Prius coming soon

Hi Prius Chat! It's been a while. Anyways, back in 2007 I purchased a brand new Prius for my mother. Since then, she's had some medical issues and the California Highway Patrol along with the DMV has deemed her unfit to drive (chemo brain among other things, not that she could drive that well to begin with. Lady asian driver jokes allowed). So, in knowing this now, I'll probably be taking the car off her hands as soon as I get one of my race cars sold so I have room in the garage to restore it.

Background on me and the cars I own. Back in the early 2000's to about a few years ago, I had a performance shop. I mainly worked on Hondas, but I've touched just about everything from small block Chevys and Fords to Ferraris. I'm good with a wrench, and I'm really good at suspension tuning. I currently own a 2014 Chevy Silverado Z71 LTZ crew cab with a 6.5' bed. I have an AFE intake and exhaust, 2.5" leveling kit by Rough Country, and 20x9" Volk Racing TE37X with +2 sized Falken Wildpeak AT tires. I also have a 2002 Acura RSX race car along with a 1995 Nissan 240SX with a GM Performance LS3 E-rod engine. My wife has a 2005 Honda Civic LX sedan with a K24A4 engine swap from an Accord with custom suspension, SSR wheels, big brake kit, etc. Just a nice all around commuter car that still gets 30+ MPG average and has enough power to get out of it's own way. We also have a 2011 Honda Pilot Touring lowered on a custom coilover set, 19x9" Volk Racing TE37 wheels (BMW spec wheels), and a caliper swap from an Acura RL.

The car has pretty low miles (right around 50k miles at the moment), but the body is in a real bad shape. It's easier to put it this way. Every panel except for the roof and hood has either a scrape, dent, or rub. As soon as the car is in my garage, I already know that I'll be ordering a new front and rear bumper cover, new fog light assemblies, right rear tail light assembly, new set of HID bulbs, right mirror cover, all new matching 205/45-17 Falken Azenis FK453 tires (I have a set of 17" Buddy Club P1 wheels that I had originally ordered for a WRX customer, but he couldn't come up with the rest of the money), and probably some other miscellaneous body parts (probably will end up being the splash shield, rockers, wheel liners, etc). And in doing all of that, I'll probably end up throwing all new fluids in her. As far as I can tell, the coolant and CVT fluids are Toyota specific (but I'll probably check with my buddies at Eneos about their CVT fluid). I'll toss some fresh Torco SR1 0w20, and some fresh Stoptech brake fluid.

Now I've driven the car every now and then, and every single time, it's been the expressway to snoreville. Steering is numb, I have no idea what the hell is happening when I press the throttle, no traction control off button that I can find (so I can at least attempt to hoon it a little and treat it like a rental car, LOL), and the seats. Oh lord the seats are horrible. Those are going out first for some comfortable Recaro seats in its place, side airbags be damned.

What saddens me is that in the performance aftermarket, there seems to be a lot more for the 3rd generation Prius, but at least there's some saving grace. I'm probably going to order a set of Megan Racing coilovers, run on that for a while and probably end up ordering a set of Eibach ERS springs and convert it to a dual rate system. Tanabe has quite a few chassis stiffening items available, so those are probably going to get thrown on as well.

Most of the fluids I'm assuming should be a snap. I am concerned about the brake system since I've read many people have ended up with problems after doing a brake job on these things. I will be throwing on a fresh set of Centric rotors with some Stoptech pads to match the new fluids. I'm also wondering if anybody has done a rear disk brake conversion on one of these. Not so much for better stopping distance, but disks are just much easier and faster to service than a drum and will look better behind open spoke wheels.

Anyways, wanted to introduce myself, and let you guys know about me and what may transpire to be an interesting new daily driver project (I drive about 700-900 miles per week commuting from home in Northridge, CA to my business in Irwindale, CA plus sales calls and other odds and ends). So while I can afford to feed the truck (averaging about 20 MPG. Not bad for a big 4x4 truck), and it is very comfortable to drive, if I can stretch my fuel money, it's all the better. I never thought I would be driving a Prius (soul sucking appliance of a vehicle), I hope that some of the items in the aftermarket will make driving it a little less weary.

 

Well, it's also not that I'm hurting for money. The car is paid off and there's no title transfer needed (legally the car is mine). But yeah, the gear head tuner in me can't bear to leave it stock. I'll probably end up putting in a fairly basic sound system. Will probably end up surrounding an Audison Bit Ten processior, some CDT speakers, JL Audio amp and blow the dust off one of my old Image Dynamics IDQ10 subs.

 

By how much are we talking about here. I'll probably accept up to around a 5mpg drop.

 

And I just remembered I'm also going to have to tint the car as well. I guess I'll be making another appointment with my local 3M Crystalline dealer. That's the only tint I use (including the windshield). In the race cars, it makes a dramatic difference.

 

Well, I'm still going to be spending the money to make it look OK again. I'll probably keep it until a NSX comes to the stable. LOL

 

OK. The wheels themselves are pretty light for a cast wheel. Probably around 16-17 lbs for the 17x7" wheels. Falken has always tended to make their tires a bit sticker than others. Only reason why I'm going with them is my relationship when them on my race cars and the show cars I've built in the past.

 

As long as the mileage is better than the Civic and I can chuck it around, I'll be happy. I'm not exactly setting the bar of expectation very high.

 

I know for most modern vehicles, usually they use a combination of wheel speed sensors (also used for ABS) and yaw sensors and stuff. The question in the air would be what the threshold for wheel speed difference is allowed and what maximum G loads are still in the "green" zone.