My official Prius mods thread.

Well, I'm not planning on switching wheels again once I get the new sensors. There is no need for more thanone set here in Florida. One set of 4 is all I need.

 

BTW, the tint is coming on wednesday. Pictures to follow shortly after.

 

Well, I decided tojack up the Prius and see if I couldn't get the lower suspension brace on. It didn't come with any instructions, but even if it did, they'd be inJapanese, and my Japanese is limited to hello, thank you, and cat-nip.

Anyway, it was both easier and harder than I expected. Easier in that it was very easy to figure out, and to install. The hard part was the clearance between the passenger side bolt and the oilpan was next to none. I was barely aboe to wedge the socket in there before the brace, and after I ahd to use some "persuasion" to get it off the bolt. ANyway, it's on ans looks great. It even matches the color of my car!

Here is a before and after pic.

EDIT: Before anyone posts, I DID use jack stands. I'm just paranoid, so I used to jacks as well as backup. You just can't really see the stands in the pic. I would never crawl under a car with only a jack holding it up!

 

Maybe I missed it. THe instructions for the strut brace is there though. Anyway, it wasn't too hard to figure out. THe strut brace is equally easy in its installation. It's the diasassembly of the front cowling that takes up 75% of the pages. The actual strut install is three easy steps.

Anyway I may try and get to that today...

 

Well, the strut bar installation is only easy if you can acually reach the tops of the struts. To get to them you must first remove the pastic wiper cowl, which means you must first remove the wipers, Then you have to unbolt a long piece of sheet metal under that which runs from one side of the car to the other. You must also remove the weather stripping for the hood, and unbolt the relay box. Then, and only then can you actually reach the bolts that you must remove to install the strut bar...

Man of man this is a lot harder than any other car I've done. Most of them are right in hte open and you just grab your ratchet, slap it on, and tighten the bolt back down.

Guess that's what happens when you have 2 motors in there AND you try to kep it compact.

It's going to be a while before I do this. I'm going to go to Toyota TechINfo first and get ALL the relevant diagrams and instructions first.

I may just orde the floor brace and hte rear subframe brace and do those first.

 

While the strut bar was a no go today, I did get my chromed turn signal bulbs, and put those in. By far the easiest mod I've done yet. THey are a bit dimmer, but then what do you expect when you chrome a bulb anyway.

Here are some before and after pics.

 

OK, I will!

So for now I've decided that the level of effort required to get the strut brace on is so high that I'm going to wait until I get the Sportivo kit. THen I can install it all at once. Save quite a bit of work that way.

I guess I'll just have to get by seeing that brace just sitting in my garage every day... Sigh!

 

No, they are in fact orange (or rather, amber). The bulbs are regular amber bulbs that are coated with a translucent chrome coating. They look silver but light up orange.

 

Well I'm glad you're enjoying the show.

BTW, define young. I'm probably alot older than you think.

 

Nothing so far. I've only driven it once with it on, and that was to the grocery store with the kids. Not really a good time to test it out. TOmorrow morning I will though.