Making a 99 camry suck less of my soul

Some people are in the mind set that you can't get a new car until the old one dies...this I don't get. I buy used and sell used-er. I don't get the "buy a new car and love it, but improperly maintain it only doing what breaks and letting it rot out and start to become unreliable until the day it leaves you stranded causing you to have to buy a brand new economy car urgently so that you can repeat the cycle". Try saying that 5 times fast...

So yeah, sell the damn thing! First of all you're already less of a man for letting the wife take your car. If she wants to replace the Camry let her do it. Get her into a reliable DD so you have more time to work on your own fun car. Don't bother putting money into a 4 banger auto Camry. While I'm all for tweaking a DD with simple mods to make it more fun that Camry is not where you want to start.

KATYB wrote: yep measured and verified as stretched. im pretty sure ive still got a bunch of short blocks sitting in my garage that i stole due to the whole sludge issues.... ive got a bunch of 1mz's also.. however not the worst rods ive ever seen. the 1.8 v6 mazda rods that your could twist with a screw driver those were fun.... only mazda ive ever seen with weak rods. the rod stretching comes from over revving. seems about 8k they stretch very easily.

Heh, i have a 1.8 V6 as well. It's not bad, but it's also not it's fault that it's being over-revved either. It's not built to withstand 8k rpms, so i certainly wouldn't expect it to do so without any issues.

Another Mazda with weak rods (makes the K8 look bulletproof) is the FS-DE. Their 2.0 in the Protege. UGH.

the 5s was designed too. and then used for a different purpose. orginally the 5s was sposed to be a higher performance motor than the 3s.

i dont count the fs as an actual mazda engine. too much of a joke. to think they basically replaced the bp with that motor ugh. what a shame.

Fun piece of trivia - Rippmods produced a beautiful header for the 5SFE and a Supercharger kit. I had one of the headers (but never installed it) and sold it to another forum member.

HotShot made a good header for these things too.

But... i just noticed this is a 99. It's already got the tubular manifold, not really worth swapping out.

I had the RippMods S/C kit at one point, never installed it, though.

Cut the stock springs (with good struts), run salt flat discs on the wheels, tint the windows, make it way clean and shiny as possible.

That and sound will make it passable...

Slap some moondisc hubcaps on it and spray paint it a different color each week. I did my 81 Camaro like this (sans the awesome hubcaps). At one point it had polka dots, red, blue, yellow, green along with footprints made by painting my sneakers and walking, one step at a time, down the length of the car, to make racing stripes. It was a blast.

OldGray320i wrote: Cut the stock springs (with good struts), run salt flat discs on the wheels, tint the windows, make it way clean and shiny as possible. That and sound will make it passable...

This is the strategy I would follow.

I like Camrys. My parents had an 89 station wagon that withstood all kinds of abuse and neglect. It wasn't fun to drive, but it wasn't unfun to drive either. It was easy to live with day-to-day. That said, if it was my only car, I would have to kill myself.

Your car has big miles on it and you already don't like it too much. Don't put a lot of money into it. Cut the stock springs a bit to get the rates up and the height down an inch or so. Going lower won't work well for ride/handling and it will just look stupid if it's sitting on 14" wheels. Replace the bushings if you're going to do it yourself, but don't pay someone else to do it. If that's the case, just live with it. Give it a good tune-up and maybe a K&N drop-in and synthetic fluids to optimize stock performance and reliability and you're done.

Throw all the turbo bits from a 3sgte on there, it will run on the stock ECU.

92CelicaHalfTrac wrote:

KATYB wrote: yep measured and verified as stretched. im pretty sure ive still got a bunch of short blocks sitting in my garage that i stole due to the whole sludge issues.... ive got a bunch of 1mz's also.. however not the worst rods ive ever seen. the 1.8 v6 mazda rods that your could twist with a screw driver those were fun.... only mazda ive ever seen with weak rods. the rod stretching comes from over revving. seems about 8k they stretch very easily.

Heh, i have a 1.8 V6 as well. It's not bad, but it's also not it's fault that it's being over-revved either. It's not built to withstand 8k rpms, so i certainly wouldn't expect it to do so without any issues. Another Mazda with weak rods (makes the K8 look bulletproof) is the FS-DE. Their 2.0 in the Protege. UGH.

It's perfectly fine as long as it's not boosted. My car has 140K miles (I drive it hard too), and it runs as well as the day I bought it. I fully expect to get 200K miles out of this car with minimal drama.

I'll acknowledge that it's not the best 4-pot I've driven. It's rather coarse and runs out of steam at higher revs. But it's fairly torquey, and is a willing enough partner for spirited driving.

It's a curious engine, for sure. It had some hot E36 M3 for an economy car in 2001 - coil on plug ignition, oil squirters, windage tray...

But it's no Honda 4-pot, and the fuel consumption isn't all that great.

Speaking of Mazda's and weak rods (if I didn't post this somewhere on this board I'd feel like a jerk)

http://wichita.craigslist.org/cto/2289421270.html

Mazdaspeed Protege in Orange (hot) with a thrown rod (weak) for $1500 in KS.

You're not gonna get better bang for the buck than a 50-shot. I'm serious. It will change your whole perception of the car. Well, until something breaks.

I would think a 25 horse shot would still be eye opening for those passing moments and the transmission would be a little happier with it.

Get the suspension back to zero, then autocross it. If you have a blast, the car has potential.

Also, don't listen to the haters. If it was up to them, we'd all be rocking either an E30 or Miata.

pres589 wrote: Speaking of Mazda's and weak rods (if I didn't post this somewhere on this board I'd feel like a jerk) http://wichita.craigslist.org/cto/2289421270.html Mazdaspeed Protege in Orange (hot) with a thrown rod (weak) for $1500 in KS.

That's an AWESOME price. I kindof want it to throw a Millenia KL in it.

In reply to 92CelicaHalfTrac:

Yeah... I think I'd just look for a custom set of rods if there's not an off the shelf upgrade over stock. It seems like a great deal for someone that can deal with a project like that, and right now I can't.

Sell that E36 M3. There is no reason to be bored with your daily driver. You can have a fun and reliable daily driver.

huge-O-chavez wrote: Do nothing with it... drive it every day, enjoy the cheap commuter. Fix the broken stuff. Save $$$ for a fun car... Seriously, no matter what you do to that car, you'll hate it. You'd rather be spending your hard earned money on something that you'll like.

This is the ONLY thing to do with a Camry.

CANOE

Hoop wrote: Get the suspension back to zero, then autocross it. If you have a blast, the car has potential. Also, don't listen to the haters. If it was up to them, we'd all be rocking either an E30 or Miata.

And there's a problem with this (says the guy who drives a 325es to work everyday, and is pondering a Miata purchase - "you know dear, our son is going to need a car soon...")?

OldGray320i wrote:

Hoop wrote: Get the suspension back to zero, then autocross it. If you have a blast, the car has potential. Also, don't listen to the haters. If it was up to them, we'd all be rocking either an E30 or Miata.

And there's a problem with this (says the guy who drives a 325es to work everyday, and is pondering a Miata purchase - "you know dear, our son is going to need a car soon...")?

Find a way to fit a P71 in there, and you'll have the holy trinity of automobiles!

rallycross. /thread.

a car only sucks as much of your soul as you let it.