The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → Why not MR2?
I have a line on a first gen MR2.....but there's a lot of opinion that they're not Toyota reliable in Lemons...and I already have a mouldy fox Mustang out back....anybody know why Mister Two isn't bulletproof??
Ask the dudes who were on fire.
Hmmm....I drove a Fiero at Reno last year and after that I was thinking that I'm checked out on mid-engine Lemons technology. There was an MR2 there that seemed to go very well, at least when passing me!..I'm surprised that the MR2 isn't typically solid Toyota...
Ask the dudes who were on fire.
Wasn't an MR2.
Generally, MR2s are a PITA. Unless you have lived and breathed them for a while, they are easy to get wrong and leave you in paddock scrathing your head.
The engine is in the back. That leads to long coolant lines. Air in the lines is VERY hard to purge and a single air bubble can get into the water pump and make it cavate forever. Same with the clutch line. Same with the engine electrical. Same with the shifter.
God help you if you have to work on the engine. You have no access to it and it is packed in there tight. If you have to do anything, most of the times the instructions start with pull the engine.
We finished CMP. We came off the track with 5 minutes left last year when our muffler fell off. And we spun a rod bearing at NL after 11 hours because no one checked the oil or watched the oil pressure gauge.
Just checked your site....your buildup looks like a nightmare....a Corolla looks easy in comparison
There are easier cars to start with. My problem is that I love them to death and can drive them quick.
+11 on Rob's advice. Look at my sig. That's all AW11 a/k/a first-gen MR2. There isn't an MR2 team that has been in Lemons for more than a race that isn't expert on how to drop and swap an engine.
Plus, parts are sometimes getting to be kind of a pain to find. If I were starting all over again, I'd bend over backwards to find a car using domestic parts. Or that could at least be swappable for domestic iron. With its transverse engine and transaxle setup, there's no good & easy non-Toyota swaps for the car either.
But they are fun to drive. When they're working. Which usually isn't for very long, unfortunately. But if you want to build up a garage full of Toyota spare parts, it's a good way to get your start. I've got a side yard of 4-cylinder cast iron boat anchors that my wife absolutely LOVES.
Oh wait, I take back everything I just said above. Misery loves company -- jump right in, the water's fine! 
Trouble is, I've built several race cars....and like British sports cars. After my Triumph I'm incapable of believing that any other car can possibly seem unreliable or difficult to work on....but the tiny non-wife voice in the back of my head says "build the Mustang and feel what it's like to get parts at NAPA instead of mail order". It just looks so heavy compared to the MR2...
Jim, I know that in the spirit of "racing" I shouldn't warn you away from that car. I should let you learn on your own. But I've been the beneficiary of enough charity and advice that I feel this compulsive need to pass it along.
For the love of God, don't waste your time on it! Or your money. Listen to that voice in the back of your head for once. If I weren't already so damned invested in Toyota parts and so damned stubborn, I would kick my MR2 to the curb as a Lemons car in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I now have a garage full of parts and if I told my wife that I'm swapping marques and all those parts are going out on the curb, I would get to go out and sleep next to them.
The MR2 isn't (probably) as bad as the Triumph. But the Mustang would be so so so much easier and more reliable and easier to fix when it breaks. And it's not like an MR2 is rare enough to give any advantage for getting into these races.
There is no amount of weight you can't take from a car. If we could make a 1987 Chevy Caprice weight under 2000lbs without replacing body panels with composite... then there is no reason you can't do the same with a smaller car.
Just checked your site....your buildup looks like a nightmare....a Corolla looks easy in comparison
unless you're swapping in an unknown quantity supercharged engine like we did, you should be OK. keeping the stock engine makes things much simpler.
honestly, the MR2 is a blast to drive on a track.
FWIW, we have not experienced any cooling issues. we've had plenty of other problems but not cooling, which is always the big knock on MR2s.
the mr2 is so much for for the 10-30 laps that it runs, that's why we're re-entering ours.
it's a cheap fast car that is amazingly fun to drive. it would absolutely dominate the Lemons if it did not eat engines for breakfast.
Jim, I know that in the spirit of "racing" I shouldn't warn you away from that car. I should let you learn on your own. But I've been the beneficiary of enough charity and advice that I feel this compulsive need to pass it along.
For the love of God, don't waste your time on it! Or your money. Listen to that voice in the back of your head for once. If I weren't already so damned invested in Toyota parts and so damned stubborn, I would kick my MR2 to the curb as a Lemons car in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, I now have a garage full of parts and if I told my wife that I'm swapping marques and all those parts are going out on the curb, I would get to go out and sleep next to them.
The MR2 isn't (probably) as bad as the Triumph. But the Mustang would be so so so much easier and more reliable and easier to fix when it breaks. And it's not like an MR2 is rare enough to give any advantage for getting into these races.
Oh yea! Mulry has learned so much about staying away from MR2s that his voice in his head convinced him that he should drive our MR2 at Sears. Now that's one stubborn guy!
I'm not only stubborn, but stupid too. Self-aware, but stupid.
I don't quite get it.... MR2's are simple, reliable and cheap. I've had them for many years and modified the hell out of them. The 4AGE is a great motor unless not cared for, and you can do that BEFORE the race 
The long cooling lines mean less worry about radiator capacity too. In my last street one, I took out all 3 cooling fans and did a 20v swap, and 10 years after I sold it, its still going strong. Just do your maintenance like any car you want to still have running at the end, and it should be good to go. The thing I don't like about MR2's on the track is that the handling will bite you in the ass at 10/10ths and its hard to recover once it goes.... Much prefer the Corolla for road racing and at the same weight and same engine, the Corolla is pretty much always faster (I have a Corolla too)
I don't quite get it.... MR2's are simple, reliable and cheap. I've had them for many years and modified the hell out of them. The 4AGE is a great motor unless not cared for, and you can do that BEFORE the race
Modifying and drivi9ng hard on the road is not comparable to driving REALLY hard for 6 hours straight... let alone 24...
There is no amount of weight you can't take from a car. If we could make a 1987 Chevy Caprice weight under 2000lbs without replacing body panels with composite... then there is no reason you can't do the same with a smaller car.
So what did you get a Fiero down to?
I don't quite get it.... MR2's are simple, reliable and cheap. I've had them for many years and modified the hell out of them. The 4AGE is a great motor unless not cared for, and you can do that BEFORE the race
I follow your logic, and even agree with it, mostly. That's what led me to decide to use an MR2 as our race platform.
But the results on track don't lie. There is hardly a team running an MR2 (or even a 4AG in another chassis) that hasn't blown their motor at some point. Schumacher just blew theirs in an FX16, but as Rob has noted, it was a 200k motor that had run 5 races, so it was kind of due anyway and might not be the best example.
Most of us don't have the luxury of knowing the entire history of our engines, and the fact that we're getting these cars at the prices that we're getting them practically guarantees that the engines have not been well-cared for in their prior lives.
If you follow the results of all the AW11 MR2-based teams in Lemons, their tale of woe is usually pretty similar across the board. I've been in contact personally with pretty much all of them at some point and the conclusion that I've come to is that these engines, at the age and wear state in which we are running them, have a very tough time holding together under endurance race conditions. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it's tough and the teams that make it happen often seem to have many, many years of 4AG experience prior to entering Lemons.
But when they are working right, they are damned fun to drive on the track. Just don't abruptly lift off the throttle in mid-turn unless you're intending to execute a spin.
Spinnetti wrote:I don't quite get it.... MR2's are simple, reliable and cheap. I've had them for many years and modified the hell out of them. The 4AGE is a great motor unless not cared for, and you can do that BEFORE the race
I follow your logic, and even agree with it, mostly. That's what led me to decide to use an MR2 as our race platform.
But the results on track don't lie. There is hardly a team running an MR2 (or even a 4AG in another chassis) that hasn't blown their motor at some point. Schumacher just blew theirs in an FX16, but as Rob has noted, it was a 200k motor that had run 5 races, so it was kind of due anyway and might not be the best example.
Most of us don't have the luxury of knowing the entire history of our engines, and the fact that we're getting these cars at the prices that we're getting them practically guarantees that the engines have not been well-cared for in their prior lives.
If you follow the results of all the AW11 MR2-based teams in Lemons, their tale of woe is usually pretty similar across the board. I've been in contact personally with pretty much all of them at some point and the conclusion that I've come to is that these engines, at the age and wear state in which we are running them, have a very tough time holding together under endurance race conditions. I'm not saying that it can't be done, but it's tough and the teams that make it happen often seem to have many, many years of 4AG experience prior to entering Lemons.
But when they are working right, they are damned fun to drive on the track. Just don't abruptly lift off the throttle in mid-turn unless you're intending to execute a spin.
I've done 5 events, and looked over the MR2's at these races... Yeah, history doesn't lie, but some of the "mods" people have done are pretty dubious. On our team, our FX16 has run 5 events without a hiccup. Throw some fresh bearings in it (they are cheap), change the oil and you should be good to go. I don't think I'd even try to run one of these without some new bearings in it given how hard they get driven.
Yeah, we've learned that about the bearings the hard way. I'm sure if I'd heard that last year that I wouldn't have attempted it since I'd never dropped a motor before. A couple swaps later and that doesn't seem so burdensome or difficult, unfortunately. But new bearings is pretty much our rebuild on the cheap for the June race in Dallas to try and get our motor up and going.
hehe, i think i'm down to about 3hrs for removing a motor and installing another one in the AW11 chassis.
the only problem is the safety of doing so when on non level ground. so we're looking to add a few jack mount points to the cage so you just shove a bar in there and pin it in place.
that should significantly reduce the swap time.
... perhaps we're addressing the wrong problem
That's a good idea. Paul has worked up an idea for a low riding engine sled/dolly to minimize damage to the oil pan. You'd need 2 per engine change. I'm pretty sure that between him, me, Stevo, and the other guy coming with Paul to the Infineon race, we could get a swap done within 2 hours.
I would really like not to test this theory out.
That's a good idea. Paul has worked up an idea for a low riding engine sled/dolly to minimize damage to the oil pan. You'd need 2 per engine change. I'm pretty sure that between him, me, Stevo, and the other guy coming with Paul to the Infineon race, we could get a swap done within 2 hours.
I would really like not to test this theory out.
Yeah, the best repair is the one you don't do at the track. That said, when I take my Lex out, its durability will be totally unknown as I haven't touched the driveline except to change fluids... <fingers crossed>
while i agree that this is not something you want to have to do at the track, it would be wise to encourage any team that wants to bring an MR2 to practice the quick engine swap and to bring a spare engine.
also, bring spare engine main bearings. the motor is too old, most car parts stores don't stock the part. front and rear main seals would not be a bad idea either.
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