iSt Center Console - via toyota.jp

Armrest, center console, whatever you’d like to call it, or utilize it for, this product is a must have for all USDM Scion xD’s!  As an OEM piece, there’s one thing to be certain of, and that is legitimate fitment and quality.

I received my console via postal service today, straight from Japan.  Originally I was going to hold off on the install, but after pulling everything out, I decided I may as well!

Parts Included :

Console Body

Bottom Cover

Console Deck

Mounting Racks

various screws for installation

Tools Required :

Screw Driver…

Installation :

As you can see from the large Tool list, this is a fairly simple installation.  There are two mounting racks that slide and hug onto both front seat tracks, from the bottom.  Pull them all the way towards you and they’ll sit in place, slightly sagging but that will be fixed once everything is screwed into place.  Position the legs of the console deck onto the mounting racks, and line up two holes to screw it into place on each side.  You’re halfway done, MAN I love simple installations like this!  Pop the bottom cover onto the console body, and set it over the deck.  The bottom cover allows a flush appearance when the console is put into place.  Set the console body on top of the deck, and open up the main section to screw it into place.  There are four holes, and four small screws to keep the console in place.  Throw in the nice fuzzy bottom piece (much like what’s in our door handle areas) to cover up the screws, close up the section, and enjoy what 5 minutes of hard work has given you; a nice storage console/arm rest!!

As a young man who is 6′ tall in stature, I find the console to be relatively low; certainly comfortable for me, but definitely nothing that would be overbearing to an xD owner of any build!  Seeing as how it IS an OEM piece, it flows well with the interior; an extreme wonder why Toyota never decided to bring it over to the states!

That’s about it for now…Hope you all enjoyed the write up, and should you purchase the console, enjoy it as well!

Next up for me?  HID installation!  I’ll actually need my own pictures for that install guide, so we’ll see how that goes

-Corey

TRD Sport Muffler - courtesy of www.scion.com

Back again for my second post!  This time around we take a look at the TRD Sport Muffler , an axle back made specifically for the Scion xD.   Let’s take a peak at what tools we need.

Tool Requirements:

Socket Wrench w/ 14mm socket.

Torque Wrench w/ 14mm socket

Hangar Remover (optional)

Your shiny new TRD Sport Muffler

Not really much required for this installation as it is a very straight forward one.

Included Parts:

TRD Sport Muffler

Auxiliary Rubber Hangar

So that’s the basic run down, moving on to the installation process.

Installation:

Uninstalling the stock muffler is fairly simple; lift the car whichever way you see fit (safely..please) and get under the rear, right side, passenger door.  You’ll see two spring-loaded bolts, the only ones you’ll be removing in this process.  Start unbolting them and once that’s done with, move on to the pulling off the hangars.  You can do this in two ways; remove the rubber hangars from the mounts on the chassis, or simply remove the exhaust from the rubber hangars, leaving them on the car.  I opted to remove the rubbers from the car itself to just swap onto the TRD.  If you don’t have the hangar removing pliers, fear not, get a good lubricant and push, they’ll come off with a slight struggle at most.

I should note, to make hangar removal/application easier, I took off the right, rear, wheel for more access; it’s not necessary, but it sure helps, even in unbolting.

Now here’s the fun part; scoot under the car and you’ll notice on the spare tire well area, there are two black grommets; about the size of a half dollar or so.  Remove the one furthest in (closest to your fuel cell) as this is where the afore-listed auxiliary hangar will be placed.  I suggest popping this in to the well area, rather than putting it on the muffler and then popping it in.  This can be a fairly complicated process, as the rubber hangar has a large cubic top section, where as the hole is a small circular cut out.  Remember those old wood cut-out toys?  Logic tells us that cubes don’t fit into circular areas.  Squeeze it in there as you see fit; it eventually goes in, it’s just a huge pain.

Once that’s in, make sure you’ve attached all the other hangars to the muffler or chassis, and fit the new axle back over the torsion beam and back to the mid-piping off the resonator.  With my muffler, after bolting it down and torquing it to spec (listed soon), you may notice there is a sizable gap between the mufflers’ flange, and the mid-piping flange.  It’s fine.  Make sure you have no leaks; I had a friend hold his hands around the flange area while I revved hard, and he assured there were no leaks.  If you have leaks, perhaps your muffler is crooked; straighten, and once there are no leaks, you’re good.

After all is said and done, ensure the spring bolts are torqued to 32.0 ft.lbs. (43.0 Nm)

Aftermath:

After swearing like a sailor through the auxiliary hangar installation, and being satisfied with no leaks from the flange section, you now have a nice and shiny new piece on your xD!  The tone is amazing, and for those of you who worry about a subtle yet aggressive tone, this is a great product for you.  The TRD Sport Muffler creates a slightly gruffer growl from the exhaust, nearly inaudible at idle, and growling its way up through the revs smoothly as you accelerate.  You’ll definitely enjoy being able to hear the deep grumble from inside the car as you drive; though for those who see it as a downside, you can still hear it slightly over your music.  Not so much over, as integrated within, but you’ll see what I mean once it’s installed, it’s nothing that bothers me at least.

Hope everything was comprehensive, this is a great product for the money, and will definitely give you that extra auditory “umph” you’ve been looking for.

Until next time; happy tuning, stay safe, and enjoy the ride.

-Corey

Prior to Install:

The exhaust comes constructed of mandrel bent T-304 Stainless Steel tubing, a nice size canister and 4″ straight cut tip.  Also in the box are complete install instructions and rubber hanger mount.

The install:

I will admit, we tried to do the install for this awesome exhaust.  However, we found that the jack points did not provide enough room for us to get a decent jack stand under the car.  Enter the folks at Toyota 101 and the ability for them to do this swap really fast.  The great part about this exhaust is that it utilizes the stock clamp/gasket for a factory-like fit and easy installation.

Our review:

Prior to our install we were sporting the stock Toyota exhaust with the TRD tip, not really a set up that will make the car growl from the outside.  Now we already had the Weapon-R Short Ram Intake on our project car, so we were already growling at the engine.  With that said, I waited at the dealership for them to drive our xD to the customer pick up area and all you could hear was growl. So we at MicroCar Magazine thought it would only be right to put the exhaust to the paces, so we set out on a 1k adventure to San Diego and Extreme Autofest show.  On the road you can really tell how well Scion was able to block out the outside noise.  During normal around town driving our exhaust provided a nice rumble and low tone sound, when we got it to the freeway that was a different story.  As we moved thru the gears the exhaust really came to life and the xD powered ahead.  The best part to this exhaust is that we notice no power loss, and we got the nice growl that Toyota engines are known to have.

Overall this exhaust performed awesome.  Can not wait to see what other products come out for the xD.

Suggested MSRP: All our research found that the exhaust goes for just under $600.00 – However we did manage to find out friends at FastScions.com selling this exhaust for under $400.00 – DC-Sports Exhaust at FastScions.com .

It is an affordable upgrade that rids of your current stock antenna that is most likely ginormous.  Luckily, you don’t lose any radio reception by replacing your stock antenna with this piece from Agency Power.  It comes in two flavors, as pictured: finned and solid.  With such a flush finish, it looks OEM!  The MSRP on these antennas comes in at $40 and can be found at sites like Bean Garage.

A well-tuned car is really reflected through the fine details that the owner puts in, in my opinion.  A detail such as this 3” long antenna improves the sophisticated manner of your car.

Install
Installation could not be easier.  You simply screw off your old antenna and replace with this.  No tools needed.  These antennas fit on most 08+ models, including Scion xB, xD, tC and others.

Final Review
After equipping this antenna on our project xD, we have found no disadvantages in the radio reception.  The roofline looks much sleeker and clean.  Compared to the stock antenna provided by Scion, this one is more attractive and contributes to the overall image of the car.  Below is an image of the antenna equipped with the stock one held up:

Now this swap not only was going to help smooth out our ride, but also allow us to do something that was needed from the time that Toyota installed the TRD lowering springs. That one item was shave the bump stops that were causing a huge issue with travel of the shock during load.

Prior to install:

Prior to installing our new shocks and struts, we sported OEM McPherson shocks and struts.  Now nothing was wrong with the shocks – They could of taken a good many more miles, however due to the fact that they just were not getting the job done we wasted no time installing them!

Install:

Ok… So we at MicroCar Magazine did not perform the install – Due to lack of room to get at the shock tower bolts without doing damage to the car, we took it to the pros.  Enter Patrick and his skilled team at AGUNDIS Tire Shop – AGUNDIS was able to get our Tokico shocks and struts install with out issue and at the same time shave down the front bump stops half an inch.  Now what we also sprang for was to have the alignment checked – This is something you really should do when installing new shocks that may cause a difference in the way the vehicle tracks, if you fail to do this you do risk odd wear on your tires.

Our Review:

Simply put – The Shocks and Struts do wonders!!! Right off the bat we noticed a huge change in the handling of our project xD / ist.  We also noticed that because we decided to shave down the bump stops on the front shocks that we had smoother ride in areas that use to be a bumpy ride.

We are getting ready to take our project car for a long distance – Reno Nevada!  Look for a driving review of our trip and how the suspension holds up going over the pass.

Our Setup:

• Tokico HP Shocks & Struts
• TRD Lowering springs 1″ Drop

Suggested MSRP: we found some sites selling a complete kit (Shocks / Struts / Springs) for about $600

Short Ram kit pictured

The big thing for us at MicroCar Magazine is how much power can we squeeze out of our cars.  In comes Weapon-R, around for a long time providing the aftermarket auto parts industry with performance enhancement parts.  We were lucky to have experienced the products produced by Weapon-R in one of our other project cars, 2004 Scion RS 1.0 xB.

The Install

The kit comes with 2 possible configuration, cold air or short ram, the difference is one extra tube and where the filter sits. The install was actually a breeze with the easy to ready instructions provided by Weapon-R.  After we remove the stock airbox, making sure to keep the MAF sensor in its mount (Weapon-R found that this helped due to the baffels required for the MAF to work correctly).  Once you actually unbolt the bottom portion of the airbox you will notice how much room it opens up.

Tools used:

10 mm socket

Phillips screw driver

The actual install only took us about 10 – 15 minutes to do the full install.

First Thoughts
After turning the car on you could hear a distinct growl that comes from all Toyota engines that have had an intake put on it. Throttle response is really great, could not tell you if I noticed a change in the horse power however I could tell an improvement in torq.

In Closing
So far I have put all of about 50 miles on this intake but as I put more on I will update you with my thoughts.

Scion xD kits
Secret Weapon Short Ram suggested msrp $215.00
Secret Weapon Cold Air suggested msrp $285.00

For today’s spotlight I will be reviewing Tanabe’s DF210 series springs, providing the lowest drop without taking the plunge into coils or bags.  The drop rate is, according to Tanabe, 1.9 Front and 2.2 Rear, respectively.  Where as most springs will follow the height ratio of the manufacturer, the DF’s will bring the body completely level, rather than slightly (ever so slightly) raked up in the rear as the OEM set up is.  For this reason, there is a noticeable gap in the front fenders between the wheels (as seen with OEM steelies+dunlops), where the rear is actually flush with the quarter panel line.   Overall, this would be my overall gripe with the product.  Everything else is flawless.

Handling/Daily Driving

The biggest concern people have with a lowered car is not necessarily handling, but how will it FEEL when driving through town?  Before I address how it feels, I’d like to give you my insight on what “harsher” ride quality means.  In my opinion, a harsher ride can vary from strong jolts whenever riding over a pothole (eek!), and can include the extra body movement you feel as you go over a small hump in the road.  In my 1100 mile experience, the only thing you’ll notice is that extra body travel as you ride over a small hump.  The ride isn’t uncomfortable or disheveling in any way, and to be quite honest, is still just as soft and cushy as the OEM springs.  (Let me say now, that I’m riding on the OEM Shock/Strut set up, so ride quality and handling improvements are solely based off the springs alone).

Handling, as with any worthwhile suspension upgrade, brought an immediately noticeable improvement in cornering.  Hard cornering, when paired with some sticky tires, should be no problem for this set up.  Seeing as how I’m riding on all seasons, my handling through hard corners isn’t quite up to par, but I can assure that the crispness is there, and VERY enjoyable.  Pair it with a nice, thick, rear sway, and I think all xD owners will have a thrilling little ride on their hands!

Kit Includes
-Tanabe DF210 Springs
-Tanabe Stickers (YEA!!)

Tools/Install

Tools required are as follows:

-Torque Wrench (yes it’s first. Anyone planning on doing DIY work for their cars should have a good Torque Wrench!)
-Sockets: 10, 14, 17, 22 mm
-A 17mm offset wrench (had to run out to the store to buy this one)
-6mm allen wrench
-Last but not least, a Spring Compressor for the front springs

Overall Install

The install wasn’t horrible, and it definitely wasn’t my first time working on suspension.  However, having said that, I did struggle with the front struts because of Toyota’s genius Wiper Guard design.  Instead of following logic, I opted to not remove this piece, and struggled for a good hour, harshly stripping the top nut for my front driver side strut.  So let this be a warning to you: DO NOT SKIP THIS PROCESS.  Remove the Wiper Guard, and all will be happy.

Final Review

I truly enjoy my xD with the DF’s installed, and would recommend them to anyone looking to drop their car.  Dont be scared by the 2″  drop, it’s really not bad at all.  Theres still a 7″ clearance.  If you live in a pothole ridden area of town, or commute to a pothole ridden area, fear not!  My locale has by far some of the worst roads I’ve ever driven on, and my little xD survives just fine, drop and all.  So don’t be afraid!  Get as low as y ou can, and enjoy every inch of it!

-Corey

Lucky for us, GoMiniGo.com has the all around solution to what could have been resolved by punching holes into our nice bumpers. This wonderful product is the ‘No Holes’ License Plate Bracket, a wonderful solution that uses your car’s already existing tow hook receptacle.

Our Kit came with the following:

Tools Required: 19mm Socket w/Rachet – 10mm Wrench – 4mm Allen Wrench(provided)

GoMiniGo.com could not make this kit any easier to install. Total install took me about 10 minutes!!! The only thing that took the longest was actually removing the piece that was hiding the tow hitch receiver.

GoMiniGo.com offers the ‘No Holes’ License Plate Bracket for all types of Micro Car models, ranging from the Mini Cooper to the SMART. The pricing for this product ranges from $50 – $80, not too bad when you consider that the typical fix-it ticket for no front plate can range from $25 – about $300 depending on who pulls you over.

Check out GoMiniGo.com for the application that works with your MicroCar, or email them and see if they can create an installation for you.