Celica Forums General Discussion Exterior TIPS AND TRICKS: how to improve on some already existing mods

I WILL BE POSTING A FEW TRICKS AND TIPS OF HOW TO IMPROVE ON ALREADY EXISTING MODS ON 2000 UP GTS.was thinking that maybe if youve bought something and modified it a bit and it made a difference in performance,good or (bad so we dont try it)you can let the me know. egs. injen intake but with aem filter,cat back exhaust but with center muffler replaced with straight pipe etc.
"ANY THING TO GO FASTER"
"HYBRID:resulting from the combination of two or more mechanically dissimilar origins!

one of the first performance mods that celica owners buy is a cold air intake system.this drastically improves performance over stock because it improves flow(allowing more air into the engine) and inrease the volume of oxygen in any given intake charge due to the density of the cooler air that it ingests!i am sure no one will disagree with me if i said the two best and commonly used cai with celica owners are the injen and the aem!both already being good intakes,what can be done to improve on the gains! every hp count and might mean the differnce between winning and losing!this is what i did:
i took an aem intake,the first thing i did was bell mouthed the opening of the intake(making the opening at the mouth slightly bigger than the rest of the length of the intake)like a funnel,this would decrease turbulence and drag at the mouth of the intake allowing it to ingest more air(allowing the tube to be more evenly filled and also smoothes out the air travelling up the pipe).the second,since the filter became a little tight to get on i replaced it with a hi flow design from k&n.the third,thing i did was;since aluminum piped intakes are plagued by heat soak,inside the engine compartment(this heats up the air coming up the piping)i decided to coat the intake with a 1/8 layer of fiber glass. this was done by first sanding the aluminum so it will give the fiber glass a good surface to hold on to. with the fibre glass coating over the aluminum i can pop my lid and actually hold onto the intake piping without getting burnt!with intakes,the size and length of the pipe matters a lot and have to do with whether its good at top or bad at bottom etc.with this mod the length of the pipe is untouched and the diameter of the piping is untouched the only changes were to improve flow at the opening and prevent the intake pipe from getting heat soaked!it made a difrence in sound and performance for me.
"HYBRID":resulting from the combination of one or more mechanically dissimmilar origins.

one question...can we buy heat block mats to cover the piping instead of coating it with fiber glass? does this works the same??

i guess it would work to some extent,but one of the reasons i used fiber glass coating as opposed to say exhaust wrap is because the fibre glass conforms to the original shape of the pipe better!i light sanded it and painted it over,its hard to tell the difference between the stock pipe and the coated one except its slightly bigger.

icic~ i guess i would just use the mat...cos im just too lazy to do the fiber glass thingy~