Dusterbd13 wrote: an 88 mr2 just shoed on the charlotte craigslist for parts only. in the parts section. thought of you when i saw it.
thank you, wish the guy had a price!
I'll email him to see at least
The guy with the other one (right below it in results) called it a mazda mr2 lol
singleslammer wrote: In reply to corytate: No Torque would be a small problem but when you start comparing charts and take the reduction gear into consideration it is fairly close to a small 4 cylinder. Would it be as easy to launch as a 1.6L, probably not but 12K RPM!!! That works for me.
hmm it's definitely worth looking into, seems like it'll be alot of fab that I'm not currently equipped for though
In reply to corytate:
That is true. You are looking at a bare minimum of a custom sprocket attached to the stock differential in a fabbed housing with some sort of oiling system. If we get around to building one I am leaving that to my engineer buddy.
In reply to singleslammer:
Nah man, mount it longitudinal and run a custom driveshaft from the bike transmission to the diff. There are kits available. Reverse can be had by mounting a starter motor and ring gear at the rear end of the driveshaft, so that when you ask for it, the motor turns the driveshaft and diff backwards. My google-fu is failing me, but I've got a saved picture of one setup somewhere...
You might look at the Geo Metro that runs west coast LeMons events... think they call it MetroGnome...
Edit: MetroGnome looks like it has always been chain-driven. I'll keep looking for a driveshaft picture.
Edit 2.0:
Dwarf cars also use longitudinal bike engines.
that is a thing of beauty
I might as well go whole hog and get a 1098 ducati motor=]
lol
just to make it sound as nasty as possible.
idk if a longitudinal engine would fit back there and still have room to include the diff though=/
this is an awesome upgrade to my ideas for a mid engined crx or ef hatch, though!
Going today to continue ripping into the car. Have decided that I am going to sell interior and trim (read:unneeded) parts to get close to buying a non runner with a title so I can put money into a car I can drive on the street too, and use the red one for a parts car and body part donor to keep the driveable one going.
I've had an excellent idea!
We should just use this car in the ChumpCar World Series!
rather than spending a lot of money on an aw11 with a title and swapping over, we can just chump this one til it drops, have fun and get to actually drive the thing.
I say chump instead of Lemons because I feel like I would get very frustrated with the penalties and everything, I want to have as much track time as possible, and only get penalized for legitimate things. No offense intended to any Lemons guys, they do amazing things, just not for me right now.
Anyone interested in getting a team together to help us novices out?
New to racing, new to the chassis, new to everything lol.
well, looks like doing chump is just as expensive as getting a running aw11 lol=/
Yeah that thread on the real cost of crapcan racing was pretty eye opening. Doesn't mean I don't want to do it, but I don't have that kind of extra scratch to plunk down all at once. Right now my plan is to slowly purchase the proper safety gear, then buy into an existing team that already has a finished or near-finished car. Seems to be the best way to get into it without a lot of up-front investment or potentially frustrating car/team management.
Today I took pics of the seats, will be listing the seats and any random interior pieces anyone would need for sale on here and on mr2oc.
Took the front fenders and bumper off, started taking doors off as well.
Going to get the body stripped off of it and roll it outside for a thorough cleaning.
Got the front wheels unstuck by prying against the tie rod ends lol, with a 48" prybar it was still a ridiculous amount of work to do.
Inspired by 92celicahalftrac's build thread, I am going to go way way way over my head and do this thing up from the ground up, whether it has a title or not. Screw it.
Thursday (hopefully), after work we will pull some more body panels off (doors are next) and probably start taking the engine out as well.
I'm going to spray everything that isn't a body panel neon orange, everything that is a body panel will just be a clean white. Not sure if it'll be plain or if we will figure out some graphics.
Need to find some 15" wheels, and later aw11 big brakes. twosrus will be my best friend for a while lol=]
Things the car needs:
Cleaning
full rebuild
turbo manifold
turbo
trans
fw/clutch kit
new shifter bushings
maybe a pedal box (why the F not?!)
MSPNP
cheapo gauges
gut dash and place said gauges in stock dash, or just put a sheet metal panel in
gut doors, window net on driver's side, fixed lexan on pass side more than likely
gut frunk lid, engine lid, trunk lid
rear swaybar
remove engine and all the crap still in the frunk
clutch and brake MC's (easier if I just get a pedal box with attached MC's!!)
cut/grind off all the useless brackets for E36 M3 I won't be using anymore
lexan all glass parts
seats (corbeau fx1 probably, not time to buy them yet though)
harnesses (I really, for no logical reason, want to get some takatas, for the full jdmness!)
steering wheel
front splitter/spoiler
full cage (probably a bolt in, unless I can get a good welder and get good enough to trust myself with it before the time comes to put it in)
It looks like I'll be building it to Solo SSM rules, and with a glance at the classification minimum weight: I need to weigh 1600lbs, plus 200 per litre (It will be a turbo 1.6, so +1.4 litre for the turbo), minus 200lbs because I will be running smaller than 275mm tires (probably something like a 15x8 with 245ish tires, haven't delved too deeply into it but I don't think I'll get to the point where I can use a 275 tire.), making my minimum weight 2000lbs. I can almost definitely get under that, so I can add ballast to the frunk, where it is much needed, and help the handling out a little bit.
also need to figure out the suspension, which will consist of searching mr2oc's autox forum for setup tips.
That's about all I can think of for now, will update hopefully thursday, when we get some more done!
I will also be looking into getting 200whp NA, which would bring my minimum weight down to 1720 lbs. 200whp/1720 is a little bit better than what I was planning for power to weight wise, so we should be good.
We shall see, there's still a lot of things to do in the meantime, and the best laid plans usually go to waste.
dont.
you bought similar with the z car, and wound up selling at a loss. do you really want/have time for/have patience for another project of this magnitude? it always sounds like a good idea, but rarely is. go a little more sane, et it running and autocrossing. then fix the next on the low hanging fruit list. your motivation will suffer less.
michael
I'll echo the "don't."
I'd never do what i did to the Escort. Ever again.
As for the SSM stuff, you won't get down to minimum weight legally either way, so may as well go turbo. 200whp won't be enough power either, you'll need more like 300whp+ depending on weight, and i wouldn't want to try to autocross an AW11 with that kind of power.
If you want to be competitive in SSM, plan on spending over $40k, and you'll still get your ass handed to you by a triple rotor FD RX7. 
Get the car running and driving, go ahead and get rid of the interior (bear in mind that's NOT legal for SSM) in the name of more fun/because racecar, but that should be step 1.
I actually started with a running and driving car that i put 50k miles on, so that's my excuse for going off the deep end. 
hmm maybe not building it to any specs then, just track day toy.
Either way I am going to finish removing the body panels, clean up and respray the chassis, and put it back together with less useless fasteners lol.
the brakes are garbage on the car, I'm assuming the suspension is garbage, and the engine has to come out for a rebuild either way, so that is the bare minimum of what will get done to the car.
May be getting a 100% pay increase (via going somewhere that won't take advantage of me for a year and then screw me over), so with more money will come a better ability to do things to this car. finally. lol
I'm an idiot for not recognizing the obvious solution: As originally planned, this will be a challenge car.
pretty much unlimited ruleset, awesome people/environment/event, a deadline (2014, not 13, due to family commitments) to give some motivation and drive, a spending limit, and publicity in the only magazine I subscribe to.
!!!
now I need to figure out how much to value this car for: I traded the datsun, which I had $650 into, straight up for it. does that make it worth $650? Realistically it's probably worth $500, but if it needs to be $650 I can live with that by selling parts at least.
Looks like I'm hitting the easy button for the title issue: buying a runner from VA, waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more miles than the red car, body panels are a little rougher, but runs and has a title. needs a headgasket but hasn't been overheated to the point where it shuts down.
He drives the car around the block every week to appease the HOA.
I will be getting this one running asap, driving it a bit and doing the minor things like brakes and suspension, then parking it to put the super clean panels from the red car on after cleaning it up and rustproofing underneath.
The ad popped up on mr2oc and I wrote him pretty much immediately, so hopefully this guy doesn't flake.
It's an 85 hardtop, so even lighter than what I've got, and has the stock swaybar, unlike my 86, which is running swaybar-less.
The single most annoying thing about AW11s in a competition situation will be brake balance. They really like to lock front brakes, even with gentle application. Dead stock, you can pretty much forget about trail braking.
That said, you need to do some research and put some thought into this. Front brake balance valves are not expensive, less than $100. Some people attack the problem by using different brake compounds front and rear. Whatever works, just be aware that this is a problem that needs fixing.
Second problem you'll face with stock strut housings is front tire clearance - there isn't much under the lower spring perches, the inside top of the tire will hit the perch if you go bigger than a 205/50-15 on a 15x7 rim. I'd check whether 13" wheels will clear the brakes - probably will, but check first - and go with a really short, wide R-compound tire or race slick on 13x8s or 13x9s. Coilovers may cure the problem as far as diameter is concerned.
Other than those two areas, AW11s are wonderful cars. The chassis can easily use another 100 hp or more. Getting it takes work,though - not easy, like the Miata guys who can write a check to FM and be happy.
Couple of more comments: if the front end clunks on bumps, it's probably swaybar endlinks - the ones from Twos R Us are great. The basic setup on my current '89 is Eibach springs, Tokico Illuminas, stock front bar (have used Suspension Techniques bar too), ST rear bar set full stiff, poly bar bushings, 1.5 neg camber front, 1.0 neg camber rear,basic balance is very nice, but tends toward understeer - I'd like a bigger rear bar or stiffer rear springs. Tires are 195/50-15 RE-11s on 15x7 Borbets, but have used 195/55-14 V700 Kumho Rs on 14x7 Borbets. This car is a DD, so a serious challenge car can be much more extreme.
A cheap fix that i enjoyed with my AW11 was simply gutting the rear portion of the stock propositioning valve. It took like 30 minutes an helped the front not lock up so early.
Good point on the brake balance issue. As Caleb mentioned, a lot of guys simply gut the valve for a budget fix. Seems to work fairly well for a number of people. It may be questionable mod for a daily driven car, going down a mountain, in the rain, but for a challenge car I wouldn't worry about it. Gutting it removes the "knee" in the pressure curve, so you may end up with more rear brake bias that you want in extreme situations. Still, there's so much front bias inherent in the system even after gutting it's up for debate.
On the front strut housings - "full" coilovers would solve the problem, but almost all of them are crap. IMHO, the thing to do is simply cut off the spring perches (they're huge) and weld-on some ground control sleeves. That way you can run whatever spring rate and damper you want.
FYI - I'm running a 205/45/16 Yoko S.Drives on a 16x7 +42 rim and mine BARELY clear the front perches. I'm pretty sure I'm at the limit if you want to use that as a benchmark. One day I hit a pothole hard enough to start some rubbing and had to replace that housing.
HNNNGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/10/featurethis-the-perfect-mr2/
In reply to Swank Force One: NICE!
thanks all for the wealth of info, I'd thought of the brake issue and planned on a proportioning valve, will look into the mod on the stock unit as well though, hadn't heard of that!
I think that speedhunters article may have been the catalyst to start this whole thing because I got the mr2 shortly after that came out! lol
I'm trying to work out the transportation issues right now and people aren't calling me back, have to let the guy know tonight if I can come get the silver car this weekend, if not it's more than likely going to someone else. =/
Hope it works out, this would be the easy button for sure: 85 hardtop all manual.
last time we worked on the car we took most of the front body panels off.
This time, we got everything ready to drop the engine and trans.
As you can see from the oil condition, there is a liiiiiiiiittle bit of a head gasket problem.
All we have left to pull the engine are mounts, all lines and connectors are disco'd.
Lower ball joints wouldn't budge. I need to go by my job tomorrow to pick something up so I'm going to pick up the torch too, maybe we can get it out.
From our disassembly, we noted the car needs:
basically everything in the front and rear suspension/brakes
a full reseal (already knew that though)
braided steel brake lines front and rear
a new clutch hose (didn't know it had a rubber hose and accidentally cut through it when removing the insulation around the end to get it through the stupid closed-in braket on the trans
new masters (going to be fixed with the pedal box)
new axles
new radiator
shifter linkage is screwed
we cut the fuel filler tube when dropping the tank because it would not budge
and we need to delete ALOT of vacuum crap that isn't necessary any more.
cruise control will be gone, all the emissions crap will be gone, etc etc
Going tomorrow to the DMV to see what all I need to title this car, cannot get the car in NoVa. kind of bummed but it is probably for the best, after the gas it would be a ~$500 car, which I could find around here when I'm better able to afford it.
idk if this car will be able to be done on a challenge budget, but if I can title it then I'm perfectly fine with having a fun weekend and running project car.
idk why but keeping the motivation up on this thing is proving to be a little easier than it was on the Datsun!
tomorrow we will pull the engine out the bottom and commence disassembly and deletion of unnecessary components.
also, will be moving the battery from the EC to the rear trunk.
will also be gutting doors and trunk/frunk/engine lids
removing sunroof and closing it off
removing headlight motors and moving them up and down via the knobs
removing the brake and clutch masters
straightening the front fender that is bent up a bit
got the engine out the bottom today; as usual, it was waaaaaaaaaaaay harder to do than it should have been.
in addition to the full rebuild and what's listed above it needs a new TPS as well (we dun broked it), all mounts and bolts for the mounts, etc
the thermostat was loose for some reason, as were a couple kind of important fuel lines? lol
i dunno. it'll be a few days before we get the trans off and get the engine on the stand. finished this just in time to start my work week. I'm thinking I'm going to change my schedule to have saturday and sunday off now, so I can probably get the engine up on the stand saturday and start disassembly.
I saw somewhere I need a special socket to get the head bolts off on the 4age? anyone know what kind/size? also any other special tools I need to work on this thing..?
corytate wrote: the thermostat was loose for some reason, as were a couple kind of important fuel lines? lol
Whoa.
Can't help you on the head bolts, as I've never had to pull my head (knock on wood). You could probably get a decent answer over on mr2oc, but I'd just download the factory manual somewhere (also known as the BGB - Big Green Book). I think it's linked from the mr2 forum somewhere. If you have trouble finding it I can email it to you when I get home.
All-in-all I haven't had to buy many specific tools for the car. I had to run to the store for some huge socket for the crank bolt plus an extension or two, but I don't have a comprehensive collection in the first place (buy it as I need it).
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