The Rebirth

[BigMike]

Now I am starting to get into the nity grity stuff. A lot of slow tedious work with slow progress...

1st image is my trunk starting to come together, 11:37am

2nd image is the donor interior. It had really, really nice carpet and seats. I am so impressed I transferred a ton of stuff over!, 11:56am

3rd image is the donor interior getting stripped, 12:15pm

4th image is my interior getting stripped. Oh wait, it's already stripped! ack, what a ton of crap!, 12:48pm

5th image is the goof ball behind the madness

6th image is a crap load of, um, crap, 12:52pm

[BigMike]

1st image is my trunk, wooo! check that out, just like it was the day I bought in January 1999!, 2:36pm (Sunday)

2nd image is the interior plastic parts being installed. I had removed all of these parts trying to make my car lighter back in the day. Kids. Sheesh. These are from the T-Top car so they do fit just a bit off (plus they are black). If I come across a blue non T-Top model in the wrecking yard then I'll get these placed with the proper piece, 3:25pm

3rd image is CARPET!! yeah! Haven't had carpet in my car since sometime in 2002!! , 3:25pm

4th image is my interior about 90% together! WOW what a difference already!, 3:56pm

5th image is the current state of the engine. Got the Intercooler installed but not hard-mounted yet, 6:47pm

6th image is a shot of the interior from the passengers door. Still missing a couple panels at the time of this picture, 6:50pm (Sunday)


And that is it from my all-nighter Saturday/Sunday work. I went home, ate a small dinner, and got some much needed sleep.

[BigMike]

I slept in a bit Monday morning and got to the shop at 9am.

I did a TON of small completely time consuming things and ended up not taking many pictures as a result. I actually got pretty frustrated with the continuous issues with the car that had been neglected for so long.

Far too many small things were fixed that I don't think I could remember even. At this point the entire weekend was really feeling like a long blur. After getting home last night and looking over the pictures, I can't believe how much I did in so little time. It was a lot of work but it was nice cramming it all into a small time frame so that it took a while until I began to get frustrated and tired.

It was also nice that this was a three day weekend where I could work a full Sunday and a full Monday. Another reason why I got so much done.

1st image is the only pic I have of installing the A/C condenser from the donor car. I had removed my stock condenser probably back in 2000 when I installed the JDM Supercharger (wow has it been that long ago?) and disabled my A/C. I wanted to get better air flow through the radiator. Well, I am gonna have A/C now baby!! sweeeeet!, 11:53am (Monday)

2nd image is the larger S/C brake booster (top-left) compared to the N/A brake booster. Wow it's a lot larger and WOW the brakes have AMAZING POWER. There is still some air in the lines but the brakes are AWESOME, better than they were before which was already amazing. The 4-wheel vented rotor setup really comes to life with this larger booster, that is for sure, 2:04pm

3rd image is the larger S/C booster installed, 2:12pm

4th image is the first Intercooler hard mount bracket I've installed. I only need 1 more bracket and I think I'll call it good. It's already quite rigid so really 1 more should do the trick. Like an idiot I let the hood release cable get too close to the weld and I melted it I was really upset, huge mistake but at least I've got another cable on the donor car that I still need to swap in, 4:04pm


After this I left the shop, went home, took a shower, and went to dinner with my mother and father. It was my mother's birthday so I took some time to hang out with the family.

I almost had the car running before I had to leave for dinner. I connected everything, drained the old gas, put in new gas, and gave it a crank, but nothing. We checked spark, yup that's good. Checked fuel pressure, no good.

So after dinner I began trouble shooting the fuel pump and found out that the pump had been sitting so long that it just needed a good kick start using a direct connection to the battery to get it up and running. It's a nice Supra Turbo fuel pump so I am glad it's still good. I didn't want to have to drop two tanks to swap the donor pump into my car. Really glad that worked out.

So then with fuel pressure, I reconnected everything and BAZINGA! It fired right up!!! Ahhhh what a relief!

[BigMike]

I drove the car up and down Maple a dozen times around 2am this morning. Despite the garbage tires WOW it drives GREAT. As mentioned, the brakes are amazing with that booster. Also, I can tell I haven't been driving a sports car for a long time because it feels really, really fast until I look down and see I'm only doing 50 MPH.

The engine in its current state is rated for 145 HP at 8 PSI boost. The car should be somewhere around 2300 pounds now. After I get the car registered and on the road for a while, I will be installing a 6-speed transaxle, a new clutch, and my smaller SC pulley + larger crank pulley. I am expecting to have about 12 or 13 PSI of boost, and with some other minor mods I am hoping to have 200 horsepower. This is my goal and I *will* be satisfied to have a nice, comfortable, reliable, quick sports car. I have really changed in my ways and this is going to become a nice clean ride in no time.

So what's next?

I am going to the DMV today to get a moving permit and will start daily driving it. I'm gonna pick up some used tires from Bryan and get them installed on the SC wheels. I need to finish with mounting the intercooler. I need to fix a couple small things. I need to get a small compact sealed battery. Then I will be ready for the ref.

So I made an appointment for this Thursday at 12:50pm at the referee and we will see how it goes :D

That's it for now,
BigMike

[BigMike]

Here is a quick video of the engine running. The brake lights were on because I still needed to adjust the brake pedal since I changed brake boosters.

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid704.photobucket.com/albums/ww46/rakudasama/MR2/FirstStart.flv


And here is a short video of starting it up and driving it down the road. Don't worry about the tachometer, it is bouncing around and is out of calibration because I still have the JDM twin coil DIS circuit board inside the instrument cluster. I am going to install the proper tach circuit board before I take the car to the ref.

I probably only took the revs to about 4500 or 5000 RPM.

http://static.photobucket.com/player.swf?file=http://vid704.photobucket.com/albums/ww46/rakudasama/MR2/FirstDrive.flv

[Sirdeuce]

Wow! How weird it must be to be driving with your head below the bumpers of the trucks you're used to driving.

[Blane525]

Did your butt leave skid markes down the road? OOaaaa that"s right your just above the ground fling LOW . Need to sell the 525 and get a s2000 complete... :-\

[BigMike]

Wow! How weird it must be to be driving with your head below the bumpers of the trucks you're used to driving.

It's about time, right?

I drove the car home today and the strangest thing happened: When you input throttle, the car responds instantaneously. It's really quite bizarre. Also, there is about 99% less body roll compared to my truck, hmmmm strange...

Need to sell the 525 and get a s2000 complete... :-\

Woah. That is a hardcore statement right there. What is the 525 worth? $4k or $5k?



Updates for this evening.

I went over to the DMV and with my fingers crossed I discovered that I put the car on non-op back in 2005. THANK GOODNESS for that. Total fees including current registration is only $193 :D :D

So I have an appointment scheduled for 12:50p on Thursday, but.........

....tonight all I got done was I fixed the tachometer and the front right tire with a nail in it. That's it. The tire was so extremely frustrating. I can't remember the last time I struggled so much trying to remount a tire. I am wondering if the triangle wheels are meant to be mounted from the inside rim maybe? I'm not sure but it was a serious PITA to remount. So, because of that, I've pretty much decided to just leave the triangle wheels on the car.

After the DMV I went to Bryan's house and picked up 4 used tires. But when I got back to the shop, under closer investigation (sunlight sure helps) I concluded that there is nothing wrong with the tires I already have on the car right now.

But there is some horrible noise that I can't figure out. I really thought all 4 tires were bad from sitting out in the sun for so long. It was either that or maybe all 4 of my wheel bearings were simultaneously shot. Well, it turns out that only ONE wheel bearing is out, and it's the passenger's rear.

I drove the car home regardless, I just took it easy and only did about 40-50 MPH. The tires are badly flat-spotted but by the time I got home they seemed to be smoothing out *just a bit*. I put in a full tank of gas, and daa daa daa, the fuel gauge only went up to 1/4 gauge and stopped. So great, what else needs some TLC with this poor car

I have also decided to reschedule my referee appointment to next Monday. With the wheel bearing out, I know that is going to be an annoying job, and I still need to get the intercooler hard mounted, get a battery installed, run the car on my friends smog machine to see if it will even pass the emissions test, and I want to get a couple of tanks through the system and some time behind the wheel to make sure everything is golden.

So that's where I'm at now. Here are some pics from tonight.

1st pic is the instrument cluster removed
2nd pic is my NA (left) compared to the SC (right). I am not going to use the SC cluster.
3rd pic is the nifty SC light in the factory setup. I've already emulated this light on my NA dash so I don't need this. Also, this tach won't fit in the NA cluster so I can't use it anyway. Curiously, it appears that the SC light signal is a grounding signal where I wired my SC light to be a positive signal with the Levin engine. So I will have to switch that around before the light works (never ending to-do list)
4th pic are the tach brains: Domestic single coil 4A-GZE (left) and JDM twin coil 4A-GZE (right)
5th pic is the nail from HELL
6th pic: SHE IS FINALLY HOME!!!!!!! Power is GREAT on the street and VERY SMOOTH. It just sucks that the wheel bearing drones everything out. I couldn't get comfortable with the car because I was so worried about that stupid bearing. It will be replaced tomorrow for sure so I'm not too worried about it.

G'night
Mike

[BigMike]

Oh, another interesting thing comparing the NA tach to the SC tach is that the SC's orangeline starts at 7,000 RPM whereas my NA's orangeline starts at 7,250 RPM. The redlines are the same but the orangeline comes in sooner on the SC. Clearly Toyota wanted to encourage short shifting which is understand with all the available torque on hand.

Mike

[Blane525]

Big mike that is a huge job you just did so that will get you off the hook on the 3394 jpeg yaaa i knew you would need some.. cant stay up all night without a pick me up!!!! AND that is a very nice palate tack in that tire have to be very careful taking the palates apart.. by the way if you think that the flatspots on the tires will be the only damage you have a big suprise instore for you at about 75/80 mph .. bee careful or  :'(

[Sirdeuce]

You have the spare parts for the bearing y'know. The RPM  on the tach is idicative of the powerband and the gearing. The tires need to geet hot a few times, but maybe even then, nyah. If you need to get spares you can go to Kevin's. I took spares over there. All corners are available for bearings.

[BigMike]

Updates from June 2nd

I picked up some tires from Bryan but then decided to use the ones I had after discovering that my problem was a passengers side rear wheel bearing.

1st image is a box of gewdies :) A MK Powered ES17-12 360-CCA sealed battery and wheel bearing with new seals. The battery only weighs 13 pounds and measures 7" x 3" x 6.5" so it's quite small, just what I was looking for. The Odyssey batteries are nice, but this MK Powered battery was less than $50 so I couldn't resist.

2nd image is the passengers strut removed

3rd image is removing the junk bearing

4th image is how badly pitted the bearing was

5th image is where I intend to mount the battery, nice and low. I just decided to mount a small battery in the engine compartment and not have to worry about long heavy gauge wires running all the way to the front trunk where I had previously mounted a full-size battery

6th image is the bracket and side stop that I built to lock the battery in place. I cut up some old radiator hose and will zip tie the rubber to the bracket to cushion an hold the battery better. This mount actually turned out better than I had originally planned. I like how simple and lightweight it is, and because the battery is light, it doesn't require much at all to hold on and keep it in place.

7th image is the wider Supercharged wheels installed. I am done playing around with tires and am going to take the car to Costco sometime next week to just get a new set of tires installed and balanced for me. I am tired of wasting so much of my valuable time trying to do this myself. I have not washed the car yet.


What's Next...

* Wire in the battery, Fuel grade selector switch, and Supercharger indicator lamp.
* Clean out all the mouse poo from the blower fan and vents and get the A/C charged.
* Finish mounting the Intercooler
* Figure out what to do with my engine hood

[Sirdeuce]

I found a mod for the ABV. Just a little reroute of vacuum lines. They say it's a necessity if you plan to run higher than stock boost. Cap off the vacuum port on the TB and 'T' into a manifold vacuum source. It'll blow off on closed throttle ops, but pressurizes the the signal side of the ABV.

[BigMike]

I found a mod for the ABV. Just a little reroute of vacuum lines. They say it's a necessity if you plan to run higher than stock boost. Cap off the vacuum port on the TB and 'T' into a manifold vacuum source. It'll blow off on closed throttle ops, but pressurizes the the signal side of the ABV.

Yup, that is the required mod in order to run higher boost :)

[BigMike]

June 3rd Updates

Got the battery and intercooler mounted and done. The car is pretty much ready for the referee now :D

Today was the easiest and smoothest work day so far. Everything I built fit the first time and a lot of planning came together all at the same time and it was really easy getting stuff done today.

1st picture is the ground strap. No modification required.

2nd picture is the battery bracket with rubber padding

3rd picture is the battery mounted. Please note the hot wire: this is the stock wire! So also no modification needed here either! This battery relocation was a 100% plug-n-play in terms of wiring :)

4th & 5th pics show how I insulated the hot wire

6th pic you can see the battery below the charcoal canister. It tucked away quite nicely