British Columbia MR2 Owners Group

Hey everyone, I decided to make a little project out of my turbo swap because I really enjoy following everyone else's picture diaries of their work. I learn a lot from them and I think they really give people a better idea of just how much work you put into your car! For those who aren't aware I'm swapping out my seized CT26 for an ATS Racing CT27, with a 2.5" KO Racing downpipe.

Starting today, (no pictures as of yet) we cleared up the garage at Konrad's parents place and went to pull my MR2 into it. Start of problem #1. Engine knock. Loud and scary! I have to wonder if the oil pump is going, because after a little while the knock cleared up. We started it again a bit later to move it again and it was virtually gone. Sooo...not too sure what to say about that yet.

Picked up a bunch of hoses, gaskets, and the like from Matt at Toyota yesterday, and will be ordering new plugs, rotor and cap, o-rings, and an O2 sensor soon. We are going to replace quite a few little things while we're in there.

I decided to undertake a few side projects as well before we get started on the big work, since the turbo isn't even here yet, and I tore all the trunk carpeting and lining out because a jug of antifreeze had spilled there a long time ago. I junked the liner (now I'm looking for one so if anybody has one...^_^), and am going to clean the carpeting. I wiped down the metal trunk bottom and sides and sprayed a bit of Rust Mort on a spot of rust I found until I can properly take care of it.

I also took apart the dashboard and got rid of the gauge overlays. They didn't light up anymore and I decided I didn't really care much for them anyway, so off they went. If anybody wants them, you can have them. I noticed my gauges didn't work, but silly noobish me I forgot I hadn't plugged them back in! Now I just have to put it back together once I get my deck back in. I took out the ugly, old, partially busted deck and I just have to find the faceplate for my nice Panasonic to put in there.

I'm pretty proud of how far I've gotten so far. Will have pictures very soon!

Congrats! Those projects are quite challenging but you have great support here with an awesome community.

Keep up the good work! Before you know it, BC2009 is going to be around the corner, and you're not gonna want to miss any of it.

Good job Sarah and keep us posted.

good luck. you know u could be mistaking that knocking noise for extreme shaft play/knock from the screwed turbo. a buddy i have mentioned a few times who goes through ct20b's and ct26 like no ones business has yet again blown another ct20b and when he gets moving from idle it sounds like he has a rod detached smaking the block. but it is just the extreme turbo shaft play. and it is loud too.

Could be...thanks for that advice that's probably what it is. I didn't think my engine somehow toasted itself overnight without anybody touching it...

if the shaft is not completely screwed. the noise will go away when it warms up with hot oil and has been spooling a little while.

Okay so I finally got to begin the actual engine work. I had no help today as I didn't need it and I was eager to get going. I'd done most of this part before since I did the valve cover gasket by myself before. Anywho, I drove to Lordco to get some Liquid Wrench and Natrile (I think that's what they are....) gloves. They were closed early for some silly reason so I went to Canadian Tire instead. Then I realised I forgot my keys for the MR2 so I drove back home to get them. By the time I got to Konrad's parents place the sun was going down so I was a little disappointed in that but oh well, that's what lights are for! Then I realised I forgot the guide that had been written for me in my post on doing the swap, and sighed heavily might I add...but plundered on anyhow.

I apologise for some pictures being poor quality, I had to use my BlackBerry as I...guess what? Forgot my camera too.

I began by removing the intake pipe from intercooler to throttle body. Oh but first, here are some pictures of the mess I made in my interior:




For some reason, my stock gauge lights no longer work. I took the aftermarket stick on ones off. I know the stock ones lit up before because I could see the greenish glow under the aftermarkets. I don't know what happened...I'm so bad with electrical stuff. I'll have to get someone else to check it out .

So back to the engine...here's a picture before I started.


Here's a lovely bit of oil that had been blowing by in the intake...nice.



Got the pipes off and sprayed some Liquid Wrench on those beautiful bracket bolts that are stubborn as all heck:


Some more oil in the turbo to intercooler pipe:


Inside the throttle body:


Yay the pipes are off and now we can see the nice oily mess on the turbo even better!:


Here's the turbo a little closer, for those who didn't catch the "oily mess" bit:


Looking inside top of turbo:


A view from the other side:


Beautiful! The intake hose to the turbo is cracked! Spending more money FTW!


Oh the joys of a busted up turbo..I found oil in the intake hose BEFORE the turbo too!:


There's the source of my poor '2s pain:


A look inside the evil doer's throat:



I go to do myself a favor and take the airbox out to clean it up:


And what do I find underneath? A nice rusty piece of work that will need to be replaced. I think I'm learning NOT to lift things up and look underneath in my MR2...:


I thought this would be more difficult, seeing as the heat shield gets so hot and the bolts were rusty, but with a little bit of liquid wrench and minimal effort, it came off:


My poor '2s guts on the ground...time for a good cleaning though:


And now to be continued...she awaits the next few steps...the big ones:


Please comment and let me know what you think! This is quite time consuming doing these photo projects, I had no idea! But it's fun too...just let me know what you guys think. If I'm messing something up, or you notice something in there that looks fishy or about to break, PLEASE let me know. This is all a big learning process for me.

Hmm I guess the pictures were too big and cut off partway. Too bad. At least you can see most of them though!

Good job sarah. Your pictures are kinda crapy but that the beauty of a blackberry. Next time do not forget your camera
Put your hand in the turbo and move the shaft up and down. See how much play is in there... You need to hurry up and get this done for next month...trust me.

Thanks Matt! I am eager to get it done but I'm not rushing it as I'm doing some little things on the side and I'm trying to stay organized and do it properly. It's been fun and easy so far so let's hope it continues!

Today I cleaned and painted some engine parts, removed and cleaned the engine compartment lid, removed the A/C compressor, and touched up a bad scrape on the bumper. Got a lot done and I'm glad to say some of it was for aesthetics so it will look great when I'm finished too! I'm not doing anything overly fancy, because I don't have money and I am planning on rebuilding in the future, so for now a can of engine enamel and some touch up white paint will do!

Here's some of the engine parts during cleaning and before painting:



And here's after cleaning and painting..sure it's not powder coat but it looks better and will spruce up the looks of the engine bay quite a bit!:




Here's the engine compartment lid during and after cleaning (I didn't do an extremely thorough job of it, I didn't have enough clean rags!), and to do it I used this fantastic product Matt showed me, Toyota Touch multi-purpose cleaner:




Bagged and tagged all bolts as I hadn't been able to yesterday, since I forgot the bags too!:


Decided to clean and paint crossbrace as well, why not?:


Removed oil filter and covered opening in preparation for removing oil filter housing, prepared to remove A/C compressor:


After a fair amount of twisting and yelling, got it out:


And now lots of room down there! Sprayed more Liquid Wrench on every bolt in sight, just to be sure!:


A while back I had rubbed up on a curb by accident, it was much higher than it looked and I thought I would clear it but I didn't...needless to say the ugly black scrape plagued pictures for a while, as you can see here (lower left front skirting):



Until I touched it up today with some Super White touch up paint. It's not the blue pearl that my paint is, but for now and for photography's sake, it will hide the ugliness:



And there she sits until tomorrow when we start getting the oil filter housing and exhaust manifold off...still waiting for that turbo to come in too!:


And here's a couple of pictures I took a month or two ago I thought I'd share with you, I thought they turned out nicely minus the background somewhat, but it sure makes me miss having her on the road:




Thanks for checking these out hope they tell a good story lol

Lookin' good! What kinda paint did u use for the engine parts?

Thanks! It's just this engine enamel from Lordco...gosh I can't remember the brand right now. It's designed for up to 260 degrees, they had several colours. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Will be doing the second coat today.

good work. hope you cleaned all the oil etc. off the parts before spraying. otherwise little later down the road it will flake off. but looks great. hope the turbo come in the mail soon. when did you place your order? good work on t h ebumper fix. not too bad at all.

bbarnumboy wrote:good work. hope you cleaned all the oil etc. off the parts before spraying. otherwise little later down the road it will flake off. but looks great. hope the turbo come in the mail soon. when did you place your order? good work on t h ebumper fix. not too bad at all.

Yeah the bumper came out better than I thought it would. It's out of the way so it won't show up too much. Thanks!
I placed the order for the turbo about 3 weeks ago. I'm really surprised it hasn't come yet. We just got a tracking number for it two days ago, but it doesn't work. So who knows. I hope it comes soon, we're almost ready for it.
I did my best to get the grease and oil off the parts. I sprayed them down with degreaser, washed them, rubbed them, sprayed them again, inspected and attempted not to touch with my oily skin at all. So here's hoping. If it does flake off, I'm not too concerned because I will be rebuilding in the future, and then I'd like to do it properly and get it powder coated.

if u just got the track number and it doesn't work it means they probably have not shipped it yet but they bought the postage. after it ships it will probably sit in customs like matt said for about a week unfortunately