Scott's 1993 Toyota MR2 Turbo

Here's the story behind my MR2:

I used to have a BMW M Roadster that I used for autocross, track days, drag racing, and as my summer car. I was getting tired of autocrossing, and wanted to get more into track days. It was becoming harder to find clubs to run with that will allow convertables on the track because of insurance reasons. Those that did allow them charged a lot more, and usually only ran during the week. This really limited when and how many events I could go to. I got fed up with the whole street/race car thing and wanted to get a dedicated track car (but still barely street legal to drive to and from events). The car will mostly be used for autocrossing and track days, and occasionally for drag racing and drifting events. So I sold my M Roadster and I started thinking about what I wanted in my next car:

Under 3000lbs
Over 300hp (when done)
12.xxx seconds in the 1/4 mile (when done)
Excellent stock handling performance
Easily modded
Reasonably reliable
Relatively cheap to maintain or work on
Excellent online knowledge base
Can purchase and modify the car to my needs for under $15k

I knew I was going to perform the following upgrades to whatever car I got, so these had to be included in the $15k:

Coilovers
Lightweight racing rims and tires
STB's, sway bars, bushings, etc
Upgraded brakes
Roll bar/cage
Race seats
Harnesses
Upgraded engine/forced induction
Gauges

Given those conditions I came up with a list of cars:

3rd Gen RX-7 Turbo
Porsche 944 Turbo
1995 BMW M3
2nd Gen RX-7 Turbo
Nissan 240SX (with SR20DET swap)
1993 MR2 Turbo

At one point or another I had decided I was going to get each of these cars. But after lots of research and consideration, pretty much none of them was going to meet my criteria. They were either too expensive to begin with (leaving no money to modify it), too expensive to maintain, or not very reliable. In the end the MR2 was going to be a little more $$ to purchase than I wanted, but decided it would be the best compromise as the best platform to start from.

So now that I have my MR2 Turbo, my goal is to make it handle like a Lotus Elise and perform like a Corvette Z06 (two of my favorite street legal track cars).

To achieve those goals I plan on modifying it with the following items: