Lucretia

[MRV6]

Aug 2003. I had aways wanted a mr2 mk2 and for one reason or another I never got round to getting one. I had an audi coupe and after many telephone calls and emails I found a guy in Scotland who was willing to do a swap for the audi and some extra pennies(from me).

I travelled up to look at the car and as soon as I laid eyes on her I knew she was the one. Having owned the car for 4 month I was after more power and I know this question has been asked many times cos I've asked it myself. "How do you get more power from an n/a?? Well really it's gonna cost a lot of money to get it upto the 200 bhp mark. So I looked at engine conversions and the obvious choice is the turbo conversion.. I e mailed Paul woods about the turbo conversion and he told me about the V6 conversion the Americans were doing... I was instantly sold and we set about sourcing parts for the conversion.

Car as bought before the conversion



Shopping list as follows:

1mz-fe or 3vz-fe engine
Toyota E153 gearbox from a tubby + running gear/drive shafts
Flywheel from camry/solara/avolon/4runner – custom made or weld and re-drill
Celica GT4 clutch
Custom made s/s exhaust, manifolds
Engine mount-right side


Before I could go any further, as I am not a mechanic, I needed to approach a company that had done some first class work for me. I approached Stuart Harbottle at AAS they had a look at all the research and info we had and agreed to do it. They knew it would be a challenge, as it had never been done in this country so they would have very little assistance.

We set about looking for parts, my girlfriend Melanie found a 10,000 ,mls 1mz-fe engine. That was purchased from Whiltshire.




The car went in Jan 2004.
As Toyota never imported a 3.01 V6 manual Camry to these shores, so we needed a gearbox that would mate up with the 1mz-fe engine. In the states some of the guys there used a camry/solara/Avalon gearbox as these are not available here we went for the E-153 gearbox from a Rev 2 tubby sourced in Norwich. We used the full Rev 2 running gear, gearbox, drive shafts and hubs.

The first major snag was the flywheel, again because there were no manual Camry’s available to us. We had three options, look to ship one from the states, weld and re-drill a tubby flywheel or have one custom made. Stuart and Alistair said they would do it, the materials were ordered in and they set about making the flywheel. When made it was then mated up with a Celica gt4 clutch.

My old engine was taken out of the car a new engine mount was made to take the V6 and the engine was lifted into the bay, it is hard to believe but it looked like it was made for the bay, no shoe horn necessary.

Engine out



The old 2.0l n/a on the floor

[MRV6]

The old 2.0l n/a dropped out the bottom of the car




The engine and ancillaries were palleted you couldn’t really tell what you had and what you didn’t have until you actually needed it. As work proceeded we started to discover what was missing, we needed a coolant housing. This was sourced from lookers in Northallerton, great, no; it had to come from bloody Japan.

While they were waiting for this Stuart and Alistair had almost reached completion of putting a supercharged engine into their dads Jag, something they were told couldn’t be done, when some security issues came up and we realised that we would have the same problems on the 2. In ’96 the government introduced regulations where car manufacturers had to put security into the cars. This meant the ecu we had would not be any good. There was no way around this and a new ecu had to be located without theft deterrent. We had no choice but to source this from the states. I sent 11 emails off to several companies in America not one were prepared to ship one over here. Stuart had a contact in Florida who would buy and ship it to us. It wasn’t straight forward however as there are 8 or 9 different flavours of 3L Camry’s in the states. It took 9 weeks in all just to find the right one.

First pic of the 3.0 l install

[MRV6]

While the ecu was en route Stuart and Alistair made a set of exhaust manifolds. The existing Camry manifold, apart from being mega restricting, would hit the bulkhead. The Camry manifolds are a massive 1¼ bore; this was increased to 1¾ bore.

There is also an issue with the standard manifolds as they have to be modified to fit round the rear cross member.

When the ECU turned up there were only 2 connection blocks. Not to worry I thought, we will just pop along to Mr T and get some, not. They would not sell the blocks alone, but would sell me a complete harness for just a shade over a cool £1000. After several swear words Stuart started to search the web and my girlfriend and I started to ring every salvage yard we could find, all to no avail. Stuart eventually found a company in Thailand who agreed to send some samples over on a very slow boat. This was another 8 week delay, by which time my teddy, dummy and sanity had all gone! I told Stuart to forget the whole thing take it out and put my old engine back in. I had had enough I wanted my car back. Thankfully he talked me out of it, it was the first one in the country we always knew it would take time we had gone this far and were on the last leg.

Engine install almost complete




With the engine installed there was the small task of wiring her up I've said this before but Stuart burned some mega midnight oil wiring the car up and getting her to run. It goes without saying if had time I would have done it

This is why the 3 vz-fe comes in so good, it has no major wiring probs add to that ot has stronger internals, cheaper, more readily available. Then it comes in at a great alround package.

Pics of the stateside sourced ecu getting wired up.

[MRV6]

Pics of the manifolds and exhaust





The exhaust system now complete, 1 3/4 inch manifolds into a 2 1/2 inch exhaust system with cat bypass.

[EarL]

Who made the manifolds Phil?

No matter how many times I see your car, it never ceases to amaze me how factory looking the install is.

When you come to sell the old girl, remember me mate

[MRV6]

Hi Earl, all the manifolds, exhaust etc were done by A.A.S. the guys who did my conversion. Its what they specialise in mate I just twisted their arms to do the conversion work as well .

If I do sell the old girl mate you will be the first to hear.

[MRV6]

Dash out, rev counter getting wired up so it will recognise a 6 pulse signal.

[MRV6]

There were some issues with the gear linkage. Using a rev 2 gearbox and a rev3 linkage. The cables had to be shortened.






This was done by cutting a 2 inch section out of the left side cable, running a m6 dye down the end of the cable and the end of the linkage. The adjustment was an inch piece of bar tapped out with two m6 nuts used to lock.

[MRV6]

12/08/05

Just got back off holiday, and er just through pure luck and not the fact I was looking I happen to see a supercharger on ebay and would you believe it, it just happened to fit the car. Well I had to have it, didn’t I?

Contacted the guy selling it on ebay, he agreed to sell it to me,had to sort out a method of payment and collection stateside. After a week and a half it was sorted, just over a week later it arrived

Pre supercharger install



Booked a day in at Stuarts for a dummy fit for the supercharger fitment and to take measurements for belt size, pulleys and belt tensioner.

[tonigmr2]

Oh MY GOD!! That will be an awesome project.

What engine managment will you go for? Expected output?
T

[MRV6]

Hi Toni, I was looking at the smt 6 for the engine management. The Americans rate them highly. Can't really up the power much more now until I change the internals.

[tonigmr2]

Yes I've heard of those, generally good write-up!

Internals next then...what's the limit of the stock internals out of interest?

I imagine your torque will climb a bit.

T

[MRV6]

The car was booked in 17/10/05. For supercharger fitting, the belt, tensioner pulley and boost gauge fitment.

Pics after the supercharger install

[MRV6]

Yes I've heard of those, generally good write-up!

Internals next then...what's the limit of the stock internals out of interest?

I imagine your torque will climb a bit.

T

I've heard around the 300 bhp mark on standard internals maybe abit higher on the older 3vz engine. It has stronger internals.

Brad Bedell had figs of 474.2 rwhp and 534.9 rw/torque. I think thats using a 150 shot of the old laughing gas. Custom pistons and con rods, running with a autronic ecu.

[tonigmr2]

I've just realised you've already had it installed

Have you dynoed it?
T

[MRV6]

Yeah had the car dynoed.



The chart on the left is after supercharger install.



272 bhp and 278 ft/lbs of torque.

[EarL]

That's the nice thing about superchargers, they produce lazy grunt. Love the torque curve Phil. =D>

[tonigmr2]

The chart on the right is after the SC install?? It shows less bhp??
T

[MRV6]

Yeah sorry Toni . As I was saying the chart on the left.

[tonigmr2]

That's better! Nice smooth torque curve you got there...
T