2003 Vibe GT Help

[bonzo4ever]

Fellow Viberz, a couple questions as the summer weather approaches and I actually get to be outside working on my car ( ) :1) I'm in central Illinois, and wondering if anyone around has a tuner or computer that we could use on my car. I'd like to see if there are any improvements/adjustments that could be made to take full advantage of the intake and new plugs I put on, but I can't really afford to buy a whole system outright. 2) Does anyone else have a car that seems to run rich? I've got a good bit of blackening inside the tailpipe, which I assumed was from the previous owner running it on regular instead of premium (the same reason I suspect for ruining the original plugs). Any help, as always, is appreciated. If you have any tips let me know, otherwise it's off to the shop to see if they can help (doubt it). Attached a pic of my spring cleaning of the engine bay. A clean engine is a happy engine!

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[DavidPIL]

Hey there...Not much help on the tuning part. I had my Unichip custom tuned in Chicago 2 years ago.As for the running rich, yup. Even after it was tuned I get a lot of soot in the pipes. I'm even running dual exhaust pipes and they both get pretty dark around the rim of the pipe. I'm considering having mine re-tuned this Summer because I believe it was originally tuned with a flaky o2 sensor and for some reason it gets about 10% lower mileage on the "A" map than the "B" map. It wasn't like that before the tune. There is a combustion cleaning process Toyota recommends every 30,000 miles. It's expensive but might be worth it -or- consider a treatment of Seafoam. I do this once a year. The instructions for the process is on the can but I'm sure you can find info on it here or through google.If you find a local tuner, let me know!DaveP.S. Nice engine! Now I need to clean mine!

[bonzo4ever]

Thanks Dave! I may scoot over to the Matrix/Corolla forums also to see if anyone has the same experience with the dark exhaust pipe, and if anyone has access to engine tuning (ideally at a fraction of the cost). I replaced the spark plugs last year, and I did get quite an improvement in general running. I may have the O2 sensor and a couple other things checked just to make sure. I'm always paranoid about cars now, due to years of driving junkers. When you've driven some of the crappy cars I had, you are just waiting for something to go wrong.

[DavidPIL]

Hey... What plugs did you change to? I was running the OEM Denso's for about 60,000 miles. Changed out to the shorter life Denso's for the next 25,000 - noticed a slight lowering of the MPG and not as much oomph. Then was talked into the Bosch Fusion Iridium's - No change over the previous Denso's. Now running the NGK Iridium IX, though the results have been mixed with limited mileage (thinking it may be the O2 thing still), the car seems to have a bit more get-up-'n-go. Dave

[bonzo4ever]

I went with the NGK Iridium IX also, and noticed an immediate improvement in throttle response and idle - everything seemed quite a bit smoother. Most of that improvement probably comes from the old plugs being reddish in tint and tarnished when I pulled them (previous owner probably ran regular instead of premium, which at 11.5:1 compression isn't a great idea). So far mileage and torque with plugs and premium seems pretty good.

[KingTen91]

I went with the NGK Iridium IX also, and noticed an immediate improvement in throttle response and idle - everything seemed quite a bit smoother.

I have the 03 gt as well and I second this^. After reading on here the IX are as great as they are I decided to try them and def noticed a huge throttle response. Before, I literally had to apply the gas when letting off the clutch to pull forward, but with these I merely let off the clutch and the car pulls on its own, no gas apply needed.
(However, I installed these with dielectric, not sure the difference in performance otherwise)
(Also, these were installed back in around June-August, I am noticing less of the original performance gain I mentioned, but granted my throttle body desperately needs cleaned, and I could def stand for a new air filter)
All in all though, I rate these plugs excellent, at least in our application.