MR-Tuesday

"nerd_racing" (nerd189) 06/16/2015 at 15:44 • Filed to: AW11 MR2, MR-Tuesday

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I’m back again for another edition of MR-Tuesday. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive the MR2 as much as I want without serious issues. I decided it was time to reward myself and install the stainless exhaust I bought off ebay a while back. Safety first guys, always use jackstands:

Armed with my 2.5 ton jack and a sheet of cardboard that the exhaust shipped in I was ready. Managed to get the whole thing out relatively easily with my cordless impact and my trusty Kobalt socket set.

All in all it wasn’t in too bad of shape, it just had a clamped on aftermarket flex pipe that leaked a little, and two of the three exhaust flange nuts were loose, the third one was gone. So basically the car did 1/4 of the work for me. Thanks car for helping uninstall your exhaust, the non rust way!

After dropping the exhaust I figured I’d take a picture of the underside of the car to show how clean this thing really is. I was thoroughly surprised at what I found:

Nothing, nada, zilch on rust under the muffler area. After that I brought the stainless exhaust down and set it up to see how it would go in. All in all I was impressed at the quality and at how well it looked for a used piece.

After admiring the craftsmanship of the system I decided to throw on new exhaust seals at the manifold and put it in. Found a replacement nut for the one I lost, I still had a stash of metric nuts from my various Mazda/Fazda projects. The exhaust went in so smoothly I thought I must have missed something and surely I’d have to do it over. So far so good, even tucked up in there well:

I fired the car up and it sounded a lot less like a car with open headers, but it was also quieter. I was a little bummed about that, but then I warmed up the car and took it for a spin. 4k+ RPM sounds amazing. It sounded so good that I drove the car around 200 miles Saturday.

Yesterday my coolant temperature sensor came in and I replaced it:

The car runs a little smoother, but it still searches for idle. It is driving me nuts. I am thinking it is possible that there is still an air bubble somewhere... I can’t find any leaks though. I’m going to replace the o rings on the bleeder valve near the thermostat. Another thing I’m thinking is that I was given too high of a temperature thermostat and maybe the car isn’t mapped at that temp? For now it runs well enough to still have fun, idle is just a little tricky.

Spotted one of the most Jalop vehicles I’ve ever seen the other day getting groceries!

It was Diesel, but I didn’t get a chance to see if it was a manual or not. I choose to believe it was.

Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig > nerd_racing 06/16/2015 at 15:48

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That muffler should get a little louder as the fiberglass settles in.

nerd_racing > Andy Sheehan, StreetsideStig 06/16/2015 at 15:51

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It definitely did, by the time I got home Sunday morning around 1 it was as loud as I had hoped. Forgot to add that part.

SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie > nerd_racing 06/16/2015 at 15:54

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Did that muffler come with the B-pipe?

nerd_racing > SidewaysOnDirt still misses Bowie 06/16/2015 at 16:06

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Everything in the 5th picture is what it came with.

and 100 more > nerd_racing 06/16/2015 at 16:38

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Stupid noob question: on a rear-engined car, does the parking brake work against the front wheels, or the rears?

nerd_racing > and 100 more 06/17/2015 at 07:24

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rear wheels, similar to all cars.

Autophile412 - what's the world got in store? > nerd_racing 06/26/2015 at 08:29

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