Interior Overhaul 1991 MR2 Non-Turbo

[halo434321]

I just bought my first MR2 and have that hideous blue interior with a fading white exterior. Currently I have ripped out everything but the dash and the driver's seat. I am in the process of insulating the floor and doors and have a HUGE upgrade list for the interior. I am changing the color to Black with chrome highlights. I have already installed a short shifter which works great, ripped all of the speakers out and installed a 16 amp RMS Alpine headunit going to a 90 RMS Alpine amplifier placed behind the drivers seat in the hole where the 5" subwoofer used to be which then (with minimal alteration) will spider out to 4, 5.25" three way kenwood speakers. The wiring on this car is not for the faint at heart and why for God's sake did Toyota use 22 and 24 gage wire? And to top it with the non-regulatory color coded wiring prior to 1996, it was enough to make me want to rip the whole wiring trunk right out of the car. Ugghh!!! My house has become a parts catalog as I am also re-upolstering the carpeting using the original mold as a guide. The firewall material and headliner came out nicely covered in black headliner material using 3M Super 7 spray glue. I have also found ghost wiring that goes seemingly nowhere and a real hack job backwoods alarm system that does not work (which is currently being ripped out). I am still waiting on the vinyl paint from SEM for all of the parts hoarding up space in my house and new seatbelts. Next week I plan on ripping out the dash and at the same time installing some old-school indiglo/white face dials which are eagerly awaiting a new home. As for the exterior, I had to replace the 14" tires which were mismatched anyways from the dealer and went to TireRack for Sumitomo performance all weathers on 16" 5 spoke rims with a 40+ offset. I know, the offset is 45 so I am losing a little but WTH. I also put in a cold air intake which will take some time to get used to the noise difference, but at least the car can breathe now. I am waiting on Magnacore 8.5 plug wires and I decided to test out the iridium plugs as well. I understand the arguement on both sides with regards to cold air intakes and the argument of standard OEM -vs- thicker plug wires, but I am a sucker for overdoing it so let's see what it does. My questions are these:

1. Does anyone have any good suggestions on reupolstering the carpeting (and I mean by yourself not 'take it to someone else to have it done')?

2. Has anyone here put the white face dials with the indiglo and if so, where did you splice in for power?

a. Did anyone attempt to place the contol unit in one of the blank upgrade plates on the driver's side?

Thanks a lot!

Also, I am open to any suggestions at all as well as any other sites that can help with this great project.

[hooyahmidengines]

Wow! how many red bulls did you have before you typed that?!?!? Anyways, I put in the Indiglos...the part that took me the most time was finding a good power and ground. Youre in luck, I did it for you. Power that is not constant and which is actually variable is located on your dimmer potentiometer for your current gauge pod. Stealing power from that will not only give you easy access to dimming those super annoying bright timexes but will let you hide the one they gave you in the dash. You wont be able to change from sea s__t green to the blue easily, but its really not necessary to use the green anyways. There is also a ground going to the dimmer knob too, so the problem you have now is to determine which one is power, which one is ground, and which one does something I havent figured out yet. (I got lucky and got it on the first try). Oh, a given- youll have to take almost your entire dash paneling off. Good Luck!

[halo434321]

Thanks a lot hooyahmidengines! I am already at the stage of removing the dash and from what I have read surfing around this site is that it should be reeeeely fun (sarcastic). I also as you stated do not see the resaoning for the green in the indiglo so covering that particular switch is not an issue to me either. My intent is to make it as unoticable as possible so that it does not look out of place. As for the wires, I have felt the pain of the Toyota / aftermarket splice torture before so I will simply pull more chunks of hair out before it is done. Thank you very much for the information and the heads up on the indiglo. The best part about this car is that I have to drive it through a gate at the military installation that I am at every day and the security forces troops are always lining up to see what I had done that day. I am going to attempt to drive through the gate with just the gage assembly sitting on the steering column soon. I will tell you how that goes! Ha!

[hooyahmidengines]

Glad I could be of assistance. Let me know if you need any more help.

[halo434321]

So looking all over the web for a place that sells molded carpeting for the 91-91 MR2 and I come up with NOTHING. Let me say that I found a few places that said there was never a call for molded carpeting so it was never made. I also found a comment by someone who said that he was able to get one of the only molds left in the country. Finally, I found a place that would do the new carpeting for around $700.00. This is why I am going to do it on my own. $700.00? Are they crazy?

And here is another update on another issue I found earlier today. The past owners (one of them) who installed the alarm system must have had it done by someone who understood some complicated schematics. I removed the wire from the rear left tail light, through the trunk and into the engine compartment. Once there, I disconnected the wiring from the horn which is mounted to the heat sheild (?**$%^&#) and continued to pull the wiring through into the interior going behind the driver's seat. While removing the remainder of the wiring along the doorframe, I found something interesting. I found a ziptie and some electrical tape and proceeded to cut and undo both. What happenend next was an 'uh oh'. A black box about half the size of a shoebox fell out from under the steering column. WTF? So I recognized it as some type of transponder and continued to follow the wiring. The opposing side of the transponder had three wiring harnesses coming off of it (a 6 pin, a 10 pin and an 8 pin). I disconnected one at a time and tested the ignition each time to make sure that the car would still run. The box is now removed, but the wiring harnesses going up to the steering column are still there. I looked further and traced the cluster F*%& of wiring back to the ignition and multiple other locations. As of right now, I am going to have to leave these wires (which are all black....all of them) going into the three harnesses and tuck them back in somewhere until I figure out what I am going to do.

I also insulated the passenger floor, storage bucket hole, rear wall and passenger door. So far things are going pretty easy. Wonder what tomorrow brings.....

[halo434321]

Upolstering is a by^&CH. Ran the new speaker wire today. The door harness looks good on both doors and I didn't see any signs of water. I did however find the begining of rust at the bottom front of the driver door. That will have to be stopped soon. But in the mean time, the stereo needs to be completed. Using 5.25 inch speakers for both the front and rear is a challenge. It is not a challenge in the doors, but the rear is ugly. I actually have to bend the metal flat as well as in to house the 5.25s where the 2.5s used to be so they will not rub on the plastic covering. This must be done carefully due to the proximity of the seatbelts. Further, too much alteration and the original snaps will not all fit back in to hold your cover. I am going to take my time on the rear speakers. As soon as the speakers in the rear go in, I can install the new seatbelts too!

[mr.asian.m2]

any photo of your carpet? if it's still in good shape. save it. just bleach the carpet and shampoo the carpet afterward. after you get the carpet to all dry up and nice. i use this black spray paint that is use for vinyl. i spray a light coat over the carpet to give it that fresh look. and i had the same carpet on my car for over a year now. it work fine with me.

and before you do all the door wires. use a rust treatment first so that the rust don't do anymore harm to the surrounding area.

[halo434321]

I have already purchased and began to use new carpeting (black) on top of the formed/ stamped blue carpet mold. The carpet was less than acceptable so I went ahead and bought replacement carpeting. It is a real sob to get all of the bends with the new carpeting onto the old. I am using 3M super 7 for the adhesive. It worked great on the headliner and behind seats. I also purchased seat covers from Igggie which are REALLY GOOD. I guess I went a little cheap compared to buying racing seats, but it is not a turbo (yet). As for the rust, I inspected the doors (even with a mirror) and found that I can take care of the rust post speaker installation. So with that, the speaker installation will be happening this week. But first, I am finally going to rip out the driver's seat, driver's carpeting, drop new insulation/sound barrier and rip out the dash. Tomorrow I am going to bend the metal for the rear speakers and hopefully mate the new speakers to the adapted mounts. Oh yeah, I also just received the Magnacor competition 8.5 mm wires and iridium plugs (.44 model IK16 5303) which will be going in as soon as I get up in the AM. Although this is not an interior task, I am too excited to not do it.

[halo434321]

The new plug wires and plugs are in. I also had a t-top seal problem. I was getting wet in the rain and located three spots where the seals were leaking on both the passanger and driver side. Sooooo.... I got seals from Twos R Us. They shipped it so fast my head is still spinning. Replaced the driver's side seal and will do the passenger side tomorrow. It was pretty straight forward. The carpeting is moving along, but like I said in a prior post, this is not an easy task if you are doing it for the first time. As it stands, things are moving along pretty well. I decided that I am going to add a vapor barrier behind the speakers before installing them for the last time in the doors. Although the doors are not holding water (thank God) I figure why chance it while I have the whole car shredded. I think that if the weather is good enough tomorrow and I get to replace the passenger seal, I will install the headliner as well.

[countyboy3188]

Originally Posted by halo434321

The new plug wires and plugs are in. I also had a t-top seal problem. I was getting wet in the rain and located three spots where the seals were leaking on both the passanger and driver side. Sooooo.... I got seals from Twos R Us. They shipped it so fast my head is still spinning. Replaced the driver's side seal and will do the passenger side tomorrow. It was pretty straight forward. The carpeting is moving along, but like I said in a prior post, this is not an easy task if you are doing it for the first time. As it stands, things are moving along pretty well. I decided that I am going to add a vapor barrier behind the speakers before installing them for the last time in the doors. Although the doors are not holding water (thank God) I figure why chance it while I have the whole car shredded. I think that if the weather is good enough tomorrow and I get to replace the passenger seal, I will install the headliner as well.

Yup Tworus has ridiculous fast shipping.

Im doing the same thing as you are going from blue interior to black.
I figured i might as well since i have my two down for the 3s swap. it not really a hard thing to do its just takes a lot of time.

[Ben]

While you have the dash out why not try this: http://www.mr2.com/forums/interior-m...e-control.html

[mr29180]

^^^ +1 Ur guages will look allot better than the after market white Guages... just look at ben's led!! mannnn i love them!! lol

[halo434321]

I checked out Ben's stuff and it is really cool. However, I had planned to use the indiglo because it is an old school aftermarket. I know that LED is the craze right now and it really does make quite a difference but as it stands, I think that I am going with the indiglo. Besides the insane glow that it will give, are there any other downsides to the indiglo IYO?

[STLMR2na]

How much did you pay for your plug wires?

[mr29180]

psssttttt you dont like this??....

thats led for yahhh

[halo434321]

I went a little heavy on the wallet (170.26) in the hopes that good insulation and material will make this a long lasting product. Here is the link:

Spark Plug Wires for the Toyota MR2 from HorsepowerFreaks

[STLMR2na]

well thats cheaper than what i found them for thanks,
and MR292180 random post lol,
you can buy some sick LED on vled.com

do you really have to take out the whole dash to change the guage lights??

[halo434321]

I don't think you have to take out the whole dash to get to the gage cluster, but even if you remove the two screws holding the cluster to the dash itself, you would still either have to lift the dash a little bit or remove the steering wheel at the least to slide the gage cluster out. I am removing the hole thing because I am changing from the blue interior going to black so the dash has to come out anyhow. Thanks for the LED website and the cool pics.

[Ben]

The dash does not have to come out to get to the cluster - the steering wheel doesn't even have to come off.

halo - I was referring you to the climate control unit, not the gauge cluster for the LED mods.

[STLMR2na]

yea climate control is a breeze to get out
so you have to take the steering wheel off...no thanks, i'll try my luck and removing the dash partially to change my guage bulbs to super blue smt bulbs