Quote:
Originally Posted by cRiPpLe_rOoStEr
Surprisingly, some econoboxes which cater to countries where they're often the only car of the household are surprisingly more comfortable than their size may suggest.
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Yea, the thing has storage compartments everywhere, it feels more roomy and everything than the corolla. The body style isn't my first pick, but I'm more about function than looks, I just don't like drawing too much attention (boat tails and such). The echo I have has a vin starting with JT, so it's built in japan and came over on a ship. The era of Corolla's I like (96-97) are all or almost all US built with 4T starting VIN. Sadly the echo seems to be a bit lower build quality in some areas (door pins for example), but in other areas it seems better. Like it has rust, but not everything is rust. The Corolla I was driving has rust basically everywhere. It has some rig ups I need to fix, I don't like day time running lights (atleast give me control if I want them on auto or not) so I'll probably be disabling that in time even though it seems to work well, not a battery killer like some other brands.
@serialk11r
That's a lot of info you dropped on me xD. The corolla's I worked with are 4A/7A engines. I do have a corolla with a stick trans in it too with a bad engine. It almost sounds like there's a fair chance the trans wouldn't be too hard to be a backup for the Echo. No clue about spline counts and such, I suspect the mounts are similar or not hard to make something up.
Some looking around suggests the engine is a 1NZ-FE, atleast from one wiki page, when I searched before I had a different engine come up. I didn't check the emissions sticker to validate. Sounds like it should be pretty similar engine pattern for the 4A/7A transmissions then. Reading a bit about the 1NZ-FE, I guess it's based on the 1NZ-FXE which is a lower power output, but high compression mechanically, but valve timing is simulated to 9.5:1 ratio type of engine. I heard those can be very efficient. Wiki claims the peak thermal efficiency is around 37%. Another google search says typical diesels peak at around 42%, so that's quite impressive. It almost makes me want to find one of those engines and do an engine swap lol. ~75hp vs 108hp wouldn't be the end of the world or anything. 25% or so lower power, but say 20% better mpg under the same conditions could be worth it.
Also the 1ZZ/2ZZ engines I've avoided a bit, I've read they don't last as long as the older 4A/7A engines. I got to ride in one once and it seemed to have a nice power increase for it's size. The newer Corolla's with them seem to also be lower quality, the cheaper ones are in generally a lot worse shape than a similar priced older one.
Anyway, I have two gas/fuel suckers, and one that should basically go forever on gas. I guess I have a legit car that matches up to the logic of an ecomodder member again xD.