00 mr2 spyder commute attack car

Wow, that's a beautiful car. Immediately drove me to Craigslist.

Very cool!

It struck me that during this build, I should have been better about photographing the process. From this point forward I will rectify that. <img src="" />

The plan from here out is to improve aerodynamics without visually altering the car as I prefer to keep a low profile, and I feel that the people that "get it" will get it and those who don't will not notice. I think great improvements can be made to the car in underbody aero, so expect a carbon fiber flat underbody next and some spats (the newer mr2s have these anyway). Here is another angle on the wing that I fabricated from aluminum. <img src="" />

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I'd like to replace the suspension bushings with heim joints where possible as they have 150 on them at this point. What has been done so far consists of tein s-tech springs with koni dampers, cusco f+r swaybars (I run the rear in the soft position and the car rotates well). It has a corkey's under brace and all the trd braces available. The tires are toyo ra1s in 205/50/15f and 225/45/15r on work emotions with work aluminum lugs. The brake dust shields are removed front and rear to save a little unsprung weight. pads are ebc yellows f+r (steel braided lines coming soon). The storage compartments behind the seats were removed to make room for the cage and save some weight, after much debate I convinced the wife to let me remove the stereo and speakers, the steering wheel was replaced with a momo and the passenger bag was removed along with the control module, and sensors. (A little known fact is that the passenger bag cover has clips to reattach it without the bag to retain a factory appearance). <img src="" />

The frunk surround was removed, as was the carpet and the sun visors were replaced with some carbon block off plates that i made. <img src="" />

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Soooo the battery in the spyder left us today when the lights were left on while refueling, thankfully a nice gentleman in a gti gave me a jump and we were on our way. Now the battery has my attention, and I'd like to take the opportunity to loose some weight (as I clearly suffer from automotive bulimia) and relocate it to make room for a colder, dryer air intake/ airbox by the driver's side air intake as the current setup is neither cold nor dry, it's right on the turbo which I think sucks (although I understand the need to keep costs down when developing a mass produced turbo kit). To make a long story short, I've narrowed the search for a battery to either a braille or a shorai. I have had excellent luck with my shorai in my bike and if they're good enough for the trd griffon then probly good enough for me. I have had zero experience with braille although the not recommended for cold climates or long term storage notation turns me off, my shorai works fine on the coldest day of the year and cranks strong after sitting for months. Does anyone have any insight or opinions they'd like to share?

This is the shorai:http://shoraipower.com/lfx36l3-bs12-p130

Tire rack sells braille (probly the top one?): ,http://www.tirerack.com/accessories/brand.jsp?brand=Braille

Today's project was depowering the rack. The zzw30 chassis uses electric assist power steering as a result of the mid engined layout, which I find to be very over assisted and vague, not what I consider ideal in a sportscar. Not to mention I'm fairly obsessive about weight saving on this project, and that electric pump is heavy. So I removed the electric pump and recirculated the hoses to the rack (leaving enough fluid to keep the rack lubricated). Upon road testing, I found feedback to be greatly improved, and some of the inherent twitchiness of this car to be replaced with a more planted feeling. Where before it was easy to turn in too aggressively, now you can feed steering lock in progressively, feeling resistance build with cornering force and feeling the tire as it begins to break away at limit. Massive improvement. At some point I may disassemble the rack and depower it completely but for now I'd like to spend some time making sure it makes it a better car before doing anything irreversible. I found the gaping hole left by the removed pump to be unsightly so I fabricated a small carbon bracket to replace it. I mounted the bracket on some energy suspension swaybar endlink bushings I had laying around.

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After:

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As a former owner of an '88 MR2 SC that I autocrossed, I am very much enjoying this thread. Thanks.

Thanks John! No need to thank me, I'm stoked that anyone gives a e36m3 about this.

We took the spydercar to the AXIS year end shootout event at limerock park yesterday and finished 4th. It was an open event, so cars were all over the map, supercars, racecars, heavily modified streetcars on full slick tires, all sorts of stuff. It was an invitational event with the fastest 20 cars from all the open auto-x events throughout the year. We were on toyo RA1s so the same setup we run on the street. There was one warmup lap allowed then 3 timed laps (the fastest of which would be used for scoring, in the event of a tie, the second fastest would be tie breaker). During practice we were having difficulty getting heat in the fronts, so we used torpedo heaters to warm the fronts to 150f before going out for the main. The car worked well, and I got two fairly clean laps, got a little too loose on one. This car is challenging to drive at limit because the fastest way to corner it is ever so slightly loose, and fine throttle control is difficult because of the small displacement/ vvt and turbo, but boy is it fun to try. It's very easy to have a clean lap turn into a drift lap. This car is a handfull and as it is the wife's car I have only driven it a couple of times this year so I might have been able to shave a couple of tenths if I was more in tune with it. Awesome day though, so much fun to see all the amazing cars that were there. Limerock always feels like home (we got married there, and are there for most events to spectate). Big thanks to all that made this event happen, great fun. Anyone here that is in this area should make sure they make it to qualify next year! We're going to make some changes and try hard to win next year, stay tuned for pics and videos!

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So awesome! I still haven't gotten to my Spyder, it was bought with a blown engine and is sitting in the garage with a (possibly good) junkyard 1zz next to it. Haven't even decided 100% on where I'm going with it. Might just fix it with the 1zz and drive it for a while and see what I think. If you do the 2zz swap are you going to keep the turbo setup or would your old engine and turbo setup be for sale?

I'm liking the manual steering. How is the wheel effort? It seems like it would be very low given the light weight mid engine car. I want my wife to be able to drive this thing.. is yours happy with the manual steering?

Big thanks to James at westwood sign for upping my livery game, no more masking tape #s for me. Placards are replicas of the JGTC ones, Autobacs sponsored the MR-S racecar in the jgtc300 class, and 9/4 is our wedding anniversary.

The turbo setup will likely be up for grabs once the 2zz is up and running. The manual steering is very manageable, wife says "one of my favorite mods, so much better feel and easier to be smooth at limit" . It's still 1 hand easy at rest on 205/50/15 front Ra1s.

So... where the hell is your helmet dude?

Besides that, I'm lovin' the car, keep us updated.

I brought it (and my sparco fire suit) but it wasn't required by the track, and I would have been the only one wearing a lid, so figured why have the reduced visibility. Fortunately, I kept it rubber side down so all's well that ends well. There is a video coming at you guys as soon as my crappy internet uploads a youtube video, good news, only 450mins remaining

Lime Rock is a fantastic venue! I grew up nearby in Millerton NY and spent countless hours there. Dad owned a restoration shop and did a lot of vintage race prep (the shop is still going, although under new ownership and new location...Morgan-Spares LTD)

Beautiful MR! I look forward to seeing more

Thanks! Here's a link to some practice laps on youtube, enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4FgmVIykM&feature=youtu.be

Deculberson, this vid might give you a taste of the steering effort in tight fast turns. At big slip angles it can be a bit heavy but much better feel than stock.

It really hurt my times that we were not on slick tires and that the car has an open diff, this year the game on this car is getting upped considerably, no more playing around. Next year I'm taking no prisoners. All non essential fasteners will be aluminum, maybe some ti ones for more important parts, the battery will be replaced with a Shorai and relocated, the A/C is going away, maybe some (painted) carbon bodywork, I'd really like to loose another 100lbs, wider rubber is coming too, although the current fenders are full...so something will have to be done there, some underbody aero is in the works as well as some ground effect stuff (doubtful that will help on short tracks but hopefully it will help on the faster tracks), it'll be very subtle as I'm not into flashy cars or obvious body mods on these cars. There will be a hiatus as it goes into hibernation this week but when it comes back, I'll go to town on it, but it'll remain a budget build that's heavy on fabrication and creative solutions, stay tuned.

carbon wrote: Thanks! Here's a link to some practice laps on youtube, enjoy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN4FgmVIykM&feature=youtu.be Deculberson, this vid might give you a taste of the steering effort in tight fast turns. At big slip angles it can be a bit heavy but much better feel than stock.

That looked like fun! You had some good catches (from loose turns) in there. Was that a cart track?

It's very tempting to just drift it through every corner. Limerock calls it "the auto-x coarse". It's very nice to have elevation change in an autox.

Small update…

At long last my shorai battery came in the mail. I ordered it from kinetic custom machine, and it came in a couple of weeks, the kit that I got was for a frs/brz, but it fit in the factory location nicely and is very secure. My original plan was to relocate to the interior to make room for an airbox and to lower the c of g, but the shorai is so light (they list it as 4.9lbs) and compact that I elected to leave it in the factory location for now and work on plumbing the cold air intake around it to get fresh air from the driver's side duct. We're trying to get ready for an auto-x day at limerock in july and eventually the axis invitational (hopefully), so ultimately an lsd and full slick tires are in order, but for the time being, more weight loss and fine tuning is in order. <img src="" />

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This weekend we qualified for the AXIS invitational at lrp, I'm currently sitting at 2nd overall for the year. We ran ra1s to qualify, this time 225/45/15s all around, with a little different alignment settings (more toe in in rear, more out in front and -1.5 camber all around as opposed to -.5 last year). The track was a little greasy from being repaved in spots but the setup was fairly neutral. We ran our street setup to the letter aside from removing the wipers (a little less weight and I don't have to worry about turning them on while flailing around trying not to crash this wild beast of a car), I didn't even change tire pressures. Oh and swmbo qualified 18th too! She's so berking cool! Some pictures will follow, but no go pro footage this year as we didn't have our e36m3 together and the battery won't hold a charge. I'll be getting a pair for the axis event so at least there'll be some video then.

So as I alluded to in other posts, I've made some door cards for the spyder. The factory door panels are intrusive in my opinion (maybe because of my 6'5" wingspan), I have a tendency to bang my elbows into the factory armrest and it disturbs my flow when driving quickly. So we've gone from this… <img src="" />

To this…. <img src="" /> <img src="" /> <img src="" />

And I've shaved a bit more weight as well, deleting the heavy factory power mirrors and replacing them with some apr units that I had laying around. They were for another application and the mounts were a bit heavy so I tabbed some that were inspired by the ones on the trd griffon (in many ways the spiritual inspiration for this build).

<img src="" /> At some point I'll replace the socket head cap screws with buttonheads.

I also upgraded the brakes a bit with some good ridge lines and some mogul fluid. <img src="" /> I am prototyping some carbon composite prop rods as we speak, here's a teaser… <img src="" />