Some Interesting Gas Pedal Differences/Information, Pictures Inside Options

[Coomer]

Today I decided I'd fabricate a new gas pedal for my car to ease in heel-toe braking, so I pulled out the pedal from my parts '95 ST, which is an automatic, and worked on that.

When I finished the pedal and was about to actually put it in the Yelli Celi, I found that the two pedals arms are different, probably based on whether the car is an automatic or a five-speed.

The most visually-noticable difference is the weight at the top of the arm. The manual arm features a shorter cylinder with a larger diameter, while the automatic's is longer but a smaller diameter. The volume of the manual weight is .835 in^3, while the auto's volume is .932 in^3. This difference in weight (assuming both weights are made of the same material) is small, but there must be some reason for Toyota to use two identical pedal arms except for the different weights. Does anyone know why there are different weights?



My hybrid pedal using the automatic arm and weight is on the left. The manual arm and weight is on the right.

More importantly than the weight, the spring that forces the pedal out towards the driver is different between the two assemblies. The manual spring is golden in color and is much thicker metal, resulting in a more powerful spring and a stiffer pedal. Initially, I didn't notice this difference until I put the auto pedal assembly in my car and the pedal wouldn't stay off the floor without the throttle cable attached. Once I put the manual spring into the auto pedal assembly, the pedal would stay off the floor.

Seeing how I like my pedals stiff, I much prefer the manual spring. For those of you with automatics or automatics swapped to manuals, I highly recommend the manual spring.

I actually kind of wish my gas pedal was a bit stiffer, but that would require a new spring or putting the straight end of the spring outside of the hole where it's supposed to go in the pedal assembly, which caused the spring to rotate excessively and might wear it out or make the pedal feel funny.



The automatic spring is on the left. The manual is on the right.

I'm wondering if anyone has any comments. Also, if a few of you could look at your spring (nothing has to be removed to do so) and tell me which you have, and if your car is an auto or manual. I want to make sure that this difference is an issue of auto vs. manual.

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