Create vs Consume

Balance.

Many say it’s the key to a meaningful life.

For years my only concern in the world was skiing. I pursued it to the point of becoming semi-professional before a series of injuries turned my dreams into more of a ski bum lifestyle. I enjoyed that chapter of my life immensely, it shaped who I am in a major way.

I now feel the need to have other pursuits and passions in life. Sure, I still love skiing, but I also enjoy my little 90’s sportscar, this website, my family, and career.

The balance between consumption and creation.

It’s a balance many people don’t even realize is in their life. Society is built upon consumption. The newest gear, the latest technology, fashion, cars. At times it can feel overwhelming. While I can sit down and binge on Tiger King with the best of them, I also have an undeniable draw to create, restore, or modify my surroundings.

One thing I am always short on, is time. The constant juggle of a full time apprenticeship, schooling, skiing, family, and building this car… I have a lot on my plate. Many times, this blog suffers due to my lack of time.

With the craziness in the world right now with Covid-19, one major thing has changed. I now have more time, like many of you.

So, I challenge you all to turn off the TV, limit your constant consumption, and try creating. I’m sure almost all of you own a tuner car, so you’re already on a path to creating. It doesn’t have to be automotive related. It could be refinishing some furniture, learning a new skill, starting to write that short story you’ve been piecing together in your head. Show me what you’re up to and I’ll proudly re-post it on my Instagram (@apex.attack)!

So you came here to see what the hell I’ve been doing to my car… not be lectured. My bad. Let’s see what I’ve “created” lately.

Well crap, guess I haven’t been creating… I’ve been destroying! Ever heard the saying “gotta crack a few eggs to make an omelette”? Well, that’s what we’re doing (I’m more of a scramble guy myself).

Remember way back when I bought this car? One of my biggest prerequisites was the car needed to have decent paint. I wasn’t interested in repainting. Well, I’m full of shit, and we’re gonna respray this guy the OEM black. This is all a part of my “final form MR2” plan. We are nearing the end of this build somewhat. It’ll be worth it, trust me.

So, off come the front bumper, flares, skirts, wing, and fenders.

Observant eyes will see we’re going to try new sideskirts out. The MADpsi fenders are a fantastic piece, and they were designed to integrate with Border sideskirts. I looked, but it seems Border no longer makes their sideskirts. Luckily mr2-ben.co.uk sells some decent replicas.

The Border skirts are a hit-or-miss item with many people. They are definitely aggressive, and much wider than my old Greddy skirts. They fit perfectly with my MADpsi fenders, and will flow well with the rest of my widebody mods. Overall I think they’ll look better than my Greddy skirts… which were crumbling apart anyways. You can only bondo and fiberglass so much… eventually the skirts were just garbage.

As you can see, the Border skirts are also about 1” lower than the Greddys were. This will require some creativity to the flares. The flares have also seen better days. They’re just beat. I thought about building another pair and actually ordered some off eBay. After a 2 month wait the flares never showed up. I did get my money back, but decided to make these work vs waiting for a new set.

I also have a few housekeeping mods. The MAD psi fenders are wide. And 200tw tires tend to throw rocks and debris everywhere. To protect my inner door and stop the fender from filling up with dirt and debris (I pulled a few handfuls out!) I built some simple rock guards. First, cut a template.

Then transfer the template to HDPE plastic. Cut it out and install.

As you can see, the vents will still be 100% functional.

Before digging too hard into body work, I wanted to fabricate a few things. I’ve never been satisfied with my Cusco front strut bar. The middle part is aluminum, the joints are just bolted together, and overall, it could be stiffer without much (or any) weight cost.

So, I cut up the strut mounts and ground off what wasn’t needed.

Cut some gusset plates, and attempted some half-ass dimple dies using what tools I have here in the shop (I.E. hammer and big socket).

Tack it all up.

And stitch weld it all together.

Finished in a couple hours. I’m pretty sure it’s lighter than the original version, and much stronger. The tubing is 1” steel. Now we paint and install.

I also really wanted to save some weight. At least for track days. The Berk exhaust sounds amazing… but jesus is it heavy. The muffler section alone weighs nearly 30 pounds. So I came up with the idea of a simple (and light) screamer pipe style race exhaust.

About $100 of materials from various websites like Summit and Jegs. I chose mild steel. I am set up to weld mild steel, and it was considerably cheaper. This exhaust will only see track days, so durability wasn’t much of a concern. All 3” to match my Wilhelm y-pipe.

We will be building and tacking up here. Plenty of room with the Berk out of the way.

Initial cut and fit up. I left the end long as I didn’t know what to do for a tip yet. The bends are about as gradual as I could make them. I ran it out the driver side since there was more room there to make my routing more direct.

Blast pipe!

A simple hanger from some scrap 3/8” all thread I had in my work truck. Use what you have on hand, its paid for! Once I was satisfied with the fit up, I set up to weld it all together.

Not bad… I haven’t used my MIG machine in awhile. I really want to pick up a TIG machine this year. Maybe with more downtime…

Mostly done here. I did start it up… WHOAH was it loud. This will be “Ear plugs mandatory”. I wanted to at least attempt to save the eardrums of whatever car is behind me… so I attempted a turndown style tip.

I cut the tip from the leftovers I had from the piece of 3” I bought.

While it’s not any quieter… the turndown tip does help to point the noice at the ground instead of the car behind me. I know it’s not the prettiest exhaust… but guess what… it weighs about 5 pounds. Thats a solid 20+ pounds saved! Hopefully this gets us closer to the Ridge MR2 lap record.

Since it’s not a looker, and mild steel, I gave it some hi temp flat black paint to protect it.

But wait, there’s more mods! Both courtesy of Wilhelm Raceworks! (<— click that)

First, was the 2GR oil pan baffle. Alex has refined this as he tests more, and this is the latest version. With 5w30 oil, he has seen significant improvements.

Gotta remove the oil pan. Which requires at least unbolting the y-pipe. I removed it.

Use a scraper to remove as much leftover FIPG as possible. I also changed the oil filter while in there.

Dirty oil pan. Rag it out best you can.

The baffle just fits into the pan once you bend one little tab. FIPG the pan (all the way around all the bolts) and install.

And obviously refill your oil. Using Castrol, is what we call foreshadowing.

The other Wilhelm Raceworks item to install were his Adjustable Strut Rods. The 93+ MR2 suspension is fixed in the front caster spec. These make it adjustable… you can add caster! Caster helps improve high speed stability and cornering effectiveness.

Alex’s rods also replace the bushing up front with a spherical bearing. Another bonus.

Install took about 20 minutes. 3 bolts on each rod. Very simple. An alignment is in my future. I also need to replace that perished steering boot. I have a new one sitting under my workbench…

Ok, back to body work! With the new sideskirts fitted we needed to modify the side vent pieces to fit and put a bunch of work into the flares extending them and cutting where needed to fit.

As you can see, the flares come up about 1” short.

How to extend your flares, the Apex Attack way. Eat some Honey Nut Cheerios, cut up the box, and tape it up with packaging tape. The tape ensures the fiberglas won’t stick to it.

A bunch of fiberglas cloth cured, then we add matting to give it real strength.

Once that is cured we can trim to fit. I also had to do a bit of massaging with a sander, and a bunch of short hair fiberglas filler on the front side to fill the voids. Once cured you can sand flat.

We also needed to trim the OEM vent pieces to make room and match the cut wheel wells.

We’re getting legit this time! Using rivnut inserts instead of self tappers is a big step up in legitimacy for my build. These are for the flare and the side vent scoop.

How I was going to integrate the flare to my side skirt literally kept me up at night. The Border skirt is more aggressive, and wider than the Greddy. I didn’t want to totally rebuild my flare where it meets the car. So, I started cutting.

After a bunch of trimming, the skirt fit pretty well! This was the best way to do it without rebuilding the entire flare, or flexing it way out of shape to fit. You can see some of the kitty hair filler too.

Next, we started on prepping the rest of the chassis. The rear quarter windows really need to be pulled to not have a bunch of potential paint failure points. Removing them isn’t too hard, just very sticky.

The OEM window weld is seriously tough stuff. 27 years old and still this sticky!

Removing the rest of the sealer is a sticky mess. On the glass side a scraper helps.

With the windows out, I masked and taped off the openings so when I wash the car I don’t flood my nice interior.

Now I turned my attention to the OEM 3 piece spoiler holes. Time to spot weld a bunch more.

The key to welding the thin sheet metal is to just tack everything and spread out the heat as best you can, otherwise you’ll burn hols and wrap the sheet metal.

Buzzed the best I could, some glazing putty and hi build primer should hide it pretty well. I welded the trunk holes last summer before applying epoxy primer.

Here you can see what 3 years of track use will do to a front bumper and lip. Since I’m not changing colors I kept the lip and bumper together for painting.

The Madpsi fenders even got some love. They’ll be primered as well. They’re easily one of the best pieces of aftermarket aero I’ve ever bought, but still had a few areas needing some glazing putty.

After a lot of filler and tons of sanding, all the pieces needing primer were ready. Everything was sanded to 320 before primer. I used a hi build primer from Eastwood. Mainly because it came in black. My local paint shop didn’t sell hi build in black. I really hate with you get a teeny little rock chip and it sticks out like a sore thumb because the primer underneath is grey.

Ahhh nice and clean. Hi build primers rarely spray well though, even thinned out. They leave a texture similar to truckbed liner, which has to be sanded clean. So I had my work ahead of me again.

Lots and lots of 320 block sanding. Wear a mask! I know they’re in short supply right now, but you’ll regret it if you don’t.

Once I was satisfied at 320, everything got buffed down with 600 wet. Yeah, I’m sick of sanding too. The front bumper needed a few primer touch ups where I burned through.

The chassis didn’t need to be primed, just where I had welded the spoiler holes. So I thoroughly cleaned it, hit it with copious amounts of wax-n-grease remover, and a rub down with 600 wet. The carbon t-tops and hood are going to be re-cleared, so they were scuffed with 1000.

Once all the parts and chassis were sanded to my contentment, everything was brought outside for one last rinse. Cleanliness is godliness with automotive paint. I’m no expert, but learned a lot when I painted my last MR2. No soap, just warm water and a gentle scrub.

When you have a huge project like this in front of you, it can be really easy to get overwhelmed and lose all motivation.

What’s the best way to eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

If I make a solid work plan and break up the work into obtainable goals every day, all of a sudden I feel much better every day coming to the shop. I actually got way ahead of my “schedule” I had written a week prior.

Also read the tech sheets that come with the paint! They tell you all the specifics, it’s your bible.

Once the car was all cleaned up again, I brought it back inside and got it on jackstands for paint and set up the other side of the garage with all the other parts to spray separately. There’s a lot of them. It’ll be a bit of the Thomas Crown Affair maneuvering around while spraying.

You can see I’ve put up a lot of plastic sheeting. Anything that might be holding dust and dirt has been covered as best as possible. My garage is offically the cleanest it’s ever been. Just to get dirty again.

The car is also ready! I know I could’ve gone the extra mile in some areas of my prep work… but this is a track car, not a show car. If I come away with a 5’ paint job that’ll be job well done. Besides, the car is getting a livery too…eventually.

That’s where we are now… in a waiting game. I only have so much control over temperature and humidity in my shop. I’m awaiting some decent weather here in the PNW, something that’s rare in the spring. So far today it has rained, snowed, hailed, and currently is sunny.

Check back soon, I hope to paint within the week. Stay safe, and go create something!