Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Upgrade People's Celica
Finally got the wheels and tires yesterday. Had to instruct UPS to drop them off on the porch unattended for the afternoon, as I wasn't going to take a day off work to wait for the guy to arrive. Lucky for me, no one decided to walk away with some new wheels. After a couple of hours in my sister's garage, I had the new wheels on. While I was doing that, I did a quick check to see if there was a noticable different in wheel weight between the old and the new. I have to say, they were pretty close, I think the new wheels are slightly heavier, but not by much.
Got the race tires mounted on the old rims that same night. Canadian Tire is great for late night, last minute stuff. I'm still surprised I managed to fit all 4 old wheels and tires, plus the new tires all in the Celica. After that was done, took a spin to Tuan's so he could check out the car and have a bite to eat. Then back home to retorque, and prep the autocross gear.
The Celica handles differently now. Not particularly sure if I like it or not yet. I just know it feels strange. It feels pretty responsive, yet mushy at the same time. Not really sure how to explain it. I'm currently running pretty high tire pressures, high 30's (manufacturer suggests 29 psi BTW). I'll be adjusting that as I get a better feel for how the car handles. Acceleration feels about the same, maybe a little slugish than before, but not really noticable. Hopefully I'll get that stuff ironed out or I'll get used to them.
Some pics of how the Celica looks now:
man I have to say.. looking at your car makes me miss mine.. but I guess for now. I'll have to settle driving a standard Honda.
later,
Daniel
: 7:41 a.m., August 31, 2005I got racing tires for autocrossing. They're currently mounted on my old OEM rims. I haven't tested them out yet, but I'll let you know how they work later. The Celica stays as is for now (I don't have money for anything else right now anyways).
The Legacy is too hard on gas to run all winter, so my current plans are to run the Celica most of the winter, Legacy on not so good days. I'll be doing that for the next couple of winters so I can finish off the car loan.
After that, main priority is replace the Legacy with a better winter car, hoping to get a nice used 9th gen Corolla, or something like that. Then I'll be thinking about suspension mods for the Celica. A limited-slip differential would be nice though :-) All that really depends on how it affects my classing in autocrossing though. The mods will help the car, but most likely will put the car in a higher class with faster cars.
Mods to get more power aren't as important in autocross. It all about handling and a lot about driver.
