The Honda Powered Toyota - K20 MR2

Back in 2017 I was contacted by a fan of the channel who owned a car they thought I’d be interested in. The car itself had no immediate draw, it was a Toyota MR2, third generation (the girly one). Seb, the owner of the MR2, knew that wasn’t the interesting part. This car was powered by a K20 engine from an EP3 Civic Type R, it was a ‘k-swapped’ MR2. That was interesting.

He asked if I’d like to make a video with the car, given that my channel was gaining traction at the time for being the home of the Nürburgring crashing K20 DC2. After a few messages back and forth, I found out that Seb worked at a BMW dealership, and it just so happened that my M3 was overdue for some recall work. I can’t remember what it needed exactly, probably the classic Takata airbag recall. I hadn’t met him before but we had a mutual friend, and he seemed trustworthy enough. He was also keen to get the M3 sorted so I’d stop receiving those annoying letters, as well as letting me make some videos with his MR2. 

We arranged to meet up one weekend, swap keys, and then meet up again a week or so later to do the same again. This wasn’t long after I’d bought the M3, it was still an original well presented example, but I’ve never been that good at keeping my cars clean. Seb was aware of this from watching my videos, and even suggested that he’d give the car a spruce up before returning it. This was all sounding too good to be true!

I hadn’t made much of a plan on what to do with the MR2. I had a bit of a problem fitting in it to start with, the driving position wasn’t ideal. These cars are pretty small inside and most folk will feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic at first. There was no doubt it was a cool thing, but from the outside there was nothing to really give that away. It still had that look of a soft weird small Japanese car that was trying to imitate a Porsche 996. My initial impressions of the car were mixed. The drive back to Harrogate involved some nice roads that could be made even nicer with a slight detour. I recorded myself driving down one of these roads for the first time.

I’d been down the lane before, I think, but this was my first time driving an ZZW30 MR2, nevermind a K20 powered one. The road wasn’t in perfect condition but the connection to the car was immediate. It’s interesting to watch myself back driving. There’s never been a time in my life where I thought I was a bad driver, nor did I ever think I was the best driver, but it’s clear watching back how things have improved. Perhaps it’s the result of ageing, but I can’t imagine having that much confidence in a car I’d just picked up from a stranger, especially on a road which was clearly not in perfect health. That’s youth for you. 

Anyway, I got the car home safe, and the next day headed over to Hull to meet up with Josh at HCR. He had not long since purchased a yellow Honda S2000, and we’d planned to go out that afternoon and make a video with the cars. He was even going to let me drive the S2000, big steps forward for our friendship. That video, “Is a K20 MR2 better than a Honda S2000?”, ended up being one of my more popular ones. The comparison is a fair one, they are very similar cars, just that the MR2 is slightly smaller and weighs less. Flat out over a lap with an experienced driver and even tyres, I don’t think there would be a lot in it. The MR2 would ultimately lap faster, but as a road car the S2000 would be the better choice. The cabin is just a nicer place to be. 

The third and final video I made with the MR2 before handing it back to Seb was a sprinted drive around North Yorkshire. I had enjoyed my time with the car, but was ready to get the M3 back. It was a lot of fun to drive no doubt, the engine and chassis matched well, but I was just never comfortable enough in the driver's seat to feel that confident in it. It didn’t help that the seat itself wasn’t the best, nor was it mounted very well. Seb hadn’t built the car, it was built by a Toyota enthusiast based near the Nürburgring. I don’t recall exactly if they were British or German, but the car was UK registered, and eventually found its way back to blighty. 

Looking back on those 3 videos was fun. That was over 7 years ago now, but I remember each day well. Handing the car back to Seb was bittersweet, until I noticed he’d kept his word on giving the M3 a good clean up. From then on it was only sweet, I’d had some fun in a cool car for a week, and came crashing back to reality by driving my freshly detailed dream car home. 

A few months later, towards the end of 2017, I got a text from Seb asking if I’d like to buy the MR2. He’d had some fun in it, but ultimately it wasn’t a car he enjoyed owning. He was more of an MX5 man. Fun fact, did you know the MX5 outsold the MR2 10:1? I think that stat is from the US, so it’s more like Miata vs Spyder, but it does put into perspective both the popularity of the MX5, and the subtle rarity of the MR2. 

The MR2 has a bit of a weird history, perhaps that’s why sales were so mixed. A brief overview; It started out as a unique idea, being Japan’s first mid-engined production sports car, the ‘W10’ was launched in 1984. With the 2nd generation (W20), Toyota seemed to try to move it up a class in performance, especially with the turbo model. The third generation (W30) seems like an attempt to go back to the basics of the first model, but whilst removing all the style that made the W10 special. It no longer had an interesting engine, and the design had no car park presence, it just blended in. I get the feeling Toyota didn’t know what they wanted the MR2 to be. Google suggests the W20 was the most popular by sales, my perception would agree with that, so I wonder why they changed the formula so much for the 3rd generation?

Some people regard the 3rd generation MR2 as a ‘parts car’. What that means is that they share a lot of components with other Toyotas. The front suspension was shared with the Yaris, and the running gear was shared with the Celica. Nothing too surprising from one of the world’s largest car companies. Toyota had a better engine that could have made the W30 more interesting, and the Celica got it, but for some reason the MR2 never did. I’ve seen rumours online that this was due to Toyota hoping to convince Lotus that the engine was suitable for their sports cars, and that might be true, but Lotus didn’t start using Toyotas until 2004. That’s 5 years after the MR2 was released.

Anyway, I didn’t know a lot about the car. Like most people, when I thought of the MR2, I thought of pop up headlights, more revisions than I could keep count of, and of course snap oversteer. Maybe I thought about the original car, briefly. They were featured on The Getaway, a legendary PS2 game that I’ve spent many hours with. I did not think about the third generation at all. 

So did I want to buy it? No, not really. I knew what the car had cost Seb, and I didn’t think the car had that value to me. Plus I’d only owned my M3 for 6 months, the DC2 had just gone off the road for rust repairs, and I was enjoying learning to drift in the E36. We passed a few texts back and forth, but I decided I wasn’t interested. 

I can’t remember the exact chain of events which followed that conversation, but a few weeks later I was on my way to Seb’s in the E36, ready to swap him my car and a decent wad of cash for the MR2. I loved that E36 and had some great times in it, but I’d decided that I wanted the MR2 more?

It was late December 2017 when I acquired the car. This was the month when the Audi died for good, and my daily at the time was the E36. This means that my daily would now be this MR2 which I didn’t fit into that well, offering less comfort than a stripped out drift car.

The first thing I did was to fit my Recaro Pole Position bucket seat from the DC2. This was an interesting time for the Integra. I wanted to rebuild it, as the years of learning to drive fast on track had not been very kind to the chassis. I’d also continued the habit of trying to do as much work on the car myself, meaning that a lot of wiring from the engine swap was messy. I will make a post about the DC2s descent into a barn ornament at some point, perhaps once it’s in reasonable condition and driving again. The Recaro made a big difference to the comfort levels inside the car, but it would take a lot of fettling before I was happy. 

I didn’t immediately do too much with the MR2, the early months of 2018 were mostly spent working on the M3 ahead of its first Nürburgring trip. It wasn’t until May that I was able to take the Toyota on a trackday, and it was then that I started to really appreciate this car for what it was. 

The track was Blyton Park, a circuit which some people love, and some people hate. It’s not an MSV circuit, and it doesn’t really have any heritage, but it’s another race track that we can visit and push the limits at. Actually calling it a race track might not be fair to others, as I’m not sure any racing actually takes place there. On track the limits of the MR2 were quite easy to find, and I felt in control driving the car up to and beyond them. Unfortunately I received some cautionary words about my driving, no drifting they said. One of my friends was standing on the bank and was able to capture me receiving a black flag for such tasks, caught in the act. It’s a great photo.

It wasn’t until late 2018 that things got a bit more serious for the MR2. I’d had some fun driving it on the road over the summer, especially if I was brave enough to take the roof off. The folding soft-top was long gone so departing without the hard top was always a roll of the dice. It was time to step the car up a gear though as I’d decided that I was going to take it to the Núrburgring the following April. This was back in the day where an annual trip to Germany was always on the cards. From 2013-2020 I’d made the trip across at least once a year, often multiple times. The M3 made its first trip in 2018, but the next year was going to be for the MR2. 

I still didn’t know a lot about the cars, only what I’d seen and felt. One thing I was never too happy with was the gearbox. The car had the gearbox from an EP3, with an Mfactory helical LSD installed. Helical LSDs are great, as long as you’ve never driven a car with a clutch plate type LSD. If you have, then the idea of an LSD having helical gears rather than clutch plates seems almost comical. 

To be clear there are 2x main types of mechanical Limited Slip Differentials, and they are called slightly different things sometimes, based on local dialect or branding, but an LSD will typically be either a clutch type (aka plated), or a helical type (aka torsen). The clutch type features variations such as 1-way, 1.5-way, 2-way. This refers to the way they operate.

Most cars don’t come with LSDs. The differential is a device that allows the driven wheels of cars to turn corners without skipping tyres, as the inside wheel will travel a shorter distance than the outside wheel, meaning less rotations. If they were forced to rotate the same amount whilst turning, this would cause binding, putting extra load on the drivetrain, until one of the tyres broke free. Differentials solve this by allowing the driven wheels to rotate at different rates. This becomes a problem in performance driving as there is nothing to stop one of the driven wheels spinning at a much higher rate than the other wheel if traction is lost. For example, if one of your driven wheels was on wet grass, and the other was on grippy tarmac, the torque would take the path of least resistance and be allowed to spin the tyre on wet grass.

Limited Slip Differentials try to combat this by limiting the amount of torque that can be sent to an individual wheel, if it is significantly greater than the load being received by the other wheel. As the tyre on the wet grass starts to lose traction, the LSD will attempt to transmit that energy to the other tyre. 

Typically if a car has a factory LSD, it will be Torsen type. In my experience anyway! Helical and Torsen are the same thing. For some reason OEMs tend to call them Torsen, and in the aftermarket they’re called helical. Not to sound too much like Alan Partridge but I think Torsen is the standard name, whilst helical is the common name. Anyway, it’s a mechanical LSD built from small helical gears, which attempts to stabilise traction by evening out the torque distributed to the driven wheels. It doesn’t rely on sensors, or and hydraulic pressure, it is simply mechanical.

Torsen LSDs are very nice to live with on a road car, typically you don’t notice they are there until you ask the car to perform. They do have some weaknesses however, for starters they are easy to overpower, and can often start to feel like you have no LSD at all on higher powered cars. They will also never be able to lock the axles together entirely. The helical gears cannot physically do that. 

Going back to the wet grass analogy, if you were to set off aggressively, you would be able to overpower the Torsen type and cause the wheel on the grass to spin at a much higher rate than the wheel on the tarmac. You would still be propelled forwards, which is where having no LSD at all might fail, but your axles would not be locked. 

On the road I noticed this in the MR2, especially when taking tight bumpy turns, in and out of junctions for example. Bumps are also a big problem for the helical type, as once the wheel becomes unloaded, the LSD is not going to be able to prevent most of the engine torque being sent to that wheel. If I were to hit a bump at full throttle, and the inside wheel were to become unloaded, I would notice the revs briefly climb as the engine was allowed to freely send an abundance of energy to the unloaded wheel. 

Exiting junctions also suffered a similar fate. In my M3 you’d be able to put your foot down in 1st gear, and if you wanted to, allow the back end to drift slightly wide as the rear wheels travelled slightly faster than the fronts. Often in the MR2 only one of the rear wheels would be doing anything, meaning the slide was merely a noisy screech from the tyre as it settled back down. That’s not the same thing.

So what was the difference? Both of the cars have LSD, right? Yes, but the M3 has a clutch-type LSD, which is able to lock properly, ensuring both axles are receiving the same amount of torque. This allows for not only more fun, but more control. Instead of helical gears, the clutch type LSDs feature several small metal plates, sandwiched together with friction discs. The initial reaction to slip between the two types is similar, but the clutch type is able to take much stronger action against the force. This means that with a clutch type LSD, providing it’s in good health, you shouldn’t be able to slip your tyre on the wet grass. Of course there are many factors to consider here, but those are the basics. 

Clutch ‘plated’ type LSDs do require maintenance, which is why they are rarely fitted to road cars other than the extra special ones. The most normal road car I can think of that has this would be the M3s, but even by the E46 they were watered down a bit. The E36 Evo featured a true clutch type LSD that might be the last of its kind. Many modern cars use E diffs, a combination of sensors and processing power. I’ve driven a few of them and they are surprisingly good, but nothing beats a clutch type.

Back to the MR2 then, I’d bought a new gearbox for it, now featuring a clutch type LSD. It also had a shorter final drive, something that I thought the car desperately needed. I was basically just copying what I’d done to the DC2 a few years prior. The Honda engines are great, but a great naturally aspirated engine deserves a great gearbox, and that’s what I’d bought. It was advertised as having a 5.8 ratio final drive, the standard ratio being 4.7. I later found out from the original owner that it was actually a 5.4 ratio which makes sense on reflection.

You can think of the final drive ratio as the front cog on your mountain bike. You make one change there, the effort to spin all of the gears on the rear cassette changes. The number, 4.7, is how many rotations of the input shaft will be required before the output completes one revolution. Increasing this number makes the amount of rotations higher, which increases the amount of torque being delivered to the wheels, resulting in faster acceleration. The engine is still making the same amount of power, but the gearbox is now delivering it slightly differently. 

Installing this gearbox into the MR2 made a huge difference to performance, but it did start to cause problems elsewhere. The clutch type LSDs are more aggressive in all regards and this can cause issues with drive shafts. I’d assume that a car fitted with a clutch type LSD will see the lifespan of these parts reduced due to the shock loads, but I don’t have any facts for that. 

The shafts which the MR2 had fitted were some custom made items from the USA. I think there are some better off the shelf alternatives these days, but that’s what was fitted to my car. Spare parts didn’t exist, and full replacements were expensive, somewhere around £500 if I remember rightly. I’d rebuilt drive shafts enough times for the DC2 even before that car had the K20 and plated LSD, so had a go at fixing it myself. 

My issue was the outer CV joint, the piece of the puzzle that transmits the energy to the wheel hub. I’d managed to break one pissing about on the road testing the new gearbox. I ordered a replacement Toyota part to see if that would fit, but it wouldn’t. Driveshafts are composed of a metal rod, which has splined teeth on either end, that mates with constant velocity (CV) joints. In order to replace this I would need to find a joint with the exact diameter and tooth count of the custom drive shaft, something that would be nearly impossible.

I’ll admit that in life, throughout various ups and downs, I do sometimes get lucky. This was one of those times. I was going through my broken driveshaft collection from the Integra, and by sheer chance a broken outer CV joint from the Integra mated to the custom drive shaft. I was in disbelief. This was amazing, but it was only half the story. The CV joint would also need to match the spine count on the other end, into the wheel hub. Surely the MR2 doesn’t share the exact spline count and diameter of an Integra Type R?

It did, somehow this broken old part that I’d kept for reasons known, was the solution to my problem. It was also a part shared with all B series Hondas, so parts were plentiful. I managed to find a guy who lived about half an hour away, who had some spare shafts from a Civic, and sold them for basically nothing. The £500 bill was now less than £50, and that included buying new boots and grease for the joints.

Also installed were some new Hardrace rear camber and toe arms, as one of the rear arms on the MR2 has a balljoint that isn’t replaceable. Therefore if it fails like mine did, you have to replace the full arm. It’s lovely when they do that isn’t it. I decided to upgrade to Hardrace, giving me some extra adjustability at the rar, but also because they looked cool. Quite a few things on the MR2 don’t have aftermarket support other than tuning parts. Some suspension items you’ll find are either dealer only or aftermarket modified versions, rather than having companies remake the original parts. The camber arms introduced a new problem. To achieve more camber they pushed the bottom of the hub out rather than rotating it. The MR2 has McPherson strut designs on both the front and the rear. The front is very traditional, the rear less so. There is no way from the factory to adjust the rear camber, and these arms do allow you to do that, but it’s not ideal. The pivot point is the pillowball top mount of the rear coilover, so when you push the hub out, both the bottom and the top of the wheel go with it. The bottom of the wheel travels more than the top of the wheel, so camber is gained, but this also means with the hub being further from the gearbox, the driveshafts are now potentially too short. I think this had something to do with my CV joint failure! The top of the wheel was now closer to the wheel arch too, meaning I was limited by how much camber I could add. On reflection camber bolts would have probably been a good addition here to help the hub rotate some. 

Anyway teething problems aside,, the new gearbox was worth it. If you haven’t driven a strong N/A engine like the K20 with a short gear kit, then you are missing out on one of life’s great pleasures. It’s hard to keep the speed down on the road though as now the car really wants you to rev it, change gears, then keep going. The final multiplication of torque has changed, transforming the character of the car completely. 

It’s almost time to go to the Nürburgring. I spent a bit of time going over the car, making some changes here and there. I upgraded the brake pads from Ferodo DS2500s to Carbotech XP10s. The DS2500 actually worked quite well in the MR2, I know they are a bit of a marmite pad generally speaking. The Carbotech was a brand I was unfamiliar with, but I knew was the favourite of the MR2 Championship, a club motorsport series I’d become aware of since owning the car. I also fitted a Hybrid Racing gear shifter, and changed the seat once again to a different Recaro, this time an SPG. It was around that time I made my first contact with Rogue Motorsport, the team I’d later race with in the MR2 championship. I think they supplied the seat rail to fit the Recaro, I needed something as low and as far back as possible, and their mount fitted the bill. 

Another thing that needed sorting was a fresh pair of boots. The wheels it came on were some 2 piece JDM wheels but I can’t recall the brand, I think it was Work. I’d never liked the look of them. They weren’t totally disgusting but it wasn’t my vibe. They were also only 7” wide, and I wanted something fatter on the rear. The tyres fitted to the car were Yokohama AD08R, a tyre I was familiar with, but the tyre size was a reasonably small 205/45/16 on all 4 corners. I’m not a big fan of having the same size tyre on both axles on any of my cars. I think it’s a compromise people accept to make changing tyres easier. Most cars will perform better with staggered tyre sizes. 

I went to see some friends in Darlington to try on a set of Team Dynamics, but ended up not being 100% happy with the visuals.

Buying wheels is something that I’ve always enjoyed. Good wheels will transform how a car looks, but bad wheels will restrict its potential. There’s always been a favourite wheel of mine and I’d managed to find a set of 4x for sale in the right fitment, but one of them was cracked. No bother, I only needed 2x and the price was fair. The wheels were in Wales and I was driving the Volvo at the time, not the most economical car in the world, but a lovely place to be for hours on end. The chap selling the car ended up being a breaker of Mk1 MR2s, and his front lawn was littered with about 40 of them. 

Those were the rear wheels, a set of Volk Rays TE37, 16” across, 8” wide. This would allow me to comfortably run a 225/45/16 tyre in the rear. For the front, Josh had a set of wheels laying around that I liked the look of. They were from another Japanese company that I hadn’t heard of previously, A-tech. The model was called “Final Speed” if I remember rightly. The wheels weren’t forged like the TE37s, but were a smaller size, and would carry a smaller tyre, so the overall weight would still be less. These would be my front wheels, 15” diameter, 7” wide, and wearing tyres size 205/50/15. 

The hot new tyres at the time were Nankang’s AR1, a tyre still loved by many today. I was chatting regularly with a certain tyre reviewer at the time, and he put me in touch with someone at Nankang UK where I’d hopefully get a deal on a set of tyres in exchange for some promotion on my channel. Unfortunately this went nowhere further than an introduction. I’ve never been that good at selling myself, I do realise the potential and influence I could and do have with products, but starting a relationship is always hard unless the person at the other end is already a fan of what I do. I think most creators find this. It’s if the brand wants you, not if you want the brand. 

After hearing nothing back from Nankang I just bought the tyres anyway. I know, poor influencer having to pay for a product themselves, with no discount or special rate, the horror. This was before I was monetising my channel, before the Patreon etc. I was just doing it as a hobby on the side. Nowadays I have that extra income from my supporters so those cringe emails are a thing of the past. Not that I sent that many, but I think Nankang, SGS Engineering, Toyo Tires, and Opie Oils were the ones I reached out to. None of them got back to me!

As was traditional before heading out to the ‘ring, I booked a trackday at Cadwell Park to test the car out. If you’re not familiar with Cadwell Park then you need to have a wander around my channel, but just know some people call it the “mini Nürburgring”. It’s a narrow track with plenty of undulation, making it a great place to test not only your car, but yourself, prior to heading into the continent. 

The return to Cadwell passed without too many issues, but it did highlight some weaknesses. Firstly, this was when the drive shaft problems that I explained earlier started to rear pop up. I was also experiencing some moments where VTEC wouldn’t engage, or would drop out whilst cornering. VTEC engagement is reliant on oil pressure, so drop outs would indicate an oil pressure problem. The fact that it was happening during cornering indicated that it was perhaps a problem with the sump baffle. A baffle is used to limit a liquid from being able to “slosh” about at free will. Most of our fuel tanks tend to have them to some degree, but not often sumps. Once you start fitting sticky tyres to a track car, the extra G force from cornering faster can cause the oil in the engine’s sump to briefly move to either side of the sump. The oil pickup is usually in the middle of the sump, or thereabouts, but if the pickup cannot collect the oil due to the oil sloshing about, you will lose oil pressure. 

This is especially bad for FWD cars with transverse engines, as there is more space side to side for the oil to find when cornering. The engine layout of the MR2 is mid-engined, and it’s the rear wheels that are driven, but the platform is essentially the same as a FWD car. Both the original 1ZZ and the now installed K20 engines are from FWD platforms, so a sump baffle would be required. Upon inspection it turned out that the car already had a baffle installed, but the welds had failed, so it was simply a case of rewelding the plate back in. I think what I did instead was to steal the Spoon baffled sump from the DC2s engine, path of least resistance and all that… 

With that fixed I headed back to Cadwell for another test, this time also testing some of the new wheels too. I hadn’t yet fitted the AR1s, they would be saved for the ‘ring. Everything went well, the oil pressure issues were solved, and the day was problem free. Disaster this time waited until I was on my way home, cruising up the A1 motorway. I tend to give people a wide berth ahead of me on motorways. That makes me vulnerable to people wanting to switch lanes, but I prefer it over staying too close to the car in front and having to use the middle pedal. 

I’ve always considered the brake pedal as a waste of energy, especially on the motorway. I can’t remember what led me into this thinking, it might have been something Clarkson said or I read in a magazine, but I recall one day realising that whilst trying to increase the economy in my 320d, the first car I owned that recorded my fuel economy. I’ve had this on my list to make a video about for a while. I think braking less will make you a better driver.. It might be one of the things that gave me extra confidence when I started track driving. But yes, I don’t like the middle pedal so much.

This often leads to people tailgating me on the motorway. Some people just like being up close and personal with the car in front, it’s not for me, I think it’s pretty dumb. The Rogue Motorsport seat rails I’d fitted to the MR2 made sure I was nice and low, but that meant a tall modern car behind was prime for blinding me if it got too close. As the traffic cleared ahead I dropped a cog and pulled away to rid my peripheral vision of the bright lights. After a short burst I gazed behind me to observe the levels of gappaccino that had been achieved. If you didn’t know, modern retina piercing headlights are also really good at illuminating smoke, especially white smoke. As I looked in my rear view mirror that’s what I saw, a plume of very well illuminated white smoke. Something had gone very badly wrong. 

I wasn’t far from the Wetherby exit, so decided to coast off the motorway, get out of harm's way, and then assess the issue. As I’d been to the track the car was full of tools and spares, so hopefully whatever it was I could fix. What had happened however was not going to be something I could fix at the side of the road. The thermostat housing had snapped. With the engine in the rear and the radiator in the front, the MR2 has a cooling system more complicated than your average car, especially with an engine conversion. 

How does a thermostat housing just break? This wouldn’t be the first time I’d ask myself that question. Not long after buying the green E36 I was driving to work and experienced the same problem. “Bloody plastic thermostat housings!” is what you might say, if you were from that era where trusting plastic was about as likely as trusting someone who didn’t speak English on holiday. The E36 issue was caused by over tightening the housing, leading to a crack in the plastic. A very common issue, and not the fault of the plastic. I replaced it with a metal housing of course. 

The MR2s issue was different. How could changing gear and accelerating cause the thermostat housing to break? When you think about it, quite easily, if say an engine mount were to be loose. That’s exactly what had happened, a bolt in one of my ‘torque’ mounts, the engine mounts that try to stop the engine from rotating when load is applied, had broken. This was allowing the engine to rock, and the energy from the attempted ‘drop a gear and disappear’ resulted in enough sway to yank the hose connected to the thermostat housing, snapping it clean off. 

I didn’t have spares for this, and accessing this part of the engine was hard enough when the K20 is installed where it should be, nevermind in an MR2. This was before I had my car trailer, and it would be this event that convinced me that it was time to invest in one. I don’t recall how I got the car back, I think I drove it back, switching the car off every couple of miles to let it cool down. I just checked Google Maps now and that would have been just over 10 miles of driving. Yikes… 

I bought the car trailer shortly after, I didn’t want to drive the car to Germany, or to risk having it break down over there and not be able to get it back. The drive shafts were still a concern too. I didn’t have any spares, and wouldn’t make it very far if one failed. I didn’t own a vehicle that could tow it, but one of my friends had offered me their Mercedes Benz ML270. These are the most suitable cars for pulling horse boxes since we stopped letting them drive. The ML was very frugal, built on a ladder chassis, it was basically a truck underneath.

I drove over to Germany with Josh, Pete, and Kev. I was in the ML, Josh and Pete were in Josh’s Civic, and Kev was in his Integra. It took Pete just one stop before he ditched his son and jumped in the ML with me. I thought that was a good idea anyway as technically I wasn’t supposed to be towing, and maybe if I had someone in the car who had a grandad licence, the police might be more lenient? 

The MR2 was still road legal, so after arriving I got the car off the trailer, stashed that at a local garage, and drove back to the apartment. Having a normal car such as the ML over there as a support car was a life changer. Part of the experience of being on holiday in that part of the world is going for food or drinks with your mates, and all driving your own cars, because nobody has a car that can transport more than 2 people at once. That soon becomes a pain in the arse after a few visits, but now we could take everyone in the 1x vehicle, what a time to be alive.

The Nürburgring trackday came first, as was priority. This would be the 4th year in a row that I’d attended the Circuit Days April trackday. As I write this it’s 2025 and this year will actually be the first time returning to that since 2019. Josh’s Civic EK was in another realm by this point, turbocharged and being the first car he’d started to play with aero on. But Kev’s DC5 was a good match for the MR2. On paper the MR2 should walk away, but Kev’s DC5 had a fair bit of development behind it by this point, and Kev’s not scared of pushing on around there. 

I was a bit less confident, worried that the car might break, or that I might crash it. That meant that over a lap we were very even, and we were able to not just have a great day, but also make some great battle videos at the same time. 

Towards the end of the day after completing 20 laps or so, I went out for one final lap before the chequered flag was flown. My car started to vibrate as I went through Flugplatz, and towards Schwedenkreuz as my speed increased it seemed to get worse. This was the high speed section not far after starting the lap, an awkward time to have a problem. As this was a trackday breaking down on track wasn’t too much to worry about. You wouldn’t be charged for recovery like you would on a tourist lap, but it might take a while. I thought one of my wheels might be about to fall off so I pulled over as soon as I saw a suitable spot, and was able to get my car behind the barriers to give the wheels a shake. 

I’d stopped on the outside of Schwedenkreuz, one of the most dangerous parts of the track, right on the 5km marker. It was towards the end of the day and I wasn’t too sure what to do about recovery, but fortunately a marshal pulled up to tell me that the day had ended and asked wtf I was doing parked there. I explained my predicament, but as the car was drivable and I wasn’t too sure what was wrong, I asked if he would follow me as I limped it down towards the Adenau exit. He agreed, and the car initially drove fine once back on the track, but i was noticing a vibration under load from the rear. 

I made it back to our digs, jacked the car up, but was unable to find anything. This was very annoying as we’d planned to visit the GP circuit that night. The GP track is a rare treat over there, access is granted the similar way a tourist lap of the Nordschleife is, but instead of 1x lap of the green hell you get 15 minutes of tracktime on the GP circuit. It’s always a laugh, cars, bikes, anything goes. They seem to have a more lax approach to overtaking in Europe than we do in the UK. We’re expected to give permission over here, and only overtake when it's safe to do so, typically on the straights. In Europe it seems to be, overtake wherever you are faster than the other guy.

With no obvious cause for the vibration, I decided it was probably the inner CV joint based on the symptoms. I’d had this before with the Integra, I think more than once. Vibration under load? It’s probably the inner CV joint. The only issue is I didn’t have a spare one of those, but I knew someone who did. It wasn’t something I’d be able to fix in time for the GP track that evening though and this would be my only chance of the trip to drive there. 

I decided to just drive it anyway and see what happened. If the vibration got so bad that the CV joint exploded, it might cause damage to the gearbox since it was that side of the shaft which was grumbling, but that was unlikely. One of the joints felt considerably looser than the other when giving them a shake but neither were leaking grease from the boots. The car was drivable, I figured I could manage it either way. I was very glad I attended the track that night. Me and Kev had lots of fun battling through the traffic together, and although the vibration from the axle wasn’t pleasant, it didn’t seem to be getting worse.

There were some other lads at the ‘ring that we knew, one of which had an EP3 and he’d brought spare driveshafts with him. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to make it work on my car but it was worth a punt. He agreed to sell me one so the next day I drove over to where they were staying and collected it. Fortunately I was able to make it work with my custom driveshafts, it seems they were built from the factory Honda inner CV design which makes sense, and I was obviously grateful for. I had the car fixed and back out for tourist laps the next evening, where me and Kev once again went toe to toe. 

 

Some other pics from the trip:

Upon returning from that trip I had some decisions to make. The four cars in my ownership all had purpose, but something was missing. The Volvo was a great daily, the MR2 had just proved to be excellent fun, if not a bit temperamental. The DC2 was still receiving love by this point, having had its rust repaired and recently receiving a nice new roll cage. Then the M3, which I’d owned for 2 years at this point, was still firmly my favourite and the novelty of owning my dream car hadn’t worn off yet. But something was missing.

This would be the year I turned 27 years old. I’m quite a fan of music and the 27th year of many musicians' lives is their last. It was a time where I realised my age and dwelled a lot about life. The past few years had been tough, and I didn’t feel like I was going anywhere. I had another trackday in the MR2, this time to Anglesey. This would be the first time towing with the new daily driver, the Audi A6. I wrote about my daily drivers in another post, but once the trailer appeared the requirements for this role changed, and the Audi was the car that I thought best to fill it. 

The MR2 wasn’t faultless at Anglesey. Just before the lunch break the engine cut out as I exited a corner, coupled with a strong smell of fuel. One of the fuel pipes from the tank had popped off. It was quite a warm day, I figured that was probably the reason why. These days with a few more years experience behind me, I’d like to think more alarm bells would be going off, but not then. I also drove a certain black E46 M3 on track, this would be the same car that I would end up buying a few years later. Perhaps if Tom wouldn’t have let me drive it then I wouldn’t have been tempted to buy it when I did, saving myself some headaches. 

Whilst staring down the barrel of a silver king skin one night, I started to ask myself how long I wanted to continue living like I was. Although a lot of fun had been had on track over the years I was finding the efforts made didn’t return the same sort of fulfilment that they once did. I enjoyed driving fast, but wondered if there could be a way of doing that which had a more redeeming feeling at the close of play. 

I’d seen some chatter online about a form of motorsport called ‘sprints’. These were timed events where the goal was to complete a course quicker than anyone else in your class. Similar to a hill climb, but hosted on circuits I was familiar with, such as Blyton Park. This was the venue where I’d completed my very first trackday in the MR2, and there was a sprint event coming up there that I decided to enter. 

The class structure would be slightly overbearing, I seem to recall there being almost as many classes as cars. I was entering as a guest, something which was encouraged by the motor club for newbies who wanted to test the water and see if they enjoyed the sport. This meant even if I did win my class, I wouldn’t be eligible. It did allow me to see where I’d stack up though. 

Blyton Park is a good circuit for such an event, mostly because entrance to the circuit is controlled by a traffic light. A prop that could be reused to signify the start of a timed lap. The paddock area is mostly flat, mostly paved, and the cafe is pretty good. If you’re interested you’ll be able to hear about my views on circuit cafes in an upcoming post. 

I attended the event with some people that I’d met since moving to Harrogate, notably my old next door neighbour. The day starts with a practice run, which seemed to be more like a legal requirement such as sighting laps on a trackday. After that the rest of the day is spent sprinting. I think I made around 5-6 runs throughout the day. I probably could have done more, but had to spend some time fixing the Toyota. As was becoming traditional, the MR2 had decided that having fun was simply too much fun. The car had been feeling funny all morning but I’d blamed this on having to drive flat out from the pits with a cold car. You could get your engine warm in the paddock but there was nowhere to warm up anything else. I didn’t like having to warm up my engine by idling it either, but it was better than nothing. I was fighting a lot of oversteer, and generally finding the car was much more of a handful than normal, and it was getting worse with every lap.

I also seemed to be exceeding the circuit’s noise limit requirements. The MR2 wasn’t a loud car, but as I passed the decibel reader the engine was just at the right frequency to ping the meter. Tracks usually have strict agreements with their local council for this kind of thing, so after my second warning was stated to be my last, I decided to have a break from driving and see if I could figure out what was causing the car to drive as it was. 

One of the lads who’d come down from Harrogate was an MOT tester. You know that push, pull, tug thing that mechanics do when they’re looking for play in a wheel? I hadn’t mastered that skill yet and was unable to find any problems with the car. Matt had a go, and immediately found that if you pulled or pushed either of the rear wheels whilst holding your hands at 12 and 6 (top and bottom), you could feel something. The subframe that supports the rear of the engine, and links the rear camber and toe arms from the hub to the chassis, had come loose. It’s connected to the frame of the car by 4x large bolts, luckily all 4 of them were still present, but they weren’t exactly tight. 

This discovery was both good and bad. Good that the problem was a relatively easy fix, but bad because this meant that my wheel alignment would now be incorrect. I was geo-curious by this time in life, I understood what all the things did, but wasn’t aligning my own cars yet, and definitely wasn’t going to be able to align the car in the paddock. The wheels might not have been pointing where they should be but at least now this parameter wasn’t dynamic. The bolts were tight, I checked the other ones I could reach, and went out for another run. The difference was immediate. The car still felt loose, but now it was cold tyres loose, not “wtf is happening” loose. It was manageable. 

I enjoyed the Sprint day. This would be the first time I’d pushed myself in a competitive environment, against more than just myself for once. Even though I was a guest entry so my time didn’t really count for anything, it was good to reflect on how I drove, how I felt I could go faster, then trying to apply that throughout the day. It was probably a good thing on reflection that my car was a little noisy, as that led to me taking a time out and finding the problem with my car. Otherwise I might have driven all day with the loose subframe, never getting close to the real potential of the car, or at worse binning it. 

There were elements I didn’t enjoy though. Thrashing the car from a standing start wasn’t cool. My mechanical sympathy score is quite high generally and this sport is a real test of that. If you could jack up the driven wheels of the car and run it in gear for 10 minutes or so before going out, this would go a long way to getting your transmission and engine into a nice temperature window. I’m not one of these numpties who will sit in their car on a morning waiting for it to warm up before driving to work, but in this environment where you’re going from a standing start to attack mode, fresh out of the pits, I didn’t feel comfortable. Once you set off obviously most of this is forgotten about until you stop, although I did have the occasional gear crunch which made my heart bleed smelly transmission oil. Cold brake pads and tyres are less than ideal, but you can at least fit some different types that will work better from stone cold. You can’t do that with an engine or gearbox. Perhaps an electric car could be a good thing to sprint… 

Thanks, but no thanks. The Sprint Series wasn’t for me. I’d later that month go to Croft Circuit to see the Toyota MR2 Championship in action. My first time seeing club motorsport IRL. You know how that ends up, the story of which will be featured in another blog post discussing how I got into racing.

The final event for the K20 MR2 saw me in Scotland. I’d had fun sliding the car around on trackdays, but that’s an activity which is often frowned upon by the officials. I wanted to take the car on a drift day, and a friend of a friend was hosting a private hire day at Driftland. The cars on this drift day were the usual crowd, Silvias, MX5s, BMWs. The MR2 didn’t look too out of place. It takes skill and balls to be good at drifting. It’s a lot of fun, but there’s a very real risk of having a bad crash if you’re not careful. 

Cars built for drifting will typically have extended steering lock, allowing the front wheels to turn much further than a normal road car, and hydraulic handbrakes to lock the rear wheels with. I didn’t, but I did have the clutch type LSD and was hoping that combined with a bit of bravery would carry me through. My LSD was 1.5 way, which is not the one you’d want for drifting, that would be a 2 way. The difference being that the 2 ways will lock aggressively on deceleration, as well as acceleration, allowing the driver to use this to promote oversteer on corner entry. If not, they could give the hand brake a tug. 

Anyway, I wasn’t going there to win any awards, I just wanted a safe space where I could go and have some fun in the MR2. I didn’t at the time know that it would be my last outing in the car, but the writing was on the wall. Drifting is one of the more violent things you can do in a car. To keep your car at the right angle, on the right line, you need to use the throttle, the clutch, and the brake, sometimes at the same time. There was plenty of scope for the MR2 to break down given its track record at other events recently, but I ended up completing the day without a single issue other than a few dead tyres! I wouldn’t recommend anyone use an MR2 for drifting, but it certainly was a good time and I’m glad I did it. 

I’d hinted at selling the car online and a potential owner popped up from Barcelona. The guys were part of a group we’d previously met at the Nürburgring one year and stayed in touch. 3 of them ended up flying over, 2 of which were intending to buy a car. Robert was here to buy Josh’s S2000, and Cristian was here to buy my MR2. If I remember rightly, Anton was also there, but he’d just come over for shits and giggles. 

The MR2 decided to misbehave twice whilst the lads were having a look over it. I picked them up from Leeds Bradford Airport and drove them up to the barn to collect the MR2. I’d already put it on the 2-post lift so they could have a proper look over it. Whilst the car was idling on the lift, with myself and the other lads underneath it, the fuel hose that popped off a few months ago at Anglesey decided that once again, it was time to leave the chat. I can’t remember which of us were covered in fuel, let’s assume everyone. We ended up tracing the problem to a blocked fuel breather, which made sense as I remembered noticing the occasional sound of pressure escaping from the tank when removing the fuel filler cap. For the time being we just removed the 1-way valve, and that solved it. 

There was another thing that happened, but for the life of me I can’t remember. I think it was a coolant leak. It was something that was annoying as had I noticed it myself, with more time I could have easily fixed it, but also would be concerning to notice before driving the car 1800km back home. 

The lads were in good spirits otherwise, I think. Obviously I had no idea what they were saying in Spanish, but they paid for the car and seemed happy enough. I then drove them to Hull with the MR2 following so that the S2000 could be collected, which would be a good test for the MR2. It passed, no further issues popped up, and it made it all the way to Barcelona without issue. The last I heard about the car was that it had now been converted to LHD, and was painted purple. I hope it’s still being used on track and isn’t being too troublesome for its current owner. 

That’s the story of my K20 MR2, I bought the car because I loved the engine, but in some ways ended up becoming a bigger fan of the chassis. I’ve driven a few cars now and nothing steers like a W30. The money from selling the car would go straight into building the race car and competing in the Toyota MR2 Championship, something that I’ve been doing ever since.

I would definitely consider another Honda powered MR2 in the future. Toyonda I think the previous owner called it. The format could make for a strong contender in rally, race, or even a ringtool, which is where the story of this car began. Many people compare these cars with a Lotus Exige. That’s not really fair one the Lotus, but it shows how small the market segment is, especially with no MGF to compete with. 

Should you buy an MR2? I think you should definitely drive one if you get the chance. I haven’t driven a W10 and they are 40 years old now so perhaps not something you could really thrash around, but the 2nd and 3rd gens are still plentiful. The W20 might have been the best selling, the best looking, and the fastest, but the driving experience of the W30 is much better. I’ve been fortunate enough to drive both cars back to back. If it wasn’t for the Toyota badge you’d have a hard time believing the cars were related at all. 

Lured by the engine, loved by the chassis. The K20 MR2.