Advice on upgrading a stock Solara.

[TrevDog]

I have an all stock 2000 V6 Auto Solara. I really have no idea where to start on what performance parts to buy. All I have done is put in an awesome stereo and a lot of neons. Can you give me some advice on what performance parts I should buy and start out with first so I don't make a mistake? All help is appreciated . Thanks.

[lildk50]

hey man, i got the exact same car as you , but anyways there's not much we can do on our car unless ur willing to shell out some dough. I kno jpp makes headers n catbacks for us but they can run anywhere from 500 to 1599. A company on this forum is makin a CAI for us, or has one in production so u might wanna look up that. Just go ahead n do a search for "Xerd." Then there's also of course the badass mod of a supercharger...kazuma/TRD to be exact n that'll cost u bout 3k at MOST if u look at the good sites. There's the Injen short ram intake, but that doesn't have much performance gain, it's jus for noise in my opinion. You COULD get aK&N filter for the stock intake u got but it's the same story as the injen. Hope I could help, if i missed anythin or messed anythin up can someone inform him?

[Mole]

if you want performance, you first need to get rid of your neons and system.

how much $$$ do you want to spend? what is your goal?

here is a known quote, "speed is money, how fast do you want to go?"

[Jaimster]

1st: Get rid of flashy neons!

If you want to fix up a car, your best bet it to keep it looking as stock as possible so as not to attract attention from cops and those haters out there that are out to ruin your car.
Rims and a bodykit are good upgrades, but try not to over do it with stickers, neons, and/or flashy paint jobs to name a few.

Good Mods are:
Rims
Lowering Springs
Struts
Rear Swaybar
Supercharger (perffered on manuals)
Exhaust (Greedy, Magnaflow, TRD Muffler...to name a few.

I'm sure other members will add to the list, but you are better off using the search feature to learn more any paticular modification.

[TrevDog]

Thanks for the input so far. So does a custom exhaust system actually benefit the car in a lot of ways or does it just sound awesome? Oh and what about a cool air intake? What that give me better milage?

[xXsolaraXx]

remember one thing, the easiest way to free up some hidden horsepower is through airflow...the more free flowing air you have going through you car the better hp and torque u will get. so upgrading the exhaust system(muffler, catback) will help with that but without the intake and headers it wont do much (the headers are not TOO necessary in this idea but will add tremendous numbers).

thats where the idea of forced induction comes into play. that being the supercharger. it forces air to be driven through the system causing an increase in pressure, and in return gaining boost of the engine. eventually once your mods list has increased (with decent "helpful" mods) you can upgrad your s/c pulley to a smaller size thus increasing boost; up to 5.5 psi to be on the safe side. anything with smaller size (higher boost) will require fuel upgrades along with a piggy back afc.

eventually you will want to get your suspension taken care of. now i dont care what you have read in the past or on this site...without the proper suspension (springs, struts, sway bars) you have nothing! and i know alot of people on this forum will back me up.

finally, you have to look into weight reduction...i think i remember that every 100 lbs. on the track is equivalent to .1 secs. Meaning decreasing the weight of your car by 100lbs will give you a .1 sec faster time in the 1/4 mile. (a nice system with big woofers in a big box will sound nice but you will be hearing bass while being left behind at the track)

hope this helped a lil and maybe mookie can make this a sticky for alot of new users. i actually thought about this one for a while and sorry it ended up being so long. enjoy your solara days!

moe

[krook]

just buy whatever you can for now; even if you can't put it on right away. i've had my struts waiting in my room for about 5 months or so, and only now i'm going to put them on. (had to wait for springs to come in)

alot of $200.00 (and below) mods you may consider:

~ injen short ram or Xerd's CAI intake
~ clear corners
~ levoc shifter
~ real carbon fiber dash
~ tein s tech springs/eibach/vogtland
~ reverse style glow gauges
~ 2.75 pulley

i've got all of the aforementioned, but it took me a while to get them along with other items.

eventually, you may want to save up for these big items:

~ TRD supercharger
~ Xerd/JP headers
~ TRD exhaust or Greddy/JIC catback exhaust
~ Tokico struts via our groupbuy
~ Body kit

[HKSV6SLE]

i think the best way to approach it is, to decide what you want for your car...do you want it to be for looks..then in that case get it lowered and get some rims, and later on a body kit and or paint job. if you want it for sound, then get lots of audio stuff....do what i did...get lots of car audio and dynmat all the panels you can afford, to get rid of rattles, when you do this, the car becomes heavier and i think makes getting engine mods, almost pointless. or you can get lots of perfomance parts and start that way. i guess in the end it all depends on what you do with your car....

[JoeB]

A lot of good advice above but start with a cobination of what HKSV6SLE and TRDMole said. First decide what it is you want to do with the car, what is your end goal. Then it is just how much money you are willing to spend. Do you just want it to have more puch on the street or do you want to build a 1/4 mile car? If you want to build a 1/4 mile car, my personal opinion is, buy another car... With the performance upgrades, you will only truly enjoy it AFTER you have done the suspension upgrades. I LOVE to drive my car.

In one of the mags, I think it was performance, I read an article that praised the Solara but mentioned the one weakness was the ability to breathe was restricted. Simply putting on a short-ram intake like Injen or RMM is a good start, CAI improves on that because you will get cool air instead of warm (but we're still waiting for one).

You can only take so much more air in without increasing the ability to exhaust that air. I think the cat is the bottleneck. Going to an aftermarket catback exhaust (Greddy or WS) gives you better air-flow (and sounds better too ). But if you want to eventually go with headers, do yourself a favor and spend the money up front for the full JP Performance exhaust, from headers to exhaust tip. It's a 3" system that will offer the most. Having a free flowing exhaust will allow you to take more advantage of the intake as well.

Next step will be the SuperCharger which will suck even more air. Now the intake and exhaust become even more important. Then if you want to improve that (like said before) smaller pully (I think 2.8", 6psi is limit) along with an air/fuel computer like Apexi S-AFCii or even better Split-Second. Enjoy reading the forum too. A lot of smart guys that have done it have posted good info about other parts as well.

Good luck and enjoy. -JoeB

[SpyderGuard]

In my opinion, definitely start with the suspensions. I had tokico/vogland combo installed recently, and BAM! it made driving sooooo much fun. It's almost a no-compromise upgrade - it improves both handling and comfort. The fact that it actually improved ride comfort was a big surprise to me.

As xxsolaraxx said, weight reduction is also great, and rims are the best place to start when reducing weight. I read in a Japanese site that 1 kilo off the rims is equivalent to 15 kilos off the car. That means if you get rims that are 5 pounds lighter, that's 20 pounds all around, which translates to 300 pounds off the car, "simulating" a signifacant increase in horsepower. Some American sites claim that it's a 1-50 ratio rather than a 1-15 ratio, but it's probably somewhere in-between, considering how conservative the Japanese are when it comes to making these kind of claims.

[Mole]

imho, lightweight rims can come last, since sometimes they are more on the expensive side.

[DavPak]

imho, lightweight rims can come last, since sometimes they are more on the expensive side.

IMO, if you're gonna do it, do it right the first time. save up, get some nice leightweight rims.

like you're really worried mike, those Volk's of yours might be even lighter than my SSR's!


EDIT: just found this site http://www.superhonda.com/tech/wheel_weights.html

[Mole]

hehe... thats why i stress the rims last.

i think my decision took forever to make the choice i went with.