Wednesday, July 9, 2008

MR-2 Part 1


I bought a 1988 Supercharged Toyota MR-2. I bought it off of eBay in early April, putting down a $500 deposit. The following weekend, myself, my friend, and my dad drove 5 hours to Mount Airy, NC to pick it up and pay the rest of the $4,800 I owed. It's a kind of orangish-red color, perfect seats, decent interior, 132thousand miles, power locks, power windows, t-tops, 5-speed manual transmission, and cruise control. No power steering, no traction control, no stability control, no antilock brakes, no airbags. It has a 4A-GZE engine with an air to air intercooled roots-type supercharger that pushes around 9lbs of boost, for a total of 145 horsepower. It has an HKS Super Mega Flow intake, and an HKS exhaust back to the cat, so not counting power loss from age, it might have around 150hp. The mid-engine rear-wheel-drive makes the thing handle amazingly well and the supercharger makes it a quick car even against some modern sporty cars. I once raced a Mustang GT (fourth gen) at a stoplight from 0 to 55mph and I was ever-so-slightly faster. I also raced my buddy's '85 Celica GT that's been bored to 2.4L in a roughly quarter-mile race. I won by 2-3 car lengths. Now this post is ENTIRELY too long so I'll break up this into a couple posts.

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