Warm MR2 turbo - effortlessly fast but ......boring?

[Kongaroo]

It's not got a great balance though and the turbo doesn't help that. I had some fun in Toni's TRD round Angers, it had Tein suspension. The well sorted stock powered MK1 SC I drove shortly thereafter though was far more fun and when I came in I told Toni to swop her car for that one! It was just so much more adjustable and far easier to manipulate mid corner as i didn't have the turbo lag of the TRD.

I agree a lot with what Ekona said in that 200bhp/tonne is ideal. For me that preferably means a car weighing around a ton with 200bhp.

Ok fair points. Like I mentioned above it certainly has it's flaws and I'm not the kind of person that is blind to the tubby's faults and insist it's the be all and end all of cars

However, the same reasons that make it have poor balance in your opinion make it have good off the line traction and decent turn in so it's give and take as usual. Besides making improvements to a flawed car is half the fun of modifying in my opinion and helps stop the boredom setting in.

200bhp/tonne sounds something like the Integra you have now or maybe something like an Exige or Elise. Now they are sexy looking cars. Perhaps not suited for me to use as a daily driver like I do with the MR2 at the moment but if I do end up taking the tubby down south to try out the top gear track as I hope to, I will probably try and make a day of it and pay for some tuition time in an Elise while I'm there. Maybe the experience will make me sell up the tubby finally

[greeny]

The whole point of this thread is that although his golf has less power, he can use all of it, all of the time. You cant do that in an MR2 or you'll end up dead. I'm positive sticking a set of 285's on the back will help grip. A lot, but you still aint gonna go round a bend with all 220-245bhp (standard) without a very real chance of going backwards into the nearest obstacle.

If you put a decent little hot hatch, Golf GTi, 205 GTi, Clio 16v/Willaims on a tight, country road with uneven surfaces, nice bends etc it would get from a-b quicker than a tuned up tubby. It would get there quicker than a hell of a lot of cars for that matter.

Seriously?

You make the tubby sound like a death trap

Yes its not the best balanced car, but imo its pretty good in standard form.

I think the point is that most people can drive a hot hatch fast.....

Put jo bloggs in a 106 round some twisties and then a tubby and he may not be able to drive the tubby as fast.

Put a half competent driver in the same senario and im sure the tubby would be alot quicker.

Its the styles of driving that you have to change between each and every type of car.

In short you need to get better at driving

[^Trickster^]

i have driven my mr2 for 6 and a half years and for the past 4 and a half i have had 350+hp and 470hp for the past year, i drive it on twisty backroads and have raced alot of cars and motorbikes on all kinds of roads.

I dont care what anyone says 100hp in a little hatchback is no where near as much fun as 400+hp in an mr2, thats just garbage.

The mr2 is a handful at higher power, but so is any car, its just practice and not being a complete idiot that keeps you on the road.

Graeme

[Lauren]

Get a go in the Elise/Exige and see how telepathic the steering feel is, that was the thing that struck me the most when I drove one.

[Lauren]

I dont care what anyone says 100hp in a little hatchback is no where near as much fun as 400+hp in an mr2, thats just garbage.

The mr2 is a handful at higher power, but so is any car, its just practice and not being a complete idiot that keeps you on the road.

Graeme

What is true though for me is that 145bhp in a Mk1 SC was definitely a lot more fun that 400+bhp in the TRD I was driving beforehand. Power clearly is not what determines how much fun you can have.

[^Trickster^]

What is true though for me is that 145bhp in a Mk1 SC was definitely a lot more fun that 400+bhp in the TRD I was driving beforehand. Power clearly is not what determines how much fun you can have.

Well that is just personal opinion same as most of the discussions on this board, I prefer alot of power, some people just cant handle power and prefer slower cars haha

Each to their own at the end of the day, theres no set rule or all cars would be the same and formula one cars would all be 50hp

Graeme

[matt_mr2t]

Yes that was mine. Andy wants to use that car on a track and there was no way was it up to that. It had ancient TEIN coilovers on it. It was fine on the road. But, with 300+bhp no matter what the suspension set up was, it would break traction and get you in a lot of trouble if you werent extra careful in the bends.

Btw, I wouldnt have wanted it with any LESS then 300bhp
Just because I couldnt use all of it in the bends doesnt mean I dont think the car should have had it

I'm not Lauren, I dont go full blast through the twisties, in face I'm more content to just poodle along in those situation then nail the throttle when the road opens up. Which is why I had my 2 for 5 years and spent a heck of a lot of money making it powerful, but not spending shed loads on handling, which I just didnt need.

[Lauren]

Well that is just personal opinion same as most of the discussions on this board, I prefer alot of power, some people just cant handle power and prefer slower cars haha

Each to their own at the end of the day, theres no set rule or all cars would be the same and formula one cars would all be 50hp

Graeme

I can handle power but didn't feel it added anything worthwhile in all honesty. Toni's stock Rev3 with Teins on was very good. None of that awfuo turbo lag you get as soon as you start cranking the boost up. This I felt detracted from the adjustability of the car mid-corner.

[summ0004]

There is one thing tho..most people do not drive their car to the max on the track.

Many just have the odd spirited drive on a suitable road, and in these conditions the breakaway handling of the car is irrelevant. What is important is how the cars road holding, grip and body roll translate into a sporting drive.

Yes the Mr2 maybe tricky to control once the limit of the car has been breached, but it does drive very well and have excellent grip and response aslong as you stay within the cars limits compared to the average car on the road.

[Lauren]

I guess what you say is true for many but not in the wet.

I tend to focus on handling and for me I will often exceed the limits of grip even on the road and often just for fun. So I guess it depends upon what you want from a car.

[marc GT Turbo]

no comment

[Kongaroo]

Yes that was mine. Andy wants to use that car on a track and there was no way was it up to that. It had ancient TEIN coilovers on it. It was fine on the road. But, with 300+bhp no matter what the suspension set up was, it would break traction and get you in a lot of trouble if you werent extra careful in the bends.

Btw, I wouldnt have wanted it with any LESS then 300bhp
Just because I couldnt use all of it in the bends doesnt mean I dont think the car should have had it

I'm not Lauren, I dont go full blast through the twisties, in face I'm more content to just poodle along in those situation then nail the throttle when the road opens up. Which is why I had my 2 for 5 years and spent a heck of a lot of money making it powerful, but not spending shed loads on handling, which I just didnt need.

No worries Matt, like I said I wasn't asking to be rude. I was just pointing out that if you know the handling of your old 2 was below par due to running ancient coilovers then you must admit that a lot of your previous comments in driving experiences regarding the MR2 being a poor handling car were likely to have been heavily influenced by this.

Changing my old adjustable KYBs out for Koni adjustables made a huge difference to how well the car handled a bumpy road and improved ride comfort and grip a lot on my car

[matt_mr2t]

It's not the handling that will get you in trouble. It's traction with all that power. Putting better tyres on mine helped to a certain extent but it would still spin if you werent careful. By spin I mean the car, not the tyres.

I had a nice drive last year through country roads with Scott (Barton) and a mk1 driver and it never felt like it was lacking in terms of suspension and geometry. But I was only ever at half boost.

[Kongaroo]

I can handle power but didn't feel it added anything worthwhile in all honesty. Toni's stock Rev3 with Teins on was very good. None of that awfuo turbo lag you get as soon as you start cranking the boost up. This I felt detracted from the adjustability of the car mid-corner.

That's an interesting comment and one that I've seen you mention a few times in this section Lauren, along with the one about there being less throttle control mid-corner in the laggy GT3071 TRD compared to her stock tubby.

If anything surely the extra turbo lag from a larger turbo is going to make the car more predictable in the corners than the stock turbo?

A tubby isn't some death trap with where the power distribution is strictly on/off. People seem to automatically associate high RPMs in a tubby as the turbo being spooled.

Whilst I'd agree throttle control is never going to be as easy as in an N/A, the reality is my car will quite happily accelerate to 7K+ RPMs in 1st/2nd/3rd without any showing any boost at all so long as you don't mash the throttle. It's obviously easier in a lower gear due to less engine load and a larger turbo makes it easier too as it's slower to spool up.

I can't remember whether this was possible back when I had the stock turbo as it was something I was never interested in back then but it's something I will certainly check after I swap the TD06 out for the GT28RS later this month.

What would be interesting to find out (for the more geek minded amongst us anyway ) is exactly how much power is available during a pull from say 2K to 8K wile keeping the car off boost. Might be something to try next time I have the car on the dyno.

[matt_mr2t]

Turbo boost isnt strictly relative to rpm's. It's engine load. As you say, slam your foot down and the load will build giving you full boost. But you can happily hit the redline off boost if you build the rpm's slowly.

I really cant see how you can find turbo lag an issue but v-tec not? Surely there's little difference and if anything, the v-tec is worse?

[Marf]

I really cant see how you can find turbo lag an issue but v-tec not? Surely there's little difference and if anything, the v-tec is worse?

Depends which VTEC, early VTEC is more like a switch that comes on somewhere past 5000 rpm. Newer hondas tend to have i-VTEC where the cam phasing is controlled by both RPM and throttle input, and hence is engaged in a smoother fashion.

[matt_mr2t]

But you still dont get your additional power until late in the rev range, later than most turbo cars in fact...

[Marf]

True, but its not a massive instant torque increase, its a more gradual increase of torque over a few hundred RPM as the ECU actuates the cams, rather than it just being a switch on the early VTECs.

[Blacklightning66]

lol did not mean to cause one "turbos dont handle threads"

I can drive my turbo quicker than the Golf on Twisty a and b roads and on the Track, but as a few people picked up on what I was saying Im going faster using half the revs than in the golf and half the effort in the MR2 - even on the twistys ( I dont find the MR2 a hard car to judge, my car is nicley balanced and i can feel whats going on and when its letting go etc)

If i drive the same like a bat out of hell in the MR2 as in the Golf I would be dripping in sweat and be doing off 100MPH most corners. The only time I can truley use the MR2 with all its power is on a race track which I do!

I just can imagine from my 6 years of owning my Turbo why you would want more than stock power on the road.

My car has RSR Suspension, Polly bushes all round, thinker ARBs, front and rear strut braces and a LSD box and I still hardly ever get the chance to unleash the beast on the Roads properly - I do live in London though.

[raptor95GTS]

I guess what you say is true for many but not in the wet.

I tend to focus on handling and for me I will often exceed the limits of grip even on the road and often just for fun. So I guess it depends upon what you want from a car.

lucky for everyone else on the road you're such a great driver you can exceed the limit on a public road and not kill someone. I'm fairly certain IMOC has rules saying you don't post reckless driving stories and yet here you are boasting about exceeding the grip on the road .

Back on topic - true you don't use half the power most of the time but for overtaking yeah i use all of it. Less time on the wrong side of the road for starters