merckx racer

I recently saw an MR-2 Spyder when in Fredricksburg Va. waiting for my
big truck to get repaired...cant beleive how easy my 6'4" fit into this car!

I LOVE small cars!..and this car at 2200lbs. is definetly quite a bit
lighter than my S at 2850lbs...of course it's only powered by 140HP and 130lb. ft.

cant wait to drive one...even though the tranny does puzzle me..apparently
a hydraulic clutch with sequential shift..maybe like BMW SMG?

thanks for any feedback!!

TRD_Celica

k20 swap!

thielepr

it weight closer to 2500lbs still very light. The automatic was a good one. It was a Manual transmision with an automatic clucht. But with the manual is was a lot more faster

dcmonkey

its a great car for a k20 swap, with that youll kick ass

aklucsarits

They are no where near that heavy, even with the automatic. The MR-S is closer to 2100 lbs, lighter than even an 1989 Miata.

The later years, 2004 and 2005 IIRC, had a factory LSD option, which is the one to have.

Andrew

vader1

I looked into them for a while, but never got a chance to have a good drive with one. The one dealer I found a used one at had a "salesman must be in the car at all times" and the salesman who came to help me looked like Jabba the Hut which hurt the power to weight ratio terribly on my test drive.

You might want to research swapping a Celica GTS engine into one. It is a very easy swap to the 180 horse. It essentially the same engine used in the Lotus Elise (but with lotus engine tuning). It basically becomes a poor mans Elise and is only a couple hundred pounds heavier in the end than the British automobile. And you can tune the engine to get the same 200hp found in the Elise.

The paddleshifted automatic is slow to find gears, if it were me I would look for a manual. You can also fairly easily find a car that has had the swap done if you look in the for sale section of SpyderChat or the IMOC (International Mr2 Owners Club) boards.

I owned a turbo Sw20 and found the IMOC board to be full of very nice helpful people.

Reliable as hell even after a swap if it is done right, and up to 40mpg reported by some because the car is so light weight.


I might be wrong,I thought most MR2 Spyders were 5spd manual, but you can get a six speed that mates to the celica engine. I forget the nomenclature of the engine but it is a "2zz" or something like that.

Mr.E.G.

I have a Miata and I really like Miatas, but I would be tempted to trade my Miata for one of these. And my Miata is no slouch. The reason I goyt the Miata is simply because the MRS was still in the $13k and up range when I was interested in buying a car that would see track use, and that was just too much money for something that was likely to get wadded up. I once heard someone say that you should never track a car that you wouldn't be willing to push off a cliff and I stand by that.

The MR2 Spyder has a longer wheelbase than the Miata, it has a wider track than the Miata, and it weighs less than the Miata. It out Miatas the Miata in every Miata category that the Miata Miatas well at... Miata.

As mentioned above, the 2zz engine is the swap of choice since the 1zz is really kind of lackluster. Think of it being synonymous with the k20 that's in the RSX-S vs. the k20 that's in the base model RSX. The 2zz revs higher, has higher compression, has a better variable valve timing whatsit doohickey, and is a more stout engine all around.

That being said, the factory engine responds well to boost and you're just a turbo kit away from reliable 250 whp. The Pontiac Vibe GT uses the 2zz engine mated to a six speed (I believe it has an LSD as well but don't quote me on that) and junkyards charge Pontiac prices, if you catch my meaning.

Mr.E.G.

I personally wouldn't go with the SMG, but it does rev match automatically which is kind of nice.

stockae92

except for trunk space (just yanking your chain, haha)

just some random thoughts ...

MR-2 is a more unquie car than miata. i bet a lot of people out there (non-car guys) didn't even pay attention to it.

miata does have an advantage of cheaper and abundance of aftermarket parts.

i would imagine miata to be more forgiving on driver error at or close to the limit (FR vs MR)

Mr.E.G.

Good points.