I’ve just purchased a 1998 Perodua Nippa variant of an L200 Mira and it’s my first Daihatsu. Unfortunately it’s not a fresh starting point in terms of modifications, but my choice of cars was very limited here in the UK.
Let the journey begin…
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Very cool. i’ve seen this car before on google 
So far I’ve raised the front suspension as it was on bumpstops, the front is using golf MK2 coilovers with the top bolt holes elongated. The rear is on chopped mercedes springs and Peugeot 206 dampers which I will need to replace in order to raise the back end because they are too short.
The car came with a homemade turbo manifold, eBay TD025 copy new, oil feed kit, intercooler, boost pipes, afr guage and a few odds n sods. Therefore I’ll be looking into turbocharging it. My two main concerns are how strong an ed-20 is and it seems to burn a lot off oil, seems down on power after lots of idling but is better after high revs as if it’s cleared it’s self out a bit.
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Are you able to do much of your own fabrication? On the back I’d look at running spring base height adjusters. I run a 2.5" coil over in the rear but you need to swap out the bases on the chassis. Old ones get cut off and new ones added to take the small spring diameter.
The rear does not need much travel and I limited the travel in mine with Hyundai Excel Koni dampers/shocks. Rear rate to make it turn nicely is in the region of 400-450lb per inch. Front rate needs to be close to std rate which is 125lb per inch or not more than 150lf per inch. At a guess your rears could be right and the front a bit stiff.
I would like the back lifted a bit so the car sits level again, it was aweful to drive on bumpstops, it’s still not great now but an improvement. It’s very stiff and doesn’t ride smoothly over bumps at all, would be fantastic on a smooth track but not ideal as a UK road car. I’m surprised you run 3x stiffer springs in the rear however it makes sense as the front has an anti roll bar and the rear is independent. Obviously I haven’t experienced standard suspension but I’d like it to be comfort orientated but not wallowing all over. I’ll try some softer front springs on the coilovers first. It currently pulls one way under acceleration and the other way under braking. The ball joints all seemed fine and the bushes looked okay, I’m thinking top mount play as they’ve had some abuse with it being on bump stops
Actually check whether it is hitting the bump stops. I’ve seen some that hit the chassis before the bump stops. Concerning the “pulling”, first thing to check is tires, things like ball joints and tie rods (but often noise will tell you this is an issue) and then alignment (as a cambered wheel steers like leaning a bike over and if unequal it will steer by the more dominant lean and same goes for castor and then to check is the rear alignment esp toe [funny though that the rear must be fixed before the front]). I’ve done wheel alignments for living before and funny enough had to fill in doing this two days last week.
Even std these things are rough riding. Back starting in 1990 when I worked as a mechanic for a couple of years one of our clients had a fleet of Miras for their IT business. New they were awful and the four or five Miras I’ve had reminded me of this each time. My current modified one is something I generally won’t drive more than a 20km radius of home. If I have to go a long way and want comfort then I load up the back with at least 100-150kg at which point it is bearable.
So since my last post I’ve replaced the small vacuum line which runs between the cam cover and inlet with new silicon as the old one no longer sealed, it’s one of two crankcase breather pipes, the other thick pipe being the air inlet on the corner/top of the block. Surprisingly it’s seems to burn much less oil now somehow, it also runs awefully intermittently just lack of fueling. I suspect map sensor or a split vacuum line however you can’t buy new ones, only copy parts off Malaysian websites.
I’ve found that my front coilover springs are 460lbs per inch explaining the horrible ride quality, I may go for 150lbs as near to standard but hopefully don’t get too much body roll.
I’ve also painted the wheels bronze which I much prefer than the black 
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Hey man,
What’s your insta?
I’m UK based too and have owned my Nippa since 2018. It’s mostly sat around.
Would love to follow and ask a few questions/steal a few ideas 
Cheers,
Chris
Own a mira and youd be the happiest man on earth! Im malaysian and the original nippa with their own bodyparts are becoming rare here as everyone converted theirs into a mira… and youve got a clean one! Hmu if you need any parts cuz weve got abundant of nippa/mira parts here in Malaysia.
Mate make an intro post here first Please. (start a new thread)