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

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 * * * *

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....

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

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... )

A little bit more....

Ok... Well... for the last few week-ends, I didn't get the chance to do any work on the MR2... For the couple of week-ends after the engine install, I was extremely busy, and hence didn't get a chance to work on the MR2.

We did, however, manage to squeeze in some Hrs on Saturday, although Sean and myself were busy. We got some minimal work done, outlined below...

Installed the coolant lines and looks OK... not the best, but will do the job for now.


It took us a while, and it'll take us a while to fill her up... because there isn't much room between the body and the filler cap. But none-the-less.... how often will we be touching the coolant lines?

We also re-attached the Clutch slave cylinder, the gear selector cables, Electrical cables, etc...
Below is a picture of the MAP sensor, which I conveniently had a right angle mounting bracket and mounted in place as shown below...


We also ended up connecting the fuel lines...


We also attempted the installation of the airbox. The airbox comes in several parts, namely the base plate, the Velocity stacks (Rubber ones) and then the cover. The picture below show the installation of the base place and 3x (out of the 4x) velocity stacks....


This is where 1 of the problems became very apparent...
UNDOCUMENT PROBLEM: You can not use the 16v Altnerator if you want to use the Blacktop Air box. The 16 Alternator has one of it connectors (The main 12v connector) pointing straight up, which will allow you to still install the airbox, but the terminal will touch the the airbox. Please note the airbox is made out of metal and will short the system over time.... not recommended.

The 20v Alternator has this same connector pointing perpendicular to the box, and hence, why you should use the 20v alternator. Alternatively, you could use after market velocity stacks (AKA Ramtubes or flutes) ... I'm looking into what options I have.

The next problem we faced was the airbox and the AW11 latch position. I've already know this one, as some have indicated this to be a problem.... nothing that Murphy couldn't fix with a bit of a hammer action... but again, I'm still looking into what my options are...


So... this was pretty much what we had time for, as my flue didn't allow me to go any further... :-( Yes, the last week-end I was actually crook in bed for the week-end... I couldn't believe it!!!!! And I was still suffering a bit of this week-end... But it's getting better.

Anyway... Hopefully next week-end we'll be able to start her up... So stay tuned... :-)

New Engine is FINALLY in the MR2....

This week-end, we finally got the new engine installed. But prior to this we needed to do a few smallish things...

I had to go past Toyota to get a new Drive shaft seal, because, last week-end, when I pulled the drive shafts out from a test fit, I accidentially pulled the small spring that is insite the drive shaft seal... so when inserting and pullng drive shafts, be carefull, as they are spring loaded, and once it's out, you have to replace the whole seal... So anyway... the part number is there, and it's the same seal as the 1998 Toyota Corolla AE98


The next task that was required, was to drain the oil and replace the Oil Pressure sensor on the engine block and the Oil filter... I purchased a new oil pressure sensor from toyota, and got a K&N Oil filter... they come highly recommended...


Please NOTE: To install the oil pressure sensor, you need to purchase a special tool from toyota that has an open-ended hex on an angle to tighten the unit... don't tighten the unit by twisting the top... you won't be able to tighten it enough to create a seal... This tool cost about AUS$200+ from toyota... I decided to make my own from an old bicycle spanner...


OK... Now the engine was ready to be installed into the MR2... Shifted the engine + Gearbox onto a cardboard box sheet, so that when could slide under the MR2 once it's up in the air, without scratching the oil sump... The strap is so that one can pull from one side, while the other person pushes... it worked well.


I'll spare the details of the installation, as it's pretty much the reverse of the engine removal. Once the engine was in the car, and we attempted to install the drive shafts, we very fast realized that it won't fit... We just about tried everything, without success. Hence, we needed to remove the engine brace that sits undernieth the engine and attaches to the gearbox.

Sean actually pointed out a valid point... the 20v engine is in front wheel setup, and hence, a lot more dynamics going on in the front of a corolla, and hence, the requirement... but with the MR2, this might not be required. So anyway... it's common practice to remove it, so that we could use the AW11 Drive shafts. Also, when this piece was removed, the "4AFE" (Not 4AGE, or 7AFE) letter were printed on the inside... that is from a different variant of a corolla!!!!!

With a lot of jigging about, we finally gotten the engine in there... And it sure looks nice in the MR2... :-P


... Drive shafts are in, and front and back engine mounts have been fitted... They look nice... :-)


And, of course, Sean happy with the engine in... We both sure a looking forward to starting the engine... :D

Next week, I'll be going to Sydney, so most probably won't be working on the MR2 when I get back... But the following week-end, we will need to attach coolant lines and fill coolant, fill up oils, attach wiring harness, connect up fuel line, etc... Hopefully, we'll be able to get it started... ;-P