Got a little bit done today. Started off easy and replaced the passenger side door striker for the chrome Lexus striker.



Moved on from that to swapping steering wheels. I started off last night by prepping everything for the PAC audio interface. I was intending to use the 7gc steering wheel, but that plan changed mid-swap today. I have a clockspring for both wheels. The 7gc wheel uses smaller plugs than a 6gc, so you can't use the 7gc clockspring on a 6gc. Due to using the e-shift buttons as audio controls, I almost have to use the appropriate clockspring to match the steering wheel. As luck would have it, the IS 300 clockspring is plug and play with a Celica. So the IS steering wheel and clockspring have been significantly cheaper than a 7gc wheel, plug and play in a 6gc, and no stupid perforated leather- so far that's three strikes against the 7gc wheel. No offense to anyone who does like the perforated leather, but I personally don't think it belongs on a steering wheel. There's nothing wrong with it but I don't have any other perforated leather anywhere else in the car so it doesn't match anything at all.

So, progress.




And more progress!



Terrible picture quality and even worse video quality, but just a little bit of proof that the e-shift buttons now function as audio controls. However, I ran into a huge catch. I'm working out the cruise control functions. I was able to get it to turn on properly by relocating a ground in the steering wheel. No further function though, I need to give the steering wheel swap guide another read to get that to work but it was low priority today. The bigger problem I ran into is the E-shift buttons only working with the key turned on accessory. They'll turn the volume up and down flawlessly all day with the key turned on accessory but when I turn the key to the on position, the PAC interface stops receiving a signal from the buttons. It has an LED that illuminates when I push a button, and it isn't acknowledging receiving a signal from the buttons at all. I tried bypassing the clockspring and ran a signal directly to the interface, but I had the same result. I'm left wondering if it's an issue with how the buttons originally worked in the IS 300 or an issue with the PAC interface and the resistor they had me solder in and not being the right resistance after the key is turned on. I'll have to go buy a multimeter tomorrow and see what I can figure out. I'm assuming it's an issue with the original function of the buttons and how they are being used now.

I'm sure it's something simple that the guys that are good with wiring could figure out almost immediately but I'm not one of those guys, so I'll do my best to figure it out.

I'm jealous of those seats

>

As am I; those are the only cloth seats I'd have over leather.

I want to know if the steering wheel mod work out.

>
No change as of today. Still only works on accessory. I made a trip to Harbor Freight and bought a multimeter for $5.50. Astonishingly, it actually works. And it's currently still working. Anyway, I made a couple of small discoveries. I ruled out any issue with the IS300 shift buttons- they are working as they should. I have a constant 6 volts in my wires going to the interface, which drop to 3 volts for one of the shift buttons and 4 volts for the other when the key is on accessory and everything is working as it should. However, when I turn the key to on or start the engine, I have constant 6v and it switches to 7v/8v when I push the buttons. I can't figure out why the voltage increases with the key on but decreases with the key on accessory.

I have the IS300 steering wheel and clockspring. The clockspring is identical to the OEM clockspring but with the addition of the two pins for the shift wires. From the two pins on the clockspring, I've run my own two wires to the PAC interface. This means that the shift buttons and two wires are isolated from the rest of the car and unaffected by anything. These two wires meet up with the PAC interface, and that's where the voltage is coming from. So the interface itself is changing the voltage when the key is on as opposed to being turned on accessory. I can't figure out why it would do that, nor do I know what resistors to use to step it down. I'm working on figuring that out (translated: I'm begging people who I know will know how to figure it out) but I work the next four days so it'll be Thursday before I make any more progress.

should've went online to harbor freight, there was a coupon for a free multimeters with any purchase. LOL!

if you get this to work, I can see the price of lexus wheels jumping up.
I know nothing about wiring so sorry I can't help much.

I bought my IS300 wheel for $50 and the clockspring was $25. All plug and play to the Celica. None of the cutting/splicing necessary for the 7th gen Celica wheel. The Rav4 airbag was $89, not the best bargain, but not bad. The cruise stalk needs some small work but not bad.

At this time, there will definitely not be a write up, how to, or any other details of how to get the audio controls to work. It has been a nightmare that I almost wish I hadn't started. But hey, it works half the time right now, so I will see it through and get it finished.

im going over a few online threads about this issue....

the unit has a set up for radio, and for a car to be used?

because my question is on a real steering wheel control what happens....

just like the cruiser stalk. maybe the unit is waiting for some resistance? Never seen a steering wheel control from inside, but this could be somehting...



if you can go to the yard and get one of this, and measure the resistance of each button. im just throwing ideas..

the forum http://saabworld.net/f29/aftermarket-audio...int/index8.html

thye were taking on page 1 about adding a resistor too in one of the wires...

anothing thing just tought of is are the buttons on the steering wheel isolated from the general ground? if they are grounded this could throw off the unit, but i bet the unit is expecting some resistance.

The inside of the wheel is easy. Each button has two wires, and one of the wires on each button is yellow. The yellow wire is ground. All four ground wires meet up and have a common ground in the clockspring. The buttons are simple buttons that ground out when you push them.



The wires on the two upshift buttons also meet up, as do the two wires from the downshift buttons. This way, only two wires have to go through the clockspring- one for both upshift buttons, one for both downshift buttons. That's why I can't set one side of the wheel to be volume controls and the other side to be track, like I had hoped.



The two farthest left pins, each with two wires, are the pins for the buttons. That plugs into the clockspring, then on the other side of the clockspring I have the two pins for the shift buttons that aren't used by the Celica's harness. That's where I added my own two wires that lead through the dash and into the PAC interface. Essentially, the shift buttons and my own two wires are totally isolated from the rest of the car up until they meet up with the interface. The interface is what provides literally all signal to and from the buttons. That's what is confusing me, why the interface provides one set of signals to the buttons with the key on ACC and a different set with the key on ON. I'll figure something out, after I do a lot of begging for help from electrical-savvy people.

i would measure voltage with the multimeter to the + wire that feeds the unit, on "acc" and "on" to make sure there is no up and down when you flip the key.

I got the shift buttons completely working this afternoon. ACC, ON, and engine running, the shift buttons control the volume at any given time. Great success and a cool project. I didn't have time to get everything put back together but I'll get a video tomorrow.

ok no you have to find more buttons to control track and mode... i will undertake this, not at the moment.. my hands are full. congrats..

Let me know when you do. I'd be glad to help out. I will absolutely not be writing up a how to... Too much of a PITA and nobody will really be doing it.

Edit to delete the old, crappy video and replace it with the new, slightly less crappy video.




And the video:

http://s228.photobucket.com/user/richee3/m...911d84.mp4.html

Well, nothing lasts forever. For anyone curious, your Celica will NOT fit in the trunk of a Highlander.








Good news is that the headlights survived! Although with broken tabs on all but the passenger side low beam. Already looking into getting it fixed. Shouldn't cost too much. The upper radiator support is bent, but that can be replaced. The hood got the worst of the damage, the bumper got some but isn't too bad. The tabs can be fixed. Gotta disassemble everything this weekend and check it out.

it will buff out!

dibs on the muffler bearings! If you part it...

its a true loss, but at least you have an excuse to work on it.

What is gonna happen to that hood?

Probably be turned into beer cans. That or use it as garage art...I think it'd be cool if at this point you did a Castrol WRC theme with it and used it as decoration.

I've already inquired about the hood and bumper so.....

that hood is totally salvageable. My body shop managed to save mine and it really wasn't any better than this. This only looks like dramatic damage because of the bend, but it bent that way by design. Toyota specifically stamped dimples into the hood so it would always bend at that specific spot. This is great because it means it's relatively easy to pull out and straighten. The rest of the damage has to be handled with bondo, but even the most basic body shop can manage that

Good luck Dan!

This post has been edited by enderswift: Dec 5, 2014 - 8:22 PM

Sort of an update. I've been quietly collecting parts, and today I picked up the parts I've been waiting on. I missed out on a few nose cuts, missing one a couple of weeks ago by a matter of hours. I called the importer, Japan Direct Japanese out of Canada, to see if they happened to have another. As luck would have it, they had literally just gotten a new shipment in and it happened to have another nose cut, giving me every single part I need to repair my Celica. This is the second time I've bought from Japan Direct Japanese (first was one of the Redtops I bought) and I have nothing but positive things to say about them! I sent payment about 2 pm one day, got the tracking number the next morning around 8 am, and the clip had already left Canada, cleared Customs, and was in Harrisburg, PA. They built a crate to ship it in, and everything arrived in excellent condition. I swear this isn't a paid advertisement, but I've been very satisfied with both of my transactions with them.

On to the pictures!






Of course I immediately got to work on stripping it down to drop off the parts that the body shop needs and start selling the parts they don't. No pictures of that, since I was running out of daylight.

Even got some sweet HID's for the Supra!



No idea if they're any good yet. Just turning them on, they look a little too blue for my taste. I'll take the car for a drive tomorrow evening to find out if they are bright enough to make me happy, or if I'm putting regular halogens back in.

I haven't been bothered to open any of the boxes yet, but I ordered new Eibach Sportlines, KYB struts, strut mounts, boots, the whole works. I'm tired of driving around on creaky old suspension. It's time for something new. Also pictured is my replacement Magnaflow cat. Despite being less than two years old, my current Magnaflow cat has broken down internally. It sounds like a handful of marbles rolling around in hollow pipe, and it's decently loud. I've been putting off getting a replacement for far too long.




On top of the parts I have pictured, I've had a new subframe sitting in my garage since last Spring, compliments of Enderswift (Thank you, Luke!) and I just bought replacement control arms from Ted95 (Thank you, Cameron!)


I also bought brand new OEM bolts to put the new control arms on. The reason for the replacements is the ongoing saga of loose control arms, caused by welded nuts inside the subframe breaking free after replacing my bushings with poly bushings. So far, nobody else has ever had such poor luck with installing those bushings, but my entire experience with them has been far from positive. It's no fault of the bushings whatsoever, just issues with my car. However, I didn't want to install 20 year old rubber bushings, so I have ordered a new set of poly control arm bushings that should be here in about a month. By then, the body shop should be finished with my car and I'll be ready to install the new control arms, bushings, subframe, and suspension just in time for warm weather. I'll post pictures of the repairs and new suspension as I go, but it should be a while.

In the meantime, I've added a few parts for sale from my nose cut. Feel free to have a look if you need anything!

You should check out HIDplanet forums for those Supra head lights, likely some OEM or Morimoto projector fits them nicely and gives you OEM performance (or better). As for bulbs the Morimoto XB line is really good, I'm running them in my retrofit and they're very bright and the colors very accurate. I'm using Fastbright ballasts though, which are as fast as OEM Denso slim like in the Lexus cars. From off to full on in like 5 seconds. (I'm kind of into automotive lighting, we can PM instead of cluttering your thread)

This post has been edited by Bitter: Mar 12, 2015 - 11:19 PM

The HID's I inherited are Startech Diablo's. Kind of a strange setup for an HID. I'm used to seeing the ballast and bulb separated, but these are all in one unit. Color, I haven't determined yet but they look like they might be 8K- too blue for me, and I'll put the halogen bulbs back in. I tried doing a little reseach on these HID's, but none of it is in Engrish and I'm too lazy for Google Translate. I definitely need to check out HIDplanet though. I bought some of Griffgirl's HID's several years ago and loved them, whatever brand they were. Since then I've bought a couple of different sets of DDM Tuning HID kits and they're decent for the money, but their bulb quality just isn't there. I want something better for sure. The stock headlights are very impressive and I'm not desperate for HID's, but I figured I'd give these a shot since I got them for free.

The Morimoto XB line are the best aftermarket bulbs I've seen. I got some in D2S to use with my 55W ballasts and the alignment is as good or better than the OEM Philips I took out. They're seriously bright, both bulbs are identical color, and they're $50 for the pair. The Fastbright ballasts are about $50 for the pair shipped from China and amazingly good for the price, they light up faster than any aftermarket ballast I've seen and seem to have a very very low failure rate.


Those are some cool looking ballasts! It looks kind of like a D1S setup but with the ballast there too. Does the bulb socket into the ballast?

I didn't inspect them too closely to see if the bulb is detachable. I should hope it would be so you didn't have to replace the whole unit just to get a different bulb, but at a glance it appears to be one solid unit. The price on the Fastbright ballasts isn't bad at all... DDM kits are over $50 these days and shipping from China takes too long. I'm more than satisfied with my DDM ballasts but their bulb selection is poor. I want a whiter light than what I have. The DDM bulbs I have are allegedly 5k but I'd say they are somewhere between 6-7k in reality.

I've always been curious to see how our projector headlights would be with a proper OEM HID projector retrofit. Putting HID's in projectors is decent, gives good light and okay cutoff, but an HID in an HID projector is night and day. If our projectors weren't so expensive, I'd definitely do an HID projector retrofit. Who knows, my projectors may not be repaired and I may end up needing to buy a new set. I may just have a set of spares to play with.

Likely they're a variation on some Lexus (Koito) projector, which seem to all use a similar mounting pattern. Hell just having the step and cutoff for LHD instead of RHD is going to make a big difference!

Once you get a Fastbright ballast or OEM you'll wonder how you ever dealt with the DDM stuff. They're very slow and tend to run a little below rated power which makes the output much more blue than it should be.

Here's my comparison between a 55W Fastbright and an OEM Denso slim, mind you the Fastbright needs to hit a full 45-50W output to stop and the Denso needs only to reach 35W.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3SlrOUhJYo
Fastbright is on the left, Denso (OEM Lexus) is on the right. Nevermind my cockeyed projector alignment.

This post has been edited by Bitter: Mar 13, 2015 - 12:59 AM

good and some nice updates.... someday my car will ride again...

Wooo parts and nerd talk about headlight optics. As bad as my night time vision is I've looked into the various aftermarket vendors, and have heard of Morimoto being one of the best, but felt if I were going to do it I might as well do it right and implement an O.E. Philips or Denso system with matching projectors. Needless to say a lot of work for a time I try to avoid driving in as much as possible.

>
The Morimoto product line overall is near OEM at a fraction of the price, and TRS usually does have OEM stuff at good prices in the closeout section. Honestly yea I love OEM stuff too, but at 1/2 the price the XB D2S bulbs are as good as OEM to my eyes and the dollar value is fantastic. I'm thinking of seeing about getting my shop to stock a couple pair of D2S and D2R from the Morimoto line because we can have a better markup on them vs the OEM Philips we've been using. By the time we're changing HID bulbs the cars are usually nearly 10yrs old anyway so even if we can pass on the savings we're further ahead.

Anyway guys, go lurk on HIDPlanet forums at the very least. I run with the same name over there too.