Monkey Boy 1

The pins are not hardened and can bend or even break. Has this happen on one of mine which had to be carefully drilled out. It was on one of the rear calipers and happened due to lack f maintenance (ie seal split and not replaced when I had the chance)

Did someone mention Noisy exhausts? To cut a very long story short : Plod do sound test using ISO 5130. Static noise test BUT and this is the thing, there is no results limit for that ISO test. Construction & use regs state 82dB, But again, that test is done by a Drive by test. On an approved tarmac track at 30mph with the use of doplar radar & various microphones set at designated positions on track SVA cars, (ie. imports) can have an exhaust noise limit of 99dB. but this has to be documented on the original import papers That is a static test as done by ISO5130 and by many race tracks o make sure your track day car doesn't break their noise limits. MOT testers use discretion. If the tester likes loud cars then you are fine, If he doesn't then he can refuse to test the vehicle. The problem I had with Norfolk Plod is that they tested at the wrong engine speed. They said 3/4 throttle from Red line, NOT the 3750rpm as quoted in ISO5130 As has been said in posts above. If your exhaust has been modified to make a louder sound than an original system then it would be deemed illegal. (New cars have the dB limit on their V5 document) if sports Car manufacturers went by the letter of the Plod made up law, none would be legally allowed on the road. In a recent static test we did at work we had a Ferrari at 109db (standard factory exhaust) Exige at 99dB, Aston at 101dB, Porsche at 96dB. All sounding absolutely beautiful. Made my 94.1dB sound like a mouse.

my 1996 UK ST202 is in fairly standard spec except for exhaust system. Standard it should be 168 BHP at the crank. My one and only dyne test showed it produced nearly 173BHP. If a car is regularly serviced then a power drop is less than if a car is not serviced. With mine I was expecting around 155 to 160 due to it's age and mileage 110 k at the time of testing, so very happy with the result. Some cars use inferior materials. so suffer from cam wear, bore wear, Piston wear etc. All this causes a loss in power. Fuel makes a difference too. supermarket pump fuel with a lower RON figure can give less 'bangs for your buck' too

Every day is a school day.

I've got one of these kicking around in the back garden, minus the centre cap

(Not quite today, but over the weekend) My CCUK membership card & pen Can't believe I have had the Celica 6 years now

I know the hub to caliper mount on an ST202 are a metric fine thread. I think they are either M12 or M10 x 1.25 and when I first removed mine they were an absolute arse to do. For me the fronts were better to remove than the rears.

Which Gen Celica do you have ? Are you talking about the bolts which connect the caliper to hangar bracket or the bolts which connect the hangar bracket to the hub ?

Looking at your rear discs they look a very similar set up the the Gen 6. I am not too genned up on the Gen 7 so forgive me if this info is totally wrong for the 7. Anyway when I was getting a clonking noise from my Gen 6 from the rear it turned out to be the handbrake shoes. one of the mushroom clips which hold the shoe in place had come adrift and the retaining washer inside the drum was catching in the drum / shoe. The noise went when you slightly applied the handbrake while on the move, but came back when you took the pressure off the cable as the shoes would not sit concentric to the drum so started knocking. I had to replace the shoes and the mushroom shoe retainer clips, as one which has a 'U' bend in it was pretty straight.

Have you got wheel spacers fitted ?

Sounds like a seized caliper to me

That was my initial thoughts too Iain. But as with a lot of things we do, a few HP here or there either plus or minus would not be noticeable on power, but fuel economy on a run can be affected by a whole host of things. 'Real world' fuel economy is very different to manufacturers figures. For a start the manufacturer does all it's tests in a test cell, not on the open road where things like weather, tyre compound & tread, tyre pressure, wind, Driver & passenger weight, baggage weight, atmospheric pressure, altitude, road surface, age of the car, mileage, service items, driving style etc etc. all have an effect on engines performance & fuel economy. Basically, heavy foot = more fun but less mpg Light foot = boring drive but better mpg

It surprised me too, but sort of makes sense. Race car engines prefer cooler air to get the power up but they are not worried about fuel economy (unless it's F1 and they have to 'fuel manage')

Basically Yes, but at a loss of power. I found this which may explain a bit better You might have noticed, driving through the summer months, that you're filling up the car a little less often than you would over winter. It's not your mind playing tricks on you, but a fairly common occurrence for all drivers. Cars simply get better gas mileage during warm weather than they do when it's cold. There are several reasons for that, and we've picked the most relevant ones below. Warm air There's a scientific explanation for why you use less fuel in warmer weather, and it's to do with air temperature. As you may know, your engine uses air, as well as gas, in order to generate energy. In fact, it uses huge amounts of the stuff, though only the oxygen is used in combustion. These oxygen molecules combine with carbon in the fuel during combustion, to form--you guessed it, carbon dioxide. Anyway, one property of air, like many substances, is that it expands when it warms. This makes it less dense--molecules of the various gases are spread further apart. This means that every gulp of air your car is taking during combustion has less oxygen in it at warmer temperatures, and if there's less oxygen, the engine compensates by using less fuel. This is bad from a power perspective, but good for economy. The engine is combusting less fuel due to the warm air, improving fuel economy. During winter, the reverse is true--denser air encourages the engine to chuck in more fuel, boosting performance and harming economy.

From memory I think Air con takes around 5hp - 8hp from an engine when running. On a 100hp car that is quite a hit, on a 200hp engine then it is a small effect. 300hp it would hardly be noticeable. If you are travelling around at 2000 - 3000 RPM, then your engine is probably only producing about 1/3 the max HP. so a 5 - 8 hp drop would be quite noticeable. Fuel economy would probably be hit a little, but no where near as much as driving, say at 50pmh with the windows down. Air temp & altitude also can greatly effect the power of an engine. The latter we don't need to worry about too much in the UK, but the former will cause issues, hence many 'switched on' modifiers strive to get decent cold air feeds for their engines intake rather than just fitting a 'trick looking' cone filter but still pulling in air from a rather hot engine bay. Basically, our hot summers which would effect engine performance last about a couple of days, so not something to really worry about.

they had the whole weekend live on Motors TV. Channel 71 on freeview.

That is the problem when you become attached to a car. They can be an absolute money pit and you would never in a million years get back what you put into it, but Hey.... It's a Celica, and the gen 6 is one of the beat looking 1990's sports cars around that doesn't look dated. I too have spent a fortune on mine in my nearly 6 years of ownership. It's not just the GT4 guys that Faff, we all do to a certain extent. Had it been a Ford or Vauxhall it would have been scrapped or sold on many years ago, but it still brings a smile to my face every time I drive it. Keep the faith, take a deep breath, take a step back and methodically go through what you have done to trace back to any problem.

Be careful if using Acetone to clean plastics as that stuff can destroy certain types of ploymer.

It has lots of rear lights, so Dragon Queen & the ModGod may like to look

That's the problem with black cars, they show up every single speck of dust

My paintwork isn't good enought to warrant that sort of paranoia.

A friend of mine had a Salmon dropped on her car. Mind you, it was by an American Bald Eagle and she lives in Seattle. Bird shite is pretty bad stuff as any of you who are into detailing (which many of us are) can eat into the laquer ans paintwork.

Tell me about it , I had just washed & dried the car then it bloody chucked it down again. Beginning to think," what is the point?"

Spent quite a few hours cleaning, polishing & detailing the car yesterday and reasonably happy with the results but then last night it rained. No real problems with that, but looking at the car this morning ot looks like someone has chucked a bag of fine sand over the car. Apparently due to the recent air pollution and change of wind direction, the rain droplets were loaded with dust from the Sahara. Great