TiM3 2zz swap with pics

[Theburns1]

There very simple cage mounts Meeerrrk,  if you can weld you will have no trouble. If you can't then its even easier lol as you just pay somebody to do. Just a case of trial fitting, marking, welding, drilling, and looks like his captive nut his. Then bolt in and enjoy

[Anonymous]

There very simple cage mounts Meeerrrk,  if you can weld you will have no trouble. If you can't then its even easier lol as you just pay somebody to do. Just a case of trial fitting, marking, welding, drilling, and looks like his captive nut his. Then bolt in and enjoy

I can't weld! But someone has offered to help me so it should be fine. One of the big selling points was the weld in feet with captive nuts, makes things much easier  s:) s:)

[Theburns1]

So you don't even have to make the plates? Winner winner

[Anonymous]

They supply the plates with the captive nuts but Tim has added a small section when fitting which looks very sensible

[Theburns1]

Looks decent fit. Its on my wish list but want to get my car running first. Only going to be sprinting and tracking my mr2 do a roll cage is a must. Price on this is decent too

[TiM3]

Update on my half cage...

I finished welding in the feet and gave it a coat of black paint



I thought everything was going to well and then two of the captive nuts stripped on one side, can't work out why for the life of me, I wasn't even close to fully tightening them. I couldn't face grinding out the foot so I whipped the outer wing off and through bolted them.



Here it is all in situ





And finally with seats and harnesses (I'm not colour blind by the way, the blue seats were an Ebay bargain to good to pass up!)

[Anonymous]

Looks excellent Tim! Hope you are pleased with it?

So one of the captive nuts on the feet crossed up? Very strange. Had you tried and bolts in them first? Can't quite work out how you got to the back of them with the wing off, did you cut those two holes in the black marking at the bottom, to get a socket to the rear of them?

What a pain in the ar5e!!

Glad it's all in and looking great though!

[TiM3]

Yeah really pleased, the cage combined with rogue hardtop mounts and seat brackets looks and work really well.

Honestly don't know about the nuts, full test fit prior and no issues. They were the last 2 bolts and they didn't even really nip up they just kept turning, weird. Yeah the black paint is just a bit of rust protection for the 2 access holes I drilled.

[4dvti]

I've just looked through the whole build and, I must say, the work you've put in is absolutely tremendous. It would be nice to meet up one day, perhaps at a meet or something; I'd love to see this sweet little roadster in the metal.

All the best with her buddy  s:) s:)

[TiM3]

Cheers mate, I've really enjoyed the project so far and still have loads of plans too! I just keep needing to let my wallet catch up..

I had the car at Oulton Park on Saturday and it performed really well. I notice you're in the West Midlands so not too far from Oulton, do you ever get there in your car?

[tommyzoom99]

Very nice build not seen that exhaust before looks cool, notice you were at Oulton park that's my local track too love it there,

We should do a north west track meet at Oulton   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

Cheers tommy

[4dvti]

Cheers mate, I've really enjoyed the project so far and still have loads of plans too! I just keep needing to let my wallet catch up..

I had the car at Oulton Park on Saturday and it performed really well. I notice you're in the West Midlands so not too far from Oulton, do you ever get there in your car?

Never been. I'm building my car with a fast street/drag car orientation. Once the handling mods are done though, I may give it a go some time.

Cheers

[Chimjunkie]

What is the difference in the engines? I know the 2ZZ engine from the celica is 190Bhp. We have a 240bhp supercharged one in the Exige.

[TiM3]

We should do a north west track meet at Oulton   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

It would be cool to have a few mr2's at a track day, instead of being on your own in the middle of a swarm of mx5's...

[4dvti]

We should do a north west track meet at Oulton   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

It would be cool to have a few mr2's at a track day, instead of being on your own in the middle of a swarm of mx5's...

What's the cost and formalities of a track day at Oulton nowadays?

[tommyzoom99]

We should do a north west track meet at Oulton   s:wink: :wink: s:wink:  

It would be cool to have a few mr2's at a track day, instead of being on your own in the middle of a swarm of mx5's...

What's the cost and formalities of a track day at Oulton nowadays?

it would i have never seen another 2 on the track days i been on, like you say lots of mx5, clios and caterhams, i was surprised at how quick the mr2 is compared to them leaves alot of them behind.

would be cool to all meet there on a certain track day seems alot of us around this area, we'll be going on 1 around march area once is all back together.

Normally they cost between 130 and 200 depending if you go in the summer or off season, make sure you have toeing eyes and a helmet and your good to go really.

Also a trick i have learnt don't book a garage there's always spare ones and if you turn up early on the day its first come first serve, so you can save your self 20 quid  s:) s:)  they do this at oulton not sure about anywhere else

cheers tommy

[Anonymous]

Im miles away from you lot but it would be good to do a track day together.

Last year we all did a toyota only day at blyton park. I would think that could be organised quite easily again. Fancy it??

[4dvti]

Thanks Tommy.

The mr2 is currently off road but I may be up for something in Summer-Autumn time... Hopefully.

Taz

[TiM3]

Ive been meaning to update my thread for a while now but have been busy using the car and then doing a major chassis upgrade.

So far I have been really happy with the new powertrain, the 2zz is much more satisfying to drive than the previous motor and sounds manic at high revs with the combination of exhaust noise and induction roar. However my first proper dry track day (my number of wet track days in a row must be some kind of record...) really showed up the poor handling of the car, bad under steer at high speed and far too much body roll. The state of the front tyre have me a pretty clear sign things weren't right...



So I started poking around under the car with the intention of changing the worn out rear pads and perhaps fitting crash bolts to get some negative camber on the front. 15 years of British winters had took its toll and it was a rusty seized up mess! I then spotted a previous owner had fitted front springs on the back and vice versa, not exactly confidence inspiring, so a couple of hours later...





First job was to strip down the parts which could go off to the powder coaters, including the rear subframe. I also bought a facelift front brace to help stiffen the front up. I'm lucky to have a really good outfit local to me, £40 for all this lot, it would cost me more in paint alone!



Other components that I didn't want shotblasting (due to bearings etc) were cleaned up and given two coats of zinc primer and two coats of chassis black.





I then set about getting all the parts together for the build, I only use the car on the track so decided on a fairly focussed spec.

I'd had to cut off lots of bolts in the strip down, including several of the rear control arm bolts and all drop links. The remaining bolts were properly manky and my OCD tendencies wouldn't let me reuse them, so I scheduled out a full set of OEM bolts and ordered them from my local agent. They were pretty ridiculously priced to be honest, but hardly any of them were stock sizes in terms of length, plain shank etc, so I had little choice. For what it's worth my dealer gave me a 10% taxi drivers discount (I assume nobody checks the likelihood of an MR2 actually being a cab!)



Meanwhile I tackled the brakes, the front brakes had been working well and seemed in good order, so I just did a light touch refurb and fitted the Hawk Carbon pads given to me very generously by Meeerrrk (thanks again) I went for zinc primer and silver Smoothrite for caliper bodies and the sliders powder coated silver.





The rear calipers were not so good and the handbrake adjusters were seized solid. I opted for exchange items which were really good value. I had the sliders and brackets powder coated silver to (nearly) match and I have used EBC Yellowstuff pads. I also purchased HEL lines front and rear.



Then I got together the rest of my parts;

BC coilovers with pillow balls all round and 5/7 springs, you will notice replacement lower steering joint on the right. The old one had developed a LOT of play all of a sudden, which was worrying.



The rear arms were badly corroded, I considered polybush and refurbishment, but they still would not offer any adjustment on the rear setup



So I treated myself and imported some Battleversion control arms, extravagant but proper nice quality kit.



I got the exchange front arms from GT4 Play, with polybushes and new ball joints, they supplied most of my stuff and offered a great service



I decided to stick with the standard anti roll bars as I think the coilovers will go a long way to controlling body roll and I want to see how it feels. So I got the old bars and brackets powder coated and upgraded to poly bushes. I also got these adjustable drop links off EBay.



I then gave the now bare arches a really good clean up they were in very good condition and only required a few odd bits of rust touching up.





And then began the rebuild, this is the nice bit of course, bolting all the clean shiny parts on. Rear subframe went on first with new toe adjusters



Followed by the new control arms



Bit by bit it's all gone back together fairly easily, a few pics of the finished setup below











Next up is to get a full geo and corner weighting done, I can't wait to see how it handles!!

[JoeCool]

That looks properly lovely, I can still remember how nice it was to do the same job on my Mk1.

[Anonymous]

Superb work as always Tim, very impressive  s:) s:)

[tomaky]

Very impressed! Jesus you must keep that bank manager busy!

[TiM3]

Very impressed! Jesus you must keep that bank manager busy!

Just a bit! That's why I ended up spread the job over three months, at least I'm not having to pay for labour on top which helps.

[tomaky]

Aii, how are the federals going?
I keep meaning to put the r888's back on to scrubs the very warm rubber from the last track day.

[TiM3]

The Federals seem OK, although I don't have much experience of other track biased tyres. They are obviously better in the dry than most high performance road rubber. Definitely need to run very low pressures though (low to mid 20's) They are a bit of a handful in the wet, ideally I reckon you would want something with a bit more tread to help clear the water.

I was planning on trying R888 next time round, do you rate them?