Awesome news!!!! Mine was in this months issue in the readers rides. I haven't driven it much as my clutch is out (Not fully releasing), and me and my younger sibling are changing it tomorrow with an 11lb flywheel and a dual friction clutch. Love the SMG color on these cars!!!
Looking good! Is that a full CF hood? I'm looking for a few ways to lighten mine a little.
Obviously with the ND and other assorted stuff I haven't really got around to doing much with mine, but I'm semi-hopeful that I'll get the intake put together properly this weekend.
It is, its a Siebon Carbon Fiber OEM Style. I love it, its slightly lighter than the OEM.
Time for the long overdue update. I wisely(?) decided to use the not so ample spare time in summer to work on the car rather than to update the thread. So time for a thread update with a few more photos.
First, I decided it was finally time to install a proper boost gauge instead of the rather ridiculous OEM on. To keep the look clean I opted for a factory-look modified instrument surround that incorporated a gauge mount. Time to pull the instrument surround, which of course requires disassembling half the interior.
Unfortunately while I pulled the interior apart I came across one of my personal pet hates, messed up alarm installations:
Note the air bag loom connector shoved into the heating and A/C vent, very smartly done. So of course instead of holding my nose and just getting on with it, I spent an hour or so cleaning up the wiring, actually gluing the alarm antenna to the dashboard using some proper double sided tape (that's one mystery rattle down, tons more to go), replacing the busted valet switch with a new one and some general cleaning up. After using more cable ties than in your average drift car, the wiring is tidied up as much as I can without remaking the loom and everything is held together rather than being allowed to wander around under the dash willy-nilly. It's still a mess, but at least it's an arranged mess.
Back to the boost gauge install. After getting more vacuum hose - having Summit Racing in driving distance rocks - I put everything together. Looking good so far.
So I put the steering wheel back on and was greeted with this clearly readable gauge:
Go on, take a second or two looking for the gauge. This clearly was the perfect location, all I needed was a periscope to read the darn thing. Which meant, time to switch to plan B. Fortunately I had a gauge mount that replaces the ash tray, so it was time to try out that one:
Much better, even though I now have to look down to see the gauge. Not an ideal placement, but I don't have to check it that often. I'll also turn the gauge blank into a mount for an aux-in and USB connector so I don't regularly have to pop it out and pull out the USB cable underneath it to charge my phone.
While I was working in the interior I also had to tweak the trunk/gas cap release a bit to clear the Nagisa seat rails. Without the notch, I could barely push the clutch to the floor and anybody shorter than me couldn't drive the car. Oops.
I also changed out the sway bar links to much nicer, heim jointed ones. The OEM Toyota ones are a known wear item and I needed a new one after one became undone on the track anyway. Ah, shiny metal goodness, compared to the OEM one:
Unfortunately it turned out that the front ones really didn't like being torqued down to OEM spec and ended up with a stripped thread. Dremel ahoy 
. I did contact the vendor about it, never heard back from them unfortunately but in the end bit the bullet and bought another set as they are that much better than the OEM ones.
While I had half the interior out I also decided to replace the head unit as the tape player of the OEM unit doesn't work and I also needed the space to install some additional gauges. So, time to make a big hole in the center of the dash:
Old and new compared:
Because track car, let's have a look at the weight savings:
And with the display part of the Apexi gauges mocked up:
At this point I was in a bit of a hurry to make the last time trials event of the season so I decided to skip installing the Apexi gauges for the time being.
Nice process.
Don't you just love it when a vendor can't be bothered to reply.
I also made some mild changes in the engine bay. Originally, I only wanted to install the TRD rear strut bar, but being my clumsy self I dropped one of the mounting bolts and it got wedged underneath the OEM airbox. When I pulled out the airbox to get at the bolt, I noticed that one of the clamps was missing and it was actually drawing in air past the air filter. Oops. Time to pull out the airbox and fit my almost complete ARC air intake instead. Those who've seen a build or two of mine know I like ARC parts and tend to snap them up whenever I can. The ARC intake for the 2nd gen engine is actually pretty rare so when one came up on ebay, I grabbed it.
It was missing a couple of bolts and hose clamps, so how bad could it be?
First, I decided I didn't like the OEM nuts that hold the AFM and airhorn together, so I tried to replace them with nyloc nuts.
So far, so good, only that I didn't have short enough wrench so the whole thing got put on hold while I started bidding on some Bluepoint short wrenches on ebay. Getting them took a while but I was finally able to do this:
Hey, only spent $120 to fit a dollar's worth of nuts. Fortunately there's also a K&N filter that's a perfect replacement air filter for the ARC foam filter that was missing from my airbox, resulting in this:
I had to improvise a little more as the little rubber sleeves for the mounts have gone AWOL. The OEM sleeves are too big but will do for now. After yet another trip to Summit Racing to buy some proper, boost safe hose clamps I finally got the whole thing together just in time for the last Club Trials event of the season:
Well, almost. I had noticed a lot of movement in the engine when I was hard on the gas, which didn't exactly improve the shift quality. I ordered some urethane inserts for the front and rear engine mounts to solve the problem. Pulled out the front engine mount and was greeted by this little guy, which really couldn't be persuaded to take the urethane insert.
Yep, someone had fitted an N/A MR2 front mount to a turbo. Given some of the other mods that I've discovered while working on the car (for example, the center tunnel cover has been wrapped in leatherette and I think the seats may have been dyed), I'm guessing that someone wanted to turn it into a more "luxurious" car. Didn't help me one bit, but thanks to one awesome vendor on MR2OC, I had a used turbo engine mount within a few days and ended up putting the urethane insert in the day before going to the track.
After bolting on the OEM wheels with BFG Rivals, time to head for the track. The first day wasn't that successful as I was consistently 2-3s/lap slower than in the rented Spec Pinata I used for the previous event. After some tweaking of the suspension (turns out the front Konis hadn't been set consistently) and bumping up the tire pressure to 34/36 from the 26ish/29ish I run on the street, I finally managed to get consistent lap times and broke the psychologically important (well, to me) 1:40 mark on Thunderhill West:
https://www.youtube.com/embed/2ungWGjwTek
Over the season this year I managed to find almost 10s/lap when I compared to where I started out. That's pretty good in my book. Plus, I'm not last in my class anymore 
. Given that this was my first season doing actual competitive motorsports, I'd call that a result.
With the season over I know have to figure out if I want to throw more mods at this car (mainly suspension, but some additional power mods). I've never completely warmed to it, plus it's got one big downside that already cost me a couple of track days - try transporting a second set of wheels and all the equipment to change tires at the track without trailering the thing. Something more hatchbacky (and with better parts support) might be the way to go unless I really want to drive through snow storms on well worn Rivals.
bgkast wrote: Nice process. Don't you just love it when a vendor can't be bothered to reply.
Indeed. Annoyingly enough they're also the only people who sell this particular part.
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