They answered me on instagram though when I had questions about engine-swapping my former Cuore(Rest in Piece).
Even asked them where they got it road legal cause my whole done swap went to shitters cause i couldnt found an inspector that wanted to get it road legal…
And yea, considering their videos how they “worked” on the arches to make them wider i dont doubt that the chassis is toast 
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APRIL UPDATE
I’ve been quite busy these past few weeks!
My internship is going well, and I’m about halfway there. I’m designing/developing a new suspension for a sportscar based on a Lotus Elise S2, together with a classmate. There’s a lot of interesting theory to learn about the subject!
I’m going to move outside of the city in two weeks, which meant I had to wrap a few small things up. Those two small things being two engines waiting in my garage to get swapped. One being the K3VE2 from Tom the Sirion, which went into… Tom’s Cuore.
There weren’t any setbacks or surprises really. Everything went pretty smoothly, but just took longer than expected. It took an entire weekend and a bit to get it finished, but I was pretty pleased with the result. Less than 12 hours after finishing this car, the next Cuore was parked inside the garage.
This little EJ-DE had done over 226.xxx km’s, and was ready to be retired. James Bond would’ve been jealous of the smokescreen this engine produced.
We swapped it for… my old EJ-VE! I took that engine out with about 132.xxx km’s, and was healthy as an EJ can be. Should be good for at least another 100k. There are quite a lot of differences between the pre-facelift and facelift models (DE vs VE over here), which made it a little less “bolt on”. The wiring, fuseboxes, charcoal filter, exhaust and ECU’s (including the airbag modules and thus the seat belts) all needed to be swapped. But, it now runs like a dream, without using any oil. Massive win!
BLYATSU
As for my own car: I’m still using it as a daily, and it’s still performing well! Annoyingly, it’s more comfortable at 130 km/h than it is at 100 km/h (which is the speed limit during the day). The other day I just floored it to see what it would do, and I managed to do 185 km/h on the speedo, which I think isn’t bad at all. The car felt amazingly stable as well!
In a few months time, the car needs to go through MOT, and as you may have guessed, my car has a ‘spare’ cylinder which still needs to be registered. I’m not sure what I’m going to do, but I need to tidy a few things up either way. I’m currently looking at way to make a decent airfilterbox as it isn’t secured properly. Same goes for the exhaust (which hangs by a few zip ties on the rear).
Other than that, I ordered some Bilstein rear shocks, and will soon order a set of lowering springs as well. I tried out this combination a while ago, and it’s much better in terms of comfort. I’m sure @Mr_Gormsby thinks this is blasphemy ( 
) because I’m using softer springs in the rear (2,1kg/mm vs 4kg/mm in the front), but:
- it needs to be comfortable enough do be driven daily
- weight distribution is probably like 70/30 since the rear is completely empty
- 4k springs with stock shocks makes the rear a bit unpredictable
- I usually don’t drive “on the edge”, so in terms of grip it should be alright
- if dookie hits the fan, I still have a rear sway bar to change the load transfer balance
I’m also hoping to get my Copen seats in ASAP, I can’t wait!
That’s it for now, take care! 
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nice update mate. I tend to stick with stock springs and suspension for daily driven dais. Mainly for comfort and to me, my daily is to get around and that’s it. I like comfy daily’s also 
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If you want comfort go for low-rate springs. If it understeers (and it will) then soften the front and stiffen the rear. You will never know if what you have is optimal unless you do some testing and compare. Bilsteins are a good thing. My Mazda 4x4 has Toyota TRD Bilsteins on it and the race car has Bilstein PSS9s (which are a good starting point for a club race car). Any, I would not call your spring choice “blasphemy” but I don’t understand the logic of the front spring which are almost double the std rate. The ride in these things is awful, and lowering only makes them worse, esp if the front struts are not shortened units to make up for the reduced bump travel. One quickly ends up on the bump stops, and bump stops have rate so getting into them early in travel ramps things up really quickly (no bump stop is worse)
I bought the BC Racing kit 2.5 years ago which comes with 4kg/mm springs front and rear. That was at the beginning of ‘the build’ (when I knew jack dookie about modifying cars(, and I figured it would be alright since BC has a pretty good reputation. The front is a tad firm, but still doable in terms of comfort. The rear is way to harsh, especially the dampers. To give you an idea of how harsh it actually is: my classmate was driving behind me the other day, and he later texted me “I have to say, your rear suspension really has no travel at all”.
As I mentioned earlier, changing just the dampers isn’t enough because the car would then continue to be bouncy, but on top of that, the springs aren’t seated properly anymore. The lowering springs have better fitment and lower springrate, so that’s why I chose them. When testing, I found that with this rear setup, the front and rear ‘frequencies’ were matched more evenly. My only complaint was that the shocks were a little soft on rebound, but that could also have been caused by the dampers being 20 years old.
Why I chose to keep the front setup, is because (as I said) it’s fine in terms of comfort, I like that it’s adjustable (preload, height, dampers, all separate) and simply because of the costs. It’s my only car, and I use it mainly for daily commute (highways etc), but I like sending it through a corner when I come across one. And it does that well, without understeer, because I usually don’t push it that much. Yes, in theory stiffer springs/ARB’s cause more load transfer on that axle, but as long as I don’t feel a disadvantage in real life, I don’t feel the need to change it. Maybe once I start making some money (instead of spending it on school) and get a daily, I can afford to play around with different shocks and springs. Lastly, because the motion ratio on the rear is pretty much 1, compared to a higher MR on the front, the actual difference in wheel rate won’t be as big
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There is rust everywhere. You cant drive it through rain. Leaks from the windscreen and you will flood your passenger footwell through a little hole…where you can put your fist through. Many acceleration holes in the side skirts. Some mounting points for the bumpers are non-exsistend… all rotted away. Side skirts and floor pan are hold together barely… Welding done by a child. Only half the watercooler was functional. Rear arches extended with a hammer.
I could go on for days.
I knew what i was buying, so for me its a shell only.
And a big sorry for spaming the thread.
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No worries! I’m just amazed by how shitty that thing was built
Hey fellow dai-hards, just wanted to do a quick little update! I’ll keep it short this time!
I got the Billsteins on the rear axle, as well as a pair of lowering springs from Intrax (local company). A second hand set of springs came up for €35, which seemed like a great deal (considering new springs are €100 - €200). I took the rear springs and sent the front springs to @Mmmmmette for him to use on his Cuore.
REAR SUSPENSION
At first I was quite disappointed as the rear felt just as harsh as before, but after a few 100km’s, it felt like the dampers started to ‘settle’. It’s still quite firm, but doable. There will be a bit more weight in the rear in the future as well.
CLEANING
I moved to a village a month ago, and the new house actually came with a driveway, and space to park the car in the backyard. This means that water and power is easy to use near the car. So, I decided to start taking care of car more in terms of cleaning, starting with a good vacuum, since the car was dusty as hell. Here are some B/A’s!
I thoroughly cleaned the outside as well, starting with a good wash, then used a claybar to get rid of all contaminants and applied some colour wax to seal the deal. Here’s what the claybar looked like after I did the roof:
Pretty filthy
DAVE
I don’t like driving that many km’s with the Blyatsu, because it wasn’t built for that. I hit 140k yesterday, which means around 10k since the swap, half of which is daily commute. So I started looking for a different way to do my daily commute. And I (sorta) found one! Meet Dave:
It says “Harley Davidson” on the bonnet, hence ‘Dave’
Quick speclist:
- Prefacelift, EJDE
- Marathon (special edition available in yellow or red)
- RTi (top spec)
- Electric sunroof
All second hand cars are expensive because the waiting list for new cars is so freaking long, which results in L7’s being around €1200 for most decent examples (what used to be around €800). I wasn’t going to spend that money, so I got this one for €400 instead. Obviously, that means it’s in need of attention (and an MOT), but I think I can get it done. The CV boots were torn, brakes aren’t much, the alternator bracket was split into two pieces, there was a big hole in the rear frame/beam.
All fixed up by a mate!
I’ll post a bit more about Dave as soon as I got it on the road!
That’s it for now! Have a nice week
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You haven’t moved to the east of NL by chance do you? Would love to see Blyatsu in all its magnificence 
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I did not 
I moved further south, near the Belgian border. The car and I will be attending Japfest Assen though!
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There he is…the cool-dai-dude…
Thanks again for the front shocks. I will check if they fit otherwise will go with the L7 front fork setup…
We will meet!
Nice to see Dave
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TIME FOR ANOTHER UPDAVE
I’ve had that pun in my head for quite some time now, so I figured I’d actually use it to talk you guys through the last month!
EVERYBODY LOVES RA-… DAVE
After last post, I went to the junkyard to get some stuff and then replaced both driveshafts on Dave. As I said before, the CV joints were torn, but since I had 2 axles laying around and I was too lazy to get new boots, I decided to just swap them. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the right axle out of the hub, because it had seized and I didn’t have the proper tools. Luckily for me, I also had some spare knuckles with hubs laying around as well . After replacing those, I decided to just send it and go for an MOT. I knew Dave wouldn’t pass, but at least this way I knew what I had to do in order to get MOT. The list I got back wasn’t huge, but also not what I’d hoped for:
- Wheel bearing LR shot
- 60% brake difference on the rear axle
- Indicator RF wasn’t orange
- Fuel mixture too lean (high O2)
- Both lower ball joint boots torn
- 3RD brake light didn’t work (advisory)
- Slight oil leakage (advisory)
- Small exhaust leak (advisory)
Picture of the sunroof to keep it interesting
The indicator wasn’t an issue, neither were the wheel bearing and boots, but the brake difference and O2 were making me nervous. I’m no mechanic, so I don’t have a lot of experience in fixing problems (just creating them), but with the help of a few friends I knew I’d get there. I had to decide whether I would continue the project and save Dave (hehe), or abandon the project and make it a parts car. Since there was already quite a lot of time invested in the car, I decided to give it a shot.
I knew the exhaust had a small leak, and since I didn’t know what else it could be, I figured that that was the cause of the O2 being too high. A leak gives the opportunity for the mixture to gain more oxygen than it should have. We took off the exhaust and quickly found out that there was a major hole in the bend that goes over the rear axle. My friend welded it shut, so that was another thing off the list. We also cleaned the rear brakes and wiggled a few bits around, hoping it would fix the problem.
One of the reasons why I bought Dave, is because I’m close friends with the owner of the other yellow L7, and I thought it would be fun if we’d both have one
This picture was taken right after changing the drive shafts!
Then I took it to another friend to help me with the wheel bearing and torn boots. I was convinced the bearing had to be pressed in/out, but a decent tap with a hammer and socket did the trick as well. The new boots are held in place by some sort of window sealer, but it did the job. Remember: I’m turning this car into a challenge to drive it as cheaply as possible.
Very happy to have such helpful and passionate clubmembers!
ATTEMPT 2 AND 3
After paying attention to all the fails and advisory points, I tried getting an MOT again. It failed again, but this time only because of the rear brakes. That was a shame, but on the other hand I felt proud that I was able to fix the rest of it with my friends (who had more experience/tools). My friend spent another day thoroughly cleaning the rear brakes again, but it didn’t make a difference. We then flushed the system because the fluid was looking fairly dark (it had been sitting still for a year), but that didn’t help as well. Since everything on the rear brakes seemed to work fine, there was only one thing left: the distributor. There’s this metal block sitting against the firewall which distributes fluid to the front left (from memory) and rear brakes. There are springs inside the connectors to the rear brake lines, which basically determines the bias between the front and rear brakes. Bad explanation, but you get what I’m saying. These springs can get stuck or brake entirely, and if only one of them does, you will have a difference in brake force. I think that’s what happened because after replacing the distributor, it was almost spot on even in brake force.
I then raced to the MOT station and got it back with a fresh MOT. Happy days!
Dave has served as a daily for 2 weeks now, and he has done an excellent job. He will do 20km/liter, and (so far) doesn’t use any oil. After the MOT I gave Dave a service, so he’s basically good to go for another year. My only complaint so far is that the steering wheel is shaking quite badly above 100km/h. I know that’s probably a matter of balancing the wheels, but I’ve got a few things I want to try before I’ll get to that. The car is actually that good, that I was considering maybe selling it after a year, instead of parting it out. But, there’s a reason why I don’t want to sell it.
yeah…
For those of you that don’t know: that’s the left chassisrail/crashbar, whatever you want to call it. The point is: it’s fucked. I knew it had been in some sort of accident because I already saw a few things that were bent, but I found this one quite shocking. The car performs just fine, it doesn’t ‘drive crooked’ or anything, but I’m just not comfortable with selling a car knowing it has this amount of damage. And even if someone knew and would be okay with it, they’d still probably use it as an excuse to take something off the price. And it may sound childish, but out of principle, I’d rather do a partout than being low balled by someone who probably doesn’t notice anything or is going to fix something he/she does want a price reduction for.
BLYATSU
Ah yes, the main reason why I’m on this forum. Don’t worry, I didn’t forget about the Blyatsu! As a matter of fact, it received a major upgrade:
I got new seats! Now, I found it very hard to take a picture of the seats, because there’s always a pillar or reflective window in your shot, so you’ll have to do with this. I got seats from a Copen, and had a friend help me with installing some mounting points to fit it into the car. The seats are way more supportive, but most of all: a lot lower. I reckon I’m sitting well over 8cm lower, which is nice. Oh and yes, they are partially red, but that’s because the were the only cloth seats I could find at the time. Most Copen seats are bright red leather, so I figured this was the best compromise 
.
FUTURE STUFF
My internship ended last week and so my vacation started, and I thought that was a good excuse to buy myself a nice gift:
A standalone ECU!
Why?
Well, obviously this gives me the opportunity to do more serious engine upgrades in the future (no I will still not do a turbo), like, for example, ITB’s and cams.
Why this one?
Simple. My internship was at a tuning shop, and they are the main distributor for the BeNeLux for ECU master as well. So apart from getting a fairly big discount, I think it’s nice to know people who I can trust and know about their professionalism. So yes, I know Haltech or any other brand exists, but I don’t care that they might do something different which you think is nice. I don’t feel like searching and comparing a dozen of ECU when I know this one will do the job. I got this ECU, and I’m happy and proud about it!
I’d like to use my vacation-time to do a few to-do-list-stuff, so hopefully I can show you a lot of new changes by the end of this summer!
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A wise choice for a standalone ecu is knowing you can get good support. Will be good to hear how it goes. Nice work all up on the Dai.
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Nice updave mate! really good read as usual.
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Awesome! Finally a good MOT.
But please remove the HD sticker from Dave. That sticker is an insult to Daihatsu 
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Hell no, that sticker is staying!
I get why you think it’s an insult, but to me it’s what makes Dave Dave. Without the sticker it’s just a totalled yellow Cuore with mismatched parts 
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Hello Dai family! I’ve been postponing to make this post because I don’t really know what I want to say, but I had some spare time, so we’ll just see how this goes.
Last year I spent pretty much every day in the garage working on the engine swap, and I never really took the time to enjoy my vacation. So, I decided to get much more out of this year’s vacation, and I did! I worked at two festivals and spent a lot of time with my closest friends (thanks to those of you who made my vacation so enjoyable).
Remember Tom, my winterbeater? And how we swapped the engine into a red Cuore? Turns out the engine was quite bad (who would’ve thought, ahem). Almost used more oil than fuel. So when the owner of the Cuore got the opportunity to get his hands on the cleanest Sirions I’ve ever seen, we made plans for a re-swap.
Don’t have a lot of pictures, but you will all know what a Sirion looks like anyway
Using an engine crane, taking out engines was pretty easy actually. The new engine was in a noticeably better state, which isn’t weird since it had done about 90xxx km’s less than the previous K3. Pretty happy with how things went, and we had a lot of fun as well! As we speak, the Sirion sits in my garage and I’m going to take the last bits off tomorrow. Then I need it to be towed away or something, which hopefully won’t be a problem. It’s a bit tricky since the car is a German car and was never officially imported, but we’ll figure something out. Here are a few pictures to get an impression.
DAVE
Not much going on with Dave. I kind of disrespected it, but that’s the point of the car.
It’s temporarily on 165/65/R14, because a clubmember had to borrow my wheels for a while. I forgot how big of a difference these wheels make on a stock EJ L7. Body roll is ridiculous and calling it slow would almost be an understatement. Can’t wait to get back on 13" goodness!
BLYATSU - NOW WHAT?
No progress on the car unfortunately. When I was at a junkyard a while ago, I came to a rather sad conclusion: I’ve done pretty much all the bolt on mods. That means there’s no real reason for me to go to junkyards anymore, other than for bits that need replacement because they’re broken or something. Why is this an issue? Well, I still have a lot of plans for the car, but it means that most of it will be (and I hate this term) custom made. At the moment I don’t have the skills, tools or money to get into fabricating stuff, which is kind of a necessity. Interior bits, drivetrain bits. I don’t want to get into more detail for now, since I haven’t thought everything through yet and I’m not really in the mood for people to tell me why they think it’s not that hard to make the stuff I’m thinking of. I just need to get a few more things to have a solid foundation to begin with, that’s all. I’m starting a new job soon, so hopefully I’m able to buy some more stuff and get to work on the car.
One of the things I’m planning on doing as well, is getting the standalone fitted in the car. I want to use a spare wiring harness to make a nice solid connection for a plug that fits both the standalone as well as the OEM ecu.
Not a very interesting post, but it felt like it was overdue. I’m hoping to do some work on the car again soon and show it to you guys!
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Awesome update mate Thankyou. I always look forward to reading them. Please forgive my terrible memory incase you have already done so and it’s sort of a custom thing but only just. That is the side skirts from the sirion you can make fit on you Blyatsu or Dave. I have used them on L2’s and my old move also. I have usually put the right on the left and the left on the right as I think it looks better.
Anyway Just a thought for a small little mod if you hadn’t done so.
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Thank you for your kind words, that is such a mood-booster!
When I tried the sideskirts, they were 3cm too short. At first this seemed weird to me since the M1 and L7 have the same wheelbase, but the M1 has much larger wheel arches, which explains it. This means I’d have to find a way to A) lengthen them or B) make them fit with some sort of illusion which makes the shortage of sideskirt invisible. Wasn’t worth the effort to me, also because I feel like I need something less ‘round’. But thanks for pointing it out anyways! Btw, I would like sideskirts nonetheless some day
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If you’re not that feasably far from the German border, towing it there for demolition shouldn’t be a problem. They usually pay 60€, as long as an engine and catylitic converter are included.
As far as the oill-burning engine is concerned, all you would have to do, in order to have it stop consuming excess amounts of oil would be to free the piston rings from the varnish accumulated through delayed, if not, absence of oil changes