The Rebirth

[BigMike]

Here are some Interior pics from last night.

New super bright dome light, using a "31mm Festoon 12 LEDs SMD LED Bulb" from Amazon, http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B004ZVXFZ2

And the foot area LEDs are some old LED pods I've had in my garage for a few years. They are just a plastic pod with 6 or 8 individual LEDs on them. Zip tied the passenger's and used heavy duty double sided sticky tape and mounted the driver's side to the bottom of the air duct. The light shines from above your feet and to the base of each seat.

It's really cool, like you are greeted each time you open the door Also, my car alarm keep the dome lights one until the key is switched to the ON position. So even though you jump in and close the door, the lights are still on to help situate and get your key in the ignition

[Sirdeuce]

You going to use that guage cluster with the blue glow lights??

[BigMike]

You going to use that guage cluster with the blue glow lights??

Negative. It is BAD TO THE BONE, but I don't like the silver face It doesn't match anything in my car. I have it in a safe place, resting in my garage out of harms way

[BigMike]

I've been getting a lot done to my car recently. Where should I start?

[Sirdeuce]

Headers installed yet?!

[BryanH]

Those wheels are AWESOME!      The real deal? :)

[BigMike]

Thanks Bryan, unfortunately they are not. They are Rota Grids, 15" x 6.5" with +38mm offset. I have a lot to update to this thread, but for now here comes a blurry but nice pic

[BigMike]

Ohhhhhh man I've got a lot of updates coming your way!!

Oct 23, 2012: LED Instrument Lights

The picture isn't the greatest, but I installed LED lights in my instrument cluster which was a GREAT upgrade. They are not brighter than the lights in our Infiniti and it's very easy to read at night. They are standard, clear/white LED bulbs, socket size 194. I went with the German brand AGT which had very convincing marketing on Amazon. Here is the exact product link I ordered (no telling how long this link will work): http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005ETCIO8/

[BigMike]

Oct 24, 2012: Replaced rear Tokico struts

Because I (was forced) to replace my front struts, and then realizing that in fact they needed to be replaced all along, I decided I would do the same to the rear. And WOW yes they needed it too!

Not only did I replace the struts with new ones, but I also trimmed the rubber strut/shaft bump stop which made a H-U-G-E difference. Before when I would hit a dip on the freeway, the rear end would bottom out and buck the car forward and up. I even memorized key dips along my weekly Fresno-to-San Jose commute and would slow down before hitting them.

Now with the increased travel the progressive rate springs are able to move into the increased rate range and WOW the ride is 100 times better, absolutely no comparison. Replacing all four struts have really made a night and day difference and the car ride so much better.

The old rear struts were ....not that bad, they did have "some" pressure in them, but nothing like their new replacements. I could depress the old struts by hand, but the new ones required nearly half my entire body weight leaning into them. As a result my rear has probably come up a quarter or half an inch; I regret not getting before-after measurements.

[BigMike]

Nov 11, 2012: Began work on modifying my old JDM S/C pulley

This is going to be a work-in-progress. Background: There is a rare, very hard to find Japanese factory-Denso S/C pulley that fits the SC12 and is very small at only a 106mm diameter. Compare this to the USDM SC12 pulley of 125mm (17.9% smaller) and also to the AE92/AE101 JDM SC12 pulley of 120mm (13.2% smaller).

I have found a Japanese website of a guy installing this awesome 106mm pulley onto his Supercharged MR2, http://page.freett.com/brp2/tbssc/tbssc.html.


For some reason the Japanese encoding doesn't come out on my laptop but it does on my wife's computer. She read all of the Japanese for me and they guy is very secretive about where he got this gem, even so much as to blot out the Toyota Part Number :


Here is the new 106mm pulley installed onto his SC12:


There are two things of interest that I see here.
1) The clutch magnet is the same as my JDM magnet from my AE92/AE101 engine (it just has the larger 120mm pulley) but different than the USDM magnet. The JDM magnet has a much smaller diameter, and...
2) There is a ton of meat on my JDM Ae92/AE101 SC12 pulley such that I will actually be able to machine it down to the same 106mm diameter!

There isn't much to show, but what I did was made base measurements to confirm that this indeed is true. I will be converting my JDM Denso 120mm pulley to the "secret" 106mm Denso pulley. A few pics...

[BigMike]

I verified the dimensions in Solidworks.

On the left is my old original JDM AE92/AE101 SC12 120mm pulley and at right is how I'll trim it down to it's new 106mm diameter.

[BigMike]

Now you might be wondering why this when I already own a billet aluminum 160mm crank pulley. The answer is two-fold:
1) Because I have matured a lot, I am keeping everything smog-legal and/or "readily able to revert to a smog-legal state". The larger crank pulley will remove the stock timing mark which is just another thing I don't want the smog technician to have to worry about (smog legal or not), and...

2) Larger crank pulley also increases the RPM of the water pump = loss of top end power. Using a smaller SC pulley -- so long as belt slippage can be controlled -- is a win-win solution.

Dec 14, 2012: Replaced rear plastic trim, installed rear Mud Flaps, re-installed Driving Lights, Installed new "HKS" (Hong Kong Special) air filter

My rear C-piller (?) trim has been cracked I believe since I bought the car. It's always annoyed me. The 6-year outdoor storage didn't help them either. Wanting to replace them, I first tried ordering them new from Toyota. Yeah, right. Even at our cost, the center trim piece was over $200 HOLY CRAP. So I kept my eyes open at the wrecking yards and finally found a nice piece!

The plastic anchors either crumbled when I removed my old parts or they were absent all together. So I went ahead and just ground down my paint and welded the nuts to the body. This way they won't break the plastic section of the trim if I ever need to remove them.

I had a heck of a time trying to find black mud flaps. I ended up with blue ones from a 1985 and just spray painted them black. The paint will eventually flake off, but I assume I will get the entire car repainted sometime down the road and at that time I'll have the flaps properly painted too.

The HKS-knock off filter simply replaced the stock air box, temporarily for now, but as you will soon find out, I got this filter because of some nice future plans

[BigMike]

Dec 12, 2012: Random outdoor photo

 

[BigMike]

Feb 10, 2013: I got locked out of my trunk!!

As explained in great detail on the MR2 Owner's Club (see two posts about it here), I had to brute-force my way into my trunk. Please check that thread for all the dirty details, but basically what happened is that 1) my trunk cable has not worked since a family of "Dirty Mike and the Boys" squirrels (reference) made love repeatedly in my trunk during it's 6-year outside storage, and 2) my lock cylinder finally gave way to the Dodo and broke.

What's the importance of this you might ask? Well during extended storage, such as parked at a friend's house for the weekend, I have a kill switch (one of many) somewhere in my trunk that disables the fuel pump. Unfortunately I was denied trunk access with the switch inside flipped. Worse yet, this happened while I was in San Jose and needed to get back to Fresno for work. So what I did was I diverted power from my Cigarette lighter straight to my fuel pump from within the cab, and after blowing a few fuses along the way, made it home safely.

Ahhhh so much fun

Update: For information on how to get into your locked-out AW11 truck, please see my replies #16 & #17 here: http://www.mr2oc.com/showpost.php?p=5125314&postcount=16

[BigMike]

April 26, 2013: Installed new Catalytic converter

It was time to smog the car and I took it in with high confidence -- as it had sailed through it's initial referee smog test -- and found out my cat was junk! How in the world did I go from a near perfect smog inspection to a badly failed inspection in just one year? Come to find out my original cat had entirely blown its guts out during the past year, something my smog tech said isn't so uncommon for when cats. sit around for a long time without use.

Backing up just a bit, after failing smog it was time to go back to the drawing board to figure out why.
First I checked my plugs. They look great! All evenly colored and pretty clean.
Then I inspected the cat, or, lack thereof. All of the catalyst was gone!
Out with the old, in with the new! Surprisingly enough, the new cat wasn't too expensive. I think it was right around $80. I think it's because this is OBD-I

...And finally back on the smog dyno and passing with FLYING colors