[Aerolla]

I spent most of the day today fiberglassing the front bumper to cover up the airscoop, which I've had blocked off for over a month with no ill effect. It has netted a noticable gain in MPGs. I would be installing the transmission myself, and late 90's Corollas and Prisms litter the salvage yards, so I imagine I could get one for less than $500 installed with new components. No way a scangauge will save me more money than two extra gears would; however, I have no plans to swap the transmission unless this one ****s the bed entirely, which is highly improbable even though this car has 214k miles on it.

The gearing on the 3-speed is 77% smaller than the gearing on the 4 speed in every gear except overdrive, which is absent from the 3-speed (obviously). Therefore, I should theoretically be able to get better MPGs for city driving at certain speeds, but I don't know exactly what speeds those are, because I don't know what MPH my shift points are at. I think the 4-speed would probably save me SOME MPGs at highway speed, and I have a 75.6 mile daily commute to my job, but I don't know if it would save me enough to warrant getting a 4-speed, when I could just as well install a 5 or 6 MT. This engine does not have the VVT-i.

93-97 Toyota Corolla Automatic Transaxle Gearing:
1st 2nd 3rd 4th
A245E 3.643 2.008 1.296 0.892
A131L 2.810 1.549 1.000 0.000
Difference: 77.1% 77.1% 77.2% 0.0%