1MZ-FE Build - Project Insomnia (AKA Pat Never Sleeps)

[cdwood2010]

So, a funny story. Pull up a chair. A while back Pat bought this....





It had Tax and MOT, so Nerys has been hooning about in it around Neath, whipping ricers at every set of lights. Sadly the car was in a poor state overall, so about a month ago it was parked up......

Driven mad, Pat went out and bought two more Mk2's....





The black one was someone's cast off project, missing an engine and box, and generally a good source of spares but way too much work to recover. Anyone want a tintop shell?

The red one was also a non runner. Someone had attempted to swap out the engine, but made a fist of it. Pat spent a day trying to get it running, and eventually gave up. I'm glad he did, because as we since found out, there were so many loose and missing bolts, not to mention wiring errors. Driving it would have been a gamble with death.

So we did the decent thing. Last weekend i went down to Neath, and we got stuck in, BodgeSport styleee of course.

I will let some pictures do the talking.

























So basically that was last weekend - all the heavy lifting work / dirty works done.

1 day to get the 1MZ-FE out, do the service items, then slap a clutch on it (LUK of course)
1 day to get the MR2 raped, swap over the gearbox and rehang it all in the bay

Pat has spent the last few days tinkering with the wiring and getting things plumbed in. We had quite a few conversations about wiring, the 1MZ is significantly more tricky than the 3VZ.

Here's some highlights....





Blanking plates (use what you have!)





Wiring plugs to make the engine completely removable:-



Custom loom section for the alternator:-





At 4am the other morning i got this......



Pretty impressed. Then Pat got stuck into the exhaust fabbing BodgeSport Style....







And today we have this!



More soon, it should be out of the garage very shortly!

:)

c.

[racerADS]

Awesome work gentlemen :-)

[snowtigger]

Cool pity it's a mk2 but hey you can't have every thing

[wood_patrick]

Thanks guys. :-) To be honest, I was super careful not to cook anything with the wiring, moreso cos I don't have a spare 1MZ ecu. Lol.

Took me a lot longer than I expected, but a lot of time has been spent sorting out lots of other little jobs that needed doing on the shell so overall pretty glad it went fairly smoothly. :-)

Car is out of the garage and on all four, MOT'd till December so tax and insurance going on it on 1st of May. Still a few little jobs to do, mostly routine stuff, but all being well will be at Japfest alongside Japscrap.

And don't worry Tiggs the 3VZ is going in the Mk1 soon, as soon as I get round to finishing building it. Just need to practice my welding for the mounts. :-o

[Goldy]

Impressive stuff your swaps are getting quicker and quicker!

[cdwood2010]

Yeah, not always a good thing! We tend to do a lot of the groundwork, have all the bits ready etc, but this was our first 1mz swap so a lotion relearning to do. Harder than a 3VZ, but not quite as bad as a 2GR!

:)

[snowtigger]

Did you fit an s54 5 speed extended 5th LSD as well seems to be the done thing for a 1mz seeing as it's quite a bit liter than the turbo box 3vz engine combo.

[cdwood2010]

Noop. This is BodgeSport. Thats way too posh.

Pat has "a selection" of S54 gearboxes, we picked the cleanest one.

:)

c.

[wood_patrick]

Well, its finished, apart from 2 rear droplinks, a window that needs adjusting and the suspension/mounts all checking and tightening its all good to go.

Only been up and down the drive, but feels lovely and unless its in my head you can feel the difference in weight compared to a 3VZ lump. :-)

There's 1 wire that disappears into the engine loom which is a thin brown wire, it does earth, but it has some resistance suggesting its a sensor and i cant seem to find it in any wiring diagrams. With the engine running, it still shows earth and doesn't alter even when it starts to warm up, but there's always some resistance there, not much but a little. It goes past the earth junction point in the engine loom and seems to run on its own. Its possible it is an earth, but if anyone can shed any light on it would be good. It was on one of the white multiplugs and wasn't one of the ones wired to the ecu.

Will get a video of it running shortly too. :-)

[snowtigger]

cool news we want the vid now to wake up the neigbours from hell that kept me awake to 4 in the morning im too old for that shit.