1999 Toyota MR2

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Seeing as there's a general interest in old cars it seems, here's my MR2! This is all copied over from the MR2 forums so please excuse any formatting oddities. I'll include some dates so it makes sense.

After someone rear ended my Rev4 in September (2015), I was in the market for another MR2. As I had owned my Rev4 for nearly 4 years, I knew my way around it pretty well and it had served me very well too, so it made sense to get another one. The fact that they are decent cars helps too :laughing . Or perhaps it's Stockholm Syndrome...


October 2014
Anyway, lets start with a few pictures of the Rev4:

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As it was when I got it back from the breakers yard:

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And off it went for it's good mechanical bits to find homes in MR2 Championship cars:

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The damage looks light on the face of it, but the chassis is slightly twisted as one of the T Bar's doesn't fit very well anymore, and the rear suspension is badly out of alignment which suggests that theres a fair amount of damage underneath.

Once the insurer had paid out, I could only keep the hire car (Skoda Octavia diesel barge… horrible thing) for up to 7 days. This was a bit of an issue as I had a one week buying window - in the ~8 weeks between the incident and getting paid I had seen several potential candidates come and go, as well as a few very dry weeks. In the end it came down to 4 cars, one of which was sold by time I could go and see it, one I could put my hand through the hole in the rear arch, another that was grossly overpriced and the seller would not budge, and the car I ended up buying.

So, here it is. 90 something thousand miles on the clock, pretty well looked after but with a couple of cosmetic things that need sorting. In hindsight I would have been nice to have been able to wait another week to see if anything else came up just for comparison sakes, but I'm happy with it.

The day I got it home (image quality will improve!)

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It's always the long drive home where you start to uncover more things that are not quite right, or completely broken - this was no exception. The central locking didn't work (passenger side does not lock or unlock unless you lock it manually at the passenger door). There was a slight knock from the rear of the car which I put down to droplinks - easy to replace, so I wasn't too worried. The car otherwise drove fine so it couldn't have been anything catastrophic. Digging a little deeper once I got it home, the exhaust mount on the rear sub frame was broken, and it only had one bolt holding the downpipe to the manifold - that could also be a cause of the noise. Other than that, it all seemed OK.

So, with the fix-it list growing, I did the sensible thing of cleaning it and taking it out on wet, muddy back roads to get some better photos:

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Love the Rev5 side profile.

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Replaced the rear drop links - the noise was still there. As it was up in the air and the wheels are off, I fetched my trusty suspension inspection tool - the rubber mallet. Nothing was loose, rattling, or looked particularly suspect. The exhaust downpipe wasn't fouling anything, but surely that had to be the cause of the noise?

Anyway, the next logical step was to make more noise and refit the Janspeed exhaust from the Rev4, and take more photo's of it fitted:

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Took the car in to get the downpipe sorted, alignment done and a new driveshaft seal fitted, and an oil / filter change while it was there. As part of the geo setup, the suspension was inspected and it turned out the rear ball joints were ruined, and that was the cause of the noise. At least that was sorted now!

Fast forward a couple months - I was planning on getting some lowering springs fitted. After giving it some thought, I decided that it might not be the best route on what was most likely original dampers so I looked at the Koni insert kit with lowering springs. One thing led to another, and I got these from Balance Motorsport:

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This seemed like the best route all things considered - I'd have needed new top mounts and new struts if I went for the Koni route, and the total cost would have been more than the BC's. I went for the 4/6KG option which isn't too bad on rough roads. I'm still playing with the damping settings to find the best compromise.

After some more cleaning:

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It's low, but it's not silly.

Fitted a Fujitsubo Legalis R from a Turbo, the Janspeed was sounding a little rough - no obvious leaks, but I think the rear impact must have broken a baffle in the exhaust as it had an annoying rattle at some RPM.

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Remember the Advans on the Rev4? Well, they have been refurbed, ready to go on this weekend hopeful:

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And that's pretty much where we are.

List of things to do:

*timing belt
*refurb all 4 calipers / general overhaul
*braided brake lines
*fit audio stuff - Rainbow iPaul 4.300 amp, Rainbow SLX265 Deluxe components
*fit the Advans
*Quad mod

Advans fitted:

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April 2015

A few more photos:

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June 2015

A few audio upgrades inbound:

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There's a Rainbow 4.300 running it, with some nice Hertz components up front.

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Best part of 23,000 miles in the first 10 months of ownership!

And with that, it was time to sort out the clutch, cambelt etc:

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Although the parts did sit in a box for a while, putting it off while there were still shows to attend and other events.

January 2016 update

Did a track day at Snetterton in December which was fun, but the alternator overheated in my first afternoon session. It was so hot I actually burned my finger when I touched it! It was functional after cooling down, but it's now noisy, so I think that may have killed the bearings. I've got a new belt to try first on the off chance, but I think it might need an alternator replacement soon.

Clutch wasn't a huge fan of the track day either. It started slipping quite badly, then didn't slip at all for a couple weeks. Slipped a little the other day, but has been OK for the past week. Definitely isn't right. So the current plan is to just drop the engine, do the cambelt, water pump and clutch at the same time. Should be doable over a weekend. There's still some life left in the clutch, but it's not great. It's probably original though.

Also got a weird rear caliper issue to sort.

So, turns out that track days cost more than just the fuel and the entry price! Good fun though, I'd definitely do another one. On the subject of fuel, I worked out my MPG for the morning session - ~14MPG!

Anyway, here's some track day photos:

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And a short clip of a little slide on the exit of Agostini:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiWmCuiSESQ

Oh, and the last one - Christmas tree shopping:

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Got an OMP Corsica Liscio for a great price to replace the tiny Momo wheel. Quite a contrast, I rather like it though!

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Wheels should be Japanese, steering wheels should be Italian!
 
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March 2016 - Clutch and cambelt

Not a lot of photos of this, more time was spent cracking on and getting it done.

Saturday morning was spent getting the engine out of the car. In about 3hrs, we had this:

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Not bad going! A few bolts took a bit of doing to get off, nothing too unexpected for an old car.

First job was timing side. None of us have done this before. We also replaced the crankshaft seal, hardest bit was getting the old one out without damaging the block, it's a tight fit! Got that sorted though, good thing too as the existing one had started to leak.

We installed brand new tensioner pulleys and water pump. To be honest the old water pump was fine - it was completely clean on the inside. Bearing was a little noisy, but would probably have been fine for a long while yet.

Took a couple of attempts to get the belt on in the correct position, but we got there in the end. Barred the engine over a few times to double check, and it was lining up with where it was before.

Few tidying up jobs etc and preparation for clutch tomorrow (starter motor out etc), and that was Saturday done. Big thank you to Stu and Dom for all the hard work :th:

Onto Sunday - clutch change. Just me and Stu today. Again, neither of us had done this before so the learning curve was steep. We've done our research though, and had copies of the BGB and engine manuals to hand.

Took a bit of doing to get the gearbox off the block. Some persuasion with a rubber mallet and giving it a good wiggle around to free it off the dowels and it was off.

The old release bearing was noisy and felt pretty loose. Definitely didn't have much life in it! The inside of the housing was absolutely filthy (old friction material?):

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Cleaned up the components, applied grease where required, and installed the new release bearing. Also installed two new driveshaft seals as this is the perfect time to do it.

Onto the clutch itself. No drama here really, removed the old one, which was pretty much dead. worn down to within a fraction of a mm to the rivets:

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It was definitely on borrowed time!

We also replaced the crankshaft oil seal on this side. Takes a bit more doing than the timing side as the thing sits in a housing, and being an oil seal, it's a very snug fit. Pain in the arse to do, but it leaking in 6 months time all over the clutch would be even more of a pain in the arse!

Replaced the clutch with a standard Exedy OE replacement clutch. No need for anything fancy on an NA.

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Managed to get it pretty much bang on centred first time, which was nice!

Gearbox is now back on the engine, ready to go back in the car.

Rest of the day was spent getting things ready to go back in the car. Replacing the ARB bushes as the existing ones were a mess (thanks to Dom for the bushes). Got a poly engine mount to go in as well.

Spent another day after this tidying up and sorting the little bits out, and it was all good!
 
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Late March 2016

Had a long weekend up in Norfolk with a couple of mates, Henry and John. One of Henry's friends owns a boat restoration business on The Broads, and very kindly made some room for us to work on our cars. We all had our own list of things to do, some were more extensive than others. The big ones were John's cambelt, and Henry's polybushes. Polybushing is easy, I hear you say! Well yeah, but ask anyone who's worked on Henry's suspension components (Stu/Dom!) and you'll understand... That car does not like being taken apart.

I just had a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB to fit, and a few cosmetic bits and pieces, most of my time was for helping Henry and John with theirs.

Day 1 (friday) went well, nothing to report really. We had time so we took our time with preparing everything. a solid 10/10 day all round really.

Day 2 **** on us from a great height. To start off with, my rear window exploded on the way to the workshop in the morning. A van going the other way flicked up a stone, and it went through my window like a bullet:

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Obviously it's completely ******, so Henry kindly delayed work on his one to help me get the window out with as little mess as possible. Surprisingly we barely dropped any on the floor, and there wasn't that much in the car either. John cracked on with getting access to his cambelt, and I was going over to assist when needed as I've done a cambelt with the engine out of the car.

Much tape was used (didn't have any duct tape annoyingly):

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And getting as much of the sealant off as we could:

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The problem we have now is obvious - It's Saturday on the easter weekend, we're our in the sticks in a workshop on the Norfolk Broads, my car has no rear window, and storm Katie was due to blow over our way very soon. This is probably a good point to mention that moods were already rather sour all round - the jubilee clip on Henry's coolant temperature plate failed just as we arrived at the workshop so it dumped a good few litres of coolant on the floor, and anyone who's DIY'ed a cambelt in situ knows how easily that job will ruin your mood...

My luck did turn though. A few messages via Facebook sourced two rear windows in breaker cars within 30 minutes of the workshop. Result! The tricky bit is getting them out in one piece. Fortunately Danny Sayer put me in contact with Chris at Hank Windscreen Specialists, who came out first thing on Easter Sunday to remove a breaker rear window (took him about 10 minutes to do, absolute pro!), and came and fitted it to my car, and only charged me £70 for his services.

So, Henry's polybushes. We started with the front end. As mentioned previously, this car does not like being taken apart. True to form, the tension rod bolts were not coming free. Breaker bar plus heat wouldn't shift it, liberal applications of plusgas wouldn't shift it, a 450nm electric impact wouldn't shift it, and an air impact that's happy to dismantle boats wouldn't shift it.
So, we removed the tension rod brackets so we could get them in the vice and really have a go at them. At one point we had an 7ft long extension on the breaker bar. We bent the breaker bar.
It's not going well. But wait, there's more! When I was putting the tension rod bracket bolts back in the car by a few threads so we don't lose them, I discovered that the captive nut for one of the front bolts had failed - there was no thread in there at all! The spot welds had failed and it was rolling around on the chassis rail.

An annoying job has now become a serious problem, as this captive nut is located in a cavity with no access.

We now have a car we cannot bolt one of the tension rod brackets back on to safely, and tension rods that we cannot get free of their brackets, with old bushes that are now ruined due to all the heat cycling.

A few solutions were proposed for the captive nut problem - Option 1 - cut through the front firewall, fix the captive nut. Option 2 - replace the captive nut with a stud, weld that in. Option 3 - cut a larger hole, and weld a nut in from below.

Option 1 is ugly, but means we don't touch the chassis rail, which is structural, and is really the 'proper' fix. Option 2 is a good alternative as we don't have to cut anything. Option 3 means cutting the chassis rail, which we weren't keen on.

Henry decided to go option 1:

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No rotational force is applied to it, so it will be OK just torqued up correctly - Henry will get getting it spot welded in place and a plate over the hole as soon as possible though.

That's one problem fixed. The brackets were still an issue though. In the end, we sourced some replacement brackets from Stu and just cut the tension rods out of the old brackets.


With the new brackets on Henry's, the front end was finally back together.

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Moving onto the rear end, it wasn't having it. Heat, breaker bar, electric and air impact guns could not move the control arm to subframe bolt. As we didn't have a spare subframe, we decided to leave it there. Henry went to Stu's on wednesday to get it sorted with a replacement subframe. They had to cut the old subframe up to get the arms out!

Meanwhile, over at Camp Goodwood Green:

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John has access to his cambelt! Lots of things slowed us down here. First off, the crank pulley bolt was ridiculously tight. On my car, and the breaker engine Stu and I practiced on, the pulley bolt came of with a couple of pulses with an impact gun, no problem. John's wasn't having it. In the end we did the starter motor trick, where we cranked the engine with the EFI fuse removed, with an impact socket and a breaker bar against the floor to crack the nut off. Other issues included stubborn timing cover bolts (only M6's so you have to be careful with them), and a lot of swearing getting the engine hanger free with the car in situ. What didn't help is that the guide we were following was missing some steps, and the BGB assumes you've got the engine out of the car.

Anyway, after much swearing and some blood sacrafices, we had the belt on. Barred it over a couple times, and the intake cam is a tooth out. At this point there was a, erm, enthusiastic exhange between myself and John. Essentially, we were both trying to do it in a different way. John had marked the belt with match marks which is great for making sure the belt goes on in the right place, but and once you bar the engine over these are going to take an age to come back round exactly due to the pulley ratios as it's a DOHC engine with two pumps driven off the belt. The only bit that matters is that the cam marks and pulley all align up again at cyl1 TDC once you've barred it over 720 degrees. At this point, any match marks you've made on the belt won't come round in the same place.
2nd attempt at getting it lined up was spot on though, and the car fired up first time once we had it back together enough to test it. This just left John to put it back together (with assistance from me and Henry where required).

This is the setup we were working in:

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It's was so nice to actually have some space, light, and shelter while working!

The location was lovely as well:

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At some point during all of this, I fitted a 22mm Ultra Racing front ARB. Nothing to report here - it was the only thing that went with no drama I think!

Finally, on Tuesday morning, we had all the cars back on the road (after a 2am finish the night before). Mine is running really nicely - turns out it's actually got a bit of ignition advance dialled in at about 12-13 degrees, which may explain why it seems a bit quicker than most NA's.
Henry's is running much nicer with stronger boost now - he must have had a slight boost leak before as the only thing he's done in that area is take off all the boost piping and the throttle body to change the valve cover gasket. Sounds so naughty now with the turbo flutter, which it wasn't doing before. Handles much nice now as well, just needs an alignment.
John's is running well after the cambelt change, engine sounds happier and is firing up better due to a cleaned out throttle body and IACV. He's got a pulsing/whistling noise under load at higher revs, which can only be a slight leak on the exhaust or possible intake - he fitted a new downpipe, and all the ACIS and top half of the intake manifold had been off while changing the valve cover gasket, shouldn't take too long to isolate and fix. Will be spot on then!

So, a very long weekend, and I'd certainly had enough at points, as had John and Henry. Enjoyed it overall though, even though I was pretty broken on Tuesday morning! Looking forward to next time :clapping:
 
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May 2016

Not much to add at the moment... for the sake of keeping a log, I changed the O2 sensor on Saturday. Had a ridculously over spec blow torch ready to attack it with, but I didn't need it in the end! Couple of taps with my gentle persuader (AKA big mallet) on a ring spanner and it I could spin it out by hand.

Had a few TB issues, need to rebuild a spare TB I got from Dom, and replace the vac lines. Cleaned mine out which made a notable difference, but it's not perfect as I couldn't dismantle the ISCV properly.

Bonus: Photo from the track session at Silverstone:

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Cleaned the air filter:

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The cleaning spray is crap though, don't even bother with it.

Been having some TB related issues recently - either ISCV or TPS. Got a spare TB, checked the calibration of the TPS and popped it on. Idle wasn't right with this TB - cold idle was too low (800-900RPM). Took it out for a test drive anyway, and had a rather scary failure:

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On the face of it, nothing really scary about that - however the TPS was wedged against the engine hanger and had wedged the throttle partially open. The car accelerating by itself is rather alarming...
It was completely my fault, as the TPS test was all within range, I didn't need to calibrate it, and I didn't check the screws were tight. Lesson there is check everything, don't assume!

Turned out the ISCV on this spare TB was shot, and the TPS on my TB was shot. So, quick swap around of parts, and I now have a working TB again.

In other news, turns out my Rev5 wing was on setting 1. Obviously it needs to be on maximum attack full JDM spec setting 3:

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I'm sure it'll make a huge difference...

Did a track evening at Snetterton in June, great fun. Much harder on brakes there than Silverstone National, more work to do there I think. Going to try some Motul RBF660 brake fluid as it has a much higher boiling point than most fluid.

Video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eb7WE4-Oftw

Few photos-

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November 2016

The quest for more power started...

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Made 240bhp at the wheels in the car it came out of. Not bad!

work break is over so will add more this evening. You can see where this is going though!
 
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Whenever I see a Mk2 MR2 I always think of this video :cool:


Have a ST205 GT-Four myself. Currently replacing all coolant hoses with silicone on mine at the moment as one burst on a track day. Such a nice engine but a total pain in the ass to work on! When i did the cambelt on mine I think it would have been easier to just drop the entire engine!
 
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Have a ST205 GT-Four myself. Currently replacing all coolant hoses with silicone on mine at the moment as one burst on a track day. Such a nice engine but a total pain in the ass to work on! When i did the cambelt on mine I think it would have been easier to just drop the entire engine!

I've done it both ways a few times now in SW20's. Its certainly much easier with the engine out, but once you know all the little tricks to doing it without removing the engine the time required is not that much more than the time needed to just remove the engine. My personal opinion is if you're just doing cambelt and water pump, don't bother removing it. If you're doing clutch, oil pump, crank seals, and anything else remove it as you're going to be 90% of the way through removal doing all that with the engine in anyway. May be different for an ST20x though.

In semi related news which I will get to eventually, I am looking for a cheap 2nd car. ST202 is on that list :)
 
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February - April 2017

Did a bit of work on the 3SGTE, mainly just some more stripping down. Manifolds are now all off, engine loom is off, injector rail is out etc.

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I'm not an engine builder, and a rebuild was not in the budget, so the plan was gasket / seal replacement and run it as is. The engine was rebuild about 8 years ago.

As bits were off, top side stuff was made to look a bit nicer:

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Temp installed it looked decent:

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Fitted the new oil pump, which involved removing the sump. Needed removing anyway as whoever put this thing together before using waaaaaay too much RTV. Annoyingly they used sealant on every other ******* gasket on the engine, none of which actually need additional sealant. The amount of sealant used on the oil pump was ridiculous, there was sealant *in* some of the oil ways.

Oil strainer did it's job fortunately :rolleyes:

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4 of the 6 sump baffle bolts and threads were all chewed up. 1 of them looked like this:

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Most likely been gunned on. Underneath that was a snapped bolt. Feeling a bit annoyed with it after today, what should be relatively simple / easy jobs are becoming much longer than they need to be because of shortcuts / mistakes / ineptitude of whoever has been here before. Well, I know who's been here before as the paperwork for the engine shows a rebuild in 2007/2008. Highly unlikely anyone else has been there since then.

Tensioner fixed, fortunately Machine Mart had coil kits in stock:

******:

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Unfucked (did the bottom too as it was pretty ****** as well):

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Tensioner on!

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Sorted out the sump baffle bolt as well, photo with the test bolt in place:

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Left it with the sump now back in place, just need to clean up the lower sump pan and install that. Hopefully it didn't have about 3 tubes of RTV on it previously because that's the only way it would seal :laughing

Worked out why there was so much sealant on the lower sump. The "censored" thing is bent way out of shape on one side, to the point where the groove for the sealant to sit in doesn't exist anymore.
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Only proper fix is a new sump. Shouldn't be too hard to find though.

Started removing exhaust studs. That was fun. One was so far in there that the stud snapped (after heating etc). Was enough left on it though to get some bolt grips on the end, which got it out. Threads aren't too healthy though so will need to insert them. Annoying, but there we go.

Despite all these problems externally, internally it looked very clean. Top end:

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This was not nice to see -

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Whoever installed the turbo used RTV (noticing a pattern here?) instead of the proper gasket. Cleaned up and reinstalled with the proper gasket now. Did the blanking plate on the other side too.

May 2017

Finally getting back to having a mostly together engine, not far from install:

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Also cheeky little photo pre-swap, as its been a while:

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June 2017

No further on the engine annoyingly, nothing worth talking about anyway.

It's been a tough month for T189PND, it's been battered by the poorly maintained local road network and then thrown its toys out of the pram.

First, I had to rob the thermostat from the turbo engine to fit to mine as it was stuck open -

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Next up, rear left puncture. Annoying as it wasn't that long ago I had to replace the other side due to pothole damage. The other side still had a good 6mm left on it and I don't like having mismatched tyres across an axle so I had to source another Ultrac Sessanta which has now been discontinued. Remaining stock is a little more expensive than it was! Managed to find one with a manufacture date of mid 2016 so all good for now.

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I have a proper spare too -

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Then only a week or so later as it just never ends, disaster struck again -

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So that wasn't fun.

Fortunately I was most of the way to work anyway so let it cool off a bit and limped it to work rather than leave it where it was and later fight the PCN I would have no doubt have gotten while waiting for recovery! Got a bit hot but didn't overheat.

Mr. AA man arrived, and we did the 'we've got to try and put it on the back of the van' dance, but it just wasn't going to happen. Front wheels on the ground meant the splitter was scraping the floor, rear wheels on the ground (which I didn't really want them to do anyway) wasn't going to happen either -

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So a proper truck was called -

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And we're on the way to the driveway.

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New radiator is a Japspeed item that lots of people seem to resell under various names -

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And I wouldn't recommend it. Fitment to the car is fine, but the stock fan simply doesn't fit without modification, and once the radiator pipes were on I could no longer open the top bleed screw!

Also don't recommend the Stoney radiator pipes. Fitment isn't great, and I had to do the jubilee clips ridiculously tight to get them to seal up properly. Should have just got new stock ones, but needed them short notice so didn't have much choice. Lesson learnt!

There's still some drips under the car but they're coming from the undertrays near the front ARB and further back. It seems unlikely that the hard pipes around the fuel tank went at the same time, and when one of the Stoney radiator pipes was leaking I didn't notice at first as it was travelling along the hard line and accumulating in the frunk, and then onto the undertrays. So now I need to remove the undertrays and check I've not been super unlucky and had one of the under body coolant lines fail as well. There were no leaks at all prior to the radiator leak so it's unlikely. Got to check though!

Quick note as well, at this point the car had been dailied since I've owned it, averaging 25k miles a year!!

Anyway... Fast forward to October 2017 (these things do take a while, with other more important stuff getting in the way!!)

So close:

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we are now at troubleshooting stage.

Remaining issues:

Mongoose exhaust flexi has more leaks than I can count. Sounds horrific, must have got damaged in transit unfortunately.

Misfire / running issue. Most likely an ignition component. Just got to work through to find it.

Coolant leak - seems to be coming from thermostat area. Hopefully it's just the thermostat housing / gasket not quite sealing up right and not the waterpump / bypass pipes that are right by it. Hard to tell due to access, can't get eyeballs on it proper!

That was the situation at 7PM yesterday. So frustrating to be that close!

Had a few other issues too, like bent caliper carrier mounts on the hub. Never seen that before.

They don't show all these issues with engine conversions on old cars on YouTube do they?
 
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Jan 2018

Completed the conversion in October. Few issues of course, but we worked through them. Took it up to Yorkshire over christmas to visit my nan.

Managed to destroy more undertrays while visiting my Nan over the hols:

https://streamable.com/1ydqt

Went over Buttertubs as well. Taking it quite easy as it's wet, and I don't know the road very well. Lots of corners you cannot see around:

https://streamable.com/xch90

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Fundamentals must be running right though. From Birchanger Services on the A120/M11 to Catterick Garrison, it did 38MPG. Mind you, once I was in the Dales it did about 20MPG so...
 
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February 2018

I didn't get the turbo rebuilt for two reasons - it seemed OK, play was in spec, and the budget simply wasn't there.

That was a mistake!

Little bit of play:

https://streamable.com/htzf7

:zip

Replacement:

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Had that on there for a couple months, but could never get it running right. Horrendous overboost. Also, it turned out the turbo I had was actually quite a nice one, a Turbo Technics S148.

March 2018

Ended up getting the original turbo rebuilt and am going to switch back to it - turns out it's not actually a regular CT26, it's a TurboTechnics S148 which has a their own exhaust housing design.

Had to do a bit of work to get the Mamba to work on a Gen3 including clocking the housings, and it does boost creep as it's got a stock size wastegate. Would be fine with porting though.

Obligatory snow photo:

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Still got the Mamba one as a spare.

https://streamable.com/s2k1w

Gen3 doing its running rich thing:
https://streamable.com/nvx1m

May 2018

Took it to Brands Hatch, which was fun. Wrong line, but sideways is fun:
https://streamable.com/c066f

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Went back to Billingsgate with Dan for a few photos:

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Attended a couple shows.

As always, the work list keeps on growing.

Booked in next month for sills / underbody maintenance repair. Hoping underbody is just surface that needs cleaning up, and then get the whole thing sealed up.

Changed the brake pads to Porterfield R4S. So far they seem excellent. Of course, I wasn't going to get away with doing any job scot-free - my rear left coilover has blown it's guts out. Never ends!

I have some polybushes to install still so I'll do them all together. Just not sure whether to rebuild the coilovers as dampers are cheap, but they have done 90k miles in all weather. Top mounts are probably well worn, spring powdercoating split off a long time ago and they're looking a bit crusty. Long term I may be better off just replacing them. :rolleyes:

More money into the pit!
 
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June 2018

Few more bits to fit, including an HKS SLD to remove the 180kph speed limiter, and this:

56mOGmX.jpg

Greddy Profec MAP expansion module for my boost controller.

This thing will let me control boost based on RPM, gear, throttle position, coolant temperature. Pretty neat!

July 2018

Sills get chopped off. What was underneath was not good.

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More money into the pit! :lol:

A week later:

Sill status: Fixed.

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Wallet status: dead.

Celebratory pics, somewhere on a Barking and Dagenham industrial estate...

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And remember I said a coilover had blown? Late July 2018, the solution had arrived:

lIfz8F9.jpg

Many beers in the fridge in preparation.
 
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Few issues with the install, mainly a cross threaded ball joint mounting hole, and the spare front tension rods above that I got powder coated weren't right - they were handed and I had to right side ones!

Part way through install:

9mQCLSN.jpg
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October 2018

Jumping ahead a little, went up to the Dales for a week in October. Only managed to break it a little bit once! Nothing serious, just spent more time than I would like with all 4 wheels not touching the tarmac, or anything at all for that matter... The worst damage was to my spine for a few days, and a dislodged exhaust clamp. Won't be doing that again any time soon!

The particularly hawk eyed among you may notice that it has new tyres - Advan AD08R's. Just in time for winter!

Annoyingly the place that fitted them a few days before leaving for Yorkshire did a **** job on the balancing, and I only found out on the way to Yorkshire. Loathed to take it back to them tbh, but it needs to be sorted.

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Next big day out - Snetterton in a couple weeks, with 2x 2GRFE swapped SW20's, another 3x SW20 Turbo, and a 1MZ Supercharged AW11 MR2. Should be fun!

November 2018

Snetterton didn't go too well for me unfortunately!

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Clutch issues.

Looked great for the few laps it was out though:

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Reason the clutch stopped working:

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Won't be buying Exedy again.

Fitted a Competition Clutch Stage 2 instead.

December 2018

Back to Yorkshire!

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Also December 2018:

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Bolt inside the timing cover tried to escape, destroyed the cambelt and locked up one of the cams. 3SGTE's are non interference so no internal damage.

Jan - June 2019

Not much new really, still need to finish the wiring for those gauges, get the boost by gear module in, and sort some other bits.

Oil consumption is still higher than I'd like and when I pulled the plugs one of them had some build up on it so putting 2 and 2 together its probably got a worn ring on cyl3. Compression is fine across the board and it otherwise runs fine still so I'm not fussed yet. A friend has a spare block and head partially assembled should the worst happen... :facepalm:

Took it to Brands Hatch a few weeks ago for a track evening:

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And around Wales weekend just gone with a few mates:

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(The MG was resting on this day....)

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M4's are big:

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I made a slap sticker in the style of the Japanese car club stickers as well for the weekend for a bit of a laugh, they came out quite well:

View attachment 0I4G7ey.jpg

That'll do for now.
 
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Day 1, though myself and 2 others started in Holyhead:

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Day 2:

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Day 3:

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Late June went to visit my parents... Clutch master cyl gave up.

Which brings us to where we are now... Car is sitting on the driveway waiting for me to build up some motivation to have a look at it. I mentioned earlier that oil consumption was higher than I'd like. Up to this point I had been managing it by checking and topping up every week, with the view to look for a rebuild in 2020.

Again while visiting my parents... Started it in the morning to leave to go home, sounded OK, about 1/2 a mile down the road a knocking noise developed. Shut it off, checked oil (I had checked and topped up earlier that week), it was below minimum. So, I suspect the bottom end has failed.

That won't be the end for the car, I'll get the rebuild done, its just a question of cost at the moment.
 
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Location
Monterrey, Mexico
Same thing happened to my one. They’re fantastic cars but the gulf in reliability between the N/A and turbo models is enormous. My N/A had 170k miles on it and was thrashed everywhere, never put a foot wrong. My turbo has 70k, it spent more time in the garage than on the road.
 
Caporegime
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Posts
26,810
Location
Boston, Lincolnshire
Same thing happened to my one. They’re fantastic cars but the gulf in reliability between the N/A and turbo models is enormous. My N/A had 170k miles on it and was thrashed everywhere, never put a foot wrong. My turbo has 70k, it spent more time in the garage than on the road.

You have to remember these were high powered for their time. 250+ BHP in 1993. It's taken 20+ years for that kind of power to become normal for a 4 banger. Mine has been reliable for the 7 years that I have had it. Things that have let it down are perishable items due to age more than anything. Ceramic turbos were never a great idea though!
 
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