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Nice project! I'm eyeing a 99 SC400 right now as well
Thanks. If the '99 is in good shape and available for a good price, I imagine you'll be quite happy with it. As you can see from the slow rate of updates in this thread, not much work has been needed on my '98 (knock on wood).
There's no going back now... I sold my '98 front seats and spare back seats today. I expected it to be for a SC restoration -- he had also inquired about a center console -- but was stumped when they turned out to be for a trophy winning Chevy Bel Air! Apparently, SC seats are a popular swap for them. Who knew.
I finally came across good OEM black interior pieces (all four window trims, center console, steering column shroud) to replace the ones I dyed and finish up the 2-tone scheme.
Also, after searching for the better part of a year for a head unit with the features I wanted, from a quality brand, I found someone locally selling a high end Kenwood a few weeks ago. He seemed legit, so I don't think it was stolen...
I had just bought a Magellan GPS a month or so ago and had no plans of getting an in-dash GPS unit, but the price was right. I had just pulled interior panels for the new black pieces and had to go back and re-do that a week later to run the GPS antenna to the parcel shelf. I mounted it to where the Pioneer sub amp would go. Some people have said they couldn't get good reception without mounting theirs to the roof, but I've got all satellites lit up with it there.
With the included HD Radio, my 7" stubby Kia/Hyundai antenna pulls in stations quite well. The upgraded amp and speakers I had already installed definitely appreciate the better signal source of the new HU. I installed the backup camera and wired it to the pos/ground from the stock CD changer, rather than tapping into the reverse circuit. The Kenwood has a nice feature that lets you manually toggle the camera, and having the camera powered all the time doesn't cause it any problems such as thinking it should automatically switch over to the reverse signal. We'll see if it's an issue for longevity of the camera...
At first, I had the mic tucked into the ash tray, with the wire coming out the bottom of the center console. Yuck. I came up with the idea of using the abandoned OEM volume button as either a mounting point or wire pass-through. The latter worked out pretty well, but I'd still like to cut down the height of the original button and figure out how to mount it near-flush, leaving room for the wire. I removed the whole volume pot assembly from the circuit board, leaving the big square hole, and drilled a hole for a grommet in the back cover.
Nice updates, the brown center console trim looks completely out of place now. Are you still searching for the rest of the black trim pieces or do you want to leave it like that?
I have all the black pieces, but I prefer the smoother transition of tan-beige-black. The forced perspective of the picture doesn't fully represent the mix. The seat belts are beige, for example.
I can't believe it's been almost two years since I posted an update!
I've had good Toyo 245/45s on '95 Cobra R rep 17x9 rears and mediocre all-season tires on '98 Cobra 17x8 fronts, as my summer combination. My winter tires are 225/45 studless Toyos on Supra TT rims (17x8 front, 17x9.5 rear). I had a full set of the A/S front tires taken off a previous set of wheels. Two of them were in use, getting moderately low on tread in the fall, when one stopped holding air. Of course, it held air fine at the tire shop and nothing appeared wrong with it... So, I put the fresher pair on not long before it was time to switch to the winter tires. I put the summer set back on recently, and two weeks later another one stopped holding air. I don't remember if it was the same corner, but I swapped in my spare 17x8 Cobra wheel (I have three) with the fresher tires to eliminate that possibility, so it would seem to be pure coincidence.
I decided enough is enough, time to replace those semi-squirrelly fronts with something more performance oriented and a better diameter. 225/50 is 0.2" taller than stock; not a big deal but can be improved upon and will look better not being taller up front. I've been wanting to go wider front and back on the next set of tires, anyway. Plugging options into the tire calculators, I settled on moving my 245/45s up front and putting 275/40s on the rears. Those both perfectly match the stock diameter and should provide plenty of grip. I ordered a pair of Nitto Motivo 275/40R17. The reviews are good, they're non-directional (normally not a selling point, but with being unable to rotate staggered wheels front to back, being able to flip them side to side could be a good thing), and the Discount Tire guy felt they'd be as good a match as anything to my Toyos, being the same company. I'm skeptical that that last point has any significance, but if I like the Nittos, I'll probably put the same thing up front when I wear out the Toyos.
I browsed through the various threads and pictures, finding examples of TT wheels and different tire sizes that didn't look too bad on the SC. Oddly, no one seems to be running properly matched sizes...which is consistent with the old discussion that people are following the Supra tire sizing without running the numbers. 245/40 and 275/40, 255s and 275s, etc. So, consider this a PSA for what size to choose if you want to match stock diameter.
In conjunction, I decided to swap the summer setup over to the TT wheels, both to support the wider 275s and to have a narrower Cobra wheel for the winter tires. I didn't care for how stretched the 225s looked on the 9.5" TT rear wheels. I had reservations about even putting them on the 9" Cobra rears, figuring it would only be a modest improvement (recommended range is typically 6-8" or 7-8.5"), but that half inch ended up making a really big difference visually. The main reason I had held off on switching them around is the Cobra wheels look better. As some may recall, I haven't been overwhelmingly in favor of TT wheels on SCs. However, that's largely because of the convex, chrome bubble look. Do away with the center caps (or get the rare concave JDM ones that show the lug pattern...on my wish list), and darken them up, and they don't look too bad. Being sunk in with high offset isn't ideal for looks, but I was hopeful that the wider tires would fill out the wheel wells somewhat. (Also, the wider tires on the Cobra wheels might have stuck out too much.) I can always add a spacer up front if it bugs me. The turning point was the realization that I have the winter wheels on half the year, anyway, so what's it matter which half of the year has the better looks?!
I had one of the TT wheels on the car so the flat could be taken in to look at, when I decided to change directions and refinish them to receive the summer tires. So, I did three of them first, cleaning them up good and applying fresh paint, then doing some much needed lip repair to address the exceptionally heavy curbing...a major downside to the rear tires being so stretched. The previous owners rode those curbs something fierce. The lady I bought them from worked at a tire shop and said she had had them professionally straightened, which was validated by how easily they balanced out after the tire swap. So, quality wheels just in need of a face lift. I should probably go back and paint the lips to blend the JB Weld in better, but I was tired of masking stuff off to do the black paint.
I took the long way to the store to try out the new setup. I can definitely tell it feels more planted, but the part that I didn't anticipate is how dramatically heavier the steering feels. And that's a good thing. The SC steering is way too light, IMO. I've considered doing the same mod as on the '95 M/T to make it fully adjustable, but wider tires up front might just come close enough to accomplishing the same thing.
Now, let's see if I can figure out how to attach photos in this new system without overwriting the text... Yeah, that was an epic fail. I get to the last one and it overwrites all the others. At least I had the text saved to file this time...and, of course, it didn't get overwritten. This software sucks. I'll try adding pics in a separate post.
I had a weird thing happen two days ago. My fairly new, and never problematic, battery went dead ... a day after the same thing happened to my neighbor's truck (also a new battery). It's been a very mild week of 50s and 60s, so it can't be blamed on a crazy cold snap. I charged it up yesterday and all seemed fine. My neighbor had noticed that his negative cable was loose on the terminal, so I checked mine, and it was loose too. WTF?
After charging it, I threw some stuff in the passenger seat to head over to see friends. Fired it up and while my head unit was going through the annoying re-config startup, I heard the door locks do a reset dance like when programming keys. I got to my destination and suddenly the exterior passenger door handle wouldn't work. WTFx2? I thought maybe the reset dance had done something, but everything was fine other than the exterior handle not engaging. I dug into it today, and sure enough, the plastic rod clip had broken. No biggie, as I have a bag of spares.
I'm going to assume the broken clip was a total and bizarre coincidence ... for the sake of sanity. The plastic water barrier looked like it has never been removed, so that rod clip is surely the original. So, 22 years or 200,000 miles appears to be their longevity!
Well, the battery was fine for a few days, then went flat again (9.9V both times) after maybe 3 days of sitting. Rather than charge it again, I took it down to NAPA to see if their analyzer could spot anything mine was missing, but their system couldn't read it until charging it first. It was two hours till close and it takes 2+ hours to charge, so I left it there overnight. I went back down in the morning and the battery checked out fine, so I took it back home, reinstalled, and brought the SC down so they could check the alternator.
Literally a few feet before turning into NAPA's parking lot, the odometer rolled over to 200,000 miles.
The alternator tested good, so about all that leaves is a sudden parasitic drain or some really weird coincidence in the air. That was 4 days ago and I haven't driven it since. The battery shows good voltage this morning, which rules out the parasitic drain unless it's something remaining on only after driving? (Edit: Maybe it's a 200k midlife crisis?)
That hasn't really been my experience prior to this month. I've had batteries die on all my vehicles with similar [sporadic] frequency, almost exclusively during the winter. That last part fits in this case, but it's been a mostly mild spell. I did find that Optimas aren't happy with the SC charging system and have to be manually charged regularly. But, the car being tough on batteries wouldn't explain this battery being 100% reliable up to this point, then going flat a second time while sitting ... unless it's a newly emerged parasitic drain.
maybe put a meter on the battery and a camera on the meter and see if it's a gradual or sudden voltage drop. If sudden I'd suspect something to do with expansion/contraction from heating cooling.
My spitball guess has me leaning towards a wiring issue. possibly a crack in insulation somewhere that is grounding under certain conditions. A long shot but if I was looking for something like that I'd start with inspecting the door and trunk harnesses as they get a lot more flexion.
02-23-17, 11:45 AM
