Pocket Rocket - AW11 MR2 V6

Man, I love seeing such a fresh setup put together on one of these cars.  The AW11 is so sensitive to the health of it's suspension (and therefore alignment) that this will all be worth it.   I remember mine was transformed by doing all this stuff, but you've been even more comprehensive.  Congrats on getting it all together.

Since we have a bunch of MR2 people here talking suspension I'll throw in a slight threadjack - I've decided to try Xhead's no swaybar setup.  It'll probably take me forever to actually get the work done due to covid/work/childcare, but I'll let you guys know how it goes.  I'll be aiming for somewhere in the 600f/350r range based on those old threads, but I may fudge a little on the rates based on what I can get from GC's scratch-n-dent supply.

Thanks, I am pretty excited about seeing it all come together and know this will be very alignment friendly, so looking for any advice on castor, camber and toe settings for aggressive street and occasional autocross use. I will have the engine compartment painted this weekend and the wiring harness for the engine swap so the new engine will be back in the car next week and the rear suspension installed as well so this is all coming together really quickly. I went with the Porterfield R4S HP Street and Autocross pads front and rear for the brakes as my starting point. I also rebuilt the motor mounts with the Twosrus kit with poly bushings figuring the V6 will need it. 

All those suspension bits are looking mighty nice.  I'm pretty sure the springs you got didn't look that nice when you picked them up...

How do you handle alignment?  Do you have the equipment to do that in your garage, or do you have a preferred shop you like to use?  

Thanks, front brakes were added today. Yes, the springs were cleaned up and sprayed with some rust preventative and clear coat, look 90% new :-)

I will need to find a good alignment shop, as everything is even more adjustable than normal with this setup. I also need to research what are some good settings for aggressive street use. Wiregap is shipping my wiring harness today, so may have it by Saturday. I'll be getting the engine and transmission mated up so I can get it all back in the car next week. Then the rear suspension and lots of minor details but getting much closer. Porterfield brake pads coming Friday, I'll hook up the brake lines tomorrow. Disks are 89 Supercharged, so slightly larger, rebuilt calipers with the 89 supercharged brake brackets that space out the caliper for the larger rotors.

Today was cooling system work. I had noticed coolant under the front of the car had been pooling when it was in storage and everything was rusty, so I pulled the radiator, shroud, condenser and replaced the radiator with an alumium one, reconditioned the shroud and put it all back together. Looks good as new.

Discovered these have to be fit in separately, first the radiator, then the shroud from underneath. Looks good and with new hoses, I am confident with the cooling system once the system is bleed. I also installed the brake lines, radiator hoses and anti-roll bar. Front end is pretty much done.  Next steps are to paint the engine compartment, mate the transmission to the engine, install the harness and get the new drivetrain into the car!

I'm not a real big fan of how the radiator mounts in the MR2.  If the upper supports are a little loose, enough rough roads action can cause the radiator to bounds up out of the lower support and drop through the bottom of the car.  The good news is that the stock fan shroud is thick enough that it won't fall all the way out, just most of the way.  But, it's still not really a good situation.  I know you're not planning on being so hard on this car as I am with mine, but I recommend some safety zipties at the top of the radiator just in case.  

Yes, it does have some slight up and down movement. I assumed it was because the rubber bushings are old and shrunk. I'll shim it with some rubber to keep it from moving. My car will (hopefully) not spending as much time in the air as your Rallycross car, so that should be sufficient as there is not enough movement to allow it to come out of the lower support as the pins are about 1/2 long, but I agree with you, it could be much more secure.

Yesterday I painted the engine compartment the original black metallic from 1986 and sprayed some clear so it is all ready to go. 

Today the focus was on basically re-installing the reconditioned gas tank and everything back into the engine compartment so I am ready to install the engine and transmission. The gas tank was in good shape, but had surface rust inside, so I had cleaned it out with a kit from KBS and coated the tank with sealant. I replaced the fuel pump and make sure the sending unit worked got it painted and put back together ready to re-install.

I'll say one thing, Toyota did not spare an inch in that transmission tunnel for all the water, fuel, electrical, brake, clutch, AC and everything else packed in there. Gas tank is mounted now, good thing as this must be next to impossible with the engine in the car!  So last thing was to install the fiberglass mat on the back of the firewall and then run all the fuel, brake and water lines on the firewall and mount the fuse box and cables. Really happy with the results.

This week I get the new wiring harness from Wiregap, so I can get the engine and transaxle ready to to mount and back in the car. Once the engine is in the car, I can reinstall the rear suspension. Coming together really quickly now. I plan on having the radiator hoses, clutch hose and heater lines installed and ready to mount  to the engine, so I don't have to try to fit them afterwards. I have part numbers for the Gates hoses that work with a 1MZ-FE and the heater hoses are pretty simple.

I am dreading the day I need I need to pull the gas tank.  I'm sure it's coming though, and if yours was a bit rusty, I can only imagine what mines like.  

I'd just like to say, as a former X1/9 owner (I absolutely loved that car), a V6 AW11 may just be tbe greatest thing ever. 

Thanks, I had an X1/9 as well many years ago and loved it.  Got a bunch of parts yesterday including the exhaust. I went with a stainless steel dual outlet ebay special which I'll just have to build a short pipe to go from the stock Camry Y-pipe to the muffler. I also got the wiring harness from Wiregap, so installed it on the engine last night and installed the flywheel and clutch and installed the transmission. These E series Toyota transmissions are supposed to be indestructible and if weight is any indication, that must be true. Got it mounted, will finish getting it assembled and out of the "storage" Suburban where it has lived for the last few months and ready to roll under the MR2 so I can figure out the remaining connections and lift it up into the engine bay and on the mounts. Lxnm, I have ultimate respect for you in removing and replacing the transmission with the engine still in the car, that had to be quite  a feat!

Hey I know you bought the chassis already outfitted for a V6, but do you know what was done for engine mounts?  

He had built some custom mounts for the front center and passenger side mounts. I am hoping that the 1MZ-FE and 3VZ-FE have the same bolt locations  on the passenger side, but if not, I'll just make something custom. What I like is that he made a mount on the 3VZ-FE that did not require you to relocate the bracket on the body. I also replaced the front and rear mounts with the urethane mounts from Twosrus since the V6 has twice the torque of the original 4 cylinder. The front center bracket also has the mounts for my transmission linkage. So the usual mix of stock and custom. His custom mount for the engine is the one on the right.

I like that you have a suburban solely dedicated for storage.  Does this storage move, or is it next up for an engine swap?

It is the ultimate moving storage vehicle. My wife is not too happy about it as it has had all the engine swap parts sitting in it for the last few months. It is basically my parts chaser or tow vehicle at this point but it dawned on me that it is also available "covered space".

Thanks for the explanation on the mounts. I'm a little unclear on the driver and rear mount though.  Let's see if I got this straight...

Front - custom mount to engine, but included transmission linkage from stock setup - utilizes stock body bracket
Rear - stock mounts work?
Passenger - custom mount to engine - utilizes stock body bracket (might work with 1MZ, dunno yet)
Driver - stock mounts work?
 

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

<snip> My wife is not too happy about it as it has had all the engine swap parts sitting in it for the last few months <snip>

Just tell her it has enough torques that it doesn't even notice that block back there.

Matt B (Forum Supporter) said:

Thanks for the explanation on the mounts. I'm a little unclear on the driver and rear mount though.  Let's see if I got this straight...

Front - custom mount to engine, but included transmission linkage from stock setup - utilizes stock body bracket
Rear - stock mounts work?
Passenger - custom mount to engine - utilizes stock body bracket (might work with 1MZ, dunno yet)
Driver - stock mounts work?
 

dherr (Forum Supporter) said:

<snip> My wife is not too happy about it as it has had all the engine swap parts sitting in it for the last few months <snip>

Just tell her it has enough torques that it doesn't even notice that block back there.

Correct on the mounts. My transmission throws a monkey wrench into the mix as no one is using a E51 supercharged transmission typically for many reasons. So my shift linkage bracket, slave cylinder and lines and the moujnts needed some work. But stock rear, stock driver side mounts, front body mount are all stock (except for the poly bushings) and the passenger mount is custom. Day of reckoning will be Saturday to see if it all fits  I'll take pictures this weekend so it all will be more clear (hopefully).

She does not drive the truck, it was just that she could not use it to go get the kids stuff at UMD, since the truck was already full and I was not going to pull out the engine, when they can use their dad's Suburban.

Matt B (Forum Supporter) said:

Man, I love seeing such a fresh setup put together on one of these cars.  The AW11 is so sensitive to the health of it's suspension (and therefore alignment) that this will all be worth it.   I remember mine was transformed by doing all this stuff, but you've been even more comprehensive.  Congrats on getting it all together.

Since we have a bunch of MR2 people here talking suspension I'll throw in a slight threadjack - I've decided to try Xhead's no swaybar setup.  It'll probably take me forever to actually get the work done due to covid/work/childcare, but I'll let you guys know how it goes.  I'll be aiming for somewhere in the 600f/350r range based on those old threads, but I may fudge a little on the rates based on what I can get from GC's scratch-n-dent supply.

 

As a longtime friend of Steve's, I've been fortunate to spend a lot of time driving the X1/9, and some time in his MR2, his setups are amazing.  His old DSP X1/9 is hands down the best autocross car I've ever driven.  Nothing else has been even close.  The MR2, and I'll have to preface this saying it was early days when I drove it, behaved similar, but felt like it was a sledgehammer in comparison to a scalpel.  He has worked extensively on it since then and says it is much like the X in current configuration.

Got the engine sitting in the bay yesterday, just need to hook up a few things while I still have easy access, including bleeding the clutch line. Quite a tight fit for one of these in an AW11. I should have this sitting on the mounts later today and can then install the new rear suspension and work on getting everything hooked up. 

Well "I should have this sitting on the mounts and can install the new rear suspension" did not quite work out like I thought today. Spend a good 8 hours today getting it mounted and figuring out a few things. 99% it fits very tight but it does fit and there is great access to pretty much everything from underneath or from the transmission side. I had pulled the O2 sensors before installing it as I have learned from the past that they are easy to break and expensive to replace. Good thing I did, turns out there is one big issue with a 1MZ-FE in an AW11.

I went ahead and finished installing it as I don't want to cut the cross member and it should be relatively easy to pull the exhaust manifold, install a plug for the O2 sensor and then weld in a bung a few inches further down on the down pipe. The bung on the stock manifold is basically a centimeter from the cross member, so no way this fits as it is. 

Having everything staged made this much easier as my radiator hoses are in place, all the various lines, are ready to go and the wiring harness is pretty much plug and play other than me having to run my battery cables

racerdave600 said:

Matt B (Forum Supporter) said:

blah blah - I've decided to try Xhead's no swaybar setup.  - blah blah

As a longtime friend of Steve's, I've been fortunate to spend a lot of time driving the X1/9, and some time in his MR2, his setups are amazing.  His old DSP X1/9 is hands down the best autocross car I've ever driven.  Nothing else has been even close.  The MR2, and I'll have to preface this saying it was early days when I drove it, behaved similar, but felt like it was a sledgehammer in comparison to a scalpel.  He has worked extensively on it since then and says it is much like the X in current configuration.

Good to hear and small world (after all)!  Makes sense as everyone who tried it loved it.  I am curious as to how it'll behave on the street though.  ATL can be pretty hard on even stock suspension cars.  We shall see...

dherr - congrats on getting it in the bay!  Also reading this thread only reinforces the fact I need to learn how to weld.

In reply to Matt B (Forum Supporter) :

I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.  When I had the 400 lb springs on the car, things felt fine until I tried going over a speed bump, then it was very stiff

Matt B (Forum Supporter) said:

dherr - congrats on getting it in the bay!  Also reading this thread only reinforces the fact I need to learn how to weld.

Thanks, progress continues as I hook up the wiring and the misc, stuff. You do need to know how to weld to do one of these as nothing is just straight out of the box. Not difficult but time consuming and bumps come along the way. Case in point, my rear exhaust manifold will need the O2 bung move 45 degrees around the manifold to clear the cross member. Got a bung and plug ordered and will get this moved on Friday.

So worked on the suspension and exhaust today. The muffler is a 2.5 inch inlet flange but the Camry/Solara downpipe is really restrictive. I am aware that these are not a performance motor, but seriously why would they restrict the two banks down to a single pipe that looks like it is 1.75 or less?

I cut it off, ground out the pipe end with a carbine burr and welded on a 2.5 inch pipe. Was not able to get it all the way out to 2.5 but much less restrictive. Rear suspension is half on, will finish it once the O2 sensor bung is back on the manifold in the right place so I can get this all bolted on. The exhaust will be easy, as I will just build up a connector pipe with a 2.5 inch flange on both ends, probably the shortest exhaust I have ever built. This should flow much better than the stock pipe and exhaust. 

Your daddy never told ya? You need backpressure to make powah!