MR2 SC Engine Rebuild Chronicles: Bag n Tag, Polish

"MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig" (MR2_FTW)
04/27/2014 at 23:25 • Filed to: mr2, supercharged, 4agze, engine, rebuild

Got the engine completely disassembled and ready to take to the machine shop today. These pics are for my reference when I go to put all the bolts back later

And here is everything wrapped/bagged ready to go to the shop Each piston/rod assembly is in a freezer bag labeled 1 thru 4.

While everything is out of the car I decided to rotate my square bushing. For those of you that don't know, on E-series transmissions (MR2 SC and MR2 Turbo) there is a little square metal bushing in the shift lever assembly that wears out and causes play. Here's the shift lever assembly

In this pic you can see the bushing in the middle. It's where the top arm articulates the bottom arm to move it in/out of the transmission.

Here you can see the amount of wear

All you have to do is take it out, turn it 90*, and put it back. Then all your play is gone! Hooray for free mods!

So while everything else is away, I'm taking all my cast intake components and starting to clean up the innards where there are casting imperfections. Nothing crazy, I'm not removing much material or reshaping anything. I'm using pretty much the technique used in this video, though I'm using a flex extender thingy for the dremel so I don't risk gumming it up with shavings.

Here's how my intake manifold came out. I'm pretty pleased with it.

I'm also porting everything to match the gaskets. Oddly, the cylinder head intake and intake manifold are already gasket-matched so I don't have to do that, though I will probably smooth out the casting in the ports in the head with very light duty abrasive fuzz attachments. Again, nothing crazy, no mirror shine (ain't nobody got time for that) just a little smoother. I wonder if there will be any measurable power gains once it's all back together with the higher compression and this intake work. If I could gain 10whp from all this that would be sick nasty.

DISCUSSION (17)

YSI-what can brown do for you > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/27/2014 at 23:46

What happened to your engine?

lone_liberal > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/27/2014 at 23:48

That is good stuff. I especially like the port matching. I spent the day installing transmission lines, power steering lines and a power steering pump. I'm thinking I might be able to start the beast soon. After a number of years disassembling and fixing things that were fucked up by previous owners, putting things together is pretty exciting.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > lone_liberal
04/27/2014 at 23:53

Sounds fun. What are you working on?

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > YSI-what can brown do for you
04/27/2014 at 23:54

Blown head gasket-like symptoms after only 3 years on a new gasket. This time I figured I'd drop it and get the block resurfaced as well and rebuild it while it's out. 215k miles ish ain't bad.

lone_liberal > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/27/2014 at 23:56

It's a '71 Camaro that I bought as an $800 basket case. The body is still very rough, but the mechanical and electrical are just about sorted.

YSI-what can brown do for you > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/27/2014 at 23:59

Not bad at all! How are you planning on rebuilding it? Are you going to go all out crazy on parts?

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > YSI-what can brown do for you
04/28/2014 at 00:16

Not at all. Pretty much bare essentials. Though it's getting a TRD metal head gasket that's good for around 0.5:1 increase in compression ratio because it is 0.8mm compressed whereas the stock one is around 1.2mm compressed. I may also put an aluminum flywheel on depending on how expensive machine shop costs end up.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > lone_liberal
04/28/2014 at 00:16

Aesthetics are overrated. A pretty car that drives like crap is a crap car in my opinion.

Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/28/2014 at 00:21

PICK A PROJECT, DAMNIT!! I can't keep following your porjects.

Nice work man.

YSI-what can brown do for you > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/28/2014 at 00:35

my friend got a lighter flywheel and clutch! He says the car feels a little different and that downshifting is a little easier! Go for it, can't hurt right!

Nonster > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/28/2014 at 00:48

I can't remember specifics off the top of my head, but I remember hearing some mild cams really wake up the GZE. That would be fun, but a little compression bump should be noticable too.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > Nonster
04/28/2014 at 08:14

I'd love to get a set of Poncams, but $550 is more than I want to spend right now. Some people say that the GZE falls off in high RPM's, but my dyno graph says differently. Peak power is at like 7250.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > Dukie - Jalopnik Emergency Management Asshole
04/28/2014 at 08:18

Yeah, the wagon is pretty much done mechanically. The rest will just be stuff like getting the passenger Supra seat in, maybe a new steering wheel, and an exhaust at some point. All of that got put on the back burner when my baby went down though. MR2 takes priority.

Nonster > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/28/2014 at 09:26

what did it put out on the dyno?

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > Nonster
04/28/2014 at 10:25

151 at the wheels. Not bad for a 26 year old, 200k+ engine that made 145 crank from the factory.

BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires > MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig
04/28/2014 at 11:18

Very cool, especially the intake work.

I've heard that it's actually a good idea to have a bit of a step between the exhaust port and the manifold (port smaller than manifold). Apparently that aids in exhaust scavenging or something or other, although that might not apply to boosted engines where the best thing is just to get exhaust out as quickly as you can.

MR2_FTW - Group J's resident Stig > BiTurbo228 - Dr Frankenstein of Spitfires
04/28/2014 at 13:00

If that's true, then my engine is loving it. My 20valve exhaust manifold is a tad larger than the ports on the head.