Alex's 2ZZ Swapped MR2 Roadster

[Roj]

I have recently moved from Bristol to Scotland

Welcome to God's own racetrack! Mind the sheep! Will we be seeing you up at Knockhill any time soon?

[JB21]

70MPH is circa 3,300RPM I seem to remember.

Honestly, having a short 6th gear is a waste of time. I've got the limiter in 5th gear, and that was getting on for 140MPH. No one needs more than that on any UK track.

Why is it so short in the MR2? In my old Celica 190 I'm sure it wasn't that short in 6th.

[Alex Knight]

70MPH is circa 3,300RPM I seem to remember.

Honestly, having a short 6th gear is a waste of time. I've got the limiter in 5th gear, and that was getting on for 140MPH. No one needs more than that on any UK track.

Why is it so short in the MR2? In my old Celica 190 I'm sure it wasn't that short in 6th.

Erm, that's not that short!
Bear in mind I'm using a 2ZZ final drive.

If you think that's short, don't even look at a Corolla T-Sport 6th gear. Bonkers short.

[1979scotte]

@Alex Knight

That's bonkers good mpg.
Only managed that once in a turbo 2.
What sort of mpg do you get on track?

[Alex Knight]

@Alex Knight

That's bonkers good mpg.
Only managed that once in a turbo 2.
What sort of mpg do you get on track?

I know! I'm sure when I was trying to chase down what I thought was an O2 sensor a couple of years ago, I measured and got 38MPG on the way to a trackday. So it's consistently good.

If nothing else, it demonstrates that the engine and ECU side of things are very healthy indeed.

On track is the inverse story!
I'll be lucky to get 80-90 miles before I get down to a quarter of a tank and start getting fuel surge problems. I haven't measured, but it's shocking how much fuel gets used on track.

[1979scotte]

@Alex Knight

That's bonkers good mpg.
Only managed that once in a turbo 2.
What sort of mpg do you get on track?

I know! I'm sure when I was trying to chase down what I thought was an O2 sensor a couple of years ago, I measured and got 38MPG on the way to a trackday. So it's consistently good.

If nothing else, it demonstrates that the engine and ECU side of things are very healthy indeed.

On track is the inverse story!
I'll be lucky to get 80-90 miles before I get down to a quarter of a tank and start getting fuel surge problems. I haven't measured, but it's shocking how much fuel gets used on track.

Could be worse you could have a V6.
Even on a motorway run you're lucky to see 25mpg. Although it doesn't really drop much when pushing on unless you're really hitting the high revs and getting a load of boost from the rotrex.

[Alex Knight]

After cooking my rear Yellowstuff pads (below), I've decided to bite the bullet and go for a much more extreme (and expensive!) set of pads.

I ordered some CarboTech XP10s all round. Being fitted next week, then I'm going to book an evening at Knockhill.

Out with the old!







And in with the new!

[thetyrant]

Looking forward to what you think of the XP10

Ian

[AJRFulton]

Where have you moved to in Scotland?

[Alex Knight]

Where have you moved to in Scotland?

North Perthshire, near-ish to Blairgowrie.

[Alex Knight]

Just been and picked these up, been meaning to for a while now. Any guesses?

[1979scotte]

Big boxes.
Wheels?

Not really got a clue tbh.

[Topdownman]

Headlights?

[The Other Stu]

Headlights?

This. I have a similar looking box.

[Alex Knight]

Headlights?

Winner!

[puma2]

  new headlights you don't see these often  for sure  
do you mind if i ask where from how much  

[Alex Knight]

Toyota Perth. £302 with trade discount. I thought it was a decent price.

[Alex Knight]

So, obviously today I collected some brand new headlights and set about installing them.

It's actually a very easy job. All you need is a 10mm ratchet!

• Remove front plastics.
• Undo the four bolts on the top of the bumper.
• Remove the two bolts in the front of the arch liner.
• Remove the bolt holding the bumper corner to the wing.
• Remove the two bolts on top of the headlight brackets.
• Remove the securing nut at the back of the headlight.
• Unplug headlight, sidelight and indicator.
• Remove headlight!

This is what it looks like when you have done that:



Here are the new ones:



Old and new headlight comparison:



One side fitted, you can see what a difference it makes:



When fitting the N/S I worked out it was easier to loosen the bumper off at both ends for better access:



All done! Very pleased with the investment:

[Roj]

Where have you moved to in Scotland?

North Perthshire, near-ish to Blairgowrie.

Some amazing roads on your doorstep.

The road from Pitlochry over to Bridge of Cally is great for a good stretch, although it gets a bit poorly sighted once off the hill. Then the A83 up to Glen Shee is top notch, one of the best around first thing in the morning. If you don't want to stop there, the road up over the Lecht to Tomintoul then Grantown is great too.

We're not well served for tracks up here but the roads make up for it.

[Alex Knight]

I've been out to bed the new pads in this morning, the procedure is quite extreme and requires zero mechanical sympathy!

My god though, these pads are in a different league(s) to EBC.

I was in the car on my own the first time I used them hard after bedding in, and I said, out loud "f*ck me!". I couldn't help the expletive.

They are face meltingly good.
I immediately knew that the limiting factor of my braking setup would now be the tyres. Stonking.

[Alex Knight]

I had a problem recently with water ingress into the coil pack/spark plug area.

I cannot be sure, but I believe the problem is that water is getting under the Lotus coil pack cover when I'm jet washing the car. This has caused a misfire which was traced to a rusty spark plug (which had covered 900 miles only).

My solution was to create a little rubber seal around the coil pack cover to stop water getting in:

[Alex Knight]

Yesterday marked the my first trackday since moving to Scotland, and indeed my first visit to Knockhill.

As you'd expect for a track situated on the top of a hill in Scotland in October, it was wet. Very wet.

This was a bit of a shame, as I was really looking forward to putting the new CarboTech pads through their paces with some very high loads, but it wasn't to be.

The car was, as I've come to expect now, completely faultless.
Honestly, I really can't say enough good things about this little machine. I just love it. What a great car.

The balance was this:

Low speed - some mid-corner understeer

High speed - lots of oversteer!

I honestly had a great time, and the car was moving about a lot underneath me.

I'm looking forward to trying the circuit in the dry as I think the MR2 would be mega.

Here's a video summing up the day's action:

[AJRFulton]

I seen a car that I had a suspicion might be you in one of the photo threads for Knockhill. Don't see too many MR2's on track up there

The MR2 in the wet at Knockhill can be very tricky. The changing camber of the corners, and the actual gradient of some of the hills (which you don't appreciate until you walk around the track - the hairpin is actually a pretty steep climb when you're on foot!), makes the car have a tendency to be (far more than usual) unpredictable and snappy - it can be hard to get confidence in the car. TBH with anything but the right tyres and pressures, the car can be almost undrivable at anything like a 'competitive' track day speed (or competition speed). Certainly when compared to the equivalent class of FWD cars, I seem to have a far harder time setting my car up in the wet up at Knockhill relative to other tracks I've driven in the wet.

Knockhill is also noted by many regulars as having a bit of a tendency of appearing to offer more grip when the track is very wet, than when it is just merely wet or damp. I put this down to the grip remains fairly consistent when its very wet, but again because of the cambers, gradients and bumps - the actual wetness of the track varies a lot when it is just merely wet or damp, and that gives the illusion of more grip being available when the track is very wet.

I much prefer driving the track in heavy rain than when the track is at 'intermediate' tyre sort of level - I have a lot more confidence in the car.

However Knockhill in the dry.... it's a track that IMO really suits the MR2. You need to attack the kerbs though to get the most out of the lap, which takes a bit of time to find a dampener setting that works.

[JB21]

Yesterday marked the my first trackday since moving to Scotland, and indeed my first visit to Knockhill.

As you'd expect for a track situated on the top of a hill in Scotland in October, it was wet. Very wet.

This was a bit of a shame, as I was really looking forward to putting the new CarboTech pads through their paces with some very high loads, but it wasn't to be.

The car was, as I've come to expect now, completely faultless.
Honestly, I really can't say enough good things about this little machine. I just love it. What a great car.

The balance was this:

Low speed - some mid-corner understeer

High speed - lots of oversteer!

I honestly had a great time, and the car was moving about a lot underneath me.

I'm looking forward to trying the circuit in the dry as I think the MR2 would be mega.

Here's a video summing up the day's action:

Car seems nicely balanced and controllable in the wet, What where your tyres, chassis, suspension, geo settings? Mine is a pig in the wet! To stiff, to aggressive geo and a right bloody handful, its not fun at all. I just cant bring myself to dial it back though as when its dry its unbelievably balanced and fast!

[AJRFulton]

Yesterday marked the my first trackday since moving to Scotland, and indeed my first visit to Knockhill.

As you'd expect for a track situated on the top of a hill in Scotland in October, it was wet. Very wet.

This was a bit of a shame, as I was really looking forward to putting the new CarboTech pads through their paces with some very high loads, but it wasn't to be.

The car was, as I've come to expect now, completely faultless.
Honestly, I really can't say enough good things about this little machine. I just love it. What a great car.

The balance was this:

Low speed - some mid-corner understeer

High speed - lots of oversteer!

I honestly had a great time, and the car was moving about a lot underneath me.

I'm looking forward to trying the circuit in the dry as I think the MR2 would be mega.

Here's a video summing up the day's action:

Car seems nicely balanced and controllable in the wet, What where your tyres, chassis, suspension, geo settings? Mine is a pig in the wet! To stiff, to aggressive geo and a right bloody handful, its not fun at all. I just cant bring myself to dial it back though as when its dry its unbelievably balanced and fast!

As said I find the car difficult to set up for the wet. It seems to be very sensitive to changes too.

I am like you, I just don't bother. Over the race weekends at Knockhill it's too changeable - and doing all the set up work by yourself - it becomes such a pain in the arse, lying on the wet ground changing geo settings..... only for it to brighten up during the next session. The guys that have some help can probably justify doing it, but I don't so... leave it.

Generally my wet set up is drop the rear pressures and drop the antiroll bar 1 notch then just try and live with it.

As said in my post, I know Knockhill and those are very wet conditions - I find the MR2 easier to drive there in those condition than when it's less wet.