Hey guys
Im in the market for a daily driver - I missed out on a 2000 Move and I’m following an auction on a 1.3l manual 95 Charade. It has approx 280,000km which will make it the highest km car I’ve owned by about 12,000km but the plus side is they’re common in wreckers so the plan is buy, load up on spares and I have a set of 4x100s with new (chinese) rubber on them…
They’re factory wheels from my 87 BA5 Honda Prelude - a project car I got last year. Its full of rust and after a year of toiling on it, I’ve decided two projects (more on that later) is just beyond my finances. I am in the panel and paint trade (this is my 2nd year). The prelude is going to the scrap yard once I have all the parts Stripped. Its painful to send an old car worth saving to death but it’ll live on through the parts I re-use.
I’m going to refurb the turbo fin 80s looking wheels off it and put them on the daihatsu. Maybe get some decent tyres too, re003? Big-ish exhaust, will be fun to drive on the way home.
I’m a JDM fan through n through - I grew up in the back of a EF Civic sedan, a second gen Honda City, and an Accord Vigor (and my grandparents had a mk4 Cortina but not jdm), I’m currently a Subaru man after crashing my Sw20 MR2, owning a 95 Gf8 WRX.
Dream car is either an r32 gtr or r34 gtr, or 22b impreza
Anyway where do you guys get new parts from? Usually. I go to like. Amayama or partsouq or jp-carparts but no where has daihatsu catalog diagrams! Cheers
From new Zealand
Welcome young Kiwi. I got into Dais a bit like your search. I have a few Subarus with a GDA WRX spec C as my daily, a Liberty for a race car and another LIberty wagon, but at one point needed a knock about daily and that was when the Dais came in.
When I left school in 1985 I did a trade as a Motor Body and Coach painter. Well done on getting into a trade. Stick to it, well worth it in the end.
Often I end up buying cars and wrecking them myself for parts. It depends what you mean though parts wise. Forged pistons, forged rods, bearings and such I buy through reputable suppliers. Specialist things like quick rack internals, gearbox or LSD parts I import from the manufacturer. Rims, I try not to buy junk cast stuff and due to wanting particular sizes this takes lots of hunting for new or used. Then brake pads (esp more exotic stuff like Bilsteins, Ferodo DS3000 brake pads and Redline lubes as just a couple of examples I buy through my local suspension shop, which is more of a race car prep shop than generic wheel align place). I am not into JDM dress up stuff, locally here I’d rather my cars blend in so as not to attract unwanted attention - if you look “unmodified” and get pulled over by the Police I’ve nearly always just had a few questions and then they let me go. If this is off topic and you were specifically after something I am sure someone here can help. There are a lot of things I fabricate myself or machine up at home or work.
Looking forward to hearing how it all goes for you.
Oh, just generally where are you in NZ? I’m usually over every year and often spend some time with Family in Wellington.
Cheers for that! By the sounds of it there is a huge aftermarket support for our cars. From what I can tell kei cars are super popular in Japan and there’s always the nicer aftermarket parts kicking around there, but that there’s the exotic stuff closer to home available is mint.
I was wondering more about the new oem parts though, I really like having a well sorted car and doing stuff before it fails. To be honest, I’m not really into obnoxious mods that attract police attention, my wrx is mainly used for fun driving on back roads and so no slammed or big exposed fmic here. I was actually followed to work one day by a cop who was running my plates… I think he thought my wrx was another that I’ve seen around, much louder, lower, and modified looking.
Im in taupo, originally from the rat race of Auckland. And to be honest, I am probably going to go back into carpentry. I’m not a huge fan of collision repair, but the things I’ve learnt are super helpful.
No disrespect to Daihatsu as a daily either, I’m sure the higher spec models are great drivers cars. I’ve always liked Detomasos and their turbo predecessors.