The Bulemic MR2
I’m going to keep this short tonight because I’m whipped right now. I started dismantling the MR2 on Saturday night to drop unnecessary weight. My basic rule is that if it does not make the car either go fast or be safe, then it’s unnecessary. Between what I pulled off the car last night and what Dave and I junked today, we easily took more than 100 pounds off the car. The seats are 60+ pounds together and I’d bet that the 5 pieces of glass (both side windows, both quarter windows, and the rear window) probably weigh another 30 or forty. We also stripped out the carpet, the firewall carpet/insulation, the center console, the door panels, window regulators, a ton of interior trim pieces, and a bunch of rubber seals. I’d bet that the door seals alone were 5-6 pounds of unnecessary rubber.
Dave did yoeman’s duty in fighting the heater core today. He broke out the sawzall to cut the dashboard in half, then he took on some vicious white plastic. There were a lot of hidden screws and bolts, but Dave was their master. He got most of the core pulled out. I haven’t weighed it up but it the heater core section is probably 7-8 pounds alone.
The end result is that the car is much closer to race condition than it was just yesterday afternoon. And it really, really looks like crap.
In other words, perfect.
http://www.jdmenginesamurai.com/engines/toyota/jdm_engine_4age.htm
so is tis the engine that is in there? If so, it is already a hot rod…if we can get it down to 10 lbs/hp!
It wouldn’t surprise me if that’s the one. It really does pull strongly north of 4k rpm, the key is keeping it that high. I think it redlines at like 8k?
If we’re at 180 hp (which is probably a stretch), we could get close to 10 lbs/hp. If the experience of others is accurate, we should be under 2100 lbs after stripping it of parts unnecessary for racing, maybe even less because a lot of those guys are keeping their rides street legal. That would put us at about 11.6 lbs/hp or better.
So long as we can make the car endure and we can drive it well, we should have a good car for the race. Not a pretty car, but a good car.