So it’s been a long time between updates, so I’ll make it a good one! After seemingly years of endless turbo-life dramas I finally bit the bullet and committed to a 2GR-FZE swap. That’s the TRD Aurion supercharged 3.5l v6, with the 1320 supercharger. I really wanted to get some “reliable racing” into my future, and I’d been very impressed with Eric’s car at the Wakefield Challenge. The torque and the noise were both very impressive, and I did feel like I wanted more than the NA 2GR had to offer (without a lot of work).
Not being any use with tools, Charlie Bianco in Melbourne coordinated everything including purchase of the 90k-odd km motor, on-sell of all the useful 3S-GTE bits, and so on. Under Charlie’s direction Nathan Appel has been hands on with much of the spanner work, Curt Ford did the exhaust fabrication work, and CMS Performance did the water-meth injection control and ECU hack/tune.
One of the things I really wanted to measure was the impact of the water-meth injection. It made a lot of sense in theory (charge cooling effect = air density & more power, anti-detonation effect = more timing and more power) but I couldn’t find much evidence for it or before/after results (at least with the factory ECU).
As a result of the ECU hack & tuning work plus water/meth, the car has been reliably putting out a good 215 rwkw without any heat soak or timing, vs around 195 (from memory) before.
Aside from the swap and water injection, Charlie has given me a longer final drive ratio and I’m happy with the result on both the highway and the track. Sump is baffled for track reliability.
Time to race, and places to do so with Wakefield closed lately :-( have seen me doing less driving lately, but something I’m keen to change this year.
Overall, the car is great to drive and sounds awesome. Has plenty of grunt and pickup. There are a few clips on youtube for you to enjoy:
1
st track day
https://youtu.be/hQcX5N_X2NQExhaust sound & 2
nd gear pull
https://youtu.be/Vr6RS36B_3AAm hoping I can get myself organised to come along to some MR2 / Toymods events this year.