Thanks MrHijet. I had plans to get some L600 struts a little later on as I've heard that they're slightly shorter than the standard struts. Having a bit of negative camber is probably a good thing in my case as well, since I'll need to camber the front end in a little to get the 13's to fit nicely.

Here's some more recent pictures now that I've finished moving house and have had a little time to do some work.




Only things that I'm still waiting on are tyres, which wouldn't normally be an issue, except the range of tyres available in Australia for kei cars is a little limited. Ideally, I'm chasing a set of 145/65R13, as it's the smallest and narrowest tyre available. (In case people are wondering why, it's so they clear the rear guards)

155/65R13 may have to suffice if I get completely stuck, but the rolling diameter is a little too big for my liking compared to the standard 145/70R12.

Once tyres get sorted, it'll be ready for registration.

So a mate of mine has a wheel of his sitting on my garage floor. Got me thinking...




15x10 -19

Finally got around to getting the centre bores in my steelies machined out so I can bolt these on properly. Firstly, some with the back end laid out with metal on metal.




And one at a sensible height.

That they do.



Almost on the road. Just needs a roadworthy cert. Once it's registered, I'll be dropping it down a little lower.

Nothing much new to report. I pumped out the rear guard a couple of millimetres so the tyres don't rub on compression. This should hopefully have a roadworthy and rego by weeks end if all goes to plan.

Looking at some different wheels for later on as well. If I get some, they should make this look 10 times cooler. (Well, they do in my mind)

Finally on the road! Took it for a drive this morning through some rain to give it a bit of a shakedown and it runs and drives well. Very happy to say the least.

This car has probably got to be one of the most fun cars I've driven. I've never even driven anything high powered and I'd probably still say it's more fun. Every time I get out of it, there's a big cheesy grin across my face.

I think it's something about the novelty of driving a tiny car, even if it is slow as all hell when driving against other cars, haha. I almost feel sorry for the majority of the US that you guys never got much/anything kei-car sized.

Getting back to the real talk now though, there's a few things I want to do over the next few days. This includes:

- Replacing the radiator (I have a recently reconditioned spare to swap in)
- Replacing the heater core (from the old shell)
- Thermostat
- Filters (oil and fuel mainly, air filter doesn't look too bad)
- Oil
- Coolant
- Spark plugs

Edit: Obligatory service station picture.

I know where you're coming from with the smiling business
There are lots of these driving round here and they're cheap as dirt. Going by the name Cuore.
Considered one as my daily, might later on.
Nice going with the original choice of car

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'90 VW Polo GT
'87 Mini 1000 S6
'91 Nissan Sunny Coupe (r.i.p.)

They're a great little runabout car as they chew bugger all fuel even if you're giving it a good thrashing, which you usually are to get up hills, haha. I'm waiting until I have to fill it up again to get an idea on the exact fuel consumption, but I'm currently sitting on about 190km and the needle is just under half, which is roughly 10 litres used, give or take a couple of litres. A rough calculation of 11L/190km gives about 5.7L/100km.

In other news, I went out and bought a bunch of stuff to give this a service, as I don't actually know when it was last given one. So far I've replaced the fuel and oil filters and put some fresh 20w-50 (nothing special, just some cheap-ish, but not crap stuff). I've got a new thermostat on order which should be in later this week. When that arrives I'll be dumping all the coolant out, replacing the radiator with the spare, putting the new thermostat in and topping it off with some new coolant.

Well, all my servicing looks to be done, aside from replacing the coolant once I flush out what's in there still and changing over the heater core if I can be bothered.

I realised after driving around for a few days that the timing was set to full retard, which explained a little about why it didn't drive all that well and was hesitant. I wound in some advance and swapped over the dizzy cap for one of the spares I had. Consequently, with the timing advanced a bit, it idled higher, so I've wound down the idle to a nice, steady rate and backed off the fuel accel pump.

Hopefully, this should all contribute to an even better fuel economy. The first tank got about 7.8L/100km, which isn't too bad, but not that great either, for such a small motor. We'll see how much better the next tank does to properly gauge how the adjustments went.

That looks awesome, I wish I had a Handivan all we get is the crummy 4 doors over here.......

Nice job man!!

You should do a small boot lip spoiler too

Thanks. I have to admit the 2 door versions are much cooler. I think solely for the pop-out rear windows, haha.

I might see if I can find a hatch spoiler, or something similar that fits, but it's not high on the priorities at the moment.

Also, I'm now getting a consistent 7L/100km which includes a bit of highway driving and driving around town in traffic.

Just a Piece of Aluminium should do it Should improve your highway fuel economy and also make cool vortexs off the back in the rain

hi, im im new zealand and have a 1987 2 door, tr-xx turbo that im trying to get on the road
im finding it hard to get some wheels in the 4x110 stud pattern, i was thinking about maybe re drilling or using differnt hubs to get 4x100? any ideas,

i need a five speed box also as the one i have now is past its best, hard to find though.

your handi looks sweet.

Isnt by any chance a white one that came with 2 motors?

Easiest way to swap to 100PCD is to swap the hubs over for L700 gear. Otherwise, have a look into wheels to suit earlier Mazda RXs, since a lot of them ran 110PCD. Keep in mind that you don't need a whole lot of width/offset to fill out the guards on these, which means you can pretty much run any standard wheel, so long as you have the centre bores machined out to suit the Daihatsu hubs.

The steelies I've got were off an RX-_, though I'm not entirely sure which. I've got another set of wheels making their way over from Japan in the next couple of months hopefully. Should be sweet as.

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The kei
The Celica

yes its a nice shade of matte white haha,
it came with the standard EB 550cc and the ED 850cc,
are you the old owner?

any wheel that fits an RX is like gold here though, il look into the l700 stuff thanks

6 cylinders of fury.


(Just kidding. It's just a 12 valve head on an 850 block)

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The kei
The Celica

Nice looking block Its hard to believe the first 5 Valve per cylinder engine was in a Kei car....

Oh and no I wasnt the owner my friend was.

It's a bit of a pity that head is cracked though. I've found another one at a local wrecker though, so I'll probably go and pilfer it later this week.

Also got something new last week. Pics next weekend.

Lastly, I got 5.8L/100km (40mpg for those in the US) off my last tank of fuel. Super fuel economy!

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The kei
The Celica