The gearbox replacement happened in under 2 weeks, so I've been back on the road enjoying the car again.
 
My ABS light came on while driving for the first time ever, on the way to the MR2 meet last week. I checked the ABS fault codes and it said that my right-rear ABS speed sensor was open-circuit. I had a look and found that the wires were broken near the sensor, and had been repaired by someone in the past but I never noticed before so I don't know when that happened. Anyway, I got a replacement sensor from Josh at MR2 Wreckers Australia and after installing it the ABS light went away.
 
Also, for the last few years my immobiliser has been pissing me off big time, with it sometimes working perfectly and other times being very intermittent, ie. not always responding to the remote. I finally decided to order a replacement remote from Mongoose (I was reluctant because of the ridiculous price that they charge), just to confirm if the remote is the problem or if it's something wrong with the unit in the car or the wiring. Well, it seems that the new remote has completely solved the problem! I'm so happy to have that really annoying little problem solved after all this time.

That's awesome. I've wanted a windows tablet in mine to connect to a haltech but this is far more convenient. Good work.

Windows phone runs Windows 10 Mobile operating system which cannot run x86 apps.

Time for an update. Unfortunately it's not a good one!
 
While I was at the MR2 Wakefield Park Challenge last week, I was experiencing some strange problems that I couldn't figure out. Also, one of the times that I was accelerating up the back straight, I thought I heard the sound of the engine suddenly change slightly (around the peak torque point), but I thought I was imagining it. However, on the drive back to Sydney I became more convinced that the engine wasn't sounding quite right. It didn't sound horrible, just a bit more 'groany' than normal at mid-to-high revs.
 
Well, as it turns out, some of my main caps have failed/cracked. They're the stock cast items.
This is the first internal failure of the engine in the ~7 years since it was first rebuilt, so it's had a very good innings considering the abuse that I've put it through. The failure still suuuucks because I have less disposable income these days and it's going to be a very expensive fix. I knew it was only a matter of time haha.
 
The main caps may be very simple items, which are easily accessible with the sump removed, but the worst part of this situation is that the whole engine has to be removed and the block stripped down to properly line/align bore/hone the block and the replacement main caps.
 
So, to make the most of the labour required, I'm finally going to do a 5S-GTE conversion. I'll probably keep the same turbo and see how much the response improves with an extra 10% engine capacity. I need to track down a 5S block and crank ASAP to get the ball rolling. I could buy a brand new 5S crank from Toyota, but I'll only do that if I can't find a good used one.
 
Before anyone brings it up, no I'm not going to do a V6 swap or K24 swap. They're both fantastic options, but I've been very happy with the 3S-GTE and I'll be even happier with a 5S-GTE. Cost is also a major factor.

Just some food for though, depending on the extent of the damage to your motor (usually main cap failure is catastrophic), have you considered just rebuilding with some pro gram billet main caps, and maybe a block girdle? Main caps arent any stronger in a 5s block. I believe someone used to make a decent block girdle for the 3s block too.

Building a 5sfe shortblock to handle your power, and the extra little headaches along the way (flywheel etc) will really start to add up.

Surely lochy would have a spare bomb proof short block kicking round you could buy off him....

Buy a whole car to get the block you need. I did, then wrecked what was left of the car. I made a profit!
5S responsiveness is awesome 😎

I don't recall if the 5s caps are as hefty is the 3s ones, something about US ones differing, I don't remember exact detail as it's been 8 odd years since my research. That said there's a heap of high hp 5s builds.

If you just replaced the caps would you still have to pull the whole thing apart to line bore it to ensure its perfectly aligned?