so it's been about 16 or 17 years I think since I owned my last mr2... now that my last kid is soon to be out of HS I can justify something like this...
anyway a friend contacted me a few weeks ago, his son picked up an mr2 a few years ago and i'd given them some help and info on some issues with it for a while but it always had something not right with it so it kept it as a project car and picked up a daily driver. He's now off at college and the family is selling their house and needed it gone... so the price was right.
I rode the motorcyle over to get it and called AAA to tow it home....
some very minor rust, a good bit of the interior is pulled apart or broken, the windshield and sunroof is cracked, the top end of the engine was removed and in the trunk, the oil pan is sitting in a tub in the passenger seat and I found a set of new rings in the box also so it looks like he was planning on doing an in car rebuild or something like that.
on the plus side I found a nice 4-2-1 header pretty sure its a KHS unit and some prothane urithane bushings... I haven't done a deep inventory yet.
I haven't decided what to do with it yet... when I got it I knew the top end was apart but not much else so I'd planned on just getting it back together and drive it but I'm not sure that is the best option right now. The next natrual thought was a smallport engine but those seem to not exist in the import market anymore... it was the budget upgrade path when I was into mr2s in the past... but I suppose now that it's been 30 years since they where made they aren't a real option... 20v engines are stupidly priced now... talking to an old mr2 buddy it sounds like toyota v6 engines is the new hotness (mk1.5 with the 3sgte was just taking of as a popular option when I sold mine)... I've wanted to do a GRM challenge car since about 2002 so maybe this is the car for it? who knows... but for now I want to get it going and teach my son to drive a stick shift haha.
so here is what we've got to work with right now lol...