New AW11 to the forum :-)

[MC_BigMike]

Hello TN!

I am new to the forum and posted a bit about myself here BigMike from Marlin Crawler checking in!

In 1999 when I was 18 my father bought my first car, a 1987 MR2, for just $350 with a blown engine. It had been my dream to own one ever since I had micromachines and have been an avid AW11 owner since. He helped me swap in a good wrecking yard engine and I slowly began learning all I could with the car. Everything else is pretty much history

I've owned five AW11s over the years and have done two California referee approved Supercharged conversions including my own.

I used to be quite active on the original MR2 mailing list (yes, before the age of forums!), the original MR2 owners club forum and the MR2FAQ.com forums before they all crashed. I'm sort of a relic who used to frequent with the likes of Tracy Arakaki, Carl Valderama, Mo Moscovitz, Stephen Gunter, and Bryan Heitkotter (Bryan is still a close personal friend of mine).

In 2004 I put my MR2 in storage, and just last May pulled it back out and rebuilt it with a 1988 4A-GZE S/C engine. It's once again my daily driver / weekend mountain warrior and I love the car to death. It's awesome to still be driving my very first car after all these years!

Well enough chattering, here are some old pictures from the turn of the century














The peak of my car was when I built an intercoolerless AE92 JDM 4A-GZE using N/A intake and larger throttle body with a SC14 pushing 17.5 PSI boost with a homemade 3 stage water/alcohol injection system. I ran this with a close ratio C56 AE89 transaxle. The details of it can be found here: http://bigmike.marlincrawler.com/stage2_5/index.html









I then decided to build a custom 20-valve quad throttle body intake manifold on a ported small port high compression 16-valve 4A. It was a lot of fun but I was growing up and needed to get something more practical, and that's why I retired the car and put it up in storage in the foothills near Corsegold circa 2004. Here are some pics from the side draft engine that I had a lot of fun with:













License plate "20V PWR"





Since all of this, I've brought the car out of storage, did another smog legal S/C conversion, and have been slowly restoring it to stock. I'm even running the stock air box at the moment HAHAHAHA Hard to believe I am driving the car around with a fully stock engine. Time sure has changed!!

Here it is now as of last month:


Here it is with my '81 511:1 3RZ-FE powered Rock Crawler:




I believe its in pretty good condition considering all it's been through, sitting outside uncovered in the Fresno foothills for 6 years with squirrels and mice making it their home... Seriously I had to replace so many chewed up wires! Even complete looms!

The only real noteworthy modification at the moment is a custom hybrid C56/C60 6-speed transaxle I built a few months ago. The super close 1st-5th gears are a complete BLAST to use with the wide powerband of the Supercharged engine! I LOVE IT! It's like I'm rowing a boat with the shifter!

Anyway, I'm happy to be a member here on TN and look forward to hanging out. If you live in the Fresno, CA area and wanna hit some mountain roads, let me know! I'm also in the south bay area almost every weekend and I'd love to meet other MR2 owners and go on some drives. Having the car back on the road has brought back so many memories and it's such a blast to be living the dream once again with my very first car!

Regards,
BigMike

[MR2Jedi]

Good read.
Once again, Welcome to TNation.

[mazdaverx7]

Very nice MR-2!! glad to see you still have your first AW11! its cool to see the progress you've made with the car. these cars are hard to come by in my neck of the woods.