Cusco seems to make a blue piece of metal to go between any 2 bolts on a GRolla. Are there any particular ones that really improve the feel of the car? Is the car already stiff enough that most people won't notice much unless you do a lot of them? Are they just unnecessary all together?
I'm thinking I'm probably going to do dark smoke on the front corner markers. I can't decide about the taillights though. Red, dark smoke, light smoke. What do y'all think?
I've got just over 600 miles on it. I'm gonna call it close enough for break in. If you're worried you're going to fuck up your car because you suck at driving a stick don't be. I hadn't driven one in 20 years and had plenty of "oopsies" in this first week and it just took it all in stride. Only time will truly tell, but if you down shift too soon or something like that and cause damage, more than likely it will show up very, very, soon as a new persistent noise, vibration or stank.
Piras intake: I've had it on my '26 since Saturday. It does throw the CEL like other intakes. I'm still fucking around with the vacuum hose just because I can't stop my self from fiddling with shit. I don't have much hope that I'm going to have a stroke of genius nobody has thought of though. I preordered a module MST is releasing that fixes the CEL related to all aftermarket intakes. Other than the expected CEL the intake performs and sounds amazing. I have some before footage I need to take clips from and I need to record some after footage. I'll post it when I get it done.
Racer x short shifter: there is a tab on one of the new shifter parts that hit the underside of my air box support bracket making it very hard to shift into 5th gear. I contacted racer x and they said to remove the washers that are in between the black piece and silver piece that come with the kit. They are only there to keep the silver piece from scuffing the black one when you adjust the linkage. Removing those gives 1/16" more clearance. That was enough to make it shift fine. Feels great in fact, but it still slightly hits that bracket. If you didn't know it still makes contact I don't think you'd be able to tell from how the shifter feels. I am going to go ahead and put some washers under the air box bracket too so that it doesn't touch at all. Someone had a very good suggestion to use the washers I took off the linkage to raise the brace. I'm going to get some bigger diameter washers so there is more contact area for stability, but the smaller ones would get you by I'm sure.
A small upgrade I like more than I thought was the tall tomei shift knob. It's black but doesn't get painfully hot even in direct sun light in Georgia. The little extra height pairs nicely with the short shifter.
Ok so I put my racer x short shift kit on yesterday tested before putting everything together and it worked fine. I put it back together and went on a test drive when I went to shift into 5th it was way too hard to get into gear. 6th a little tough too but not terrible. Fifth was so bad I quit using it. I went out first thing this morning to trouble shoot and found that when the air box support that goes right over the linkage is in place, the metal tab that bends up 90 degrees on the silver piece that come with the shift kit hits that air box support. I tried to highlight some things in some pictures to make it as clear as possible. There are 2 versions of the kit I labeled the V1 and V2. V1 is the one in pretty much every video on youtube. V2 is the one I have. I circled the tab that hits in red in every photo you can see it in. I put a red x to show it's approximate location under the brace in neutral. The other picture where the tab is just behind the brace is when the car is in fifth. I don't think i put anything together wrong. It feels great with the brace out of the way. I can just grind that little tab off, but if there is a solution that doesn't involve removing metal I'd rather do that.
Shift knob on. The rest will go on in the morning!
Edit to add my initial thoughts.
TL;dr I really like both the intake and racer x shift kit but I have some adjusting to do on it. The intake does throw the code on a 26 model as I assumed.
The piras intake is very high quality and the same price or cheaper than the carbon fiber ones that don't even have a snorkel down behind the grill. Install was super easy. There is a bit of an Italian to English translation error, but it's easy to know what they are talking about. They just translated vacuum into depression so the talk about disconnecting from the depression system lol. As far as the sound goes stock is all I have to compare too. You definitely hear more intake sound, but also better as well. Instead of just sounding like someone turned a fan on high when it really starts sucking air it's hard to describe but it kinda sounds like the car was taking a big inhale while slightly yelling with a little bit of vibrato thrown in. The turbo noises are definitely louder but not by a whole lot. However there are more turbo noises now too. At like lower rpms or times they may have been drowned out by engine noise. So not a giant leap in volume but a pretty good jump in how often you hear them. I also heard new and different turbo noises. For example, before the intake I noticed in 3rd great from about 35 mph up to 50 I got this sweet whistle/whine the increased in pitch with increased rpm. After the intake it's still there but now you hear it better and it kinda again growly vibrato to it. I haven't gone anywhere to really open it up yet but I got it up over 5k rpm a few times and I'm pretty sure I heard a spaceship noise or 2 sprinkled in with the racecar noises. As far as added power it's hard to say. I don't think any intake is going to give you a big enough boost to really feel without a tune. I still technically have about 200 more miles before I'm done with break in so I haven't gone balls all the way out yet either. That said the throttle did seem more responsive and the boost gauge seemed like maybe it was moving a little more often and quicker. The only downside is that, as expected, the throws the p2c90 code on my '26 model. Just in the last week MST has said they have a fix for the 25 and 26s though. It's still about a month out and 130 bucks I think but at least there is something coming.
The racer x shift bushings (bearings?), short shit kit (I caught this but leaving because I chuckled), and shift weight were all super easy to install once I got the right instructions. I just googled racer x short shift installation instead of scanning the QR code on the box. I had also watched a couple of install videos. The instructions I found and the videos I watched were for the older one. The new one has some adjustment to it and is the one I have. It is a little bit different so just know if you have some little springs that you don't know what to do with and are missing one or more aluminum collars you are probably using the wrong directions like me lol. It's been reviewed a lot and it feels nice and shortens about the distance you see every one measure on YouTube. I don't think I saw anyone talk about adjusting though. When it's all installed but not tightened down there is a point on one of the pieces that you can point at 1, 2, or 3. 3 is the shortest throw but most resistance with 1 being longest throw but least resistance. In the instructions it says you can actually put it a little past 3 so I did because I'm a big boy so I can handle a stiffer stick (that's what she said). 1st through 4th are great. R and 6th are kinda tough to get into, but 5th is WAY too hard to shift into. I'll get back in there tomorrow and make sure nothing is binding, but I'm probably going to have to adjust that linkage some.
After 2 full days with my car I only have 3 complaints. The shift indicator doesn't show me an N in neutral, I don't have enough good excuses to go drive it so I make up bad lies, and my car literally refuses to take "no" for an answer. For real, every single time I'm using voice commands and say "no" it registers as "noe" and then repeats the question. It will accept nope, I do not, negative, and FUCKING STOP TALKING, but not no.😂
Had 16 miles on it when I picked her up! I'll get some better glamour shots later. This was the best I could do between thunder storms.
Are there any aftermarket intakes that mesh well with the updates to the 2026 model? Would something like Velossa big mouth still be beneficial? If so would you need the whole thing or just the snorkel part?
Like any little thing just makes your daily experience with the car better? It's still 11 days until my car's estimated delivery date, and I think Ive watched every exhaust clip on youtube 7 times now. I need something else to look at to pass the time lol.
Are interest rates just terrible right now? I finally saw the GR I've been looking for coming to a dealer about an hour from me. From the search on Toyota's website it was showing nearly 7% interest with 20% down and 60 month term. That was for a credit score of 750+. Mine is actually like 820. Do they tack on a couple of extra percent to milk people that just don't want the hassle of dealing with the dealer? If I do go get hassled in person could I get a better rate?
Edit to add: Thanks for all the advice! It all happened fast, but the stars aligned for me. I now have the GRC I've been looking for reserved at a dealer less than an hour from me. I saw it on Toyota's inventory search last night and called first thing this morning. The sales guy I talked to didn't even know they were getting it yet. I got preapproved for 0% down 4.7% for 72 months, and turns out the credit union already partners with that dealer so it makes the paperwork quicker and easier!
I have to pee so bad right now, but can't possibly move.