MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Car: 91 Miater with 234k miles. Its red.

My friends have made fun of me for the past 4 years about collecting parts and not doing anything with them...so I just decided to turbo the damn thing and not care.

Bought car for 1000. It was nasty. Replaced nasty interior and other stuff. Did body work and paint.

Body shop Pics:

I replaced the doors (they looked like a fat girls rear end) and fenders...I think cause of rust.

Found most of the drivers side rear was bondo...that was fixed:


Then it looked like this:


Then this:



Then this:



Then it was all like this:


And then...we drove it.

Looks like this but more lower and with the club lobster must GV lip...thats not broken.




Needed garage so I built one:



Changed it to this:





Onto the Trubo build

Gages wired up. MSPNP Gen 1 bought it a while ago so don’t laugh. Drive the car NA and tune and learn MegaSquirt.

-MS upgraded to High Res 10x.
-Put in 305 Supra injectors, tune on them.
-Put in GM IAT sensor…tune.
-Put in Auto VTPS…tune
-Read every damn post on tunning on this site.
-Idle is good and logs look good on this motor, time to upgrade.


Bought:

-100k Mile 1.6 and trans
-Old FM manifold
-s13 sr20 t25
-New FM DP and Down elbow
-some cool intercooler APEXi or something.
-Custom intercooler piping with sweet TurboXS knockoff BOV
-460cc RX7 injectors
-gen 1 mspnp running high res
-AEM wideband
-Begi coolant reroute adapter with Kia Waterneck
-1.8 torsens
-1.8 FW and FM Stage 1 clutch
-Toyota COPS and built harness, bought COPS bracket from trackspeed because lazy.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

How did you fix the once-bondo'd quarter panel?

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Put cabinets in Garage:



Eat DimSum with AZN peoples:




Get rid of old race car:


Build new race car:





[/QUOTE]


Pull old motor from Miata, crusty little thing:





New motor. Gasket refresh plus all the goodies that I have collected over the years.







Not all the hoses you see here are installed the same way I changes some of the coolant lines and so on to make it…not leak or fit better.

Turbo brace…from an endlink I had laying around:



Wire up some COPS

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

It was massaged back out with now only a tiny thin skin coat of filler on it. Looks very good.

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Drive SLS….not a fan but it is fast.



Put S/C, Clutch and bunch of other stuff on friends Miata in his garage:



Down pipe brace. Some steel and a large exhaust clamp I had laying around…seems to work good. Time will tell:



Install Motor:





Do piping. And mount intercooler. Was going to get FM piping but I already had a ton of stuff to make my own sooo yeah:



Hot side:



Cold side






What the heck are they doing?

Leafy

iTrader: (1)

Is that a 1.6 water neck where the mixing manifold goes? I like it, and if so, did you figure out what pre-bent hose works? It seems like all your plumbing you've added is very clean and well thought out. I like.

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Winter drive this car...totaly ideal:



So dealt with some weird electrical issues that turned out be the 6 ground block, it is now grounded in two places.

Pass side headlight motors (I have two) are wonky so have another one on order.

Took the car out two nights ago after getting all the electrical stuff done, and it felt like hitting a wall round 3k. MS looked through some setting in MS....Overrun Settings - Coolant Temp was set to 160, I hover around 180 on a 60 deg day. Switched it to 200 deg and everything is good.

Put Willwood 11inchers in the front and Sport brakes on the rear:



Interior (boost guage is now an Autometer because ProSport is horrid)



Took Cat nap:

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Yes sir it's a 1.6 water neck.

I will take a new picture of what it looks like now for you. As far as the hoses there I used a piece that I cut off from the giant Cadillac coolant hose that I am using for the re-route connected to a coolant splice from Begi (which feeds one of the water lines to the turbo) and a stock miata hose I had also that has like a 120 deg bend it in. I will get a better pic today.

Thanks I guess the benefit of taking a very long time to do something is that you can think it through. I went through about 5 designs for that part alone.

18psi

iTrader: (76)

The end result looks great, good job man.

I wish I could do body/paint work

Midtenn

iTrader: (15)

I am about to start the learning process. I fear what I'm going to find under my paint when I start stripping because I know the car has been in a few fender benders.


Great work so far!

hornetball

iTrader: (4)

Nice garage!

You should post as you go. I would have suggested substituting pipe thread plugs for the "cursed water plug" and the similar rubber plug on the back of the intake manifold while you had the engine pulled. Stuff like that.

Looks good though.

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

A friend did it and I helped a bit. I HATE body work. I'll build motors all day but body work is like voodoo to me.

Got some pictures of the front of the coolant re-route


So I cut off the sharp end of the pre-bent pipe that goes to the heater but left the part where it has the bead all around (basicaly where the stock o ring goes) Used the same hose I used for the turbo drain...forgot size now 3/8's? Then tapped the 1.6 water neck with the same I guess 3/8's tap that I did the oil pan. Two fittings and point it towards the pipe and connect with hose.



This is the old hose that went from the bottom of rad to the hard pipe I think...its one of them at least.



Begi Coolant splice with a barb on it that feeds the turbo some coolant.



bad picture but you get the Idea:



The bottom hose is the front of the Cadillact hose for the re-route that you have to cut off to fit onto the radiator. It fit perfect and had a great angle.

Oh and I put in a gheto catch can. Home Depot water seperator with some fittings on it. It works on all my other cars...so why not here?



And here is what the car looks like today...dirty from sitting for a while.






Also, let me just say that without all the helpfull posts here and all the helpfull people that did most of what I did from scratch and documented it, I would have never done this. So thank you all.

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

You know...I thought about this, after I put the motor in I still need to get a new Radiator to replace the Auto stock one that I have. So maybe then I will do it.

I am horrible at documenting my processes. I am a Software/Puter engineer, I can do many things but when it comes to documenting it I fail.

Also forgot all the suspension stuff:

-FM ButterFly brace
-FM rear Brace
-IL motorsports strut brace...front.
-Polly bushings all around
-Polly diff bushings
-Koni Sports (funny they work awesome on my other cars) with (I forgot the rates now) It was 700 front and 450 rear but I lowered the fronts to 500 I think because of how horrid the ride was. Still not ideal.
-Racing beat front and rear sways
-949 front end links
-Racing beat front lower tie bar.
-94 R-package tie rods.
-HD double duce Roll bar with padding.

petrolmed

iTrader: (8)

I love to see the car get turned around and revitalized. Excellent job!

Pics of your diy actuator bracket and comments on its stability?

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Will get some. It's two Alum L brackets, one short one long. Long is attached to one of the turbo inlet bolts with a little bit of it shaved on the side to fit. Short is attached to the long one with rivets (I don't weld alum yet) kinda making a box with a missing side and the actuator sits on it.

It was something I did very quickly to solve the issues of placement of the actuator so its not the best but at 7psi I did not see any fluctuation and at 12 psi its stable as a rock so I am going to guess its stable enough?

hustler

iTrader: (6)

kitties!!!

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

Pictures of the bracket.

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

Awesome build brother. I can really tell you have been reading up, good job going COPS right away. Only thing I see is that you kept the 1.6, but if you are this invested in it there is no going back now. Enjoy it!

Any deals on the 1st gen MR2? The white one looks awesome! And the red sw2 looks cool as well, NA car? How do you like MR2's? What do you think of the MR2 vs the maita?

MicaCeli

iTrader: (1)

I know I kick myself for staying 1.6. It was supposed to be a quick cheap turbo build on the original 1.6. But as time went on and I collected more and more parts I didn't want to use this one and it was kinda too late. Oh well I might build a 1.8 at some point.

As you can tell I love MR2's. I got into Auto-X and doing some track days with my Celica GTS (my wife had one also and still need to sell them) I realised I hated FWD and wanted to learn how to drive better.

Celica's:




Got a deal on a MK1 MR2 (the black one in the pictures above that is getting towed away) and thought "Low Power, Mid engine, strut suspension. What better way to learn to drive?" And then it got out of control.

Black race car with another blue MR2 that I built for a friend.



S/C car that will be getting a 95 4agze motor from a Jap Trueno.


and the white race car (rare 88 hardtop, most were t-top or sunroof...helmet room was limited)


Honestly the miata is probably much more FUN to drive for me. I've autocrossed it and it felt like it was just way to easy to drive at the limit...this is not a bad thing. The MK1 MR2 feels like a little go cart but you HAVE TO know where the weight of the car is at all times, its a balancing act and getting and staying at 10/10ths is very tricky but when you get it right its very very rewarding. In a Miata if you loose the rear end its not that hard to get it back, doing the same in a MR2 'usualy' will result in you facing the other way.

BUT once you setup the car suspension wise in a very weird way, 700lb front 450lb rear springs with no sway bars, toe out in the rear and toe in in the front the car handles awesome but its still tricky to drive. I can hang the rear end out on that car now though all day.

The MK2 mr2 is faster even in NA form then the MK1 on the track AND is a better daily driver with lots of interior room and a 'GT' feel to it. I just don't find it as FUN or rewarding to drive as the MK1 or the Miata. T-TOPs are the biggest pain in the world also, between taking them off or putting them on and them leaking no matter what you do.

Go to MR2OC.ORG there are some nice MK1 and 2's on there. Look for rust as they are known for rear wheel arch rust. Everything else is easy and you can swap what ever the heck you want in those cars. 2grfe motors from 2007up Rav4's, camry V6 and Lexi put down between 280whp to 300whp in stock form and are easy to swap.

Fireindc

iTrader: (13)

Thanks for the details, I've always like mr2's. I even really like the MRS as well, neat little cars. They are really light, too iirc. 2nd gen mr2's are pigs (2700+ lbs?), but the first gens were closer to a miata weight.

I've only got time/$$$/space for 1 toy, and it's the miata. So i'm not getting one anytime soon. I've always loved them though.