Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Thu Apr 10, 2014 7:46 am

RePete wrote:In the 15 or so years I've owned SW20s (that's only 4 years short of your age Image) I've had coils and a number of lowering springs/shocks too. Nothing comes close to a Koni/spring setup (preferably TRD which sits quite low) or the '93+ springs. You can carve up the track (and win) but still bring along your girlfriend to dinner without her getting annoyed because her tits keep bouncing up & down. Yes, it's quite entertaining, but not for her - believe me.

Yes, $1,200 is cheap for coils - the Chinese versions are crap, quite honestly. Living in Vancouver, you get to have lots of Asian friends who import this stuff and let you know that it costs less than $200 to manufacturer and ship an entire coil-over package. The associated hardware is OK, the shocks are not worthy to be on the car. The reason you keep reading good reviews is twofold:

First (and don't take offense to this please) is that most (not all) of those reviewers have very little driving experience and don't know a good setup if they tripped over it. And those owners storing their rides in the winter will give them 50% less driving experience with their deuce than drivers like me who've been driving an SW20 through all 4 seasons for years & years.

The second reason is, (again, don't take offense please), $1,200 is a lot to a young driver as you've already indicated. This is normal as most under 25 year-olds don't have their potential income yet. So when a couple or three paychecks go towards a complete suspension system, there's very little chance the owner will honestly review them - especially since he might not have ever drove his deuce with a really good suspension (see point one).

As for racing experience, the shocks I mentioned are on the winning-est cars in all sorts of classes for decades. Those German shock manufacturers have poured hundreds of millions into R&D over the decades and it shows in their shocks which still astound me even after all these years.


Again, thank you for the feedback.
No offence taken, I understand where you're coming from. I'm a student, and $1200 is a big deal for I don't have my reliable source of income yet...
Have you been running the shock/spring setup in the factory strut housings, or a different strut setup?
It's funny that you mention the girlfriend complaint issues, because i have received that complaint with my current spring/shock setup, and it's on a more road-friendly dampening setting.
As i mentioned earlier, I'll really leave it to when I drive my buddy's car, let the setup speak for itself. It sounds like after driving the koni setup I'll be placing an order...
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby immorality » Thu Apr 10, 2014 9:33 am

From what I know all strut/spring combinations use factory strut housings (perhaps the inverted Ohlins are different, but they are so rare that they probably don't belong in this conversation). I've been running the Koni/TRD set up for several years and I love it. It's by far the best bang for the buck, it's perfectly fine for daily street use and it's more than capable of regular autocross duty (which I also do). The TRD springs are low enough that I'm happy with the looks and can still get all around the lower mainland without issue.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby driftingsw21 » Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:48 pm

Koni just made a new kit which is basically their inserts and 93 turbo springs. Cost right now is cheap so get them while you can for the price. BTW last I checked they're back ordered so you might have to wait a little. Look up the new koni kit on their website. And further note, Coilovers all suck!!!!!!! Well unless you get KW coilovers but those are not cheap, megan, bc, tien, h/r etc.... They hold up just fine for a year or so then go to shit. Trust me I know. 3 mk2's 1 mk3, and a handful of mk1's I think I know what I"m talking about.

Nice build btw thinking of doing something similar.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Thu Apr 17, 2014 9:13 am

Well, after some thought and research, I'm planning on going with a set of Koni's instead of the coils.
On a different note, I ordered JDM amber triangle side reflectors for the 94+ tails yesterday.
Car comes out in two weeks, will update when shes home! :D
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby Spranger » Sat Apr 19, 2014 2:47 pm

Haha you're finally convinced! Just wait until you ride in my car this summer. You will then understand what everyone is talking about!
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Wed May 07, 2014 6:55 pm

Hey guys!

I finally brought the car out this past Saturday. Its great to finally drive the car again, that was a long 6 months.

Anyways, the work began as soon as the car got home:
-Swapped my rims back on, with new 255/40R17 tires on the back.
-Finished modifying the stock seat pieces/rails for the Corbeau's.
-Corbeau's mounted in.
-Installed 1994+ tail lights
-Baked 94+ reverse light housings, removed lenses, mounted lenses in the rear panel. Working out a lighting solution...
-Plastidipped center panel black. The car the tails came off of is a darker grey, and the slight colour mismatch is enough to annoy me. So blaaaack for now.
-Installed LED cluster lights.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Wed Jan 28, 2015 1:48 pm

Hey guys, been awhile since I've updated anything to do with the car.
Not much changed since my last update, but I did recently pick these up:

Image

Advan RGII in bright chrome finish.
FR: 17x8+37 235/40
RR: 17x9+35 255/40

Can't wait to see them on the car, I'll update with pics in the spring!
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby immorality » Wed Jan 28, 2015 2:06 pm

I love those Advan GRII's, but wow, 19's out back! That's almost 3" in extra diameter.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Thu Jan 29, 2015 8:35 am

immorality wrote:I love those Advan GRII's, but wow, 19's out back! That's almost 3" in extra diameter.


Typo! 17's actually, I'll fix that now. 19's would be silly.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby RePete » Thu Jan 29, 2015 8:43 am

I'd be curious to know how much those guys weigh. I know chrome is heavy but Advan wheels in general are light, so the combination might be a decent weight overall.
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Thu Jan 29, 2015 6:06 pm

RePete wrote:I'd be curious to know how much those guys weigh. I know chrome is heavy but Advan wheels in general are light, so the combination might be a decent weight overall.


It's not a chrome plating, it's polished aluminum with a clear coat but it's called "bright chrome". Really neat finish.

Here's the weights with an analog bathroom scale, kinda tough to read:
Front: 16lbs
Rear: 17lbs
Online they're said to be 16.1 and 17.4 lbs, so I'd believe that. I was shocked when i picked them up for the first time! haha
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby charlesjm » Sat Jan 23, 2016 11:03 am

Hey guys! Figure I'd check in with the west coast crew after almost a year...

Good news! No longer a broke student, finished college this year and am making some income now in 2016.
Also, the car changed drastically this year.
I was pretty convinced last winter that the only change this year would be the Advan's, but yet again I proved myself wrong.
I wanted to make my car a bit different; I was really starting to dislike how bulky the 1991 OEM spoiler was looking (opinion, some cars pull them off!),

So i set myself a $3000 budget, and decided to go the DIY route.
The changes this year include:
- Advan RGII's ($1700)
- New front tires (235/40R17 up from 215)
- Shaved 1991 spoiler: Welded most of the OEM holes, grinded, then body filled.
- Tom's ducktail/lower spoiler, in carbon fibre ($300-400, can't recall)
- Greddy side skirts ($200)

All these exterior changes posed a problem. I was already annoyed by my paint being 5 different shades of SMG, and now I had a body filled and primed trunk and rear fenders. Also, my budget would not allow for paint, and was not something I'd be willing to risk doing DIY.
So i decided to try something new and vinyl wrap the car myself. I started out by ordering some samples online, particularly metallic colours, just to see how they'd look and how the vinyl itself behaved.
After many colour selections being unavailable due to supplier error, I found one that I liked and was available.
So to the tune of $700, I ordered a large roll of metallic blue vinyl wrap and decided to give it a go.

And I can honestly say, it all came together quite nicely:

ImageIMG_2726 by Charles Murray, on Flickr

ImageIMG_2727 by Charles Murray, on Flickr

ImageIMG_2746 by Charles Murray, on Flickr

The wrap looks great, everyone who see's it thinks it's paint (I mean everyone!) and is shocked when I tell them I wrapped it myself.

Overall, I'm happy I went through the budget makeover process. Despite it killing a good month of driving time with the sanding, priming, body filling, then wrapping, I still got a bit of the season to enjoy driving my car.

Either next year, or the year after, the wrap will come off and I'll get the car painted professionally. Not sure whether I'll stick with a blue, or go back to SMG, or maybe even go white! We'll see when the time comes.

The planned mods for this year are still in the works, but a few ideas being considered at this point are a water to air intercooler setup, coilovers (yes I'm back to considering coilovers), or possibly an upgrade on brakes.

ImageUntitled by Charles Murray, on Flickr

Comparison of last year to this year:

ImageUntitled by Charles Murray, on Flickr
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Re: Charles' Gen-4 Swapped MR2

Postby sprinterkb » Sun Jan 24, 2016 1:50 pm

Interesting project, kudos for doing it yourself.
I have not seen any comments on how your gen4 performed? Drivability?
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