OT: Running problem on MR2T

Modern Sports Car blitzmr2@insightbb.com
Thu, 10 Oct 2002 22:30:45 -0500


Hello everyone. I lurk on the list as I love Sentra SE-Rs and plan on getting
one within the next 12 months or so, but I am currently having a problem with
my MR2 Turbo. I bgouht it in May and drove it home from Denver (the "for sale"
site the previous owner made can be seen here
http://home.europa.com/~trevor/mr2fs/ ). The next day the RPS Pressure plate
self-destructed under normal driving conditions (turns out it was faulty) so
the car was down for about 5 months while I got other aspects of the car in
order. I made many, many changes while it was down (dumb move). Among them:

-Had valve cover painted
-Went to tubular exhaust manifold and 40mm TiAL EWG
-Changed exhausts
-Added EGT and boost gauges
-Added Aquamist 2C WI (not online yet though)
-Changed oil, filter, cap, rotor, plug wires
-New downpipe
-Exhaust manifold and turbine housing on 20G turbo ceramic coated by Swain
-Probably 25 other small changes, most details and not mechanical
-Changed to HKS SSQV BOV

When I finally got the new clutch installed (Clutchmasters Stage III) it
wouldn't run right. I swapped out AFMs, etc and, well, I won't get too
detialed as I'm sure you guys aren't hugely familiar with the 3SGTE, but it
boils down to this: on cold starts it won't run -you start it and it idles up
fine for about 4-5 seconds, then immediately tries to die, rumbling, stumbling
and bumbling until I give it gas (or it dies, whichever happens first). If you
give it gas for about 5 minutes, until the engine warms, it will finally run
decent and is driveable but still revs flat and isn't right. I've checked
nearly every sensor in the engine, checked for codes, checked for vacuum leaks
and cannot find what's wrong. Anyone have any ideas? What could be wrong that
would make a car die when cold but get better, though still not perfect, when
warm? On a sidenote, I'm not sure if this is related or not, I have much more
lag than I used to, which isn't right. I only have a .5 BAR sprign in my EWG
so I'm obviously not looking for power (yet) but it's 5k before the turbo
hits, when it hit before around 3500-3800.

Anyone?

Terry Heick
Modern Sports Car
Heick Resources