A new year and a new project!

[wpg81]

First, happy new year to all! Second, I hope a fue of you guys remember me from around here despite my low presence of late. My dc5 is still going awesome and can still scare the pants off me at will on full throttle but can cruise the roads with ease and grace. I have had the car over ten years now and i am NOT considering moving it on but I have a new project!

I hope it will be accepted here as its not a Honda ..... Well kinda not a Honda. Ever since seeing 1320 video of a Toyota mr2 with a k20 swap some 6-7 years ago I loved the idea of it. At the time it was revolutionary but now has been copied many times successfully, byp have done two that have made the Australian drag and roll race communities wake up to what Honda engines are capable of. On a side note wtac has done much the same in the circuit track community. Having mates that are all about drag racing v8 only power and all that stuff and me Being stubborn on Honda the thought had being growing in my head.

In doing research of what a conversion of this involves and more importantly costs. I came across someone selling the mr2 sw20 still with the Toyota motor in it, the engine and gearbox from a dc5r, the engine and gearbox mounts to fit the mr2, wiring loom adaptor loom and Ecu with hondata, shifter and cables and some other bits and pieces. The lot was at a price that was cheaper than the parts alone....so I now have a new project!

[michaelz]

sweet project, definitely something on my wanted list.

[wpg81]

Getting in to the mr2, the first thing was to get that Toyota thing out of the back. Two owners ago the guy changed the car from auto to manual but never got the car finished. I was told the car did not run but I did not care. I did check out the clutch pedal and master was done correctly. Removing the engine and box was no to bad.removing the subframe, engine mounts and lift the car up over the engine. It's easy with the work hoist and engine crane!
Wow what a mess, have to clean the Sh!t out of that engine bay. Moving on to Honda stuff, I did a compression test on the motor and removed the rocker cover to check for wear and tear on the engine. I was told the engine and box was out of a dc5 with 120000k on the clock. Seems about right by wear on cams as well as it looks clean like good oil service history.
Next step is a lot of cleaning!

[EFR9180]

hey man
nice to see a mr2kswap finally happening on this forum!
if you want more info about doing a k swap mr2 you should check out boostedboiz on youtube. kyle from boostedboiz did a k24 swapped mr2 and is about to turbo it this year. so you would be able to find videos on his channel. his very budgeted and backyardish/ghetto but its relate able because he tries to make it affordable for us average joes!

[wpg81]

Thanks erf9180, boosteboiz and Pfi are my go to on YouTube. Garage built tv also has some good content on k and now j series mr2 builds. I am also on a very tight budget and like to do as much of the work myself. As much as I would love to have my ultimate goal to be a super clean super fast car, my budget is not going to allow for that. However I will make the best of what I can and have a fue “parts just sitting around” that will be used up.

[wpg81]

I knuckled down and got into removing the fuel tank,filler and venting hoses. The tank itself is in the centre of the two seats. This requires the flat floor covers,brackets and the hand brake assembly to be removed out of the way. The tank is like a five foot long sausage. With This out of the way I moved on to other engine bay its to remove.
The engine bay fuse box is not needed for the Honda engine so it's out! Radiator over flow was also remove aswell as the fire wall insulation. I got to the point there was not anything in the bay at all. Then the angle grinder came out to cut of all the brackets and studs that won't be needed.
A Fue coats of undercoat and factory red just from a can and the bay looks much cleaner. A bit of gloss clear and matt black at the lower proton it's not show quality but it cost less that $100.

[wpg81]

Ripping into some more work on the engine for the mr 2. I had a stage 2 exedy clutch just sitting around so I decided to pop that in as l had no idear what the clutch was like. As it was, it was not bad. Next was removing the the power steer and ac compressor as these will not be used in the mr2. The mr2 has electic hydrolic power steer system but I am planing to get it as light as possible so it's on the cut list. Ac is also on the cut list due to weight saving.

The engine needed a really good degrease as it had some oil leaks at some stage of its life. After lots of washing and scrubbing down I simply added primer and silver on the engine and box. Although only at the start of this project the painted engine gives me the feel of some positive progress and motivation

I have ordered a k tuned ac ps delete kit, upper thromostat, and fuel rail witch I am so excited to see.some of you may have noticed the Rbc, again one I had just sitting around so it's getting put to work on this engine.

[wpg81]

It's been a minute since I posted an update. My k tuned parts have rolled in and have been fitted up and I am so happy with the quality and appearance of the items! The only thing is no instructions for anything. I got the ac ps delete, a thermostat housing at the head with a radiator cap and a fuel rail.The tensioner set up is simple to fit up, bracket are supplied for the alternator but two sets of spacers and bolts required a quick think and test fitting. Note remove the ac bracket from the block and it makes it clear. and In the time waiting for them to come in I overhauled the starter motor and the alternator. New bearing, brushes,clean and check over it all to avoid problems when it dose get running.

[wpg81]

Now I was happy that the front of the engine was all done and set I moved on to getting the mounts test fitted to the engine and box. A fue bolts supplied from the guy I bought the car from we're not right. So now some bolts are odd sized heads but thread lengths are spot on. A fue threads needed to have a clean up with a die but cleaned up good. Then there was no excuses not to fit up the engine and box to the car.

SO HONDA MEET TOYOTA!

[wpg81]

So I haven't had much time of late for the mr2. Work, life and I have been preping a super ute for the Adelaide 500 race weekend this week have been chewing up my time. If any of you guys are at the race come and say hello and I can give you a quick tour if you want. I am part of the AC Delco Holden Colorado team.
Back to the mr2, I have been working on get some parts for the car. As I have previously said I am TRYING to keep this on a budget. Knowing this I found some Cusco coil overs for sale localish and ended up buying a Nardi steering wheel aswell from the same guy! Also a friend had a sidewinder turbo manifold that was "just sitting around" so I grabbed that off him. Yes this will be turboed
After some 6-7 years of the intregra being turboed I am planing on testing how tough these k20's are! But don't want wreak the intregra in the process. The turbo in the pics is my old one off the intregra but the plan is to have a much larger one. Again I found some 100pound super tech valve springs and ti retainers cheap so I snapped then up also. Extra Spring pressure is a must with boost over 10pound boost or high rpm. Since the money is flowing I also got some new cv drive shafts. I haven't fitted them yet but dc2 shafts are said to be the perfect length and the spline will fit both the Honda gearbox and the Toyota non turbo rear hubs.
The last pic is the first meeting of my two four wheeled loves, hope there's no jealousy!

[wpg81]

So the Adelaide weekend was almost a wright off in more way than one! The car was involved in two large crashes that were ahead of us and unfortunately we coped the brunt in both cases. That's racing but it's hard to know we should have been a top 3-4 result that got away.

On the mr2 I have had a bit of a problem that has taken me some time to find a solution. The dash, how do I get speedo tachometer temp fuel indercators oil hand brake high beam now that the hondata and k20 is in the car. I could have the factory idiot lights and a stack of gauges or a fancy digital dash " iq3". I decide a fancy dash is much nicer but hondata k pro v2 doesn't send out can info for the dash to use. After a lot of phone calls emails I had little choice but to up grade the hondata and then buy a iq3 ( $3500-4000)or alike or use multi gauges.

Rembering I am on a tight budget I searched and searched for a solution. It came in the form of a go cart lap timer. The gpx pro ($400 second hand)can be used in dash mode, circuit mode, drag mode and point to point mode. In dash mode I have the ability to input three analog and three digital signals aswell it has gps speedo. Speedo tachometer (and has sweet shift lights) fuel level and engine water temp will all run through this dash.

Next was to make it fit the car. The easy way would have been to make a bracket and sit it on the top of the steering colom in front of the dash. Not my style, I have to do it the hard way! I gutted the factory dash cluster and used the clear to give me the frame for the sunken holder for the gpx pro dash. Then I chose to cover this frame in carbon fibre that I had sitting around from an old attempt at a project. This was only my second time using carbon and the shape was very complex with curves and hard bends aswell as square corners! I give myself a 7.5 out of 10 as I think I could do better and change the process next time.

From start to finish this is the best of two and a half weeks of my spare time for one small piece of the car, the dash cluster will also have an oil pressure gauge and boost gauge aswell as the idiot lights in part 2.

[wpg81]

Just some more photos.

[mlracing]

Very cool, turned out great

[wpg81]

Thanks mlracing!

[wpg81]

Because I was slack I knew that some of the parts for the dash were a going to be some time away. Therefor I moved on to sorting out the mess that was the 28 year old suspension. At the front it was all good in the bushes and rubbers and looked as it had been done a some stage. The chassis has approx 330k on it, hard to tell as it had two speedos and a service sticker with 325k next service that's 2-3 years old. Any way every part was disassembled checked cleaned and painted. Reassembled it all with new bendiex ultimate pads and new rotors and lower ball joints. Next was to sort out the sway bar problem!