MR2 Championship

First i,ll apologise for the slightly long first newbie post

I,m just starting a new build with a view to joining you folks next season
After a spell of track days in a rev1 t bar and clubman bike racing i,ve decided to combine the two and race a car ( bikes hurt more now).

I,ve just purchased a rev 2 tin top auto import and not sure what parts should stay or go,
i,m going to sacrifice the rev 1 to convert the auto to a manual , and obviously being auto and import its got loads of gadgets that can go in the bin ,
but i,m not sure if i should keep the power and adjustable steering or swap it for the rev1,s non power

I liked the feel of the rev1 on the track and i dont want to lose any feel or dull it down, plus there,s also the weight aspect.

If any of you chaps have got any other advice or a quick list of parts to bin off the rev2 or swap from the rev1 ,it would be a great help

Cheers ,Tony

please help with the steering advice chaps, the builds well on the way

how many of you have kept the power steering ( have i much to gain from binning it )

i,m sure it cant be that top secret

when i started in bikes i most of the advice i took was from the other competitors and it put me on the right tracks

mr2,s are pretty new to me so any advice would be welcome

I had raced Funcup cars which don't have power steering and it was quite hard work!

I do like the p/s on my MR2.

One driver raced without it at Snett (not through his choice) and after that I believe decided to fix it and keep it on his car. You can draw your own conclusions from that

If you search this forum I think you will find most of the answers you are looking for. Alternatively you can just hand your car over to one of the experts on here and sit back and relax

thanks andrei, so most folks keep it then

relax maybe when we introduce a 31 hour day

Power steering is standard on almost all versions of the MR2, only revision 1 UK models (89 - 91) and rare Japanese "G" grade cars were equipped with non-power steering. Having raced with both I would say that my preference was for the non-power steering setup, but not to the extent that I would retro-fit it to a power steering equipped car.

We did have one driver in the past who preferred to have the power steering disabled, which we did by disconnecting the relay to the pump, but this is different to having a non-PS rack.

If you want to get some more opinions, pop along to a race. Clive Morphett has recently changed from a revision 1 UK non-PS car to a Japanese revision 3 with PS. Guy Hefford currently drives a "G" grade revision 3 Japanese non-PS car and would be another good person to get an opinion from. To the best of my knowledge, everyone else in a mk2 has power steering!

Of course, there are a couple of advantages to not running power steering... You're not carrying the weight of the PS pump and fluid, nor will you have the parasitic drag on the alternator from running it.



Patrick

Tony, as Patrick said, I did my first two seasons in a non-PAS Rev1 chassis and switched to a PAS Rev3 at the start of this year, and it has taken me a few races to get to grips with the difference in steering feel. To be honest I don't think there is a performance advantage either way, and its simply down to individual preferfence. I still have slight preference for non-pas as I think it gives a little bit more feedback to the driver (and its what I am used too), but its marginal. Certainly I had no physical problems driving with non-pas as when your are up to racing/sliding speed the steering lightens up a bit anyway, but may still be noticeably harder work on the slower corners. I wouldn't worry about the weight of the pas kit as there are plenty of other ways to get the weight off. Feel free to PM me if you want any other Rev1 secrets !!.

oh dear not as clear cut as i thought

my thoughts are , i,m used too non p/s , its lighter ,its a lot less complex ,

i,m now starting with a bare rev 2 tin top (no sound proof /underseal ) shell, so i,m gonna be very selective to whats getting put back on , obviously taking current regs into account.

it seems the steering is a more personal choice than i thought

i just dont want to shoot myself in the foot before i start , i want to prep the car to the best standard i can

i think i,m gonna go non p/s

thanks for the advice chaps

Hello all.

Useful post for me. Just considering whether i remove the PAS system on my Rev4 MK2. I'm struggling for weight (need to shed about 17kg) and it's one of the last things i may be able to remove.

I've heard on other cars this can cause damage to the rack but i'm struggling to understand this!


Any comments welcome

just swapped mine over tonight james , piece of cake

binned all the power gear , fair bit of weight in that lot

bolted non power rack on , cut a bit of tin out around the uj , just make sure you have all the non power gear , column and all, because its longer than the power column

Thanks for the response.

I was hoping to just disconnect/remove all the PAS system from the car and leave the same rack in the car! i know you can get non-PAS racks and they would be better suited of course but i didn't know if this would cause probs? Obviously heavy steering but it should work shouldn't it!


If not, anybody have a spare non-PAS rack for sale?


Cheers

i used to have a bmw with a turbo conversion and it left no room for pas

so it was common practice to remove pump ,res put a little fluid in the rack then cap the pipes of to seal the fluid in

i never had any issues ,or heard of any , but it didn,t get much use or abuse

i think long term a non pas rack would be the way to go

dont forget you will need more than just the non pas rack

Thanks for the help.

It was from a BMW conversion mad friend i heard about that from so it doesn't surprise me. Why is it necessary to leave some fluid in though? just lubrication?

What are the other components necessary for the conversion apart from the rack.


thanks again

yes its just to keep it lubricated , but i,m pretty sure the life span of the rack will be decreased ,but to what extent i,m not sure

i never had the car long enough to find out

i took all the steering components off my rev 1 , so it made the job easy

obviously the racks not the same

the uj is not the same

and the steering column is longer on non pas

and you have to increase the hole size were the uj sits

i,m 99 % sure this will apply to your rev 4 ( i,m sure someone can confirm)