Laughs in rust free L700
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Impossible
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I’m criminally behind on updates, got lots of stuff going on.
Anyways, I took out the entire interior of the car to check the integrity of the car so I could ‘‘futureproof’’ it if needed. And as my previous post implies: the rust devil took a few bites out of my bean. Two holes right behind the front seats. Ofcourse, two rust holes is nothing to be afraid of, but I wanted to get this fixed asap. I contacted a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy with a welder. And so, 14 days after my intial discovery, I handed the keys to a rather…‘‘pragmatic’’ person. One day later the holes were wellded shut and treated. All this for a very reasonable price of 50 euros.
As I was driving home in my stripped car, I was wondering how much of the awful noise I could kill off using good insulation. So after some consideration, I drove to my local automotive store and got some ‘‘soundkiller’’ padding.
Here’s how it looked:
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Even the wobbly console got the treatment:
It took quite a bit of time, but most of the surface area is now covered with sound deadening material. After that the carpet was ready to go back in, and I earned myself a cold beer.
I ordered some goodies like this tow sticker for at least 5 horsepower:
Valve caps:
And the best one, OEM mudflaps!
Also, I think I finally know how I want my build to look, tune in next time to see what my plans are!
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Nice work, if not done already - get some copper grease or similar on the threaded section of the tyre valve stem where the new valve cap screws on. The valve with be brass, and it looks like your new caps are aluminium. If left alone, the dissimilar metals will corrode and fuse together and you’ll not be able to undo the valve cap. Having some sort of grease in there will prevent metal-to-metal contact and make this less likely to happen.
If you are like me, this will result if you applying too much torque in an effort to free one off and tear the rubber valve stem. Then all the air will escape, and you’ll have parked right up against a kerb so getting a jack under the sill to raise the car and allow you to change the wheel will be way harder than it needs to be. Then it will start to rain and you will sit on the kerb and question your life choices up to this point.
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Gonna grease them up right now, thanks for the tip!
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[quote=“GreenBean, post:3, topic:6197”]…I’m a huge sucker for ITBs and intake noise overall…[/quote]If possible, I would attempt to locate the filter away from the hot engine compartment, in order to avoid power loss. This is why the original filter’s snorkel was extended to a cooler end of the engine compartment. Placing the filter in front of the bulkhead, for example, would keep performance within desirability, without quieting inlet music.
I too am considering mounting one of these filters on mine, in an attempt at duplicating the inlet sound of the American cars I used to own (I used to flip the air cleaner’s lid), given that my 601 has an automatic gearbox of which would make my engine noisy, kicking down a gear while passing an annoyingly slow vehicle or tractor
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Thanks Butch! I’m fully aware that it’s a warm intake, though the hole I cut in the frame allows some air to come in via the vents under the windshield. Fuel economy is still amazing too, I’m assuming the engine is running leaner. One thing to note is that the oem intake tube runs straight over the exhaust header, I assume this is for shorter warm up times. I’m thinking of swapping the rocker cover for an aygo one. It utilizes a different box and a slightly bigger airfilter (the daihatsu one has a sloped edge, whereas the aygo one has a box shaped one which caused my K&N filter not to fit). I’m not 100% sure it’s a straight swap though…
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My consistency is awful, but it’s time for another update!
To kick things off, I attended a Dai meeting! This was the very first carmeet I ever went to, so I had no clue what to expect. So on a cloudy sunday, I packed a few drinks, and started my 1,5 hour drive towards the west. Greenbean must’ve been thankful for this, since it never gets to drive any long distances.
One rather relaxing drive later, I arrived at the meet.
As I said, I had no idea what to expect of a meeting like this. But man, these are fun! Got to meet and talk to some other L2D members and other Dai fans. The day flew by, and as I was talking to the last few folks there, the rain came…
But that didn’t ruin a thing! It did make for a rather stressful ride back home, though. I was constantly worried that my filter would suck in too much water. Normally I wouldn’t be too worried, but this was one serious shower. I arrived home safely, looking forward to the next meeting already.
I decided to revert to the original filter. For multiple reasons: One being cabin warmth. This sounds weird, but hear me out. I didn’t take into account that the plastic I had to cut also forms a shield against the heat of the engine bay. The result: warm air coming out of the vents constantly, even if I had the blower on full and the heater set to cold. On colder days this wasn’t an issue, but now that it’s spring, it’s quite a hot mess being in it.
bye bye!
I visited an Asia parts wrecker who had a new paravan for me. While I was there, I noticed the paravan came from a premium trim cuore. I checked the driver’s seat and…bingo! Height adjustability. The reason I was happy to see this option because I have a hard time fitting my 1.91m (6’3) into the tiny car. So armed with a new seat and a paravan, I returned home.
At home, I installed the new paravan. Giving that everything was out anyways, I took my chance to add my leftover insulation.
The new seat was installed too, it’s a lot more comfortable being in the car!
More updates soon!
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Nice work, I think you made the right call!
It was nice talking to you in real life btw 
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Thank you! It was fun while it lasted.
Appreciate it Blyatsu! Was loads of fun to meet you as well, def hope we get more meetings like this !
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Ahh, I love progress!
Hm? What the hell am I talking about? The cool stuff for greenbean ofcourse! Let me fill you in.
So, there I was, walking around my shed looking for things to do. The magnesium wheels were looking a bit sorry for themselves, so I gave them a clean, and sprayed them with black plastidip.
They looked like offroad wheels now…I didn’t think this through. Part of me wanted to keep them as winter tires, but another part wanted to get rid of the tires and put some grippy ones on. But my luck had a different plan: Browsing a marketplace app I stumbled on something I’d never expect to be on sale: a set of Daihatsu Copen wheels. I barely found any of these for sale when I looked for them, and when I’d happen to find some they were overpriced and/or in horrendous shape. These were in an acceptable shape, and the seller wasn’t that far away from me…one thing was certain: I just had to get my hands on them. I contacted the seller, who responded with ‘‘Someones coming to look for them this evening, sorry’’, which shattered my pink cloud a bit.
But not all hope was lost. A few days later I got a new message: ‘‘The buyer changed his mind, do you still want them?’’…you can guess my answer. And so, on a monday afternoon, I drove for an hour or so to get these:
I can’t be happier!
The tires aren’t in a great shape though, so replacements have been ordered. They will be fitted and aligned together with a set of Vogtland 30mm lowering springs…can’t wait!
Since the magnesium wheels had no use to me anymore, I put them up for sale. I just had to wait.
In the meantime I got busy with a few other things, such as spray painting the faded mirror plastics:
Try some new stuff such as F1 mirrors and a single wiper conversion. Both of which weren’t exactly what I wanted. But hey, if you don’t try, you never know!
Time passed, and I finally got my first serious response on my magnesium wheels advert (Some ****** think they can buys stuff for 5% of the price). The buyer was called ‘’(name) Autosport’', which gave me an idea. I browsed their site for racing goodies and came across something I have wanted since the very first days of my car ownership. I offered them a trade deal, my wheels against one of their items of simular value. To my surprise, it was accepted!
One pretty short drive later:
That’s right, an OMP racing wheel! I always wanted to try a tuner wheel, but could not sacrifice my airbag just yet. This time my enthousiasm (or stupidity) has won, and I’m loving it.
I’m just waiting for a BOSS kit from Japan now, and then it can be put on! I also installed the racing pedals:
Now that is just the business!
Thank you so much for reading, until next time!
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Pfew, that last update was quite a bit, but there’s more!
First of all: New wheels!
Fresh 165/50R15 tires are now sitting happily on the copen wheels. I’m loving how OEM+ it looks!
In terms of changes: Not that much. Which is a good thing since I expected to lose all comfort with these low profile tires. It also grips a lot better in the corners and when accelerating lively. Though it painfully shows just how soft these springs are, can’t wait to have my lowering springs installed!
One change I also made is heat shielding, I’m not 100% if these help, but it surely won’t hurt!
I might invest in a temp gauge to see what’s going on.
I’d like to end on a question. While my car was on the bridge, I noticed the center engine mount looks suspicously like an aygo mount. Which could mean that I can install a polythurane mount on my Dai! Could anyone confirm? Would love to hear it 
See you guys later!
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aliexpress has really cheap temp sensor’s and guage kits. I had one in the intake manifold of my old moves years ago and had replaced my non working coolant sensor with one also and they actually worked quite well for such a cheap item.
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