Wanting to become a MK1 MR2 owner (gets pic heavy)

[majic79]

Hi, I've been hankering after a MK1 MR2 for a while, but I'm not your typical owner!

I currently have two cars, something german and something japanese - the German car is a VW Polo which I've built to Group N spec, and I take it road rallying - It's been a hoot, but it's wrong wheel drive!

My other car is a MKIII Supra - with a MKIV Twin Turbo fitted. It's a bit rapid, but no good for rallying!

So ultimately, I'm here, looking to purchase a basket case to rebuild and turn into another Road Rally car. It'll be roll caged, reinforced and rebuilt to look a lot like a standard car, but with suspension upgrades to handle the roads and occasional offroad stuff. I think one of these cars could be turned into an excellent car for Rallying, hopefully I'll have a car soon

[Ben]

Welcome to the club! Sounds like you're a proper petrol-head, you should have no trouble finding a suitable car and sorting all the work on it.

Out of interest, have you got any pics of the Soop and the Polo? Got a bit of a soft spot for the Mk3 Supras after buying myself a 7MGTE a few months back

[majic79]

Pretty much always been into cars, as requested, Polo:

I bought the car as a 1.4 16V 1998 model (called a MK3 or Mk4 depending on who you ask, if you call it a 6N, everyone in pololand knows what it is) - 100bhp(ish), book figure is 75Kw or 105bhp

Car as I got it (cheap, with a broken gearbox):







basically stripped it, seam welded it, welded in a roll cage, added some other safety equipment, a heavy duty sump guard, FIA certified seats and harnesses, it wouldn't take much to logbook the car and go stage rallying







I built the car last year with the intention of doing clubman rallies until the start of the season and then going on as many national B's as I could afford to, this is the car after it's first event:



Done three Nat B's so far, it's a right hoot, it's more about getting a good photo than getting a good result!

The Supra:

Standard car, 3.0i (7M-GE) which I got cheap and quickly got hooked on, it was fine for a while then it developed a terminal bottom end knock, so I looked at options (I was originally intending to take a 5M bottom end and put the 7M head on it and have a screamer engine) then I found a 2JZ-GTE at a good price, and an R154 gearbox for another good price, so I dropped it into the car









Engine was from an Aristo (Japanese Market Toyota version of the Lexus GS300, but with V8 and Twin Turbo options!) so I had to swap the sump over, after hunting around I found a N/A 2JZ being broken on ebay, did a deal and got the sump for it, found that it had the casting marks for the turbo oil return, so drilled them out and tapped them, and converted my N/A sump to a Turbo sump so that I could drop the engine in (sump pans are different in the Aristo vs the Supra - aristo has the pan at the front, the supra has it at the back)

On swapping it over, I discovered a collet in the pan, so I worried and decided to strip and rebuild the engine













Big intercooler



While the engine was in pieces, I polished all the pipework - my girlfriend and navigator has a photo of me polishing and flipping the bird at her in full goggles, breathing mask and ear defenders while holding the polishing equipment, face is all black and dust/crap everywhere, it's a messy job!



3" straight through custom stainless exhaust system, expands to a 4" can with a baffle to keep the pressure high enough in the exhaust to prevent spiking (still hit's 1.2bar with no problem!) from a genius welder, who also did some of the intercooler pipework



Sorry if it's a bit pic heavy!

[Ben]

Wow! Thanks for taking the time to post that, certainly looks like you've more than got the skills to keep the average Mk1 on the road! Good luck with the search, if you want advice on any cars stick up a link and we'll have a nosy for you