Hi everyone. My name is Marco and I’m from the Netherlands. This summer I impulse bought a L701 as a daily. It’s been 6 months since then but I thought I’d write up a bit of backstory here. I’ll promise I’ll try to keep it up-to-date after that.
Buying the Cuore
I had a 1.8 liter Opel Astra to drive to work, but petrol prices were absolutely crazy at the time. It was too expensive to run and own this car. A friend of mine had a L7 as a daily and convinced me to look for one. After looking online for a bit I found one for sale in my city for not too much money. Skipping the last hour of work we went to that garage and one hour later I was the proud owner of a little Cuore.
I hadn’t even owned the car for 24 hours yet and I was already on my way to the first car meeting. The L7 club in The Netherlands had organized a meet and my friend was going either way. Here are some pics from that day!
After seeing some Cuores in the L7 Club with the biggest license plate you can imagine; I also wanted one. I make fun of it, but I still think it looks so much better.
I’ve been looking for some nice rims since I bought the car. The original steelies look cool but it doesn’t drive that well. It was my mission to reduce the body roll and gain some traction. My 6 year old winter tires had to go.
They are 15 inches and the tire on there had a super high sidewall. They were rubbing like crazy. I got some Nankangs ordered at a local tireshop but they took a while to arrive. For a week I was driving around like a monster truck!
With winter coming up and so much to do on the cars, a mate and I rented a garage unit! I’m still so excited that I have one and it’s been a few months
I’m happy I got to change the oil because my engine stopped burning it. Previously I had to top up sometimes. Not a lot, but sometimes. I didn’t really measure it… But now after almost 10k I’m just under full.
Fog lights
I’ve had the fog lights with the TR bumper since the start but I never got to wiring them. As this is a pre-facelift the wire loom was already there. I installed a rear fog light switch in place for the front fogs and they… didn’t work. After some playing around I found out that the original connectors were completely rusted. So I opted to use some crimp connectors instead.
My brakes started to squeak a lot so I checked the pads and they were worn. I decided to get new rotors at the same time, even though they had some life left in them. It shouldn’t take that much time. right???
Well turns out it did. After doing one side I discovered this:
After a quick drive to a club member I installed a new brake caliper all together. But doing both front brakes turned out to be a 10 hour job. I was so done!
I stripped the boot because everything in there was making noise all the time! It annoyed me. It was like someone threw a hand of marbles in there. Gotta say I love the bit of extra space. And for some reason it looks really clean as well.
In my never ending mission to stiffen the cuore and reduce body roll: Time for lowering springs. I also bought a set of Bilstein rear shocks from @Blyatsu. I swear this car is rock solid now
Welcome and awesome write-up. I usually ask new members to make a post in all new members are first. With the effort for your first post. I have bypassed it all for you and made you a member.
Welcome!
I’m planning to put it on the original rails, but some spacers are required to make it work. Luckily a friend of mine can make me some. Can’t wait to pick them up and fit the seat.
The bucket seat is in, on the original rails. I’m very happy with it. It definitely stiffens up the ride even more . I think the seat is a tiny bit too high for my liking as it is now, so that’s something I’ll have to look in to.
A problem I had with my Cuore is that the connector for the light switch got very hot while running the low beams. After taking everything apart this was the result…
I’m not exactly sure what happened here, but it’s apparent the trace for the light stalk got hot. I’ve replaced the column switch, so I hope the problem is gone.
Steering wheel
And while I had the steering wheel off anyways; time to install the Sirion steering wheel.
My clutch cable was changed quite recently but lately taking off was quite hard. Thanks to @Blyatsu for adjusting the clutch cable. Everything feels the way it’s supposed to be again
After stripping out the boot some time ago I decided I was bored. So I took the backseat and seat belts out as well. I stripped the boot because I thought the noises were coming from there but it turned out to be something with the backseat. No clue what it was but now it’s gone. GG EZ fix.
The weight of the backseat isn’t that much but it’s still very noticeable to me. Driving the car feels quite a bit lighter. But it might just be the placebo effect.
I decided to keep the plastic side panels on to hide the rust behind them . I’ll get to that later.
That bucket seat is gorgeous! I bet it’s quite comfortable?
It’s looking very clean though inside and out. One thing i’d say is definitely keep the interior plastics such as the rear side panels. One thing I really regret with turning my Cuore into a track car was removing all the interior plastics and carpet to save a bit of weight and now it just looks a little too messy
I agree, it looks really good! And it is indeed super comfortable. A 3 hour drive was no issue for my back . And I think it looks quite tidy with the plastic side panels so I’ll probably leave them. If I ever take them off I’ll be sure to keep them around just in case .
Sooooo I had two ripped CV joint boots. I noticed one of them was torn when I installed my lowering springs and the other one I ripped while installing the lowering springs, oops. After 3-4 weeks of tape mod it was time to replace them.
While I was at it I replaced the CV joints as well. Once a boot is ripped the grease in the boot is probably already filled with all sorts of yucky. One of them was already making noise while steering anyways. New parts are looking shiny . Since I lost some transmission oil in the process we also filled that up with some fresh oil .
Now the only thing left (that I know of) is to replace the control arms. Both rubbers are torn as well. It feels like everything is breaking at the same time . But at least this car is keeping me busy!
I wish everybody a happy 2023! Hopefully it will be a good year for our little Dais!
I wasn’t too sure if the chrome handles would look good on my car. I’ve seen it on different colour Cuores and it’s a bit too much usually in my opinion. But on silver it looks really good! It’s the right balance between standing out and blending in or something. The push pins are a nice addition as well. Especially with the chrome handles that I already had installed on the inside of the door.
I also swapped my tail lights for facelift tails. Again this was something I just had to see on my own car because I wasn’t sure it was my thing. I’m really happy with them, they look clean.
. I’ll get to that later.
I bet it’s quite comfortable?
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. Since I lost some transmission oil in the process we also filled that up with some fresh oil 
