Jason's 1990 MR2 project

[Wayne]

Mine looks like the top one .. with a cover plate and gasket under it
I cant promise its not a turbo sump though, its a brought engine

[JasonFriday13]

So I finally got round to finishing up most of the wiring, this is the boost switch.


This is for sending power to the AC button on the air-con, I modified it earlier to manually turn the AC fan on with the AC button.


This is the positive wire for the water pump relay, this controls the water pump for the water to air intercooler (it's not installed yet).


And installed. I'll run the wire out to the pump once that's installed.


Decided to install the Prothane kit I've had for ages. These are the front C-arm bushes.


I also added a camber bolt to the front left to give it more camber.


I was given two sets of front swaybar bushes, which means they didn't fit the back swaybar.


So I ground them down on one side to make them fit.


The rubber bush graveyard .


Next up is a wheel alignment, I want it set up as symmetrical as possible.

[JasonFriday13]

Quick update, back in early June I decided to attach the idle up wires to the Link so that the revs wouldn't drop so much when the head lights or stop lights are on. So I got two diodes:


And soldered them to the wires.


The end result.


After leaving it like this for two months, I decided that I didn't like the way I did it, so I put it on the todo list. First up is mounting the ecu. Measured the holes out and drilled them.


Close enough .


Mostly done.


The finished idle-up wiring.


I moved the fuel pump wire to it's own connecter. I also repositioned the start wire so I could tidy up the start circuit wiring. Ages ago I accidentally ripped the usb extension cable in two after it got caught under a wheel, which I finally got round to removing from the kickpanel loom.

Now I can start thinking about the water to air setup and the best way to run the hosing. I specially bought some 22mm super-flexi truck hosing to use, 10 meters of it, and no it wasn't cheap. I can use the bottom mounts of the stock ST205 radiator, it's just the top mount and clearance checking that will take some work. Also a custom mount will be made up to mount the water pump in the front passenger side chassis rail, where something from the air-con used to live.

Also, I have to finish off mounting the air temp sensor into the intercooler. There's also a proper intake pipe and filter to get, plus the air bypass valve idle up hose and the catch-can breather hose to sort out. I'm slowly working through it .

[Benckj]

I don't like the idea of using ST205 IC mounting tabs. It puts stress on the core and can result in seam splitting. Because of the differences with MR2 3sgte it just doesn't line up the same as Celica.

[GDII]

His engine is from an ST205 so it shouldn't be an issue.

[Benckj]

Some of the engine ancillaries are configured differntly for the MR2. Namley the cooling water Christams tree,throttle cable and X- bar interfer with the IC placement. IC also ends up tilting toward cab which if used as tool & parts table allows everthing to roll down and dissapear behind exhaust shields or into platic underbody panels.

[JasonFriday13]

Some of the engine ancillaries are configured differntly for the MR2. Namley the cooling water Christams tree, throttle cable

Already sorted.

and X- bar interfer with the IC placement. IC also ends up tilting toward cab which if used as tool & parts table allows everthing to roll down and dissapear behind exhaust shields or into platic underbody panels.

I still have to check clearance with the X bar, but I'm quietly confident it will fit just fine.

[JasonFriday13]

Success!



No problem with the throttle cable.


Mods I made waaaaaay back not long after I got the engine.


Still have to mount the air temp sensor in it, and do all the water stuff later on. The joys of a todo list .

[GDII]

This project looks like a lot of fun. It's really driving my motivation to get a GEN 3 turbo in my car but only using the stock ECU and intercooler. If I did keep the car longer I might end up doing things a long the lines of what you are.

Keep up the good work, hopefully you can start running it along side Pureadrenilins car in motorsport events. Any plans for a cage or just keeping it as a usable road car?

[JasonFriday13]

It's a weekend car first, so it has to be road legal, (relatively) comfortable and easy to get in and out of. Racing it is always second. Once I start earning some money, I'll start competing regularly at local events.

[JasonFriday13]

So I did a little more progress. I took the stock overflow bottle and modded the mount from this:


To this:


This is the water hosing I was talking about.


I mounted the overflow bottle in the engine bay. I ended up flipping the mount upside down so that it's mounted in the position I wanted.


And this is what the plumbing to the boost solenoid will look like. The boost solenoid will be bolted to that blank bit of panel.


Once the positions for everything are finalised, I will remove the hose fitting out of the compressor and put a plug in it, as it won't be needed anymore. I still have to enlarge the intake plenum at some point so that the torque stays flat above 6500 rpms (it currently drops off).

[JasonFriday13]

Did some minor electrical work on the car.

Removed the audio gear from the daily driver.


Rewired the patch cable in the MR2.


While I was at it I rewired the cigarette lighter, it's had a broken wire for over a year.


Success!


Decided to test fit the gear shifter boot.


Not very happy with it, there is excess material that has nowhere to go (my thumb is on the linkage itself), despite it being a shorter gen 3 boot already.


So for the time being I'm leaving it off. If I get a shorter shift knob then I might look at moving the ring up a bit to compensate for the excess material.

I'm considering changing the speaker setup, using some 4 inch speakers in the stock position below the quarter windows and using the rear speaker outs on the headunit to run them.

I'm also considering swapping out one of the speakers in the door for some 6 1/2 inch subwoofers (Kicker CompRT makes one this small) and using the existing Sony amp to drive them. The amp does fit under the passenger seat like it did in the daily driver, but there is no room for cooling, and it touches the bottom of the seat. So the only other place it can go is where the abs would usually go in the frunk. Making a custom bracket would be easy enough as there are enough mount points around to bolt to (two on the chassis rail, one on the strut tower and one on the front wall).

[JasonFriday13]

Did a little more work, pulled out the amp wiring from the daily drive.


I have some brand new 5 inch speakers that have been in storage, so had a look to see if they fit below the quarter windows.


Well, yes and no. They do fit in the hole but the diameter is too big, so they don't sit flush with the mounts. 4 inch it will be then.

[GDII]

Looking good. There is very limited space in the back panels for speakers. I removed my tweeters and put the factory door speakers in place. Fits really well and gives much better sound than the little tweeters.

[JasonFriday13]

So, around about August last year, I bought an exhaust off kim0663, and I finally got round to picking it up in December. The day after I got back I had a go at fitting it up (pictures are off my cellphone which is why they look horrible).


Painted it with VHT FlameProof.


I had to hacksaw out a space for the bolts washer to fit in.


Close enough.


Bolted it to the car, and ... Duh Duuuuuh . The hanger doesn't line up with anything.


Also the middle flange is sitting on the subframe.


This is holding up the back half of the exhaust, not good.


This exhaust doesn't fit as well as I wanted it to, so I've decided to put the old exhaust back on. This will have to wait until I can custom build a stainless steel version with a muffler that is baffled but free flowing. Magnaflow comes to mind first, a quick search gives 4 products in the XL Muffler series with a 3 inch in and out pipe size. I still need to measure it up on the car to see how much room I have, but it looks promising.