T Montague's 2zr swap - '08 m/t sedan some extra info

[CrankyOldMan]

Great to see that you've got a place to wrench again! I put an electric heater in my garage this fall as well. It's not cheap but it means I can work out there whenever I want.

As for weight reduction, I think you've nailed all of the really important parts. Some of the parts are going back in for safety/convenience, so be careful what you cut out. I've been tagged in the head more than once by the trunk lid slipping off the broom stick that holds it up since the springs are gone and the edges of the door interiors are a little questionable in some spots. The front bumper beam and supports were not installed when I got mine but those have gone back on for protection of the radiator and some low-speed collision safety.

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by CrankyOldMan

Great to see that you've got a place to wrench again! I put an electric heater in my garage this fall as well. It's not cheap but it means I can work out there whenever I want.

As for weight reduction, I think you've nailed all of the really important parts. Some of the parts are going back in for safety/convenience, so be careful what you cut out. I've been tagged in the head more than once by the trunk lid slipping off the broom stick that holds it up since the springs are gone and the edges of the door interiors are a little questionable in some spots. The front bumper beam and supports were not installed when I got mine but those have gone back on for protection of the radiator and some low-speed collision safety.

thanks Sam, I'll keep that in mind when removing things. I don't think there is a lot more I can strip out but we will soon find out

[suprf1y]

I've been down this road too.

The first couple of hundred lbs comes out easily. After that the return on investment goes down in a hurry and you're spending a lot of time removing little bits that make more difference in convenience and safety than they do light weight

[tmontague]

It's been a while since I've posted on here. I've been a bit MIA due to currently changing careers and have two rugrats to spend time with. I was fortunate to get invited out to a private track day at TMP thanks to Ron and I was able to make it work.

The car currently sits just South of 2000lbs, all glass but the front windshield has been removed and the interior has been completely gutted. I removed all crash bars except the front bumper and driver/passenger door bars.

After burning through the Carbotech xp 10's I am currently running Gloc r16 which are a track only pad like the xp10 but go up to 2000F and are only one step down from their top tier pure race pad.

After multiple 30 min sessions at 10/10ths and going through a full tank of gas, the pads went from 13mm thick to just above 10mm. This is impressive and they experienced no fade.

The day was 33-35C and crazy hot/humid. With my dual core radiator set up I fabricated last year my coolant stayed 185-188F and oil never got above 240F. This is running 0w20 oil and a coolant ratio of 10:90 coolant to water with Amsoil coolant booster in it.

The only issue I had with the car it too much rear end grip now that I'm running the Nankang AR-1's. The car would not rotate enough as I prefer. I will have to stiffen up my rear dampers and play around with rear tire pressure a bit. I will be putting lexan windows in for next year and adding front windshield defrost elements for the early and late season track days and possible rain. As of now I only drive the car to and from the track as I like just over 20 mins away, it never gets driven on the road other than that.

I was 4 tenths off my ringer lap late last season which was a 1:24:98. However when I put that lap down it was around 20 degrees and the sun was setting so it was much cooler. I also was running 1:27's consistently that day. This time around I was consistently running 1:25:40 lap after lap but couldn't get into the 1:24's.

Much of this had to do with the heat but the largest factor was I could not get the car to rotate for me. I drive faster when the car rotates and I use the steering inputs to control it rather then use the steering to drive around every corner. I didn't want to mess around with my set up that day I just wnated to have fun since it had been so long since I got out to the track. The corners and areas I was slower were the tight high speed back to back turns where I tends to slide or four wheel drift my car around. The front end was pushing instead and I was scrubbing valuable speed.

I was actually up a whole gear in a few turns and hit my fastest top speed at that track this time around so there is no doubt I am much faster then before. I just need to make a few adjustments to clean up two major section and then it should all work together to potentially get me into the 1:23's.

Here is some pics/video. I eventually need to get a gopro.





https://imgur.com/2XWmsSX

https://imgur.com/HU9A2l1

https://imgur.com/Q7tVsoh

[06YarisRS]

Awesome! Glad you got some track time with your new responsibilities. I gotta read your posts on your custom rad setup. Yesterday was about 32 - 34C and I did a couple hour highway drive. My coolant temp was reaching 204 on longer hills, then of course the fan would kick in and it would drop quickly. Oil temps never exceeded 230F. If you're tracking and only hitting 188F, then clearly a rad upgrade would benefit me. Any quick suggestions/info before I go digging through the thread? Thanks!

[CrankyOldMan]

Love it! (and the two little Yarii in the background!!)

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by 06YarisRS

Awesome! Glad you got some track time with your new responsibilities. I gotta read your posts on your custom rad setup. Yesterday was about 32 - 34C and I did a couple hour highway drive. My coolant temp was reaching 204 on longer hills, then of course the fan would kick in and it would drop quickly. Oil temps never exceeded 230F. If you're tracking and only hitting 188F, then clearly a rad upgrade would benefit me. Any quick suggestions/info before I go digging through the thread? Thanks!

There are no performance radiators for the 2nd gen and onward. Your only option is an Ebay (Mishimoto discontinued theirs) dual core rad specific for the 1st gen Echo.

I open for the dual core rad found on MWR which is specific for the matrix/vibe. I went with that because the hoses and rad mouths are the same size as those for the 2zr. I contemplated the Ebay one for the 1st gen but it would only cover half to 3/4's of the grill space and I figured I might as well take advantage of the whole space.

The MWR rad is shorted in height then the 1st gen ebay one so I had to do some serious bending and manipulation of the lower rad support to make it hold it tightly. I also had a handful of various rad rubber grommets. In the end it ended up working and it is held firmly in place but let me be clear that this was not easy nor anything remotely close to a plug and play. I also fabricated a full ducting set up from the lower grill forcing air into the radiator. I used aluminum sheet metal and riv nuts so I can remove it if needed. I am going to be blocking off the top grill down the road as I believe I have enough air flow and surface area just off of the lower one alone.

I had to purchase a generic aftermarket overflow bottle and due to the rad cap now being below the engine and in a sub optimal space the car no longer bleeds its coolant itself from driving. I had air in the system on a drive last year and under 3k+ rpm the coolant level rose to 245F and the temp light went on. This was either a false reading due to an air pocket or a real reading that was caused by hot spots from the air bubbles. Either way I had to keep the car going 100km/h on the highway until I could get home to avoid over heating - not a good situation.

I have since solved this issue by jacking the front end up high and using one of those spill free funnels and letting the engine idle in mid summer heat for 30 mins. No way this would be possible with out high ambient temps.

Keep in mind my set up has an a/c delete so I have no condenser blocking my rad. I also have a single Mishimoto fan behind the radiator and no fan shroud. This allows for minimal restriction and full unobstructed air flow through the rad at high speed/temp track driving. The fan is simply there to keep the coolant temps down while idling in the paddocks. The fan/rad set up offers enough air flow over the small portion of the rad to keep the coolant down after some hard laps.

I was regularly seeing 240F coolant temps and 280-290F oil temps 10 mins into a hard session with 28C ambient temps. This by itself is not actually an issue as I was still far away from the coolant boiling (I had a performance high pressure rad cap) and the syn oil can easily handle that (oil pressure still within spec)

I went with a larger rad as I wanted to keep a larger buffer zone from a serious issue in case something happened on track. The last think I needed was for coolant to boil and ruin my engine. With my current temps I have a large buffer zone so the time from something going wrong and me noticing before it gets catastrophic is much longer. I check my gauges frequently on track but not every second for obvious reasons. I also wanted lower temps so my head temp would drop. I run 87 octane and although Toyota tunes are very conservative, I didn't want to push the threshold of engine knock and have the ECU pull timing on me.

Don't think that my 188F on track temps are normal and anything above that is too high. This is specific to my track specific set up and my set up is exactly that - track specific with no regard for day to day driving as I no longer drive my car on the street except to and form the track (22min drive country back roads). Think race cars with Tstat deletes. Makes no sense for a daily driver but can sometimes make sense for a race car.

Your 204F is completely normal and well within spec for Toyota. With my 1nz I regularly would see 212F mid summer in traffic and then the fan would kick on around 208F and bring is down to 203F. Modern engines typically are more efficient north of 200F and you are well below the boiling point of OEM coolant which is around 255F IIRC.

I honestly wouldn't worry unless you started seeing north of 220F on hills and day to day driving. The amount of work involved in putting in the MWR radiator makes no sense for your situation and would not be ideal for a street car. The closer to stock you can stay (outside of your engine set up) the better it will be for future trouble shooting and simplicity.

I've been down this road and unless you strip your car as much as you can to make everything easy to access, staying close to stock is the simplest.

Keep in mind many people with the 2zr track it with the stock rad and have no issues. From my understanding I push my 2zr harder then most others due to the time I spend on track each session and the nature of TMP. The 2zr is hard pressed to find a situation more challenging of it's stoutness then what I've put it through.

Just my $0.02

Originally Posted by CrankyOldMan

Love it! (and the two little Yarii in the background!!)

thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by tmontague

There are no performance radiators for the 2nd gen and onward. Your only option is an Ebay (Mishimoto discontinued theirs) dual core rad specific for the 1st gen Echo.

I open for the dual core rad found on MWR which is specific for the matrix/vibe. I went with that because the hoses and rad mouths are the same size as those for the 2zr. I contemplated the Ebay one for the 1st gen but it would only cover half to 3/4's of the grill space and I figured I might as well take advantage of the whole space.

The MWR rad is shorted in height then the 1st gen ebay one so I had to do some serious bending and manipulation of the lower rad support to make it hold it tightly. I also had a handful of various rad rubber grommets. In the end it ended up working and it is held firmly in place but let me be clear that this was not easy nor anything remotely close to a plug and play. I also fabricated a full ducting set up from the lower grill forcing air into the radiator. I used aluminum sheet metal and riv nuts so I can remove it if needed. I am going to be blocking off the top grill down the road as I believe I have enough air flow and surface area just off of the lower one alone.

I had to purchase a generic aftermarket overflow bottle and due to the rad cap now being below the engine and in a sub optimal space the car no longer bleeds its coolant itself from driving. I had air in the system on a drive last year and under 3k+ rpm the coolant level rose to 245F and the temp light went on. This was either a false reading due to an air pocket or a real reading that was caused by hot spots from the air bubbles. Either way I had to keep the car going 100km/h on the highway until I could get home to avoid over heating - not a good situation.

I have since solved this issue by jacking the front end up high and using one of those spill free funnels and letting the engine idle in mid summer heat for 30 mins. No way this would be possible with out high ambient temps.

Keep in mind my set up has an a/c delete so I have no condenser blocking my rad. I also have a single Mishimoto fan behind the radiator and no fan shroud. This allows for minimal restriction and full unobstructed air flow through the rad at high speed/temp track driving. The fan is simply there to keep the coolant temps down while idling in the paddocks. The fan/rad set up offers enough air flow over the small portion of the rad to keep the coolant down after some hard laps.

I was regularly seeing 240F coolant temps and 280-290F oil temps 10 mins into a hard session with 28C ambient temps. This by itself is not actually an issue as I was still far away from the coolant boiling (I had a performance high pressure rad cap) and the syn oil can easily handle that (oil pressure still within spec)

I went with a larger rad as I wanted to keep a larger buffer zone from a serious issue in case something happened on track. The last think I needed was for coolant to boil and ruin my engine. With my current temps I have a large buffer zone so the time from something going wrong and me noticing before it gets catastrophic is much longer. I check my gauges frequently on track but not every second for obvious reasons. I also wanted lower temps so my head temp would drop. I run 87 octane and although Toyota tunes are very conservative, I didn't want to push the threshold of engine knock and have the ECU pull timing on me.

Don't think that my 188F on track temps are normal and anything above that is too high. This is specific to my track specific set up and my set up is exactly that - track specific with no regard for day to day driving as I no longer drive my car on the street except to and form the track (22min drive country back roads). Think race cars with Tstat deletes. Makes no sense for a daily driver but can sometimes make sense for a race car.

Your 204F is completely normal and well within spec for Toyota. With my 1nz I regularly would see 212F mid summer in traffic and then the fan would kick on around 208F and bring is down to 203F. Modern engines typically are more efficient north of 200F and you are well below the boiling point of OEM coolant which is around 255F IIRC.

I honestly wouldn't worry unless you started seeing north of 220F on hills and day to day driving. The amount of work involved in putting in the MWR radiator makes no sense for your situation and would not be ideal for a street car. The closer to stock you can stay (outside of your engine set up) the better it will be for future trouble shooting and simplicity.

I've been down this road and unless you strip your car as much as you can to make everything easy to access, staying close to stock is the simplest.

Keep in mind many people with the 2zr track it with the stock rad and have no issues. From my understanding I push my 2zr harder then most others due to the time I spend on track each session and the nature of TMP. The 2zr is hard pressed to find a situation more challenging of it's stoutness then what I've put it through.

Just my $0.02



thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

I'll take that $0.02. The car has never had an issue coming down from 204 F. As soon as the fan starts, it basically plummets. I don't boost for extended times. I was just used to being below the 190s in my area where the ambient temp is easily 8 - 10 degrees lower than inland. It was a particularly warm and muggy day when it was hitting 204.

The above said, do you see any benefit in a lower temp thermostat such as this? https://www.hoonigan.com/collections...dels-2000-2013 and/or a slim line fan? I know that overall cooling capacity is related to radiator size and efficiency and that the coolant will reach the temp that the coolant will reach. I'm just wondering if the colder thermostat will start cooling earlier and stave off higher temps with my driving style - short boost sessions (4 - 6 seconds on average).

[Ronnie V]

Originally Posted by tmontague

thanks! those are Ron's cup cars, they are a handful :D

LOL! They certainly are..........was a really fun day!!!

re: the lower temp thermo.........Hillclimb car Trev? Drag car? get the whole system warmed up faster???

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by Ronnie V

LOL! They certainly are..........was a really fun day!!!

re: the lower temp thermo.........Hillclimb car Trev? Drag car? get the whole system warmed up faster???

Maybe I'm missing something about their design but how would a lower temp tstat warm up a car faster? It opens at a lower temp dumping cooler coolant into the engine. Does this not translate into increasing time it takes to get the engine up to operating temps?

[tmontague]

There likely would he no benefit for you for a lower temp tstat. IMHO there is no benefit to any situation for a lower temp tstat. Once you are above the 185F rating of the OEM tstat it is fully open anyways. All a lower rated tstat is going to do it make it harder to get up to operating temp when you are doing anything other tuen driving spirited on a hot day.

What is your concern with temps around 200F? Trying to bring them down will drop efficiency of the engine.

I've tried to wrap my head around why low temp tstat are even in the market and I've failed to find a reason why. I get the full removal of a tstat in a race car (to maximize coolant flow) but not for a lower rated temp tstat.

[06YarisRS]

Originally Posted by tmontague

There likely would he no benefit for you for a lower temp tstat. IMHO there is no benefit to any situation for a lower temp tstat. Once you are above the 185F rating of the OEM tstat it is fully open anyways. All a lower rated tstat is going to do it make it harder to get up to operating temp when you are doing anything other tuen driving spirited on a hot day.

What is your concern with temps around 200F? Trying to bring them down will drop efficiency of the engine.

I've tried to wrap my head around why low temp tstat are even in the market and I've failed to find a reason why. I get the full removal of a tstat in a race car (to maximize coolant flow) but not for a lower rated temp tstat.

Sounds like solid info. Not too worried about temps overall. I haven't pushed it really hard in hot weather, so not sure how hot it would get. In many ways I'm all about reserve capacity, but it does sound like the stock cooling system has enough of that. Thanks again.

[ern-diz]

Suuuper cool. Great to see a post from you, glad all has been well in your world.

[Ronnie V]

Well.......in my experience you always want to bring a race car to "the line" fully heat soaked. This way operational temps are as consistent as they can be as you start to run it hard......so the sooner you get all the coolant cycled the better.......

Having said that..........unless this car was going to see some kind of road use (think rally car or special stage hillclimb car) you would just remove the thermostat completely........

I'll ask Darren what his thoughts are about them.......

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by Ronnie V

Well.......in my experience you always want to bring a race car to "the line" fully heat soaked. This way operational temps are as consistent as they can be as you start to run it hard......so the sooner you get all the coolant cycled the better.......

Having said that..........unless this car was going to see some kind of road use (think rally car or special stage hillclimb car) you would just remove the thermostat completely........

I'll ask Darren what his thoughts are about them.......

Hmm ya I'd be curious what he thinks too. I understand the benefit of fully removing the tstat in a full race car with the increased flow and less obstruction in the system.

[tmontague]

Figured I'd update this thread as it has been a long time and the car continues to put in more laps at the track.

The plan for 2021 is to run stage 1 cams and a long tube header from MWR. This should net me around 8-12 hp and since I am sitting around 2,000 lbs (hopefully slightly under) it will make a big difference on the track. With how light the car is now I have really noticed it during cornering, I can push it past the limits but still control it when it goes.

Here are some pics of how it currently sits stripped out as well as my radiator and fan set up. That is an MWR radiator meant for a pontiac vibe, I was able to make it work but the filler neck is not aa high as I'd like it so it makes burping it a huge PITA.











It is stripped down pretty much as slim as it can be, including the interior wiring, bars and panels. I had to run hood pins as the hood would lift up at speed on the track due to how flimsy it is now that I have cut metal out of it.


Here is a link to Speed Academy's lap time leaderboard:
https://speed.academy/speed-academy-...48193359375000

To put it in perspective these guys have been driving at my local track (TMP) for well over a decade and know it much better than I ever will. They also have a ton of seat time racing various cars and events. They created a lap list of their fastest laps in various cars. It gives you an idea of where my current yaris sits along the spectrum.

My fastest lap last season was a 1:23:11 on 100 tw tires. I still had around a quarter of a second I could had shaved off but I ran out of fuel on my last session and had to pack it in.

I am hoping to break into the 21's this season if my tires will hold up.

Feel free to ask away any Q's about my set up. Hopefully it will help guide others of they decide to build their yaris for track duty. It is surprisingly capable and one of the very few true light weight chassis out there.

[CrankyOldMan]

Wow, that's even farther than mine! I'm going to have to put a few items back to stock-ish configuration for SCCA rules (windshield cowl, dashboard, etc.) and I have a competition weight requirement of 2400 lbs. I plan on removing a significant amount of the dash wiring as well.

What steering wheel hub and quick release did you go with? I got an NRG short hub and their SFI-rated Gen2.0 one-hand quick release. Pretty slick setup with minimal loss of space.

[tmontague]

Originally Posted by CrankyOldMan

Wow, that's even farther than mine! I'm going to have to put a few items back to stock-ish configuration for SCCA rules (windshield cowl, dashboard, etc.) and I have a competition weight requirement of 2400 lbs. I plan on removing a significant amount of the dash wiring as well.

What steering wheel hub and quick release did you go with? I got an NRG short hub and their SFI-rated Gen2.0 one-hand quick release. Pretty slick setup with minimal loss of space.

I don't remember the exact model I went with but they are both NRG parts and have worked fine for my purpose. The steering wheel was always too far away from me and I now find it in the perfect position, although I would prefer it to be a bit lower.

Too bad you have to be no lower than 2400 lbs. The chassis is wild below 2000lbs. It becomes so much easier to control even when pushed 10/10ths and past the limit. On technical road courses it handles the chicanes well as it is very easy to change its direction.