Hello From Missouri

[Thatguy01]

Hey guys my name is Adam, I have a 2001 SLE V6 5-speed with 279,000 miles. Black interior/exterior with golden emblems(whatever the hell that means) I subscribed to this forum a long time ago and never really got into it until now because I sold my diesel and now want to start modifying my beater.Im from St.Louis and I frequent the diesel pages being a diesel tech and owning a dodge cummins for years, I rarely even cared for this car. But now I sold my rig, bought my wife a 2G eclipse and im stuck with this thing. the only aftermarket thing ive ever done to it is black out the front grille minus the Toyota emblem because everything else was black and gold then there was a chrome grille and it looked out of touch.

My plans for this car are simple. I have an intake leak so CAI, black out the windows and stock wheels and remove the Toyota emblem off the wheels, remove those gawdy golden decals- free to a good home when they are off. and lastly I want to lower this thing to about the height of an eclipse or an inch or two lower. so about a 2-3inch drop. problem with these cars for me is that I cant find ANYTHING that is for sure for this car. especially headlights and taillights. The one thing I can find for sure is a body kit but In my opinion the cars original body lines would look great just not with the ground clearance as high as my 2500 truck's. So ill be posting a lot on here- mostly questions- and be using the crap out of the search function.

thanks for your time!

[GzNutz]

Welcome!

[TadS]

Welcome. The good news is you're late enough to the party that used parts are fairly plentiful, and inexpensive. The bad news is that finding a 'particular' part isn't always easy. On the topic of lowering; there was a time when everyone, and their brother, was making springs for the Gen 4 platform. I believe Eibach and Tein were the most popular, but to be honest I couldn't even tell you if these companies are still in business. Tokico struts seemed to be the most popular choice, but for new parts KYB may end up being your only option.

[crankine3]

Ask away, I am still kinda new myself. But I few things for you ....

Using google search with "site:solaraguy.com" gives more more relevant posts than the phpBB search function. From what I understand, the gold emblems were an upgrade anyone could get, and are not indicative of anything special in the car ... but typically if the car has the gold, it has many/most options. Borrow a heat gun to do the emblem deletes. For lowering, I went with Megan coilovers, cheapest new coilover option and I am happy with them though I have little to compare them too and you can only drop maybe 1.75 , maybe 2, inch in the front, I went with 1.5 all around. Most people modify OEM headlights with black out and projectors (easy oven bake to get clean lens off) and blackout their corners (which is difficult to take apart corners), though ever so often some used aftermarket clear/black corners appear. There is one aftermarket excessive chrome euro/mazda tail light out there for maybe $125 (called Spyder I think), and you might think there is a cousin of that tail light that comes blacked out ... but they haven't run a production run of that in years and all the websites that claim they have it are lying. The stock Gen 1 tail light seems to be the popular choice, even with Gen 1.5 owners.

[TadS]

A company named Solar made tails for the 1st gen around 2003. There was a chrome model originally followed by a carbon fiber looking version and a black chrome. I have a couple of sets out in my garage . I don't know if anyone produced another version of that design, but it's the only aftermarket design I saw for the car. They do have DOT stamped on them, so I believe they are DOT compliant.

[corlon]

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-OEM-TOYOTA- ... fa&vxp=mtr

[TadS]

Found 'em!



The disadvantage of a massive garage, easier to lose stuff.