh, So THAT'S What a Money Pit Looks Like

After getting the money together to pay for the car, Turtle went to the unusually blond Asian fellow and received the key.

Directly after, Turtle went to a nearby business park to begin with the training. From this day forth, Turtle was going to become the bestest drifter in the world.

That is, until something important fell off his car. Right after the very first corner, something made the most awful scraping noise Turtle had ever heard.

Oh, look at that, it's not just a piece that fell off. It took part of the FRAME with it!

Embarrassed, Turtle had to find a single piece of string to tie the rod back up. He dragged it all the way to a surplus computer parts store, where he bought a single wire for like $3.

After consulting with C4AG and a local enthusiast named Roy, Turtle found out that the piece that had been broken off was the part of the frame that held something called the PANHARD rod. Turtle thought that was a weird and slightly dirty name for a car part. Roy happened to have a Battle Version panhard rod that he sold to Turtle for the low, low price of $175.

This wasn't the only problem, however, for Turtle still needed to find someone to weld the frame back on. He found a dude in Milpitas who would do it, and after he was done, Turtle said good-bye to another $250.

By handing over the $250, he received an S shaped stock panhard rod back.

From here, Turtle had a revelation of what the hell happened to his new car. After receiving the deposit, as a last hurrah, the young Asian fellow must have ghost drifted his whip,

Right into a curb.

The pay-outs don't end here. Turtle wanted to get new tires and an alignment.

Only to find out that his front bearings were bad. He then had to get those done with the previously mentioned Roy.

All of the initial problems left Turtle's wallet a little worse for wear.

At this point, Turtle felt a little overwhelmed and in over his head. He had questioned whether this would all even be worth it. It was a car all his own, but with even worse problems that Lana ever seemed to have (aside from the engine and transmission issue in the end). Turtle didn't even want to learn how to auto-cross OR drift anymore in fear that something else might fall off or break.

But how could Turtle ever deny a face like that?

FTH

Chapter 1: Good-bye Big Truck, Hello Little Car

With Lana on indefinite leave, Turtle was offered to drive his dad's MK1 NA MR2 for a little while.

Going from a truck on 33 inch tires with a 3 inch lift to a car that was probably 3 inches from the ground was going to be a strange transition.

Or was it???

With this car, Turtle was able to bob and weave through traffic with the greatest of ease.

Going up hills was a cinch. Even though the engine was normally aspirated, the engine still pulled up them in 5th gear! And going downhill? Forget about it!

Turtle was having so much fun with this car, but truth be told it wasn't his, and his dad needed it for work. One day when he and his co-worker were heading out to lunch, his co-worker mentioned that the engine in the MR2 is the exact same engine as in the 85-87 Corolla GT-S.

Having little knowledge about compact cars in general, Turtle didn't know that a "Corolla GT-S" was. After a brief explanation from his friend, Turtle started to take notice of a car that was always "hidden in plain sight." A car that was often overlooked by enthusiasts amidst the more popular Civics and Integras. He was told about a website called "Club4ag" and from there he started to research what made this Corolla so special.

Real-Wheel Drive. Sold.

Soon after he registered and browsed for a bit, Turtle noticed on the main Club4ag page that there was a link to watch a video of the opening sequence to a relatively unknown (at that time) anime called "Initial D". Coming off of an anime addiction of several years, Turtle foresaw the impending demand for this car from rabid anime fans. From then the race was on to pick up a GT-S before something that would eventually be called "Initial D tax" was imposed on all Corollas, GT-S and SR-5 alike. Turtle searched Club4ag's classifieds (back in that day the cars for sale were mixed in with all of the other parts for sale) as well as searching through the free local classifieds (craigslist had not yet gained traction).

It would appear that Turtle was already too late, as the first car he went to see was a "Panda", or the two-tone white and black paint scheme. This one was found around Clement St. in The City. According to his friend, the prices were already on the rise. Before then, a $1200 GT-S was common. By this time, they were going for for $2500 and up.

And actually it was 3-tone, as the door jambs and the engine bay were red. Kind of a turn-off. Turtle did make an offer on that panda, but in retrospect he was lucky that the young asian boy said that his momma didn't accept the offer. This is not a fabrication of the truth. He literally said "I need to ask my mom about it" and then later he said "no" with no counter offer.

After the loss of that offer, Turtle continued to look and found a silver hatchback being sold by another young asian guy, but this time in San Jose.

Though this one was silver, it had a black hood. Turtle kinda liked that. Even though it wasn't perfect, Turtle began to see its potential.

Turtle found it unusual that two sellers in a row would say Corolla in the way they did, but from that day on, something about it stuck.

Turtle may just have found the car he was looking for.

FTH