mraw112
Well-Known Member
Ive had the mr2 since last 2 Novembers ago, but its always been a slow project due to money always being tight.
This is when i first bought it.
I picked it up for 300$ and it needed a lot of work. I got it home and slowly started taking it apart.
The gas tank had a hole in it so this is how the previous owner solved that.
Taking out the trashed engine.
The engine was really screwed over. Along with having a blown head gasket. It also had...
A blown piston
and... a spun bearing which i cut my hand on pretty bad when i was removing it.
I finally got another crappy engine in it i bought for 100$ It was a hi-comp 4age with a big port head and 7afe head gasket. I drove the car around for about 2 months till the rear wheel bearings went out.
I decided to do a 7age blacktop while i was doing the wheel bearings so the engine came out while it was on the jack stands.
I picked up a 7afe corolla block form the junk yard and sent it off to the machine shop to get it bored. Im using new 81.5mm high comp pistons.
block after getting it back for the machine shop
Later on i picked up a black top head for a great price.
When i got the engine all assembled I ran into a problem. I could not find a timing belt that would fit. Usually when a 16v head is used, a Porsche 944 belt(117 teeth) would fit fine. The 20v head requires a 3 tooth smaller belt, so the porsche belt was way too big. The standard 4age belt(113teeth) was just a hair off from fitting. I went to my local advance auto and compared every single belt they had in stock and could not find one that would fit. So i had to grind out the tensioner to it to "swing out" further. Also i had to grind part of the oil pump and water pump out due to it being in the way of the tensioners path.
engine with the timing belt fitted.
There is one problem to doing this, and that is the tensioner pulley is "self tensioned" there is no spring pulling it over. The timing belt must be put on and then i can bolt on the tensioner pulley.
The next problem i ran into was valve clearance. Since the pistons were not designed for the head, the middle valve was going to slam into the piston when VVT kicked in. So i decided to cut a valve relief into the piston.
I bought a grinding stone the same size of the valve and made a jig.
I then used a hand drill to grind down the relief and measred the depth of the cut with a feeler guage.
end result
The engine is now non interference.
Since I will be using megasquirt, and i dont want to fork out the money to buy a disturbitor, I decided to do the ford edis conversion. Luckly I had all the parts form a ford engine I bought one time.
The bracket was made out of an old baffle pan I had, The problem with it, is that the steel is very malleable, so i will be welding on a rib to prevent it from vibrating back and forth.
I still have to make a wiring harness for the engine and find away to get the cam timing right. The cam timing is off 8 degrees from increasing the block height.
This is when i first bought it.
I picked it up for 300$ and it needed a lot of work. I got it home and slowly started taking it apart.
The gas tank had a hole in it so this is how the previous owner solved that.
Taking out the trashed engine.
The engine was really screwed over. Along with having a blown head gasket. It also had...
A blown piston
and... a spun bearing which i cut my hand on pretty bad when i was removing it.
I finally got another crappy engine in it i bought for 100$ It was a hi-comp 4age with a big port head and 7afe head gasket. I drove the car around for about 2 months till the rear wheel bearings went out.
I decided to do a 7age blacktop while i was doing the wheel bearings so the engine came out while it was on the jack stands.
I picked up a 7afe corolla block form the junk yard and sent it off to the machine shop to get it bored. Im using new 81.5mm high comp pistons.
block after getting it back for the machine shop
Later on i picked up a black top head for a great price.
When i got the engine all assembled I ran into a problem. I could not find a timing belt that would fit. Usually when a 16v head is used, a Porsche 944 belt(117 teeth) would fit fine. The 20v head requires a 3 tooth smaller belt, so the porsche belt was way too big. The standard 4age belt(113teeth) was just a hair off from fitting. I went to my local advance auto and compared every single belt they had in stock and could not find one that would fit. So i had to grind out the tensioner to it to "swing out" further. Also i had to grind part of the oil pump and water pump out due to it being in the way of the tensioners path.
engine with the timing belt fitted.
There is one problem to doing this, and that is the tensioner pulley is "self tensioned" there is no spring pulling it over. The timing belt must be put on and then i can bolt on the tensioner pulley.
The next problem i ran into was valve clearance. Since the pistons were not designed for the head, the middle valve was going to slam into the piston when VVT kicked in. So i decided to cut a valve relief into the piston.
I bought a grinding stone the same size of the valve and made a jig.
I then used a hand drill to grind down the relief and measred the depth of the cut with a feeler guage.
end result
The engine is now non interference.
Since I will be using megasquirt, and i dont want to fork out the money to buy a disturbitor, I decided to do the ford edis conversion. Luckly I had all the parts form a ford engine I bought one time.
The bracket was made out of an old baffle pan I had, The problem with it, is that the steel is very malleable, so i will be welding on a rib to prevent it from vibrating back and forth.
I still have to make a wiring harness for the engine and find away to get the cam timing right. The cam timing is off 8 degrees from increasing the block height.
