Hi! I’ve picked up a L201 recently, previously had a G200 turbo charade back in the day. I’ll just be lurking for a while until I get deeper into the mod process, mentally throwing up a few ideas now which will decide whether the car stays road bound or track only. I don’t have all the skills required for the latter option but I’ve got a lathe, TIG/MIG and a big hammer so I’ll have half a go.
Looking forward to contributing.
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Welcome to the forum 
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Welcome mate. You can do a lot with simple tools. Ha ha I’m sure you’ll be just fine. Plenty of info on here as well as people often great info on both truck and street cars.
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welcome mate. I have a slight inkling you maybe way ahead of a lot of us with having a lathe 
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Haha we shall see mate, my machining tolerance is about 2mm. I’m actually a butcher by trade, not that I’ve wielded a knife in anger in 13 years. 
I’ll have a good read of everyone’s builds to see what’s what.
Welcome to the forum mate, looking forward to seeing your car
For “quick”, whether road or track, start with looking for tires first. There really are limited choices in small sizes. To be up and running as soon as possible 175/50/13. For road see if you can get Nankang NS2r in 180 compound, or for track Yoko A048 in 175/50/13 (much dearer). Plan for 100pcd and aim for a 6" rim. Look into builds here that have used Sirion front hubs and rear drums. You’ve got a mig/tig so have a look at my build and change the rear springs over to a 2 1/2" coil over set up and get some 400lb or more springs and leave the front std rate. Do those basic things and it will be transformed immeasurably. Engine choices are your ef or ed which, hybrid or not need forced induction. Turbo ef-el will be about on par with a ej-de but without the low down torque. I’d suggest just starting with a NA EJ-DE and get the car sorted with the above ideas. A gearbox with LSD is the next suggestion. For massive EJ-DE turbo power you’ll want at least an M100 sirion box.
Take it from someone who has gotten carried away with modifications, set your goal to be driving more and building less.
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Definitely some sound advice - basically, don’t spend money twice.
I’ve already run across my first stumbling block, I’ll cover it in another post.
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Mr Gormsby, my three options revolve around a EF-DET/built EF-EL, EJ-DE conversion or a 4 cylinder motorcycle engine rear mounted. Ultimately I will have to decide how far I want to go especially since the third option will make it very difficult if not impossible to mod plate and keep Road legal. This will limit me to a 900km drive to the nearest motorsports circuit style event.
My gut feeling is stick with the first two options and keep fabrication to a minimum until I get used to the car and it’s deficiencies. The Sirion option makes a heap of sense to me as you’ve suggested because I can make my own turbo manifold and wire in a megasquirt without too much fuss while giving me capacity. How hard do EJs rev considering their bore/stroke ratio difference to the EF?
Does the EF-DET have under piston oil squirters or anything else that makes it fundamentally different from the EF-EL or the EJ-DE? Reliability would be good.
Because of my location the main use other than daily driving will be drag racing.
Where are you based?
Yeah, bike motor in an Australian Mira is not going to get a mod plate. I like the idea and have a spare shell which I’ve been keep for such a purpose. In fact, it looks like I will be building suspension for a open top race car next year at work (wishbone and in board rockers). So I will have to knock up some for myself since I’ll have to set my machinery up anyway. Bike engine is way beyond anything I’ve built, but I have driven a Radical SR3 and am hooked on the idea of bike power and full ground effects.
EF-DET if you are wanting to be turbo and stay under 1600cc for the min capacity class at most CAMS events. Many here will know that I loathe the EF-EL. The dome pistons mean a huge amount of timing advance is needed to make piddly power. And the head is awful, with bad port design and an antiquated valve drive train. Why bother? Well I believe many stick to the EF-EL because they can’t figure out how to wire in the EJ-DE. Cost wise the EJ-DE std block and head with custom manifolds and turbo is good for 130fwhp with an after market ecu tuned “properly”.
What sort of events are you interested in?
I’m in western QLD, we have two yearly 1/8 mile events kind of close to here plus the 1/4 mile near Mackay but that’s a bit of a hike. Originally the aim was circuit racing/hillclimbs on the coast but unless I have a career swing in a different direction.I will never get the time to drive there, compete and return.
So drag racing it is! Which means cams regs be stuffed. I’d have thought that fact Daihatsu went to the hassle of 4 valves per cylinder that they cared about the EF-EL but it’s good info that they didn’t because it saves me time stuffing around with it.
Within the first couple of years I’ll stay with standard rods and pistons but ultimately the goal is I-beam rods and forged pistons in whichever motor I end up with. Goal is about the 250hp mark at the wheels - am I pulling myself and am I better off going for a K3-VE or something?
K3 wont fit unless your cutting and welding rails etc So I have heard everywhere. 250 hp at the wheels is a big stretch for these little cars. I would make your aim at 150 hp at the wheels, but if you are only focusing on straight line stuff then it maybe worth going in a different direction all together. Katrina who is on here with her cuore called LSP (Lumpy Space Princess) with a turbo k3 on flex fuel is in the 200’s but cant remember if she is close to the 250hp mark or a fair way from it.
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L700 with turbo K3 would be my pick over an L201. 250hp EJ-DE is achievable, but I see as much as $15000 to achieve it. Hmm, drag racing. Getting power down will be difficult.
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Everyone is saying the EJ-DE doesn’t like revving big numbers constantly, something about the big end bearings chewing out. Lumpy Space Princess is 210hp @ around 18psi on E85, K3VE2 bored to 1.5L.
Sounds like a rough trip. I like it.
Getting power out will be interesting but as Mr Gormsby alluded to, getting it down is what concerns me. Fortunately the FWD formula of getting power down isn’t too different from what I understand to circuit racing in keeping the rear hard and the front relatively soft. So street driving should be still entertaining. Julian Edgar did a feature on Autospeed some years ago about a circuit CB60 L200 hitting over 180hp with custom cvs based on Applause units, but I’m not sure how they went durability wise. E85 will be the pick.
L200 is a big wider than a L201 isn’t it?
Ill have a look at some compressor maps later this week and see if I can come up with something for the EJ and EF options.
The 180hp Mira in question could be a CB70, I can’t remember.
99% of us know about the cb70/80 Mira build. I still runs in Adelaide. If you are looking to actually get to do circuit or hill climb etc then definitely check out Mr Gormsby’s build thread. I don’t think i have seen a Mira that handles as good as his yet. Straight line stuff then some of his mods definitely wont apply but that general soft front hard rear applies. As for the width between L200 and 201 they are the same to my knowledge.
That CB70 powered Mira is Ian Richard’s car. It’s old technology. A friend had a 180hp EJ-DE in a L200. It mostly ran around with 150hp. Bottom end and head was stock. All done with a good ecu, TD05 (a bit big I thought ), custom manifolds and an XR6 intercooler. It was quick once it got rolling but putting the power down was an issue.
Not sure who that “everyone” is? Subaru EJs need careful big end clearances (but most race cars need a bit more clearance).
quite a lot of people on facebook on the daihatsu pages, they reckon they don’t like revving hard much over 6500 or so rpm.