The latest of the modifications to my MR2 have finally changed the driving experience to the point where it no longer resembles the original cars feel. The car has exhaust manifold and high flow cat and silencer, fully braced bodyshell with aluminium subframe bolted to the bottom of the car and a set of fully adjustable coilovers. It now sits on Hankook RS-2 rubber, a sticky trackday tyre. This has prompted me to question the ideas, perceptions, pitfalls and flaws of modifying.

“How do we make our car a better one?” A question most of us ask at some time I am sure. We get the car then our fevered little brains cannot resist the devil sitting on our shoulder whispering in our ear. “Make it faster. Make it handle better.” Some of us may be thinking about “Make it look nicer. Make the sound system better.” But I wont be commenting on this as it is performance modifying that I am focussing on here and sound systems and body kits = weight and drag, so not on my shopping list.

For those of us that are of the performance oriented persuasion, I am sure we have all asked why Toyota did not make the MR2 with a 2zz engine. Some of us have asked why they built it on wobbly stilts and still more why they fitted it with small wheels? Why did they make the car frame so flexible?

Well I have a theory. At Mr T land, they set out to design a fun small sports car with decent handling, reasonable purchase and running costs, adequate performance and above all, a broad market appeal.

To do this, Toyota (or any other car company making any other car for that matter) have to define a focal point for the car. A target market “bulls eye” that defines how the car should be perceived and what it should best excel at. Unfortunately, if the manufacturer focuses the point too far into the performance area, the mainstream will not buy into it. If they focus more on comfort, the performance stream will not buy it. In my opinion, Toyota got it pretty close. It goes, stops and corners well enough to encourage enthusiasts, is quiet, comfortable and practical enough to appeal to mainstream buyers and looks nice enough for roof down posers to take an interest.

Good so far, but what if someone wants to change the focal point? What if the same someone also wants to sharpen that focus? Well that is a large proportion of us. It is here that we make concessions, compromises and sacrifices to sharpen that focus at a point some way off the original target.

Many of us start with an engine mod or two. Initially this will usually involve making more noise at some point. How much noise anyone is happy to live with is a matter of taste, but if you are junking cats / precats and are relying on a single free flow silencer to soak up all the noise, you are in for a loud surprise. You could stay with the stock item but it is a labyrinth of tiny holes and pipes that murders gas flow, so you wont.

You may want to go further and get inside the engine, or bolt on a blower of some type. At this point, we start to encroach on the engineering safety margins of the original build. Fitting lumpy camshafts for big power will cause low speed running to be compromised. Milder cams wont yield the big numbers but will be less of a compromise. Valve gear will suffer increased loading, springs may need uprating, putting more load on the drive chain. Going forced induction will make big improvements in performance, but try keeping the boost turned down to reasonable levels when you know another 40 or 50bhp are just a little tuning / intercooling away. Again, that safety margin is being eaten into. With any engine modification, the further we go, the higher the risk of engine failure. This is not a linear relationship though. Going plus 30% on torque will be a big step up for a gearbox, going plus 50% will push the tuner much closer to the point where the box can no longer cope. Going further still takes us out into the world of guesswork for the engine and gearbox reliability. It will mostly be OK, but don’t expect it to last 100,000 miles would be a reasonable take on this. With this power comes running cost increases. Fuel consumption will suffer to an extent. Oil becomes a critical component. Got more heat? Need thicker oil. Got more power? Need better oil. Performance mods = performance driving, so the dog urine that some dealers put in your car at service time will not protect your engine past a couple of thousand miles or even a couple of miles if you run a big power setup. Did anyone say insurance? Tyres, more power, faster tyre wear. So at the end of it all, the engine is noisier, thirstier, less reliable and if you like a light flywheel and lumpy cams, more difficult to drive.

Our attention now turns to the chassis. Lots of bracing was the first mod I did and it is IMO the smartest thing you can do to an MR2. It has no significant downside. The car rides, grips and handles better, rattles and wobbles much less and communicates with the driver in a way the standard car never will. Next up you will be thinking of going lower. Springs will take the ride height down a bit and will improve handling if the springs are a decent match to the damping. Trouble is dampers are then being run at one end of their stroke, so could be expected to fail a little earlier than stock sprung units. Whole suspension units can be replaced. Here the choices are more varied. There are reasonable soft units, a bit more sporty than stock, but with nice well controlled ride / handling balance. You want more grip, less roll? Stiffer springs and dampers, maybe stiffer anti roll bars. But wait, now that nice handling / ride balance has gone out of the window. That bumpy C road is no longer enjoyable, you drive down it waiting for something to grind into the tarmac or bounce down it with stiff springs hopping from peak to peak and hoping not to land in a dip, where the standard car would be compliant, comfortable and swift. Your short springs will have taken 30mm off your ride height and suspension travel. Hitting the bump stops will stress the shell out. Grit teeth, keep speed sane.

Wheels are the other thing we like to fit. Bigger = better? Not sure on this one. In the dry, having all that extra rubber on the ground may improve things, but when it rains, you need tyres with big void area to avoid aquaplaning. Added unsprung mass and reduced sidewall height make ride potentially less good. And wider = more drag. We may get more grip, but we may lose communication and nimbleness. Tyres, the good old RE040 or A043 are fine. We do of course fit all manner of other things to try and get more grip, better balance, more progression.

So last night, I embarked on a journey from the Suffolk coast back to Essex, the first proper journey I have done on clear roads since replacing the suspension and it got me thinking. The journey started with a mix of wet rural A and B roads. Surfaces middling to poor but not too lumpy. The standard car would have been good here, but the modified one was spectacular. Although there was a fair degree of movement that the standard setup would have smoothed over, the intimate road contact and responses undiluted by shell flex, long spring travel, roll and dive made making fast progress so much easier.

The journey than took a turn onto a deserted fast dual carriageway. The compromises here are more significant than the improvements when going in a straight line. More noise from the suspension on some surfaces and much more from the engine make cruising a pain until you are up to 3500 - 4000rpm. The car soaks up the ridges pretty well, not getting bounced about inside mainly due to the seats being in exactly the right place to let the shell rotate around the occupants backsides. It was fun watching the headlight beams (more modified stuff, very bright and white) projecting every movement of the road surface in fine and instant detail on the scene ahead.

Getting to a bypass, the string of roundabouts break the monotony and a driver we catch up with in an Octavia vRS is pressing on. It is wet and I don’t want to be pushing hard on the track focussed (more compromise) tyres, so we approach each roundabout in third and sweep through. That compromise on suspension comfort is worth every ripple as the enhanced handling enables us to take 50 yards out of him at each roundabout without trying. I reckon he can go faster, but he does seem to be having a struggle in the roundabouts then punting it up the straights. I have been watching his progress and know I will stay close to him up the straights if I get out of lazy mode, so on the last roundabout I decide we will use a bit of noise and go for second gear instead of third but he decides to go right and spoils the fun. The exit in second is finely balanced and grip easily felt as the diff shuffles the drive around on the slippery surface trying to eke out some traction from somewhere.

More dual carriageway now, still very quiet and with a few wet corners at 3500rpm + to come. The car reminds me so much of a motorbike on these bends. Stay off the white lines or get a shimmy on as the grip goes all vague on the paint. Feeeed it ever so gently in to avoid unsettling it. Caresss the steering wheel, barely holding the rim, feeling all the gentle writhing as the tyres do their thing down at the surface. Sqeeeeeze the throttle so gently to set the rear to the desired load and slip angle, feel the rear just gently squirming but settling as the suspension loads the outside rear. Bliss, absolute bliss. Then more monotony. Boring miles of noise and straight roads. Finally the slip road and back to some bends, a last treat before home. A subtle skim through some local favourites, it feels tricky, but it is fast, no doubt. Home, engine off, noise stops, the hush reveals a ringing in the ears. We climb out and I take a look back at the car before going indoors. It sits there under the streetlight, all streaked in dirt and grime from the filthy night, the aerodynamics clearly revealed in grey lines, the exhaust pinging as it cools, the car looking like a refugee from some sort of urban endurance race.

It is noisy, firm riding, cramped. It makes the journey an event though, something to not just take for granted. Something to be worked at, not just another car journey, the journey itself the focus of the drivers attention. The car’s focus is sharply defined and some way from the original designers intent. It wont be to everyone’s taste. Personally, I love it.

Chris

Thought provoking post Chris. I'll muse over the points and perhaps post back tomorrow

Steve

Wheels are the other thing we like to fit. Bigger = better? Not sure on this one. In the dry, having all that extra rubber on the ground may improve things, but when it rains, you need tyres with big void area to avoid aquaplaning. And wider = more drag.

at last, sombody else that actually agree's with me about wheels

interesting thread:thumbup:

I got to the same stage with my old Honda Prelude.

I fitted Tanabe coilovers, various strut braces, exhaust, engine mods and whilst it was an incredibly focused drive, day to day practicality went out the window!

When it came time to go down to one car, I had to go for something a bit more sedate but practical.

Still miss it today!

Good thought provoking post btw.

you should try writing a columb for a locan newspaper Chris nice reading

quality post Chris

i could live with a standard Fabia VRS most of the time , but for that occasional bit of back road fun i just couldn't drive and enjoy the car without the lowering springs and rear ARB , so car modding is always a compromise that most of us put up with

I think for me it's a combination of improving on the original, while creating something a little different and more individual. And at the same time trying to maintain as much day-to-day practicality and access to good fuel economy as possible

Day-to-day is the reason I've not fitted the uprated Jabba dog-bone mount on the Fab, for example...

Steve

I enjoyed that!

It does bring about some questions as to why people modify, but you've missed out (I believe) an important answer:

we modify so we can call the car our own

Nice prose that!

I agree - I've ruined the day to day comfort of mine with the dog-bone, but it makes a huge difference to the handling and feel pressing on.

I'm still not 100% convinced, but I rarely take backward steps so perhaps I'm stuck with it....infact it's made me want to go the whole hog and lower it.

Nice prose that!

I agree - I've ruined the day to day comfort of mine with the dog-bone, but it makes a huge difference to the handling and feel pressing on.

I'm still not 100% convinced, but I rarely take backward steps so perhaps I'm stuck with it....infact it's made me want to go the whole hog and lower it.

For what it is worth, IMO you should always use a dedicated strut / spring combination to lower a car rather than fitting springs. The labour is a bit easier on the pocket and if you get the right coilover kit, the results will be very impressive. Having adjustable dampers and properly adjustable ride height (so you dont lose stroke as you go lower) are a must.

Chris

A very good read that Chris, good stuff.

I think you've hit several nails on the head, the main one being that of compromise... very different personal requirements from a car means there will be an element of compromise somewhere for everyone.

at last, sombody else that actually agree's with me about wheels

interesting thread:thumbup:

i agree with you:thumbup: