Monty

[Equium Duo]

Hi All,
I've been a member for some years and originally (way back in 2010) wanted tog et an MR2. I started saving what little money I had and was making some headway towards an MR2, but the missus had a wedding in mind. The fund was depleted and I was sad.

I did get a Mitsubishi GTO TT from some guy on a GTO forum for £181. I loved that car, it was ridiculous and due to my strained economic situation it was never going to work out.

Your fun car cannot be your mainw ay of getting around.
Today I am much more successful, I can indulge myself!

I wasnt planning on getting abck into the MR2 scene. In fact I hadnt thought of it for a while, I wanted to do some local targa rallying but didnt want a generic fiesta or corsa. MR2 91 N/A on facebook for £500 seemed like a great idea.

Unfrotunately the suspension was not the best, it had an MOT and I insured it for £116 lol. I had a bit of a fun with it but it wasnt right. The suspension was a major problem. The steering was sloppy and it wasn't really safe. I tried to cheap out with a used coilover set but really i just wasted a little bit of money. It needed new shocks, springs, top mounts, drop links, bushings the works. I couldnt justify the cost on a £500 car and my daily driver threw a wobbler and needed a new clutch and dual mass flywheel. So that killed any drive to work on the car.

Some time later I started to get an itch, maybe if I turbo'd it, then I would be happy. The N/A has a blue interior which, is different and I didnt like it.

Eventually I found a candidate. No MOT, gen 2 3sgte turbo swap. I saw it running and had a good look over the chassis. It has an imoc sticker so it might be known. I picked it up last week:





I got it home and was immediately foiled by the immobiliser, a quick call to the previous owner who was a really great guy and I was home free.



The interior was great, and it was a T-Bar. I love the T-Bar look. Incredibly important detail. My WIFE loves the T-BAR!

A leaky seal and bad weather between viewing and pickup meant the driver side footwellw as underwater basically.
Luckily the guy had given me the car cover.




First order of business was a small service. I had oil, oil filter, fuel filter and a replacement for the halfords performance fitler:



I also replaced the rorot, I would ahve done the distributor but it wasnt in stock.

Rounded (not by me i swear!!) phillips head on the rotor made it dificult. I extracted the plastic carefully to expose the bolt and replaced with one from the N/A (now known as Doner2.)



I also used compressed air to clear out as much debris and leaves and spiders and other crap as I could. There were some other bits I tidied up too. When I put it all back together it roared into life. It already soudned a lot better. So it feels like there is more to come.

I got ot the point of oil change and fitler. Checked the coolant line in the engine bay, its not a great situation. I will need to flush it with something.

First question: Is there anything I can use as a de-sludger for the coolant. I'm looking at multiple refills with water? then finally use coolant? Was gonna just follow the chris-fix video.

Looking at the MOT history its not been run in a while. I did take it up and down the lanes around my house, it found all gears fine but there are issues. This leads me nicely on to the plan:

Short Term - Get it on the road I need to get it ready for MOT!
- All brakes need replacing, going to use Doner 2 as a source for new calipers and buy a cheap pads and discs kit. Fluid refresh (no ABS).
- All new tyres, it has 15" and honestly I like the way it was handling, so I will just get new tyres (£50 or each for half decent tyres).
- Flush/refresh the coolant.
- Oil change and filter
- Speedo is not working at all, gonna fit a cheap GPS speedo for now.
- Rev counter is way under reporting. I noticed when I was braking that the rev counter came to life. Probably a connections issue.
- Fit a cheap manual boost gauge, who knows what is going on back there.
- New plugs and leads and a new distributor. They are crusty.
- Refresh the rubber seals with conditioner. It sits in a garage and wont really be out in the rain. Some rust and paint issues to fix before fixing this permanently.

Long Term Goals
Using the ATS racing "the recipe" as a guiide, I want to acruse some parts over the next onths and work my way towards that goal.

http://www.atsracing.net/Blog/View/26

Fully forged, Standalone ECU, bigger turbo and injectors, replace the intercooler etc.

I really enjoy build threads so I'm gonna use this to document how I'm doing and where I am coming from.

I'll try and be better with the pictures.

[Equium Duo]

Hi All,
Been a while since I have updated this thread. After my last post I stuck it in for a MOT and I made a terrible mistake. During the shakedown on my country lanes it was the time of the year whereby the farmers are driving around a lot. There was a lot of mud and other stuff on the road. It went everywhere under the car and I did not think to pressure wash under the car before the MOT.
This was the result:


There were a few items that I could get parts for (and did order) specifically all the gaiters and CV boots. But I decided that I wanted to totally rebuild the car and make a fast GT car for the MR2.
So, one evening in October I started stripping stuff out of the engine bay. I wasn't expecting lightening pace, but I was hoping it would go quicker than it did. I won't lie I hated working in the garage in the winter. It was bloody cold! But eventually I got through it and with the help of the old man (and a new engine hoist) the engine and gearbox was out!




Very much happy I did this, because the night I took the engine out I left it on the chain/hoist. It was sitting at a bit of an angle leaning towards the front crank seal. It pi$$ed oil everywhere. So here is my top tip from the internet. Clay based cat litter is amazing. 10Kgs from pets at home or whatever for a few quid. Pour it everywhere and it absorbed so much oil. Really helped with the spills.

But more importantly it told me that all my gaskets needed replacing. So the plan is to go fully forged. Because I can afford it and why not. I want to build for 500+rwhp and then actually use a lot less than that. 300 or so daily rwhp is the plan.

I also bought replacement sills and investigated the interior.
Stripped off one side of the car so far to access the sills.


The interior is coming out, one thing that I'm happy to report is that the foam inserts stuffed into the sides of the car are looking remarkably clean! No rusty red stains! That's got to be good right?
But the weather strips for the Tbar are rotten. They need to be replaced. They just fell apart with some prodding about. Plus, there is this to deal with, I couldn't punch a hole through it, so I think its surface only.


The aircon/heater stuff is disgusting. All this foam stuff is just dry rotted. It will all need to be taken out, cleaned and replaced. I don't know how much of this is available. But I think replacing it with some diy gaskets and filter material is a lot more appealing than leaving this mouldy crud in there.


I'm also having help with the welding from the old man. We are going to get gas today, plus we're building a frame to support the car, with some rotating casters. Allow us to move the car in and out of the garage. I think I need to crack on and finish stripping the underneath and get the fuel tank out. + the cooling/AC lines.

As all good project managers, I have a spreadsheet tracking costs spent so far, the planned components I want etc. So slow progress (and I had to put everything on hold due to the Covid-19, but I'm back up and running.

Thanks for reading!

[Vapid]

Great update, keep them coming!

[Chumbaside]

Love it! Good to see someone saving an MR2 rather than parting it out

[Equium Duo]

Thanks Guys!

Love it! Good to see someone saving an MR2 rather than parting it out

I do have a Rev 1 N/A that Im using as a Doner vehicle!

But in my defence I was going to use that one and turbo swap but I missed the fact that a previous owner had fudged lifting the car and ripped the body from the frame rail, it was a mess on the passenger side. Lesson learnt for me! Sit in the passenger side too!

[Race Idiot]

Looks like fun, well apart from the freezing cold garage bit

[ashley_roy85]

Amazing this is my old car cant believe I found it after all these years
I'm glad it's getting rebuilt broken my heart when I had to sell it .
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[Equium Duo]

Amazing this is my old car cant believe I found it after all these years
I'm glad it's getting rebuilt broken my heart when I had to sell it .
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Thats really cool. I'm not able to work on it for next couple of weeks I had to travel for work.

I meant to update, but this is the latest thing I did for it:



Its a frame to drop the car onto so We can move it about in the small garage a bit better. For when we are doing the sills and some paint work.

[ashley_roy85]

Good luck I will kept checking the post see how you are getting on .
It was all ways a solid car chassis wise mind u it has been nearly 10 since I owned this it has change alot since then it was a g limited na
That's not the original interior or wheels Im glad the imobilizer has not changed
Always fun and games I will dig out some old pictures that I have but it's been around abit I last time I hear of it was on a drift works site

[wilkie senior]

great stuff good to see more action on the forum keep it up with the updates

[Equium Duo]

Good luck I will kept checking the post see how you are getting on .
It was all ways a solid car chassis wise mind u it has been nearly 10 since I owned this it has change alot since then it was a g limited na
That's not the original interior or wheels Im glad the imobilizer has not changed
Always fun and games I will dig out some old pictures that I have but it's been around abit I last time I hear of it was on a drift works site

Its mostly pretty good, just some usual spots for 30 year old cars. I could probably get away with just plating over the sills, but I want this to last another ten years or more so I'm replacing the whole sill and generally refreshingthe body/paint.

The imobiliser I'ma fraid is going to dissapear, I dont have the certificate for the thatcham classificaiton anymore and I wish to remove it for something else. At the moment my insurance quotes vary very little with or without the immobiliser. So i'd rather be without it

[welshboyo]

good to see you back mate will be watching your build
if you need anything i am only in tenby

[platmatt8]

Guessing all the caps have leaked and failed in the speedometer.

[ThomasJade]

I guess it can still be fixed. The paint job needs a bit of work as well. But overall, it doesn't look too bad.

[Equium Duo]

Getting back on topic,

I ahve done pretty much nothing for the last 9 motnhs. Because of Covid and being in the pharma industry. I still have tot ravel, and typically when I am travelling it is for 3-8 weeks at a time. Even through all this lockdonw. I'm gutted but I am saving money.

Still reading the forums and refining my wishlist!