The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → MR2 racers, please look.
I building a 1986 model with 160,000 miles, any common failures that I should address?
I have read of a couple CV failures so I plan to replace them with rebuilts. Other than the usual timing belt, clutch etc. that I should be concerned with?
Thanks!
Engine cooling
Cooling, know how to burb the engine.
Oil, run heavy weight oil if you want the bearings to last the race.
Get some good camber up front. You can slot the struts pretty easily.
Your cage is going to be a problem - there isn't much room in the car and you will be right against the roof with your helmet. If you don't run the cage against the roof, expect to have to weld additional bar(s) there at tech.
We had a wheel bearing go - they are covered under safety, expect to replace them.
Take out the stock brake proportioning valve and buy an adjustable one (the fronts need less bias)
On the oil: 15w50 or 20w50. 40w if you really feel like taking your life into your own hands. 30w or lower and you're very unlikely to finish the race with an operational motor.
Cooling: flush that mother like your race depends on it, because it does. Drain all the coolant and stop-leak out of it (there's not a 160k MR2 alive that hasn't seen stop-leak in the cooling system), then refill with water and burp the crap out of it.
Camber: Take the eccentrics that are on the top bolt on each of your strut and turn them (you'll need to loosen up both bolts first to make it easy) so that the notch on the eccentric is even with the notch on the top of the strut casing. Clean off the strut casings first so that you can see the notches.
Brakes: MR2 stock brakes are inexpensive so definitely replace the fronts with new pads and rotors and break them in before the race. If you don't want to put in a new brake prop valve you can simply remove the bottom bolt from the stock prop valve, remove the valve (it will likely fall out when you remove the valve, or pull it out with needlenose pliers), and put the bolt back in and bleed the brake system. That will get more pressure to the rear brakes which otherwise do little more than keep the rust off the rotors on a race-lightened MR2.
Don't run the car all the way to redline every shift. The oil pump and water pump both cavitate somewhere below redline revs (opinions differ on which RPMs cause cavitation on each pump) and that's bad.
Use loctite on the 6 bolts that hold each half shaft to the differential stub shaft. Those like to work off. Check your torques on your lugnuts. Replacement wheel studs are cheap and available at every parts store in the nation if any of yours look suspect. Make sure that you have axle nut retainers on your rear axles that are pinned in place. If not, replace ASAP or you will lose an axle nut during the race and that is definitely not good. An MR2 team did this in a recent West Coast non-LeMons race.
You can take any MR2-specific questions onto MR2OC.com and get them answered almost immediately if searching the forum archive doesn't answer it.
Have fun and read up on the difference in driving a mid-engine car versus a typical front-rear car. They drive different. They are fun, but different. Good luck!
The 24 Hours of Lemons Forums → Lemons Tech → MR2 racers, please look.