After having my car since January 2016 i thought i might do a small write up of what ive done to the car, where ive been ect.
Please excuse my grammar if its atrocious.So after having a turquoise pearl L reg mr2 and loving it i thought i would try and find as clean and original a car as possible to replace it as it was suffering from rot around the sills so the search began.
I came across a cosmos blue 1999 car with two owners from new and 73k on the clock in Scotland, so flew over and had it bought after checking it over. I booked the car in to get the underside treated and undersealed by Preserve and Protect in Glasgow. They done a fantastic job and provided a great service too so will be going back to them with other cars no doubt! ANYWAY.It was such a massive change from the turquoise car.
Shifted lovely, no knocks or rattles or squeaks. It was exactly the kind of experience i was looking for and i thoroughly enjoyed using it but after a couple of months it was in for a service at pacific works where it was then decided that we were going to go turbo with it. I wanted to go down a different route to the usual rev 3 tubby swap so went for a 4th gen 3SGTE engine with 60k KM from a Caldina ST215. Reasoning for this was for the extra bhp in standard form and also the coil on plug ignition as at the end of the day i wanted it to be reliable and in my head it made sense. I also chose to replace the exhaust with a turbo mongoose unit and had a gen 3 turbo gearbox with the standard LSD fitted.Once i received the car back from pacific works it was was met with huge excitement from myself as this was the first car i had owned with a decent power figure.
Only issue was it would rev past around 5K. There is a thread on here somewhere regarding this issue and what went on but i cant remember 100% the reason i was given for the odd limiter it now had. Anyhow i was now working up in Edinburgh so off i went up there with a huge grin on my face. After losing patience with trying to work out the issue i dropped down to Paul at Woodsport one evening and was told that my dump valve was part of the issue anyway so i changed that and that helped but i still had the issue with the RPM. I ordered a new timing gear as the original one that came with the engine was missing a tooth and had one welded on. Low and behold after replacing the timing gear, i could now go through the rev range just as it was ment to from the start.Shortly after fixing the RPM issue i thought it was time to address the intercooler as it was still using the standard top mounted Caldina one, that wouldn't have been overly efficient id imagine.
I ordered a Prime Performance side mount intercooler with electric fan to replace this.After having the car mot'd i was told that the car was running very rich, even when hot.
To remedy this issue i was advised to replace the ECU and have it tuned down at RA Motorsport, so a link ECU was ordered and fitted followed by a tune. Only issue now is that i no longer have a tacho 
. Shortly after this i started working over in Holland so the car went from being daily driven to only getting the odd spin once a month. Whilst i was having my issues getting to the bottom of the fueling i got impatient and ended up buying a TT supra so after the ECU was tuned the MR2 got put on the back burner a little and really has been used less and less since. It was sorn'd for a year whilst i worked over in Ireland, Denmark and Holland again and now i just use it whenever i visit Scotland if the weather is half decent. With 109k on the clock now its starting to show a few small issues.
The paint really needs a front end refresh due to stone chips over the years. The gears have started to become harder to engage, particularly between 2nd and 3rd if i remember correctly. Other than that and the fact that my back no longer seems to hold up to being in the car for longer than an hour at a time (I'm 6' 4" 
) it still puts a huge smile on my face and has never had me stranded at the side of the road. It has been serviced with genuine toyota parts...including toyota oil every 3000 miles and will continue to be so for as long as i own it. Next step is to freshen up the front with a lick of paint and then i will be deciding whether to keep or sell. Sorry for the way this is possibly done up as i doubt this will be an overly interesting read for anyone but its more to try and document what i've done to the car in my ownership as my memory is terrible at the best of times. If someone can tell me how to upload some photos Ill put up all the ones i have to date. Anyhow hope your all staying safe during this very peculiar time and managing to take your cars out for the odd dash as they deserve to be enjoyed.
