Moved to another server

IMPORTANT!

Hi everyone,

I want to inform you that I moved my blog to another, better and more handy server.

From now please follow my news at: drivingmr2.wordpress.com
I will close this blog in a couple of weeks.

See you there! :)

The Swapping procces. MR2 N/A is becoming Turbo (Part 2)

Hi again and let's move to another part of a swap :)
While my head was sent for a rebuild, I made some cosmetic works to engine parts, because they all looked really bad...

I painted my rusty heatshield and some other parts.

Head cover was polished (in this photo works are just in progress)

And cleaned intake parts and so on.

We decided to check the internals of an engine by ourselves and that was a mistake. But I will tell about it a bit later and now I will show some photos:

Pistons ant the rings looked in a good condition, but we were not right. As it will be known later, oil rings were overheated and not performed well.

Waiting a lot of cosmetic works...

In that time, the head were back from the service completly rebuilt:

3S-GE cams were fitted due to longer duration of them. To get most of them, I should fit adjustable cam gears and a piggyback to adjust a fuelling.

 

 

 

 

Cosmetics works were going to the end. It took quite a lot of time to polish all with a sandpaper, then clean and paint. Block was cleaned with a brush, using a gasoline.

Painted block. Looks much better now.

Half of it polished. Looks better :)

It will be enough for this time and my next post will be about putting an engine in the place.
See you soon :)

The Swapping procces. MR2 N/A is becoming Turbo (Part 1)

Finally I managed to find some time to open my blog window in one side of a monitor and folders with lots of photos in another.

You were all probably waiting my next steps of a swap and I am a bit ashamed that it took so long to me to start describing it :) But today is the day...

I am not sure how consistent I will be, but I will try to remember the most important thing that you need to know when swapping your MK2 from N/A to Turbo.

And I really hope you will like it :)

So no more speeches and let's start.

As my headgasket were probably blown(and it was), I decided to check all the engine.So I had to disassemble everything. Later you will read that when the engine is by parts, you should take it to a service, not only to inspect by yourself... If you want to save money :)

The engine looked quite bad even it was cleaned. All stock instead those silicone hoses that do nothing bu

Previous owner was mad with that sealing material. It was everywhere, lots of it...

Coolant pipes were really rusted. Probably water was used instead of coolant.

It took a lot of time to find and buy a tool to unbolt those ARP bolts.

Engine looked much worse after manifold and other things were removed. It was really damaged be a water in cooling system. A lot of work is waiting...

My gearbox and LSD. And only when I took the gearbox for a check and put the LSD in, mechanics told that my driveshafts will not fit... So, I needed to find and buy driveshafts from LSD gearbox. Expensive things...

In a meantime, some other works were done. I was lucky that there were Ohlins shocks in a new car, so they change my Konis. 

Also I changed all the brakes and fitted braided hoses.

Next job was to take the head off. As you have read before, it was difficult to find a tool to unbolt the ARP bolts. I even needen to scrub it, so here it is:

 

The head was taken off that looked very dirty (oily), turbocharger was checked at the service (it was good and repair was not needed) that costed about 30gbp and metal headgasket(from ebay at 26gbp or so) was bought to safely increase boost:

And thats my old HG. It was surely blown...

Thats it for this post, please wait a new one in a couple of days. That will be more interesting :)

See you!

2011_08_01 Taking the Turbo Engine Off

Finally I prepared to take off the engine from my Turbo one.
It took about three hours to do this work at service with some help.

Unpluging all the wiring and hoses

Cleaned gearbox

Cleaned engine

Now is the time to take off the head and get it to a service for a shim, because a gasket is going to be changed. Also I am planning to get the block checked and cleaned.

2011_08_05 Changing Rear Brakes

Before going to our local race track I decided to change my rear brakes.
My old calipers were completely stuck, brake discs very rusty and poor brake pads.
The new (From MR2 turbo) were much better all around and there was also braided brake lines.
Here you can see some photos:

 Now braking effectiveness is much better, but I still need to change front calipers, because they are still old and hardly working.

New videos from 2011 07 17 SauliusV.lt slalom event

 

To see more videos from this event click HERE

Also you can find some photos HERE

2011 07 16: Replacing front suspension

My suspension is really tired so I decided to put it from MR2 turbo. Firstly, front. It took about 6-7 hours to replace it in a yard and with a couple of tools. I took it off together with a brake discs, because they are much better and also changed brake pads. Also tubby has adjustable caster arms, so now steering wheel is more responsive, but it became harder to turn (with no power steering). And here are some photos from work.

Unscrew wishbone

Unscrew strut and brake caliper

Unscrew track rod end

Unscrew lower arm (I also needed to change a holder (4 bolts)

Removed front suspension from turbo

Old suspension

With a suspension from turbo

My "garrage" :)