I got to drive a friend's Scion FR-S, cool car as long as you are sitting in the front. I have to say, I don't feel so bad about my clutch anymore after driving that car. It was as odd mix of mechanical notchiness and absence of clutch feel. In typical Toyota fashion, the rev-limiter kicks in early and HARD. 7400 RPM, right at the red line, didn't even go past it. The lack of low end torque left something to be desired. Gearing on that car was also kind of odd. It reminded me of my 4 cylinder accord, and not in a good way. The 1st to 2nd gap was pretty large considering that its a 6 speed. I actually had to downshift back to 1st after I shifted to 2nd for the first time. Top gear isn't bad, I think it was around 2200 RPM for 50 mph. Before I started romping on it I drove it for mileage and got 37 MPG in a mostly city based route, pretty good! It was only rated for 22 city, 30 highway, 25 combined.
I also gave some ecodriving instruction to the owner, he used to put it into neutral when braking and approaching stops. I taught him to keep it in gear down to when DFCO cuts off, in this case 1000 RPM.
Block heater is still giving good results, about 45-50 degrees higher than ambient when plugged in for 2 hours.
I tried working on the side plates for my box cavity, but the parents vetoed that. Looks like i'll have to stick to undertray mods. Up next will probably be a half inch skirt for the exhaust channel.
Filled up the previous tank and got 37.2 MPG, bumping me up to 78.9% over EPA!
