GDII's SW20 MR2

[Punknoodle]

Haha those random wooden plugs kick ass. When I had a Celica GTR (had a 3SGE as well) I used a film canister to block up mine (this is pre-digital camera days )

Those metal ones are great he did a good job. Tell you what would be even better... A whole new metal intake pipe

 

[GDII]

Haha those random wooden plugs kick ass. When I had a Celica GTR (had a 3SGE as well) I used a film canister to block up mine (this is pre-digital camera days )

Those metal ones are great he did a good job. Tell you what would be even better... A whole new metal intake pipe

Haha awesome. I put a glass Tamiya paint pot in the intake pipe on my Mums AE111 Corolla wagon when I put a pod filter on it. Sounded awesome but then my brother wanted the filter back for his SR20DE powered KP61 Toyota Starlet rallycar.

I was thinking about using an alloy pipe but I want to keep the standard airbox so it sucks in cold air from outside the engine bay. A lot of people put a pod filter on a short pipe but all that does is take warm air from the engine bay which slows you down. The stock intake goes all the way down to the side vent behind the passenger door. Good for cold air but picks up heaps of dust on gravel roads.

 

[Punknoodle]

Quite right. Unfortunately the person who had my car before me installed a K&N pod, so I don't have the factory airbox. I plan on moving the battery to the boot, making a new intake pipe to move the filter to where the battery sits now and building an alloy airbox around it, with a bracket for the fusebox on the side of it.

May as well wait till after I get a new ECU for it so I can ditch the PCV line inlet and vent it to atmosphere instead (with catch can) and ditch the AFM at the same time.

 

[GDII]

That's a good idea. Something like this?
http://img194.imageshack.us/img194/9594/dsc2334.jpg

 

[Punknoodle]

Yea, just like that, my vent in the bonnet will be over the top of it and I'd add some hose from the vent on the bumper up to the air box

 

[GDII]

Took some photos of it this morning. And did another photoshop lowering.

I need to wash it again. It's covered in dust and road grime.

 

[GDII]

Washed the car today, took some photos and then it snowed.

The GHOST LIGHT!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjCtuur9G4s

 

[Perfect Balance]

I'm not one for doing things the wrong way or cheaply.

lowering springs

 

[CodeRedR51]

Nothing wrong with a spring/shock setup.

 

[GDII]

If I was doing lots of track work then I would look at adjustable suspension but as it is just a road car all I need is a good spring and shock setup. Stiffer and lower springs with firmer shocks works well.

 

[GDII]

I finally figured out what brand the front lip on my car is. It had a sticker on it that said G-BRAND so obviously it was that brand but there is almost nothing on the net about that brand.
The sticker looked the same as this.

Then I found this.
http://www.rockbrain.com/motor/sw20-gbrand.html
And this
http://www.mr-2.com/english/fm_frame.htm
And this car has it too.
http://www.mr2.com/forums/vbpicgallery.php?do=view&g=1490
Definitely G-BRAND as it is the same shape.

It is either a very rare front lip or just undocumented.

 

[GDII]

Slowly making progress on fixing up the MR2 to get it looking nice again.

Bought a second hand aircon control unit just for the buttons as mine were wearing out. Just swapped over the buttons so now I have a spare aircon control unit. The A/C button on the other unit was worn worse than mine so I left my one in. Still have most of it chrome on my one.

Before

After

 

[Punknoodle]

Well that looks a thousand times better!

 

[GDII]

Yes it does. Looks odd now because I was so used to seeing the flaky paint.

I have a list almost as long as an A4 page of stuff to fix/replace on my car. I can cross this off now.

 

[Punknoodle]

I'll be impressed if you manage to cut that list in half, even if you do everything on it. You'll just find more and more and want to do more and more. It's not a bad thing, just have to get used to constantly working on it haha

 

[GDII]

I love to work on it. I like that there will always be something to do on it. Most of the stuff is pretty simple, just finding parts that aren't worn or broken can sometimes be hard.

 

[DromeGT]

That looks really nice! Next step you should gut the interior.

 

[Michel4AGE]

Nice looking SW !

 

[GDII]

That looks really nice! Next step you should gut the interior.

Nice looking SW !

Thanks guys.

I'd like to gut the interior and put in a cage but as a daily and a limited budget it's not going to happen sadly.

I am doing some research on re-covering the standard steering wheel with black suede including the centre of the wheel and using red stitching. I will do it myself as it doesn't look too hard. And maybe re-stitch the TRD gearknob with red stitching to continue the theme.

 

[Michel4AGE]

Gutting the interior isn't gonna make a huge difference in weight anyway, been there done that. There are other (more important-) places on the SW where you can shave some good weight but it's not easy. A cage is always safe on the track but I wouldn't install it in a daily, way too dangerous.

With cars like these you have to be careful not to go overboard with mod's, before you know it you'll end up with a money pit. Good thing you have the 3SGE though, I had a genII 3SGE, stout reliable engine.. not too slow but neither record breaking.. which is a good thing actually, less headaches compared to the 3SGTE.

 

[GDII]

Seats and rear firewall carpet are extremely heavy other than that everything else isn't very heavy except aircon.

I like the gen II 3S. Good torque down low and pulls well. Lacks power up top but not too much of a problem as you don't use high rpm that much on the street. My engine does't leak oil but seems to burn quite a bit. Maybe needs new rings or valve seals.

This car is a money pit but I don't spend all that much on it. My money still seems to disappear though.

 

[Michel4AGE]

Extremely heavy ? Meh.. I dunno. I've weighed both parts, rear firewall carpet indeed is thick, 4.8kg I believe.. and the seats, well I had the leather ones and while they are kinda heavy-ish at 15kg including rails, you'll have to replace them by solid non-adjustable bucket seats to gain any serious benefit. I have a Bride Ergo and I thought it would be much lighter lol, turns out the damn Bride is 13kg including rail..

All in all I think I took about 20kg's from the interior. But when looking at the total weight (1260kg excl. driver & fuel) those 20kg's aren't doing that much

I had serious fun with my 3SGE, only thing ever broke down on me was the valvecovergasket, so I replaced that and had those pesky valvecover philips screws replaced by standard hex bolts. The OEM ones tend to vibrate loose causing the gasket to leak.

I'm gonna stop typing now lol, it's your topic. I just might start a topic for my SW.

 

[GDII]

I don't mind. You have a lot of good comments and information about SW20s.

 

[GDII]

Washed and waxed my MR2. Washed the engine bay too.

 

[SVX]

That is very clean. What did you clean it with?

 

[GDII]

Armor All Heavy Duty Car Wash and then Turtlewax Super Hard Shell Wax. And lots or elbow grease

 

[TimberW]

Man, I should put some sweat and muscle into My black SW20 too to keep it shiny!

 

[GDII]

The photos make the car look much better than it is.
The 21 year old red Toyota paint isn't too bad. Just faded on some parts, clear coat pealing and dings and paint cracking off from damage caused buy steep driveways and a 4WD reversing into the front bumper.

 

[GDII]

Some of the clear coat has been pealing off parts of the car. The exposed red paint oxidizes quite fast after a good wax so I decided to put clear coat over that part and just overlapping the pealing clear coat to try stop it pealing further.

Before clear coat

After clear coat. Looks worse than when I started in the photo but the masking tape residue is still there. And the new clear is much more glossy than the old 21 yr old paint. Plus the old clear (door only) looks more pink.

Also the rear wing is faded so I put some clear over part of it too.

Wing before

Wing after

Comparison clear right, no clear left.

The wing will never come back to the red of the rest of the car but it worked well enough as a temp fix.

 

[GDII]

Finally got around to getting the front lip re-joined.

Still have lots of work to do once the guy who is fixing it has restrengthened the holes and joins.

Also polished my rear lights.