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Blizzo's '83 KP Starlet rally car


BLIZZO

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so yea if anyone has a parts hoard of stuff lying around let me know, i could be interested in some stuff. Major things would be doors, but could also be interested in a shell for some panel cuts etc. oh oh and if anyone has an external tacho that doesnt read 5k when your doing 2k that would also be choice.

please and thankyous

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  • 2 weeks later...

So i cracked into the rather large amount of rust on the lower a panel last weekend. Shes not pretty but meh, rally car.

664FABD3-10B5-408E-BD72-3C9897A24C25.jpg

 

Cutty cutty ( a lot more acutally got cut out, but forgot to photopotato that)

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Someone had done the good old sheet of tin and some jbweld trick, yea little johnny!

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Weldy weldy

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have since seam sealed and painted it. Im just gunna fix pieces in between events so it doesn't become a garage ornament. Once all visible bad bits are fixed up ill give it a new coat of jam.

 

Currently have front struts out, am banging new brake lines and cleaning the calipers etc, will buff pistons and jam them back in, fill standard shocks with 20 weight oil for stiffies. gunna look into possible strut upgrades soon to get bigger brakes, but i want to be able to still run 13 inch wheels, as i have a constant supply of cheap 13" rally tyres. Anyone have any ideas here, richie? Ned etc

 

also on the look out for some old rims to bang road tyres on for tarmac events, don't want jap spec, just awesome ham 80s nz spec. Anyone got some tridents / turbos / hotwires around they wanna sell?

 

Churrr

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  • 3 weeks later...

Had my first event on the weekend, just a wee gravel autocross, car went really well. Had a bit of temp creep at the end of the day so suspecting a mildly blown HG so will whip the head off this week. Things to do before next event are get rid of the bloody locked diff cos it's shit and sledges and makes your butt pucker coming off the gas downhill and to also get a better ratio diff as it has a bonneville salt flat spec 3.7 which is a million times too tall. I didn't realise starlets even came with a 3.7!

Anyway vid for lols, yea I come off the gas a bit but it was my first event. Also take it easy on the sweeping uphill right hander before the oil drums as its really easy to get tied up on the in bend and the other side has a lake at the bottom of a short cliff.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=M9CSi0zU4ZU

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Soo at the event on the weekend the car was using a bit of water, and after about 3-4 rounds started to get a fair bit of temp creep when sitting at the startline etc, was all good when it had a foot full, so we suspected a mildy blown head gasket. Whipped the head off tonight to find this!

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Some pretty severe pitting in number 4 combustion chamber causing the HG to leak, as you can tell by the rust on the valves this is where our water is going! old fella reckons give it a good skim and bang another HG on and shell be right, so will drop it off to my local head magician.

 

Other areas of concern here are also that numbers 1 and 4 seem to be quite lean and 2 and 3 quite rich, my guess is that this is due to the single sidedraught have much longer runners for inlet ports 1 and 4, dont know how ill solve this problem.

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Other thing that made me lol a bit is that someone has done some pretty serious port work here, as you can see in the photo below which shows the ported head vs a standard 4k head, but then they had not modified the inlet gasket so there was a massive restriction between the inlet manifold and the head! also concerns me a bit as the inlet ports have been taken out quite a bit but it still has standard sized valves, which reading suggests is actually detrimental to airspeed etc, so may look at getting bigger valves but dont really wanna drop too much coin into it at the moment.

07DA53D3-E574-420F-8931-9521714E0FCC.jpg

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so im calling on some 4K experts at the moment to identify my head and the spare head i have, its weirdly different, is about 80 thou shorter (may have been planed) has wider water jackets, a much much shallower combustion chamber and little knubby tag bits on the sparkplug protrustion bits.

 

this is my spare head that came with the car, note the lugs-

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scribing on spare head

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combustion chamber of spare head -

151AF3CD-4D10-4FEB-9E1F-416C768B1E40.jpg

 

current head combustion chamber -

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numbers on current head (note the weird place for it to have cracked and been welded where the RTV is, this was leaking from the sparkplug bucket-

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And another hori fix this car has had, think i may have found why cylinder one is lean, note the weld in the water jackets, this must have corroded and been welded up but not dremeled out, so will be running much hotter than the other cylinders

9BBF7887-48B5-46C5-9B94-B6F5BB45FEEE.jpg

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  • 1 month later...

soo no update for a wee while, I have ditched the 3k-b bigport head, the corrosion is too deep and the head doesnt have much fat left on it to mill, the ports are wayyyyyy to big for this engine and it also stripped 3 rocker bolts due to excessively had double valve springs, doesnt need them as my cam only has 260 tho of cam lift, shes only mild.

Anyway i have given my engine builder a mint 3k-b small port head, so hes throading under all the valves, porting the exhaust ports a fair bit and just tidying up the inlet ports to try and match them to this -

3E2E45FE-5F51-46E4-8960-BEE4F9E97DDD.jpg

 

goodbuy single side sucker hello double doort doorts! i have two DHLA 40s to go on here but the mani needs a bit of work before that, its been ported to suit 45s so its getting built up and it has a corner broken off the head mounting flange so that needs repairing, all worth it as i got the manifold with linkage incredibly cheap. it does have a terrible port entry angle, like almost a right angle, but engine builder will port the head to try and reduce this.

 

so yea just waiting for jimmy motorsport head work now and should be doing skids in a month or too, also have acquired a new cool piece of gear for this but i wont post it up until its in my sweaty little paws!

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  • 4 weeks later...

Righto boys and girls i need some opinions on colours for this pile of sack as i dont know what i like. Doors are off at the mo and im fixing the bogged up rust. Will give it some yellow paint so it will be all yellow once on finished. Im not doing a full spray cos im jewish and its a damn rally car so it will be a bit hori but good enough to wrap around a strainer post on SS4.

 

So to make it look less hori im going to get some vinyl going on cos rally car, also currently getting simon to mish mash me a hatch spoiler possibly for extra horsepower points, gotta have that down force.

 

So tell me what you think of these ideas, yellow is a hard base colour to work with but i cant be fucked chaniging it. not actually my car, was someone elses on here i just stole photo for ideas cos mines in bits in a dark shed. tridies ftw.

 

hit me..

toy%20stripes.jpg

 

grey%20stripe.jpg 

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  • 2 months later...

sooooo i have not updated this in a while so ill jam up some progress. Im pretty motivated at the moment as i have registered for DCC's 5 round gravel sprint series and the first one is on jan 16th, so have a fair bit of rust work and a paint job and several other things to do in that time.

 

Anyway, on the parts acquiring front I had secured myself a very rare TRD U-code starlet 2 way plate LSD, my father in law went round do check it out but reckoned it was pretty shagged and they are impossible to get bits for so that broke my balls big time. But then he also told me he had just got me a quaife ATB LSD for an escort diff, a 4.4 escort nugget and is going to jam the starlet mounts on an escort housing he has lying around, so mega win, i married the right girl.

 

Anywho panel progress, so like many 80's starlets it turns out this thing is a bit of a rust bucket, and like many 80s starlets some muppet has just filled all the rust with bog and gone shell be right. Thats not my style, im pretty rubbish at panel beating but i at least like to get the rust out and new steel in, bog can hide wonders. so here is some of the dodgy shit i found -

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The passenger side roof line was atrocious but there must have been like 2 kgs of bog on the ledge at the back of the roof / hatch.
 
So i cut it out and buzzed a bit of new steel in there anyway 
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3 of the doors are also quite badly rusted at the bottom, some could be patched, 2 need the whole bottom 4 inches of the doors made, no drama tho
 
bit of foldy foldy bashy bashy
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in between rust work i decided i wanted a strut brace to try stop those towers from trying to kiss. Being a jew rally car i decided a nice $5 brace from a mitsi outlander would do, still needs a bit of bending and welding -
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the rear hatch itself also had quite a bit of rust in it so i got way to carried away and cut it out, now i have to replace it all -
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gunna need some new stickers i think
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and this piece is my next task, hopefully im able to get it done tomorrow arvo 
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I have decided before i try to do any panel beating that i want to look nice i need a good welder, my $150 little ching chong thing is a piece of crap, so hard to get good runs or penetration as its like it doesn't have enough grunt to run continuously, just gives a crack - - crack - - - - - - crack crack crack - - - - - - - crack response as opposed to good welders i have used that sound like frying bacon.
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  • 1 month later...

righto updates have been a bit thin on the ground as i have been rather busy trying to get this thing ready for the event on the 16th, unsure if i will make it especially as i hit big hurdle today thats my own fuckup that i will ask for some advice on.

 

i forgot to take to many photos of the panel beating but there was a shit tonne that went into it, as you can tell my all the shit that was cut out of it.

E88BB7C3-AFCF-40C6-8C45-51EF587F7155.jpg

 

turned my garage into a spray booth and jammed some primer on, had to trim my beard because my respirator wouldnt seal agaisnt my face and i didnt want to breath any baddy icocyanates or what every they are from the 2k paint. Cheers snoozin for the good deal on the safety stuff too :-)

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so i started jamming some colour on it, im doing the inside myself and then a mates going to do the exterior in his booth
A08C3C30-7949-4ED5-86B6-47E45F39EDCD.jpg
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right and this is where i hit my hurdle / fuckup. I went to hang the rear hatch and it seems the vertical panel that drips down from the roof is too far back / not recessed enough and the middle (apex of the curve) on the rear hatch hits in when opening and closing, the drivers side hinge also seems to have moved when i re made the middle panel (i didnt remove the hinges and the shouldnt have moved as still had plently of steel around them) who can come up with the easiest way for me to fix this?
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anyway while i figure out how im going to fix that im taking it to my cousins workshop to make some new seat mounts and radiator support etc.
Loaded ready to go
5C5425AD-1C15-491A-BD2B-8CC287B36109.jpg
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k so i managed to get the hatch to clear, by using the bigger hammer method. used the rubber end of my bacho rachet as a dolly and smacked the panel till it cleared. it put a few bows / bends in the roof line as seen here below, but i didnt give a fuck at this stage / its only a rally car. so hatch is hung now, and its all ready to go to my mates booth for top coat.

A2D60BF7-95EF-4EA2-A94D-37016645A777.jpg

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Now that the body is out of the way i got to a few other little jobs, made an alloy mount for the batter isolator switch now that my battery is going in the back. this will go just behind the handbrake.

36EE5C9F-D3E1-4FA9-BBCE-CBB02C7A9387.jpg

 

also made new seat mounts. the old ones were mish mash fucking ugly / unsafe things that came with the car that have the worst birdshit welding i have ever seen, are made of so many different pieces and some of them are panel steel!!

83763DF4-4391-4069-8BF4-F2142F24524F.jpg

 

the rules are the must be made of 3mm steel at least, i made them at my cousins workshop and the smallest flatbar he had was 5mm, so they are overkill but meh they will be safe and are a bit more simple than the last ones.

C9B0B09A-C335-4855-8884-EEF486620FC8.jpg

 

now for the exciting bit. Father in law just sent me this photo of the diff assembly he has built for the car, so stoked. Its an escort diff with a 4.4:1 CWP and Quaife ATB LSD, he made a jig for the starlet mounts and swapped everything over. He has re drilled the stud to 4x114.3 and lowered the bottom arm brackets by an inch to help with squat / traction / i dont know but he does. cant wait to get the locked 3.7 out of the car and get this bad boy in!!

60B2BF44-8D5F-4A6F-8790-B41C5ED514E5.jpg

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righto so good things happened tonight. this -

 

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unfortunately i didn't block out one of the old paint seams on the roof enough, and it is highly visible which even tho its a rally car it does piss me off. but i will have to get used to it. seen here-
8C292479-7F18-484A-810C-0E330E91ED9B.jpg
 
hopefully most of it goes back together this weekend
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  • 3 weeks later...

So I has been very busy putting this thing back together over the last couple of weeks. She's getting very close now

C0C83EBE-1EF3-4195-A6B8-D4FA8F0D06A3_2.j

After a trip down south over this Wellington anniversary weended to see the parentals in law I picked up the English that the father in law had converted to KP spec for me, can probably say that this is the only piece of Quaife goodies I am going to own in a long time

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All fitted in like a dream and the wheels clear perfectly, it's only 15mm wider than the starlet diff. Driveshaft needs to have 47mm trimmed off it though so that's getting done at garmac engineering in Wanganui this week.

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I also ordered some cheap China spec vinyl wrap to have a crack at making the decals esqe of an inverse on Paul Adams old Toyota NZ car back in the 80s.

Man this stuff is a bitch to put on, watch this space

DC932B7A-32F0-49FE-8591-CA6FDB889CE8.jpg

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  • 3 weeks later...
  • 4 weeks later...

Man i hope this post goes to a new page.

 

Anyway i have inherited Mitch W's unknown suspension out of his yellow car because he is way to stance for coilovers that actually have travel. Still dont know what they are out of other than its something Mitsi

 

Im probably not going to use the strut tubes as theres not a sensible way to get them legal so im going to rob all the bits off them and adapt them to some starlet tubes.

sorry for super fuzzy photo but my camera is having a mare

E138D2C0-8F82-4A2C-97BD-49FE50E88227.jpg

 

as the threaded lower spring mount will have a larger ID than the starlet tube OD does anyone know if it would be OK for cert reasons to have a sleeve with a step on it welded and plug welded to the tube, that the threaded spring mount bit would slide over and sit on? at the moment they are not welded, but rather have a ring welded to the tube that they rest agaisnt. I will want to get it legal for rally purposes so will need to be crack tested etc.

 

as soon as i got the things home i noticed the very very thick shafts and thought hmm they look like group 4 spec Bilsteins, whazaaa i was right

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they also have much bigger than starlet but still fit inside a 13" rim calipers and vented rotors, so will attempt to make them fit also, im guessing i will need bugeye steering arms but luckily i have a set of those hanging out in the spare parts department.
4FD6CFAE-27BC-4AF9-AD13-AD2B5A7419E1.jpg
 
so now i just need to find a set of starlet strut tubes for very cheap monies, as i want to keep the stock pair for spares in case i break something mid rally.
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  • 2 weeks later...

So i had my second event in this thing on saturday. Was really happy with how it went, was a cool little piece of road albeit quite short. Had Rhys there in the KE20 so had another a class car to try and chase but never even expected to be even close to him but my fastest time was only 1 second a km off so must be doing something right. I managed to nip a couple of 4age powered cars and KB1700, the pinto powered mk1 escort.

 

Car is still running stock suspension all around and def needs fiddling, all the other starlets had modified sway bars to add more castor in the front and custom bottom arms to get more neg camber and increase front track width so im starting on my coilovers now.

 

anyway a couple of videos, excuse the crappy camera quality. O and it was a rolling start also.

 

 

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so after the weekends event and deciding i def need some decent front suspension so got started on my coilovers. The bilsteins are too long for the starlet tubes which is ideal cos i want a taller strut to do the opposite of everyone else on this forum so im going to use the mitsi tube over the starlet tube. 

I got some standard starlet struts to cut up thanks to the guys and olds-cool autos. Cutty cutty 

6F8F0B15-89B0-4137-9C24-3A9DB7B98F58.jpg

 

and very conveniently the OD of the starlet tube fits perfectly inside the mitsi tube.

 684A89DD-A4BD-4813-A526-5D4AA9AD8FFD.jpg

 

so I have the mitsi tube slotted over 80mm of the starlet tube to give it enough strength. It will be welded around the bottom and plug welded in 4-6 spots by someone that can actually weld as these will need to be road legal.

EC4263B8-EEBD-4933-9365-7AB394BF882A.jpg

 

all mocks up alright, just need to get it welded. Pretty keen to do a brake upgrade while im at it as the starlet ones are not the best.

87E11EF6-828B-4382-B433-C5A4DF2353CE.jpg

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