Daihatsu Terios Rally Raid build

Hello guys,

My name is Radu, i’m 20 years old, from Romania ( Eastern Europe ) and i’m building an Daihatsu Terios 1.3 from 2003 for the Rally Raid championship. Im very happy that i found this forum because of the lack of information about Daihatsu cars from my side of Europe and from internet too ( maybe i didn t know where to look :slight_smile:)

I’ll make a topic with all my modifications until now and my plans and a lot of questions for you guys.

Here are a few photos with the car on its current form

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Fantastic, looking forward to this. Can you explain the class you will be in? Length of events? And what car makes are popular or that you will be mainly competing against?

Hi, i will be competing in Discovery class, which is a new class for the youngest ones, the lengh of events is usually 3-4 days, first day prologue and the rest of them the rally itself. This class rally is 100km per day.

There is only 1 event with this class ( it’s also used for searching new drivers for teams ), the other events have a class named Promo where it’s a little bit like Professionals class except the regulations on the rollbar, there is a speed limit, you have to accomplish the requierments otherwise you can’t compete.

As about cars, in this class there are usually Dacia Duster, Suzuki Vitara/Samurai, Mitsubishi Pajero. But mainly there are Dacia Dusters.

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Excellent, thanks heaps for painting such a clear picture. Looking forward to sharing the story of your adventures.

So i told you that i’m gonna put you in theme with whats been done to the car.

The car has an 3cm(1.1 inch) lift kit with strut and coil spacers.
Custom wheels, with negative offset, as you can see in the photos
I modified the front bumper for the tyres to have enough space at turning
The tyres are 205/70/15 Insa Turbo Range AT

That’s all pretty much, i have to do the fluids change ( engine, diffs and gearbox ) i thought about Motul for engine but i dont know what type i need for high revving engine like mine and the abuse is going to take.

I want to modify the exhaust, remove the catalytic convertor and the final muffler and still leave the intermediate muffler for backpresure. Is this right or not ?

What mods i can do for the engine to increase horsepower, i am thinking about an Aisin AMR500 Supercharger ( 0.5 bar boost ) but i don’t know how to install it, if i need an standalone ECU and so on. If anyone has informations about this or installed one of those let me know what’s about it !

The other things i thought about the engine is an K3-VET engine from Daihatsu YRV, but i need to buy a complete car for the swap… the prices are like 850 euros for naked engine and complete car ar 1.400 Eur.
Or someone said that i can swap an 1.5 liter petrol engine from Daihatsu Terios j200.

What do you guys think i should do? I want to hear your ideas about engine mods,swap and a little bit about suspension (longer travel shocks)

I’m not familiar with the suspension. If you can get more travel without binding the “yes”. Bilstein dampers if you can as a min. I have a little bit of experience with Australian Offroad racing having competed in the late 80s and early 90s in our short course format, while my boss at the time ran a 2wd in the national series and was Aus champ in class 5 about 1988. Our focus, tires, then suspension/chassis, drivetrain, brakes and then engine.

Does anyone know about LSDs for these. I’d want one as a major priority.

Only my opinion but, avoid the AMR500 like the plague. It’s a roots type blower and they make a lot of heat and will be to small. Really inefficient. The 1500cc or K3 are much better options. Standalone ecu is a good thing in my opinion, but you get what you pay for. So many options.

Do a proper budget. See what you can afford to spend. Make the thing reliable, then traction/handling (esp good dampers/shocks plus a rate of spring that will ensure full travel and no bottoming out, then limited slip diff at least for the rear, and then look at what fuel you can run, if e85 I’d put a turbo on a stock engine as the cheapest route to more go.

That’s good strategy, tires are checked, suspension/chassis - kinda solved, thinking about some shocks, drivetrain is good, brakes are new ( maybe brake fluid ), and engine ( good oil change and mods but idk what :slight_smile: ).

I know what i’m gonna do engine swap wise and i’m gonna save some money this summer and then when the autumn comes i’m gonna buy an YRV Gti and swap the motor.

On the other side what do you know about SiberianBushings ? I consider buying a whole polyurethane set from them. It is gonna feel a big difference vs rubber ones ?

Just check on the rubber VS urethane. See what the top guys are doing. The urethane will be high maintenance. They need greasing. I often drill and tap for grease nipples. We used heim joints instead. Choose whatever gives full travel. The rubber twists within itself so no lube needed. Urethane needs to twist on a shaft and crud getting in is an issue.

That’s new information, i didn t knew about the maintenance stuff. Anyway i contacted them and it’s too expensive for my budget :frowning: so i’m gonna stick with the rubber ones…

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Check rubber engine and gearbox mounts. They should have some means of containing everything should the rubber brake.

ok, thanks for information, i’ll check when i am gonna do the oil change.

I’ve made my decision, i’m gonna buy an Daihatsu Yrv with k3-vet, i found them around 1.200-1600 euro in Germany and Switzerland, and my plans are to swap the engine to my car and the k3-ve from my Terios to the Yrv and sell it ( obviously registered with that engine swap ). My questions are if the swap is bolt on, i mean without doing any modifications and i have a worry about the transmission, the k3-ve from Yrv i found only automatic, can i mount the engine with my manual transmision from Terios and the automatic transmission to the k3-ve ?

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I’m not familiar with that swap. Perhaps someone else here knows. Looking forward to this.

pretty sure this version isn’t an easy switch to the frame for the 1.5 which is the later version 3sz
yours i believe is the HC series?
but i know of a couple of have used your block and turbo charged - surely supercharged would be similar category
is full rebuild required. but i believe JE did a kit and detomaso HD cams or Gti charade are a good fit too

Thanks for the interest and for the information, now the next step ( until i buy a Yrv, witch i am sure it will happen in autumn ) i wanna mod it slightly. The only thing i can work is the exhaust, i thought about deleting the catalytic convertor and the final muffler and only remain with the intermediate muffler for backpressure. Is that good? I tend to keep the stock pipe size.

If you and the guys who read this know something about this let me know ur tips and tricks

Cat removal isn’t worth doing unless it’s blocked and or if you’re going to put a nice header on it
A good clear intake so it’s going to get clean air
You can improve the intake for some less restriction but there’s fair bit of money in that

Exhaust makes some gain perhaps. Can change standard main pipe to same diameter as external (because you’re swapping out a twin walled) then retain same mufflers
Or if you’re ok to spring for new mufflers I’ve found you can go to 2" pipe for centre and replace the rear muffler with something with low restriction

Other than that if you’re in touch with a mechanic or are minded yourself you could get the cam re ground and a good aftermarket computer fitted and tune
That and good gearbox ratios are going to suit performance and reliability the most
The lower the ratios you use in the gearbox the better torque is going to go to the ground. You can often find a lot more gain from spending money here than any performance mods and keep the engine happy and reliable

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Thanks for the tips, i was thinking about freeing the exhaust with the cat removal and getting the blurps on deceleration, i was planning on straight piping ( except intermediate ) just for the sound mostly. Did you removed the cat on one of this engine, how s the sound ?

even just removing the rear muffler is loud
not really worth it for power
i’m no big pro for noise to be honest
i only care about power :smiley:
2" all through is about ideal

yes you can remove the cat for gain
but it’s what you do instead
because if you just remove the cat then there’s a big hole and it wont work well for the performance