Does anyone know if anyplace on the face of the earth has performance parts for the '05 Matrix XR 4WD????  I have found little to nothing.  Even Toyota TRD said they've got nothing and no plans either.  There's some stuff out for the '03 and the '04, but not even all of it will work on the 4WD!?!  Am I screwed or what!?!  

What I've found so far, and it's not much...
K&N makes a drop in air filter for the factory air box and an oil filter.
www.cosmoracing.com has a cold air intake ($115) and an underdrive light weight aluminum pulley ($54).  

Well, just found out that ATR Motorsports is coming out with a turbo kit for the Matrix, Celica GT/GTS.  Looks like it'll be around $3k and due out in September.  It will be bolt on, plug-n-play, ~220whp.  

HOLY COW!  Looks like ATR totally hosed their attempt at the Matrix turbo kit.  BUT, C2 has one and Hass Turbo is workin' on one also.  Hmmm, we'll see I guess.  

http://www.hassturbo.com/catalog/toyota.html
Looks like they have one for the XR, I'm waiting to find out if it will work for the 4WD.  

Well, I got tired of waiting on The CAI from Cosmo, so I bought the Short Ram instead.  My 4 and 6 y.o. sons of course "helped" to install it.  It makes a bit of a difference on gas mileage, it's a little better.  The throttle response is a little better.  The engine sounds WAAAAY more aggressive than with the stock air intake.  I think it breathes a little better when you kick it down than it did before, seems easier to pass people than before.  My wife says she doesn't really notice much of a difference.  After going through some Matrix Owner Forums, it sounds like the exhaust manifold is the real bottleneck and no one as of yet has decided to tackle an exhaust header for the 4WD models.  Turns out the 4WD tranny poses a bit of a space/clearance/location problem for this.  Some guy actually took his exhaust manifold off and "roto-rootered" it out a bit to try and open it up.  He says it makes a hell of a difference but I'm not willing to redneck engineer on a car that's only 8 months old.  Now if somebody made an aftermarket part designed for what I wanna do, that's a different story.
I bought the underdrive pulley from Cosmo Racing for about $57 but I haven't installed it yet because I have to get a wee smaller belt to do it and I haven't done that yet.  Also, I'm a bit worried about turning the water pump, the A/C, and the alternator slower.  Then I see Unorthadox Racing has underdrive pulley sets for about $250 I think, that put the accesories back to their factory speeds.  So now what!?!  I thought that would throw the "harmonic balance" of the engine off and that's why you only change the crank pulley?!?  HELP!
Well, it still looks like I'm the only poor bastard messing with a Matrix.  Feck it, I'm sure the information is worthwhile to somebody...for a good laugh if nothing else!
Later!