I went racing for the first time ever! And I didn't crash!

"unpredictable_swerve" (rockingthe2)
04/26/2014 at 19:54 • Filed to: None

I tried to post yesterday about this, but didn't have the approval, so that's stuck in my personal blog and I don't feel like posting it after I've gone and done it. Anyways, I've owned my 93 MR2 Turbo (Jenna) for 2 years now, and finally got around to taking her to a proper track (I've already done Tail of the Dragon/Cherohala Skyway, Bear Mountain MR2 Run, and pretty much drove it up and down the east coast from Florida to New York. Here's a picture of her:

This is August, 2013. At a B&B near the Dragon.

A little over a month ago, I sucked it up and had PR1ME do a Gen4 Swap, as the Gen2 had 100k on it, and was nasty and one of the previous owners had added some questionable mods. The new Gen4 has OBDII, Coil on plug ignition, and looks much cleaner:

With the reliability out of the way (and 230whp), I signed up for hyperdrive. Thankfully, I didn't break anything or crash! I even passed a few people! !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! YouTube never lies!

With me was another MR2:

Who also passed people!

And a Volvo (Not wagon, sorry) with a pretty decent setup, he kept good pace too!

Unfortunately, I can't find any other pictures or video of this particular run yet, if any oppo's were out there, I'd love to see your pictures/videos!

I didn't get pictures of all the coolest cars, as I was too busy enjoying mine, but there was a Ferrari F430 with a full cage, stripped interior, etc that sounded pretty mean, a well abused Viper,

An aboslutely lovely Laguna Seca Blue M3 :)

The Evora was passing left and right!

I also saw a pretty sweet Kaiser Jeep on the way home, and followed an F-type for a few miles, such a sexy kitty that one is!

This concludes my first Oppo post, yay me!

Edit: Found the Youtubes from the MR2 Behind me! My favorite part is at 12:00

Here's the one from the grandstand again:

DISCUSSION (32)

Vince-The Roadside Mechanic > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 19:58

Welcome. I love evora.

D > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 19:58

That viper looks so good with a couple wounds

$kaycog > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 19:58

Great first post and great photos! Welcome to Oppo!

unpredictable_swerve > $kaycog
04/26/2014 at 20:07

Thanks! Have a GT40 at Summit!

Kinja'd!!!

unpredictable_swerve > D
04/26/2014 at 20:08

It sounded even better! I love it that he uses it as it was meant. There was also an above knee amputee in the Time Trials, if that's not an inspiration, you have no soul.

dogisbadob > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 20:09

Kinja'd!!!

I have 1000 more hp than all of you!!!!!!!!!!!

unpredictable_swerve > Vince-The Roadside Mechanic
04/26/2014 at 20:09

It was passing someone every time I saw it, that thing FLEW!

Justin is driven > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 20:09

Congrats on finally getting to a track! Too few of us do that.

unpredictable_swerve > dogisbadob
04/26/2014 at 20:10

On each wheel.

unpredictable_swerve > Justin is driven
04/26/2014 at 20:12

I think I did a bad, I'm hooked. I'm looking at HPDE 1 at VIR now for when I move to Norfolk. I want to get one more hyperdrive in before I leave though! Hopefully I'll get my wife out in her vibe to get some seat time.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 20:23

nice MR2 man, I have a '90 Turbo myself. Pretty jealous of your 4th gen.

$kaycog > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 20:30

That gold on black is absolutely stunning! And it has the Gurney Bubble too! Thanks so much! We're going to get along just fine. :D

Agrajag > unpredictable_swerve
04/26/2014 at 21:15

That looks like a blast.

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/27/2014 at 16:29

It's a blast, it's also fun to have OBDII with a bluetooth adapter, I'll have to actually log everything next time!

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/27/2014 at 18:34

haha yeah. OBD1 is fairly useless. one of the main reasons I'm jealous of the gen4. Did Prime do any internal work to it before throwing it in there? I had a mate with a Caldina and he was always scared to up the boost because he'd been told the rods were weak. and a lot of the MR2 guys down here in Aus are of the same disposition to go for a 3rd gen instead, though I think that's because the transmissions line up better.

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/27/2014 at 19:25

Nope, I've heard conflicting reports on that though. However, I do want to run ATSRacing's "Sweet 16" Turbo upgrade, ECUMaster EMU with flex fuel, and hopefully Woodsport's 6spd conversion kit. However I need suspension, wheels, and tires first. And a DD. Still using it as a daily. End goal is 400whp.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/27/2014 at 20:05

far enough. That's a lot of work :P I was keeping an eye on the Woodsport 6-speed but the $5400 aud plus shipping costs are out of my league. I'll be keeping my gen2 until it blows up or I swap in a 2GR-FE I think.

Tyres, wheels and suspension are also next on my list. Finding the right offset and size for a reasonable price has been tricky down here. but I think I've narrowed it down to some Enkei RPF1's or RP03's. Suspension is likely to be Koni yellows and Eibach Pro's, I'm not ready to commit to coilovers because the roads I take to work are fairly bumpy.

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/27/2014 at 20:24

I would talk you out of the 2GR, but you guys have a decent possibility of getting the supercharger. Other than that, my god the gen4 has the torque at least matching it. And yeah, the 6spd is pretty expensive, more so if you want the LSD too, which I really do. I'll be sticking with the 5spd for at least another 5 years though. I do want a hardtop though, and I'm trying to move to New Zealand in the next few years so this one might not be around that much longer. As for wheels, Blitz Type 03's are perfect.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/27/2014 at 21:29

I'm still on the fence, but I lean towards the 2GR for the torque curve and day-to-day driveability (and economy in such a light car). I think I'll be happy with the 270ish whp too, though I don't have to spend all that much money to get the same peak power out of the engine I have.

I think getting the 6 speed without an LSD would be a waste of time, especially if you're going for 400whp,

NZ is great, Lots of great twisty roads all over the country.
Even though I'm an MR2 fanboy (8 years of owning them now) I think I'd get something different if I lived there, the import laws are much less restricted so nearly anything from Japan can be brought in.

hmmm there's some Blitz's perfect for the MR2 on ebay

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/27/2014 at 21:49

I just spent a ton on getting the motor haha, savings need to be rebuilt first. As for reliability, drivability, and economy, the gen4 matches the 2GR, with the added bonus that it is cheaper (by like 4 grand) and cheaper to extract power from. My buddy had his stock gen4 dyno'd today at a show, made 286whp. He doesn't even have a boost controller and the dyno was supposed to be pretty accurate, my butt-dyno says 230, but whatever. The difference between the gen2 and the gen4 is pretty big, to make that kind of power out of a gen2 reliably you need to build for at least 100whp more, and then you still have tons of blow by. I've done a ton of research both before and after having PR1ME do the swap, and I keep seeing 400 on a gen4 possible for maybe 2-3 grand if you are mechanically inclined. ATS has a 95 with a Gen4, sweet 16, EMU, and forged internals that makes 404whp on E85.

If I ever can go 6spd, I will wait for prices to go down, have woodsport send me a kit, and have a local place do the work that I cant. There will be an LSD. I can't stand one tire fires.

I love the scenery in NZ, and if I can find a job there, I'll take it in a heartbeat. I've always thought it was one of the most beautiful countries in the world, and they have such a huge car scene there. But I'll have an MR2, probably always will. Gives me an excuse to get more cars if I can't sell one! I can think of a ton of things to import, but honestly most of the cars I'm into are either already in the country in sufficient numbers, out of my price range by quite a bit, or just extremely rare to begin with. One day I will own a Stratos Kit (Hawk HF IIRC) and probably drop a 3S-GTE in it, possibly a Beams. But the idea of a diesel Hilux calls to me as well.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/27/2014 at 23:27

ah okay. 2GR's are much cheaper comparatively (or maybe the 3SGTE's are just more expensive)

I can get a donor Aurion from a salvage auction for about $4k if I'm lucky. I can't find any 3SGTE's for under $2k at the moment.

Those Stratos kits are nice, but too scary for me. and Hiluxes are unstoppable.. but all the diesel ones I've driven haven't been much fun, my brother has the current model with the 4.0L petrol. much nicer to drive.

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/28/2014 at 10:56

yeah, I got my swap done for 4.5k they aren't cheap. And I want to do a waste veggie oil conversion to a hilux pretty bad.

beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard > unpredictable_swerve
04/28/2014 at 19:58

Nice. I knew a guy with a Ford Courier that he ran on veggie oil, I don't know a whole lot about them though. I think he ran two fuel tanks and had diesel to get the engine started.

unpredictable_swerve > beardsbynelly - Rikerbeard
04/28/2014 at 20:58

thats the way to do it! Toss in a specialized computer to handle the fueling, maybe a custom ecu if I'm feeling spendy, then a big turbo for most powerz.

Danny Gross > unpredictable_swerve
04/29/2014 at 22:47

I went to school with the guy in the red MR2. He was there with a couple people from UMD. What a small world.

unpredictable_swerve > Danny Gross
04/30/2014 at 00:12

one, the red Volvo, was with him from umd that day, I'm just some guy with a fast car, ain't got no fancy edjumacatin'.

Danny Gross > unpredictable_swerve
04/30/2014 at 10:37

So no blue s4? I thought he was going too.

unpredictable_swerve > Danny Gross
04/30/2014 at 14:07

no, although I saw him at the cpt show the next day.

Danny Gross > unpredictable_swerve
04/30/2014 at 14:24

How'd you like the cpt spring meet? I arrived around 1.

unpredictable_swerve > Danny Gross
04/30/2014 at 14:40

it was fun, we tried to get all the mr2s together, but failed. A guy with the same setup I have hit 286whp (although I'm pretty sure that's what its putting out at the crank) on the dyno, and I saw the atlantis metallic BMW, which is my favorite color. I also won the prpl raffle and got a few free shirts. Evidently there was an ls2 swapped FRS there, which I missed. What were you driving?

Danny Gross > unpredictable_swerve
04/30/2014 at 17:11

I had the black Mazda 3 with tirerack written across the windshield... I had the DC prosolos this past weekend.

unpredictable_swerve > Danny Gross
05/01/2014 at 02:36

i don't believe I saw that one, I was pretty much done at 11 though. Got lunch and came back for the raffle.