1992 MR2 MK2 Project: A big drive

Being able to sit down and do the wiring without having to be reaching into the boot or engine bay and getting a bad back is a nice change.
Lets just hope i get it all correct.


Lots of notes on wires makes things easier, i find masking tape and a sharpie works well.


Along with reusable zipties at the junctions helps to keep it neat.
Since i have moved things like the OBD11 port and cruise control wiring alot of what was there can be removed or relocated.

There is about 2ft of extra wiring for a couple of the ecu connectors which needs to come out.
Before hacking it up make sure to make all the wires to save time later. I use masking tape to number the black wires but the rest i mark both sides of the cut with a sharpie on any wires where i have more that one thats the same colour, 1 stripe, 2 stripes ect.


With the wires reterminated and in the connectors i was able to wrap the loom up a bit.

A package i was waiting on finally arrived so i can get the new timing belt fitted, along with new pulleys and tensioner.


New spark plugs too.


A slight issue i came across is the cross bolts for the main bearing caps have a seal on them.
Toyota is being particularly useless and was giving a minimum of 5 weeks lead time on getting any.
Its simply a metal washer with rubber seal in the middle.
So i hopped on the lathe and made up some metal washers to the right size


Bought some o-rings of the required size and when put together you get a nice sealing washer.


Just for good measure a smear of compound before assembly should make sure they seal up properly.


Some more ancillaries bolted on and its starting to look closer to a complete engine.


Cant put the plenum back on as it was though as the powder coat was flaking so time to get the paint stripper out and crack on with that.

Continuing fitting some of the new parts we have a seal for the rear window trim.
Went careful using a heatgun and it went on very easily.


New seals for the bolts too.



The rubber intake ducts go in.


With the belt painted in a metallic grey to see how it looks, undercarriage can now be hidden by her skirts.


Decided to use black mesh in the little triangle


I put some more mesh on the engine bay side of the intake too.
There is already a tiny bit at the bottom where the oem intake would have sat.


So i did the full opening.


I finished stripping and blasting the lower plenum


Then powdercoated


A few final bits bolted onto the engine including intake, flywheel, clutch and gearbox.


Chocked the front wheels for the extra clearance on the front splitter. Then lifted the car up and removed the rear suspension.


Rolled the engine in


Lowered the car back down to a more stable position, and the engine lifted into place


Got a bit of finishing off to get on with and she should be running soon.

Yay! Well done.

As you may have seen i got everything up and running.
I would say it all went very smoothly. The first attempt we had a massive fuel leak which traced down to bad copper washers on the fuel filter. They were too big so didnt fit in the recess that it needed to fit in.
Luckily it didnt start since no fuel was getting to the engine and being san’s exhaust with a lot of fuel on the floor we could have had a large issue.
Correct sized washer fitted and the workshop dried out it fired up straight away. Fell into a decent idle and sounded healthy.

With some bits to get on and finish i got cracking.
The refurbished subframe went in.


Along with the new tie rods


Fresh polybushed engine mount


The clutch line connected up ready for filling and bleeding.

Since i like it a bit quieter the exhaust was bolted back up. Originally i had said i wasnt going to reuse this system as its a bit rough but time is against me so it will have to suffice for now.

The suspension went back in. I currently dont have mounts for the rear brake calipers so they might or might not be fitted to the rx8 disks for the show at the weekend.
Wheels back on and dropped to the ground for now.


The rear bumper loosely dropped in place.

Onto the front end.
Since i have one bracket for the front calipers i only need one more. The idea is to only use these as prototypes until i can make or get them made properly.

Just going to point out this is not an ideal setup, i dont have a milling machine and my lathe is too shagged out to attempt doing any milling with it so i tightened up every bolt and adjuster i could and got cracking.


As it happens it worked better than i expected with respect to flat it seems to be within 0.05mm which is plenty good enough for this.


The edges are a bit rough but it clears the calipers and means i can bolt the calipers and hoses on with the hope that stopping will be an option for getting it on and off the trailer..

I had a design already done so printed out some adaptors to fit the new rear speakers.


Making a few changes on the dash cluster.


First off is the speedo control board.


My original one is JDM and required a kph-mph converter to work properly.
I pulled it out when i redid the wiring as i didnt like it hiding behind there.
Im also chasing down a speed limiter that i found the car had.
In theory it would have been in the dashboard so by swapping to the uk one it should be gone now.

I also changed out the lights. Originally i had some blue led’s in there but the needles didnt light up properly so i was never really happy with it.
This time its got some white LED’s and i added colour where i want it with lighting gel slid under the gauge faces.


The rear end got all fitted up.


The front brakes bolted up and new lines fitted


Since i had fixed the foglights up a bit i wanted to give them a bit more protection on the glass so ordered myself some laminex and set to sticking it on.


More things continued to be bolted back on in a haste to get everything complete before the show.


I moved to the other workshop so i could get over the pit and refit the long lines and get the coolant and aircon lines fitted.




The coolant lines that run to the engine need a bit of attention or remaking but i just refitted the old ones for now.

When it came to bleeding the engine i found an issue.
No.4 injector was always open and constantly flooding fuel through.
Not ideal.
I went through various tests and a few hours later decided it must be the wiring.
So tracing everything back i found that the wire for the injector which is blue didnt seem to link to the injector.
Hmm someone (me) made a fuckup on that one i guess.
A quick look of the other plugs i see another thick blue wire. Test that and lo-an behold its the one for the injector.
Looking at the wiring diagram shows i got the unector wire plugged into the pin for the o2 sensor heater and the heater was plugged into the injector pin.
Neither the injector or o2 heater was happy about this arrangement hence the issues.
A quick pin swap and everything was back to normal.

I found an extra hour that night to finish modifying the high level brake light too.


A full new set of leds soldered on since some of the old ones had gone and it always looked a bit uneven. A quick old vs new comparison.


I set it to be only slightly brighter than original since i don't want to blind anyone.

The casing on the light has to be cut open to do this so i glued it back together and called it a night.

Saturday is the final day before the show and since im camping at the showground that night i need to get everything ready to go. Its a 3hr drive so setting off around lunch time would be ideal.

Im still missing an important piece of the puzzle and thats rear brakes.
A simple option is to make temporary spacer plates.
Grab the 3mm sheet and after a bit of measuring, cutting and drilling we have something useable.


There is no room for the bolt head on the back so had to quickly make up some spacers on the lathe.


Calipers and new lines could go on.


Bled the full system through and following a few little jobs the car went onto the trailer ready for the drive down.

great milestone!!! well done

Love little details like this

Next up on getting the dash all back together is the radio wiring.
It was a mess of adapters and hacked wiring so i spent a few minutes condensing it down to one adapter from the original toyota plug to the radio, it saves a bit of space and hassle getting the radio in.


And with that everythings reconnected the dash can go back together hopefully for the final time.
That is until i find out the speedo or rev counter needs adjusting and it all comes apart again.


The radio works as expected and the new speakers dont sound bad either. Although the condition of my hearing means im far from a good judge of whats a decent sound quality, its usually good enough for me aslong as it doesnt crackle or hum.
I even gave the heated seats a test too and am pleased to report a gentle warming of the posterior.

It certainly feels like its been longer than that. only a few weeks away now, its getting very close to the 3 year mark since she came off the road in the first place.