Project "pissed off prius" underway

I would suggest the rear and front sway bars before anything else because thats going to be the best upgrade for the money. The strut tower brace makes a noticeable difference as well in my experience. The order of the braces for my car is the chassis brace, the underbrace, strut tower brace, rear sway and front sway and I recently installed a set of performance coilovers. The front sway is where I would start if I had to do it again, and be sure to change the bushings for the front sway as well. I know Justdidit has poly bushings which are stiffer and overall better. However, I just used the OEM 2008 corolla rubber bushings because I live on a beach and the sand would mess up the poly bushings.

 

Any suggestions on how to install my roof rack lighting on the cargo bin? I have the switches and such, but I don't want to drill holes in the roof.

 

That was what I was thinking, but routing the wires to the dash for the rocker switches would mean it would have to go through the headliner.

 

I am hoping to work on it tomorrow when contractors get their crap out of my garage. To map out how to run everything from the top of the car to inside to the dash to the jump point in the engine bay.

 

Quick question, does anyone know or has anyone had any issues with the control arm bushings after they have lowered their gen 2? I have noticed recently that whenever I have a sudden start or brake, there is a pretty loud knock. The car has 183,000 miles on it and they are the stock bushings, but im not sure if it is the sway bar links or the control arm bushings.

 

I may have figured out the problem, I think it's my CV joint actually, because when I am parked and turn the wheel to the limit to the left and right I hear a loud clicking sound. Oh the joys of having close to 200,000 miles on the car.

 

Replacing the CV axles was a piece of cake, nothing too spectacular there. However, it helps ten fold to have a lift at your disposal, because you need to top the transmission fluid off after you put the new axles on. This can only be done from under the car, thanks a lot Toyota. I still hear a creaking sound when I am turning at low speeds, so I took it to the local dealer and one of the techs and I looked under the car, checking all the bushings, motor mount, subframe, control arms, etc. and no dice to see what was causing the noise. So I guess I have to deal with it and ease up on the baby outside of rallying.

 

I'm going to go over everything again since I did switch the stock struts to coilovers with pillowball mounts a few months ago, I hope it isn't the transmission.

 

I got the vinyl wrap for the interior from amazon. There are a few places that sell it online, I just searched for "stickerbomb wrap" and it was 6 bucks for 5'x3' which is plenty to cover all the plastic in the car. Theres other types you can get also, I considered a desert camo and a carbon fiber as well since I have the forest camo in my raptor.

 

Update: still no Idea where the clicking is coming from. I just replaced the CV joints and figured I could rule those out, got new coilovers less than 10,000 miles ago and after a good rain, the clicking has gotten worse. The clicking seems to happen when I am taking off from a red light, braking suddenly most often. I have noticed the clicking sound is a single pop or click, and it seems to be coming from the drivers side towards the wheel. I checked the strut mounts and they are fine, the coilovers are fine, the brakes are brand new as well as the CV joints, it hasn't affected my drivability but it is really aggravating bec

 

I have had to deal with summer courses (cal 2 and organic chem) for the past few weeks, but I was going to mount my goPro underneath to see what the deal is.

 

FINALLY! Finally I got the roof lights on, and they are "bright as day" according to my friends. they don't look bad either. Getting under the car tomorrow to sleuth around looking for the noise. Thinking its the rack and pinion.

 

So electrical gremlins are afoot. A few times over the past month or so (before I installed the roof lights), whenever I go to press the power button on the car to turn it off, it'll just go completely dark (like unplugging a computer straight from the wall). After about 10-30 seconds, the car will turn spontaneously back on (like pressing the power button without the brake depressed) and sometimes it will happen even when the key is taken out of the slot. Anyway, when this does happen the clock resets and the AVG MPG resets back to zero, and my fuel gauge resets as well. Any suggestions? This started happening when I switched from my main keyfob to my back-up.

 

Alright folks maybe you guys can confirm my belief here. I think one of my rear Ksport coilovers is blown out. However, there is no change in driving, handling or the like. Just this god awful noise coming from the rear passenger side. The noise happens when going over bumps typically and when I rock that side of the car you can hear the clicking as well. Here are two links to youtube videos with whats happening. Inside the car while driving

and outside the car rocking