I brought it for
£700 back in 2001 and set to work on it. Between 2001 -2005 it had major cosmetic surgery bringing the bodywork bang up to date, the chassis was uprated to make the car handle and the old T-vis lump was removed and re fitted with the newer Non T-vis lump which i fully built and tuned which resulted in a healthy 204hp revving to a fantastic 9,200RPM.Once the corolla was done it was time to sell on to get what has always been the car i want
- An MR2 Turbo.The corolla sold pretty quick and i got the
£3000 asking price for it. The idea for then was to put the money in the bank for a while, get a bit of interest on it and keep my eyes peeled for a tubby.
Well lets just say that didnt last long!! Browsing through auto trader and ebay i came across it.
I dont know why but i letterally fell in love with it at first sight - so much so that i drove the 150 mile trip that night to go and look at it. I loved it and sure enough left a deposit there and arranged for me to go collect it in a few days!!The car in std format.
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I collected it a few days later and on the journey home it became pretty apparent that the clutch was shagged which did annoy me but didnt phase me!!! I was impressed with the power of it and the way the car was designed, a very modern feel for a car that is 12years old!!!
When i brought it the car had minimum mods
-Rev 4 Recaro Seats,
Weds Sport SA90 Front wheels
(dont ask why as i dont get it either!)Defi Boost Gague
Raybrig Head lights.
The motor was totally Std and with only 121k Kms on the clock it seemed a healthy one too.
After a couple of weeks driving it around the clutch finally bit the dust and gave up the ghost.
So i found a techniclutch on good old ebay and also an XS power DP so i though it was just too much of a bargain to turn down!!!!!! And within a week she was back on the road and going well - although i never got the gains i had expected with the de cat.Then one fatefull night i had some drunken idiot crash into my car
- severly denting the wing, denting the door and damaging the front nose cone. After he flead the scene we went to the police and reported it - ofcourse he had no insurance and to this day its all still going on and i have had to fork out for a new door + wing and after being fed up with the tatty look of my car i deceided that some ohlins shocks with 30mm lower springs, a border front nose, skirts + rear spats from Stiling FX coupled with the extremely sexy Bomex drift wing i got from Nighspirit was the injection of style it needed to give it the sharp, clean look it deserved...........
My aim was to keep this a nice std car
- nothing too loud or garey as it didnt look good when i turned up at important meetings with it. It was infact the closest thing i could get to a 'Racing Drivers' car as my budget would allow.My aim soon went out the window!!!! Next on the list was a mongoose exhaust to compliment the dp and what a difference that made!!! The whole car just came alive when i fitted it
- best £250 i had ever spent! Then next was a MBC witha nice boost upgrade to 1.1bar and i picked up a s/h unichip which had been mapped on a fellow members car to 1.3bar on std turbo - i fitted this in the veiw to getting it mapped but never actually got round to it - i just figured that if i was only running 1.1 bar then it would be over fuelling!I then met Mark Smith AKA Nightspirit and he was very help full and had some fancy stuff up for grabs which resulted in me buying a new HKS i/c from him.
The car flew
- and i ended up running consistent 12.8's down santa pod in Feb this year with traction not at its best.Next on the list was an apexi PFC pro drag spec.
I got it, fitted it - did all the start up procedure, wound the boost back down to std and took it gently up the road. It didnt feel right - and the motor on idle felt lumpy kinda firing on 3 1/2 cylinder style. Anyway after a couple times of trying out the launch control smoke started to bellow out the exhaust which was worrying!! After a quick compression test it became apparent of a piston failure in number 3 cylinder - my worst nightmare confirmed!!!!So the car went into the unit and the engine came apart
- leaving the engine in situ as i wanted it to be a quick fix.After thinking it over and inspecting the bores
- which they were fine i arranged the purchase of some std size forged pistons, HKS head gasket - ARP head bolts and some uprated Big end bearings.the head was skimmed and the valves lapped back in as they were all leaking slightly
- with new valve stem seals fitted. I also got some ARP big end bolts and had those fitted with the con rod being checked for straightness and re sized.I sourced a lovely HKS 1.2mm head gasket and a set of ARP head bolts.
A friend of mine who owned an Evo V put me in touch with his contact and after many frantic phone calls i recieved some 86mm CP pistons within 5days - i was well happy!! Luckily the guy who fitted my conrod bolts had a set of ACL big end bearings in stock so i had those and started to build my motor..........*******this is going to have to be wrote in stages as my brain cant hack all in one go*********I set about building my engine
@ 9am that morning and by 5pm it was driving up the road - thats how eager i was to get it going again!!!All was good
- the run in was fine although the engine was a little slow i didnt want to push it hard due to the base map on the power FC.Once i was happy the engine was all run in and that any niggles were out the way i got some sard 850's and a Walbro intank pump.
The pump was a total @rse to do because of the awkwardness of the tank but i knew once it had been done i never had to think about it again!!So all the bits in place i booked myself into WGT for a mapping session
- expecting a great time...... no chance!!!!!! There were a few problems we just couldnt address
- the main one being the turbo was very laggy and after lots of playing around we gave up with it as nothing made any difference. The end result was 280 hp and 300lb/ft and it went well in that spec.After leaving the mappers feeling slightly down hearted i got on to my good old mate Nightspirit and started asking about turbo's
- the T67 really appealed to me and Mark said he was going to keep his ear to the ground and see what came up.After about 2 months i got a call from Mark saying this HKS TO4S turbo kit was on the auction site
- not knowing the capabilities of this i was unsure but as it was so quiet on the turbo front and me being very impatient i went down the bank - sorted a hefty loan and bidded on this turbo - luckily only a few other fishing bidders were looking at this unit and we got it at a very decent price which left me with about 500 left over to get other supporting mods........So with the turbo on its way from Japan via boat i had about 6weeks to get the rest of the build up together and after a couple of phone calls to Hussein i had myself a pair of HKS 272
/ 11.2 mm cams, HKS valves springs, HKS cam pulleys & sard FPR within a week. And also a tasty second hand apexi GT courtesy of Shafster 
Needless to say that lot didnt take long to fit! The most tricky bit was changing the valve springs with the head still in situ
- but just over an hour later they were all changed - set all the valve clearances and fitted the cams + pulleys.After doing more research on the turbo i had began to realise just what i had brought
- this thing was far beyond my expectations and knew that if i wanted to get the best from it, the HKS side mount had to go. I had toyed with a CC setup but at that time money was tight after expenses i had not accounted for and as the MR2 isnt my everyday car i decided to go with a boot mount setup - it was suprisingly easy to do and with lots of friends in the fabrication trade i got a shroud + scoop knocked up for next to nothing. With the body kit i had on i didnt want a big scoop sat on top of my boot lid as i felt it would upset the lines of it so i got in contact with cool louvres and they put some funky and effective vents in my boot lid to let that hot air escape.And just to finish off the cooling process i added a coolingmist WI system to be sure the engine recieved the coolest charge possible.
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more to come!
So the finally the day arrived when the turbo was delivered
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The Turbo is a HKS TO4S, the manifold is a Sard unit and the Waste gate is a 56mm Sard Racing unit too.
After a few days sorting things through and getting what i needed i fitted the turbo and hooked up all the i/c and fitted the new Greddy Profec B spec- not forgetting the ACT 495lb/ft 6puk paddle clutch supplied by Hussein.
I then spoke to Rob from Perfect touch and arranged a day for it to be mapped
- happy days!!!With everything set to go i took the car out for a quick spin to see what spool up characteristics were like and well, without a map on it the turbo got 1 bar by 6k rpm
- this was a tad worrying but i kept an open view until it was mapped by Rob.On the journey down even at very low boost, when the turbo did eventually spool it came on so hard it was instant
'Grin' factor!!!!Once at perfect touch Rob had a quick look over and set to work on it.
Not really knowing what sort of power it would be good for i thought anything over 400 would be great...... after about 35mins rob came back in asking if we wanted him to stop @ 400 or keep going...... i then instantly raised the goal to 450!! Not long after Rob came back with a big smile on his face - it had made 482 @ 1.6bar with little ign. I was so happy as it completely surpassed all my expectations!! Rob just needed to do a little more and sort out the cruise map and the end result was a cool 501.8 hp @ 1.7bar - a fantastic acheivment... i think Rob was as happy as i was!!! 
On the road we couldnt run the 1.7 bar boost as we were experiencing compressor surge so we had to settle for 1.55 which i gues equates to about 450 hp but it was still an animal to drive and the turbo spool time was massivly improved
- hitting full boost @ 5,5k rpm.The car made me so proud and made every penny i had spent on it worth it just to get the result i did and knowing that with a few more mods there is a massive amount still to come.
Next on the shopping list was ATS cv housings and a torque bar for the motor to keep the engine still
- thus helping to put the power to the ground and helping to prevent the manifold from breaking - I got these bit from Peter @ sBits who was very helpful i might add.The bits arrived the day before i was going to santa pod so i spend that fitting them and the next day off i went safe in the knowledge that i wasnt going to shatter any cv joints!!!
So my first 1/4 mile run after the tune and i have to say it was tricky
- a severe lack of grip meant pulling off gently and way out of the turbo range so either a severe bog down or masses of wheel spin!! A frustrating day but i did manage an 11.9 @ 123mph which i was happy with - on a better day with some DR's im confident of low 11's.The car is now off the road till feb
- undergoing some more work - mainly cosmetic but also some performance enhancing bits inc a slight tweek on the ex cam to bring the spool lower again and to help eliminate the compresser surge enabling me to run the 1.7bar it was mapped to.
