I bought an AW11, YOU WHAT!

[4CylinderSpecial]

Engine bay looks damn good. Vapour blasting is the way to go right?

[pmiller]

Engine bay looks damn good. Vapour blasting is the way to go right?

Thanks. The problem with vapour blasting is that it is not protected from getting dirty again. Everytime I worked on the car the plenium seemed to be getting more soiled so I gave it a coat of Hammerite silver. I am pleased with the progress. The engine bay is just a bit of a tickle-up until the engine comes out and then I will finish it up.

[pmiller]

Gosh, has it been that that long since I posted. I deserve to be flogged with a broken accelerator cable. Lots has been happening but let me update the radio post. The radio is in and so is the sub woofer. I went with the Alpine PWE-V80 to match the radio. This is compact enough to sit behind the passenger seat. Installation was a breeze.

sub.jpg (356.62 KiB) Viewed 1800 times

I had to remove the center console so in line with my philosophy of 'if you touch it you clean it', I ended up giving this a good clean up and applied some carbon fiber wrap to the arm rest cover.

console2.jpg (213.6 KiB) Viewed 1800 times

I really pleased with radio and the bluetooth connectivity. The sound is better than the original speakers but it is still suffers from the small front speakers. The sub does not seem to add much other than some extra weight. There is a deeper bass but no thump, thump, thump , I suspect that this age related (I'm too old to hear the low frequencies ).

radio.jpg (358.17 KiB) Viewed 1800 times

[pmiller]

Time to tackle the funk. This had experienced some serious surgery in a past life, the front floor section had been professionally replaced. The interior paint was showing signs of 36 years of service and everything needed a good clean. If it could be easily removed then I removed it. Next was a thorough clean and scrub. It was amazing how much grim came out of the funk lining. Then the lower floor was coated with a few coats of POR. Starting to look more loved.

funk1.jpg (494.05 KiB) Viewed 1799 times

Next I masked everything up with whatever I could find, tape, plastic bags and tin foil. Out came the trusty cans of paint and the interior was sprayed to cover the scratches and scrapes.

funk2.jpg (353.03 KiB) Viewed 1799 times

While I was at it I cleaned and painted the wheel bracket, the wheel and the wipers.

funk3.jpg (331.85 KiB) Viewed 1799 times

The underside was also given the POR treatment. The old underseal had been affected by the heat when the rust was removed and it was crusty. (Crusty and moist are two words you don't want mentioned especially when you are taking about your MR2.
Before.

After.

funk5.jpg (511.78 KiB) Viewed 1799 times

Lastly I brought a wheel cover and sketched a screaming chicken with a silver sharpie. The wheel cover looks like an oversized per of bloomers so I will have to replace this but it will do for now.

[pmiller]

Ok, the front bits are clean but you can't clean clean the front bits and not the rear bits. The carpet in the boot was removed and it all looked fairly tidy. A clean and a scrub, followed by more of the POR magic product. It is amazing how far this little can goes. If your doing this job, don't forget to check in behind the wheel arches while you have the carpet out. I found some rust sleeping in here (yes Neil Young, rust does sleep). I think the sound of my wire brush woke it up and then a couple of coats of POR sent this squatter packing.

[Alsw20]

Those underseat style subwoofers aren't very good and are very low output hence the lack of thump.

Ideally a custom made box behind the passenger seat would be the best and a four channel amp, where you bridge the two rear channels for the subwoofer and use the front two channels for the front speakers, shame you didn't get some good 4" speakers and have them amplified. Very few small speakers can handle much power but Kicker make some 4" in the KS line that can handle 75 watts RMS
(150 watts peak) It would really liven the sound up.

Not sure what kind of room you have behind the seat but I have an old Boston Acoustics Pro Series 8" subwoofer that can handle 800+ watts RMS and it only needs 0.3 cubic feet in a sealed box.