I thought I’d make a post to introduce myself good and proper. I’ve actually been a member since 2007 and so as you’d imagine have loved these cars for quite some time. In fact, I remember flying to QLD a number of years ago to look at Brendan’s car, which at the time was a little more than I was willing to take on without the benefit of a garage space.
Fast forward a number of years and I’ve grown up somewhat (or at least become less of a child) with my own place and decent garage. I’ve been working rather slowly on the restoration of an AW11 Toyota MR2 which is now at the stage of requiring some attention to the body to match the level of the mechanicals. With that work being planned for some time, I began contemplating an interim fun-car that could sub for the MR2 whilst she’s taken off the road. I didn’t have to think terribly hard as it had always bothered me somewhat that I thought I was never going to have the chance to own a T2. In actual fact, I also love Motocompo’s, and actually bought one from Japan mid last year, which is still yet to arrive with me for long and complicated reasons. My passion for the ‘compo and T2 was reignited by a good mate in the MR2 scene who happened across a project T2 in Dubbo last year.
Anyway, there aren’t a terrible many of these cars, but I did happen across one that had undergone resurrection in Victoria. The documentation of that actually appears in a few places such as JDMST, Build-Threads etc ( http://www.build-threads.com/tag/honda-city-turbo-ii/ ) . It was a little while after I read through the build that I realised this one may be OK enough to pick up from where they left off. That is to say, I didn’t want to have to make one from scratch. I dropped the owner a line and asked to keep me in the loop if ever he was looking to sell. Coincidentally enough he was looking for a buyer, so with trailer hitched I drove from NSW to Vic and brought her back in August sometime.
At the time I still had a couple of other toys in the garage, which I promised myself I would relinquish before putting the T2 into service. That didn’t happen until last month, but in that time I changed a couple of little things in prep for its new life. I had to ditch the old 13’s and rock-hard rubber that came with it, and bought sticky Falken RT615 semi’s to fit some 14” wheels I had stashed away. In my “seconds” collection, I also had some Recaro LX-C mesh seats going unused, so lovingly fixed them up and fitted them to the T2 for period correct awesomeness. I also discovered that I needed a shorter alternator belt than what was fitted (was already on maximum tension), and so any time the accessories (lights) were switched on, it slipped and squealed horribly. That’s now corrected, as is my turbo intercooler hose which had horrible splitting and so was boost leaking. Kind thanks to forum member Hyperblade for helping a bro! I also have a stereo/shift console on the way, as it irked me the previous guys ditched it to emulate the spartan T2R look. The case was the same for the carpets, which the blokes in Vic kindly provided me with, as I wanted the car looking sensible for road registration.
For the moment I am just trying to keep the car ticking over, so that it faithfully serves me for the couple of days of weekly use it’ll be seeing. The most imminent mod is a change of exhaust as the old muffler looks like swiss cheese, and the turbo is forced to blow through a straw. To that end my mate Harry with the aforementioned T2 is currently fabbing up a 2.5” turbo back system. Can’t wait to hear how it sounds!
Unfortunately I haven’t taken any decent photo’s since it’s been in my ownership, so will shamelessly pinch the few good ones from the previous owner.
