[GTSinGermany]

Hi all you experts,

I need some advice. I bought a '00 GTS in the US and relocated to Germany a year ago taking the car.
Since there is no speed limit in germany I could finally test the topspeed. To my disappointment I found that it reaches its top speed in 5th gear at about 135mph. If you shift to 6th you get no lift even though you hit the rev range where you should and speed drops to 125mph
Getting outaccelerated by average VW GTI's with 150HP really pisses me off... :-(
A car with 180HP should easily hit 145 . The german or european GTS has about 192HP and has been clocked in tests at about 145mph.
Does any of you guys know what the difference between US and Euro specs are? Should be the motormanegment. Can one switch the US chip for a Euro one? Would be an easy way to gain a bunch of HP. I know a german toyota mechanic willing to look into this, but Toyota itself is very reluctant to give any info about the guts of the car. Is there a way to get some info on the wiring of the motormanagement?? If the car is really speed limited just bypassing the signal that tells the chip that you are in 6th gear might already do the trick.

Thanks-a-lot for any insight on this!

 

[GTSinGermany]

Hi Everybody,

thanks for the many comments and answers.
Too bad I havn't gotten real technical input yet.
I contacted Toyta and they blatently refuse to give any info on the guts of the car.

Some comments:

The german autobahn: I am german and I was born and raised there. So I guess I know what the deal is.
There is NO GENERAL SPEEDLIMIT. In local areas that are potententially dangerous there are local speed limits. Around big cities where there are lots of exits and heavy traffic there usually is one. Usually 65-.80mph. Once you are away from big cities you can find plenty of nice stretches where you can let it rip. My high scores are 170 on a motorcycle and 185 in an Audi A8. All perfectly legal, just have to look for a nice EMPTY stretch of autobahn. Don't try this if there are too many other people on the road.

Speedo Readings: I know these are fairly inacurate. At high speeds they usually overstate your true speed by about 5-10%. The factory stated topspeed for the GTS is 135. Thats where the limiter in 5th gear kicks in. So speedo reading of 140-145 is consistent.

Topspeed of the GTS: I was a little disappointed that if I shift to 6th at 135 I don't feel the lift kick in and accelerate. I hoped that it was the ECU limiting at 6th gear and that this cut be fixed.
(this is the case with allmost all high power luxury sedans, BMW Mecredes Audi etc. they electronically cut off at 155. Replacing a little chip takes you to 180 and beyond)
the sad truth seems to be that the celica just doesn't have enough grunt to go faster. autxr is right. In 5th you hit the limiter and in 6th you don't have enough power. If you look at a few dyno curves posted on this forum (THANKS!! that answered my question) you see that around 6000rpm you have about 120 HP before lift kicks in and around 140HP after. Given the air resistance of a modern day car this translates to about 130-140 mph. Too bad. I guess one could make it go faster if you change the gear ratio of the gear box so you hit topspeed at peak horsepower.

Bolt-ons like intakes and mufflers and what have you will not make a big differnce in that. Despite what the manufactruer tells you they usually only make your car sound faster and give you single digit horsepower increase maximum. If you are lucky. Try to dyno your car with and without em on the same stand and comparable temperature. You'll want your money back....
Aftermarket turbos and nitrous are not really an option here since they usually are not street-legal in europe and they reduce that half-life of the engine too much. Also I'd like to keep the fuel efficiency of the GTS as is. Fuel is $4.00/gallon around here. THATS the real speed limit in Germany....

I guess I will save the money for mods on the GTS and buy a motorcycle again. There I can easily get 180mph for about $4000 for a used one. Try that with a GTS. The GTS is still nice to commute to work ;-)

 

[GTSinGermany]

your telling me that bolt ons dont give you enough power????? well with my bolt ons i got plenty of power, with the kazuma i still couldnt go over 135, my car pulls hard in 6th gear.

My car pulls hard in 6thh too, just not hard enough at topspeed. Air resistance increases with velocity squared. So you need a substantion power increase for a little increase in speed. 135 in 6th means you are reving around 6000rpm. There you are about 30-40 HP below peak power. So you need a dramatic increase in HP at mid range revs, about 10-20 at least, to give you a chance to pull through to reach peak power i.e. top speed at peak power.

 

[GTSinGermany]

Word... I have hit 145+ but have not gone over 150 take ur **** to the max man.... take 5th as far as it can go... push it to the limit and u will see... cld be driver (not clowning but it cld be the way u drive it)

Thanks for the hint man, but thats just what I tried rev it to the limiter in 5th and shift fast. I hit 6th at about 6300rpm but it just
stays the same speed and then falls off...
Guess i got the monday morning editon of the GTS. The japanese party on weekend too...

 

[GTSinGermany]

if you can push the car to 8300rmp that is right about 140ish

Yeah, guess you're right. The limiter in 6th sets the topspeed.
Don't care much about the speedo reading, it's the taillights of Golf GTIs that piss me off. Oh well great fun car anyway and much better looking than a Golf...

 

[GTSinGermany]

You guys dont have emissions checks right? Get a Power FC

Wrong again. We do have emission checks you have to pass every 2 years. The limits are quite close to the US levels by now. There is also serious techincal inspections independent of that which you also have to pass every 2 years. Judging from my time in the US I dare say that about a third of the cars road on american roads wouldn't pass them.

 

[GTSinGermany]

hey GTSinGermany did you get my pm i sent you. Man i never get passed by golf GTI's

Ok, I'm joking abot the Golfs. The only Golf that is a problem is the old VR6. But I got passed by a few cars that I know for a fact are in the 150-180 HP range.
As much fun the power characteristics of the GTS with the razor sharp peak at 7800 is, sometimes a flatter power curve pays off. But on the other hand you usually have to buy that with a much higher fuel consumption...