front brakes now actually work -

indeed pressing the middle pedal seems to make the car slow down, a lot easier and quicker than before. I still really need to clean up the discs as they are not fully polished like they should be. A wee back road trash should sort that out nicely. Need to give the car a good run to clear both it's and my cobwebs out.

Must also fix the banging exhaust! It's hitting the subframe, bloody thing

front brakes looked at -

inside passenger pad and outside drivers side pad jammed solid in carrier. So with a file I removed some metal from the pad edges and now they move freely inside the carriers. Once the retaining springs are in place they are snug, but still movable. Nothing left over after putting it all back together again, I'll test the brakes tomorrow - was too hungry to do it straight away.

Looks like the S02 plan all round for replacement tyres is no go on the fronts, they just won't fit. The rears still should but what the heck do I put up front?

horn works -

and it's a bit loud. Far better than before. Going to have to look at the front brakes, something not right there :(

115k completed -

er that's it lol. Lots of miles on the car but it still scrubs up nicely.

Been looking into tyre choices as I'm not really happy with the F1's. Goodyear just aren't making them like they used to and I'm not the only one to feel this. The new Asymmetric or however you spell are not lighting many fires either and the old GD3's just well aren't cutting it. So the current thinking leads me to Uniroyal Rainsports 2 which have an excellent set of reviews for dry and especially wet road holding / Hankook RS2's a track based tyre but is pretty good in the dry or the daddy of road tyres Bridgestones very own S02. With a little massaging of sizes I could get these puppies on the car again and motoring heaven should be returned.

When I talk about S02's I mean these beauties, the Porsche OEM N3 KZ

I had a set of these on the mr2 when I bought it, previous owner fitted them and dear god did they grip. Wore down pretty quick too and even today they are not the cheapest of tyres but they grip like sh1t in the dry and aren't shabby in the wet either. But they stopped making them for the std 15inch wheel size so I eventually went to Goodyear F1's. See 1st paragraph for circular discussion lol.

It's not an issue at the mo because the current fronts are really not looking used (clearly I'm a straight line junkie with no corner speed ) but the rears, well they could be finished by end of summer. Straight line boosting does wear them down lol. So who knows, might even buy new wheels for them heha

not much news -

er weather's been pish, roads are slimy and the brakes are squealing now. Might actually need new pads! Decided on a 2nd gear pull to see what boost it was after turning down the Gain on the EBC - got a bit squirrely but bugger me it was feeling quick . Nothing like modern cars though, old and clunky

fun fun fun -

so I had a new passenger sill fitted and painted to replace the bubbling old one. Turned out the underseal on the car had trapped some water against the sill and we all know what happens given enough time after that. Pah

Also had a wee play with the boost controller as it didn't seem to be spooling as quickly as I'd like it.

Pre change:
Gain : 18
Ratio : 35 => ish 13psi
Ratio : 58 => ish 17psi

The above settings held a steady boost and all was good but watching the boost gauge you could read the boost as it came in like 10, 12, 14, 17 psi. Which is fine but loses out that instant hit not to mention midrange acceleration. After some playing I now have

Post change:
Gain : 40
Ratio : 35 => ish unknown - never tested it
Ratio : 58 => ish 18psi certainly hold high 17's

I think I may have to turn the Ratio down but bugger me does it hit that boost level real quick. 10, 17, 18 lol I think 16 or 17 should be enough for a 115k mile motor. Besides, now it's snowing lol. First week of spring too

had a wee run oop north -

sun was shining, it was still 0DegC but boy was it nice. Clutch held, mate's PVR not a success. Happy days, :)

boooooooooosssssssssstttttttttttttttt -

wow, today I managed to hit a whole 17psi. It felt good, real good. Been over 6 weeks since I tried that. Sadly with the weather being what it is I didn't hold it for very long. However a few points were clear

* the clutch held at moderate revs - still need to test 4krpm +
* the BOV pipe held and isn't too loud on lift off, which is nice
* the intake kit is more vocal than std - expected and it's fine
* the er farting habit of the std BOV is louder - tubby owners know of this habit lol

Got a quote to repair the bubbling passenger sill so I'll have that sorted in March. Even saw some nice wheels the other day.................

BOV pipe fitted - just

not due to diameter issues. That was perfect. I just cut it a bit er neat. Darn near had to cut another length but it's fine. Unless I blow the fecker off of course lol

proper sized BOV pipe has arrived -

but weather is crap so it's not getting fitted today :( I can't even cut the pipework until I measure it. Pah pah

pipe arrived -

and it's the wrong size :( Turns out the pipe I used as a guide wasn't a pipe at all. It was a coupler meaning it's bigger than the big that bears the mark. Ho hum. Builders merchant at weekend.

I did hit boost even with the crapo VTA setup, felt good. Very good.

BOV recirc pipe on order -

was hoping it would be here for this weekend but alas not. Pity as the weather today was cold but very dry. Ah well, always next weekend I suppose.

Have driven car once since clutch change, yep it worked fine. Going to add some boost soon....................

Clutch - Day 2 - finished

OK, I've updated Day 1 with pics and some video, Day 2 as below.

Now I have to confess, I was veggin in front of the tv all morning while Calum and Larry were working on the car. I got picked up around 130pm as there was nothing I could do before then. My spannering skills are well known, ie I hold the spanners cause when I use them I break stuff. Anyhow on with the story.

Day 2

All torque mounts nicely tightened up so that part is ok.

Induction kit nicely fitted but er at the mo it's Vent to Air as the existing Recirc pipework is too short. One wee trip to B&Q coming up in near future.







Oil Pan No 2 changed and new non rusting unit in place. New oil filter in place too. A point of note here, even after draining the oil there was still about 0.5Litres of oil sitting in the sump. Turns out to remove it all you'd have to jack the front of the car and just the right rear corner up to clear out the oil pan. Of course, no one ever does.

Gearbox very nearly had to come off again as there was an issue with a plate that sits between the box and engine block. Fortunately this was dealt with by just slackening some bolts and then the problem bolts went in ok.

Once front bumper was removed I then set about removing the old chargecooler pre rad. Broke the horns as well so another job in the near future. All chargecooler pipes removed, pain in the butt that was. Will re visit the chargecooler theme in the future but not this year.

Sheared bolts from the old front fog lights removed from the bumper bar. Sadly I don't have video of Larry getting all personal with the angle grinder. Sparky 2....

Clutch slave cylinder refitted and removed then refitted. There was a bolt that was missed on the gearbox so er remove and try again.

Starter motor refitted - question is would the blighter work!

There were some issues with the gear linkage bushes, basically one was gubbed the other had a fair old slack in it. One was awkward to fit one was okish. Something for future replacement but ok and connected at the mo.

Drive shafts refitted after some cleaning of the suspension struts.

Both rear brake pads and carriers cleaned up, sliders copper greased as they were both er solid. That explains why the handbrake was so crap.

All under trays fitted after the removal of the chargecooler pipes. Yup that took ages as more bolts had seized and snapped. Ho hum.

This was quite late on in the afternoon so it was time to start refilling the coolant system and the gearbox and the oil. Much gnashing of teeth and bruised knuckles it's all ready to fire up.

First start, check for leaks, gearbox, engine and coolant. Once we were happy nothing was leaking we then topped up what we could and Calum went out with the car to ensure everything worked as expected. Of course, we left the exhaust off as it would get removed should any problems have been found. Must admit, it didn't sound bad at all. Oh, the starter worked as well :-))




No leaks were found so exhaust refitted. Should point out here much cleaning was done of the mating surfaces and yeah I ain't looking forward to that being removed in the future.

The coolant system was then properly bled and that took forever, as it always does. That and a huge 13Litres of coolant to fill the blighter.

Exhaust ready for intermediate pipe



Larry checking nothing is amiss. Can't fault his attention to detail



The clutch is quite low to the floor and the aforementioned shifter bushes have made the gearchange a bit notchy. However, Kenny had dropped by and suggested a slight adjustment on the clutch pedal as it had some slack. Hey presto clutch has slightly more travel and no slack thus gearchanges are really smooth now. The clutch feel itself is very light so no doubt I'll stall it a few times til I'm used to it again.

All in all I'm very happy with the job and I can't thank Calum and Larry for the time and effort they put into it. Cheers guys, I'll get a round in this year at some wee drive ;)

Clutch in and working -

car re-assembled but I'm too tired to type it all up tonight. Calum and Larry are stars however, fantastic amount of work done to get this all finished. Mention also to Kenny who provided a tip on clutch pedal height, now much better thanks!

Will hopefully the complete Sunday write up done tomorrow and post some pics

Change of clutch -

progress update.

Day 1 in the workshop:
Taking the exhaust system off proved unexpectedly complex and tiresome. The intermediary pipe decided it wasn't going to come off.


Nicey nicey



1hr lost persuading it to split resulted in much swearing and WD40 brute force and some praying. After that Calum got really hacked off and got out the angle grinder. The pipe was mere moments from hitting the ground, or so we thought...

Prepare to be ground!


Calum getting his favourite garage toy out, the angle grinder. The exhaust bolts did not fair well out of this at all.



The exhaust however still held on with only paste. Good stuff that.

Eventually we got the darned thing off but it held on well which didn't bod well for the rest of the day.

Airbox and gubbins removed in prep for access to gearbox bolts



Look at the space in there! An MR2 engine bay with space? Some mistake officer?



Larry had joined us at this point which meant Calum had some real help with the heavy stuff about to start. Good timing sir!

The driveshafts, they came out ok, some issues with suspension bolts but nothing major. Suspension struts were changed just over 4.5years ago so it was expected they would come off easy enough. Mind you, the exhaust has been on less than 2......

Starter motor would not budge for love nor money nor the hammer nor even the pry bars. This resulted in having to remove a water pipe from the main coolant system to free up the gearbox. So now a coolant change is being carried out too. Eventually the gearbox came out. This is now 6 hrs after work started. Ho hum

Clutch removed from flywheel. Some meat left on the friction plate but also some heat marks on the flywheel indicating possible pressure plate failure as opposed to the clutch failing. Either way, new clutch required. Hopefully the new clutch will bed in nicely, flywheel face smooth, no roughness nor visible scoring. Just the heat marks.

Old clutch, not bad for 114k miles on a turbo'd motor. I clearly drive slower than Miss Daisy :(





Pressure plate, mm some heat markings on there


The flywheel showing heat scoring. It will be fine..............







Starter motor removed from gearbox. Mating face given a good talking too and sanded for good measure. Next time the blighter will fall out when the bolts are removed.

Gearbox input shaft and general area tidied up, however will give a nice light clutch and fit all back together again.

New Exedy std clutch as below complete with release bearing and clutch cover plate. Nice and meaty but not too heavy on the leg


New clutch fitted, gearbox bolted up and mount attached. Clutch cylinder installed and gearbox linkages attached.

End of Day 1.

Still to do.

Torque mounts still to be attached and er torqued..........
Gearbox oil to be refilled <- note: this is not optional on an empty gearbox.
Reverse switch and speedo drive to be re-attached.
Re-attach all boost piping removed to facilitate gearbox removal.
Remove leaking flexing Oil Pan No2 and replace with no leaking / flexing unit.
Change Oil Filter and then refill sump with oil.
Install induction kit in place of standard airbox and resonator chamber.
Re-fill engine coolant <- note: this is not optional on an empty cooling system
Try clutch and gear selection, not sure of placement in order of this.
Remove front bumper and then remove chargecooler pre rad.
Fix horns while there - meep meep just doesn't cut it. Never has, never will.
Possibly re-attach front foglights.
Start car and go through nightmare bleeding of coolant process. This is dependant on the starter motor not in a huff after the pounding it got being removed
Re-attach exhaust and do road test.

Will update after tomorrow's work. This being dependant on success and pub visit.

why I don't program -

cause I'm really really bad at it! Spent some time messing around with a web page I have that gives you tyre sizes / profiles and what size rim it will fit. Usual stuff found on many pages except I wrote mine so it returns all valves between whatever limits you set. Saves a lot of typing, select max width and wheel diameter you want, fill in your std wheel data and then hit the button and hey presto, results including speedo error are returned.

So I thought I'd modify this so you can get both axles done at the same time. Except I wanted it to use the same function to do both results. Well that requires a wee bit of savvy and I'm found lacking again. Ho ho, though I think I've solved it now it's not as neat as I'd prefer. Pah, not like anybody reads the sh1t anyway!

happy new year -

I hope your hangover is no worse than mine! Was a great night so I have no complaints. Not gonna be driving for a while either lol.

There's been some loud talk about the drivibility of V6 mr2's v turbo units so when my new clutch is fitted I decided to give it some testing. Usual in gear increments and might even do some through the gear punches.

Right now, got some dave pearce on and chillin - if that makes sense lol

new clutch has arrived -

fitting in early January. I ended up buying a stock replacement item from Exedy as I'm unlikely to be exceeding the torque limits of the std style unit.

Still to fit induction kit, replacement oil pan, fix the bumper strips maybe even do the undertrays. Who knows lol

clutch gone :( -

now to pick a replacement. Ho hum

funny old world -

so two films I wanted to see this week that were listed in the TV guide turned out not to be on. Was something else. I was a bit hacked off and shouted at the crappy tv guide. Then I read the date - 12th December. Turns out last Saturday I bought next weeks TV guide. What a dumbass