80s Love, intro and a few questions to the community

Hi, I'm Jarrod and new to this forum. 
A few questions regarding i have towards aw11s and stuff of the like
 
A bit of an intro:
I watched a video from donut media called "everything you need to know about mr2s" along with some others to get some more knowledge on popular Japanese cars, i really took a liking to the aw11 mr2 and i sort of put it in the back of my mind. One day not to long after i watched a music video which i saw had a nice looking japanese car in it and realised it was the aw11 i took note of liking in the video. I've done a bit of research and i'm considering looking for one as a daily drive but firstly as a project car.

I currently own two cars being my 2004 BA MK2 Ford Fairmont and a 1988 Ford Mustang (v8) and i've begun to take alot more of an appreciation of small, 80s boxy, 80s aesthetic cars.

I'm young which also can also lead into naivity but i have a few dreams car-wise to accomplish:
To own a foxbody mustang, have a modded to a degree and decent horsepower daily driver, own a rotary engined car and to build a car from the bottom up.

My first one i have achieved and i love it~
My last three i'm kinda wanting to combine, an around 300hp rotary engined aw11 mr2 with t-tops in a particular colour.

The colour choice was going to be 8B8 Light blue metalic but realised they didn't come in a t-top, now i looked at the dark blue metalic colour also but like black it might be difficult to clean and maintain (which i do regularly), now i'm looking at one of the two tone selection, the black on silver or white on silver (because it has such an 80s aesthetic to it).

The engine i wanted to be a rotary as my father used to back in the day tinker with/drive and own all sorts of rotaries, pretty much anything with a rotor he's driven and i've taken a liking to the engine and the sound of a bridgeported rotary.

The choice of the aw11 was as i mentioned earlier but also because of how 80s it is, the boxy shape, two tone, t-tops and new branfangled technology, parts of this is what drew me into buying a foxbody mustang.

The choice of a full build from the ground up is to having a car which is reliable for daily use, custom to my precise liking and something that can teach me a thing or two about cars and how they're built.

That's my long intro~ I hope you can welcome me with open arms as i'm sure you would~

My questions i have to community is based around a question i posed to my father about (since he's driven everything you can poke a stick at over the years), i asked him what an aw11 is like to drive, his response, "oh those things, they handle like **** and look ugly"

I've read up to see "how they handled like ****" and apparently in stock form, they kinda do with a bit of snap oversteer driving them erratically into a corner correcting (braking or accelerating) and the body roll can be a bit meh apparently as well. As i mentioned to my father, "what car can't be corrected these days with new technology and a few upgrades?" since we've gone a long ways from the 80s and have access to stuff that can turn the dangerous and lackluster to the fast and the furious.
 
My 1st questions is: How is the handling and body mechanics when turning a corner (both hard and normally)? and how much of an improvement does a modded mr2 change this (strut bars, upgrade suspension, bigger tires, etc)
My 2nd question is: My father mentioned how things like this become an expensive task to have sunk $1000nds into it and get barely any return, for buying a runner with a **** paint job and disassembling it and upgrading stuff like the diff to an lsd, modding the suspension to a double wishbone set-up, new radiator, engine swap to a 13b injected and an all round upgrade of the suspension components, what would you think would be the cost of a build like this?
My 3rd question is: For t-top aw11s, well, i guess for t-tops in general, what are they like? Doesn't burn a hole through your head? I've never driven in one but i'm the kind of person for even a 32+ degree day to still have the windows down cruising on the highway but are unappealed by convertables for their ugly tops.

I'd love a mr2 aw11 as a daily as it'd sound nice (with a bridgeported 13b in it), share the 80s look with my mustang and will just be the perfect car to drive to work and back on weekdays in general~

P.S: Sorry about the engine bias, i'm sure the 4age in these are probably great engines but for me having driven and been around either 4L six cylinders, v8s and rotors, it's kinda hard to imagine driving something such as a 4 cylinder.

Again, i hope you welcome me with open arms and feel free to shoot me any questions and queries~

Edit: 
In this ad, the car is apparently
色グリーンmeaning "colour: green"
which it kinda looks in that light but in this pic:
it looks like a black on gold look

Does anyone have any pictures of a/their "green" or "black on gold" aw11 colour so i can better see the colour~

Falcon
Well that's an opening statement.
Maybe get someone to take you for a ride in an AW11. Little old 4 bangers can get under way quite nicely and if driven half decently are very hard to keep up to. Handling is as if on rails if suspension and tyres are quality.
As for installing a rotary. Yes would be a great idea if that floats your boat but you should perhaps take a peek at where the exhaust manifold needs to live. It can certainly be achieved but will be interesting.
Your dad is correct!!!
Double wishbone ? Not really required and very nearly impossible to achieve.
Go for a ride in a well sorted one with quality tyres and I think you will be better able to appreciate what they are just as they are.

Agreed, i thought along the same lines that maybe the one he drove was bone stock since he probably drove it near brand new


I've read somewhere of double wishbone being done to an aw11 mr2 but ofc it's another thing of if it's worth it or not~
 
I've also read somewhere as well of a rotary in an aw11 but not sure of his exhaust manifold setup but i should probs investigate a bit more~ and another proposing to put a rotary engine in an aw11 and asking for some thoughts it was also mentioned of the exhaust manifold as have you

I've been meaning to go for a test drive of one but there arn't too many around the area but i'll get to it at one stage~

4 bangers arn't half bad since i've been in a 2016 ford mustang with the 4 turbo and it's definitely good but it kinda lacks in guts and ofc displacement. I guess i'd find out what it'd be like anyway in a 4 if i test drove it anyway so~
can't really say i hate it until i try it

Thanks for the thoughts mate

Shaz
Hi Jarrod,
 
Great Intro.  Welcome to the forum.  
Wanting a specific colour can be difficult.  Project car or daily can be costly.  But less so, when you can do the work yourself.  But when you get the love for one of these great cars, you will always justify the $$$ spent.  Take if from someone who can't do the work herself & daily's the SDUB.  I go through times of "I should just sell it to someone who knows what to do", but then getting back in after the fix & knowing that she is not just a car to get from A to B.  A non-car friend just this morning said "maybe time for an upgrade?" after having to get towed again last night.
A friend has kindly lent me his "Super Edition" ADUB again while my SDUB is off the road. (great timing......... not)
Fun to drive as well.  Very different to the SBUD.
 
T-Top's mostly have a cover for when the roof is in, so no burnt hole in the head.  But if no covers you can always wear a cap.  And I find a cap is a must for roof off driving   and a scarf & gloves winter roof off driving. 
 
Where are you located?  
 
You will find the forum a wealth of information & help.
 
Cheers

I'm on the Gold Coast~

I tend to overuse the heater in the colder times but once the temperature is above 20 degrees, it's windows and sometimes sunroof down

True that project cars require alot of funds but the way i see it, if you see the benefit in what you're doing and you're going to get its just use out of it, i see it being worth it

My mustangs original plans was to be project weekend/take to shows car but it wasn't in too bad a nick when i got it apart from the paint which it's going in to be done in a week or so and was someones daily for a decent bit in Sydney originally so it didn't really warrant needing to be rebuilt at all and less so with new paint.

An AW11 i kinda want as the missing project car i never had xD. I'd probably avoid taking it to companies to do the work for me as it's experience, i've got a father who's done this countless times up till his thirties and i can use as a reference and ofc it saves costs~ stuff like paint and fabrication i'll probably more edge towards getting it built rather than handmake though.

Non-car enthusiasts usually find older cars the biggest waste and problematic pieces of machienery in a lifetime but ofc if you take care of anything correctly, it can last you a lifetime and most important of all, if you enjoy it then that's what matters most~

I've heard of how vast the difference in community between the aw11 and sw20 but each to their own, not far from the mustang community, ones that like the new ones and ones that like the old ones and some that own both as i've seen for some owning both an aw11 and a sw20.


Are you aware if any aftermarket or anything has made a metal t-top cover like this: 
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-V4li5zOvp_g/UMKJU9K1QWI/AAAAAAAADk0/L5vSxx4Tg1k/s640/1983SA22CMAZDASAVANNARX7LIMITED+9.jpg

since it tends to look nicer like this

Thanks for the contribution~

Dalai
Welcome! Sounds like an interesting project.

Can't comment on ADUB's and handling, but

1. Can't say I've every heard bridge port rotary and daily driver in the same sentence

2. Don't go into modding a car and expect a return on your investment... You won't recoup anything close to what you will bury into the car. I'm in the process of upgrading the wheels, suspension and wear items such as wheel bearings and ball joints on my SDUB spending over $7K so far! If I were to sell, I'd see barely any of that back.

I've always loved my bridgeport rotaries and my father and my uncle (who used to live in the same house at one stage) both had bridgeported rotaries, my uncle an rx2 and not sure what my dad was driving but they started it at 6am and 6:30am respectively every morning to the neighbours dispair and gave it its few minutes of warm up and went to work and did this for many many years.

I'm aware that that'd be the case but i'm willing to do that in the case that i enjoy every bit of my investment. Maybe a less extreme example is an exhaust system on a stocky car, it would probs give you 10hp if that but the main reason is just to hear it purr and for $1000 in most cases
 
Along those lines, i thought that maybe just getting a shell is easier so instead of having a 4age, removing it, trying to sell it, buying a 13b injected, etc that'd disappear alot of ones money instead of having a clean slate to deal with, welll, they're my thoughts anyway~

Knightrous
Cannot comment on the process of a 13B conversion to an AW11, but I know it has been done before.
 


 

I saw the pics before when i was searching for others with the same idea. Saw the thread had no detail on it either since it was just a person noting the sale of a rotary mr2.

Thanks for refinding the pictures again tho~
gives a bit of inspiration~