My Kp61 Sprint

[Adsport]

Hi everyone, I've started browsing Rollaclub a lot more lately due to me now owning a K motor powered car again. I have a duplciate thread on Toymods so I'm just going to cut and paste what I am maintaining there :) If anybody would like close up pictures in better resolution, information or anything just ask and I will be happy to help where I can.

 

I originally purchased this 1983 Starlet in November of last year (2012) and it took some time to get it into the country because of the slackers who were processing my import approval.

 

Finally last week I picked my car up from the quarantine lot and have been working on the compliance side of things so that I can get it registered here in WA.

 

Anyhow, here's some images !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Adsport]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Adsport]

Originally I had purchased SSR XR4's (Longchamps) in 14x7 +0 for the car on "good" advice from other starlet owners that "they will fit no problems" to only realise that they sit well out of the guards (by an easy 30mm) and due to the clean nature of this car I really can't bring myself to cut the guards and screw flares on to it just yet .

 

After doing a few measurements (which I'm happy to publish if anybody is interested) I am going to need some pretty specific wheels to fit it without destroying the car. SSR's are for sale if anybody is interested. I have some Watanabe's (genuine) coming to me for test fitment.

 

 

I'm working through compliancing the car and getting it ready for rego at the moment and I am forced to keep it completely stock for registration here so there won't be much exciting stuff going on for a while. In saying this, the car is also required to be in good condition and well the suspension is completely blown out in all 4 corners, suspectedly from it sitting for however many years in jp doing nothing. The rear dampers are a no brainer, the design is a very universal type, they are the exact same units as KE70. AE86 rears are a little shorter in their extension so I will be putting those in as part of my temporary suspension.

 

The fronts is where it gets weird. The KP was the only car Toyota chose to use specific designs on for this stuff as far as I know so I was in for a challenge when I started investigating this last night. The KP starlets run very thin front struts, I thought this was rather odd until I started digging. After a lot of sweat and swearing I got the gland nuts to crack loose on the front struts and what eventuated was me being covered in the face by oil and the result was a plate and seal greeting me. After a LOT of hitting and tool shoving and turning and whacking the front strut inserts started to budge loose, and this was a surprise. The front struts on the starlet are monotube oil filled units, just like the late SW20 units.... This explained why the tubes are so skinny (41mm ID) but it wasn't helping me much. My first thought was "ahh shit." closely followed by " yep, engine oil going in there for sure" and then common sense took over and I started googling and found a monroe replacement strut that will fit, so I am working on obtaining that.

 

I've been driving it around on permits for the last couple of weeks and it just so happened that the "shortest" way to a few of my chosen destinations just happened to be localised hills run territory. Even with the flogged out dampers and hard and cracked 165 tyres this car has so much grip I am in awe of it already ! The 4K-e is pretty good, a lot better than any carb 4k I've driven and has bags of low down torque but it doesn't like to rev past about 4800. Once I get it rego'd I will throw the extractors I have on and hopefully that will allow the motor to breathe better.

 

The diff is a bit noisy..... not whiney but it just sounds like the pinion spacer has either worn or the pinion bearings have flat spotted or have some play in them so I will have to put plans in motion to correct that before rego although I would rather put it off and wait for an LSD to pop up on yjp.

 

Yesterday I also did a lot more cleaning to the engine bay, I unbolted everything against the body and cleaned that and under the bonnet skin and the engine bay is almost as shiny as the outside now hahah.

 

For the record, for compliance and rego I have to do the following:

 

Side intrusion bars , 50x25x2.5 steel , welded inside the doors

Immobiliser

New seat belts front (I have getting new retractors and webbing, retaining factory latches for the nostalgia. this comes at a a price though.)

Rear seat belts changed to lap/sash belts

Child restraint points

New brake pads

new tyres

English tyre Placard

[Adsport]

Hi guys, I just thought I would share my solution to rear seat belt mounts. My first option was to basically hack the car up, weld backing plates in the sides and drill and upper sling mount for the rears which I wasn't too keen for. While at a visit to seatbelt solutions today the guy gave me a really great idea when he showed me flat mounting retractors, I am pretty pickled with the outcome of these mounts because now I don't have to mod anything at all on the car, it can even be reversed and it will be easier for me to make up my own rear parcel shelf (didn't come with one) that I can reinforce to mount some speakers in :)

 

I started off with 100x100x2.6mm steel tube.

 

 

 

[Adsport]

I got busy with some fibreglass this weekend. I bought a TRD copy front spoiler and rear roof wing while the car was at home before it came over. The quality of the front piece is pretty good but the roof spoiler left a bit to be desired so I have been working on them.

 

The front one was pretty basic and also made for the wide body kit so it had big arms coming off of it and didn't really match up to the body. most people just cut the bits off and screw it on and let it hang there but I wasn't happy with that. I extended the sides and brought the front lip all the way back to the wheel arch, added and undertray and tied that in with the front edge so that it will be more resistant to road debris and damage.

 

I just fibreglassed straight onto the glass outdoor table I have and used some bent up scrap sheetmetal to mould the side extensions, pretty basic stuff especially with 80's cars are involved hehe.

 

 

 

 

 

I've also rebuilt the front dampers (oil filled units) and sorted out every thing else to pass rego, just waiting on my new strut tops to arrive so I can throw everything back together.

 

The SSR's won't make their way onto the car, they are from my stash of wheels for my KE70

[altezzaclub]

Rear Springs!!

 

When you're under the car can you get me-

 

the outside diameter of the coils, right across the spring. maybe 120-130mm

 

the wire diameter of the spring wire itself. maybe 10mm

 

the number of coils that are 'free' (not touching) when the car is sitting normally. (Jack under the diff) maybe 5 or 5& 1/2 to 6.

 

the total number of coils in the spring. Maybe a coil or two more than the free coils.

 

Then I can calculate the spring rate and see if we can use KP61s in the RA40 rally car. I've been hunting 1980s small cars at the wreckers but most have skinny stiff springs from being FWD.

 

If you ever replace the rear springs we would love to buy them if that are less than 100lb/in rate!

 

 

..and I don't know how they keep cars in such good condition in Japan! It looks superb.

[Adsport]

Hi mate, the car is currently on stands and I was actually planning on doing some measurements of the rear springs to see if I could use ones from other cars. I can also measure the rate for you (it's not that hard) when I change out the rear shocks which is likely to be on the weekend.

 

I do know for a fact that the TRD starlet cup cars ran 4kg/4kg front to rear so stock ones will be less.

 

I know that King Springs make replacement ones for them but GOOD LUCK getting any sense out of that company in regards to rates...

 

 

The car initially was in a bit of an ugly state, it had obviously sat for a very long time (I estimate easily 5-7 years) and I had to do a lot of work to the paint to get it shiny again. The car was very grey and had a lot of smog and pollution layers on it. It took a few goes at washing, paint treatments and two sweeps with a clay bar, some resin polish and finally liquid wax to get it as you see it.Every single bit of fluid in the car was also in a state of degredation. The brakes simply did not work and even pumping the old fluid out there was a lot of resistance until new stuff went through. The toyota coolant in it had gone a very dark black and smelled pretty bad.

 

The tyres were completely cracked apart and the interior smells still (a lot less than it initially did) like tatami mats hehe.

[nerfbat]

wow, just WOW!!!

this is gorgeous mate..!

subbed

[Adsport]

Thanks mate :)

[It's_AUDM_Yo]

 

[B.L.Z.BUB]

So awesome.

[Adsport]

LOL @ the response there !

[altezzaclub]

Ah- So it was unused but definately not superb when you got it! Nice work.

[Adsport]

Rear Springs!!

 

When you're under the car can you get me-

 

the outside diameter of the coils, right across the spring. maybe 120-130mm

 

the wire diameter of the spring wire itself. maybe 10mm

 

the number of coils that are 'free' (not touching) when the car is sitting normally. (Jack under the diff) maybe 5 or 5& 1/2 to 6.

 

the total number of coils in the spring. Maybe a coil or two more than the free coils.

 

Then I can calculate the spring rate and see if we can use KP61s in the RA40 rally car. I've been hunting 1980s small cars at the wreckers but most have skinny stiff springs from being FWD.

 

If you ever replace the rear springs we would love to buy them if that are less than 100lb/in rate!

 

 

..and I don't know how they keep cars in such good condition in Japan! It looks superb.

 

I decided that upon fitting the front struts this afternoon and the dampening balance being stupidly out I fitted the new rear shocks. In doing so I slipped the springs out for you.

 

 

 

spring free height : 320mm

spring OD : 115mm

spring ID 95mm

Coil thickness : 10mm

windings : 7 complete

 

loading : when loaded with 10kg of weight the spring compressed 30mm.

 

I did the same load test to an 8kg spring and it compressed 15mm.

 

also have images with the coil alongside a measuring rule if you desire.

[altezzaclub]

Cheers!- I assume they look like this, one end flattened and one end open. Usually the flat end (the top) closes right up and maybe touches the body mount 15 or 20mm past the spring end, and the open (diff) end might touch 1/3 of a turn, then instead of 7coils working we have about 5.5 active coils when loaded. You can see where they touch by just looking at the dirt marks in the coils.

 

Using Pontiac Racing's rate calculator here-

http://www.pontiacracing.net/js_coil_spring_rate.htm

 

We can put in 5.5 active coils, wire diameter 10mm, OD of spring 115mm, press enter and get a rate of 87lb/in, or 1.55kg/mm.

 

So they are quite soft springs and I am definately going to hunt a pair down!

 

The RA40 had a kerb weight of 1000kg when new, we gutted it completely then put in a cge, so I reckon the front weighs 600kg and the back 400kg. The diff weighs 70kg, the wheels 30kg and the Bilsteins have a gas pressure of 40kg each. Subtract that from the 400kg and the springs are holding up 110kg each. They should compress from 320mm down to 150mm. 70mm of that is wire (7coils at 10mm) so we get 80mm of travel in the rear suspension that the shocks & bump stops have to control.

 

That's not bad, a little less than we have, but worth trying to get more squat under acceleration.

 

Thanks for that!