Mike's 85 FWD 5dr Tercel

[Notmikeb]

Will do!

[Notmikeb]

I went a little gauge crazy

One voltmeter (in an unused cluster side button as suggested on this site), one air/fuel ratio gauge and one vacuum gauge for fuel economy.

Bad photos with the flash at night but the voltmeter and the a/f gauge are lit up blue. BRIGHT blue! I may have to put a darker film over them as this could get annoying at night.

Btw, a/f gauge is really quite useless with the stock oxygen sensor and narrow band gauge. It jumps all around and after reading up on narrow band gauges post install the general consensus is they give no real useful info unless you're an emissions computer. Not ready to pony up the big bucks for a wide band setup so I may replace this one with some other gauge. Maybe oil pressure.

Edit- better daylight photo with gauges on

[Ridlbox]

For a minute there I thought that was a shift light on your right side of your steering wheel and then I kept looking in seeing the pictures doesn't look too bad though

[Notmikeb]

Yes. VERY important to have a shift light when driving an automatic transmission.

[Notmikeb]

Found an 86 mr2 at the local pick n pull today. The calipers and rotors were already gone but I picked up the booster and mc combo. It wasn't what I went there to find (replacement EVAP line for my Suburban. Found!) but ive found the best stuff when I'm not looking for it (and rarely find what I actually need). I've thought about doing Petros' brake upgrade before but early mr2's never show up in junkyards around here so I never really looked for the parts. I checked on eBay and worse case scenario is I resell the stuff for more than I paid the junkyard. Now I just need to find a junk car donor for the rest of it!

[Petros]

you can install the master and booster without doing the wheel caliper/rotor up grade, the MC/booster and vented rotor swap can stand alone, they do not have to be done togehter. It will give you more braking power, improve the pedal effort to stopping power ratio.

I think you can use corrola or the later '90 or newer calipers, along with the '90 or newer vented rotors rather than the MR2 front calipers. just check the offset. they will bolt on to the mount. You can also buy new or reman from Rockauto. I waited until my brakes needed to be replaced anyway, and did it all at once.

[Notmikeb]

Do I need to change the caliper mounting brackets as well or just the calipers themselves?

[Petros]

the mount on the steering knuckle is the same, there is an intermediate peice that is between the caliper and the mount on the steering knuckle, that must go with the caliper.

all of the toyota brake calipers mount to the steering knuckle the same way, on the same lugs on the hub.

[Notmikeb]

Well I'm halfway through the brake upgrade. I'm using the calipers and rotors from a 92 tercel and the brake hoses from a 96 Camry. After going to the junkyard twice in search of servicable tercel parts I gave up and bought all new (reman) stuff.

It's a good thing I'm doing the mr2 booster and MC swap anyway. I pulled off the old MC to find the brake booster is absolutely swimming in nasty brake fluid gunk. The old MC was leaking past its seal anyway so the timing worked out.

Just waiting on some banjo bolts to show up to finish. I had hoped the calipers or hoses would come with them but of course they didn't.

[Notmikeb]

Finished the brake upgrade. Wow!!! What a difference!! I think my pedal has a little more travel now but I think that goes with the territory when the master cylinder bore gets smaller. Brakes feel firm and solid and the stopping power is much better than before. I tried to get them nice and hot to see how they held up to repeated stops and the car performed very nicely.

The only issue I ran into was the new brake caliper mounting bracket rubbed on my wheel on the passenger side but a few minutes with the angle grinder fixed that right up (the bracket, not the wheel).

Big thanks to Petros and his wonderful guide on this job!!

[Petros]

nice work. this is the brake system that toyota should have given us.

[Notmikeb]

Upgraded my headlights..

see viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11727

[Notmikeb]

EDIT* DELETED (forum issue that was resolved)

[irowiki]

Yeah I don't know who moved it. Will move it back

[ARCHINSTL]

Yeah I don't know who moved it. Will move it back

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