Been a bit quiet....

Been a bit quiet on the update front....well I delivered the car to the bodyshop this morning. So I should have an update in a couple of weeks of the work going on there.

I've been doing a couple of things around the car and generally making sure its ok. I found a small puddle of coolant after a month or so of being sat round so something needs nipping up when I get it back.

I've been looking into water / meth solutions. Although cooling wont be a problem as such heat soak may be so rather then take any risks a water / meth injection solution for boost about 8psi will provide some good protection from detonation. Maybe a slight power increase but I'm still not always convinced by this. As the argument can go on, colder air is more dense but then the water takes up volume in the first place. the most important part though is it will protect the engine.

Update on Current Work

Well I decided to go a bit further on the engine cleaning then had planned and the block in the end was basically cleared of brackets etc... and painted.

At least it should be very clean when being put in the car!


** TIP **
On the other side of this block are two hoses that are nicknamed say hello to

The Hose from hell

The Hose from hell On Earth

I strongly suggest whilst the engine is apart you change them so you never have to once everything is back together. These hose's make MR2 owners cry when they leak, I'm sure its not as bad on a kitcar..but why take the risk of having the hassle.

The smaller one comes with clips and is about £15 the other about £30....money well spent!

Few more parts refurbished

Cleaned up and then sprayed more parts below with high temp paint. Still using gunk, a toothbrush and some tooth picks to remove the large parts of dirt and oil.

I'm going to replace all vacuum hoses and water pipe hoses as they are very tough and feel brittle to me, so once I have had the engine put back together ill replace them one by one and the clips as well.

**  The rocket cover has not been wet sanded flat yet (hence the patchy light reflection), I will wait till we have the head on for this as I expect it will get a bit dirty putting the engine back together.

Gearbox Cleaning

I'm not going to flood the blog with post after post of the cleaning process but just each big step that I do. So this post is about what I've learnt doing the gearbox.

Remove the solid dirt on the engine / gearbox - I used a product called Gunk and some wire wool and a tooth brush and let it sit for 15 - 20mins. Then wiped off what I could. Dont worry if its not perfect you are just removing the majority of what you need to, the dirt staining gets done later.

Wire Brush - I tried varying wire brush methods so I'm just noting the one that worked for me. I used a wire brush set that goes into a drill. The link below is the one I have actually used.

http://www.screwfix.com/p/drill-carbon-steel-wire-brush-set-3pc/13734

Now it cleans up the metal amazingly and removes the last bits of dirt. Now the down side is if your not careful it can scratch relatively deep and of course it is actually scratching the surfaces to remove the dirt. To get it back smooth and more shiny you could use a mop to polish it.

I wont be doing this I just want it clean and will clear laquer it to protect it for the future.

Tip - By pushing the wire brush over the top of the nuts gets rid of any slight rust on them and they look like new on the gearbox as shown in the pic below. To get like the below I have spent around 6hrs cleaning that bit so far....many more hours to go and still a a little bit in some of the areas ive done.

Engine Work

I'm looking to keep the engine stock (for now) but in good health. There are many revisions of the MR2 engine and depending on the revision will depend on how much power can be had from it due to the sensors / head on the engine. To get to 300BHP on a Rev 1 / Rev 2 is quite hard. rev3+ is a bit easier

Rev1 / Rev 2 are limited. They are firstly limited by the head gasket, which cant take as much PSI. This is easily resolved by using a Rev3 metal headgasket which can take 1.2Bar +, The next limiting factors are the head sensors and ECU... I wont be doing this at this stage.

So by having a metal headgasket I will be able to up the boost in the short term. Also I have had the valves lapped to get a good seal.

Below is a pic of the valves lapped, the head has not been cleaned yet hence is messy, the engine is not in too bad of shape for its age. We also found one of the gaskets by the turbo was blown out but all gaskets are being replaced.

So next was to decide what to do with the block and gearbox and how to tackle it, I really don't want to be taking it fully apart, but will take bits off as I clean those areas so its easy for me to place back. Below is a pic just after I started as I forgot to take a pic before;

After 2.5hrs cleaning the gearbox area it was looking more respectable, although still needs a lot of cleaning! Many hours are going to be spent cleaning this engine I can tell. Ill update with how I get on with it and the best and worse products!