Well I need some help guys. I have a gold 1997 Toyota Corolla. I really would love to do many things to my car, but I have a low budget. So here is where I need help, I need some ideas of some cheap, performance, cosmetic mods that I can do. I am about to buy the JDM black mesh grille with a TRD logo. It's on Ebay for around $30 (good idea?).

Thanks!
Bryan

 

sell car buy new one... thats my recomendation...

 

agreed.

but if you insist on keeping it

- get it lowered, cut springs (assuming they are in good shape) and fresh struts will do fine.
- Get your hands on a header. Pretty much anything you can get will be fine.
- Wrap the hell out of it.
- Do the same with some exhaust BUT, it doesn't need to be any larger than 2.25 inches. Technically 2 inches is enough. You don't need backpressure, so ditch the cat and all that crap. You can cheap out and go to the junkyard and get the pieces you need off of other cars. Just cut some straight sections off of a car that has the right size exhaust. If you want mandrel bent, you can buy the bends themselves off of Jegs for pretty cheap. Use use some sleeves and clamps to connect everything together. I suggest wrapping it up for as far back as you can afford to do it. 1) the heat helps the exhaust move faster which makes more power and 2) it helps keep the noise under control better. - Get yourself a nice, in line resonator. Like one of the 18 inch ones. they don't resist air flow much but they will really help with the annoying ricer sound. Then get yourself a decent muffler. don't cheap out either. Order a good one, again, jegs can be your friend. Pretty much anything aftermarket will flow more than enough for the corrolla, so the quieter the better.
- Get a new switch/temp control for your fans so they come on sooner. On the temp gauge, the engine and tranny (assuming automatic) run their best when the needle points between 7 and 8 oclock.
- Smaller tires will make it feel more spirited. I recommend the lightweight honda ones, Wanna say the Civic HF I'm not sure. you shouldn't be going over 100 mph in a corolla anyway so the top speed decrease shouldn't be an issue.
- Get yourself a new intake tube set up. Doesn't have to be anything awesome. The cheaper the better. the stock one is terrible. I suggest hacking up the stock airbox a little bit to form a bit of a heat shield so your new cone shaped filter isn't sucking up so much hot air, but it is only going to make [--] that much difference.
- Move your battery to the tunk. The stock location limits airflow to the intake and Ideally, you want your cone filter to sit right where the battery is now.
- Power steering takes power away, you could technically do without it. My daily driver doesn't have power steering and it is rarely missed. - I would say ditch the A/C too, but com'on this is florida.
- The stock Spark plug wires are pretty tiny, you can find wires for another car and make them work. Pretty much anything with a beefer wire will be better. 240sx wires are a few mm thicker.
- can't remember if there is an external coil or not. If there is, then upgrade it. Even one of those blaster 2 coils they sell at the parts store would be a major improvement.
- Get your hands on a Wideband o2 sensor and a SAFC neither have to be anything special, just something to help you bring the mix back where it should be as you'll be running rich with the exhaust set up now.
- Oh, and get a tach. nothing stupid, just a little 3 inch one will do. Just so you have some kind of idea what is going on at what RPM as you tune it on your butt dyno.
- Don't get crazy with the SAFC. Taking a little bit of the richness out is fine. If you want more, take it to a shop to tune it.
--I would say to leave the FPR alone, You can bump the pressure up by denting in the bottom of it, but I would say that using a different fuel pump, with a higher output would raise your pressure more than enough. Again, I doubt it is needed, but "they" say a bump in fuel pressure makes for a better injector spray pattern.
- You can try to drill out the hole for the Dizzy so you can advance your base timing some. It is really conservative stock, so you can add several degress and be just fine, but again, don't get crazy, unless you're taking it to a shop that can monitor your knock.
- If you have to pull the engine apart, then have them deck the head as much as they can. It will only be a slight boost in compression, but it should make the engine feel more responsive.
- If you want to squeeze everything you can out of it, have then port and polish the head. Again, it won't help much, but it might get you a little bit. But don't go too crazy, but you'll only gain power up top, and you stand to actually loose some of the low end power and you don't have a lot of torque to begin with.

there are a lot of emissions and vacuum lines. if you know what you are doing, most of them can be removed. You won't gain a whole lot of anything from it, other than cleaning up your engine bay and possibly eliminating a vacuum leak/possible point of failure.

If you want to get really crazy with it..
-Get your hands on a spare intake manifold. Using a dremel, carefully port it all out. there are a ton of imperfections from the casting. You ought to be able to open the runners up a fair amount just getting rid of the bumps and crap and maybe taking 1 mm off all the way around.
- You can get clever and retro fit a larger Throttle body on there. Again, this might actually hurt your low end torque, so it is a give and take. The stock TB is tiny. So even a 8-10 mm increase would be significant.
- you can swap out to different injectors if you think the stock ones are holding you back. Might look into the single cam 240sx injectors as they are top feed too. I doubt it will be a problem, but you might find it helps.
- If you are really clever, you can bore out the housing for the thermostat fit in the larger one from the next newer generation corolla. I think it even opens at a slightly lower temp too. can't remember for sure. Won't make more power, but it will help keep things cooler, better.
- If it is manual, and/or a 5spd swap is within reason, then a lightweight flywheel will help too.
-You can do lightweight and under-drive pulleys and all of that, many people will tell you that it is just fine, others will tell you that they kill engines. either way, thats your call.

Anything much beyond that and you're gonna get really expensive for minimal gains. You can pull the engine apart and swap out cranks and pistons and rods and all of that from different engines and make one pretty decent engine, but it costs a lot and you still aren't going to make much more power unless you boost it. Which, if done correctly, can yield a pretty quick little car.

If you do HID lights, then don't be a deuche and re angle the lights so they don't shine in everyone's face. The glare is already going to be bad enough. Unless you do it the right way and retro fit Projectors into the housings.

For your brakes, the stock brakes are "ok" but it costs a good penny to upgrade them. I've not found any cheap way to just swap parts out yet. So run a good fluid (that valvoline blue bottle stuff, the dot 3/4 is the best cheap fluid you can get) and run decent pads, EBC green stuff is all you're ever need.

Beyond that, spend the money on quality window tint and you'll be happy with the results. Check out the 3m stuff. it blocks a lot of heat transfer.
Don't skimp out on your HID set up, don't use cheap ebay projectors either.
A good wet sand and buff will clear the head light lenses right up. (auto tranny fluid is a good temp fix too)
body kits are gay. you can't really make a 97 corolla look "cool" so just do the body work and get the paint re done so it isn't all faded.

If you did all of that stuff and want to go any faster, you're going to have to strip out as much weight as possible. for a daily, I don't think it is worth it.

If you add a system, You either need to stay below 800watts total, or upgrade your alternator. The stock alternator is weak and if you use a second battery as your bandaide fix, you'll still kill your alternator. If your headlights are dimming, then everything else is short on power and I've seen people cause some serious damage to the electronics trying to run things on low power.
And do not skimp on the sound deadening. These cars rattle like a bitch with even a little bit of a system.

I suggest using Spectrum, form Second Skin, but even just the cans of rubberized undercoating will help a lot with road noise. You can coat the wheel wells and pretty much anywhere under the car that doesn't get a crazy amount of heat. Spectrum can handle a lot of heat, but the spray cans from the part's store can't.

Rumor has it, the newer generation front seats will bolt right in (manual to manual of course) don't know for sure, and I doubt the power seats will. But they are supposed to bolt in and are supposed to be much better seats.

The A/C system needs to be freshened up. It can blow painfully cold if it is working right, so if your air isn't stupid cold, then it needs torn apart, new dryer, new expansion valve, fresh oil and coolant. A new/less old compressor would be cool, but typically not needed and a new blower would be cool too, especially if you're starting to get that clicking type sound. It only gets worse and worse.

The front stock speaker locations are really shallow. Most "standard" sized 6.5 inch speakers won't fit because of the mounting depth.

Fresh weather stripping makes a huge difference in the wind noise. If yours isn't bad, then napa sells a brake lubricant, forever what its called. I know it starts with a "S" it is silicone based. It does a good job at refreshing the rubber. It is sold as brake caliper lube, but it even says on the package that it is good for weather stripping.

At this point, you've spent a good stack of money on your car. Hopefully you like it. If not, you'll be kicking yourself for wasting all that money on such a eco crap box.

EDIT: holy fuck. why do I have so much to say about rollas.... I can't wait to get rid of my crap box daily.
As someone who ones one. Their only advantage is that you can get 28-30 mpg, they will drive forever (I have over a quarter of a million miles on mine) and you can take your buddies around. If you want a halfway fun daily driver for the same price range, I would recommend a honda. You can pick up a clean 4 door civic. Get a dual cam, vtec engine in it and be much happier with it in the long run. You'll make more power, get the same, if not better MPG, and it might be cheaper/easier since it is such a common car. If I wasn't looking to step up to a diesel truck, I would go that route. the rolla has been good to me given the minimal amount of money invested in it. But I would only do it again if I it cost me even less money.

 

Drive it, leave it alone! Save money for the car YOU TRULY WANT.

 

Bryan why dont you leave the car the way it is. Keep the car and its great mpg's and stay away from modifying something that was made for old people.

 

Haha bro you got the right idea up there man, thanks for the ideas. And I hear you guys, people tell me that all the time. It's pretty slow though, accelerating, which bothers me a lot (as I am quite the speed demon). I really would love to go buy a Civic, but I hardly have the money to do so, just a few bucks here and there. I love the car, but it doesn't fit me. For now it's just something I drive around.

 

buy a huge wing and a body kit and just the muffler not a catback....

no for real though its all all these fags that make ITR reps or SI clones, it's still a base model not the performance one so why be a poser? save your money and use it for gas .

 

so youre a speed demon and you want a civic... SENSE ....this post makes none.

 

Not as if I said a stock Civic was fast, I'm implying that a lot can be done to a Civic and they look better.

 

Why is your font color black ? What can be done to make a civic look better and which model? I'm curious.