mr2-digest Wednesday, December 31 1997 Volume 02 : Number 042 MR2 Pontiac Vs. Toyota cont MR2 Antenna Maintenance MR2 Japanese vs American Cars MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! Re: MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! Re: MR2 MK1 timing belt? MR2 MKII production numbers [none] Re: ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A Re: MR2 GM = general maintainance (was MK1 timing belt?) MR2 Marc Summers, are you out there? MR2 Re: MKIINA Electrical Failure MR2 Turbo: APEXi AVC-R loosing settings MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A Re: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A Re:MR2 MKII electrical failure MR2 Aeroware phone number needed. Re: MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! Re: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:02:31 EST From: MK II NA Subject: MR2 Pontiac Vs. Toyota cont continued.... My 91 MR 2 NA 127,000 besides regular maintenance (brakes, tires, fluid changes, wash, wax, kisses) 1. replaced battery after 6 years 2. replaced original clutch at 120,000 miles 3. bad synchros ADRENLN "slower traffic to the right" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:24:51 -0800 From: sguinn45@sprynet.com Subject: MR2 Antenna Maintenance FWIW -- I wipe down my MR2T Antenna with power steering oil every month or so, and then recoat it with a light film of the same stuff. Helps to reduce the drag caused by dirt, dust, and helps to lengthen the life of the plastic line. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:29:57 -0500 (EST) From: HOWARD W FERSTLER Subject: MR2 Japanese vs American Cars This is strictly anecdotal, but I have a 1991 turbo (light metallic blue, 5 speed) and a 1991 5.0 Mustang (titanium silver, 5-speed) and both cars have been equally reliable. The Mustang had one recall (fuel-flow sensor, or some such, which cost me nothing), along with a slight air-conditioner leak, and a noisy fuel pump, which was fixed under warranty. The MK II has a speedo-gear leak, which I am about to fix, had an air-flow meter problem (which I fixed myself for a nickle's worth of solder, after a long period of research and hair pulling), and had a parking brake lock up and stall my wife in a parking lot (fixed, after a bit of eyballing, with a squirt of WD-40). I think the Toyota also had a steering-gear recall, and possibly an A/C recall, as well, one that was for nearly all 1991 Toyotas, although I am not sure, because I picked up the car used several years back. I have worked on both cars and find that the Ford is generally easy to deal with. This is certainly the case with oil-filter changes, which are messy with the MK II. Note also that I once also had a 1987 MK I, and the filter changes there were a first-class pain; the MK I also had the heater-control malfunction to the extent that I could not get it to deliver any flow-through ventilation and its power antenna also failed. The Ford is also much easier work with when doing antifreeze changes. Also, I have changed the Fords serpentine fan belt one time and it was much easier to do (assuming you have the muscle to maneuver the large wrench required) than what would clearly be the case with the MK II. The Ford has 50 K miles on it and the MR-2 only has 35 K, so we cannot say the Toyota is at a disadvantage in terms of wear and tear. Note also, that I will also never have to worry about a timing-belt change with the Mustang, nor will I ever have to adjust the valves. The Mustang is quieter than the MK II (much more quiet than the MK I), and although not so fast as the MR-2, is a better car to take long trips in (this involves comfort, not just noise and cargo capacity). When coming in from a high-speed run, you also do not have to wait for a turbocharger to cool down if you were driving the Mustang. (There is no way I am going to walk away from my turbo while an after-market turbo timer is delaying the engine turn off.) Both cars are great, and comparing one to the other is kind of like comparing apples to oranges, but the Ford is anything but junk (although it does rattle more than the MR) and it is at least as reliable as the Toyota. PS: I think the last frequency-of-repair list that Consumer Reports published that contained data on the MR-2 MK II showed it to be no more reliable than the Mustang, and considerably less reliable than other Toyotas. The MK I was much more reliable in their listing than the MK II. Howard Ferstler ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:15:15 EST From: MK II NA Subject: MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! After the noise got worse and steadier from 28000 to 40000 RPM I decided to take a really good look at it despite being 39 degrees here in Memphis. So I popped the engine hood and turned the accellerator cable and it was right there in front of me. The heat shield on the exhaust manifold was doing a little rattling. So I proceeded to tighten the bolts holding it down and one of them was loose. I tightened it, drove around, and it was gone. :o) tn tag ADRENLN "another all weather MR2" ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:49:25 -0800 From: Randy Chase Subject: Re: MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! MK II NA wrote: > > After the noise got worse and steadier from 28000 to 40000 RPM If my car could hit 28000rpm, the noise would be very loud (boom). Hey, with a car that reaches 40000 rpms, no wonder your tag is ADRENLN. Just kidding around. I am sure you meant 2800-4000rpms. Randy Chase *I have no torque above 5000rpms let alone 28000rpms* '91 MR2 N/A ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 11:12:32 -0800 (PST) From: Rick Brown Subject: Re: MR2 MK1 timing belt? In a message dated 97-12-31 01:28:58 EST, you write: >correct me if I am wrong...... >wasn't the Fiero built by GM at the Fischer Body >plant in Flint,Michigan..... Nope. Fiero was made at a plant in Pontiac, Michigan. You must be thinking of the old Monte Carlo / Regal / Cutlass Supreme that were the last cars made at Fisher 1 in Flint before it got turned into an office building (circa 1988-89). One of the cool things about the Fiero plant was the way they painted the cars -- since the Fiero was a driveable space frame, they painted the plastic body panels on sprues, like a giant model kit. On the Toyota vs. GM front, I think one of the things people don't realize is what an incredible advantage Toyota has due to their manufacturing and production system. GM built (as close as they could) a copy of the Toyota City plant and production philosophy in Flint and called it Buick City. Buick City made the identical car family as plants in Willow Run, Michigan and Wentzville, Missouri -- same parts, same suppliers, same UAW workers bolting them together. Buick City, simply using a clumsy copy of Toyota's production system, made H-body cars with an order of magnitude fewer defects than the other plants, and in fact had quality close to that of the Toyota/GM NUMMI plant in Fremont. The reason? The lean production philosophy means that parts don't sit on a warehouse floor for months waiting to be used, without anyone knowing whether they're good or not. Any problem with a component gets identified and fixed immediately rather than the assembly line worker just grabbing another part that "looks OK." A lot of traditional American car quality problems are caused by parts broken or out-of-spec from the start. And a lot of Toyota's quality reputation comes not so much from engineering as simply building the cars the way they were engineered to be. Rick Brown camr187@rocketmail.com _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 13:25:37 -0800 From: "David Hawkins" Subject: MR2 MKII production numbers Hello. I have the Excel spreadsheet off of MR2.com that lists production numbers to 10/94. Does anyone with the CD have any more recent than that? I've gotten one VIN so far that falls outside the US production run and don't have a date for it.... Thanks. David H. otgrouch@twosrus.com 93T FIPK/RMS S.P/RMS MBC 89SC Cupholder 66 Corvair 96 Cannondale R900 Spinergy ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 14:22:41 -0500 From: "Kelly, Aaron" Subject: [none] At 10:52 AM 12/31/97 -0500, John Wink wrote: >G'day! > >I just had a CD player installed in my '85, in place of the factory tape >deck. Clear as a bell, but seems the bass response has gone straight to >H-E-Double-hockey-sticks. Don't know if this is real or perceived... If you have the factory subwoofer under the driver's seat (5x7 in. black box), your new stereo might not have been completely hooked up. The same thing happened to me when I upgraded my tape player to a CD player, the subwoofer was not working. There is a green (not sure if there are any stripes) wire in the factory harness that needs to be connected to a 12V power supply. The sub woofer works off of the left audio channel leads and a 12V supply. It sounds like your green sub-woofer power wire did not get hooked up. The factory speakers (4in. type) are crossed-over to play the higher frequencies while the powered sub-woofer plays the lower frequencies. This should be enough information to get you feeling the beat again... Aaron Kelly, BSC-Redmond ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 11:29:45 -0800 (PST) From: "Harry C. Wang" Subject: Re: ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A I have a 92 Turbo with a sunroof, no p/s and i don't think i have ABS. Isn't there supposed to be an ABS fuse somewhere? On Tue, 30 Dec 1997, Chris King wrote: > > T-top, sunroof or hardtop. Now, i've never seen or heard of a turbo w/o > it. > > But, my turbo doesnt have LSD, which sucks and is another story. > > I have run into a few of the turbo's without but they are pretty rare. > > Chris K. > 91 NA > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 11:53:20 -0800 (PST) From: "Harry C. Wang" Subject: Re: MR2 GM = general maintainance (was MK1 timing belt?) I'd have to give the "easier to work on" award to Hondas. What do you think Jeffrey? I can take apart my CRX in no time (dash, engine, body parts). On Wed, 31 Dec 1997, Ltraviolnc wrote: > Easier to work on? Are we talking about a late '60s smallblock A-body or a > current GM model? I find them to be the worst designed and most difficult to > work on of practically any car made, and I have'nt met many mechanics who > would disagree. Ever look at the engine compartment of a 4th gen. > Camaro/Firebird? (where's the engine....oh, it's under the dash...) Toyota's > are a breeze (at least I've never had any trouble with them) Four bolt sizes > practically takes the whole car apart. I can have the motor/trans out of my > MR2 in less than four hours...try that with a GM car. > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 11:58:41 -0800 (PST) From: matt ledbetter Subject: MR2 Marc Summers, are you out there? Sorry for the waste of space.... Marc, If you are out there, please email me your address so I can send that cap and rotor off. Thanks. mattled2@yahoo.com or mattled@webtv.net - -Matt _________________________________________________________ DO YOU YAHOO!? Get your free @yahoo.com address at http://mail.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 15:04:29 -0500 From: "Burns, James B." Subject: MR2 Re: MKIINA Electrical Failure Joe Musmanno said: >On two occasions, I have hopped in the car, put the key into the ignition, >turned, and .... blackness suddenly envelopes me. Complete electrical >shutdown. After that, no courtesy lights, no dash lights, no warning >chimes, no nothing. Let me know what you find out because I had the exact same thing happen in my '93NA a couple of weeks ago. It was fine all day, then I went to an office party after work and when I came out the interior lights came on strong, then when I turned the key -- total blackness. A jump start started it right up. I figured a dead battery, so I drove the 30+ minutes home (careful not to stall it) thinking that it would charge back up, and the voltmeter read normal the whole way home. When I got a block from home I turned off the car while coasting to see if the battery had charged. When I turned the key, total darkness again. I figured I could pop the clutch and restart it, but even this didn't work, so I had to coast the rest of the way to my house. I then removed the battery and put it on a charger and it took a full charge in only 15 minutes. I reinstalled the battery and it has been fine ever since. I'm guessing that a connection at the battery was bad, and that removing and reinstalling the battery fixed it. The strange thing is that the battery in my '91T died the day before this happened, and it was totally gone -- wouldn't even take a charge at all. Brad Burns '91T (with new DieHard Gold battery) '93NA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 12:13:27 -0800 (PST) From: "Harry C. Wang" Subject: MR2 Turbo: APEXi AVC-R loosing settings I have an APEX boost controller and in two instances the memory was lost. One time it occured after work while the car was sitting all day in cold weather. And the other time was when the car was sitting for 4 days. Anyone else experience this? It's not a real big deal since i remember my settings and the boost controller does a great job of relearning very quickly. Harry 92 Turbo ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 15:25:15 -0500 From: Phil Cutajar Subject: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A I better be careful about how I word this... NO FLAMES PLEASE! I have found the 93+ ABS seems to be better than the 91/92 system. I don't know if there are different parts to it or if it's just different biasing, but it seems to work better and stop faster. Of course it could be just the bigger rotors too. It seems to me that on my 93 when I slam the brakes hard enough to invoke the ABS it actually takes it to the threshold of lock-up, and I can actually hear brief little chirps from the tires. On the 91/92 models I've driven the ABS seems to activate sooner and intervenes well before the lock-up threshold. Can ayone verify if there is a difference in the parts? As for the effectiveness of the ABS in Autox, I highly doubt that I could ever do a better job of biasing then the ABS system. I use it very frequently in Autox, staying on the throttle to the last possible moment and then braking hard just before the turn. I have grown to rely on it extensively, and consider it a huge asset. I use it so much in fact, that at the last autox practice where I had an opportunity to do several runs successively (about 6 in just 20 mins) I could smell the brake fluid, probably boiled it. As for Randy's skills behind the wheel in autox, indeed, he has done quite well. Would he actually gain anything from ABS? All I can say is that it probably wouldn't hurt to have it. - -- Phil Cutajar '93 MR2-Turbo, Super White, 74k miles K&N FIPK, MR2-PP MBC mailto:Solo2_MR2@ibm.net my web page:http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/6213/index.htm ICQ #6032611 > Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:50:32 -0500 > From: "Tommy Guttmann" > Subject: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A > > Randy Chase wrote: > > > Okay..so how do I install ABS? Does it impact other major items? > > > > How much does it weigh? > > Hmm...I wonder if you would really benefit all that much. > True you may not lock up as easily, but it could make "rotation" a little more difficult... > > Wonder if all the other MR2 AutoXers have ABS or not? > > Don't want to start a major debate (again) about this, BUT as we all know, it "can" be > advantageous to be ABS-less in certain competitive scenarios. > > You seem to be doing pretty well without anyway. > > Happy New Year everyone > > Tommy Guttmann tools@tooltech.qc.ca > Montreal, Canada > 2 x Mk1SC > ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 15:14:05 -0600 From: "C. King" Subject: Re: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A >I have found the 93+ ABS seems to be better than the 91/92 system. I >don't know if there are different parts to it or if it's just different >biasing, but it seems to work better and stop faster. This could be caused by the difference in tire size. Remember that 91-92's have stock 14's whereas the 93 has 15's. Just a thought though... Chris K. 91 NA ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 16:05:25 EST From: MG223 Subject: Re:MR2 MKII electrical failure Hi, The same thing used to happen to me in my 91T. I found it was caused by a loose connection of the negative wire to the battery post. Why this happens in the wet is beyond me...Mine would blackout after washing. If you do end up stranded because of this, take a piece of wire and *VERY QUICKLY* short the battery posts together. I had to do this on three ocassions. If the short is held to the posts for too long it wont work. >I've been a proud '93 MKII NA owner for about three months now, but I've had a VERY mysterious problem with which hopefully you can help.... On two occasions, I have hopped in the car, put the key into the ignition, turned, and .... blackness suddenly envelopes me. Complete electrical shutdown. After that, no courtesy lights, no dash lights, no warning chimes, no nothing. Everything is completely normal up until the instant of the failure, and it is again completely normal after I get a jump from a kind-hearted passerby. No amount of waiting, cursing, or asking the car nicely will bring it back. After connecting the battery for the jump, everything turns back on (but the clock and radio memories are reset) in a snap. I don't even need to keep the jump connected for more than a second. I can even disconnect it before starting the car. the only other facts I can offer that may or may not be clues are that on both occasions, I had driven the car for around an hour in the rain. In one case, the car was parked outside for about 45 minutes before the attempted restart and failure; in the other case, it was parked in a garage for about 15 minutes.< ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 14:24:03 -0700 From: "McQuillin, Gordon" Subject: MR2 Aeroware phone number needed. I am interested in the aeroware ground effects kit, but when I tried the number found at MR2.com the number was disconnected. Are they still in business, and if so does anyone have the new number or know someone selling the kit? I'd like everything except the side intakes. Any help would be appreciated. Thankx Gordon McQuillin 91'T Black ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 16:48:40 EST From: MK II NA Subject: Re: MR2 BBrrrrriiiiiiiiiinnngggg NOISE. CASE CLOSED!!!!! Yea, thats what I meant 2800-4000 RPM. You made me laugh though. I get quick steady accelleration to the redline in 1st and 2nd gear. I stay in 3rd til about 5200 rpm and 4th is ok. I heard that they changed 3rd in the 93+ models. Is it any faster? ADRENLN 91 NA 127,000 ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 14:10:31 -0800 From: Randy Chase Subject: Re: MR2 ABS and the 91/92 MR2 N/A Tommy Guttmann wrote: > > Randy Chase wrote: > > > Okay..so how do I install ABS? Does it impact other major items? > > > > How much does it weigh? > > Hmm...I wonder if you would really benefit all that much. > True you may not lock up as easily, but it could make "rotation" a little more difficult... True, but if it didn't weigh too much, I figure I can enable or disable it to see if I see any benefit. I might be so used to driving a non-ABS car that I won't really use it. > > Wonder if all the other MR2 AutoXers have ABS or not? I am pretty sure that most autoxers who could get ABS do, with some exceptions. Not to tie two threads together (makes a knot), buit certain makes of cars have been known to have horrible ABS. Is there any other 91 or 92 MR2 guys out there autoxing with ABS? > > Don't want to start a major debate (again) about this, BUT as we all know, it "can" be > advantageous to be ABS-less in certain competitive scenarios. > > You seem to be doing pretty well without anyway. Thanks Tommy. "Pretty well" is relative. I want to go faster this year. I think one common thing I have seen in great drivers is the constant urge to get faster/better. I spent 1996 cruising as I was fast enough locally to win 1st place. I see that now as a mistake. I also see though that it may not make sense to go nuts and spend thousands for an incredibly small gain. Randy Chase '91 MR2 N/A ------------------------------ End of mr2-digest V2 #42