Krish's MR2 - CONVERSION FINISHED - LOVING IT - pg5

[Magic Beans]

I'll give you a month tops

I lasted 6 months before embarking on my latest upgrades.

[Krish]

I'll give you a month tops

I lasted 6 months before embarking on my latest upgrades.

Mate I just checked your profile!! Yours is going to be epic

Mate, I'm excited with a few bolt-on bits but yours will be a proper beast!!!!!

You must be super excited! Where abouts are you? Would love a spin in yours when she's finished!!!!

[ashley]

6 months??!

I'll give you 6 weeks by the sounds of your enthusiasm

Lovely looking car mate, the HKS exhausts are sweet as

...and I know exactly what you mean about fuel- I can almost see it drop when on boost....totally worth it though

[J-1]

Good conversion.

Enjoy it but don't get complacent.

[Magic Beans]

I'll give you a month tops

I lasted 6 months before embarking on my latest upgrades.

Mate I just checked your profile!! Yours is going to be epic

Mate, I'm excited with a few bolt-on bits but yours will be a proper beast!!!!!

You must be super excited! Where abouts are you? Would love a spin in yours when she's finished!!!!

Near Nottingham. Get yourself to Japshow next month, i hope to have it done by then

I'm not sure if it's a good idea though, as i fear it might spell the end of your finances

[Krish]

Hi everyone, well its been ages since I've posted.

Crashed MR2 in August 2012!!!

Same month I was made redundant in my part time job - worked at uni library. Got replaced by a vending machine

A month later I found out i'm going to need a 6 month unpaid extension as my research was going crap (probably because I was too busy driving like a willy instead of studying

Anyway, I'm finally ready to submit my thesis (well need to make recommended changes to 3 chapters and then I submit. My official deadline is 30th June!!!!!!!

Back to the car! I was fully comprehensive with all mods declared

I don't really want to write on a public forum the reasons but let’s just say through no fault of my own the insurance refused to recognise my 3SGTE conversion as professional and I lost out on thousands

By the time I bought my car back I was left enough money for a .......... Corsa

To be fair I bought a 1.8 Corsa C. Not a bad little pocket rocket.

Anyway, the accident!

I took avoiding action on a country road and lost the back end, struggled to gain control and got a huge tank slapper and hit the curb. Most of impact was direct towards the front N/S wheel. Unfortunately the alloy itself did not absorb much of the impact and the whole front suspension is damaged. The stock strut brace across the frunk was bent and the body itself is twisted. The front sub-frame has damage at the point where the suspension components attach to it.

The car swung around after the initial impact and the rear tyre hit the curb but the alloy was severely buckled. I have driven the car slowly and I think (read-hoping) the drive-train is not damaged.

All my fault. Driving too fast, not paying enough attention on the road but mainly cause I'm a xxxx driver


Pics of car after accident










The Front Subframe:





Front N/S Turret:





Bodywork after accident:



This pic shows how the shut lines are all out of alignment













Shut lines on O/S are also out:







Now that I'm finally ready to finish I have decided I can spend all my cash and get back in a 2!!!

Every week my plan changes; fix my 2 or get another UK Rev 5 NA and do the conversion again??????????

Anyway, hope everyone is well and any advice would be much appreciated.

I'm really liking the cosmos blue..........

[Magic Beans]

Sorry to hear of your woes. I can certainly empathise with you with regards to the car damage We all make mistakes at some point. Nobody was hurt, other than egos, so just take it as a lesson learnt

When my incident happened the general opinion was to re-shell (just done all the engine work), however if I were you I'd get it properly assessed and go from there. It could just be a matter of replacing parts, it all depends on the main structure I guess.

Keep us posted.

[Moo]

That's a complete bummer

Glad you're ok and nobody was hurt.

Back to the car! I was fully comprehensive with all mods declared

I don't really want to write on a public forum the reasons but let’s just say through no fault of my own the insurance refused to recognise my 3SGTE conversion as professional and I lost out on thousands

Doesn't makes sense what the insurers are saying. What does it matter to them who did the engine conversion as long as it was declared? Plenty of people on here have done turbo conversions themselves on their own driveways and I can't imagine they're all invalid in the eyes of the insurers. Curious

As Phil says, probably best to get it assessed and take it from there. You've got a number of options but if repair is out of the question and you decide to re-shell I'd definitely be checking that position with your insurers given what they've already said about the turbo conversion!

Good luck with whatever you decide and hope the thesis goes well

[synXero]

Which insurer are you with? Definitely for a fruity car like an engine swap, there's no point pretending that insurance with admiral will work out. You need a specialist who understands what a 3sgte is as opposed to a 3sge IMHO.

I reckon repairing it will be a lost cause if you've bent too much suspension and certainly any frame. You can pick up another 2 with a dead engine for peanuts.

[Krish]

Sorry to hear of your woes. I can certainly empathise with you with regards to the car damage We all make mistakes at some point. Nobody was hurt, other than egos, so just take it as a lesson learnt

When my incident happened the general opinion was to re-shell (just done all the engine work), however if I were you I'd get it properly assessed and go from there. It could just be a matter of replacing parts, it all depends on the main structure I guess.

Keep us posted.

Thanks mate for the kind words. Looking at your situation gives me hope but I doubt it will be anything like your beast when I'm done.

When the car was taken away to be assessed by the body shop they didn't even notice the front end was slightly twisted or the damage sub-frame.

I had to inform the insurance of this afterwards and had the engineer who looked at the car confirm this.

It's more the structural I'm worried about. People say once the car has been jigged it will never run true again. This doesn't sit well with me but then if a car can be jigged with tolerances of 1-2mm and they come out of the factory with a 3mm tolerance why would this be? Either way I have not heard an answer (which makes sense) YET to confirm a jigged car would not run true.

That's a complete bummer

Glad you're ok and nobody was hurt.

Back to the car! I was fully comprehensive with all mods declared

I don't really want to write on a public forum the reasons but let’s just say through no fault of my own the insurance refused to recognise my 3SGTE conversion as professional and I lost out on thousands

Doesn't makes sense what the insurers are saying. What does it matter to them who did the engine conversion as long as it was declared? Plenty of people on here have done turbo conversions themselves on their own driveways and I can't imagine they're all invalid in the eyes of the insurers. Curious

As Phil says, probably best to get it assessed and take it from there. You've got a number of options but if repair is out of the question and you decide to re-shell I'd definitely be checking that position with your insurers given what they've already said about the turbo conversion!

Good luck with whatever you decide and hope the thesis goes well

Thanks mate. I've been wanting to update my thread for ages but you just can't be bothered to write anything after spending the whole day writing a thesis. Each chapter just gets bigger and bigger.

But I'm so close now I thought let me take the weekend off and start getting on with the 2.

Really I should have just waited another two weeks but with the weather picking up and me missing driving altogether I had to get on with this and hopefully get back in car I enjoy.

Your right about the insurance. I have not disclosed the whole situation mainly because I didn't want to air the whole story on the forum. It took over 5 months to sort out my claim and in the end I just gave up. I couldn't justify the time and stress this was causing with my studying commitments. In the end I just wanted my car back and some cash so I could get a banger and think about all of this when I submitted..... or a few weeks before

The main thing is that nobody was hurt and cars can be replaced

Looking forward to spending what saving I have left to get back in a 2

[Krish]

Which insurer are you with? Definitely for a fruity car like an engine swap, there's no point pretending that insurance with admiral will work out. You need a specialist who understands what a 3sgte is as opposed to a 3sge IMHO.

I reckon repairing it will be a lost cause if you've bent too much suspension and certainly any frame. You can pick up another 2 with a dead engine for peanuts.

I was with A-plan who I must say are excellent but the underwriter (not sure if that's the correct word) Markerstudy were an absolute pain.

In the end I did put in a complaint to Markerstudy for the way they conducted themselves and in future I would want a company that facilitates agreed value policy for grey area cars like a converted MR2.

The problem with just picking up another MR2 does not sit well with me. Has to be a Rev 5, has to be cosmos blue or black and it has to be mint. No way am I going to take the loss and step back into a lesser 2. Rather let it sit there!!

Not going all out Magic Beans style but a mint rev 5 is still costing best part of 2k (t-bar model).

That's another issue. Do i go t-bar again????? I've never been a fan of anything on a car that adds unnecessary weight but I have to admit on those 3 good days of t-bar weather in the UK, It was worth it

[Magic Beans]

Not going all out Magic Beans style

[craig]

Sorry to hear of your woes mate.

Hope you get sorted soon.

[Nij]

I think this thread will be updated pretty soon

[Krish]

Hi everyone been ages since I’ve posted, mainly because I’ve been busy with life but it’s time for an update!

It all ended with the crash in June last year, since then I got the Corsa as a run around (such a great little car)









With my PhD coming close to finishing I decided to sell the Corsa and started looking for a donor MR2. I really wanted a rev 5 tbar in black but just couldn’t find any. When I did find them they wanted more than I was willing to pay (read afford). Eventually a nice clean late rev 5 came up but it was a moonroof model. Went down to Chester and bought it. Car was in good condition but as usual all the brake sliders were ceased, 1 caliper knackered, discs and pads totally past it and clutch was slipping. I decided buy it anyway as I planned to sort out brakes before I did the conversion and the clutch was not a problem since I was dropping the rear clip out.









On the way home the sun was out and the weather was amazing for the whole week. It seemed as though the Gods were telling me “you should have bought a tbar”

Before I bought this MR2, a rev 4 tbar with a few mods came up for sale but I was too slow and when I called the guy it was already sold. Hence the reason I bought the moonroof MR2. But the week after I enjoyed the sun in the moonroof MR2, the rev 4 I wanted to originally buy came up for sale again!!!!!!

I called the guy (who turned out to be IMOC member Nij), a deal was struck and I went down to Bradford to pick up the car, and here she is:





















The drive home:














Got the car back to London and the trip was so long. Drivers front and rear brakes were binding badly! Made the NA feel so slow.

I still had my silver shadow so I started stripping the brake calipers to address the brakes. I popped down to Toyota and bought new pads all around and all the various clips. I ordered new discs (front and rear) from Camskills and sorted the brakes out. At this time I just did the fronts as I did not know the rears were binding until later in the year.








Since my mate was helping he couldn’t resist doing a service on his newly acquired 330ci:



I also took the ICE, seats, door cards and gear gaitor/knob off the silver shadow and swapped them over.
















At this point I just submitted my final version of the thesis for my PhD and I had RSI

With no ability to work on the car, or strip the silver shadow to sell bits I was sat at home thinking its going to be winter soon!!!!

However I had a call from Kaho (puku on here) and he wanted a few bits off the car. I explained my situation and he offered to come and strip the silver shadow for me. Let me just say what a nice guy he is. He spent the whole day stripping my MR2 (really fast too).















I hope he feels I returned the favour with reduced price on loads of parts, plenty of cups of tea and a pizza at the end of the day before his return trip to Germany.

Also during this time I had met a number of really nice IMOC members when selling a few bits and pieces. This forum really does have some great members!!!

So back to the MR2 and I has my first mechanical problem. The Alternator pivot bolt was just hanging and someone has royally xxxxx the job up. The bolt had snapped in the carrier and whoever was working on the car set the adjusting bar to compensate. Needless to say this was not working very well so I decided to start stripping the alternator and carrier out. This was an absolute nightmare with my hand still messed up but with the help of a few friends we got the whole lot out. I gave the carrier to my old man who had the engineers at his work place drill the snapped bolt out:







Car was up and running. While I was waiting for my hand to get better I was accumulating parts

I saw one of my favourite wheels of all time come up for sale and I just had to have them: Enkei Evolution RS3’s!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Stuck a deal with Chris (another great member on here) and they were mine!!!!!!!













I also wanted to make sure the car was handling great so along with the brakes I bought some Koni shocks and H&R springs. I’ve had coilovers in my other cars in the past but this is a road car so I wanted good handling and ride comfort so I bought these







The shocks and springs are still sitting in the box and I can’t wait to fit them along with the turbo clip.

I recently sold the moonroof MR2 and now finished the brake refresh on my MR2. So I have all news discs and pads all around, brake fluid flushed with Halfords racing fluid (I was quite impressed with this stuff) and also realised my braided brake lines are TOMS! Didn’t know they made braided brake lines.













So were up to date! My sonic shadow will be collected on Friday and towed to my mates garage in MK where I will start the conversion!!!!!

I really excited about getting back in a turbo. Missing boost!!!!

I’ve done my research and ready to tackle the job. My mate has a brand new workshop with all the tools I could possibly want!!

Still a little worried about it as I’ve never tackled such a big job before but I know it’s possible!!

I will be taking pics of my NA rear clip with a video to put up for sale today. Want to give any potential buyers a chance to see the engine running. It’s a good lump. Revs really nicely and has been fun to drive up to now.

So Friday the turbo conversion starts!!!! Hope the forum is prepared for a million help treads

Also if anybody knows how to deal with the wiring when doing the conversion please do get in touch. I’ve found plenty of info when converting a UK NA to turbo but nothing on a JDM NA to turbo.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Also if anybody is around Milton Keynes and fancies pooping over to say hello, please do

The plan is to strip the turbo rear clip this weekend. Then the long bank holiday weekend next week I’ll strip the NA and put the turbo lump in and try and plumb it all back together.

Thanks everyone. Good to be back

[RikH77]

Good lad is Nij

Car looks good

[craig]

Good stuff mate, glad it's all happening for you.

I've seen this car so many times over the years (P reg rev4 NA) and thought every time, that so needs a turbo engine!

Enjoy it mate, welcome back.

[Magic Beans]

Welcome back

[Draven]

I'm in Milton Keynes. Happy to pop over and have a nosey and give you a hand.

[Gullzter]

Last post was a good read or look, i like pics
Glad you came to your senses and got the tbar!