Aero using Photoshop - 2002 Corolla
 

My bro gave me a crash course in photo shop the other day, so I figured I'd post the results of tampering with a picture of the front end of my car.

It would most likely be made out of fiberglass, there would be boat tails in front of the wheels, and the car would be a little lower, but you get the general idea.

This is ideally what I would like to do to my car, however I don't think it will be easy, or cheap.


Hope you like the idea for a license plate :rolleyes:

What are you going to do when you want to sell your car ? ;)

A far easier, WAY less expensive and ( some would say wiser ) choice would be to just fill in the grille with insulation tubing.
It looks factory, is easily removable, and will only cost you around ten bucks or so.

As far as the opening in the bumper, you could rig up some sort of temporary block using aluminum sheet metal. You could paint it flat black and it would look factory.
If you place it behind the struts in the opening, this would hold it in place so you wouldn't have to drill into the car ( I'm thinking resale value here ;) ).

You have a very nice, new car. I would hate to see you screw it up like I did with my old car.
( My resale value was so low from the start that I thought 'What the hell - if I screw it up, who cares " )

One more thing : You'll need some sort of hole in this block for the radiator.

Great to see you're taking to Photoshop. Look forward to seeing more of your stuff !

Not necessarily but it something that needs to be watched depending on driving speeds. I've had 2 cars with full block top, bottom and front half belly pan with no overheat problems. Your milage may very. YMMV

I was thinking about keeping the Rolling Lemon until it finally bit the dust, many miles in the future. I mean, I've already replaced all the important stuff (engine, clutch, entire a/c/defrost system), so it would behoove me to keep the car until it gave up the ghost :thumbup:. As to the ease of removal, that's probably a good thing. I don't know how well the car is going to perform with a complete full frontal block (New term: FFB).

Anyone with a 1ZZFE engine have the cooling fans turn on at 207*F coolant temperature? I'm thinking about changing the coolant this summer and if I do, I may change the high temp point to turn the radiator fans on at a higher temp, 215*-220*F.

I cut up pieces of foam exercise mat for mine. Easy, cheap, cuts with a razor knife. I did 4 quadrants in separate pieces. I can pop one out or in in seconds.

Attachment 570

Very nice:)

And it not only works well, but looks good too !


So Funny, you have a brand new car that has had that many problems ?

And a Toyota too ??

What are you street racing the thing ;P

It's not brand new, I just keep it looking new :thumbup:.

It's a 2002 Corolla with 122,000 miles on it. I've owned the car since 26,000 when I bought it from my dad. I call it the Rolling Lemon because of the unusually large number of expensive repairs, Toyotas are very reliable cars, and I plan to buy another, I just happened to get the one that was made on a Monday by someone that was still hungover :rolleyes:. The engine was replaced at 46,000 (no, I wasn't racing it.) It was my daily driver. The engine was still covered under 5/50,000 warranty. Then at 70,000, the entire A/C and defroster system died, no warranty this time :(, cost about $1700 to fix through a friend. It was the middle of winter, and I needed the defroster, what can I say. Then I had to replace the clutch because that was slipping at 98,000 or so. The Lemon's been running fine ever since, knock on wood.

To answer a question before it comes up, the oil pump was bad, that's why the engine needed replacement. I do regular oil changes every 3,000. I'm switching to synthetic and going to extend it to 5,000 or so. I drive a lot. So, it would be nice to save a little time and money on the oil changes.

Below is the grill block I made for my 03 Matrix. Its works very well. The engine warms up much faster and it also warms up the intake air to a small degree (3-8°F). However, since it is made of foam board it didn't hold up all that great over winter (its still there, just not as pretty). I don't drive the car a ton, but I did notice that this was a bit much for city driving, even in winter. I could hear the radiator fan kicking on and off quite a bit during the city driving. During highway driving its rock solid at 184-186°F. I have since removed the bottom block now that it is getting warmer out.

FYI, according to my Matrix service manual the radiator fan kicks in at 199°F.

http://img405.imageshack.us/img405/4681/grill6rh2.jpg