Engine Woes Solved?
As most of you know by now, we have not one but two bad engines. Which is discouraging.
However, I have some very exciting news to share.
Our engine woes may be solved. I did a little hunting online this morning and started calling some local places. Bolt-On Motors in South Dallas (check out the far right side of that photo — is this kismet?) has a remanufactured motor with zero miles still sitting in its crate. The guy on the phone said that they don’t sell many of those motors and he’s had it sitting around for 4 or 5 years and he’d love to get rid of it. Price is right in our wheelhouse, $350. We can have a new motor in the car and still be under the $500 limit before we even sell off any parts!!!
To my mind, this is the answer to our conundrum. We can still use the MR2 and for less investment than a replacement vehicle. Thoughts? Discuss.
I don’t know what kismet is, but that looks like an MR2 over there. Odd. That is awesome! Bet you could even talk him down a bit more, if you explained our situation. Do it! And hope our tranny is good! And, this makes the car viable for future races too. How/why does he have a re-man’d engine for that cheap? Does a 5 year old engine have issues. Seriously, like rust inside?
And the new engine would save us from having to jump to a different ride for the race like this. Yowza!
“Used Engines, rebuilt engines to the highest standards, or modified racing engines -
We have it all! And we usually ship your engine on the day you place your order.”
emphasis added. Dude, tell him you’ll pay the full $350, but you want him to slip a wicked cam in there.
Grayson, see the Engine Swap Notes section of the Google Notebook in regard to the Camry engine swap idea.
This is why we need to keep the MR2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lvL3Rmme1o
This car obviously isn’t hot-rodded (though he does get loose through some turns), and he’s just whizzing around most of the other cars. Small and nimble is key. Small and nimble with a new engine is better.
That is some fine driving. A car like that is especially rewarded on a really tight track like at Altamont, but those same big clunkers will be at MSR in Houston, too.
Well, It’s a “no-go” on the Camry motor. It was a 2.0L 16v motor…I’m fairly certain it wasn’t a 20v motor. Anyways, the reason for the “no-go” is that they can’t sell it. When I was walking the yard I noticed some of the motors had orange paint on them. I asked the guy up front what the orange paint was for and he said if it has orange paint, then he can’t sell the engine. Apparently the cars w/ orange paint are part of the emiission buy-out program. If you spend over a certain amount trying to get it to pass and it still fails then the state will buy the vehicle. The wrecking yard buys the cars from the state. The catch is they can’t sell the motors. The state checks the vehicles for the matching motor when they scrap them.
So, The next place to go is to go to Awesome Auto Salvage in Grand Prairie…it’s the sister yard to the one I went today. You can find good stuff in this yard. complete rear axles for $29.99 and engines start @ $59.99. The reason I want to look is that it would be ideal to buy the whole trans/engine assembly for ease of the swap.
If I don’t find anything tomorrow then we can get the new long block and swap it over. I say we offer $250 if he has had it for 5 yrs and tell him to dump the warranty or like stevo says pay a higher price and ask for some new cams w/ some mid range power. The other thing that could probably be researched is the advantages of port and polishing the heads and if there is any benefit to do any cleaning/polishing of the combustion chambers.
@Grayson
If you find the entire engine/trans assy…if it’s a Camry setup then does that mean we’d be running an auto transmission?
Matt, he’s talking about a complete MR2 engine/transaxle assy. We were talking about that in the garage the other night, but you weren’t present for that conversation due to less than ideal geographic realities.
Grayson, I think that’s a good plan if you don’t find one in Grand Prairie. I need to stay away from the junkyard for now; I love those places. Although we may want to get our steelies there since we can probably get them super cheap for our 14″ or 15″ 4×100 wheels.
Porting and polishing always has benefits, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t the real question be time & expense?
Krider Racing, in his first Lemons, did not finish due to broken wheel studs. He says now matter what he was going to put new studs on for the second Lemons race…which they won.
I have no idea what’s involved with wheel stud (if I even have the term correct) replacement, but if we’re putting a heavier wheel on old studs, it might be worth considering. We talk about many small (and large) ideas; most of them (FWD vs RWD, Auto vs. Manual) would not make the difference between winning and losing. But broken wheel studs could. Can’t win if you don’t finish: longevity/durability must be our top priority (well, maybe one notch below “operable drivetrain”).
Very good intel operation you have going there, sir. Kudos. Here’s a forum posting on how to replace the wheel studs on a Celica. Slightly different in that it has rear discs & drums whereas the MR2 only has rear discs, and the MR2 has 4 wheel studs instead of 5, but the essence of the operation should be the same. We should do this when we re-do the brakes since we’ll have the brake rotor off for replacement and probably the calipers off for rebuild.
Which brings me to a thought about team operations. We need to start a to-do list. Mabye it should be categorized by general function (work to be done on car, food/tools to bring to race, etc.) and then further organized by due date (when applicable) or general time range and by importance/priority. We’ve sort of started one of those in the notebook, but I sense that isn’t the best way/format to use. And we need someone who is not me to head up that particular piece of the operation. Maybe someone who is out of town and can’t work on the car right now but wants to be intimately involved in team operations? Do we have anyone like that on the team?
Maybe using Google Documents would fit the mold? They probably have an online spreadsheet app or something that would work and would provide universal web access so we can all see it.
good idea to replace studs…we might be able to get some nascar style ones which are longer and have a large smooth area to get them started easier and less risk of cross threading. I would even consider drilling out the hub to get bigger ones in there. maybe there are wheels available in a 4 lug pattern that have bigger holes for the studs. something we can do at the shop. We have a press and every tool known to man…I’m not exagerating, ask Dave. I know mustangs (late 80’s/early 90’s) were 4 lug w/ the exception of SVO’s. also I wonder if cross drilled rotors are available? maybe vented rotors are available for the rear?
Hopefully we can find some like you’re talking about. My brief first look indicates that we’re kind of limited in our selection(ARP only makes 1 size that fits and Dorman has about 3 or 4 but none with that flat area). One fortunate side benefit of the race requirement that the tires be at least 190 on the treadwear is that there won’t be many tire changes (if any) during the race. Any tire change will probably be due to failure rather than wear, so there’s less chance that we’ll be changing tires in the heat of the moment. So I don’t know how much time/effort we want to put into mounting larger studs, but I’m certainly open to it.
Dave has told me about the glory of The Shop. I can’t wait to see it.
Looks like the 4-bolt Mustang wheels of that era are on a different pattern. Ours are 4×100 and the Mustang are 4×107.95. I know that Miata wheels are on the same pattern as ours, so finding wheels at the junkyard shouldn’t be too difficult. Stock size on the MR2 is 185/60/14 or 195/60/14, but I’ve noticed that 205/50/15 is a pretty common upgrade. That requires a 15×7″ wheel.
As far as brakes go, we can get cross drilled rotors, slotted rotors, vented rotors, or stock (which aren’t vented at all — which explains the common warping problem under heavy use). It sounds like the MR2 is easy on the brake pads (unlike the car I noted in an earlier post) so it sounds like we can go with a street+ level pad and be fine with that. I’d suggest that we’ll probably want to get 2 sets and wear in both sets prior to the race and then we can swap pads after the first day to make sure that we don’t run into a pad problem on Day 2.