1994 Toyota MR2 - heavily customised & engine swapped
Discussion
I have previously had a thread for this car, but a long time has passed and much has happened, so time for a reboot I think. This'll be a long one, settle down with a cuppa.
Here's the old thread for anybody interested in reading:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=991...
In summary:
MR2 with custom-fabricated buttresses (among other bits) to exaggerate the MR2's original styling traits, alter the profile and bring in some not unwelcome echoes of classic Italian sports car design.
Here's how we left her at the end of the last thread - August 2011:
I merrily drove the car for about a year, commuting every day to work (12 miles of deserted country B-roads, every single day...!), did some minor tweaks and maintenance here and there but mostly just drove. It didn't let me down and put up with a lot of abuse, including one incident with a badger's corpse (the downside of deserted B-roads! Car was lower than I thought).
Until one fateful day in about September 2012. The occasional overheat problem finally caught up with me, and rolling into work one day I noticed the temp gauge rocketing upward and steam come billowing out. I limped the car to Rogue Motorsport, an MR2 specialist not far away, who condemned the engine with massive head gasket failure and likely some form of internal damage besides. Not even worth taking it all apart and trying to repair, the problems could be so widespread. It was all over
I explored engine swap options with Matt at Rogue who walked me through what we could do. Swap in a new 3SGE, go for more power and swap in a 3SGTE (standard turbocharged MR2 engine) or go big and fit a V6, something I've wanted to do since I first heard about that swap several years ago. Unfortunately they were all way out of budget and I just couldn't do anything for the time being. The car came home and took up residence on the driveway - where until very recently my wife's dead MR2 had resided. Just traded one dead MR2 for another - oh dear...
I needed a runabout to get to work, so did a quick Autotrader search for sub-£500 cars within 20 miles. Ratty Clios, knackered rusty Peugeots, maybe a tired Honda or two, oh and what's this? A tatty MR2? Well, it would be rude not to! Even the worst MR2 would be better than a FWD hatchback. The deal was struck and my runabout while my MR2 was off the road was to be... another MR2. Glutton for punishment.
In the meantime I started doing every available hour of overtime at work to save up to get the red car fixed. 12 hour shift every day, for six months so far.
I had some discussions with the Mrs and outlined how dearly I wanted to get the MR2 back on the road, preferably with V6 power. The car needed a new engine either way, and it seemed to me absurd to spend a significant chunk of a V6 swap cost on swapping in just another standard engine.
Being the champion wife she is, she offered to part finance the V6 swap to the value of what a new standard engine would have cost me. I was to pay the difference between the two, on the caveat that I wait until our house purchase had completed. Deal!
Finally after years of dreaming, six cylinders were inbound to Mister Two...!
For those who don't know of the V6 swap, which is not uncommon in this day and age, the idea is to swap in a 3.0 V6 from a Toyota Camry - Toyota's equivalent of the Vectra, I suppose. In the standard car it's attached to an auto box and is dreary and uninspiring. Swapped into the back of a lightweight manual RWD sportscar, with a freer exhaust system, it comes into its own and provides paper performance in line with a standard MR2 Turbo, but with more torque lower down (100% of torque available at 2000rpm) and - most importantly - the most divine noise. Here's a sample - and my car will be having the same exhaust as in this clip, so should sound identical. This is what sold me on the whole conversion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_PkswoXMx0
Now the turbo conversion could offer the same, and wih tunability for future, but I love the unusual and more "exotic" nature of the V6, and you just can't compete with the noise. So now it was just a matter of time...
Onto bodywork. While waiting for the house transaction to go through, and saving up money for the V6, I wanted to send the car back to Xquisite (who originally built the custom elements of the bodywork) for a revision and a refresh. I loved the buttresses, but from some angles I wasn't quite happy with how it looked. Due to the geometry of the thing, it looked a little humped from a front 3/4 angle, and I really wanted to get rid of this look. Here's what I'm talking about:
This is one of my favourite pictures of the car, but I also dislike it because of that hump look. It was time for a change. I had some thoughts about really adventurous mods and custom work but ultimately decided I didn't want to meddle too much and didn't really have the coin for true madness at the bodyshop.
Off she goes:
In it rolled to Xquisite near Guildford in Jan 2013 with orders to revise the buttresses to remove the hump (without compromising the side profile), fit and paint a new rear bumper and repair the Badger Damage on the front splitter. I wanted to build something a bit sleekerand more exotic looking, less tuner-ish. Here's how they got on:
You can see what they did here. Sliced the top off to flatten it in the side profile, and moved the rearmost tip outboard, by only a few cm. A tiny change, but it made all the difference.
No more hump!
They did a really nice job on the finishing of it. The corner radii are really tight and the whole thing generally looks lovely.
Homeward bound.
While it was out there I started another tweak, some custom dial faces. I'd read a guide for MX5s and it didn't sound that hard as I am fairly handy with Photoshop. I wanted to make something that had a little bit of a retro sports vibe to it as that was the feel the whole car was taking on. Took a fair few nights but I got there:
The rest of the dials are along the same lines, I haven't taken a picture yet with the finished set installed.
The little icon at the bottom are a Pegasus symbol I designed (actually as a present for my mum
) that I've adopted as the kind of symbol of the car. I think a modified horse is a good analogy for a modified car!
I also had a hankering for some new wheels. Although I loved my OZs, I wanted something a bit more retro looking. I wanted wide, I wanted a shiny dish, and I wanted fitment closer to the arches. It was time to go 3-piece. I was originally hunting some Autostrada Modenas - a replica of F40 type wheels - but couldn't find any and instead settled for some Volk CV Pros in 9in and 10in widths. They were stupidly cheap and I had to go for it - now I love them and I'm glad I didn't go for the derivative Ferrari style wheels, I think would have looked a little try-hard.
Trial fit - phwoar:
Rested in front as soon as I had some tyres on them:
And then mounted on the car properly:
Soon, destiny was within my reach - the money was in place and the car booked in to meet its destiny at Rogue - a donor car was sourced and off we go on the trailer one last time:
Clearly in the right place (check the background):
Goodbye, knackered 3SGE, you did well:
The new mill awaiting rebuild:
One day, all of this will be yours:
The Rogue conversion package is great and includes basically a full strip and rebuild including replacing things like big end bearings. The engine is basically brand spanking new now.
And now comes my final customised contribution to the build. The standard V6 intake manifold is a bit pants looking, at best most people seem to sand them down and spray them a ghastly blue all over or something. I wanted, once again, to make something more special feeling.
How it would look in an MR2 completely standard:
I wanted to highlight those sexy looking interflowing pipes, and seperate them from the big canister bit which makes it look like one big solid lump.
I went at it with some sandpaper (and hours, and hours and hours of sanding) and the rest is history.
Some wrinkle black paint:
And then unmasked and with a spot of polish reveals the true loveliness of the finish that I presumably paid for by bringing forward the onset of arthritis:
Then the final update: as of last Friday the engine is hung in the bay waiting to be plumbed in.
What's that in there then?
Phwoooarrr.
And that's how we left it up to date, looking gorgeous under the strip lights... the car should be on the road by early week after next, and after that, as is tradition: break the new motor in with a weekend thrashing it around Wales
Here's the old thread for anybody interested in reading:
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=991...
In summary:
MR2 with custom-fabricated buttresses (among other bits) to exaggerate the MR2's original styling traits, alter the profile and bring in some not unwelcome echoes of classic Italian sports car design.
Here's how we left her at the end of the last thread - August 2011:
I merrily drove the car for about a year, commuting every day to work (12 miles of deserted country B-roads, every single day...!), did some minor tweaks and maintenance here and there but mostly just drove. It didn't let me down and put up with a lot of abuse, including one incident with a badger's corpse (the downside of deserted B-roads! Car was lower than I thought).
Until one fateful day in about September 2012. The occasional overheat problem finally caught up with me, and rolling into work one day I noticed the temp gauge rocketing upward and steam come billowing out. I limped the car to Rogue Motorsport, an MR2 specialist not far away, who condemned the engine with massive head gasket failure and likely some form of internal damage besides. Not even worth taking it all apart and trying to repair, the problems could be so widespread. It was all over
I explored engine swap options with Matt at Rogue who walked me through what we could do. Swap in a new 3SGE, go for more power and swap in a 3SGTE (standard turbocharged MR2 engine) or go big and fit a V6, something I've wanted to do since I first heard about that swap several years ago. Unfortunately they were all way out of budget and I just couldn't do anything for the time being. The car came home and took up residence on the driveway - where until very recently my wife's dead MR2 had resided. Just traded one dead MR2 for another - oh dear...
I needed a runabout to get to work, so did a quick Autotrader search for sub-£500 cars within 20 miles. Ratty Clios, knackered rusty Peugeots, maybe a tired Honda or two, oh and what's this? A tatty MR2? Well, it would be rude not to! Even the worst MR2 would be better than a FWD hatchback. The deal was struck and my runabout while my MR2 was off the road was to be... another MR2. Glutton for punishment.
In the meantime I started doing every available hour of overtime at work to save up to get the red car fixed. 12 hour shift every day, for six months so far.
I had some discussions with the Mrs and outlined how dearly I wanted to get the MR2 back on the road, preferably with V6 power. The car needed a new engine either way, and it seemed to me absurd to spend a significant chunk of a V6 swap cost on swapping in just another standard engine.
Being the champion wife she is, she offered to part finance the V6 swap to the value of what a new standard engine would have cost me. I was to pay the difference between the two, on the caveat that I wait until our house purchase had completed. Deal!
Finally after years of dreaming, six cylinders were inbound to Mister Two...!
For those who don't know of the V6 swap, which is not uncommon in this day and age, the idea is to swap in a 3.0 V6 from a Toyota Camry - Toyota's equivalent of the Vectra, I suppose. In the standard car it's attached to an auto box and is dreary and uninspiring. Swapped into the back of a lightweight manual RWD sportscar, with a freer exhaust system, it comes into its own and provides paper performance in line with a standard MR2 Turbo, but with more torque lower down (100% of torque available at 2000rpm) and - most importantly - the most divine noise. Here's a sample - and my car will be having the same exhaust as in this clip, so should sound identical. This is what sold me on the whole conversion. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_PkswoXMx0
Now the turbo conversion could offer the same, and wih tunability for future, but I love the unusual and more "exotic" nature of the V6, and you just can't compete with the noise. So now it was just a matter of time...
Onto bodywork. While waiting for the house transaction to go through, and saving up money for the V6, I wanted to send the car back to Xquisite (who originally built the custom elements of the bodywork) for a revision and a refresh. I loved the buttresses, but from some angles I wasn't quite happy with how it looked. Due to the geometry of the thing, it looked a little humped from a front 3/4 angle, and I really wanted to get rid of this look. Here's what I'm talking about:
This is one of my favourite pictures of the car, but I also dislike it because of that hump look. It was time for a change. I had some thoughts about really adventurous mods and custom work but ultimately decided I didn't want to meddle too much and didn't really have the coin for true madness at the bodyshop.
Off she goes:
In it rolled to Xquisite near Guildford in Jan 2013 with orders to revise the buttresses to remove the hump (without compromising the side profile), fit and paint a new rear bumper and repair the Badger Damage on the front splitter. I wanted to build something a bit sleekerand more exotic looking, less tuner-ish. Here's how they got on:
You can see what they did here. Sliced the top off to flatten it in the side profile, and moved the rearmost tip outboard, by only a few cm. A tiny change, but it made all the difference.
No more hump!
They did a really nice job on the finishing of it. The corner radii are really tight and the whole thing generally looks lovely.
Homeward bound.
While it was out there I started another tweak, some custom dial faces. I'd read a guide for MX5s and it didn't sound that hard as I am fairly handy with Photoshop. I wanted to make something that had a little bit of a retro sports vibe to it as that was the feel the whole car was taking on. Took a fair few nights but I got there:
The rest of the dials are along the same lines, I haven't taken a picture yet with the finished set installed.
The little icon at the bottom are a Pegasus symbol I designed (actually as a present for my mum
) that I've adopted as the kind of symbol of the car. I think a modified horse is a good analogy for a modified car!I also had a hankering for some new wheels. Although I loved my OZs, I wanted something a bit more retro looking. I wanted wide, I wanted a shiny dish, and I wanted fitment closer to the arches. It was time to go 3-piece. I was originally hunting some Autostrada Modenas - a replica of F40 type wheels - but couldn't find any and instead settled for some Volk CV Pros in 9in and 10in widths. They were stupidly cheap and I had to go for it - now I love them and I'm glad I didn't go for the derivative Ferrari style wheels, I think would have looked a little try-hard.
Trial fit - phwoar:
Rested in front as soon as I had some tyres on them:
And then mounted on the car properly:
Soon, destiny was within my reach - the money was in place and the car booked in to meet its destiny at Rogue - a donor car was sourced and off we go on the trailer one last time:
Clearly in the right place (check the background):
Goodbye, knackered 3SGE, you did well:
The new mill awaiting rebuild:
One day, all of this will be yours:
The Rogue conversion package is great and includes basically a full strip and rebuild including replacing things like big end bearings. The engine is basically brand spanking new now.
And now comes my final customised contribution to the build. The standard V6 intake manifold is a bit pants looking, at best most people seem to sand them down and spray them a ghastly blue all over or something. I wanted, once again, to make something more special feeling.
How it would look in an MR2 completely standard:
I wanted to highlight those sexy looking interflowing pipes, and seperate them from the big canister bit which makes it look like one big solid lump.
I went at it with some sandpaper (and hours, and hours and hours of sanding) and the rest is history.
Some wrinkle black paint:
And then unmasked and with a spot of polish reveals the true loveliness of the finish that I presumably paid for by bringing forward the onset of arthritis:
Then the final update: as of last Friday the engine is hung in the bay waiting to be plumbed in.
What's that in there then?
Phwoooarrr.
And that's how we left it up to date, looking gorgeous under the strip lights... the car should be on the road by early week after next, and after that, as is tradition: break the new motor in with a weekend thrashing it around Wales
Edited by OwenK on Sunday 17th March 13:10
Edited by OwenK on Sunday 17th March 13:14
Thanks for the kind words everybody, great for the ego!
The V6 as standard puts out around 200hp, just 25hp more than my old engine. It also gets 70Nm more torque, 1000rpm lower down. Not earth shattering, but the key is the low down torque availability - you've got 100hp and 95% of peak torque at just 2000rpm, and your full torque at 2500, which should make it hilarious fun pulling out of a corner! As I said its about a match for a standard MR2 turbo on paper or at the drag strip but figures and time slips aren't the goal, driveability and FUN is! It's also why I'm having a lightweight flywheel fitted at the same time, give it a chance to rev.
The red zone and scale matches the standard MR2 dials with regards to how far past the limiter the scale runs etc. I wanted to make it OEM like in that regard.
The exhaust is to be a Magnex, nothing to write home about on the standard car but works some kind of magic with the six-pot and sounds phenomenal, the best you'll get from an MR2 this side of ITBs. I wanted one ever since hearing that video and waited months for one to appear on eBay - the seller received EIGHT requests to end early in the first hour of his seven day listing!
To another poster whose name I can't recall (sorry!) the V6 is heavier yes but only about 30kg more than before, not much more than an MR2 Turbo, not so bad at all.
The aim of the swap is more FUN and to make it feel even more special to drive. I don't care about outright figures, the car spends its life being whipped up and down Northamptonshire's country lanes before the birds stir, figures mean nothing there
The V6 as standard puts out around 200hp, just 25hp more than my old engine. It also gets 70Nm more torque, 1000rpm lower down. Not earth shattering, but the key is the low down torque availability - you've got 100hp and 95% of peak torque at just 2000rpm, and your full torque at 2500, which should make it hilarious fun pulling out of a corner! As I said its about a match for a standard MR2 turbo on paper or at the drag strip but figures and time slips aren't the goal, driveability and FUN is! It's also why I'm having a lightweight flywheel fitted at the same time, give it a chance to rev.
Mastodon2 said:
Does the Camry engine only rev to 5500rpm before hitting the redline or did I look at that picture wrong?
Nice car though. What exhaust are you getting?
The V6 redline is 5500 yes but the limiter is 7000 or 7500 I think and will happily pull till then. I may be slightly wrong, its been a while since I did the research to make them accurate. There are others on this forum who know the 3VZFE inside out that can tell you for certain.Nice car though. What exhaust are you getting?
The red zone and scale matches the standard MR2 dials with regards to how far past the limiter the scale runs etc. I wanted to make it OEM like in that regard.
The exhaust is to be a Magnex, nothing to write home about on the standard car but works some kind of magic with the six-pot and sounds phenomenal, the best you'll get from an MR2 this side of ITBs. I wanted one ever since hearing that video and waited months for one to appear on eBay - the seller received EIGHT requests to end early in the first hour of his seven day listing!
To another poster whose name I can't recall (sorry!) the V6 is heavier yes but only about 30kg more than before, not much more than an MR2 Turbo, not so bad at all.
The aim of the swap is more FUN and to make it feel even more special to drive. I don't care about outright figures, the car spends its life being whipped up and down Northamptonshire's country lanes before the birds stir, figures mean nothing there
lexusboy said:
To me that needs a rear spoiler but each to their own
No chance, spoilerless for me through and through!The only thought I'd entertained along those lines is a big gay wing mounted on a spare bootlid if I ever got serious about track days, but for the road, sleek and sexy is best
Thanks for the positive comments. Once the car is on the road I'm going to take it out with a friend who's handy with a camera to take some beauty snaps and record some video with decent sound equipment - nobody ever seems to record exhaust noise samples with anything other than phone cameras!
Hi Owen
That looks much much better now they have revised the rear buttresses. It must have been a hard task especially for them to make it removable. Do you think the pursuit of making it removable has meant that you'll never 'quite' get matching profiles due to the rear piece needing to be effectively feather edged down the length of the butress? Something almost impossible to create I imagine as it would be so weak and susceptible to damage.
I think it looks great considering the constraints the bodyshop had to work within, however if I was to do it I'd probably get it all blended, it might not be removable but you could mactch the buttress profiles 100%. But again it's a personal thing.
Glad you're going down the V6 route, was an MZ ever a consideration? They aren't usually too much more, slightly more powerful and a good saving on weight. Regardless it will make your old 3S-GE feel rather lethargic.
I loved my VZ for the way it drove, however the lure of way more than turbo power coupled with n/a driveability sealed the deal for the 2GR which has sadly left my ownership now
Look forward to seeing what you think of the big 6
That looks much much better now they have revised the rear buttresses. It must have been a hard task especially for them to make it removable. Do you think the pursuit of making it removable has meant that you'll never 'quite' get matching profiles due to the rear piece needing to be effectively feather edged down the length of the butress? Something almost impossible to create I imagine as it would be so weak and susceptible to damage.
I think it looks great considering the constraints the bodyshop had to work within, however if I was to do it I'd probably get it all blended, it might not be removable but you could mactch the buttress profiles 100%. But again it's a personal thing.
Glad you're going down the V6 route, was an MZ ever a consideration? They aren't usually too much more, slightly more powerful and a good saving on weight. Regardless it will make your old 3S-GE feel rather lethargic.
I loved my VZ for the way it drove, however the lure of way more than turbo power coupled with n/a driveability sealed the deal for the 2GR which has sadly left my ownership now
Look forward to seeing what you think of the big 6
MiniMan64 said:
MR2's usually look like some sort of Ferrari copy or clone. Yours just looks like its been inspired by Ferrari design and all the better for it!
Genuinely, thank you very much. I was quite hesitant posting this that I would get shot down in flames as making a Ferrari lookalike. The truth being that I love elements of, yes, Ferrari design but also many other things from Italian styling houses in the 70s/80s/90s period. I wanted to make an "MR2 turned up to 11", pointing it in the direction of making it more exotic feeling. In fact one thought that I had for the car was aiming to build a "what if" car: when the MR2 was available new, Toyota sold MR2s in G-Limited trim (naturally aspirated four-pot) or GT-S (turbocharged with leather and folding mirrors etc). You could spend bigger and have either of those with a TRD 2000GT widebody conversion intended to emulate the JGTC race car. What if they built a special edition car intended to push the MR2 a bit more upmarket and really make the most of its "poor man's Ferrari" image? For me that means a more supercar-like silhouette, some thoughtful bodywork addenda, a more exotic feeling engine and exhaust note, some shiny dished wheels and some interior tweaks. That's the direction I've tried to head in and I think it's going OK!
Ug_lee: I've admired your car a long time, I hope she brings the new owner great joy. I particularly loved your alcantara-covered dashboard: that's something brewing on the horizon for my car (after the coilovers, and the seat re-cover, and the Nardi steering wheel, and the...)
To answer your questions about the buttresses, yes making them "removable" has compromised it slightly, however I think the compromise is not so bad and has actually taken the look in a great unexpected direction in areas (like the way they taper slightly downwards at the rearmost tips). I say "removable" because they're very firmly on there, you wouldn't want to try to remove it with a spanner set; BUT it shouldn't require anything to be broken or cut to get them off.
I did this mainly because if the rear window ever gets smashed, they'll have to come off to change it - all the mounting hardware is hidden behind them. If they were blended in this would require cutting a large chunk out and then trying to fix and smooth it back in again afterward - I just didn't want to take the risk of more financial pain.
1MZ was a consideration (For the uneducated, this is the 1MZ-FE, an alternative Toyota V6 often used in MR2 conversions; as Ug_lee said it's slightly more powerful and lighter). Ultimately it came down to budget; I didn't have the extra dough available for the additional engine cost let alone the extra labour it took. Matt gave me some figures and for me it just didn't offer enough of an advantage for the extra spend. I also like the alleged robustness of the 3VZ-FE. I'm having multi-layer steel head gaskets and ARP head bolts fitted to take that even further.
A 2GR would be nice, but realistically going to be a lottery win job (and if I did have a lottery win, then it would more likely be going toward a longitudinal mounted twin-turbo Lexus V8 for a kind of pseudo-F40 setup!).
Looking forward to driving the flipping thing now, it's been off the road far longer than I hoped.
I love your philosophy towards the project, and just reading your words makes it clear the passion you have for your '2. Well done, truly. It's stunning. Keep it up, and really looking forward to the final product and the videos 
(p.s. you don't have a spare drivers side front rub strip hanging about do you?)
(p.s. you don't have a spare drivers side front rub strip hanging about do you?)
Edited by danjama on Monday 18th March 22:16
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