[MR2] Mk I: worth the effort?

[Steve Bagdon]

Seller has come down, and is quoting a price with or without the
ecu/harness. Tempted to go with the car/engine, skip the ecu/harness,
and pick up a factory ecu and purchase one of mr220v's harnesses.

Thoughts?

Steve B.
MR2-less

-----Original Message-----
From: David Hillman [mailto:hillman at planet-torque.com] 
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2009 3:20 PM
To: Steve Bagdon
Cc: mr2 at mr2.com
Subject: RE: [MR2] Mk I: worth the effort?


On Sun, 24 May 2009, Steve Bagdon wrote:
> I presume as long as you have the correct ECU, you can accomplish 
> anything. Perhaps I was more referring to the ECU, then the wiring 
> harness.

    Yeah, making your own ECU is tricky.  Wiring is relatively 
straight-forward, as long as you have the schematic, and those are 
available online.  My friend printed ours on a plotter, so it's big
enough 
to lay out the harness on, which was cool.

> I've only seen one 20v in person, many many years ago, one of the 
> first I've heard of that had the full factory ECU (and not a USDM ECU,

> not using all of the 20v functionality).

    There's no point, IMO, in using a 16v ECU with a 20v motor.
Although, 
that said, it's really hard to find good 16v 4ages, and they cost as
much 
as a 20v, so if you were desparate...

    The 20v 4age is absolutely awesome motor, fwiw.  165-70 hp from
1587cc, 
with a 9,000 rpm redline, and of course the 5v head... in a twenty year 
old engine!  That'd be impressive today, in a production motor.  And on 
top of that, it's tough as hell.  We continually overheat the engine in 
our racecar ( long story ) and it still won't die.  I took the _green_ 
flag of the last race of the season with the temp gauge pegged,
intending to win or blow it up trying.  I won.  The motor is still fine.

    Everyone who even sort-of likes the 4age should try a 20v.

> I'm tempted to follow up, yet anyone have a short bullet-point list of

> things to help identify *which* 20v it is, and what the cost is to 
> find a factory ECU?

    If the valve cover is black, it's a blacktop, if not, it's a
silvertop 
;)

    ECUs are available on eBay for ~$160.  I think the ECUs come in more

variety than the motors do, since there are manual and automatic
versions 
of the computer ( plus the ST/BT distinction ).

--
  David Hillman