That is awesome Mr G but we doo need more details 
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Car built by my high school students from my engineering class. They are sort of kit form. Students raced at Lakeside against about 30 other cars. Without seeing official times I suspect we did some of the quickest lap times. For insurance it is not a race and to win you must be consistent. Supplied throttle cable seized and put us down on laps and then 30min from the end we fryed a cvt belt. Attempted a fix but not enough time. More details to come.
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*I would not recommend the Formula Student program. Any school thinking about it ābewareā. The provider will seek to dazzle you. The cars are powered by a approx 20hp Kohler V2. The supplied wiring harness has a horn wired in that sounds when the ignition turns on and stops when the car starts. Ours would only run when the horn was disconnected. The āraceā wiring harness with DTM style connectors did not match the provided switch gear and the given instructions were wrong. When the car first started the governor style throttle would immediately go full throttle and one had to stand on the brakes and switch off the engine. The drive is only to one wheel and the brakes work on only one wheel at the back. Standing hard on the brakes would send the car sideways - THIS IS DANGEROUS and any CAMS scrutineer would tell you that a car like this would not pass scrutineering as brakes should work on all four wheels. The provided tires had stamped dates that showed they were nine years old, and even new these would have been the cheapest the provider could procure (maximise business profit (Greig you said in front of a school group that each car costs your businesses $15 000 and that of this each body was $8000 [you once boasted to me they cost you a tenth of that]. Plus there was some bull about what it costs to rent Lakeside, Iād say the figure you stated was for all the events youāve run over the last few years but you made out it was for one event. Every single part in these cars is as cheap as possible, all RH thread Chinese rod ends, bell crank pivot bearing that are $2 ea on Alliexpress and often times promised materials would just not arrive (still waiting two years on the go-no-go jig and six months on the floor pan. Speaking of ānot providedā, during COVID they boasted of online support āwe are up to the challengeā¦it is readyā¦we will contact each schoolā. This never happened and when questioning about this the topic was changed [Greig has a habit of this]. A few of our students attempted contact but they do not reply, I certainly know the feeling. We had one okay year where Formula Student had Chis B come out to help us. In 2020 we were told one āShaneā would be our support but never contacted nor visited. It seems that if the school does not have students who are focused and engaged then Formula Student is not interested where the group that have signed up need to work on emotional resilience and other interpersonal skills. The program prides itself on a ājob cardā system (it is not such it is merely a checklist with not check boxes and not anything like āreal worldā job card systems, in fact if the paint and panel bushiness I was foreman at before becoming at teacher had a system like thereās no work progress would be tracked, Iād be clocking everything three times and if one person was away much work would stop since the system tracks people and not work [actually it is just a system to show that Formula Student meets government compliance]. I could go on. There is lots of pomp and ceremony. The program is limited in what it teaches and there is vast repetition. The lathe work is āface, drill a hole and chamferā. There is some fitting work (rough cut with cold saw or horizontal bandsaw, hack saw and file) that most schools do in the roughest of tolerances since these pieces are for welding fabrication. There is a lot of welding, lots and lots. Initially there is some theory and online multi guess question (quite a few errors in this), but soon into the course there is just a lot of clicking to log on and off jobs. It is suppose to be able to let Formula Student track what a school has made, however, the school does not have access to any checklist for checking off parts and has to create a manual list by opening every single of the hundreds of PDF plans (if Formula Student wants to withhold help they may just say, āsend your inventory of parts madeā, you can ask for a checklist to help with this but they will probably change the conversation. If you are a school with a large number of enrolments in the program you will probably get premium attention. They get some $4500 per year per student enrolment. The course is generally run on a school campus using school staff. Some school get a $4500 payment back from them to contribute to the school costs (not something some schools ever received). A small school group might be twelve and a large eighteen. Do the maths.
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Without a doubt the car with the highest corner speed. Formula Student posted some times that showed our fastest laps were 12 sec per lap faster than any other school by being in the 76sec area (includes running the bus stop). Gormsby did manage the fastest outright lap and can attest handling wise it could be help flat out for all but the bus stop exit where a momentary lift off the throttle was needed.
edit. for 2020 the car was hopeless. Ran well for an hour and then fried a drive belt. We replaced it and the belt when again. This was not the only problem. Three of the team did not get to drive, two years work invested and not all the team got a go. Admittedly the first two drivers had six lap stints which we bought back to four laps each.
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Letās see the inside? How much wheel travel? RWD isnāt it.
Def rear wheel Shortened commodore borg/warner 3.08 lsd
17x7.5 ford territory rim, redrilled. running a 235/45/17 Iāll try and get a few better pics
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Yes it has been a big break. Gormsby has been off track as far as progress goes. A small area to work in has always stifled progress. The L200 has been parked tight up against a bank of undisturbed soil, clay and sand stone for some time.
It almost feels like it is being dug out. Should be room to swing a cat soon. Some renewed progress might even happen in the not to distant future.
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looks like your having fun
What a thread, Mr.G! Hats 's off to you and your build.
A lot to learn here and good starting points for others to go explore.
Hope there will be some more in the future. 
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Thanks. No room to work still at home. Waiting on my structural engineer to look at what I need to do with the house foundations. . Have almost rebuilt my spare lsd gearbox. Hope to get back onto it
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The End
postscript- I have had to bite the bullet and end this story. The Mira is gone. Iāve worked myself into a corner with my house and could not go forward working on the car due to the small space Iāve been working in and I could not do anything with the space due to the Mira and other projects.
I need to mention something for those experiencing where I am mentally. If you are experiencing depression for the first time, you can work your way out. Seek help, get some order in life, do the things you used to enjoy (even if itās no fun anymore) and spend time with people. Do things that give your mind a rest from your problems (mountain biking with friends does for me give my mind a rest). I have had depression thought-out life. It comes and goes. That I needed to share since you need to know things do get better. While this is the end of the MIra for me, it is not the end of me. I hope readers have enjoyed the journey it has been a bit hit and miss on documentation. If you can learn from this - keep it simple and spend more time with a driving car than doing modās, esp if the car you are working on is your daily.
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It is sad that the Mira was one thing that needed to go but completely I understand and no car or project is more important than you and youāre well-being. I think the car will be fine and end up in a good place just like you will too my friend. You have both Mine and Maryās Phone numberās so we are only a phone call away if you need us. You always have such a zest for life and you will get back to that again no doubt until then day by day and little bits at a time. This was a huge big step and I am very proud of you for being able to do it.
I think there are quite a few of us that have been where you are or similar so know youāre not alone.
One silly phrase that always helps me not overwhelm myself so much anymore is:
āHow do you eat an Elephant? One bite at a time!ā
This thread will be a source of info for so many people for years to come and I am positive you will get to see and drive this car again in the future.
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As James said, we are just a phone call away and we really do mean that. If you need anything, we will do our best to be there for you.
Looking forward to any future Gormsby projects, because when one door closes another opens, nothing is ever the end.
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Mentally this has been a tough year, and itās important to maintain mental health.
Drive vs build has been a long term struggle of mine too. So many ideas stop us from just turning the key and doing what a car is designed to do.
Moving on from your car, is strictly your choice and I respect that. We can only do what we think is right at the time, even if it is something we āmightā regret later.
Keep in there mate, we are all a message or call away (not that you specifically have my number but if you did itās easy to find).
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ohhhhā¦ like they said above, itās been a rough year but this thread will be a valuable source of information for years to come, the Mira will be fine.
iām waiting anxiously the next proyect of Mr_G, good luck and a big hug from a distance ā¦
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Thank you.
Next project is the house and foundations. Perhaps some pics of that? Might be a bit āout thereā on a car forum, but could provide some understanding of āthe elephant in the roomā. I am good with the notion of selling my wrx (which has some problems and need fixing) and keeping the Liberty to do a few events a year and keeping it so I have spare road car.
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!
Laying on its side one can see the top of the post. All custom. Big nut at the top takes most vertical load. Under it is the nut to stop the house lifting and a third nut below that. The last two only get done up finger tight as a spanne will not fit in there, hence the turned down hex sections so multigrips can turn them. The strange square section that is welded to the top plate is to give more welded area to the M30 threaded rod.
IMG_20210102_150302_01|375x500 !
The pics does the hole no justice. 2000mm deep below the trench. Trench alone is 600mm but gets filled 450mm for a stip footing and a 150mm slab over top of all. Steel cage is home made as per the engineerās specs (almost, itās a bit beefier).
IMG_20210103_125704_01|666x500 !
And half a cubic meter of 25mpa concrete latter we have a post hanging from the beam in wet cement. The flaired top of the hole (yeah the top does not look 450mm round as it should) is becuase there was a concrete pile already in this spot but only 600mm below the top of where the fresh cement can be seen now. Effectively the floor is now 1600mm lower in the area than it was a year ago. Big job just getting the old pile out of the ground with only a little excavator which must weigh less than the old pile. Perhaps the thread name should be changed to ābuilding a Daihatsu basement workshopā ?
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wow having seen under the house and how it was before that hole. Wow thatās some depth you added there in getting that done. The floor is soo far from the ground and the trench that was already there was deep but that hole is nowhere near as deep as I thought it would have been. Top job man!
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Finally got the time to read this topic! It was something on my to do list for quite a while, but never got to it since I knew Iād have to take a minute (or two, or seventy three). Now that @Mick suggested reading your topic, it seemed like a good time to do so!
First I just have to say Iām impressed! I think I think Iām pretty resourceful myself, but some of this stuff is just next level. Iām also massively jealous of the fact that you (and @Mick for example) are able to fabricate things yourself. I really appreciate the amount of thought that went into some of the fabricated mods, totally pleases the nerd in me! Iām also planning on doing a few thermodynamic mods to the intake (once the 3SZ is in), so Iāll definitely read your post about that a couple of times more. I did a lot of research, and watched a lot of videoās (can recommend Julian Edgar, if you havenāt watched any of his videoās yet), but itās useful to see it in Dai-context.
Itās sad to see the Miraās gone, but happy to see the passion for building things isnāt. Thanks for writing this topic!
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Iāve spent some time with Julian, he used to live in my local area. Heās quite a character.
Your praise about ānext levelā is humbling, I donāt really feel worthy of that - Iām just a tight arse who knows how I want something to perform and the only requirement to how it looks is āconcealā whatever you do as much as possible. I have friends doing stuff that I see as amazing, and to really move forward I have to get my dumpy house with limited yard space set up with some CNC machinery.
There is still one Dai left here. Just a shell, but I have a plan for it. Is is unlikley Iād document the build as such would not be that helpful here (Iām not that good at remembering to photograph often enough). Perhaps it will end up being posts about or of some actual comp (if Iām bad at photographs Iām worse at turning an action camera on or remembering to take it - though I must just for āevidenceā as I came second in my last event due to a timing error (two runs should have been cancelled for me due to the cars before knocking over cones - the offical let me re-run but did not erase the previous time and once published a few days latter they would not correct this) and footage could have been submitted to show this. The new Dai would be rear wheel drive and not powered by a Dai, maybe Suzuki.
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