Joel's '99 L700 Mira

I bought my Mira in January 2020 and have currently done a few things to it that I’d like to share. Got it for $500 with 347000kms. Picture below is how it currently looks.

January 2020: Starting things off, this is how the mira looked the day I got it. A standard l700.

IMG-4982

March 2020: I knew I wanted to lower it and put some wheels on it. I looked around for lowering springs but in the end I went to the wreckers to find some different options. I found that struts from a move are shorter and bolt on with some minor modifications to lower the front. For the back I went with springs from an l200 mira and shorter shocks from a Nissan wingroad. Overall the car was about 30mm lower.


(Struts from a move vs the original mira ones)


(Before lowering)


(After lowering)


(This is after some skids in the wet paddock during lockdown)

I found these 14" Black Racing Watanabe reps in the corner of dad’s shed and tried them on the car to see if the offset would be good.

With some black paint and some lower profile tyres they’d be perfect. So off came the old tyres and I got to work sanding all the old paint off the wheels.

I spray painted them black and mounted up some 165/55 tyres I got cheap at the wreckers and they were ready to try on the car.

I only found 3 tyres at the wreckers so I’d have to wait to put the new wheels on.

Another find at the wreckers were some seats from a sirion which are a nice upgrade from the original seats.

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April 2020: Another trip to the wreckers I came across a crashed l700 with only 70000km. The original 350k engine in my mira had bad oil leaks and sounded like an old tractor so I took the low km ejde to put in my car at some point.

July 2020: I bought two second hand tyres from a tyre shop and could finally put my wheels on.

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January 2021: Took the mira to caffeine and classics car show and a k3vet swapped mira turned up and parked alongside mine.

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March 2021: When the mira ticked over 350000 km.

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June 2021: After a year since getting the new motor, I decided it was time to do the engine swap. Old motor out and new one in in a weekend. The new one is so much smoother and quiet and goes heaps better.

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With wheels and suspension and the first lot of upgrades being the main things I wanted to share here, some other things I’ve done since include:

35% tints all round
Air horn
Brighter headlight bulbs
Sirion ‘big’ front brakes
Cluster with tacho from a 2002 mira
Taillights from a 2002 mira
Regular maintenance


(Pic from a little roadtrip Xmas 2022)

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Great write up. Cool Dai. Welcome.

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I agree 100% great write up and welcome.

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