Daox's 2004 Toyota Prius Build Thread

[Daox]

Pics... cause I took em.

All mounted up.




And the the wonderful tread that should hopefully free up a few mpg.




Installed and almost ready to go.

[2003protege]

pics ftw! get that mpg, son.

[Daox]

I just did the second oil change on the Prius. As the oil analysis shows, I used Mobil 1 5W-30 Clean 5000 oil on this change and drove 13,000 miles. I had a Purolator Pure 1 filter on it the whole time. Looks like I went a bit too far.

I filled up with Mobil 1 0W-30 synthetic and a Fram Tough Guard filter. I did clean the air filter when I changed the oil since I noticed it was fairly dirty. I'll probably just replace it now that I got the report back. I'll probably pull a sample @ 10k miles with the synthetic to see how its doing and see how much farther I can push the synthetic.

[RobertSmalls]

It looks like they thought it was Mobil1 5W30, but it was Mobil (not 1) Clean 5000 5W30. Would that change their analysis of the TBN?

Still, it's good to know 13000mi is too far on conventional, at least for your car.

Hmm, this makes me want to see a UOA on Christ's engines with t-shirt air filters.

[Daox]

I did list my oil as mobil 1 5w30 clean 5000 on the form I sent in. I've always seen it come back as mobil 1 5w30 on their reports. I'm not sure what the difference is or if there even is one.

The TBN is the limiting factor on running longer intervals, so it does appear that 13k is a bit too far.

Unfortunately, we won't know how long to go with conventional as I have switched to synthetic now. However, they seem to think 10k is a good number to aim for.

[Daox]

I just put on my grill block. I ended up changing how it was mounted. More info here:

New grill block mounting method

Here are pics:

[palmer_md]

Very simple. I like the ease of installation. I have mine done with screws, but I'd go this route the next time. I did not mind putting holes in my bumper cover because it had been damaged by a fender bender by the previous owner, but on a "good" car I would not have liked drilling holes.

[Daox]

Its been a couple months, so the Prius was due some attention. I'm also the one driving the Prius on a daily basis now that me and my wife got new jobs (she wanted to go back to a more 'fun' manual trans car, the Paseo). So, this time around it got smooth wheel covers.

I started up a seperate thread to explain how I did it here:
Smooth wheel covers for the Prius

This is the finished look.

[Angmaar]

Looks nice and sleek. If I see a you on the road i'll wave.
Are you still running it as a PHEV?

[Daox]

Alas, I have not been running it as a PHEV for some time. In fact, I haven't had an entire tank of gas through the car with the PHEV working correctly. That is a project for this coming summer.