Although there are always some good examples available for sale, nothing special caught my interest, so I went along to Northampton Vehicle Imports to see what they could do.
Nothing I liked was in stock, but Tom (Solan) said that he had a mint condition Rev4 T-Bar due to come in by late November.When the car arrived in country, I went down to take a look and have a test drive.
I was very impressed:
She's a late 1996 GT T-Bar turbo in Sonic Shadow
(black over silver), with the bulletproof 3S-GTE engine and only 48,000Km on the clock in 9 years! Standard fly horsepower is 245 BHP.In fairly standard condition, with the only significant mod being the Apexi Megaphone twin departure back box and a set of very scabby and kerbed 16 x 7 and 16 x 8 Racing Sparco rims
Just to add some individuality, I bought a P8 MKE plate with raised CF lettering and my own logo
Let the modding begin.
...First off was to replace the standard airbox and recirculating BOV with a Blitz-SUS LM induction kit and Blitz SS vent-to-atmosphere BOV.
At the same time I also fitted front and rear hood gas struts...
By now, the shabby state of the original 16's was starting to bug me, and I got hold of a set of 17" Lenso 5KR's second hand but in good condition.
I also picked up a set of TRD coilovers, again second hand but good condition on eBay....Plus some seriously dark tints to the windows
Next up was the exhaust.
The Apexi was very quiet, even under boost, and felt too restrictive. A guy on IMOC was selling a 6 month old Blitz NUR-Spec single departure plus decat. Soon as I saw it I bit his hand off!The NUR, combined with induction makes an awesome sound and is the least restrictive exhaust system available for the MR2.
By now I was gaining some serious horses....
A couple of interior mods were next, I replaced the standard black dash background with a SpeedHut EL-Glo background, and fitted a B&M short shifter plus Mono gear knob and Lexus style rear light clusters.
By now it was time to squeeze some more power out of the 3S-GTE, and I bought a second-hand Dastek Unichip and boost module.
Since the car would require a remap, I went along to Noble Motorsport in Chesterfield for the fitting and remap. The results were very impressive - boost raised to 1.18 Bar, power increased to 295 BHP and torque to 276 lbft........with a noticeable kick after 4K rpm as the second entry begins to boost!
Back to the suspension and wheel sizes.
With the 17" Lensos fitted with 205/35 front and 235/35 rear, there was a noticeable tendancy for the car to "tramline" and the back end was noticeably twitchy in the wet. The advice given to me was to go back to 16's and put the widest possible rubber on the back.
Rather than shell out on a new set of rims, I had the Racing Sparco's refurbed at a bargain price and shod them with 205/45/16 front and 245/45/16 Toyo Proxes T1-R's
After having the alighment and geometry set, the handling was much improved!
Another couple of interior mods followed.
.....a TWM Magnum gear knob and a 320mm Momo Millenium steering wheel
All dolled up nicely in time for JAE 2006 in July.
...
Next up were a few more engine mods.
....I replaced the Blitz induction with an ARC cold box to reduce heat-soak
Replaced the Blitz SS BOV
(which was leaking boost) with an HKS SSQV BOV
And fitted an HKS Twin-Power ignition amplifier which provides a stronger spark under high boost
To date, the most recent mods have been to fit a set of 52mm oil temp, oil pressure and boost gauges and to replace the standard audio with an Alpine
/ Infinity system
I've also replaced the TRD coilovers
- which were just too hard! with a set of KW Variant-3's with variable dampening (no pic available)That's it for now, but don't go away, there's more planned!
