Monday, December 29, 2008

Rare-to-Find pieces from Ex-Japan have arrived....

Well... Although I could have worked on the MR2 today, I think it's a little bit too hot at the moment... coming in at about 38degree Celcius today... (That is about 102 Degree Fahrenheit for you US guys... ;-) )

But about 2 weeks ago, I did have the chance to pick up my delivery from Ex-Japan. You see... My outside trim pieces on my MR2 have started to break up pretty badly... cracks, screw holes dissappearing, etc. So, I was faced with several options...

1) Make my own out of Fiberglass... Hmmmm... Considering, I have no experience with FG, this might not be such a good idea, and will cost me a lot of $$$... after my math and enquiry about parts required... about AUS$380...

2) Purchase FG units from http://toyota-mr2-aw11-reproduction-parts.com/cpillartrim.aspx, but when it was all costed up, with freight to Perth, Western Australia, it was about AUS$500, and although perfect fit, still would require some minor work to fit them.

3) Find 2nd hand units... Now this is like trying to find hen's teeth... (Chicken Teeth... ;-} ) They are very hard to find, and especially in some decent shape. And when you do find them, they are either in the US (Delivered to US only) or the seller wants an Gold mine for it... IE: I've seen some sales go as high as $600 on ebay for these, and although used, were in good shape (Apparently)... I don't consider 2nd units worth that much, I would not be paying anymore than $300.

4) From #2, they indicated that these can be purchased from Toyota again... Hmmmm... Well, I thought I might as well give it a try and see... So I called Toyota, expecting them to be AUS$1000+++... To my suprise, they came back at about AUS$712...

Hmmmm... Up to now, my best option was #2... but at only AUS$200 difference... I might as well go for the geniune Toyota Product... So I put my order in. The ETA for them was about 10 Business days, which is just about 1 week before Christmas break, soooooo... OK.... AUS$712 poorer... Besides... They lasted about 20years on the MR2... I'm not going to expect the MR2 to last another 20years, so that might be good investment... ;-)

So... Instead of babling on about these... Here are some pics...

Top Piece... As you can see, they do come with 6x Special attachement screws...





Side Pieces... All with Rubber trim and mounting screws in place...





Side Mounting screw attachement... Looks like they are drilled in, and then glued in too... whereas the old ones had no trace of glue!!!!! Hmmmm... Improvement?... !!!!!!


Old Piece compared to new... (Old on left, new on right)


The whole new set... The sheets that it's lying on are the wrappers they are delivered with... ;-)


This is becoming more of a restoration project than a 20v AE111 conversion project... Hmmmm... :-/... But that is OK... ;-P

Saturday, December 27, 2008

Festive Season... Definitly no work done...

Well... it's that time of the year where all adults will go broke, and the youngsters can't stay in bed for a good sleepin.... :-)

Lucky for me, we don't have any kids yet... ;-) But, none-the-less, we still get busy with family and friends during Christmas period, and all the festive season for this month... Several good festivities for us....

1) It's Christmas.... So ...
Merry Christmas
... to all who are following this blog.... :-)

2) on the 28th of December... My parents anniversary... So...
Happy 45th anniversary... :-)

3) also on the 28th of December... Sean's Wife's Birthday, Melanie... So... Melanie, if you are watching this thread...
Happy Birthday, Melanie... :-)

4) And finally... New year, when 2009 begins and 2008 comes to a beautiful closure. Sooooo... Wishing all of you a
Happy and Prosperous New Year... :-)

Unfortunetly... Due to the festive season, we decided not work on the MR2 during this period, and decided to get some RnR (IE: Relax for a change).

This also gave me a chance to do some reading up and also hunt for a few things on the net... So... This week, nothing much has happened. but hopefully, next week, we'll be working on it again, so stay tuned... But in the mean time...


* * * * Merry Christmas * * * *
&
* * * * Happy New Year * * * *

Saturday, December 20, 2008

What a nice Tune... Quad Thottle bodies... :D

Last weekend, we decided to replace the Coolant lines on the AW11... the old stock heater coolant lines, just gave me a bad itch, so I decided to replace them with NEW generic heater lines. That was a bit of a job, and took us a while... If only we had a car Hoist... :D

Anyway... got the hoses replaced, and started filling up the coolant.... ALL 14Litres OF IT... !!!!
Yes, you heard right... ONE-FOUR as in FORTEEN.... It's a lot of coolant, and hence, why I wanted to replace the heater hoses, because I really don't feel like doing it in a hurry again... or for at least another 2 or maybe 3 years.

My old 89 Supra, I used to change it religiously every year... coolant and new thermo. It's a common weakness with the 7MGTE engines, and because of the bad design of the thermo, when it fails, it fails shut, and hence, it blows the head gasket.... of course most people just torque the bejesus out of the head, but that is not a good idea, as will distort and give an uneven surface, which will make things worse. Don't underestimate a 7MGTE engine... they have great potential.

We ran out of time, so we decided to leave it for now, and let the engine cool down... we did get about 10ltr in there so far, but I think the heater hoses aren't filling up, even though we have the heater full bore hot and fan going... but it just ain't getting hot... :-\
Next time....

I had the oportunity to look around for some ideas... Since the BT Airbox doesn't fit into the MR2, I was thinking maybe the 20v ST Airbox could... Hmmmm.... I've spotted one on Ebay and decided to go for that idea. Got it at a good price, so see how it works, and what mods are required to fit a BT engine.

Also had to do some reading up on how to purge the air from the MR2.... Now would be the best time to say that the Haynes Manual is abosulately CRAP!!!!! If you doing this kind of work, do yourself a favour... get the Mr2 BGB from Toyota or download it from the internet.

Anyway.... that is just about it for this time... see how we go on next week-end, or maybe during the week....

Saturday, December 13, 2008

SHE'S ALIVE, SHE'S ALIVE.... :D

Whhhhooooohoooooo... SHE's ALIVE.... :D

Well... we finally gotten around to playing with the MR2 again, to fault find why she ain't starting. Last week-end, we attempted to start her up several time, and she just wouldn't.

So, during the week, I posted a lot of question on the forums (MR2OC.com and Toymods.net), and quiet a few suggestions have come up. One of them was to rig up an LED+Resister (1Kohm), which I did...

At work, they were getting rid of some of the Status Lights for the DELL servers, and these were pretty good, as they are uni-directional current LED... IE: If you have positive and negative mixed about, it will either indicate amber or blue... :), so that is what I used.

So... here is what we did...
1) We connected up the LED, and sure enough, the ECU was sending signal.... !!!!!! So it can't be ECU.

2) We connected the Fuel pump in the diag plug, and sure enough the fuel pump was going. We sqeezed the return line, and there was definitly pressure there. We sqeezed the line so that we could build pressure, and she still ain't starting.

3) OK... we connected the Diagnostics pins, and the ECU didn't give any error codes!!!!!!

...... Ok.... we know it's not the fuel pump, and we know it's not the ECU. We are getting pressure in the fuel line!!!!! It must be stuck injectors!!!!

So we consultant some of the guys on the forum, and we all concluded that it was stuck injectors.... one of the recommendation was to apply 24v to the injectors (Cycling) to un-stuck them... Hmmm... I wasn't too keen on this.... but...

4) we decided to pull the injectors from my 16v engine and plug it into the socket... sure enough it was clicking...

5) So we decided to perform the battery test on the 16v injector, and sure enough we heard it click... Now we knew exactly what we were looking for.... so....

6) We applied the same principal to the 20v Injectors... Hmmmm.... Bugger, no clicking.

7) but, in a little bit of frustration, I decided to tap the -ve terminal of the injector in a pulsation method, and sure enough after about 5-6 taps, the injector started clicking.... Hmmmm....

8) move to the next injector.... Tap, Tap, Tap, Tap, Click, Click, click.... Cool.... we did 2x injectors and tried starting her up... Yep... PuTT, PuTT, PuTT, she came to life, and only running on 2x injectors... Cooooooooooll! :D

9) move onto doing the other 2x injectors, and although #3 took a bit more persuation, she started clicking eventually...

10) She fired right up....... Whoooohoooo!!!!!

None-the-less.... By now, my back was really giving me stop-work sign, as it was agony just to stand up straight.... (I need to loose weight!!!!)

She idled nicely, and although I didn' t have the exhaust attached, she wasn't so noisy... Mind you, at 10:30pm, I didn't think the neighbours would appreciate it, so we only did a couple of starts, and left it at that. The induction sound of the 20v is way more than the exhaust sound, until you blimp the accelerator.

Anyway... Some members on the forums as well as some of my work collegues have requested a video for proof... so here it is... ;-P



(My appologies for the video being so dark... but it was late @ night, and when my wife heard her start up, she ran out with the Kodak camera... :D)

So... Next week, or possibly in the new year, it's off to the exhaust shop... bur first I need to cleanup the wiring mess... (IE: Attach the ignitor, put induction socks on, etc.)

PS: By the way... Thottle bodies on the 20v BT are actually 49mm in diameter... They do taper off into a 48mm as you move towards the Throttle plate (Personally measured with a set of Calipers). So if somebody tells you it is 45mm... be assured they don't know what they are talking about, and they are desktop engineers.

Stay tuned for further updates... :D

Sunday, December 7, 2008

Crank, Crank, Crank... Ohhhhh, Bugger!!!!!

Well... Yesterday and today, we focused on getting everything hooked up and connected, and filled up, etc.

Did somebody say somewhere that if you have the back end up, that you can only get less than 1.4Ltr of oil in the gearbox!!!!! Well... Yep... we only got about 1.4ltr in, and we assumed because the back end is on ramps. Need to investigate this later.

Anyway... Coolant filled up, only got about 10Ltr in there, and oil is filled up, checked all connectors and grounding... Yep....

Connected the battery, and she cranks alright... but she ain't firing up... Arrrgh! (Well, what was I expecting!!!!!)

We started fault finding various parts, and we discovered that the injectors aren't firing... there is fuel, there is spark, but injectors staying mute... :-/

Well... Injectors have 2x wiring coming to it... 1 going to constant 12v when IGN is on, and the other from the ECU to fire the injectors... well, the ECU wire is OK and has connectivity all the way from the ECU to the Injector, and there is a 12V when IGN is on!!!! Why are they Mute!!!! Don't they know who is boss!!!

I hate doing this to you... but stay tuned to find out more... :-D (No, I haven't figured it out yet)

Some pics of the wiring harness we were checking on...
This is the plug in the boot, when closed and each side when opened...
(So.... if you have an idea what the problem could be, please drop me an e-mail... )