Toyota MR2 SO863 HistoryThis vehicle was originally purchased in February of 2003 from Jeff Torkington and Lloyd Ives. At the time of purchase it had the following modifications :
Click here for vehicle history from 2003 and older 03/02/2004 - Well the event at Foremans Corner a couple of weeks ago saw some parts of the car fail under stress. The right rear axle wasn't looking good when the bolts that hold the CV joint together fell out during the motorkhana. This was repaired on site (after a quick trip back to Auckland for parts), but by the end of the weekend the sump guard was removed due to it's mounting points being stuffed. Troy, Jeff & Lloyd spent a little time on the car last Wednesday, tearing the old mounting points for the sump guard out in preparation for new ones. Jeff & Lloyd have also done some great work on the trailer used to cart this vehicle about the place. Tonight should see them reinstalling the sump guard and newly cleaned air filter, as well as installing a new coolant overflow bottle after the last one shook itself to bits on the way home from Foremans. Troy is trying to find a new axle as a long term replacement for the one that had problems at Foremans Corner. He is also looking for some new Dunlop Tarmac tires the team can use for Targa Dash, the old Toyo tires we have been using are now bald and the Targa events prefer the Dunlop brand as they sponsor the event (and fair enough too !). 05/02/2004 - Troy, Jeff, Lloyd and Trevor all spent the evening working on the car. While the others were working on template for the sum guard to allow us to put the weld nuts it attaches to in the right place under the car, Troy decided to check the rear axle on the passenger side given the drivers side failed at Foremans and we hadn't checked the other one. This proved to be both a good idea and a bad one. Troy dicovered one bolt missing and a broken connecting-washer, plus two more bolts that were finger-loose. Trevor assisted Troy with removing the existing bolts while Troy went looking for some replacements and a replacement connecting-washer. Unfortunately all of the bearings in the CV joint fell out while Trevor was working on it, and as Jeff & Lloyd have never had to fix the CV joints on the car before it took about two hours for everyone to figure out how to manage it. The axle has now been put back into the car and is bolted on correctly, the drivers side is still ok for the short term but really that axle needs to be replaced. Lloyd is to weld the nuts onto the car tomorrow, so we will be able to reattach the sump guard. The coolant bottle was replaced and the newly cleaned and oiled air filter was reinstalled as well. 11/02/2004 - Troy & Lloyd refitted the sump guard tonight, topped up the water & coolant and swapped the road tires for rally tires in preparation for the SACC Hillclimb on the 29th. Unfortunately the left front wheel has a stud and nut that have been damaged by whoever fitted the wheel last time. Troy has some spare parts to fix these but they weren't with him tonight, but the car should be ready to go by next Thursday. Troy has also purchased 4 Dunlop Tarmac tires to use in Targa Dash later in the year. The tires are D01J's (195x60xR14) and were purchased from South Pacific Tires, and were kindly delivered to our door by Beaurepairs Glenfield. 13/05/2004 - Troy, Timothy, Trevor, Jeff and Lloyd spent some time on the car this evening. The wheels have now been swapped for the tarmac ones, the sump guard has been repaired after it was torn off at the Pebblebrook Hillclimb, and the rally computer sensor has been adjusted to ensure accurate reading. We're now all go for the next event, the NCC Snooks Road Hillclimb. 05/06/2004 - Wednesday saw Troy, Trevor, Jeff & Lloyd all preparing the car for Targa dash. A spanner check was done and all the fluids etc. were topped up as well as testing the intercom. The car has since got a warrant and has had the signwriting updated (big thanks to Signsation Signs for an excellent quality, quick job at an excellent price !). The brake hoses need to be tied up and the car needs to be cleaned, then it's all set to go. After Dash we'll need to look at a couple of wheel bearings and some suspension bushes (which need the nolathene replaced). 17/06/2004 - Well, we've discovered the reason for our problems on special stage 3 of Targa Dash. The engine put a rod through the side of the block, which also explains the oil all over the engine bay. Looks like it's time for a new engine ! Jeff is thinking about building a new race engine with lower compression than a standard one, but still setting it up and tuning the fuel computer to use 98 octane fuel. This should give us about 190 horsepower which is 20-30 more than the engine we had, but about 15 less than Jeffs old race engine that ran av-gas. Alternatively the team may decide to buy another standard engine to put in the car, but it depends on what we sort out with Jeff. 28/06/2004 - Trevor, Jeff and Lloyd spent the evening removing the engine from the car and it's now out. We'll post pictures of the hole in the block as soon as we have some. 07/07/2004 - Troy, Chris Subritzky, Jeff Torkington and Lloyd Ives spent the evening removing the motor from a wrecked Celica that Jeff and Troy have jointly purchased. Our plans are to rebuild the engine from the Celica and put it into the MR2. Troy also made an excellent start on cleaning the engine bay, which some feared would need repainting, but the cleaning has gone so well that doesn't look likely anymore. Pictures of the hole in the engine block are shown below.
14/07/2004 - In the early hours of this evenig Chris Subrtizky drove the engine head to Warkworth to be cleaned up by a friend of Jeff's while Troy made a start on trying to replace the speedo cable. The old cable had been damaged by the engine fire on Dunlop Targa Dash a few weeks ago. When Chris got back he gave Troy a hand and by the end of the night the cable was replaced and the dashboard back together but the tank guard still needs to be bolted on. Jeff has previoulsy managed to convert the speedo drive from the Celica gearbox to fit the gearbox on the MR2 so hopefully by the end of this engine replacement we'll have a speedo that works properly. Jeff wants to use the car at this weekends hillclimb (which our team is unable to attend as they will be in Wellington celebrating their grandfaters 80th birthday), so it's possible the car will be running again by Sunday. 03/09/2004 - Work progresses well on the car. The new engine is now all back together and it is sitting in the car on three of its mounts. Jeff and Troy have spent several Wednesdays working on the car and the progress has been smooth if not rapid. Jeff intends to do a little more over the coming weekend and the team hopes to have it running by the 12th of September for the HCMC Hillclimb. 11/09/2004 - Well Jeff, Trevor, Lloyd and Troy spent last two Wednesdays working on the car again. We got the engine in and all hooked up but were unable to start it because we'd forgotten to get a new oil filter, spark plugs and the required fluids. Troy bought these last Thursday and Jeff put them all in only to discover the fly wheel was the wrong size. Jeff and Lloyd tore the engine out again and machined the fly wheel down to size since another of the correct size wasn't available. It's not good news though, Jeff has just rung Troy tonight to say that while the new engine is in and everything seems to fit now, the engine itself sounds very very sick. We don't know what the exact problem is at this stage, Jeff and Lloyd are still looking into it, but they don't think it's repairable. It seems the new (second hand) engine is just no good. Our team could be looking for a new engine again.. 25/09/2004 - Jeff has found a new engine at a local parts importer so he and Troy are forking out half each to purchase it. We hope to have it in the car in time for the HCMC round of the hillclimb series at the latest. A second engine was found on trademe.co.nz, a 1999 Altezza 3-SGE with only 58k on it. At $2k for it, the computer and loom it was an excellent deal but neither Jeff nor Troy could afford the extra expense. It's a shame because an engine like that should put out about 154kw, but we might have had trouble fitting it in the car anyway so perhaps it's best we're keeping a model of engine we're familiar with. 29/09/2004 - Jeff & Troy spent the evening working on the new engine (with a little help from Lloyd). Most of the unneccesary stuff has been stripped off the new engine. We also opened the new engine up and puit some lock-tight on the nuts & bolts inside it. The radiator in the car was drained in preparation for taking the engine out, but that was about all the progress made tonight. Next week we'll take out the current engine and finish prepping the current one to go in. We're hoping to have it all done for the HCMC round of the Interclub Hillclimb Series. 20/10/2004 - Jeff & Troy spent the evening finishing putting the new engine together and actually managed to get it in the car ! It's now in the body sitting on three of it's engine mounts. 03/11/2004 - Jeff & Troy once again spent the evening working on the car. Jeff had previously fitted the fuel rail and a few other bits and pieces so tonight was basically spent fitting the extractors, exhaust manifold, speedo cable, alternator etc. Unfortunately we have run out of gearbox oil so we'll need to buy some more before we can drive it, but after much messing about with the electrics that were proving difficult, Jeff did get the car to start. The engine sounds ok this time round, but it's hard to be sure since we haven't fitted the exhaust yet which makes it quite noisy. 01/12/2004 - The car was almost ready to go tonight, except for an oil leak which Jeff believes is coming from the tappet cover which was damaged previously. Jeff spent his time attending to making a new cover up while Tim and Troy fitted the sump guard, boot and so on. By the end of the evening it was all go and everything appears good for the hillclimb this weekend. 06/12/2004 - Well, we drove the car to the event, competed and then drove back with almost no problems. Unfortunately the oil leak we thought we'd fixed is still there. It may be a a problem with the cam shaft seals so the car will be off the road again until we can fix that. The car performed really well at the hillclimb though so once we fix the oil leak we should be in good shape ! 26/01/2005 - Tonight Troy, Timothy and Richard spent the evening working on the car with assistance from Jeff who had already repaired the oil leaks (3 of them) that plagued us at Pritchard Road. The two rear toe rod ends were replaced as the car had failed a warrant because of them. Jeff will take the car for a wheel alignment tomorrow in time for Foremans Corner this weekend. We need a rear engine mount (also failed because of the warrant). Finally, we've replaced both seat belts as MANZ rules now state all seat belts expire 2 years from their date of manufacture and ours were quite a lot older than that ! We should be all go for this weekend and able to replace the engine mount and get the car warranted not long after. 14/03/2005 - At the hillclimb yesterday the right rear sub-frame became disconnected from the body, so we'll need to get a new one and repair it. We're looking to do that this Wednesday as well as replace the steering rack with another one in better condition. 16/03/2005 - Replacement parts have been sourced are mostly installed, there is just some welding to do which Lloyd will take care of for us over the next week or two. The team has decided not to go Ruakaka, partly due to the problems with the car but mostly due to a lack of a trailer/support vehicle this weekend. 05/09/2005 - Well, we got the car going back in March, but sadly blew (ran the big end bearings) an engine during the Snooks Road hillclimb. Since that was the week before Targa Tauranga, we had a mammoth task on our hands to replace the engine in four days before the event. The car also got a new look with help from our new sponsor, Colorworx. We managed to get the engine in, and all seemed well during Targa, until we ran the bearings again during the four stage. Another engine was put in, and we finally got it properly re-tuned with the end result being just a little under 120kw at the rear wheels. We've used the car at a couple of events since then, and it's behaving very well, and the extra power is awsome. 26/09/2005 - Jeff took the car for a WOF recently and it was found to a have few problems (a brake imbalance etc.). Jeff fixed all of these, but unfortunately didn't properly pin the bonnet down before a test drive and consequently the bonnet needed to be replaced. Luckily Jeff had a fibre glass bonnet (lighter than the old one) and that was installed before the Rallysprint yesterday (although the sign writing on the old bonnet has not been replaced). The bad news is that during his third run yesterday, the engine put a con-rod through the side of the block (very reminiscent of Targa Dash a year or so ago). We're now looking at having to put a new engine in again.
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