*UPDATE*
Well, it's been quite some time now since I last updated this page. A lot of things have changed in a year. I've gone in a new direction with the car (autocross), and with it having well over 100k miles, lots of stuff just decided to start breaking. I've devoted a lot of time and money now to keeping the car running strong. Lots and lots of factory and aftermarket parts have been replaced over the past year, just to keep this thing going. The sad thing is, it never shows any signs of stopping. There's always something to fix on this thing. But, despite all the headache I've endured, I still love this car as much now as I did the day I drove it home. So, I'll keep on driving it and sinking more money and sweat into it until I either go bankrupt or have a heart attack. Whichever comes first! ON WITH THE SITE!
12/28/02 - Purchased the car After months of searching for the right car I finally purchased this car from a tuner in Rhode Island (all records on hand).
01/25/03 - Deployed My National Gaurd Unit gets deployed to the middle east (Didn't see that coming did you?)
10/04/03 - Return I finally return from my unit's deployment in the middle east. Time to start searching for parts.
10/05/03 - Air intake With the factory air box in place, the turbo just wasn't spooling up fast enough, nor getting adequate air flow, so for a quick and cheap fix, I removed the restrictive air box and piping and went to the local customs shop and purchased a Tenzo R cone filter and afm adapter. only cost me $45 and what a difference.
10/07/03 - Intercooler I forgot to mention that while we were deployed, we sometimes had access to the internet. Taking advantage of this, I went on ebay and found a great deal on an HKS intercooler. I would have much rather gotten the GReddy, but I couldn't pass this deal up. When I arrived home, it was there waiting for me. It took me 2 full days to install this thing. 1.5 to take out the original, and 2 hours to install the HKS. What a pain!, but worth it in the end.
10/13/03 - Guages While I was at the customs shop, I ordered up a matching autometer sport comp a/f ratio gauge to go along with my boost gauge. It came in and I hooked it up the same day, pretty easy installation, and now there's no more hole where there should have been a gauge.
10/14/03 - Fan switch mod After consulting numerous members on the MR2 board, I disconnected my intercooler fan temp switch. Now, the fan runs constantly and actually keeps engine temps slightly lower. Nice quick and easy mod.
10/25/03 - TRACK DAY! Finally got the car to the track. I got about 5 runs in. My goal was to get a 13.9. Unfortunately, the best I could do was a 14.2 @ 100MPH (which still isn't bad for a car with no transmission). I think I could have definately pulled it off with some better take-offs. My best 60' time was 2.4 and that's pretty pathetic. I know it's not really fair to blame the track, but I just couldn't seam to get good traction. Nobody else there seamed to be having any luck either. Oh well. Guess I know what to work on for next season. =)
12/25/03 - Christmas = Gifts = Short shifter and GTECH Pro Well, happy holidays everybody. I hope Santa was good to everyone. I know he was to me. I scored a GTECH Pro Competition monitoring tool from my girlfriend and a short shifter from my buddy Adam. Can't wait to put them both to good use.
01/01/04 - Short shifter Happy New Year everyone! First whole day off I've had in a while, so I took the opportunity to install my new short shifter. Pretty easy install. Only took me about 45 mins. With the new shifter in, I ran into a problem. My stock shift knob wouldn't fit on the new, shorter shifter. So, I ordered up a TRD leather/carbon fiber ball type shift knob. In the mean time, I just swapped with my girlfriend for a while.
01/03/04 - GTECH runs It was a nice night, so I decided to put my new GTECH to the test. It was very simple to set-up. Just plug it into your cigarette lighter, put in a couple bits of info (weight, redline, etc.), and calibrate (this was actually the hardest part. You have to hold the RPM's at 4500 for 3 secs. Not as easy as you think). I went out onto the highway (not too many cars out at 1AM) and did a couple runs. The GTECH was actually remarkably accurate. It said I ran a 14.2 @ 101 MPH, which is exactly what I got at the track. I studied where the car started to lose power (around 5500 RPM's) and set my shift lights accordingly. After a few more runs, I got my time down to 13.9 @ 104 MPH. That's right where I wanted to be, assuming the GTECH is accurate (I hope so). It also gave me a Horsepower reading of 226 @ 5342 RPM's, which also sounds about right for my mods (maybe a little high-I'm optomistic). I'm just hoping the GTECH is accurate. It's a great tool to practice your runs with. You can even set it up with the Christmas tree to practice your reaction times. I would recommend it to anyone who modifies their car.
01/15/04 - Shift knob Got my new shift knob in. Looks a lot better than my girlfriend's pink indiglow one. The shifter is now noticebly shorter and with the leather/carbon fiber shift knob, the it gives the interior a nice touch.
03/19/04 - LSD Transmission Wooh, I finally got a new transmission. Picked it up from a board member from Canada. It's from a '95 JDM rear clip with about 75k miles on it, and he sent it to me with axles, so I had everything I needed to bolt it up. My mechanic had it ready to go in 2 days from when he started. What a difference it was going from a non-LSD tranny with no 2nd and 3rd gear to this. It's so great to be able to downshift!
05/01/04 - Import Wars What a beautiful day! First Full day of racing of the year. It was about 80 degrees all day and not a cloud in the sky. Time to put the new transmission to work. My first couple runs were a little slower than I had hope, pulling off two 14.3 runs in a row. My next run, I completely missed 3rd and pulled off a sweet 16.2, and actually lost to my friend Danny in his Eclipse. On my second to last run, I revved it a little higher to about 5500 RPMs and had a pretty good launch with a 2.07 60' time and a 14.01 @ 100.4 MPH. Finally, on my last run of the day, I dropped the clutch at 6000 RPMs and pulled a 2.01 60' and ran a 13.97 @ 99.7 MPH. I was pretty happy all the way home.
Latest News:
OK, let's see if I can fill in the gaps. Most of last summer I spent fixing the many problems with the car. I could list all the parts I replaced, but that'd take all day for me to type. Let's just say I'm almost driving a new car. Stuff ranging from the thermostat to all new e-brake cables. With most of the stuff fixed, and the entire summer gone, I cut my losses and put hte car away for the winter, all the while plotting for next season.
When the spring finally rolled around, I had made up my mind what I wanted to do with the car. I really wanted to use the car to its full potential, not just in a straight line. So, the first thing I did was sign up for phases 1 and 2 of the "Evolution Autocross School" The event took place at Devens air field, one weekend in April, and was run by the BMWSCCA. What a great event it was. I learned so much in such a short period of time, and I couldn't wait to tackle my first autox event.
The rest is history. I spent the entire season at every autox event I could make it to. I was completely hooked. I met a real nice guy named Jason, who also raced an MR2 turbo. He's been an extreme mentor to me since I met him. He's tought me many things about my car. Things from proper alignment for autox, right down to the best strut settings for the track. Hell, I don't know how I would have gotten through my first season of autox without him.
Well, like I said, I had lots of fun this year, just autocrossing the crap out of my car, replacing parts as needed. I haven't forgotten about drag racing though. I actually only made it to 1 event this year, but it was worth it anyways. I didn't even plan on running the car that day, but once I got there I had to. I had a trunk full of crap and my spare tire still mounted in the frunk. I didn't care. I ran anyways. As I expected, my 1/4 time was a bit slower than last time, but the most important thing was I lowered my 60' times to a consistent 1.9 and even pulled off one 1.8. My fastest 1/4 of the day was a 14.1, but I wasn't disapointed because of all the crap I was luggin around. All in all, I accomplished what I wanted to, stregthen my launch.
As for mods, the only real modification I've done is the TRD front sway bar. This year was all about racing. Now that I have all my options in front of me, I know where I want to go with the car. Autox takes priority. I already purchased some new wheels and tires just for autox, and I'll be beefing up the suspension even more in the months to come. Next season, I'll put my new mods to the test, and go from there. I'm really in no rush. I want to do this right, and add mods in the order in which I need them. Not gonna add anything I don't need.
Well, keep a close eye out. I'll be back to updating this page again. I'll try and put some installs on here as well as I do them. Hope you enjoyed!
Don't forget to check out Adam's site, Click Here.
Don't forget to check out Danny's site, Click Here.
