Popular Post DAD Posted October 26, 2014 Popular Post Posted October 26, 2014 Discussion hereHi all, bought this yesterday from Sparkle and his Mrs. Previous thread here, have a peek if you're interested as I'll be continuing the saga from where he left off. Bit of background on me: I'm a Pom that's been in NZ since August, I came over looking for a holiday with half a mind to work and ended up getting a full-time job. Since I'll be here for the foreseeable I decided it was definitely, definitely the right time to immediately spend all of my money on an old Toyota.I've loved Japanese cars for years and had to sell my AW11 MR2 last year. A sense of hollow loss ensued. I was drooling over this KP on TradeMe when one of my housemates mentioned that she was planning a trip to Palmerston on Saturday to visit some old college friends. A plan was hatched, the numbers on my bank account were turned into weird folding plastic Monopoly money, and a roadtrip playlist assembled. Met up with Sparkle in a fast food car park. I think there's probably a rule somewhere that says that cars and burger chains need to be brought together regularly, and I was hungry anyway. Had a bit of a poke and a prod, tried to make the obligatory concerned noises that you're supposed to do when looking at buying an old car, but couldn't really fault it on much. Properly gen-you-wine unbuggered Sprint. Test-drove even sweeter than it looked, I was hooked. Worked out a mutually acceptable deal and I disappeared off into the sunset. Mr and Mrs Sparkle seemed pretty emotional to see her go, but I hope my monetary contribution to "Operation Make-E21-Have-Awesome-Engine" softens the pain over time. She managed city traffic, winding hill roads and open highway all the way back to the Wairarapa on her best behaviour. Stopped off for some snaps at the Te Apiti wind farms en route: There are hardly any of these left back home because they all ended up on the stages or dirt ovals (usually with a Pinto and minilites!), and I've lusted after them for ages. I was originally looking for a slightly tatty Starlet to turn into a rally-esque weekend-fun car, something like this: ...but I reckon that would be sacrilege with something this original.Well then.The old girl was about due an oil and filter change, so I had a nice run out this morning to Upper Hutt to get some tools and supplies. There's a weird mix of annoyance and excitement at being in a new country and not having any tools. Of course the excitement is because you have the opportunity, nay, obligation to buy some tools. I checked first, but there were no more free service vouchers in the bookpack. Shame. Stopped off at the local dealership while I was in the area, just 'cos: ...and popped back home. Nice sunny afternoon oil and filter change. Plans:-Weekend car, just enjoy it for what it is over the nice summer months.-Investigate how best to protect the thin paint. Car will be undercover for the most part, but still...-Re-cover sun-damaged parcel shelf and get it seated properly.-Sympathetic, reversible mods over winter? Think rorty carbs, fast road cam, tubular extractors and a pretty skinny 'zorst. The 4k is lovely and is staying put! 17 Quote
DAD Posted January 29, 2015 Author Posted January 29, 2015 Been a bit tardy with the updates, sorry guys! Since last time: I've moved to a farm cottage down a 4km gravel track. This is FUN, but each ping of a stone bouncing off the bottom of the car fills me with a teeny tiny bit of remorse. I've reconciled this with myself under the justification that this car needs paint at some point in the not-too-distant future, so it'll get the few small areas of rust repaired then, along with some thick underbody protection. Been driving well, failed it's WOF a couple of weeks ago on rear brake balance (I think Sparkle mentioned the rears would probably need doing at some point when I bought it). I replaced wheel cylinders and shoes on both sides and it flew through a retest, so I'm a happy bunny. Excuse the wanky instagram photos. I've also been gradually working my way down the carbs/extractors route, and have accumulated the following: -Twin 40mm Dell'orto DHLAs -Jets that will maybe-sorta-kinda be appropriate for a cooking-spec 4k -Fiddly linkage bollocks -Fuel hose -Inlet manifold -4/1 tubular extractors -7k triple metal layer manifold gasket Should be enough to get me started... Teaser: (this was before I put together all the new linkage bits). Current aim: Have running well enough on carbs to be able to drive up to Nats in March. 1 Quote
DAD Posted February 1, 2015 Author Posted February 1, 2015 So that all came out pretty easily... Bit of space to fill now: Getting there: I've since swapped the fuel banjos over and routed the fuel line behind the engine, that's all working well, definitely getting fuel to the carbs now. Went for an optimistic test-(cold)start. Set idles to 2.5 turns from closed, gave it a bit of a crank and met with some mixed results. Occasional popping/signs of catching but no proper start. Not surprised at this really, but need to get to the bottom of it. I'm ditching the vacuum advance (have been advised it won't work properly with the carbs anyway) and planning to increase base advance instead. Was working on that when the heavens opened so retreated inside. Could stock timing alone cause failure to catch? I bodged up a temporary mechanism to hold the choke levers out on both carbs and tried with and without that with little difference. Help gratefully received! New to-do list: Make up throttle cable bracket (easy) Catch can? Muck about with choke cabling? Order trumpets/socks Get running! 1 Quote
DAD Posted February 16, 2015 Author Posted February 16, 2015 Bit of an update.Still not running reliably - been busy sorting non-car related stuff over the weekends/evenings. Can get it started now and running but still getting a bit of fuel coming out of the venturis of one carb. Might be as simple as a bit more float tweaking needed, seemed to clear it up on the other carb and there might be less leaking from this one than there was. Don't think I'm going to have exhaust sorted for Nats, so depending how much progress I get next weekend It'll be in one of 2 states: -Big crabs with standard exhaust or -Stock and sad We'll see... Oh, in the meantime, got a full set of these from Beaver: Currently tyre browsing. 175/60/13s are top of my list at the moment. 3 Quote
Popular Post DAD Posted April 24, 2016 Author Popular Post Posted April 24, 2016 So it turns out I'm not very good at keeping project threads up to date. Or using reliable image hosts (facebook? What was I thinking?!). Also can't seem to find the edit button, so the above posts will have to stay as-is for now. I'll try and give a bit of info on the direction the little KP has taken over the past 14 months. May well have missed out some major bits, so please comment in discussion thread if I've missed anything vital! Plenty of stumbling blocks in what I naively assumed would be a reasonably easy project, so hopefully some good points come out that will be useful for others. Bear in mind my only real previous projects were stripping a Saxo for track days and modifying my MR2 with new seats, chopped springs and banded steels... SO! Yes, got some Work Equip 01's from Beaver Shod them in rubber and got them bolted on. Arch gap present to an alarming degree, but this was imminently pre-nats '15 and I owned a socket set and some screwdrivers. Plus I was a little busy trying to get some shonky twin 40 DHLA Dell'ortos running. Had never tuned a carb in my life at this point. Eventually gave up on the rubbish linkage and bought a nice Mangoletsi one from Europe which helped balancing and throttle travel adjustment immensely. Seriously recommend these. Miracle of miracles, I got the car running pretty nicely on the crabs. New exhaust had turned up the previous day and didn't need to change the tune too much. Would cold start okay, idle happily, keep a sensible temp (I think, lol Toyota gauges) and over my (whole) 30 minute test drive was happy throughout the rev range and emitted plenty of doorts. Oh, this was the night before Nats, sweet. Nats started wonderfully, did a 4 hour burn up to Taupo after work the night before, stayed the night there, then set off for a further 4 hours to Coromandel the following morning. Cold starting an over-carbed 4k with a loud exhaust in a motel car park at 6am is a fun game. Got stuck behind a boat trailer on the wiggly Coromandel coastal road for about 40 minutes, meant a lot of partial throttle compared with the all-or-nothing it had been getting up to that point, and that's when I noticed something wasn't right. A bit of hesitancy coming out of corners, a little coughing. Quickly developed to a bigger problem... Plugs were coked to hell. I knew it was rich (safe, bruh), so cleaned them up and set off again. Better, but quickly buggered itself again. Noticed fuel pouring out of the rear carb, forming nice little fuelly waterfalls from the trumpets. Damn. Pulled the carb apart at Beaver's parents place, looked to be a float issue, the pivot for the float had broken and been bodged with a bit of wire at some point. Had worked for a while but the pissing fuel was almost certainly down to that. Abandoned the KP there, it would get shipped back thanks to AA plus (win), and I'd have a fun nats tagging along with Sparkle and Goat. When I finally got it home, I swapped the original carb and some fresh plugs on to see if it would run. No luck, barely ran on a couple of cylinders, rough as fuck. Suspect overfuelling on 3 and 4 had washed the bores or something? Oh well. Was thinking of getting a 5k anyway. 5ks were about $500 at this point for a runner. Not bad. Could rebuild carbs (arguably better suited to a 1.5 than a 1.3 anyway) and swap them over to the BIG BLOCK. Bought one! Oops. Looks like it needs a decat too. Mate back home made me a keyring to celebrate this new direction: Dragged the little green paperweight to Goat's workshop, and things started happening. Massive shout-out to Goat at this point, couldn't have gone any further with the car without his help. There are definite downsides to moving to a new country and not knowing anyone, but one of the major upsides is meeting ultimate GCs that are willing to help out at any point. 4k took about 15 nanoseconds to remove. Pulled off the 4age loom and sent it to that chap on trademe what chops wires. Meanwhile, fitted the SQ engineering waterline and dizzy relocation kits to get things more latitudinal than longitudinal. Lovely quality kits with pimp CNC, nice fittings etc. Shame its all covered up by 20 year old plastics but whatev's. I'd also picked up an A-series bellhousing pattern k50 gearbox to fit the 4age. Transferred the shifter and tailhousing from the starlet k50 so it'd line up with gbox mount, prop, gearstick hole etc. Handy. Got the engine and box sitting in the bay on trademe-special mounts (damn it Jim, I'm a vet, not a fabricator) but ran into a slight snag. The capped off dizzy mount was interfering with the firewall and the heater matrix pipes. Modified the mounting points and moved the engine forward 20mm, and got one of the heater matrix pipes brazed on a little further outboard, and this just about sorted it. Still tight, but no longer interference fit. Obviously this also changed the position of the gearbox, but that would be a problem for another day. Noticed at this point that the clutch cable locator on the gearbox had been chopped off by some enterprising dick somewhere along the line. Ballz. Was having second thoughts about using a k50 behind the XTREME POWER 9000 of the blacktop at this point anyway. Suppose a bracket wouldn't be too hard to fab. Oops^2. T50 is about the same length as a k50, handy. Also came with a beefier and longer corolla prop. The KP prop was too short, (we moved the engine forward 20mm, remember), so I had the corolla prop shortened and balanced to fit. While I was at the engineers shop I had them braze a second, wider pipe into the fuel tank pickup. Now using the wide one as the feed to my Carter low pressure lift pump. This sends the fuel forward through 8mm aluminium lines I routed alongside the 6mm factory ones. When it gets to the engine bay it deposits it into an Ali-Express-Special surge tank with an integrated Bosch 044 that supplies the fuel rail. Return from the surge tank runs through the narrower diameter factory fuel lines and back into the tank through the original (narrow) pickup. Seems to work quite well! Hopefully not all too noisy when the exhaust is on, we'll see. Starting to look pretty good in there now I reckon. One of the big differences between T50 and K50 boxes is the T50 is hydraulic clutch rather than cable. Came at this from a few angles; ended up buying an ae86 master and slave cylinder, as well as some nice braided clutch line, but didn't want to bugger around with the pedalbox too much. A lot of the modified ones out there looked a bit compromised, with big flex forces on the pedal where bits of steel bar had been tacked on to get it actuating the MC. Bought a pedalbox from an EG civic for super cheapz on trademe and the separate clutch pedal actually looks like a promising alternative. The other route seemed to be to fit a Wilwood pedalbox or similar, like Snoozin' is doing for his. Pimp, but didn't want to rush down that route just yet. I'm 6'2" and was worried that a floor mount pedalbox would sit closer to the drivers seat than the factory one, and I already struggle to get my gangly legs wedged in. Hmm. At this point, Nats '16 happened, shotgunned my way around for a stress-free time this year. Found a clone in Horopito, poor thing. Was having a chat with Beaver, Manu, Goat, Ned and Cam, and one of them suggested a cable fork conversion kit from a company in Ireland. Ideal! Some googling revealed that FLOS.IE was the company that did them. GCs to deal with and did me a discount for sending a k50 donor fork for them to molest into one of these: Got myself a Christmas present, an N2 style aluminium rear wing. Nicely modelled here by a goat majestically sunning itself in it's natural habitat: Flippity flip I hate wiring. Spent ages trying to work out why engine was turning over but not firing. Had spark but no injector pulse. Finally found this absolute treasure trove of 4age wiring goodness. Had to re-wire my fuel cutoff relay circuits to incorporate the ECU starter trigger like so: et voila! Much relief. A bit of rust to sort in the heater channel, so loom came back out for now (also to solder and wrap properly, rather than the twist-and-tapes that you can see in the video...) Gave the exhaust bits and bobs a tidy up. It's a 20v manifold (not sure what make, but the bolt spacing is 20v specific), and my original 2" system. What now? Oh yeah, lows. Got some other bling from T3, these are just lovely. Fitted up well (though they sent the wrong bolts with the RCAs). Gave the dust shields and calipers a bit of a spruce before shifting them onto the shiny legs. Have since swapped the brake lines out for some pimp gold (don't judge me) Hel stainless steel braided ones. Don't trust 32 year old brake lines too much, and while it was all apart... No pics unfortunately. As for the rear, figured a good low spring/short travel adjustable damper combo would be the way to go. Integrated shock/coilover units are available, but didn't want to go to the lengths of reinforcing turrets/axle spindle etc, at least not yet. If I eventually go T-series rear end that'll be the time for those fun and games. Seems some people use mk2 escort rear dampers as their short travel shock of choice. With the amount of competition options available for them I thought that'd be a sound choice, so got some GAZ (English company, played with some of their stuff before I came over here) 38-way adjustable shocks for the rear. Should be enough adjustability to get it riding well I hope! Expecting to have to modify the Cobra springs to get them low enough. We'll see. Current ultimate racecar spec as stands: Chassis: Stock kp61 Sprint body T3 adjustable front coilovers Cobra superlow rear springs GAZ adjustable dampers (mk2 escort) Hel braided SS brake lines 13x7 Work Equip 01s A-series to K-series engine mounts Battery relocated to boot. Engine: Stock 4AGE 20v blacktop from a Levin SQ engineering waterline kit SQ engineering Dizzy kit T3 100mm velocity stacks 4-1 20v manifold (unknown brand) with 2" custom exhaust. 1G-GE high torque starter with Niteparts spacer kit Simplified loom Carter Lift pump/engine bay surge tank/Bosch 044 EFI pump setup AE86 radiator Transmission: T50 20-spline FLOS.IE T50 clutch cable conversion kit Exedy 220mm clutch Shortened corolla driveshaft Stock U-code rear end Plans: Sort small rust patches in rain channel Make up gearbox mount Make up driveshaft loop Fit O2 sensor and flanges to exhaust manifold Fit rad and pipes Cert Doorts Other stuff I can't think of right now. 12 Quote
Popular Post DAD Posted June 21, 2017 Author Popular Post Posted June 21, 2017 Okay, long overdue an update. Rust patches were sorted by the inimitable @Goat several months ago, sweet! Gearbox mount came together a couple of weeks ago, pretty pleased with it: Exhaust got some love last weekend. Please excuse horribad welds, I'm still new. Got a sweet new shirt: Also got a full set of nolathane bushes. Here's me downstairs bush collection: Rad mountings are also sorted, hurrah! Waiting on a brake kit from MRP, excite. Getting there now! 11 Quote
Popular Post DAD Posted June 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Posted June 22, 2017 Bit more progress today. Made up some bracketry to mount my generic electric fans to the slam panel, ahead of the ae86 rad. Really fiddly getting them to sit right against the rad without attaching them directly to it, but got there in the end. Even managed to modify the original kp radiator clamps to hold it all in place, pleasing. Also wrapped the exhaust manifold. Needs a bit more wrapping, but waiting for some more steel ties to turn up. 14 Quote
Popular Post DAD Posted July 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Posted July 22, 2017 Overdue an update! Wasn't happy with the engine mount setup I had. The A-series to K-series mount adaptors I got came with some rubber mounts that were gradually deforming just having had the weight of the engine on them, not even put any torque through them yet. Grabbed some Landy v8 ones from ebay as they were the same depth but much more solid, see?; Next on the list was brakes. Car should have a decent amount of go, so wanted some stop to match. Plumped for the MRP kit http://www.mrpltd.co.nz/product/kp61-starlet-big-brake-kit/ rather than faff around with building something up myself, the KP has a weird system where an offset disk bolts to the back of the hub, bugger mucking about with that. Plus these are pimppppp; Old: New: Only pain with them is I specifically ordered a setup to fit behind 13" wheels and they don't fit behind my 13" wheels. The WORKs have an indented lip on the inside barrel that interferes with the caliper. Got some 25mm bolt on spacers to help with clearance, but definitely going to need some serious arch tickling with them on. Problem for future me. One job I've been putting off for ages is finishing the dash wiring. Bit the bullet today and sorted it; Now have working oil pressure warning light, charge light, and check engine light. Pleased. Hate getting my head around this sort of thing - ended up bringing in a fused common 12v IGN feed to the back of the gauge to run the new circuits through, since they use a switched earth to complete the light circuit rather than the common earth arrangement that the stock starlet dash uses. I've got a nice custom 10k RPM tacho setup coming that will also tee off of that IGN, so saved myself some work there too. Left on the to-do list in my head: -Wire in new tacho when it arrives -Finish fan switch setup (waiting on a part), fit rad and fans back in, fill with coolant -Fill and bleed brakes -Gearbox and diff oil -Fit spacers and front wheels, roll arches -Clean and refit interior -Refit front panels and fender mirrors -Check all suspension and brake bolts are tight ..think that's about it? Sweet 10 Quote
DAD Posted July 28, 2017 Author Posted July 28, 2017 On 7/22/2017 at 17:22, DAD said: Only pain with them is I specifically ordered a setup to fit behind 13" wheels and they don't fit behind my 13" wheels. The WORKs have an indented lip on the inside barrel that interferes with the caliper. Got some 25mm bolt on spacers to help with clearance, but definitely going to need some serious arch tickling with them on. Problem for future me. Done. Scarles, so you just know it'll go hard for what it is. Still in the sky at the moment, will drop it down tomorrow and assess what the arch sitch is. 7 Quote
DAD Posted July 29, 2017 Author Posted July 29, 2017 Fitted all the radiator gubbins back in and filled it up with coolant. Thought I ought to let the old girl put her face on. She's a pretty lady! Dropped her down on the ground to check wheel clearance. Sits thusly: Not insurmountable and almost exactly what I expected, but the bigger issue is that the now-spaced wheels rub the back of the arch on lock, didn't think about that. Hum. Might have to get some less dishy wheels on the front. Anyone got any 13x6 equips? Oh, filled it up with coolant and brought it up to temp to start getting air out. First time I've been able to get some warmth in this engine, seems to run pretty well! Then I ran out of fuel, welp. 7 Quote
DAD Posted August 22, 2017 Author Posted August 22, 2017 These ought to solve my offset issues. They have the same rear step as the WORKs, but are a little skinnier with a higher offset. Pair of 13x6.5 +10s, and a pair of 13x7 +15s. Outer edge of the fronts, with the 25mm spacers, sits only 5mm outboard of where the WORKs sat pre-spacer. Should give me the wriggle room I need. Rears might just get away without an arch roll as well, sit slightly in from the WORKs. Don't want these to be mint, but they HAVE been sitting in a dude's garage for 15 years, and were corroded to buggery around the bolts. Pulled the bolts, got some new ones coming. Pulled the shagged valves, got some new ones coming. Got some SSR shank nuts on the way too. Gave the lips a rub down with some graduated wet-n-dry, and a run over with some polishing compound. Prefer the bare ally finish to the chrome-like reflective finish they ought to be, so I'll probably just clearcoat them like this. Wire wheel and some brake cleaner on the centres and they are ready for paint. These were originally offered with an orange centre option, and I had some quite close orange paint in stock. The Starlet came with a green and and orange pinstripe down the side (of a green car, with a brown, beige, cream and red interior. Jesus, Toyota), so it should tie into that nicely. 6 Quote
Popular Post DAD Posted August 22, 2017 Author Popular Post Posted August 22, 2017 Oops, missed a bit. Past couple of weeks I've cleaned up and put the interior back in. Cat helped - these had been out for about 10 seconds... Did I show you guys this? It's from Speedhut , they have a super cool gauge-face designer, can upload images and text and everything. Have a play, it's fun. Fitted in the hole pretty well (this was just a mock-up, fitted better after some more trimming inside and some sikaflex to fill the gap around the outside. It's tidier than it sounds, promise). Lights up all purdy-like too 12 Quote
DAD Posted September 5, 2017 Author Posted September 5, 2017 Just a little update today. The exhaust I'm using is the same 2" one I'd had made up before 2015 nats. The chap that put it together made it with a downturned tip, not quite what I was after, but didn't have time to change it at that point. I know the downturned dumpy look is a kiwi staple, but I'm really not a fan. So! Chopped off the curved section. I'd nabbed a nice polished rolled tip recently, one of the ones that has a big jubilee clip inside for holding it on. The rearmost hanger was in the way, so I umm'd and ahh'd about chopping that off too, welding the tip on, and welding the hanger back onto the outside of the tip. Went for the slightly easier method of cutting a channel in the tip to slide over the hanger, then clamped it in place. Works well, sits nicely in relation to the body, and both the hanger and the jubilee clip are tucked away under the rear valance. Happy with that. 2 Quote
DAD Posted September 17, 2017 Author Posted September 17, 2017 Thought I'd try a video blog style update, just dealing with fiddly bits and pieces now. Big bit of news, some of you already know - I'm moving back to the UK in December, and taking the Starlet with me. Aim is to get it road ready by then, so I can MOT and register her straight away on the other side... 4 Quote
DAD Posted October 2, 2017 Author Posted October 2, 2017 Put a bung in that bunghole. On a whim decided to offer up the spoiler. Got it in about the right place and marked holes for drilling, but will hold off until I've painted it before I go there. Along the top it's going inside a box section, so will be sealed and riveted on. 1 Quote
DAD Posted October 8, 2017 Author Posted October 8, 2017 On 10/2/2017 at 14:04, DAD said: "...so I'll need to take the box out to sort the leak, so I'll probably just do that when I get back to England and use a lift, rather than scabbling around on the floor." Changed my mind. Shit I'm an idiot, that was a horrible job. 2 Quote
DAD Posted October 16, 2017 Author Posted October 16, 2017 Bellhousing off Tailhousing off and casing split - it was this join that was leaking. The surfaces look nice, no obvious nicks or cracks. Gave them a good clean up and RTV'd the shit out of everything... Sweet. 4 Quote
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