Sebs K20 MR2

[Gwizzy_poos]

Kind of a long story for no real reason but sometimes I enjoy waffling.

Unfortunately you've clicked on a thread that probably makes no sense! however fortunately for you, photobucket has bummed me over and I cant be fussed trying to fix the situation.

Because of the above I wont go through everything I've owned and how I ended up here. I will however just spam a few pictures in no real order below   s:D s:D  

20171117_210333 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20171117_210400 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20171117_210311 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20171117_210246 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20171117_210534 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20171117_210517 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

Right bar my first two cars thats pretty much me summed up so far.

A few changes in jobs over the years and I end up in car sales. Goodbye life!!

Anyway, I actually end up working for Toyota, which.. sorry but is not exciting, as a petrol head I found it near on impossible to get enthusiastic while me and Doris argue over £3 per month on an Aygo that she's buying through necessity. However as a demo I was smoking around in a diesel Rav 4 which was again massively dull. I actually bought an ND mx5 at this stage which was promptly lowered on coilovers with work wheels, Sadly I didn't disagree with that car and 12 months later I bought an M140i.

IMG-20170728-WA0013 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

IMG-20170728-WA0015 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

IMG-20170728-WA0014 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

20170730_195743 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

I Was a massive fan of this car... While I worked at Toyota!! I changed brands and suddenly found myself with actually a really nice demo. Not exciting but "nice" However i Proceeded to add a JB4, Springs, Spacers, Carbon bits, a Decat, M performance exhaust and an M performance Diff. The car was about 410bhp and a manual so as enjoyable as it was ever going to get. The issue with this car is, it is just a 118i M sport with another 3 cylinders and some extra power and actually doesn't handle all that well, even with the bits I did, the flip side was it was actually a bit too fast for the road, scary numbers would happen quite quickly and would shame an M3 competition pack quite easily in a straight line!

Anyway, I sell my friend a car and he tells me he's going cadwell the day after and I should join him and he will take me out in his new car ( literally the day after collecting) now from the picture above you can see I have bit the trackday bug once before and managed to get myself weened off it. However a few hours passed at Cadwell and actually a few friends were there including DannyDC2, that day I managed to nab quite a few passenger laps. Me and a good friend Joe both left with the bug again (he's in the blue mx5 in the track picture) this left me with a predicament....

Do I A) track the M140 which I have on finance and maybe pop some coilovers on and make it better or B) buy a track car

Well I tussled with this for a long time and managed to abuse my power at work and the opportunity to get rid of the M140 occurred, I took it with both hands which actually cost me nearly £3000 to bow out of ( we live and learn).

So Left with a mental budget of £2200 which had to include tax I started at really looking at cars upto £3000, armed with some monies and my new found sales patter I scoured the net for E36 328s. This is where reality kicked in. All the 328 and M3s that would have been in budget... where had they gone?! what has happened to the used car market?!

As the days went by it was rusty E36 after Rusty E36, I tried looking at an E46 330 which was really nice, if a bit brown around the edges, but my mate with his crazy E36 said to avoid, so i Obeyed.

Losing the will to live a little a friend sent me a link to an ebay advert for a black MK3 MR2...

Screenshot_20170814-183938 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

Screenshot_20170814-183932 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

Screenshot_20170814-183944 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

Screenshot_20170814-183927 by Sebastian gwizdek, on Flickr

This car was wayyyyy out of budget, I had already had an MR2 (albeit an sw20 turbo) and hated it, After working for Toyota I loathed the brand and to be honest I think the MK3 is really ugly, My friend Joe had one a few years back when I had my mk3.5 MX5 and I disliked that thing back then, BUT!! I had one fond memory of the MK3 and that was playing forza every night with a group of friends when I was 18, racing around tsukuba in practically stock cars and them handling amazingly.

The car was also blessed with a K20 engine from an EP3 civic type R. Now.. I have already had an S2000 and vtec was actually the reason I hated it, but then an S2000 doesn't weight sub one tonne.

So again a week or so went past and I slowly started upping budget, I actually went off the idea of an E36 because A) they're all goosed and B) everyone has a track car E36!

Finally I caved. The Mr2 had been burning a hole in the back of my brain and I just couldn't shake it!!

I contacted Dasilva (the seller) and discussed the car a bit, I have never been one to avoid travelling for a car... Infact, I think i've only ever bought one car within 2 hours from home! however I did need to self satisfy myself and managed to negotiate a nominal discount.

The following is of no disrespect but lets just say the pictures of the car were not reeeeeeally representative of the car I found upon arrival, however after 4 and a half hours on the road, I wasn't leaving without the car. I was taken for a quick spin and my god, this thing rattles and squeaks and coming from the M140 it was slow! But it was cool, and had character and you can't buy character these days!!

So, Some monies handed over and the spares thrown in my Demo We set off home with a sony Bluetooth radio I had bought off ebay in hand.

This is where I started to realise maybe this "really well built car" I had promised myself, was maybe a bit rough around the edges. One big brake stand and the radio made a bid for freedom through some wiring that shouldn't really be where it was, popping a fuse and leaving me with no radio, no dash lights and most importantly no fan button, most of these would have been okay as it was all motorway on the way home, but with the sheer noise from the pretty much solid mounts I was going insane. We stopped at a service station 2 hours from home and in the dark managed to bodge the wiring and pull a fuse that I thought was no longer in use to replace the one that had gone pop. Luckily this worked!!


To be continued.....

[Gwizzy_poos]

Once home and unloaded me and my friends start really looking round the car "best to do it once you've paid right?" and slowly I start to realise there are more things wrong with the car then I had really noticed originally.

The oil cooler sandwich plate was leaking oil
the seat mount was shoddy as hell and sat me a bit awkwardly
the Led sidelight bulbs were doing there best to flash along to the venga boys "venga bus is coming"
the Seat was painful
the car was a bit tatty
The wiring for the Ecu which Im sure was very complicated, was all done in yellow and with lots of electrical tape, so i'm not sure whats hidden behind all that.
EVERY single panel vibrates inside this thing!!


Time to start making changes.

To Be continued...

[jvanzyl]

Welcome to the club man.
Might I suggest some softer engine mounts?
Other than that you've got a working K20 in an MR2, which when you've had some time to learn how to drive it and get the most out of it- you'll honestly love.

Apart from that, where are you based? We've got loads of club meets happening and you'd be most welcome to join us!
Cheers,
John

Sent from my Moto G (5) using Tapatalk

[1979scotte]

Welcome.
If you want a read real horror story about an engine swap MR2 look at my readers ride thread.
 l viewtopic.php?f=88&t=61977 l
Its worth it in the end. K20 is a great engine for a 2.
PS.
Stop posting pictures of M X 5 they're awful rust buckets with the engine in the wrong place.

[secla]

I was seriously considering this car when it was up for sale, from the sounds of it im gland i didnt   s:lol: :lol: s:lol:  
good luck with whatever your plans are

[JoeCool]

my god, this thing rattles and squeaks....

They all do that sir!!

Similarly, people tend not to choose mint cars for projects like an engine swap, you need to start with something cheaper to eep the budget in check. My car was £300 and it has been substantially re-worked since then so it's improved cosmetically, but by god is it still rouch if you know what you're looking at!

You have to accept that an engine swapped car, particularly off-brand like a K20 swap, will have been hacked about. Maybe a little, may be a lot... but it will have been hacked about!!

But you have arguably the best engine swap going for these cars.

A brave buy, every car will have skeletons in their closet. I used to be big on keeping cars pristine, but I've actually found a much more zen approach with this one: It's to be driven, that's what I do. Every part is swapped, changed, replaced so that the car is as good as it can be for what I want it for (driving fun). I don't care how it looks, and it's as unoriginal as it gets, so it's truly mine, and the product of a lot of hard graft (and overtime paychecks). So I love it.

[Ardent]

hello and welcome

other than the car that shall not be named. Good to see plenty of pics.

[s12vea]

Welcome, great engine swap the k20 has loads of potential

Turbo
Supercharger  s;) s;)

[s12vea]

 m https://youtu.be/H-EDY4H8MOQ m

[s12vea]

Interesting videos about your car

[Gwizzy_poos]

I don't want this to feel like an onslaught on the previous owner or anything, it's not, I understand the limitations of the build and the goal was to cheaply build an S2000 beater and to do so maybe the best shell in the world was passed up on, in favour of this one.

Anyway, there is an update and plenty more pictures but I need to take some of the bits that have changed from when I bought it, so i'l update as and when I snap them!

[s12vea]

Look forward to seeing more info

[harrison93]

This was at a track day at Anglesey in September! I'm sure it was the same one, definitely sounded like a K series.

[MilesH]

I know and have driven this car - it is also a long time known forum car. Having put a K20 in the back of an MR2 I can testify the work that goes into it and also how much time and money the previous owner put into your car. To me all it needed was a K-Pro ECU to make the most of the engine and in terms of spec it would be perfect.

Sounds like you have a few niggles to sort out and if you are going to the effort of sorting the wiring then you might way to consider the ECU upgrade (about £700 - or a bit less if you went for a K100) as it really will transform the engine  s:) s:)

p.s. as I'm sure you know he built it as a track car and it is VERY reliable at doing that (and has been proven). For road use I agree it is not ideal and could be tweaked to suit accordingly.

[KJPG]

Nice to see you getting involved Seb!

Still haven't taken me out in it!