Thomas' 1992 GT

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Hey everyone,

My name is Thomas and I'm fairly new to the club, and thought I'd start a post on my 2.

The car itself is a 1992 GT Targa Top - JDM Import. Some of you may recognise it based off previous plates: UKB0RN, ALINUX, and a couple others.

I bought this earlier this year late Jan from Chris, who I'm sure some of you already know.

Back to the car, it's a mostly untouched motor with a few changes:

- BC Gold Coilovers
- Kinugawa CT26
- Full 3" Exhaust
- eBay Intercooler (Does surprisingly well)
- Slotted front rotors (Came with braided lines as spare parts, finding time to fit them)

Car is at 185kms currently.

Plans so far:
- Oil catch can on the way
- Ordered a Aeroware lip through Speedfactory NZ (Highly reccomend he looks after members)
- Autopista wing on the way from Aerotech, will be about a month out once lockdown ends
- Clear front indicators on the way from MR2 Ben
- Change the wheels, personally not a fan of the chrome.

Possibly looking at getting a rebuild in a year or two, it's leaking some oil at the moment, and lets just say I don't think it's something small.

Has it quirks and little niggly bits as it comes being 30 years old, so just trying to work through them over the next few months.

Overall, as my first MR2 I love it, and will be looking after it for a few years to come.

[Benckj]

Very nice, welcome to the club.

[ClanFever]

The ride looks SWeet, what kind of wheels are you thinking of? Best to stay in the 15" - 17" area, get the right offset and the correct tyres and they'll look so good! We are here to help if you need any advice.

What makes you think the oil leak is really bad? Where is it coming from? Rebuilding a motor isn't cheap and if it doesn't really need it, I'd rather you see spend the money on the mods you want! It might be an easy fix, even if it is the oil pump or a turbo issue

[GDII]

The ride looks SWeet, what kind of wheels are you thinking of? Best to stay in the 15" - 17" area, get the right offset and the correct tyres and they'll look so good! We are here to help if you need any advice.

What makes you think the oil leak is really bad? Where is it coming from? Rebuilding a motor isn't cheap and if it doesn't really need it, I'd rather you see spend the money on the mods you want! It might be an easy fix, even if it is the oil pump or a turbo issue

No point having mods if the car doesn't go.
The leak is so bad there is oil in front of the engine on the chassis where the front of the suspension arm mounts to the car. That's completely crazy as I have never seen that nor can I explain how that would even be possible.

[GlanzaAtHeart]

The ride looks SWeet, what kind of wheels are you thinking of? Best to stay in the 15" - 17" area, get the right offset and the correct tyres and they'll look so good! We are here to help if you need any advice.

What makes you think the oil leak is really bad? Where is it coming from? Rebuilding a motor isn't cheap and if it doesn't really need it, I'd rather you see spend the money on the mods you want! It might be an easy fix, even if it is the oil pump or a turbo issue

Yeah I'm after a different style really, 16" or 17" most likely, and a huge fan of Bronze/Gold wheels, TE37s look cool but $$$. Almost had a chance to get some OZ Superturismos, but they slipped out of my hands at the last moment.

The oil leak is bad. There's about 3 I can count which are major. As Phil said, it's coming out pretty much at the start of the sill on the driver's side. There is also the main one which is in the centre, close to where the transmission and engine join. I had a close friend of mine with a workshop have a look on the lift, he thinks it the rear main seal. Distributor seals are questionable, but I've got a kit from Kbox ready to fit when i get some time.

Having said this, putting in 5W-30 was probably pretty thin, that's on me.

Oil pump and cam seals is what I'm thinking for the right side, but that's cambelt and all that jazz, not too experienced with those, seem quite hard.

We'll see where this takes me. Cheers for the advice!

[GDII]

When you go to do the cam belt and replace all the seals get someone who has done it before to assist. That's where I started as I had no idea on how to do it. Yes it's not the easiest thing to do but you learn and understand your engine so much better once you've done it.

Try clean things up the best you can, locate the leaks then plan how to stop them. Oil typically will only come from the oil pump, valve cover and distributor. Other places it can come from but less typical are like you say, rear main seal, front crank seal, sump to block connection and last and very uncommon would be the cam seals. Head gasket on a really odd occasion but if that is happening normally something far worse needs sorted.

[rieben]

Would love to see the engine, have any pics?

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Finally installed my new boost gauge and replaced my capacitors today.

Was actually a mission, as I am not that proficient with soldering and may or may not have melted through the PCB sheet and had to run a jumper wire for a connection

Lots of drilling the cluster, soldering, and niggly bits today were done, but all worth it.

But all works perfectly after I fixed it all, only to crack my steering column surround putting the cluster in

Plus now my rev gauge sits 2000rpm too high? If anyone knows how to fix this....

But looks great! Feeling accomplished today.

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Would love to see the engine, have any pics?

Not the tidiest, but i'm working on that.

[GDII]

No need to pull the whole tacho apart to redo the capacitors. You can leave the face and needle on.

I posted a solution for the needle position problem in the question you asked earlier.

[GlanzaAtHeart]

No need to pull the whole tacho apart to redo the capacitors. You can leave the face and needle on.

I posted a solution for the needle position problem in the question you asked earlier.

Just saw this, thanks again Phil

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Took my car in for a WOF on Wednesday - Failed the noise test.

WOF guy said 120db.... Which is unreal. Gonna get an independent test done, although, the place did have it right (45 degree angle, 500mm away).

Supposed to be at 4000rpm, but they redlined it I'm pretty sure. Will get it sorted in the next week or so.

Might have to go the silencer route, my exhaust (3" Turbo back from Redline Performance) seemed to pass it's WOFs before?

Unsure how I'm gonna approach this one. Will update when I get an independent test done

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Well a couple updates since last month,

Passed the WOF buy adding in some 3" silencers into the exhaust. Would've like to taken it to a cert place and get a noise test, but the local certifier for the 10-15 min test they charge $200... Versus $50 for a pair of silencers.

Fitted my catch can today, should be good, and sorted out it running poorly after a bad spark plug caused a misfire (Only 2 months old?). They were white tipped, so stepped up in the heat range from 6s to 7s. Cylinder 1 and 4 spark plugs are also a bit oily Will sit on that one, hopefully the catch can helps with the worn piston rings.

Next challenge is oil leaks (Ever seems to be the quest).

[GlanzaAtHeart]

In the great words of Roman in 2 Fast 2 Furious: "Ejecto seat cuz!"

My distributor decided it didn't want to be apart of my engine anymore last night, and left me stranded on SH20 at 1am which was nice.

The aftermath:

Luckily, I noticed after having the distributor seals done with help from a shop yesterday, that it wasn't sitting right. New cap and rotor already on the way from Toyota. Speaking of the shop, they were the ones who reassembled my distributor and put it back on as I was under the car at that time. Might have to talk to them...

But anyway, another day, another challenge.But on the plus side, less oil leaks now!

[GlanzaAtHeart]

Well the last month or so has been interesting.

This is the current state of my engine: https://imgur.com/a/JSNPFik

Immense amounts of blow by currently. This is a breather filter connected to a catch can from the PCV vent. My compression is questionable.

So, the car currently sits idle on my street as it blows a substantial amount of smoke when I drive, to the point that I don't drive it at all.

Thanks to the kindness of some Auckland club members, my car hopefully will be back on the road after next weekend. I've accured a Gen 4 3SGTE out of a Caldina, from another MR2 owner in Auckland who decided it's too much work to get his car re-registered. Already has a re-wired loom, and a bunch of other stuff that saves me time.

Lockdown has helped me collect heaps of parts needed from the swap. Only 2 little things left to collect before we go ahead next weekend.

Big thanks to GDII, and Soleman on the forums who have gone above and beyond to help me.

Will post again when (fingers crossed) the engine is in.