Enter, Patient 0 — Apex Attack

Ok! I bought a car!

You know those deals that come up every now and then on a project someone has put a lot of time and effort into, and something went wrong or it was never finished, and they're selling it off at a pretty crazy low price? You think to yourself, "Does this guy know how much he's losing?" then you check your bank account and go "ugh, I can't swing this, I don't have the space", or you even bring it up to the significant other, who shuts you down with one look of her eyes. You think about it a few days and it sells to someone else who actually made the move and you don't see a deal like that for 2 more years.

Well... that kind of happened to me, except I made the move and bought the car.

Here it is, 1993's best version of an MR2 you could buy, a fully loaded turbo model!

161,000 miles since new, and to be honest, the paint shows it. But, you can tell it's been well kept, and probably even garaged some of it's life.

Like every turbo MR2 out there, it's been modified. But, the previous owner kept it very minimal with good looking and performing parts. Here we see the obvious 1994+ tail lights, complete with center bezel and even the "MR2" badging.

It's not perfect, as any 23 year old car with 160k on it will be. Here's the biggest ding on the body though. A golf ball sized dent from... you guessed it... a golf ball. One of the previous owners was apparently a golfer, and parked his car a little too close.

Here's some faded black paint. The car has it. I'm somewhat handy with a buffer, so I think I will attempt a cut and buff on the whole car eventually, although I'm admittedly afraid of burning through Toyota's thin clear coat.

Yeah, it looks pretty good eh? Oh yeah, Enkei RPF1s all around in immaculate condition! They're in standard MR2 sizing (17x8/17x9) and they look timeless on these cars. Let's talk about a few other mods here... the suspension. The previous owner upgraded the blown out OEM suspension with legit Koni yellows and TRD springs. Boo yah. He also installed half a prothane bushing kit in the front and gave me the rest of the rear kit. As we were loading the car onto the trailer he noticed we have a TRD sway bar up front, cha ching! Everything's coming up Reed!

I also need to mention this is an original 93 turbo chassis, so it came stock with the better brake package, which is also ABS. I'm curious to see how helpful or hurtful 1993 ABS technology is in threshold braking in track conditions... we will find out!

Follow me, let's check out the inside of this luxurious, state of the art, 1993 sports car.

Eh...showing it's age... but not that bad! The seats tearing at the bolsters, come to think of it, I've never seen stock seats NOT torn at the bolsters, maybe it was a factory option. The passenger seat is just cracking, which hopefully is repairable. The steering wheel is just plain gross.

Pretty standard MR2 interior. Carpet is fully in tact, and even came with the MR2 floor mats. I feel like such an enthusiast!

In the center console, the previous owner added some legitimate metering. AEM TruBoost and AEM UEGO wideband are great choices, as I had them in my old MR2 and they worked fantastically. Previous owner, let's just call him Tom (cuz that's really his name) also mounted them in the handy/fancy ashtray pod. I had my old gauges in the A pillar trim, and as much as I loved the F&F JaRule street cred it gave me, I really didn't like the vision it blocked on left hand turns. Tom also threw in the OEM ashtray in case I changed my mind.

But wait, there's more! Replacing the useless Toyota "boost" gauge in the center cluster, Tom installed an ATS oil pressure gauge. The good, it fires up with the car, the bad, it doesn't show a signal. I will have to see what's up with the sending unit.

Let's move onto the trunk.

Here we have a set of cherry t-top covers that I will never use, and what appears to be a piece of wood. Thanks Tom!

Let's see what's under the hood. Just your standard, run of the mill, 3sgte. Why, it even has the factory option LSD transmission. Wait though... that intercooler piping isn't stock, neither is that intake, and is that an external wastegate?! Yup, yup, and yup. Tom drove the car to a healthy and wise 155k and then decided he needed some MO POWA. I have to give him credit though, he did it the correct way and didn't cut any corners. Tom bolted up an ATS TD06 turbo kit complete with screamer pipe, tial wastegate, new oil lines, and intercooler kit. He also bumped up the fuel system, with walbro pump, pressure regulator, fuel rail, 550cc injectors, and even an ATS ROM tune ecu. Let's give Tom a hand, he did it the right way.

Tom added a performance exhaust. He even kept it well mannered and adult, if you will. A KO Racing 2.5" exhaust, which sounds really nice at idle and low RPM. That pretty much concludes our tour of the new car.

But Mike, you said you got this thing for a steal! Well, there's a catch. The car runs, but shows sure signs of one or more cylinders being down. Once the motor is running for a half minute, the tell tale wisps of white smoke start puffing from the exhaust. Tom put all this money and work into building a great car, but at 155k. Take any turbo motor with that many miles and slap a bigger turbo on and turn up the boost... it will go south, fast. So, the car runs, but isn't driveable outside the neighborhood. I haven't performed a compression test yet, but it's likely cylinder 2 or 3 is 50 psi.

So, Tom's loss was my gain. Luckily I have the drivetrain from my last car ready to go in, but that's for another post.

Stay tuned for getting my dinky garage ready for the project! Leave a comment, I dare ya.