Matt's '81 KP60 Starlet

[_Matt]

This is my recently acquired KP60.

Its has a 2K and 4 speed, will probably give her an upgrade soon.

Only mod it has is some cobra lowering springs, other than that it's all fairly standard.

Need to get a new windscreen rubber in there asap, since it's leaking.

Short term plan is to tidy her up a bit more - paint bumpers, grill and wheels etc.

Are the bumpers and grill/headlight surrounds meant to be black or dark grey? Not sure what paint to use.

Might be pretty slow progress.

One day....

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[_Matt]

Pulled off the bumpers and grill today and sanded them back. Decided to try the paint out first on the grill and headlight surrounds.

Turns out the paint shop gave me gloss instead of the satin/matte black I asked for.

Doesn't look too bad in gloss, better than before. I'll probably grab some matte or satin black to paint the bumpers though, mightn't look right in gloss. 

Also got a boss kit and pulled the Nardi steering wheel off the racecar to go on this for now, since I am driving this more often.

Some fender mirrors and a new front windscreen rubber also arrived.

Will get more pics tomorrow.

 

[_Matt]

Decided to just paint the bumpers with the gloss paint and see how they come out.

It seems to look alright. So it can stay like that.

Fender mirrors make it look so much better too.

 

 

 

[_Matt]

Not a very exciting update, but we pulled out the front windscreen. So happy there is no rust.

Also gave the top bit off the dash a paint since it was quite faded.

[_Matt]

Got the new window rubber in. No more wet floor!

Bought some semi-sealed beam headlights from Olds Cool Autos and some H4 bulbs. Sooo much better and brighter.

That's about all really. New wheels should be here next month, can't wait!

[_Matt]

Picked up a pair of SSR Star Sharks in Taupo thanks to kp_james for bringing them. They're 13x6's with I think +11 offset. Gave them a polish and they came up quite nice.

I have another pair on there way from Japan, which should hopefully arrive soon.

Will the current 175/70 tyres look alright on them? Or would it be better with some lower profile ones?

 

Got a 4K from James as well. I am keen to rebuild it and get a bit more power out of it, but I don't really know where to start, so any suggestions on what to do?

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[_Matt]

Started to pull apart the 4K the past week. Looks to be in pretty good condition.

 

Ordered some parts and a gasket set from Mark at Toyota, should be here soon from Japan. Need to get some bearings and piston rings at some point too.

Gave the block and pulleys a coat of black engine enamel to tidy them up a bit.

Started to polish the cylinder head cover and timing chain cover. They look a bit nicer, but will give them a bead blast at work and then another polish to get them looking better.

Might take the head and camshaft to an engine builder this week and see if they can do some porting and give the cam a grind.

[_Matt]

Not much of an update, but gave these a bead blast and they came up pretty good.

Will just leave them with this finish, as I really can't be bothered trying to polish them. Will be too hard to get an even polish all over.

[_Matt]

Parts arrived from Toyota awhile ago. Engine is at Hartley's getting some work done to it.

Second pair of starsharks hasn't arrived yet, hopefully this coming week.

Gave it a polish today, came out pretty good.

Also repainted the bumper end caps and fender mirrors satin black since they look average in gloss.

Doing that I discovered one of the front end caps is actually a rear one, so is slightly different.

So if anyone has a good r/h front bumper end cap they don't want, i'll take it.

[_Matt]

Woo! Wheels finally arrived from Japan. They turned out to be 13x6.5 instead of 13x6 which is good.

Gave them a bit of a polish and some new nuts and bolts. They didn't polish up as good as the other pair because they have a clearcoat on them. Will have another go removing it at some point.

Was going to paint them all gold, but I think I like the red a bit more, because it's darker and has more contrast with the polished bits.

Just need to lower it a bit now.

[_Matt]

Did some photoshopping of the wheel colours, drip rails and window frames to see which ones I liked the best.

Still no idea which I prefer. Open to suggestions.

Also how would I go about lowering it another 30-40mm? It already has cobra springs which I think are just lows.

Cut or compress them a bit with shorter shocks? Or get some superlows? Adjustable coilovers are out of my budget atm.

Discussion:
//oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/48889-matts-81-kp60-starlet-discussion/

[_Matt]

Painted the wheels this weekend. Used paint stripper to remove the original paint, didn't work for the clearcoat on the lips though.

The rear lips came up pretty good with a sand and polish. Would come up better if I could remove the bolts but they're stuck.

Bought a Weber 28/36 too.

[_Matt]

Not very much has happened since the last update.

The rear springs got a bit of a "trim" so it sits a bit nicer now. Still want it lower so I'll try sort some shorter shocks at some point.

The clutch has decided to give out all of a sudden, so I went and bought a new one (thanks Mark!). Will try and get it in this weekend.

The 4K that is at the engine builders is now getting bored out as big as it can go, since he found new pistons for very cheap.

Hopefully they start on it soon!

I have made a start on making my own extractors, I drew up a flange and got it laser cut at work. Now to figure out how to do the rest of them.

[_Matt]

New clutch is in and is now much better to drive. Also bought a new clutch cable because the old one wasn't the best and had stripped the adjustable circlip part of it.

Installed some new carpet from autodec, could do with some more work to get it fitting nicer.

Made up an adapter plate and modded the intake manifold to suit the weber carby. Had an attempt to make the inside all smooth which worked well, just need to get further in.

[_Matt]

So the 4K is all reassembled thanks to Hartley's!

Not 100% sure on the specs yet, but I believe it is bored out to 1400cc, new pistons, bigger cam, ported, skimmed head, valve springs, lightened flywheel, electronic distributor.

Weber carby has been rebuilt, have also acquired a Primera radiator, MSD coil, new muffler and Ramflo filter.

Basically just waiting for the Rush automotive headers to be made then it can go in!

So excited for some power!!

Need to tidy up that yuck fuel pump and dizzy vacuum advance(?) somehow.

[_Matt]

Here's a list of the things that have been done:

Got the flywheel back and it is about 6.5kg I think

Also painted the grill and headlight surrounds again, this time satin black, which looks much better!

Clocked to 88888 today

[_Matt]

Rush Automotive headers arrived today, so nice!

The swap might potentially happen next weekend or the week after.

[_Matt]

Pulled out the old dirty 2K Friday afternoon. Gave the engine bay a clean, degrease and painted a few things that weren't very nice looking.

Dropped the 4K in today. Also test fitted radiator. Still a decent amount of things need doing;

make exhaust, radiator mounts, fit accelerator/choke cables, sort the water/heater lines, make a new coil mount, rewire the dizzy/tidy up the wiring, shorten braided fuel line, probably heaps more I'm missing.

[_Matt]

Everything is nearly done now. Just need to make the exhaust, sort out the breather/pcv valve and tidy up the wiring, as it's a mess.

 Made some overly complicated throttle linkage.

This is since the Weber's throttle rotates the opposite way to the factory carby, also clearance issues and because the cable travels way more than what the carby rotates (would result in very touchy accelerator pedal with hardly any travel) if that makes sense. Anyway this works mint and uses the full pedal travel.

Filled it up with oil and coolant tonight and started it. Started up first try after fuel had gotten through. Ran really nice! Was quite loud with only the headers on haha.

Will try get a video tomorrow.

[_Matt]

Made the exhaust, was too loud as it only have one Coby resonator and just a straight pipe out the back. So decided to make a muffler for it, since I couldn't find anything the style I liked.

So here's my guide to making a muffler haha

Press some end caps.

Drill a lot of holes in some tube and then louvre them. Weld on baffle for the expansion chamber.

Wrap tube in stainless steel wool and then stuff with fibreglass.

Weld on end caps

Polish.

Then fit.

Is all welded now and have painted the tube black, just waiting for some flanges to go just in front of the diff, otherwise I'll have some difficulty trying to get it over the diff to fit.