Hey all, so I recently blew the head gasket in my mr2 which had been sittin around for a year with out so much as being kicked in the guts.. I want to rebuild the motor gut the cooling system and inter cooler ( fit new breaks,suspension etc) ...

Wondering if anyone has any recommendations in regards to good robust parts such as inter coolers ,radiators, hoses and pipes ? Im pretty clueless when it comes to performance ... But my car will be with a mechanic soon and I just want to give him an idea of what I want , cheers guys all recommendations ar welcome

why do you think you need to replace the radiator and pipes etc.?
was it overheating at all?

Yeah mate it over heated 3 times on the drive up from Sydney to brisbane.. For a car that always runs fairly cool I found that odd... Plus I flushed it out a few times each time for about 2 hours and its filled with rust n crud.. I figured if I'm going to be working the motor and getting more horse I may as well have a new cooling system, what do you think?

^ok yeah well if it's filled with rust and crud id say your radiator core would be blocked or partially blocked and possibly even your heater core. Basically if you get a new or reco'd radiator, genuine thermostat and cap and make sure you bleed the system properly as per BGB (service manual) after and use either Toyota  or Nulon  (Red) coolant it should be fine. The cooling system will be fine with more power but obviously it has to be tip top condition on those above components and fans operating correctly too. EDIT: + genuine water pump if you're rebuilding it too!  

Changing the old coolant pipes isn't a bad idea. Just go with genuine Toyota there, absolutely nothing wrong with them. As for the radiator, you can simply have it removed & serviced. They'll take it apart & clean the core thoroughly & re-weld it. If there's any small leaks, they'll weld those too. If the radiator's too far gone, which I doubt it is (ie been taken apart too many times etc), they'll simply tell you upfront. That'd be the most sensible & economical way of getting it done IMO.
 
Add to that as mentioned, a new genuine thermostat, 1.3bar radiator cap, RED coolant (if he puts in green, tell him to do it again even if he doesn't agree) & new water pump if you're rebuilding.
 
For the intercooler, sky's kinda the limit there. Cheaper bolt on mod type option is an ebay sidemount with upgraded fan (wired direct), otherwise you have W2A or trunk mount.
 
Good luck!

fyi, i have a bnib gen3 3sgte genuine gasket kit for sale. $350 posted.

^not sure about a 1.3 BAR rad cap Jay, when we changed to the stock 0.9 BAR cap on a mates gen2 3sgte it solved his random overheating issues.

MRTurbo

^not sure about a 1.3 BAR rad cap Jay, when we changed to the stock 0.9 BAR cap on a mates gen2 3sgte it solved his random overheating issues.

Not quite...
 
However I do believe I have found a possible cause of the problem...

Did you test the cap? Just like OEM caps, aftermarket caps fail too. My TRD 1.3 failed, but that's due to all the gunk etc that passed through it from headgasket & block failures.
 
If he has a new cap, hoses, clean rad, the cap will be perfectly fine.

Bnib? Sorry mate lol .. Is that a metal gasket kit by any chance?

just_ace

fyi, i have a bnib gen3 3sgte genuine gasket kit for sale. $350 posted.