Hello from Chi-town Illinois

Just recently bought a used 2005 - Scion tC and thought the best thing I should do is join a forum relating to my car. Did that with my previous 2000 Mitsubishi Galant ES V6 and the info we exchanged on that website helped out everyone quite a bit.

A little about me. I'm Polish, born here, lived there for a bit. So I love to drive manual and automatic bothers me. I live in the suburbs of Chicago and attend an inner city university which I commute to everyday. I'm studying Industrial Engineering and I just turned 19.

The tC being used has a few scratches on the body and probably was repaired from hitting a stop sign in the front or something else quite small. However, I still can see the damage when inspecting it. The car had a few modifications already when I bought it. As far as I know it has:
Injen CAI
TRD Exhaust Tip
Some kind of muffler I can't identify, maybe TRD?

And of course some pictures of my new joy.

















Things I've done:
Repaired the driver's side window guide track bar because it was cut open and bent severely. Probably to install a new window? Anyway done poorly and after opening and closing the window completely a few times the window went off of the guide and wouldn't close. So I fixed that right away.
I ground the shift knob to expose the aluminum underneath and get rid of a ton of dead skin cells that were encasing the top portion of the shifter.
When I did my oil change to change the oil to fully synthetic and to install a K&N filter I drained all the old oil. There was only 2 liters of it and it was conventional
Changed PCV valve.
Replaced all the spark plugs with NGK IR Laser Iridiums.

Things I'd like to do:
Wanna Seafoam, Auto-Rx, Flush? the engine in case the low oil levels did anything but I'm not sure which to use or if any of that stuff actually works and just doesn't put on a big smoke show.
Create a rack of car horns, depending on their amps wire 6-8 of them to a 40amp relay and run the switch through the firewall. (That's reserved for the people that cut me off.)
Do a dyno test, not an engine one but chassis. Still looking for a place that will perform one. I gotta know how much hp I'm using .
Replace the E-brake pads with new ones because the current e-brake can't hold the car on a 3 degree angle, they're ****.
Upgrade sound system or just install a subwoofer.
Change the transmission fluid but I don't know which brand to use. The reverse doesn't go in completely sometimes no matter how hard you pull and when you depress the clutch you can hear the malicious sound of gear grind.
Maybe install fog lights, I didn't drive on them on all the time in Mitsu but when I needed them they sure were useful.
Oh and clean, buff out the scratches, wax, and glaze the body .

Hi xD

Hello Scott, thank you for the warm welcome . Personally I feel that many transmissions treated well and maintained properly will last quite a while. My Mitsubishi's automatic kept going at over 250K stock, and my father's previous manual Nissan from a while back did the same. I just like that manual cars offer more gears and I have more control of the power output. Every man has his tastes .

I'll definitely be making posts about my mods but I would love it if we had a subforum for DIY stuff. I like to make guide type posts on how to do almost anything so people can read and learn from them.

Went to the junkyard today and picked up 4 horns ranging from 110-130 decibels. So the rack of horns project is already in motion. Going to be taking pictures of the modification tomorrow hopefully with a family member's camera and I'd like it if we could post such guides in a special subforum.

Thank you navylife
I'll definitely be taking care of the rust soon.

I would absolutely love having one of these horns on my car and I might get a kit in the future but for now the $$$ is a bit steep.

Thank you very much for the gear oil level check how to, I'll definitely check it out asap.

Is Royal Purple what you use? Any comments on its performance? Gear oil that is... engine oil is great.

Berryman's B-12, definitely gonna try it. Royal Purple is wonderful. I use it when Mobil 1 Fully Synthetic isn't on sale.

Yes I'm hoping that an adjustment is the case. I don't want to purchase a new set of pads if its not needed. I believe the E-brake's handle tension cable is fine. I'll let you know otherwise.

Definitely. I can tell already that a previous owner failed to use tape on a section or two >:|

Thank you and I'll definitely keep in touch. Likewise, I want to help as well

Funny you should mention that, I had the exact thing with my mitsubishi. Wondered why it wasn't coming off easy and before I used a reverse impact hammer I released the brake.

Does Royal Purple gear oil work just as well as their engine oil does?

By the way, why do you use 5W-20? I thought that the owner's manual states 5W-30.