1999 MR2 NA (Daily/Track)
Discussion
Afternoon everyone! I have been a member of the IMOC forums for a while and have a small thread there concerning my 1999 MR2 NA. I'm going to duplicate it here for people not involved in MR2 clubs in case anyone is interested. This will be a picture heavy thread, be warned!
Let’s begin with a little history.
When I was 21 I bought my first car, a 1979 MBG GT from a local-ish car auction with a generous interest free loan from the bank of Dad! Cut my teeth on the old girl, totally stock apart from I lowered her down to the height of the chrome bumper cars. Parts are ridiculously cheap and easy to work on (new, up-rated alternator for £35!) and surprisingly easy to get hold of. Tuned up the carbs, replaced fuel tank, thermostat etc etc. Learned an awful lot with help from the Haynes manual and my Dad. Unfortunately had to let her go I was moving out and didn't have access to a garage and couldn't bring myself to leave it in the elements. Regret selling it!
I've tried tracking it down, the guys I sold it to have re sold it, they even re-used my pictures the cheeky b
ds. Before selling up, I had tracked the MG at Snetterton but called it a day after a couple of stints as it was so slow I’m sure I was causing frustration for other drivers. It was good fun to drive despite being slow, weirdly tail happy in the greasy conditions despite the lack of power.
I wanted to replace the MG with something that could handle the track a little better. I wanted good looking, cheap, RWD, not too common, old enough for me to fix myself, not a BMW and something with reasonable insurance for a 22 year old. There aren’t many choices in this category!
I went for an MR2, a red 1999 NA T-Bar to be exact. I'd never even sat in one but liked the way they looked and thought the mid engined layout was cool. As with the MG, bought the first one I saw. The guy let me drive it very briefly and (after immediately stalling it) it felt like an absolute rocket ship compared to the MG!
She was stock apart from 16 inch Wolfrace Alloys and a mongoose exhaust, both fitted by the previous owner. I drove it to Belgium a couple of years ago - she was a good car, never had an issue. Was starting to go a little pink though.
Sadly it had to go because at the time I was driving 300 miles a week to get to work. Ended up buying a diesel Fiesta from a dodgy dealer in Leicester to replace it but just couldn't stomach it. No need for pictures as we all know what they look like.
So, after that brief history we come to car #4 and the subject of this thread, another MR2. With a little more money in my pocket this time I wanted the best NA MR2 I could find. Rev 5, T-bar, leather, good condition and most importantly: purple!
After a long while looking, the right one popped up online and I bought the car from a young guy in Peterborough on 63K miles, with a K&N filter and Magnex exhaust fitted. He'd bought the car to replace his bike after a crash, and after healing decided to go back to two wheels. I'm sure the humble MR2 was rather slow in comparison to a bike.
After getting her home I serviced her and changed a sticky front calliper (very common problem on MR2s, unfortunately the calliper had got hot enough to peel the paint from the front left wheel).
This is one of the first pictures I took, sorry for the terrible quality!
Let’s begin with a little history.
When I was 21 I bought my first car, a 1979 MBG GT from a local-ish car auction with a generous interest free loan from the bank of Dad! Cut my teeth on the old girl, totally stock apart from I lowered her down to the height of the chrome bumper cars. Parts are ridiculously cheap and easy to work on (new, up-rated alternator for £35!) and surprisingly easy to get hold of. Tuned up the carbs, replaced fuel tank, thermostat etc etc. Learned an awful lot with help from the Haynes manual and my Dad. Unfortunately had to let her go I was moving out and didn't have access to a garage and couldn't bring myself to leave it in the elements. Regret selling it!
I've tried tracking it down, the guys I sold it to have re sold it, they even re-used my pictures the cheeky b
ds. Before selling up, I had tracked the MG at Snetterton but called it a day after a couple of stints as it was so slow I’m sure I was causing frustration for other drivers. It was good fun to drive despite being slow, weirdly tail happy in the greasy conditions despite the lack of power.I wanted to replace the MG with something that could handle the track a little better. I wanted good looking, cheap, RWD, not too common, old enough for me to fix myself, not a BMW and something with reasonable insurance for a 22 year old. There aren’t many choices in this category!
I went for an MR2, a red 1999 NA T-Bar to be exact. I'd never even sat in one but liked the way they looked and thought the mid engined layout was cool. As with the MG, bought the first one I saw. The guy let me drive it very briefly and (after immediately stalling it) it felt like an absolute rocket ship compared to the MG!
She was stock apart from 16 inch Wolfrace Alloys and a mongoose exhaust, both fitted by the previous owner. I drove it to Belgium a couple of years ago - she was a good car, never had an issue. Was starting to go a little pink though.
Sadly it had to go because at the time I was driving 300 miles a week to get to work. Ended up buying a diesel Fiesta from a dodgy dealer in Leicester to replace it but just couldn't stomach it. No need for pictures as we all know what they look like.
So, after that brief history we come to car #4 and the subject of this thread, another MR2. With a little more money in my pocket this time I wanted the best NA MR2 I could find. Rev 5, T-bar, leather, good condition and most importantly: purple!
After a long while looking, the right one popped up online and I bought the car from a young guy in Peterborough on 63K miles, with a K&N filter and Magnex exhaust fitted. He'd bought the car to replace his bike after a crash, and after healing decided to go back to two wheels. I'm sure the humble MR2 was rather slow in comparison to a bike.
After getting her home I serviced her and changed a sticky front calliper (very common problem on MR2s, unfortunately the calliper had got hot enough to peel the paint from the front left wheel).
This is one of the first pictures I took, sorry for the terrible quality!
Edited by NelPo on Thursday 1st November 13:36
Edited by NelPo on Thursday 1st November 13:39
Unfortunately, after just a couple of months of ownership I was crashed into.
A woman was too lazy to check her mirrors and changed lanes right in front of me, scrubbed off most of my speed but had a low speed corner to corner impact. Car was still driveable, minimal damage but I was hugely annoyed and found out how frustrating it is to deal with insurers. Initially they wanted to write it off, but I haggled with them to a semi-reasonable pay out and set about fixing it myself. I also bought a dash cam - was lucky her insurance accepted fault but wanted a bit of evidence if anything similar happens again.
Anyways… Strangely enough, after leaving her for a few days the dent popped itself out! The benefit of plastic bumpers I guess. I'm half way through fitting new indicators in this picture:
Was a bit of a faff as they were fully wedged behind the bumper. Ended up removing most of the headlight from that side and pulled the indicators up and out. At this point I hadn’t got the bumper off to inspect the damage behind, but based on the low level of intrusion from the crash I doubt the damage is particularly severe. It’ll certainly need a new crash bar and foam insert however. As a little bit of a silver lining, I think the front end looks an awful lot cleaner without the Toyota badge! I've bought a replacement bumper which I'll get sprayed at some point...
Many miles of trouble free motoring followed, and I kept away with any modifications. I took her round Snetterton in the wet in November... it ended rather predictably with a spin….Note the mud in this picture!
Had a Skyline behind me catching up very quickly and got distracted. I was a little hot into Hamilton and too eager to get on the throttle. Back end came round and once the rear on one of these starts moving it’s game over unless you’re very skilled (I’m not). Had a long, slow ungracious exit into the grass on the left. Luckily there isn't anything to hit there.
After this, fitted the first modification, de-cat pipe (shiny). Ended up having to grind away one of the bolts holding the cat on so this simple job was a bit of a pain in the balls.
Obviously this is for track use only of course! The website said it'd give +100hp so should easily dominate at Snetterton now. It also improves the engine noise.
A woman was too lazy to check her mirrors and changed lanes right in front of me, scrubbed off most of my speed but had a low speed corner to corner impact. Car was still driveable, minimal damage but I was hugely annoyed and found out how frustrating it is to deal with insurers. Initially they wanted to write it off, but I haggled with them to a semi-reasonable pay out and set about fixing it myself. I also bought a dash cam - was lucky her insurance accepted fault but wanted a bit of evidence if anything similar happens again.
Anyways… Strangely enough, after leaving her for a few days the dent popped itself out! The benefit of plastic bumpers I guess. I'm half way through fitting new indicators in this picture:
Was a bit of a faff as they were fully wedged behind the bumper. Ended up removing most of the headlight from that side and pulled the indicators up and out. At this point I hadn’t got the bumper off to inspect the damage behind, but based on the low level of intrusion from the crash I doubt the damage is particularly severe. It’ll certainly need a new crash bar and foam insert however. As a little bit of a silver lining, I think the front end looks an awful lot cleaner without the Toyota badge! I've bought a replacement bumper which I'll get sprayed at some point...
Many miles of trouble free motoring followed, and I kept away with any modifications. I took her round Snetterton in the wet in November... it ended rather predictably with a spin….Note the mud in this picture!
Had a Skyline behind me catching up very quickly and got distracted. I was a little hot into Hamilton and too eager to get on the throttle. Back end came round and once the rear on one of these starts moving it’s game over unless you’re very skilled (I’m not). Had a long, slow ungracious exit into the grass on the left. Luckily there isn't anything to hit there.
After this, fitted the first modification, de-cat pipe (shiny). Ended up having to grind away one of the bolts holding the cat on so this simple job was a bit of a pain in the balls.
Obviously this is for track use only of course! The website said it'd give +100hp so should easily dominate at Snetterton now. It also improves the engine noise.
) - it was a lot of fun and very well set up!Mr Tidy said:
I've always thought they got the styling just right on these MR2s - lovely looking car OP. 
Thanks, the looks are the main reason I got into MR2s! They stand out without needing any silly styling simply by the fact they're such a different shape to pretty much anything else.LewG said:
Nice little car chap, I had the chance to drive a mate's 'Sonic Shadow' Mk2 last weekend and it was surprisingly good fun! They really thrive on revs don't they?
Yep, the 3SGE makes all it's power at the top and as long as you keep it sweet with regular oil changes with a good oil, it'll happily do it all day. BrettMRC said:
You'll want to get decent baffels in the sump - these engines eat the bottom end if you are not careful.
Great fun though
Less of an issue with a Gen3 3S, which OP car has, as it does have a baffle from the factory. Not as effective as some of the aftermarket options but better than nothing!Great fun though
http://japan-parts.eu/toyota/jp/1994/mr2/sw20-ajmq...
SonicShadow said:
Less of an issue with a Gen3 3S, which OP car has, as it does have a baffle from the factory. Not as effective as some of the aftermarket options but better than nothing!
http://japan-parts.eu/toyota/jp/1994/mr2/sw20-ajmq...
Well, touch wood but mine's been alright so far after a bunch of track days/evenings. A few of those evenings were on R888s too.http://japan-parts.eu/toyota/jp/1994/mr2/sw20-ajmq...
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