Daiharris Track/Streeter L200 build.. The quest for hilarity

Projects builds and rides
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Alright guys, so thought I’d get a bit of a build thread happening so I’ve got somewhere to document what I’m doing with the Mira and whatnot…

So about a year ago my ex fiancee and I went on a holiday to an island near where I live (Townsville) and whilst there we hired a little car to get around with, which was a topless Mira. Here’s a photo for novelty…

And I loved it… Honestly it was probably the highlight of thr holiday because the island was pretty hilly and thrashing that little car through the mountain was incredibly fun…

It was at that point I decided I wanted to find an L200 and turn it into a track orientated streeter so I could compete in my local time attack series but I also wanted to be able to drive it around on the streets occasionally because to me the L200 is a hilarious little car…

So the hunt was on… Trying to find an L200 seemed to be basically impossible and during this time someone saw me driving my 180sx and offered me stupid money to part with it, so after umming and aahing I decided to take the cash.

Some pics of the 180

As you can see with the 180 I ended up going way overboard with mods and emended up driving a car around that got me pulled over basically every few days…

I used the money from the 180 sale to get myself a more grown up car, ended up getting a spec B liberty, which is the perfect streeter for me right now… Flat six, bilsteins, fancy interior, it really is a delight to drive…

The only problem with the Liberty is its a bit boring to drive… I don’t know if it’s because it’s so quiet, or its awd, or just that I’m comparing it to my 400hp 180 but I just dont get that joy from driving it like I did with my old cars…

So I restarted my hunt for a cleanish Mira that I could turbo and use on the race track, which ended up taking ages to find. Unfortunately for me Mighty Car Mods started doing their Mira thing so all of a sudden Miras were even harder to find and my mission got harder…

Then about a month ago a guy msgd me from a town about an hour saying he saw my Facebook posts chasing a Mira and he said he had an L200 that he had pulled the gearbox out of and then just left on a block of land he owned, and that if I wanted it for $100 I could have it…

So obviously I jumped at the chance, hired a car trailer and made the trek to go pick it up… Obviously I was concerned about rust and he straightness of the car but for 100 bucks I thought it was a good chance to take…

Here’s what I found when I got there…

At this point oldmate informed me had lost the key, so whilst longterm that wasn’t an issue the short term issue was the handbrake being engaged and I had to get thr car open so I can get it up on the car trailer…

A quick post on L2D had a few helpful answers, and after about 15 minutes I removed the window sill and slid the coat hanger down and unlocked the car like a true car thief professional…

An hour later the car was sitting in my driveway at home, ready to be pushed back into the shed and for the work to be done…

So yeah there it is, the introduction to the story of my quest for a tiny turbo track car… I gave the car a good check over yesterday and besides a few places with minor surface rust, the car is very good… No real rust, rails are straight, interior is in good nick(that doesn’t matter will be stripped for cage and race seats) so thats a good start for the hundred dollar car…

Longterm plans are to find a sirion that I can take engine, box, brakes and hubs from, get some coilovers, cage interior with race seats and harnesses and then even further down the road is to turbo that sirion engine… I’ve had some experience helping a friend of mine wrap cars so am trying to work out a ridiculous colour that we can order a roll of wrap and then get it onto the Mira…

Long way to go now but I’m super keen to get it sorted so hopefully it doesn’t take too long…

Thanks for reading guys, I will also be littering random photos of my pug through the thread because she is hilarious to look at…

Alright drive safe guys…

Harris

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Decide really early on what tires you want to run. Not much to choose from in 13s but the couple of options are good ones (A048, A008 or A032r). In 14s the only local option is full slicks. I thought about that as I have a source of used ones from open wheelers, but alas I could not find 14 x 7 rims suitable. Going to the readily available 195/50/15 is a big big big job. All options in smaller 15s are road tires only. To do it all over again I’d stay with nothing bigger than the 175/50/13 Advan A048 soft or med (the Advan also comes in a 185/55/14 but it seemed necessary to import them oneself), as there has been so much work I might as well have built a tube chassis race car.

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Cheers dude… Yeah the tyre situation is one I’m seeing may be an issue, to be honest with you I had A048s on my 180 and I didn’t love them, same with r888s… The new r888r comes in a 185/13 and they are only 200ish each from tirerack including shipping so I might just grab two sets of those so I’ve got rotation tyres and whatnot… I loved my AO50s when I had them but they are just too much money, and I don’t really want to go 14s.

Thanks for your words though dude… Much appreciated!

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I was running Nankang NS2R for a road tire, Khanacross and Hillclimb on my Subaru in 180 compounds. On par with the Dirrezza I had before them. Same time is suppose to be available in 120 for a 175/50/13 but none in Aus. You could check on them occasionally. Will be running Nangkang AR1 in 80 compound front and some old 120 compound Dunlops on the back at the next khanacross. A friend sells Hankook race tires and I did look into those but for the 13s I wanted I couldn’t get rims big enough or in the right offset to fit 22s/45/13. So rims ended up being another factor.

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Yeah my mate runs those AR1s on his race car and he has been raving about them… Part of the sirion hub conversion is so I can look for 4x100 wheels, plenty of those in good sizes on yahoo Japan and whatnot.

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$100 :open_mouth: scored well :smile: love the rear spoilers

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Good stuff mate I’m gonna love seeing this build thread please make sure you add many random pics of the pug also.
Here is one of my shih tzu Beau with his fashionable wig :slight_smile:

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Hahaha awesome… Yep dogs are awesome. I imagine there will be plenty of dog pics as well as Dai pics in this build thread…

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So not much has happened the last few days, I’ve starting stripping the car to suss out what I’m working with, I’ve had a better look at the underside of the car and in the grand scheme of things it looks pretty damn good. Other than it sitting in a field for a year and the dirt and grass build up it looks like a pretty decent shell to build from…

A side note has popped up in that my missus’s mother got a new car and she has offered to give me her Daihatsu Terios if I take her our to dinner… I’m going to have to do a bit of research to see if there is anything on the Terios I can use on the Mira so if anyone knows anything off the top of their head that would be a good help…

Here’s some pics, my camera is shit in bad light so excuse the quality…

And the obligatory pug photo…

Drive safe peeps… As I said earlier I’m gonna be doing some Terios research so if you know something let me know…

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I dont know much about terios at all really with a few exception’s. If they have the H series engine that is the 1.3 the same as in charades then careful of head gaskets and keep everything up to date with services etc. The later ones had the K3 engine samee as gtvi sirion and yrv’s which were better.
From review’s I have read they dont like being driven at 100 highway driving everyday and 80 is a much better speed for them, but I have only read that bit.

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Ah ok… Yeah she said that the gearbox isn’t working anymore and she got a quote to fix it which ended up being more than the car… I think I’m gonna see what parts I can steal from it hubs brakes wise and go from there… If it’s the k3 engine dare I put it in the Mira?

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Sadly mate it won’t fit

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You would prob be able to “widebody” it. Split right down the middle and add about 75mm.

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Hahahaha just tack it to the side of the Mira… That will be a classy look copied the world over hahahah

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yeh wont fit for street legal purposes but with an angle grinder and welder I have heard anything is possible :slight_smile:

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Hahahaha… Nah after doing some reading it seems like it would be way to illegal and also way too much work… Thankfully one of the guys I race with is an engineer so will be doing this car as legally as possible for the odd time I feel like driving a tiny car around town…

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They are an amazing vehicle for sure, I’m going to follow ur build cause I feel it’s going to b special.

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Cheers mate… Yeah it’s definitely going to be good. The ultimate end game is to have a trackable car that I csn still take out for Sunday drives when the weather isn’t too hot hahaha…

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So little update… Interior is all stripped now besides the dash, I’ve got everyone i know keeping an eye out for a sirion that I can steal all the donor parts for…

I spent all weekend helping my mate with his r34 build a cage for his car so that he given me some ideas for mine… Will probably stick with a six point cage with removable side intrusion bars so that it can still be relatively road legal.

The last thing to do now is to pull the engine and the hubs/brakes and then I can give the shell a big clean with De greaser…

After that I’ll sort of be stuck until I can find the sirion so I csn start transferring stuff and looking into how things are going to bolt up… From what I’ve read there isn’t anything to difficult in regards to using sirion cvs, hubs and brakes but I won’t really know until I’ve got it sitting in front of me…

Alright no car pics for now… So here’s the pug…

Drive safe peeps!

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Check legalities for a cage, can’t have a cage that goes over passengers in a road car