Jap Devil

Yes Bugger me....I'm in the wrong job! Shame I stopped getting my hands dirty 10 years ago

I would hazard a guess by saying that there is excess -ve camber plus the toe is skewed to one side?

A concealed button that you need to press each time the driver's door is closed....if not....then after 2 mins the alarm starts to cut the fuel and the lights flash / horn sounds and the car comes to a halt! I sometimes forget to press the button and have errrrm, suffered some3 embarrasment as a result! You forget......nah!... distracted methinks... This is a valid question so don't think I'm taking the Mickey.... If you have the carjack fitted is this displayed as a warning on the car?... like a sticker or something? No...there is no warning sticker or anything. If a potential carjacker spies a warning sticker then all he has to do is to hold a gun/knife/superglue to the driver's head in order to source the secret button.

A concealed button that you need to press each time the driver's door is closed....if not....then after 2 mins the alarm starts to cut the fuel and the lights flash / horn sounds and the car comes to a halt! I sometimes forget to press the button and have errrrm, suffered some3 embarrasment as a result!

Best on the 300: Prolex equal length decatted manifold & downpipe (until the badboy C38-81 goes on!) Worst on the 300: Autowatch carjack immobilizer, what a PITA! Best on the Tubby: Blitz NUR Spec-R exhaust. Sounds like Armageddon & spits flame! Worst on the Tubby: none

What is there to be "not sure" about? Sounds like an easy choice to me Yep, the Toyota leads. On the MR2 side there's been far too many reports of magnacor leads being destroyed after a few years where as OEM leads last much better. That's interesting , our experience has been the complete reverse. Toyota plug lead failure is very common on the 3S engine but we haven't seen any Magnacores fail (yet ) Magacores seem to be a cause for concern - check out the posts on IMOC and MR2OC

I'm running 18" Bridgestone Potenza SO3's at 36psi F/R for normal driving, reduced to 32psi rear and 34psi front for 1/4 miles & track

After reading numerous tales of woe regarding failed aftermarket HT leads I replaced mine with the Toyota parts.

Totally agree with Jon, the MR2 Mk2 is a great car to start off with, comes with the legenday 3S-GTE engine and is almost infinitely modifiable. I bought my late 1996 Rev4 GT Turbo T-Bar in December 2005 as a weekend fun car / occasional track car but it soon had me biting the modding bug. I've no intention of stripping it right down like Jon, as it'll primarily be a road car, but have already made some quite impressive: Stock exhaust > Blitz Nur Spec & cat replacement Stock suspension > TRD coilovers Stock ARB DL's > Custom made DL's Stock air box > Blitz SUS LM induction Stock pads > EBC RedStuff pads (both discs hardly worn) Mine's rear strut brace Heavy 17" Lenso 5KR, 205/35 front, 235/35 rear > Refurbished Racing Sparco 16 x 7 205/45 front, 16 x 8 245/45 rear Dastek Unichip & rolling road remap A few other costmetic mods This is currently producing 296bhp (fly) To come very soon: 15mm H&R front spacers TRD ARB's and poly bushes ATS TD06 Turbo & downpipe Berk intercooler 800cc uprated injectors Uprated fuel rail Walbro fuel pump I don't think I'll be able to keep up with Jon, especially round the corners, but it'll be fun trying!

Manufacturers use the same ECU for different engines, this way they can reduce inventory, by programming the ECU for various configurations.

"Mapping" is all about hooking up to the car's ECU, usually through a laptop, and altering the fuelling and timing parameters based upon the additional power the engine is outputting. For example, replacing the standard CT20 turbo on an MR2 with an uprated TD06 will give another 50+bhp. The stock 540cc injectors will just about be maxed out so it'll be a good move to fit uprated 800cc injectors. However the ECU will still think it's running 540's and only pump fuel for 540's. So a remap will optimize performance.

Business models like that are not viable in this industry, and you have clearly identified one of the reasons why. Any business that does not make suffient profits to pay for insurance should not be in business. You are failing to see the point - a sole trader, especially one who is a part-time trader has no requirement for limited liability insurance and there is no legal obligation to do so. Your conception of the business model is also incorrect, very few business are able to generate an acceptable profit over the first few months as a result of poor cash flow due to the start-up costs.

I was referring more to sole traders who sell small and lower value items such as accessories etc and where liability insurance is not only way OTT but can make the difference between profitability or not.

No mate.....they're just painted yellow 22mm hollow bars, for the Lexus IS they stiffen the front by 60% and the rear by 100% over the stock bars.

1. No part time traders. Why? many of us have full time jobs and the revenue from the part time trading is an additional income, not a primary income. 2. No traders without a proper premises. And why does (for instance) a mail-order trader need (for instance) to rent a warehouse. Your justification is totally flawed. 3. No traders without indemnity insurance. Rubbish! 4. No traders without a proven track record. And how do you propose to quantify this? How many customer's cars you've blown up? 5. No traders that you are not comfortable being associated with. As above, this is not quantifiable.

For those on the LOC site who participated in the TRD "Yellow" ARB grope buy....these come supplied with uprated poly bushes The benefit of poly bushes is that they are less compressible than the standard pseudo rubber bushes and therefore benefit handling. With regard to geometry, it would seem appropriate that with more responsive handling that a good set-up is required. Downside.......fitting the buggers!

Zero NCB on the MR2 policy....I had to start from scratch But they offered my a 25% discount as a sweetner AON is a broker who specialize in low annual milage and "classic" cars. The policy is with Sun Alliance.

Sounds like it could be the fuel cut defender starting to cut in. Do you have the car remapped through a piggy-back ECU? Maybe needs tweaking a little.

"Get on the right track"

I'm running the IS300 on HKS HiperMax RS coilovers which have been fitted approx 1,500 miles ago and have been fine up until recently with no knocking or tapping. What I've noticed is a sharp "cracking" noise which appear to originate from the N/S rear and is most apparent when turning a sharp left or right corner at low speed, but it also occurs going over speedbumps and rough surfaces. It's more apparent starting from cold but still happens after running for a while. I was think of the following possibilities: 1) A loose top mount? I'll need to remove the boot liner to check these. 2) A loose ARB drop link. Before Track Attack I removed all the wheels and did a visual inspection of the suspension and couldn't find anything loose. 3) No contact is apparent between the coilover spring and the inner tyre wall. Any ideas / suggestions are most welcome

Aren't the TRD sways 23mm? I beleive they come supplied with uprated poly bushes.

Exactly......

Decatting is just part of the process of helping the engine to breathe more efficiently. Using the MR2 as an example, the first stage would be: 1) Induction 2) Downpipe & decat 3) Cat-back exhaust After which, the big bucks need to be spent: 4) Upgraded intercooler/chargecooler 5) Bigger turbo 6) Standalone ECU / remap Right now, I have 1,2,3 & 6 and have dyno'd at 295bhp (fly) compared with the standard 245bhp. Future plans are a TD06 turbo and Greddy intercooler to give around 300rwhp

Here's a pic of the 3" turbo downpipe for the MR2 SW20 Rev3 and above. The pipe bolts onto the turbo at the end with the 6 boltholes and the bend at the other end replaces the cat chamber and bolts directly onto the (de)cat-back exhaust.

For a forced induction engine (and not so critical for N/A) the best policy means getting in as much COLD air as possible, meaning efficient induction and forced through a quality intercooler. Followed by removing the exhaust gasses through the least restrictive pipework while maintaining an acceptable noise level. The most efficient exhaust will use a manifold of equal length pipes (to equalise back pressure on each cylinder) and a decatted rear system. The power gains achieved by decatting can be very cost-effective in terms of bucks-per-bang! Word of caution: Replacing the stock exhaust with an unrestrictive system will screw up the fuelling; you'll fuel too rich at low revs and lean out at high revs. It's well worth having a remap done at the same time.