The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

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Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

This one's a little different to the red one. Still a MkII and turbo, just different. Plus it doesn't need work, apparently at least...

I'd mulled over buying a 240Z/Fairlady but didn't relish the idea of having two projects. If I had that the MR2 would inevitably end up waiting for years to be sorted. That goes against my original plan, so for now at least I'm holding off on the Z project. Technically I already have a Z, just not a Datsun and not from '77 :mrgreen:
Chumbaside
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Chumbaside »

Nice to see you breathing life back into another MR2 :clap:

Mine is engine out as I add a lovely Garrett G25-660 into the mix plus various other bits! It really is the gift that keeps on giving :lol:
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

Chumbaside wrote: Thu Jan 06, 2022 11:58 am
Nice to see you breathing life back into another MR2 :clap:

Mine is engine out as I add a lovely Garrett G25-660 into the mix plus various other bits! It really is the gift that keeps on giving :lol:


Oh, we're up to 4 viewers! :lol:

Good to see there's still a few people rattling around on the forum :D We really should push to get people back on here rather than FB etc.

How's the car feel with a modern turbo on it? I'd imagine that combined with a modern ECU and the other toys would transform the drive? 8)
Chumbaside
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Chumbaside »


How's the car feel with a modern turbo on it? I'd imagine that combined with a modern ECU and the other toys would transform the drive? 8)


I'll let you know once it's all back together - aiming for mapping mid-February...
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

I hope it all goes well :thumleft:

You should create a build thread, it's quite cathartic when you look back.
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

I'd hoped this update would be me talking about another addition to the car fold. The reality is I've been trying to buy another MR2 but it's all come to nothing :-|

There were four different cars I've been trying to see or secure over the last six weeks. Each of them going nowhere due to little to no communication and the car eventually turning out to be in bad shape, the owner changing their mind, one turning out to be previously written off etc. When did it become so difficult to buy cars?!

The side effect of that had been that work on the Rev 3 (formally known as Mule X) has stalled. However, after a bit of a rethink I'm back on track and whatever happens with extra cars, happens.

That's pretty much it for now. No photos, no progress, just a guy staring at a screen writing this and mentally kicking a can down the road *thousand yard stare whilst thinking about cars*
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

Life has a funny habit of throwing up twists and turns. The day after I wrote my last post (many thanks to both people who read it by the way :mrgreen:) and start to ask myself why I'm even looking, something appears out of the blue.

It would seem I've just put a deposit down on a little something, with its delivery being worked out at the moment. It's going to need some work but I see through its current slightly sad exterior and know that with some time, work and a chunk of cash, the end product is something I'll have for a long time.

I'll save photos of it for when it's been delivered. However, for now I'll turn to a little something a friend bought me, which seems to have been a somewhat phophetic gesture :o

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Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

I've done that thing where you leave it too long before posting an update, because you know it will take hours to do. All the while yet more stuff is happening and you realise it's going to take about 1/2 a day to write-up! 8-[
ayresyboy
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by ayresyboy »

We're all eagerly awaiting....
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

It is long past due, isn't it! :oops:

I'll assemble the events of this last few months into some sort of (mostly) coherent scribblings over the next couple of days. There's quite a bit to tell!
ayresyboy
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by ayresyboy »

Magic Beans wrote: Tue Jun 28, 2022 9:56 am
It is long past due, isn't it! :oops:

I'll assemble the events of this last few months into some sort of (mostly) coherent scribblings over the next couple of days. There's quite a bit to tell!


excellent!
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

Right, let's talk about the last few months... A lot has happened since my last update. Although, right now it feels like I'm no further forwards.

In the interests of making for easier reading I'm going to split my update into cars. There's a lot of overlap in terms of the chronology of events so breaking things up should make it easier to follow. Let's start on Mule X:

We left off things last time with me chipping away at tasks, in readiness for the car to go or an MOT. Or to try at least (foreshadowing...). The tasks continued, with me swapping the spark plugs, dizzy cap, rotor and the battery.

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After pulling the dizzy cap I noticed that the dizzy itself was leaking.

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Replacement in hand, I pulled the dizzy out to see how crusty everything was. It was pretty crusty and the O ring so old it basically fell apart in my hands #-o

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Fitted the new O ring and gave everything a good clean. Being mindful to not knock everything 180 degrees out of timing (I chalk marked everything). Then everything went back in, along with the new cap, rotor etc.
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Next I wanted to give the Frunk a bit of a refresh. The bottom was pretty scabby from years of tyre rub and generally being exposed to the elements. I took a flap wheels to it (forgot to photo this bit!) then applied a couple of coats of etch primer, followed by several coats of colour matched paint.

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The colour match and finish looks great in person. It's now the dirt in the rest of the Frunk that makes it look off :lol:

I'd been looking for a twin exit exhuast for a while, to replace the Apexi GT that was fitted to the car. To prep for that I decided to remove, flap wheel, treat and paint the exhaust hangers; they were pretty rough.

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I've been using Bilt Hamber Hydrate 80 to treat the rust, with great results so far.

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While I was at it I decided to spruce up a couple of other visible bits.

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I've removed the mud flaps. They were never my favourite thing and I don't really foresee this car seeing the kind of conditions that would warrant them. They're dead weight and an opportunity for rust to form where they mount, in my eyes.

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Ok, onto the bigger jobs... 8-[

As you know, the car had a bit of rot. The boot floor had gone through around the NS exhaust mount and the OS boot pokcet to rear arch area was toast. There was also some bubbling in the paintwork on the NS rear arch but I thought this looked like a previous dodgy paint repair job. I'd been looking for someone in the area who was willing and capable of doing the welding work, which I thought would be a fairly easy thing to achieve. In reality I spent weeks trying to find a garage to do it, with most either not getting back to me or flat out refusing :-|

Luckily, when I was at a local tyre place getting my daily sorted, I asked them if they could recommend anywhere. They suggested a small garage just down the road, so I headed there immediately. I found the place and it was your typical "spit and sawdust" type of set-up but they were friendly enough and after asking about getting some welding done I was pointed in the direction of Andy. Andy was everything I imagine a stereotypical old school welder to look like, and after telling him what I needed he was nothing but positivity about his ability and willingness to do it. Exactly what I wanted to hear! :cheers: I made arrangements to book the car in to have the work done, along with putting it through an MOT.

The day finally came: The car was heading off and the next time I saw it I'd have a fresh MOT and the keys to the world, I thought at least 8-[ I used the drive there as an opportunity to shakedown the car, given I'd not driven it more than a few metres since the day I originally collected it. Let that sink in for a while... It's been a saga. As part of driving to the garage the long way round I got the engine nice and warm then tested to see how it handled boost. Remember, this is the first time I'll actually make boost in the car, as the slipping clutch (clutch slave failure) on the way home from collecting it meant that 0 PSI was my ceiling! Overall the car felt much better but there was a definite hiesitation when it was came on boost. I'm aware that the combo of a GT2860RS and the stock ECU means fuelling is a bit of a mess, but it did feel like something more. I took notes, with the idea being I'd look into causes/solutions while the car was away.

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With the car dropped off I went about my day, expecting no word about the car until the day it was ready for collection. 2 hours later... I got a call from Andy telling me he'd removed the bumper and checked over the arches etc, with things being much worse than we thought. He suggested I came down to see it, which I promptly did and was greeted with this...

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Yeah, not really what I was hoping for #-o It turns out that previously the NS rear section had been "repaired". Rather than doing a proper repair they've basically bodged in a mix of scrap metal and a load of filler, then hidden the massive amount of boot rot with some sort of filler/sealant type solution. It was an absolute mess and now explains why the rear arch was bubbling the way it was! I went it knowing the OS side was bad but didn't expect that to turn out to be the cleaner side!

So how do we proceed from here? What I ended up doing was speaking to welder Andy to identify what he felt we needed, then speaking to Andy (another one!) at J-Spec, who after some discussions priced me up some cuts from a clean donor car he had. Basically cutting 50cm cubes out of each side, along with both arches etc, sticking them on a pallet and shipping them to welder Andy. The cuts shown below, in my MS Paint rendering special :lol:

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With all of that in hand I wet to South Africa for a break, leaving Andy to fabricate fixes for the car using a combination of the bits I'd ordered and some general fabrication work. A couple of weeks later I got a call to say the work was done and dusted and the car was ready for collection, which was great news! However, the car had been put through an MOT and had failed on emissions. Either due to the lack of a cat, lack of use and probably the turbo/hesitation cause etc playing a role #-o Andy suggested I make some small changes and then bring it back in a few days, with the engine having had a good run and being tested piping hot.

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The photos somewhat flatter to deceive as the paintwork isn't get. However, I was expecting it to come back in anything other than primer on the bits that had been repaired. In reality Andy had taken the time to flatten, prep, paint the arches, prep, paint and waxoyl the boot areas and waxoyl the entire underside of the rear and arches! His work was above and beyond what I expected, for which I'm truly grateful to have found him! :D

As good as getting it home was I knew I needed to crack on and find solutions to the hesitation, along with how to improve the emissions. The latter I know would mean a lot more work! Naturally I started on the easier bit and after some research I decided to swap out the ignitor coil, as I'd replaced the other elements i the chain and this seemed like a logical next step.

I eventually got the bracket out, then proceeded to find new and creative ways of working around someone's previously bodged nut/bolt solution (stacked 3 high!), as well as the bolt threads being seized. I prepped and cleaned all the surfaces/brackets etc before assembling it all with the new part in place.

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With it all back together I fired up the car and it felt noticably happier. I wouldn't know for sure if it had solved the problem until I properly drove the car, which wouldn't be until it went back for another MOT attempt in a few days. That time inbetween I used to tidy up the boot area now the welding was complete.

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Cut to a couple of days later and I'd treated, prepped and painted the boot floor, along with the pocket areas. It came up pretty well :D

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I took the car back for another crack at the MOT. This time giving it a good run on the way, arriving nice and warm then going straight onto emissions testing. It failed #-o :lol: It wasn't massively off but it became clear that there was no way I was getting this thing through with a decat pipe on. Not without "help" at least, which I didn't want to have to resort to. One positive was that the ignitor change did make a positive improvement to the hesitation issue. There's still some grumbling when it boosts but I'm pretty convinced now that it's due to the turbo/ECU incompatibility.

Knowing what I now know regarding emissions I had a decision to make:

1) Go with an aftermarket ECU, swap the injectors to 800cc and get the car mapped. Making something in the region of 300-350
2) Replace the GT2860RS with a CT20B and replacing the DP

Either way I was going to need a DP with a sports cat on, which meant I was going to need to pull everything out. So I decided, after much deliberation over the last year, to go with option 2. My primary driver being that I've done the whole aftermarket ECU, map, big power thing and my ultimate takewaway was that I felt an SW20 felt at its best when running a stock set-up, forged internals, with a CT20B running at around 17 PSI, so that's what I started working towards. I then spent a whole chunk of time trying to source a CT20B and a few other bits, which we'll get to later. Sufficed to say that finding these turbos isn't anything like it was back in the day #-o

Now I knew I needed to pull the engine apart I used it as an opportunity to replace the cam cover gasket set, which I'd had delivered as part of an order from several months ago. I'd not done it because I had zero interest in getting that deep into things, but given that I'm now doing everything else it suddenly felt like a minor job. I set about doing it, stripping everything back, cleaning and prepping the parts, the fitting the new gaskets. At a later point I went back in and swapped the throttle body to inlet manifold gasket, just in case.

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I've no idea if it will leak?! The car is still in bits now and I'll only know for sure once everything's back together and tested.

I spent a bit of time doing a couple of jobs that are more in-line with what I enjoy. You know, the pretty/fluffy bits :mrgreen: The first of those was replacing the slightly tatty stock steering wheel with a surprisingly clean Mk3 wheel, which was an absolute bargain!

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Much cleaner in my opinion, whilst remaining OEM.

The next job was fitting the carpets etc back into the boot now it was repaired, prepped, painted and ready. I had to wait a few days for some new clips to arrive, as in typical MR2 clip fashion they'd all snapped when removing them. After a good clean the boot is looking really good. It's probably the cleanest bit of a the car :lol:

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A parcel arrived containing the fruits of a discussion with an absolute gem of a guy I spoke to. He was selling a CT20B with a Forge actuator from his old Mk1.5 project, which he'd later replaced with a GT3071. I also had the DP off him, as it was a great price and my thinking (at the time at least) was that I'd have someone weld in a sports cat. Let's take a moment to appreciate how good this packaging was! :-o

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I've since checked over the turbo and started cleaning it, in readiness to be installed on the car. I've also bought a set of gaskets etc for the turbo, hoses, exhaust manifold and all the other bits I'll be touching as part of the swap. Do it now so I don't need to do it later, as I'll never want to do this again!

One of the other things I managed to source was a twin exit exhaust, to replace the Apexi GT. I don't mind a single but have always preferred the look of a twin and had always intended to swap the Apexi out; it's simply too loud for my tastes. I'm past the days of obnoxious exhausts :lol: What I opted for, somewhat influenced by availability, was the Mongoose.

After having received some of the best packaging I've seen, the exhaust arrived in what might be considered the worst packaging I've ever seen!

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Somehow the exhaust itself wasn't damaged at all! I'd consider that a bit of a miracle to be honest!

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I've since cleaned up the hangers and mounted it. Photos of it in situ will come after the car's back together, so in the interim here's a photo of some freshly painted hangers :mrgreen:

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So much time had passed I'd actually gone from having a half full garage to a full garage and back to being half full! It's now full again, but we'll get onto all that in my next update(s) :wink:

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This arrived from the US. I'm not into model cars but after seeing this I had to have it. Especially as it's the right colour and has pop-up headlights!

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At it stands the turbo swap in "In progress". It's an absolute **** of a job, with awkward/inaccessible nuts and bolts causing me to opt to pull the whole exhaust manifold off with everything attached. That seemed like the easier option, which has brought its own joys :|

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I'll finish it off soon, or if I find a magic way of it being done without me. For now though, I'll end this 4 hours of writting with some words of thanks to the many people who've been offering me advice and support along the way. Especially Pete, who's endured a constant barrage of questions, along with many highs and lows with this car (and the others..). Without whom this pretty horrid job would have been a whole other level of misery :D

Now to start on the other two updates... :mrgreen:
Last edited by Magic Beans on Wed Aug 03, 2022 2:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
yokomomr4bx
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by yokomomr4bx »

Really interesting and in depth update, I enjoyed reading that! I completely know where you're coming from regarding emissions and the exhaust setup having gone through the exact same thought process over the past couple of years. It's quite reassuring to see other people facing the same problems and deliberations! I've now arrived at the point of fitting a standard cat with a twin exit Berk system - which actually arrived surprisingly quick through TarmacSportz. I had also considered modifying my existing decat downpipe to install a sport cat, but considered the effort of setting up a jig to keep everything in line to be more effort than I was willing to go through.

My other thought, and I'm not sure if you've seen these or not, would be to source a ct20b turbo elbow (easier to find than the full cat) and order a SARD sport cat lower section which bolts up to the standard elbow. It's certainly not cheap but what little sources I've read regarding quality etc seem to be positive. Just a thought in case you wanted more options :)
ayresyboy
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by ayresyboy »

yokomomr4bx wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:00 pm
Really interesting and in depth update, I enjoyed reading that! I completely know where you're coming from regarding emissions and the exhaust setup


I found the TCS Motorsport option was the perfect solution.

https://www.tcsmotorsports.com/en-gb/co ... 4109805677
yokomomr4bx
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by yokomomr4bx »

ayresyboy wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:08 pm
yokomomr4bx wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:00 pm
Really interesting and in depth update, I enjoyed reading that! I completely know where you're coming from regarding emissions and the exhaust setup


I found the TCS Motorsport option was the perfect solution.

https://www.tcsmotorsports.com/en-gb/co ... 4109805677


For sure, a really great looking system and a good price, I kinda wanted to stick to the twin muffler look though and had always had my eye on the Berk system since there was a big rush on them back around 2010 sort of time :lol:
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

yokomomr4bx wrote: Wed Jul 13, 2022 3:00 pm
My other thought, and I'm not sure if you've seen these or not, would be to source a ct20b turbo elbow (easier to find than the full cat) and order a SARD sport cat lower section which bolts up to the standard elbow. It's certainly not cheap but what little sources I've read regarding quality etc seem to be positive. Just a thought in case you wanted more options :)


That's a solid option actually. I'll do some thinking and reading around that, thanks :)
Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

I've not forgotten to finish my updates, I've just not got around to it. Two cars to go, as well as more updates on the SW since my last update! 8-[

One of them is even running now! Which will make sense once I get to car three! :lol:
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JAAASH
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by JAAASH »

Nice progress mate. It’s really coming on now :clap:
Looking forward to the next updates!

Think I’ll be going down the sports cat route soon. MOT’s are becoming a royal pain #-o
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wilkie senior
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by wilkie senior »

Great read

Finding body work guys that can fabricate are a dying breed, i was lucky i was able to rescue the cosmos after a "bodge"

I had lots of trouble with emissions & mot, i had a CAT on but the CAT had packed up!! new cat all good

Keep the updates coming even though not many of us checking in these days
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Magic Beans
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Re: The journey of one man and his Mule(s)

Post by Magic Beans »

JAAASH wrote: Thu Jul 28, 2022 11:10 am
Nice progress mate. It’s really coming on now :clap:
Looking forward to the next updates!

Think I’ll be going down the sports cat route soon. MOT’s are becoming a royal pain #-o


Josh! Good to hear from you :)

Hopefully we'll get another update on yours soon, eh :wink:

wilkie senior wrote: Wed Aug 03, 2022 11:52 am
Great read

Finding body work guys that can fabricate are a dying breed, i was lucky i was able to rescue the cosmos after a "bodge"

I had lots of trouble with emissions & mot, i had a CAT on but the CAT had packed up!! new cat all good

Keep the updates coming even though not many of us checking in these days


A cat does seem inevitable on the Mk2. If not simply because I'm done with loud exhausts!
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