Well, got the car back at my place last weekend, after another respray, this time most of the visible portion looks okay. I would change a few things if I did it again though, maybe one day! (years away)

Been tinkering around with bracketry and what not for oil cooler, fuel pump and fitting urethane bushes etc mostly lately.

Today Mark was nice enough to come give a hand, so thought we would try mount up the clutch and tranny, ready for the engine to go back in the car. We started mucking around at around 1pm and the transmission still isn't on, and wont be going on.

The plate is a twin plate unit using a tilton clutch cover with custom made 4 puck carbotic solid centre disks. I had a custom flywheel made that was SUPPOSED to allow fitment. It allowed fitment in regards to the release bearing, however, there were other problems that were never thought of.

We started off the day trying to install the clutch. We couldn't get it on with the engine just hanging from the hoist so guess what we did, placed it cam gear side down on a creeper (so we could use the crane to drop the tranny on the engine, saved all the heavy lifting and we could use its weight to our advantage). Still no cigar, we couldn't get the input shaft spline into the second plate. We tried a few times to align it with the alignment tool, and then thought by chance to try fitment of a spare input shaft I have laying around in plates. No go again. The alignment tool just has a little too much slop (not high enough tolerance fit) so I ended up using the spare input shaft as an alignment tool.

Yay, we got it through the second plate! But we still couldn't get it all the way on. On and off the transmission came several times, all the time we thought the disks weren't quite centered, even though the dowels appeared to be lining up fine and going into their holes.

Got sick of it being on the cam gear side, as the engine was looking a little unstable, so put it back down in its normal position and tried again for one last time with soem spectators. Out of desperation I decided we'd try just nipping up some of the bolts (we could get it very close, 5-10mm from marrying up) Did this, but the bottom just wouldn't pull in! I thought I'd try and apply some pressure to the release bearing with a long bar in order to free the plates fromt he captive state, thinking this might help. Hold up a second, the release fork is seems real tight here. Get a bar in there and give it a whirl. Hrmm, bottom of the tranny (where there are no bolts) is lifting out.... Something doesn't seem quite right.

Remove the transmission again, low and behold, we have some fouling between the bolts holding the diaphram to the clutch cover and the clutch housing & release fork... freak. What does this mean? I'm going to need a new flywheel for a start with a face about 10mm closer to the engine (doable), then work out how to get enough effective stroke out of the release bearing (enough to release the clutch). At the moment the bearing is pretty much located perfectly, as it was, it'd probably just be resting on the diaphram in its released state. A custom release bearing may be required.

Some pictures:

Cars back at home, Mark's car out of the garage for the first time in a year. Fear the years worth of dust. Its almost ready to run now, well, it is ready to run. We went to fire it up the other day and weren't getting spark. I don't know much about the wolf ecu he uses, or the software, and can't seem to find where to setup the trigger edge used for the ignition outputs. It needs to be set to negative/falling edge for the LS1 coilpacks.



Rear end suspension with urethane bushes fitted up:



Clutch on car ready for transmission fitment:



Our weird method of transmission fitment. I wouldn't really recommend this. We made sure nothing on the t-belt side was in danger of damage though.



Chuck that stupid plastic alignment tool - heres my new clutch alignment tool! Plastic tool wasn't tight enough tolerance to get the two plates aligned well enough to fit the input shaft spline:



Marks where the clutch has fouled in the bell housing, not good news :( Housing is still pretty okay after the beating I gave it trying to get the transmission on. Few scrapes and dings :P Bit of paint off the tilton clutch cover - just cometic stuff:



What now? Well, I'll give Jim @ Raceclutch a call on monday and have a chat about options. I'll definitely need another custom flywheel made ($$$) and I'll supply the transmission to Jim to see if he can come up with a solution that'll fit. The clutch can definitely fit in the bellhousing, its just a matter of finding a method to have it both fit, and operate. There was a tilton group buy in the states a while ago, but they were using the tilton hydraulic release bearing.

That sure bums out the idea of getting the engine in the car before my holidays are up (back to work monday) Ah well, couple more weeks when I've been waiting 13-14 months so far wont be anything I guess.

that sucks man, hope it works out for you...

thats jus.. so crazy.

Are you a mechanic or something? you sure as hell know your poo poo.. start up a mechanic business, man my 2 would be there all the fkn time ha.
btw, id kill anyone for that motor of yours.

sorry to hear about your clutch dramas. ive had my own fair share of isssues with jim berry. he made a custom clutch for a BMW torubo a friend owns. his sent it back 3 times with fitment, release and machining issues. he does good work but if you make something custom for someone it should be atleast made to fit in the space you have.

Yeah, he did plan for the release bearing height, but never thought of the clutch itself.

Hes very helpful though, I dare say he'll help sort out the mess. I'll give him a call monday, I'll take the transmission in this time so he can confirm fitment. I've done some measurements and thinking myself however, and its going to be a REALLY tight fit. Mainly getting the spline centre on the middle friction plate to clear the flywheel bolts.

This is where I stand so far:

The clutch and flywheel combo as is stand 84mm off the flex plate. The highest point inside the bell housing is the area just above the pivot ball on the release fork, which is 75MM (from the tranny mounting face). This could probably be ground down a MM or two, however, its no use grinding it down more then that even if you could as several other areas in the bellhousing are 76mm from the face of the gearbox (mounting face). Also I have to see how deep the recess/hole for the pivot ball goes into the fork, as I wouldn't want to take too much material and end up weakening it to the point where it'd likely fail. If anyone has seen the fork though, its very beefy in this section, with a noticable mound.

What does all this mean? I've got to get the clutch at least 9mm lower down for it to fit.

This is where it gets even more interesting. On the lower friction plate Jim has placed the thick side of the centre section which includes the spline facing downwards towards the flywheel bolts. In the current configuration, this only clears the flywheel bolts by 2mm. The douche bag who fabbed me up the flywheel (yes he is a douche bag, ba$1ard was unreliable as, took him months to complete it and it was never done when he said it would be) made the center section of the clutch where the flywheel bolts bolt through 4mm too thick. How do I know this? I've now removed everything again and I had a geez. I measured the thickness of the flywheel at that point, and then the length of the shank on the 5SFE flywheel bolts. Basically the 5sfe flywheel bolts have a shank thats the same diameter as the 3sgte flywheel holes, but the actual threaded section is smaller (perhaps 10mm, can't remember). The shank was 4mm shorter then the flywheel was thick. This is a design fault in itself and I think would cause weakness. I supplied all the gear to the flywheel fabricator (an engineering shop on the gold coast) including the bolts AND a spare 5sfe crank, so they should have got it spot on. In my opinion, the shank should more or less come into contact with the crank face for optimum strength when the bolts are torqued down. So add 4mm to the 2mm clearance there and we get 6mm. Not enough, as I said, I need at least 9mm.

Now, effectively 'flip' the first friction plate (which will require a new centre section, with the spline section machined correctly to fit in with the upper plate once more as the amount of spline protruding from each side is unequal) we get some more clearance. This side of the centre section of the friction disk (can't remember the specific name thus far) is only around 2mm thick as opposed to 5.5mm on the thick side. This will give us another 3.5mm clearance, taking us up to 9.5mm clearance. This is starting to look okay now, however, that may still be a little close for comfort. So what else can we do? Well, the part of the clutch that was found to be contacting when I was trying to fit (and force) the damned transmission on yesterday was the top of the bolts which hold the diaphram in the clutch cover. These protrude around 3mm past the top of the nut that sits on the top (the nuts on the top of the clutch). I feel these could be ground down a couple of mm comfortably, which would put us at 11.5mm clearance, when we'd need to drop the face 9mm. This would leave effectively leave 2.5mm between heighest point of the clutch and the nearest point in the housing, I'd be happy with this.

This isn't the end of the issues though, after doing this, the factory release bearing would now not work, we'd need something that is the same amount taller as we lower the clutch, otherwise there would likely not be enough effective stroke to disengage the clutch. I don't know of anything that'd likely fit, so I'll leave this side of the deal up to Jim. The previous custom flywheel costed me near $500. I'm going to be up for another now. Hopefully Jim will make any modifications on his end FOC, minus parts which I'd be happy to pay for. I just want this to work. I wanted the engine in the car by end of tomorrow, alas, its not going to happen. Also, i'm bloody weird and like to keep my gear in good nick, and now my clutch has a few scratches and lost powdercoat from trying to jam it into the bellhousing :D Oh well, guess its not a part you really see!

Anyway, I decided today, after having a really slow morning (i'd lost motivation after yesterday) that I might get around to designing and fitting new pickup for my fuel tank, and then refit the fuel tank. Well, I only found some motivation about 4-4:30 pm, so I didn't get around to fitting the tank, as I ran into some complications.

I'm running an Aeromotive A1000 external pump. This means I needed to somehow get a -10 (AN standard, around 5/8") pickup into the tank, and a -6 (around 3/8") return. I got an earls pipe mating fitting for the pickup and got a length of 5/8" thin walled aluminium tube.

I'll start off with a couple of pictures of the internals of an SW20 tank. Not your normal fuel tank. The tank is really well baffled, and has its own 'sump' so to speak. Heres some pictures before I begun some molestation:



As well as that section there, there is extensive baffling throughout the tank. I dont see any need to run a pickup --> swirlpot type setup on the mr2 with its fuel tank design. Anyway, all the gear was routed through bulkhead fittings in the top of the factory pickup lid. Picture below:



Now, as may be obvious, its a really tight fit, and wouldn't fit back down the pickup hole without some gentle persuassion. This persuasion came in the form of a grinding stone and I was required to remove the lip thats you can see on the inside mounting flange for the pickup lid as pictured in that second tank picture above. I had to remove the whole lip on the side in which the bulkhead fittings go through. I've now got heaps of crap inside my tank, and have flushed it out to the best of my ability (hard when its so well baffled) twice. I'll probably give it another go tomorrow just to try get the most of the crap out. The rest will probably become trapped in the prepump 100 micron filter, which is a stainless steel unit. Its removable and easy enough to clean out, so after every tank of gas for the first few tanks I'll remove it and give it a good clean out. I may need to buy a couple of replacement 10 micron paper filters (can buy the aermotive inserts seperately for the billet inline filters) and replace these as well, for anything big enough to get through the 100 micron filter.

I'm now at the stage where I've got the pickup to fit in, however, I think I might take another 5-10mm off the tube, as by my calculations, it probably sits around 10-15mm from the bottom of the tank now. I'd like this to be more 15-20mm, so that flow isn't impeded. I cut the pickup tube on an angle to aid in this regard also. Once the car is running again, I'll just be sure to make sure I've always got over 1/4 tank of juice, just to ensure there wont be any starvation issues.

That was all I got done today. Got late and the neighbours probably dont enjoy me using power tools late on a Saturday night. The tank was a bit of a hack job, and in hindsight, I probably should have better designed the pickup in the top of the tank such that everything fit better, and no modifications were required to the actual tank, as cleaning it out is a complete pain in the arse.

To answer your question Apexi, no im not a mechanic, I just happen to work on mine and a few of my mates MR2's often. Marks mr2 has been at my place for eons undergoing some work. I help out where mark doesn't feel comfortable himself. I also seem to get lopped with another mates mr2 fairly often as he likes to break his cars :D

I would do no good as a mechanic. I don't love the work that much, I just love my MR2's. My knowledge (minus the basics of mechanical work) doesn't really stem anywhere past the MR2, which I know more or less like the back of my hand. I know enough to know how everywhere works, and to problem solve issues. If you threw a ford V8 or anything with a carby (workings of my old corolla seem like dark magic to me, I can change the oil, service the brakes and air filter, replace wheel cylinders & wheel bearings, but hell, dont let me anywhere near that carby, I've not a clue, minus the fact that everything seems to turn to poo poo if a vacuum line comes off the vacuum advance on the dizzy, or anywhere else for that matter).

Anyway, I'll get some pictures of my hack job tomorrow, when I try to finish removing any stray poo poo from the tank - impossible task!

Well, today was a slow day, finding out my clutch wouldn't fit, and not getting the engine in the car has really killed enthusiam, so i've been taking it easy. Spent a few hours tonight troubleshooting ignition issues on Mark's car. Turns out the LS1 coils we are using (may be an older variant?) are wired opposite to others we have seen. I changed one set around to test if the theory was correct and we immediately got spark. Still haven't got it to fire up yet. Perhaps tomorrow?

As I said, due to lack of motivation I've not been getting much done. I did make up all the braided lines for my oil cooler/oil thermostat/remote oil relocation kit, minus the ones that run to the adapter on the engine block, because, alas, the engine isn't in the car, so I haven't been able to get lengths.

Even after measuring lengths, it appears I could never get them right. I made a couple slightly (5-10mm) too long, and one slightly too short, even when I thought I was smack on the measurement. As such, my oil thermostat doesn't sit flat on the chassis rail in front of the wheel well, instead, floats a bit towards the front and is hard up at the rear - oh well, I'll probably throw some padding under it so it doesn't flog around, and leave it as is.

Couple of pictures - the white poo poo all over my car is cutters from chopping and buffing following the paint job. The car still needs a good all over buff with a soft pad. Wont be happening until I've finished fitting the engine, as its likely to get lent on and take on some swirls and small scratches. Black is a caant!




The bracket for the fuel pump needs a bit of a tidy up. I'll give it a good sand down and smooth the edges, and then probably paint it black so it doesn't stand out like dogs balls. The oil filters for use on this relocation plate a HUGE as you can see. Normal large ford style. I've got about 8 oil filters sitting around here :D Bought a poo poo load for the runin process. In my opinion you can't change the filter too much. Especially when you've got machining and other contaminants floating around the engine.

Back to work tomorrow, things will be slow going but I'll slow away a bit more every day. I'll make some calls re: my clutch issues tomorrow and hopefully have a solution soon enough.

Went and spoke with Jim (My clutch bloke) this afternoon.

Think we've sorted out an solution that wont require a replacement flywheel.

Going to modify the tilton cover. Remove the nuts/bolts of the top of the cover, form countersunk holes, and fit countersunk head bolts to the top. This will give us ~7mm. To get another 3mm we are going to: machine the centre of the flywheel where it attaches to the crank down 2mm on the back. Make alterations where the ringgear attaches to account for this 2mm movement. Machine 1mm off the top face of the flywheel. can't just machine 3mm off here as the flywheel would then be getting too thin. This will give us 10mm extra room, which should be enough.

I'm going to take a little (1mm or 2) off the top of the shift fork so its at or below the heighest point in the box.

He may be able to have a look at it before end of the week. If so, I'll give fitting the engine another go next weekend.

Fingers crossed.

Dont be suprised if you soon see all these parts for sale. I've about had enough [V]

Mate, get it together with a standard clutch in it.

Get a tune at about 7-8psi and run it in.
The handling alone will restore your enthusiasm.


Then in 12 months time(yeah put some real km's on it)
hook up the oil cooler system
and get an OS giken twin plate instead.
Then dyno the f'er at the 20psi kill mode.

Okay, perhaps I should explain further. The oil cooler system is sorted, its the clutch thats freaked me around, and I feel like I've basically been left to my own accord now to get it sorted. I'm sick of people freakin me around. I don't even have a standard clutch or flywheel to put in it. If I had to shell out for a standard one, I may as well find an engineering firm to fab me another flywheel.

Let me clarify whats happened since my last update.

I dropped my clutch that didn't fit back at Jim Berry. I gave him some measurements, said that I'd done the calcs and could get another flywheel made up and she'd be sweet. He said that Mark Barnes (engineering firm that did the first flywheel) was pretty booked up and it'd probably take up to 6 months to get a flywheel from him (didn't doubt it at all, took 3+ months the first time). He said said we could do this this and this, and we'd be sweet. I said alright, I guess if its quicker and less expense then sweet, we'll do that. So I left it with him. Week or so later I get a call, its done, wicked. I go down there. ~3mm has been shaved off the flywheel..... What about the other things you were meant to do, get the bolts sitting flush with the clutch cover etc. Well.... He'd forgot that, so he starts doodling with the clutch cover, trying to hammer rivets through the pivot ring/cover to see if they'll fit/what he'll do to replace the current bolt/nut config that stuck out a good 7mm above the top of the cover. We'd also discussed the first time I was there about modifications that the 6 bolts holding the cover to the flywheel would also need some sort of work to bring them down flush with the top of the cover. Well anyway, all I hear was an uh oh. I go have a look at what he'd done. When trying to force rivets through the holes in the pivot ring (ring the diaphram pivots on) he'd cracked the ring through (hole was obviously too small). Anyway, he said he'd call mr tilton in Sydney (some bloke in Sydney who apparently deals in TIlton products) and try source another ring the next day (as the afternoon was getting on). Wasn't much that was going to happen for the rest of that day so I said I'd take off. He told me to call him end of week.

As it happened, I happened to be in the area with work on the Friday so decided to drop by. He was out at the time however I was told he wouldn't be long, so stuck around. He got back and told me we'd run into a bit of a snag. "Rang Mr Tilton and he didn't want to hear about it"... I assumes this means he didn't have/want to supply a replacement part, that, or Jim found out the cost and decided he could doctor something up much cheaper. Im like... okaay, so what are we going to do? We doodles and dallied around for a while, then he was like... wait a second... and walked off somewhere in the shop. He walked off and came back armed with a box containing a tilton clutch that was original out of a mini, with the same pivot ring assembly. He pulled it out, said he could use that part (although it'd been modified already with extra holes in it for the mini application), so wasn't exactly prime real estate to begin with. Anyway, as I was at work and spent too long there already, I told him I'd leave him with it, and call him up at a later date.

Anyway, few days (or a week) later, I call him up, see how its going. 'Yeah yeah, its all good, ready to go' he says. I said 'Ah, so you sorted out the pivot ring issue' and he was like 'Yeah, we just ended up using a ring in there with the heads of the rivets holding it in place." ...okaaay I thought to myself, this wasn't as I was told was planned.

Anyway, I head down there to pick it up. I get there and he shows me to it.. Mmm, not a huge fan of the ring/rivet configuration on the back, as it was nothing like how the tilton item worked, and I would assume the clutch was designed to use certain components. He ensured me it was popular method by alot of clutch manufacturers to secure the diaphram so I let it slide, even though I think its a bit of a doctored up solution.

I then turned my gaze to the bolts that hold the clutch cover to the flywheel. No modifications had been made here. I mentioned that I was almost sure they wouldn't fit. Me more or less told me take it to an engineering shop and they should be able to mill it down (sort countersink the socket head) so it sits flush with the top of the cover. Right, I work full time, and I'm somehow magically going to find my way to an engineering shop during business hours. Not to mention, butcher up my expensive clutch cover further. The original idea was to use the half head socket head bolts, don't know what happened there.

I took it home anyway, as it was obvious he had no intent to do anything further to assist my situation, infact, he already had it sitting near the door ready to palm off when I arrived.

Well, I took it home. Having a look, the freakin ring gear wasn't even seated properly, and was all skewiff on the flywheel. Good work freakers. I then went about taking some measurements. Mmm, ~76 to highest point and the clutch to the highest point (top of bolts) is around 76, not including the 5mm that the flywheel sits from the block. I can only get 4mm from shaving/milling countersinks for those bolts, that leaves me 1mm under still. Not only this, but I never noticed that there were actually some higher points in the bellhousing that'd foul towards the outside of the clutch, so i think I'll need at least another 5mm with the bolts shaved down, or 10mm without.

What a freakaround. I feel like I've been left on my own now with a >$2500 paperweight. Im going to try fit it (even though I know it doesn't fit) this weekend to get some exact distances. I knew I should have just gotten another flywheel machined from the get go, but Jim insisted we do it this other way. Now not only has he freaked some of the clutch components and had to doctor them up, but I'm also no better off then I was before.

Im freaking pissed, depressed and at the start of the second year of my apprenticeship (ie, not loaded). I have sufficient money to play, however, I don't just have spare $2500 to throw down the drain.

Im on the borderline of selling all this poo poo off, however, if I do that, I'm going to lose tens of thousands of dollars and have absolutely nothing to show for it, nor gained any enjoyment from it.

Quite frankly - this is freaked, and when I was tossing up between a nice 2000+ supra and some bolt ons, or working the tits off my mr2, I should have chosen the other option.

Anyone want a Tilton twin plate high clamp cover w/ brand new floater plates & 2x brand new 4 puck solid centre carbotic disks, enquire here. Take it off my hands for $1500 and I'll throw in a flywheel to suite 5SFE (stroker) crank thats probably not very useful (maybe get away with machining flywheel down a couple of mm, and modifying the pressure plate bolts to get it to fit in). Save over $1000 and unused, pssh, like your going to get rid of a clutch that doesn't fit as is.

Im tapping sources for a decent bolt on alternative. I don't really want to go with the jap gear. If noshoes on MR2OC would have shipped internationally, I wuold have been all over the mr2oc tilton group buy last year.

This sucks, if I could go back in time, I'd no longer have an mr2.

Oh got stuck on my rant. I managed to beat the ring gear on proper with a hammer. Probably not the preferred method but I was pretty annoyed to begin with so it helped in venting some frustration. Hopefully didn't do MUCh damage. Saw I dinged up the flywheel a bit, who freakin cares - its probably useless anyway!