Maurici´s 2ZZ Roadster. A Mallorcan and a Japanese meet for a drive.

[Maurici]

I´ve been running some house keeping jobs so far... Nothing ground breaking But if someone likes the ideas, I´m happy ti help to reproduce them or share the files.

First, the car came with a rather posh sony stereo, but the USB connector cable was coming lose from the back of the unit... it was on the floor, it wasn´t nice. so, first of all, it needed somewhere to put the connector.

Nowadays I don´t use cash anymore so, I´ve replaced the coin holder by a 3d printed usb holder.

(I wanted to be funny and use the simpsons font and seems I´ve scribbled it by hand, I will reprint another... eventually)




This is how it was meant to look when printed... I normally tend to forget the scale of the objects I design and tend to do them in a resolution that can´t be reproduced by my machine...



Also... Neded a decent and reliable way to hold the phone... so after investigating a bit, I´ve decieded to do a version of the proclip holder...





Of course, I wasn´t in the mood to pay the 40 something quid that a proclip system will fetch you, so put my imagination to work...

Taken a bit of scrap plate of 3mm, and welded it to 90 degrees... then inserted it in the dash gap. Really tight if you ask me. (no, I won´t show you my plate, as is from scrapp and my welding is... well... holes and shit, you get the idea)




and then I had to design a holder, and print it...

Why pentagons? well... because I could.





The mechanics are pretty simple, you the slot in the holder to the welded plate... add a bit of sticky foam to keep it all tight and with no rattles... and here you go... Mr2 specific holder for the cost of a bit of filament and some scrapp, even more so, without drilling or modifying the actual dash...















For the next version (that is already printing), it needs some more angle towards the driver, but... not much. I´ve designed it with 5 degrees, and honestly looks pretty much flat.

[JB21]

Mine isnt floaty at all, even at speeds over 110mph. Car is 950kg and all weight removed from the front, even the bonnet is gutted. I find this car handles best with parallel rake and as low as possible without going out of the roll center limits.

Its low but still usable on the road.

[Maurici]

Mine isnt floaty at all, even at speeds over 110mph. Car is 950kg and all weight removed from the front, even the bonnet is gutted. I find this car handles best with parallel rake and as low as possible without going out of the roll center limits.

Its low but still usable on the road.

Thanks Phill. We seem to have found the issue of the floatiness "twichyness" of my car.
We put the tracking gauges in my car yesterday...

Front toe is paralell at 0. It may be fast on track as it will give me a bit of toe out in bump and while braking... while keeping straight rolling resistance at 0... but for the road is far from ideal... as it will change from dinamic toe in to toe out in bump/rebound...

But this is not the worst. The rear is at 1.7 degrees Toe in!! so, indeed every irregularity the rear end finds, it tries very hard to copy it. Far from ideal. The rear end is very very tied down in slow corners but is rather terrible at speed.

Will take half a degree of every rear wheel, and should do things much much more "normal" at high speed.
Once the rear is sorted, will tackle the front end if I indeed feel that paralell isn´t the way to go...

I don´t really understand what they was expecting when doing this. I´m certain they did it on purpose, as the car drives dead straight, is not that something has "gone"...
Weird really.

[Maurici]

And The winner is, indeed, the rear tracking.

This was the starting point. 1.75 degrees... mental.


Then re-setted the mirrors to put it at zero at each wheel, and taken 30 minutes out on each tyre... to ensure I keept it all centered so I would still drive straight. With my equipment is really difficult to leave the steering wheel well centered (well not dificult, but takes time and patience I don´t really have)... so I had to ensure I was taking the same from each wheel.



30 minutes (or half a degree) per wheel later... and left the overall at just about 20 minutes per wheel, or about .7 of a degree of toe in TOTAL. (sorry forgot to take the picture of the final result).

Anyway. Took her for a drive... and is now MUCH better. The twichiness of the front is now only under braking and this is 99% due the paralell front tracking,  but really stable in straight line up to 90 ehem... Mph tested in private premises.

I will end doing a full tracking session with Adam that is far mor experienced than me on this matters, will put all to a "known good" setup, but for now, I´ve at least ruled out that something could be wrong with the car.

Ah, yes, now, it does slides... before was all understeering. Win Win.       

[JB21]

I run mine toeing out 3mm total at the front and toeing in 2mm total at the rear. Front camber -3, rear -3.5.

Its a pig on the road, but all comes together on a dry track. However for next season I'm dialling it back to compensate for road and wet track days. It'll lose a bit of time in the dry, but much better everywhere else.

[Maurici]

I run mine toeing out 3mm total at the front and toeing in 2mm total at the rear. Front camber -3, rear -3.5.

Its a pig on the road, but all comes together on a dry track. However for next season I'm dialling it back to compensate for road and wet track days. It'll lose a bit of time in the dry, but much better everywhere else.

One mm in per wheel in the rear, isn´t much taking in account the massive ammount of dynamic toe out you have in the rear...

In 15 or 16 wheels?
If my trigonometry isnt too rusty, in 15 would be like .3 of a degree total... like 20 minutes? and like 18 minutes in 16?

I won´t argue with the results your car feches very very decent laptimes (of course the nut behind the wheel has a lot to say about it) but feels very little?

[Maurici]

Sooo... took a cheeky flexy today, as I saw yesterday that forecast for this morning would be nice and sunny...


Crewe-Buxton-Snakepass-Buxton-Crewe...



Since the Rear toe tweak, all the twichiness is gone, and even in wet nd greasy peaks districts roads handled fairly well... It may probably be one of the most engaging road cars I´ve ever driven.

Quite true the "lotus-esque driving style" but in a nice place to be.
IN Fu**ing LOVE.

[puma2]

  now that is a how to drive 2   just get out top down go play  

[Maurici]

So... some progress have happened in the last 3 days.

Several very fiddly jobs have been performed, and I hated every single minute of them.

1. Oil, pressure, and water temperature gauge (more on the water later on).
Being a cooling engineer by trade, I simply can´t live without knowing the oil temperature of my car, and the exact water temperature. I hate this thing the cooling engineers do (ejem...) to actually define a range from say 65 to 100 degrees "as normal" and the needle will stay in the middle... I want to know the number.

So... as many of you may have done in the past, gone to the celicahobby post for the gauges install, so it would give me a nice idea of what to buy as adaptors.

https://celicahobby.com/forums/ubbthreads.php/topics/446779/gauges-oil-pressure-temp-install-guide.html

a 1/8 BSP to 1/8NTP T piece for the oil temperature sender, then managed an m12 to 1/8 to put the oil temperature sensor in the oil drain as I didnt fancy drilling the sump as in the tutorial, and held on for the water sender as I wasn´t sure how were my fittings, but It all looked like I needed a 3/8 male to 1/8 female to go to the coolant drain plug, and this is available in demontweeks, only 40 minutes away, so decieded to leave it for last, despite I did ran the sensor trough.





So... pull all the interior out... make yourself a little hoock with steel wire, and crack on pulling wires.



2 I Did also install a reverse camera, just because I could as my car came with a nice and posh sony screen... At the same time, used the reverse signal from the dash beeper, and muted the beeeeeeep when you engage reverse following this tutorial. (third wire in the big white connector, blue and red).

https://www.mr2roc.org/forum/index.php?topic=316.0



Left, oil pressure, centre display water temperature(right now reading engine bay temperature) and right Oil Temperature.
Used chinese gauges from aliexpress, that I know they are manufactured by DEFI... that used to be a posh "honda boyracer brand" 20 quid both gauges with sensors (10 each), delivered at home. I´m happy to share the link if someone want something cheap and functional.
For the water temperature, I simply use a K thermocouple and a thermocouple reader display.

after doing all this, Took the car to demon tweeks to buy the adapter for the coolant thermocouple.
Once being there... I saw this... and fell in love.

Result? THE MOST EXPENSIVE SENDER ADAPTER EVER.


Only to get home and discovered that my block is one of the weir ones that has a different tread on the drain shuttlecock, so still thinking what to do with it. I will probably install an inline adapter at the Head outlet... so went to demon tweeks to spend 200 quid on a sender adapter that won´t fit. Brilliant.

On the way home, I discovered that I should sell the MR2 ASAP. I would either get arrested, or I will kill myself. but untill it happens... What a blast it will be!!. This car has brought back my 20yo Maurici, and this is not good news...


Well. More things.

3 My gas pedal had a lot of slack. I guess I just have to tension the cable on the throttle body... how hard can it be?

well... REALLY HARD. The words "difficult, fiddly, ackward, wrongly designed, bloody engineer..." take a whole different significate when you attempt this job.

Finally managed to do it using every single 12mm spanner and grips I had in the workshop, not without losing two of them under the car that resulted in a sumpguard off to recover them. It seems to have better access from the bottom... Oh well. Too late for this now, don´t you think?



But, of course, it was waaaaaaay to tensioned when I´ve finished. (idle at 3000k rpms) so decieded to go to see the pedal end. I needed to bend the rod nearer to the brake pedal, and find a way to make it rest a bit higher to facilitate the heel and toe...

Then, discovered that a simple twist to the pedal bracket, would give me all the tension/slack, and positioning I want. Brrrrrrrrrrrr... I should have started from the pedal.





So yes. I´ve scratched my wirst, peeled my knuckles, and damaged my fingers... for nothing... as the pedal assembly was waaaaaaaaay easier to access and manipulate.

But I have gauges... and a martini racing bomber jacket.
Now the problem comes... that i´m aware of the oil temperature... and it happens to creep quite a lot when driving it hard... so... IT may need an oil cooler. someday. maybe.

See you on the next one!!

[Maurici]

well the test drive has not been as expected...
Some son of a bxxxh decieded to do that in next door´s Coop carpark...



So... is someone breaking a silver facelift?

I need the passenger door.
Gutted... really really gutted.

[Chilli Girl]

Oh no, that's bad - I don't suppose a note was left!  Sadly not many people bother to leave notes these days. Gutted for you too.

[Maurici]

Oh no, that's bad - I don't suppose a note was left!  Sadly not many people bother to leave notes these days. Gutted for you too.

Indeed it was no note...
I've been lucky enough to find an inmaculated door in srewsbury at 40 minutes from home.
Hopefully by tomorrow night it will only be a bad memory and I will have the door build up.
I knew i shouldnt have bought the jacket yesterday... this money would have come handy.

[Maurici]

Well lets share the positives then.

This was this morning at 8am coming back from shrewsbury to pick up a new door.

This was about 10.30 AM when I've started...


And this was 1 hour ago...

And now... just to add to the experience...
The famous 1D0 prefacelift silver to 1E7 post facelif silver "is massively different under light", "they are similar but they reflect differently"... I will let you judge. My eyes cant really see the difference.


Anyway. Let's shut the door to this very dark chapter. I was really upset yesterday, and I can not quite beleave by today lunchtime I would be sorted.

Ps... have to rebuild a door from scratch having to trnasfer harness, locks and glass... is propper rubbish.

[shnazzle]

Well lets share the positives then.

This was this morning at 8am coming back from shrewsbury to pick up a new door.

This was about 10.30 AM when I've started...


And this was 1 hour ago...

And now... just to add to the experience...
The famous 1D0 prefacelift silver to 1E7 post facelif silver "is massively different under light", "they are similar but they reflect differently"... I will let you judge. My eyes cant really see the difference.


Anyway. Let's shut the door to this very dark chapter. I was really upset yesterday, and I can not quite beleave by today lunchtime I would be sorted.

Ps... have to rebuild a door from scratch having to trnasfer harness, locks and glass... is propper rubbish.

This is on my to-do list. Just locks for me. Any tips would be appreciated

[Maurici]

Well lets share the positives then.

This was this morning at 8am coming back from shrewsbury to pick up a new door.

This was about 10.30 AM when I've started...


And this was 1 hour ago...

And now... just to add to the experience...
The famous 1D0 prefacelift silver to 1E7 post facelif silver "is massively different under light", "they are similar but they reflect differently"... I will let you judge. My eyes cant really see the difference.


Anyway. Let's shut the door to this very dark chapter. I was really upset yesterday, and I can not quite beleave by today lunchtime I would be sorted.

Ps... have to rebuild a door from scratch having to trnasfer harness, locks and glass... is propper rubbish.

This is on my to-do list. Just locks for me. Any tips would be appreciated

Tips...
DONT?🤣.

If you pay special attention on how you dismantle it, is easy but the first time is a mess.

The handle and barrel mechanism that conmects to the central locking/lock unit is really fiddly. Other than this... bolts, all accesible, and patience.
Happy to help in detail when you crack on.

[Topdownman]

Bad news indeed but looks like you have sorted it very quickly!

No CCTV at the COOP I suppose?

[Maurici]

Bad news indeed but looks like you have sorted it very quickly!

No CCTV at the COOP I suppose?

They had cctv, but theh asked me to go with the police and that is only a 24h loop...

To pursue, what, 100 quid of a door and risking the insurance to write off my car? No point.

I opted for the childish position of crying and punching a parking signal, and then to man up and own it and sort it... quick.

Nevermind...

[puma2]

     completely Gutted for you  
Fair play to you   you defiantly got that door picked up and sorted very fast  

ps its very  nice  jacket by the way and worth the drive there to get it as well the vital part  

[Maurici]

This is on my to-do list. Just locks for me. Any tips would be appreciated

found a video on youtube that shows you how to do the Handle/Barrel mechanism, that is the difficult bit.
once this is done and you understand the mechanics to re-do it, is really really easy. The lock itself is held by the 3 torx bolts surrounding the lock, a golden 10mm ex in the front side of the door... then unclip the harness and play a bit with the interior handle cables... and you are on to the winner.
Thanks
maurici.

[shnazzle]

This is on my to-do list. Just locks for me. Any tips would be appreciated

found a video on youtube that shows you how to do the Handle/Barrel mechanism, that is the difficult bit.
once this is done and you understand the mechanics to re-do it, is really really easy. The lock itself is held by the 3 torx bolts surrounding the lock, a golden 10mm ex in the front side of the door... then unclip the harness and play a bit with the interior handle cables... and you are on to the winner.
Thanks
maurici.

You're a star! Thank you

[Maurici]

well. finally did the coolant sensor thing.


Not difficult on itself, but... WTF? who designed that cooling system?
I need to have a serious conversation with them... cooling engineer to cooling engineer.
Don´t they have gravity in japan to do the thing self bleeding?
Is ridiculous.
Even my former VX220 was self bleeding...
Anyway. I think I´m done with small jobs with the car.

[Maurici]

Well It all started at 3 am after boxing day...
An sleepless night after spending a really lonely christmas afar from family and friends...

After 3 or 4 hours of rolling around in the bed with no succes in the sleeping department, I decieded that the roads would be completely empty, and it was the PERFECT time to go and wake up some neighbours down the road. Took the MR2 out, waited till it was half warm, went for a pull and the engine light came up and the car stalled.

I was lucky enough to have my bluetooth OBD dongle with me, fun fact as normally this lives in my toolbox and I´ve not used it for about 3 or 4 years, as I normally tend to have with me a propietary knock off software for my cars... (I´m still not that well set up with the MR2) and for some (in hinsight) wise reason I did throw it in the car a few days ago.

I had to download torque app in my android phone that took a while, note to self, in the middle of nowhere in Cheshire there is not 4g reception, and started diagnostics...

Codes P0443 (evap valve) and p0135, p0141 (lambda one and two heating circuits) came up. Ok, fine, nothing that should stop me to get home.

I went to the engine bay with the light of the phone in a kerb of a lonely road, unplugged the EVAP valve, the two lambdas, and tried to start the car. A bit lumpy but brought me home.

Once at home, I discovered the EFI2 fuse was blown and Started my research, just to discover it runs the EVAP valve, and the two heating circuits for the lambdas. Ok. it makes sense. I did check the EVAP valve off the car, it was working, and by then we were well past 4.30AM so decieded to call it a day... or a night.

2 or 3 hours later, I woke up again and went down to the car. It seems that this 2 hours of rest gave me enough brain power to actually check the lambdas. One of the heating cables of lambda 2 had clashed with the body and shorted itself to ground. All was starting to made sense... while plugging the lamba back I discovered that two of the 3 rubber mounts for my exhaust had gone, and the exhaust was down like 10cm... so now I had the whole picture.



Mounts failed, exhaust dropped, heating element of the lambda touched ground while being on, blew the fuse.

Sadly, the lambda sensor clashed just at the collar of the sensor, so It was no possible to restore the wiring. Had to use an old Volkswagen O2 sensor I had lying at home, also 4 cables... and It worked just fine.
New rubber mounts (amazon "urethane" ones) the only ones I could find in 24h delivery on festive period... New fuse, well actually 3 fuses (also had to order some from amazon as I only had the big ones at home), seems that the EFI2 triggered 2 or 3 mor fuses just by simpathy. That would explain why the car was so lumpy on the way back... and all sorted.



Now... tonight I´m in the same sleeping regime as boxing day apparently... so decieded to go and check if all was Ok.
This time, had my data logging with me connected from the start. I needed to see how the O2 sensors were doing (specially the non original one), and pulled some interesting numbers.

First: O2 sensors are working just fine. In fact, taking in account that they are narrow band, the refresh rate and the plot I was getting was really smooth. They appear to read so, they do something.

Second, and the interesting bit... I don´t know what ECU I do have, but dosen´t seems to be std.
It soft cuts at 8100rpm and bounces up to 8300... From my understanding, best case scenario if it was a toyota OEM, should soft cut at 7800 and bounce no more than 8000 and this would be with a JDM ECU... As my car has inmobiliser, I´m pretty sure is not a JDM ecu. anyway. curious if anything.

Then... power figures. Those are a to be taken with a pinch of salt, as is calculated from the weight of the car and the acceleration. If the road is flat enough, and your weight is spot on, the reading will be perfect too... but neither my road was fully flat (hence the variances) nor the weight of the whole was perfect... I´ve had setted it up to a pretty conservative 1100 (I´m 100kg alone), and its been pulling from 153 to 161 to the wheels. This seems like a lot to me... as it would mean shy of 30hp of mechanical loses, or about a 15%... I suspect the car may be over the 1100 therefore the power figure would be over this. Definitely food for thought. I need to go to the dyno and have a go there, but seems that my engine is pretty healthy to say the least.
Anyone has a clue of why my ECU is so high in RPMs?


Well, if you made it that far on the post... Thanks!!

Maurici.

[puma2]

   I can not think of better way to deal with a sleepiness night
then getting your 2 out for a drive  

i like how you handle the problems it then caused  you

[Maurici]

So, No more dramas have happened for a while, plenty of miles have been build up and milons of smiles adquiered.

Today, no actual pictures of the mod installed as it has been rather fiddly to do, and forgot, but, I've modified the shifter turret to raise it up by 30mm from the std position.
Ergonomics in the car for me are just as important as the actual handling, and after driving Adam's Munter2 in oulton this weekend just gone, I wished my shifter was just in a more natural position. Now that the Steering wheel and the pedalbox are just where I want them, The next wrong thing was the shifter.

I've been taking some measurements and just rising it by 30mm It would be good enough to not having to modify the actual lever. Gone and printed this:


The instalation, while easy, is rather fiddly. A lot of cables are around there and you have to unclip and reclip a lot of harness, but ad the end is undo 4 bolts, remove the rubber grommets and install this.
Perfectly compatible with the OEM surrounds and leather gaiter.

The shifting without the rubber mounts is crispier than before, and indeed having it higher up helps with ergonomics. Brilliant. All a win win situation.

[Maurici]

Well so, seems that people is not too impressed, or engaged with my 3D printed skills and mini bodges in my car... lets start with a controversial topic.

DIY baffled sump. How to. (part1)

What do you need?

Well a sump and some flaps





Then, mark some RANDOM dotted lines on the windage tray, as you will need to cut it.



Important to be completely random, as you will finally cut it in a different shape, completely ignoring the lines...



See? perfect.

Then... is time to start your CAD session, you may have to borrow a licence from BOM (Carboard Assisted Design), and start shaping with scisors.



Following that... Scan it in the computer along with a ruler, and start designing in solidworks



Add the holes and slots for the flaps... save it in DFX, and send it to your mate, that operates a waterjet cutting machine..




End of part 1... now the file is away being cutted, and I´m off to Tenerife tomorrow, where I´ve rented an small MX5 RF... so I´ll be able to say, when I´m back, how shit the modern MX5 is compared to an Mr2.

See you next week with the welding session!