After reading all about TracTive on this and the other forum and online, and having exchanged with a few members about the TracTive specific Road kit designed for the GR Yaris, I finally decided to go for TracTive kit for my GRY.
Already posted on the other GR Yaris forum, I thought it could be of interest to some people here.
Also, having had an amazing after sales service with TracTive HQ (Simon Rogers [email protected]) during the fitting & tweaking process (I installed the kit at home), I think it normal to give them good publicity compared to some (rare) other makers' representatives that didn't even bother to answer my questions...
Last but not least, I thought I could share with you my experience of installing the kit, at home, with just ordinary tools. The main thing to keep in mind, is to take your time, to avoid damaging anything and hurting yourself, and please make sure the car is well secured on its four jack stands.
I started by the part I dislike the most, Wire loom installation, meaning dismantling plastic trim, lifting carpet, and whatnot... It was an excellent opportunity to get those hidden nooks & corners perfectly clean before starting installation.
I was actually very surprised how straight forward it was, the supplied instruction & fitting manuals being quite clear. A little more than 4 hours work taking it easy, to do a clean job without scratching any plastics (!) or damaging anything and taking time to go to YouTube tutorials to dismantle the central console for example !
To save time, the very first thing to do is to disconnect the battery neg terminal, have a nice coffee, and after 20min then only disconnect the airbag and dismantle the passenger seat (Mine is a LHD). Once again to save time and effort, get rid of the rear seat (lower part only is enough) and empty the boot completely around the battery.
To do the fronts, whether it's for the wiring or replacing the shocks themselves, the plastic below the windshield has to be removed first.
Looks complicated, but actually isn't. Take off your windshield wiper arms, then take off the plastic cover at each extremity under the windshield to reveal the clips on each side. Once the two clips removed, disconnect the windshield washer hose at it's separation point near the right hand side bonnet hinge. Then, placing yourself at the front of the car in the center, just pull the whole plastic trim upwards first to free the front clips and then pull it towards you to free it from under the windshield bottom edge. It is kept in place by some type of "spring" clip under the windshield bottom edge.
Once all the wiring installed, (do not connect the + & - wires to the battery yet, this you do at the very end) starting from the G load sensor (TracTive Control Unit or TCU) under the seat, the touchscreen installed in place of the driver's side window AC vent, the ignition + wire connected behind the "cigarette lighter" power supply, the four cables fed through the OEM grommets leading into each wheel arch, you are ready to start the mechanical part which is replacing the suspension items themselves.
First of all, before lifting the car, measure the OE ride height, for each wheel, from the bottom of the wheel rim to the top of the wheel arch passing through the center of the wheel hub and note the results. This will come in handy to re-adjust your ride height from that reference.
Ofcourse, in normal conditions, the installation can be done by oneself in two-three days taking your time, without any specific tools, without a car hoist, just a jack and four jack-stands. The car doesn't need to be high off the ground, on the contrary, you will need to reach inside the engine bay, inside the car and the trunk, so just high enough to get the wheels off, is high enough. Ideally about 40cm high allows to work comfortably.
This kit re-uses the OE top mounts, nuts and dust shields. So for the front struts, to avoid having to use a spring compressor to dismantle the top mounts, I preferred to buy new ones from Toyota, thus saving time and effort. The other advantage is that the front struts are fully ready to go back on the car anytime.
For the rear, no need to buy new top mounts, the springs and dampers are divorced, so it's not a hassle to dismantle the OE top mount and dust shield from the OE damper. TracTive supply the nuts & counter nuts to secure the top mounts to the dampers.
For the Fronts, TracTive supply three sets of different camber value inserts which go on the top bolt of the damper knuckle. The set with no eccentric gives you -3° camber. If you want less, you need to use one of the eccentric sets to reduce the camber (or increase if you insert them the opposite way).
To dismantle the front struts, quite straight forward, first disconnect the ABS sensor wire holder from the strut, disconnect the ARB from the strut, loosen the two knuckle bolts and remove only one of the two. Then loosen and remove the top bolt in the engine bay. Then remove the remaining bolt of the knuckle and wiggle the strut out of the car.
Before inserting the new front coilovers to which you have previously fitted the new top mounts and bumps stops, measure the full length of the relaxed OE strut to replicate approximately that total length on the new TracTive strut by tightening the spring platform under the spring. This will save you time afterwards to re-adjust your ride height.
That done, torque the nuts and bolts on the strut knuckle to the hub and only slightly tighten top mount bolt to the chassis in the engine bay. Connect the the damper wire to the wire loom plug you previously passed through to the wheel wells. Secure the wire with the provided zip ties. I advise you get some extra zip ties to do this part without too
much thinking.
Lower the front of the car on it's wheels, and torque the top mount nut to the chassis.
For the Rears, it does take a bit of energy to remove the dampers and springs. The easiest way is to start by slightly lifting the weight off the suspension by using a jack. Remove the the bolt holding the brake hose fitting. Loosen the damper's top bolts from the chassis. Loosen and remove the dampers bottom nut. Loosen & remove the spring lower arm nut & bolt. Lower the jack and push down on the lower arm to have enough space to remove the spring. Loosen & remove the nut & bolt of the top control arm from the top of the hub. Remove the two loose bolts from the top of the damper and compress the damper from the top down to have enough space to wriggle it out from the bottom bolt.
Remember to set the total length of the new spring + adjuster more or less to match the old spring total relaxed length before installing it. Installing the new damper and refitting the hub top & bottom bolts is a bit of a PITA, takes some patience and playing with the jack to realign the holes to pass the bolts through. Torque everything to spec.
Connect the the damper wire to the wire loom plug you previously passed through to the wheel wells. Secure the wire with the provided zip ties. I advise you get some extra zip ties to do this part without too much thinking.
Drop the car on it's four wheels and take a first measurement of the ride height.
Connect the + & - wires to the battery. Make sure your battery is fully charged, switch on ignition and follow the Canbus instructions leaflet to calibrate and setup the dampers. If all OK, reinstall all the plastic trims, seats etc.
So after testing a little, and I still have to play with the parameters of the five different modes, she really rides beautifully, absorbs everything, no more "banging" of the suspension in some bumps on the road. The pitch & roll control is so well programmed that the shocks themselves could do the job of the anti-roll bars ! So no need to fit any bigger ones, even though the Eibach supplied springs are softer in the beginning of their compression travel. Progressive Front springs boast 31 to 40 N/mm and rears are set at 18 to 44 N/mm.
OEM F & R springs rate are 36 N/mm.
Ride height adjustment window is between +10mm and -30mm referring to OE ride height.
Furthermore, no need for any extreme geo set-ups anymore, especially for B-Road blasting, just stay OEM for camber for example, the suspension working to keep the tyres digging into the tarmac all the time cancels the need for anything extreme set-up-wise. If you track the car a lot, maybe more neg camber will be required.
TracTive boast 50% to 100 % more tyre life !
A big thanks to Simon Rogers for a lot of online help and advice. He is a technician in TracTive Holland, having installed several kits for GR Yaris before. Really implicated and passionate about these kits. In addition, he did confirm to reassure me that I wouldn't lose the 2 year warranty if I installed the kit myself.
What else can I say ?
Get yourselves a kit, you will not regret it ! It's as if you had bought 5 different sets of suspension, and being able to switch from one to the other, in less than 10 milliseconds. It absolutely bonifies the GR Yaris !
Attached a few pics and the "Destruction" manuals.
Already posted on the other GR Yaris forum, I thought it could be of interest to some people here.
Also, having had an amazing after sales service with TracTive HQ (Simon Rogers [email protected]) during the fitting & tweaking process (I installed the kit at home), I think it normal to give them good publicity compared to some (rare) other makers' representatives that didn't even bother to answer my questions...
Last but not least, I thought I could share with you my experience of installing the kit, at home, with just ordinary tools. The main thing to keep in mind, is to take your time, to avoid damaging anything and hurting yourself, and please make sure the car is well secured on its four jack stands.
I started by the part I dislike the most, Wire loom installation, meaning dismantling plastic trim, lifting carpet, and whatnot... It was an excellent opportunity to get those hidden nooks & corners perfectly clean before starting installation.
I was actually very surprised how straight forward it was, the supplied instruction & fitting manuals being quite clear. A little more than 4 hours work taking it easy, to do a clean job without scratching any plastics (!) or damaging anything and taking time to go to YouTube tutorials to dismantle the central console for example !
To save time, the very first thing to do is to disconnect the battery neg terminal, have a nice coffee, and after 20min then only disconnect the airbag and dismantle the passenger seat (Mine is a LHD). Once again to save time and effort, get rid of the rear seat (lower part only is enough) and empty the boot completely around the battery.
To do the fronts, whether it's for the wiring or replacing the shocks themselves, the plastic below the windshield has to be removed first.
Looks complicated, but actually isn't. Take off your windshield wiper arms, then take off the plastic cover at each extremity under the windshield to reveal the clips on each side. Once the two clips removed, disconnect the windshield washer hose at it's separation point near the right hand side bonnet hinge. Then, placing yourself at the front of the car in the center, just pull the whole plastic trim upwards first to free the front clips and then pull it towards you to free it from under the windshield bottom edge. It is kept in place by some type of "spring" clip under the windshield bottom edge.
Once all the wiring installed, (do not connect the + & - wires to the battery yet, this you do at the very end) starting from the G load sensor (TracTive Control Unit or TCU) under the seat, the touchscreen installed in place of the driver's side window AC vent, the ignition + wire connected behind the "cigarette lighter" power supply, the four cables fed through the OEM grommets leading into each wheel arch, you are ready to start the mechanical part which is replacing the suspension items themselves.
First of all, before lifting the car, measure the OE ride height, for each wheel, from the bottom of the wheel rim to the top of the wheel arch passing through the center of the wheel hub and note the results. This will come in handy to re-adjust your ride height from that reference.
Ofcourse, in normal conditions, the installation can be done by oneself in two-three days taking your time, without any specific tools, without a car hoist, just a jack and four jack-stands. The car doesn't need to be high off the ground, on the contrary, you will need to reach inside the engine bay, inside the car and the trunk, so just high enough to get the wheels off, is high enough. Ideally about 40cm high allows to work comfortably.
This kit re-uses the OE top mounts, nuts and dust shields. So for the front struts, to avoid having to use a spring compressor to dismantle the top mounts, I preferred to buy new ones from Toyota, thus saving time and effort. The other advantage is that the front struts are fully ready to go back on the car anytime.
For the rear, no need to buy new top mounts, the springs and dampers are divorced, so it's not a hassle to dismantle the OE top mount and dust shield from the OE damper. TracTive supply the nuts & counter nuts to secure the top mounts to the dampers.
For the Fronts, TracTive supply three sets of different camber value inserts which go on the top bolt of the damper knuckle. The set with no eccentric gives you -3° camber. If you want less, you need to use one of the eccentric sets to reduce the camber (or increase if you insert them the opposite way).
To dismantle the front struts, quite straight forward, first disconnect the ABS sensor wire holder from the strut, disconnect the ARB from the strut, loosen the two knuckle bolts and remove only one of the two. Then loosen and remove the top bolt in the engine bay. Then remove the remaining bolt of the knuckle and wiggle the strut out of the car.
Before inserting the new front coilovers to which you have previously fitted the new top mounts and bumps stops, measure the full length of the relaxed OE strut to replicate approximately that total length on the new TracTive strut by tightening the spring platform under the spring. This will save you time afterwards to re-adjust your ride height.
That done, torque the nuts and bolts on the strut knuckle to the hub and only slightly tighten top mount bolt to the chassis in the engine bay. Connect the the damper wire to the wire loom plug you previously passed through to the wheel wells. Secure the wire with the provided zip ties. I advise you get some extra zip ties to do this part without too
much thinking.
Lower the front of the car on it's wheels, and torque the top mount nut to the chassis.
For the Rears, it does take a bit of energy to remove the dampers and springs. The easiest way is to start by slightly lifting the weight off the suspension by using a jack. Remove the the bolt holding the brake hose fitting. Loosen the damper's top bolts from the chassis. Loosen and remove the dampers bottom nut. Loosen & remove the spring lower arm nut & bolt. Lower the jack and push down on the lower arm to have enough space to remove the spring. Loosen & remove the nut & bolt of the top control arm from the top of the hub. Remove the two loose bolts from the top of the damper and compress the damper from the top down to have enough space to wriggle it out from the bottom bolt.
Remember to set the total length of the new spring + adjuster more or less to match the old spring total relaxed length before installing it. Installing the new damper and refitting the hub top & bottom bolts is a bit of a PITA, takes some patience and playing with the jack to realign the holes to pass the bolts through. Torque everything to spec.
Connect the the damper wire to the wire loom plug you previously passed through to the wheel wells. Secure the wire with the provided zip ties. I advise you get some extra zip ties to do this part without too much thinking.
Drop the car on it's four wheels and take a first measurement of the ride height.
Connect the + & - wires to the battery. Make sure your battery is fully charged, switch on ignition and follow the Canbus instructions leaflet to calibrate and setup the dampers. If all OK, reinstall all the plastic trims, seats etc.
So after testing a little, and I still have to play with the parameters of the five different modes, she really rides beautifully, absorbs everything, no more "banging" of the suspension in some bumps on the road. The pitch & roll control is so well programmed that the shocks themselves could do the job of the anti-roll bars ! So no need to fit any bigger ones, even though the Eibach supplied springs are softer in the beginning of their compression travel. Progressive Front springs boast 31 to 40 N/mm and rears are set at 18 to 44 N/mm.
OEM F & R springs rate are 36 N/mm.
Ride height adjustment window is between +10mm and -30mm referring to OE ride height.
Furthermore, no need for any extreme geo set-ups anymore, especially for B-Road blasting, just stay OEM for camber for example, the suspension working to keep the tyres digging into the tarmac all the time cancels the need for anything extreme set-up-wise. If you track the car a lot, maybe more neg camber will be required.
TracTive boast 50% to 100 % more tyre life !
A big thanks to Simon Rogers for a lot of online help and advice. He is a technician in TracTive Holland, having installed several kits for GR Yaris before. Really implicated and passionate about these kits. In addition, he did confirm to reassure me that I wouldn't lose the 2 year warranty if I installed the kit myself.
What else can I say ?
Get yourselves a kit, you will not regret it ! It's as if you had bought 5 different sets of suspension, and being able to switch from one to the other, in less than 10 milliseconds. It absolutely bonifies the GR Yaris !
Attached a few pics and the "Destruction" manuals.
