Shopping, Part 1

Ok, so i have a bit of a shopping list. I have been reading MR2 Only magazine and getting tips from the Tune 2 articles... so far so good, i bought a Manual Boost Controller (not yet fitted), but my friends are all buying nice new powerful cars so i have decided that i want this car to be MENTAL so today i ordered a HKS EVC VI Electronic Boost Controller from ebay... it seems a bit cheap, but it says that its official... worth a punt at almost half the RRP.

Next on the list is:

• Berk Intercooler
• full body kit
• De-cat down pipe (if i dont already have one)
• Braided brake hoses
• hydraulic engine strut

Once i have done those things, i will be running pretty close to the limits of the stock ECU, so i will need to get a new one or a piggyback... i think i might go down the route of a HKS F-Con... lets see.

One thing i also need to do is fix my exhaust, it has a hole in it and also has no sound deadening, so i need to get some more insulation and get a friend of mine to weld it all back up. That reminds me, i need to go to Demon Tweeks now.

Smelly Aircon

After a weekend of driving my car, i started getting the sniffles and running eyes, i tried eliminating various things, such as the new Poppy Coral air freshener (i have had them before), hay fever? no, its almost winter.... Anyway i put it down the the air con (my other car didnt have it), after a bit of searching on the Internet, i found that this is quite common, and it needs to be cleaned. Well MR T wants £75 to service my air con, but for about £10 off ebay i found an aerosol that will clean the bacteria from the unit... leave the air con on recirc and full blast for 10 minutes and jobs a goodun. My car now smells great and the decongestants in the spray make me breathe better :)

WYNNS AIRCONDITIONING CLEANER

Foggy?

Japanese cars do not seem to come with a rear fog light, and mine didnt even have working front fog lights, so i needed to fix this. When the car was imported someone replaced one of the reversing lights with a red bulb and wired it to a switch.. this is really crappy.

I stole the UK switch from my UK car and put it in the dash, i then wired the switch into the after burner set up that i have. This means that when there is no fog, all 4 lights act as lights and brake lights, but if the fog light is pressed, the middle two act as fog lights and the outside two are the lights / brake lights. This is a really good set up. and i found out how to do it using diodes from a post on the MR2 Owners Club forum.

I now had to investigate the front fogs. I manged to find a switch hidden behind the dash, no iea what it did until i traced the wires from the fog lights back to it. (It was an aftermarket PIAA fog light set up) i plugged it back in, but it didnt work. I found out that the fuse had gone, so i replaced teh fuse and found that it was because a bulb had gone. replaced the bulb and it was all good.

Being the perfectionist i am, i also wired this into the existing fog light switch.. all that remains is for me to illuminated it by getting the feed from the light circuit. Easy job for a boring day.

From the old to the new

Ok, well they guy i bought the car from said that he would take my old one off me for £600, and seeing that i bought it over a year ago for only £1200 its not that bad, especially as it has the clutch / gearbox problem, a contsantly flatting battery and a fuel usage problem.

But i will be damned if im going to let all the mods go to waste.

• Clear front indicators swapped


• Rear afterburner set up swapped


• Red Clifford LED swapped


• Grooved discs and EBC / Mintex pads removed


• Wheels swapped (i refurbed the originals and put them on)


• Dash board LEDS swapped


• Radio Swapped

Unfortunately i could not remove the exhaust because it was an NA only, left in the custom induction kit, the wireing harness for the original rear lights was broken so i had to leave the REV3 lights, and i have no idea how to remove a clifford alarm.

So overall i will loose some money on it, but it was my fault for breaking it at the World Record Attempt... damn tunnel was too tempting.

Refurbish Air Filter

My new air filter arrived for my HKS Super Suction Power Flow Other Cool Words Air Induction FIlter. They had ran out of red ones at Envy Performance so i got a standard green one, meh... at least it looks right.

I took the mushroom off the pipe and found that it was completly corroded, and the existing filter foam was falling to pieces.

So i sanded it down

Primed it

then sprayed it

and also used back to black on the rest of the unit to make it look nice and shiny.

Then i put it back in the car, sweet

Giving it a good service :)

Ok, so first thing to do with a new car is to service it... im not going to let some garage monkey touch it, so i ordered all the parts and got stuck in.

• Change oil, i chose 15w50 motorsport oil just for a change, and replaced the filter with a high flowing TRD jobber from fensport. with a sump washer from MR T.


• New Spark plugs NGK BKR7E cold grade (to help stop detonation)


• Newish spark leads, Magnecore 5mm


• Newish dizzy cap and rotor arm


• Nice lemon fresh washer fluid :)


• engine coolant


• ordered a replacement HKS filter


• New battery


• Fuel Filter - yet to fit

im sure i did some other stuff, but i cleaned it too :)

Starting to Sort it out

Part of the insurance also required the installation of a Category 1 thatcham approved alarm. Salah Improts said they would fit a Toad Alarm, but as i had a Clifford Intellistart sitting around for my old car, i figured i would splash out and get a Clifford Concept 650, £400 was not bad either. i got special discount because i had bought from them before.






I also decided that it would be a good idea to change the Turbo hoses as they were looking a bit tired. So a quick trip to Fensport to get some new Samco jobbers :)



MMMMMmm. Weirdly the throttle pipe did not fit on my throttle, i was given a 65mm pipe but it looked like it needed a 70mm one. So i poped back to fensport and chatted to Adrian Smith, and he agreed that my specific car looked different, but still stock, so he cut me some pipe, and i was on my way.. what a nice chap.

I also got a delimiter for my car, this converts the speedo from Kmph to Mph. It does it by changing the signal from the engine (or wheels) so that 1 km = 1 mile. It means i can keep the same dials and potentially go to 180mph, lol