Totally unrelated but I had a similar issue when I put the greddy manage in the move I had. The communication cable had to run 3.3 volts and I could only get 5v wires from the move from the USB cable. I had to get a certain tll adapter and wire it in.
With that thought in mind an easy step down converter from 12v to 5v is to wire in a adapter for a device that uses the cigarette port.
Eg. if you have an old cigarette port to USB adapter you can take it apart wire the 12 v to the end that has the plug on it and work out which parts on the other end has the + and - and solder wires from that as your 5v output.
It may work, it may not but it may be a cheap option with something laying around home to try before spending on a volt converter.
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A few more small updates. I got a 2nd hand OEM Daihatsu fob in the end and have been able to sync it to the receiver in the car. I now have full RCL again and my existing fob is going off to have the microswitch resoldered in due course. Then I should be in the decadent position of having TWO working RCL fobs.
The front electric windows have always been a bit sluggish, originally I thought it was a case of there being crud in the runners for the glass, but extensive cleaning didn’t really help. I stripped down the passenger side doorcard to get at the arms that raise and lower the glass and they were all very dry. I grease everything I could and wound the window up and down several times to work it all in. Its improved things considerably which is great.
What was less good was that it highlighted just how dried up the adhesive gloop that holds the weatherproof membrane sheet to the metal door frame had become, and lost all adhesion in the process. I ended up cutting the old stuff off the door with a stanley knife and buying a 5m roll of butyl adhesive tape and re-applying it around the perimeter of the membrane then sticking it all back on. What a satisfying job! Its miles better now.
I need to do the same for the front drivers side door, maybe over the weekend.
I took the Sirion up to a car meetup last weekend, about 140 miles on motorways and A-roads and it ran fine. Thats the furthest its been for a good while and happily sat at 65mph. Much over that and the wheel wobble sets in (which I still need to investigate) but 65mph its absolutely fine. The economy is great, running at about 48mpg by my reckoning. It used a bit of oil, and I’m considering switching to 10w40 instead of 5w30 for the next oil change.
The exhaust insert settles the noise down really well and hasn’t (yet) blown itself out the pipe so thats a result!
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What proces did you use to get the remote key to work? I’ve tried the unlock doors, remove negative battery cable, wait 2 min, connect negative cable and press both lock and unlock until the blinkers start flashing. But it doesn’t seem to work. No blown fuses.
*** rocks gently in the corner ***
So… In theory the procedure is what you describe:
- Unlock car with the key
- pull bonnet release, open bonnet
- put key in ignition, turn to position 2
- turn key to position 0, remove from ignition, get out of car, close doors (and windows)
- walk around to front of car, remove negative battery cable from battery and count to 120 slowly
- reconnect negative battery cable
- hold down both lock and unlock buttons until car locks, then immediately unlocks
- press lock button and car will lock (optionally press unlock to make sure it syncs properly).
however, I must have tried this process 10 times with zero response from the car. I was about to email the seller of the fob to complain and then tried it ONE MORE TIME and it worked, just like that. I did nothing different, it just suddenly decided it wanted to pair the fob and was fine.
Something to try, instead of holding both lock and unlock buttons down in step 7, hold down the lock button only. and see if it does anything? Hold for ages, like 30 seconds if needed. You can also spam press the unlock button at the same time (press repeatedly for <1 second).
I genuinely don’t know why it was refusing to sync, then suddenly did sync, but it eventually decided it wanted to work and has been fine ever since.
Remove the PCB from the casing and make sure both microswitches are still attached to the PCB. Triple check that the battery in the fob is good - use either a CR1616 battery, though a CR1620 works fine too. Also swear a lot. Ideally quite loud so the neighbours curtains twitch. That definitely helped!
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Well that sucks. But I’m stubborn enough to keep trying. In an expert in the swearing part. Already took the remote out of its casing to clean it and check the battery. Battery still delivers 3.02V so it seems that it works. I’ll keep trying and swearing.
Edit: did you also remove the cable and wait for 2 minutes each time? That will increase the amount of swearing…
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Ah right, yes I removed and waited 2 mins each time - if it refused to sync in step 7, then after ~5 mins I went back to step 1 again. I did this over 2 or 3 evenings!
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It works! Took me a couple of days and 20+ tries but after replacing the battery (although the old one did still register 3v) it finally decided to pair. Seems like I need to improve my swearing…
Fun fact, you can get 1 remote to work on 2 cars simultaneously. Although I don’t recommend it 
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Hahaha, the swearing is clearly the most important bit of the process! Maybe it’s a built in security thing by Daihatsu, you can get any remote to pair with any car, but it takes so long to do, and you end up swearing so much and so loud that it makes it practically impossible to break into someone else’s car!
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Hey Granger nice Sirion!
I have refurbished copen calipers that were also salvaged from the sea. The trick with citric acid is that it is slow acting, mine were sitting in the bucket for 2 weeks. After wire brushing the black coating off, there was only bare metal and no rust.
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After a last minute panic when the EML came on last night as I went to drop it off for an MOT - I’d forgotten to reconnect the air intake temp sensor after fiddling with it the other day, fixed for free thanks to my Delphi code reader! - The Daihatsu is legal for another year
I’m pleased with that!
The garage said the exhaust noise was fine, no cause for concern - they were also interested in where I had got it fabricated because they said it was a pretty good job, and one of the mechanics was looking for similar for one of his cars. I said where it was from, but did say that you need to make sure they write down that you want a resonator on the job sheet!
I’ll go and replace the numberplate bulb shortly…
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Oh, a few pics from a recent drive out and about
I live on the south coast of the UK, a few miles inland there is a big area of rolling hills and fields and picturesque villages which have some pretty good driving roads. There is a big loop of about 60 miles that I like to do from time to time, generally fast roads with good visibility but twisty and technical too. It takes about 90 minutes to drive the route and this is approx halfway round.
I really need to get out and drive the car more!
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A friend needed to borrow a car to get to a family gathering ~120 miles away, sadly his 2017 Nissan leaf only has 70 miles of range so a dino-powered car was needed!
He borrowed the Sirion and really enjoyed himself, saying how much fun it was to drive and how well mannered it was at motorways speeds which he didn’t expect.
All was not 100% though, as the car threw the EML on within 30 miles of him setting off. He said it drove fine so he carried on. Once he was back I scanned for codes and it brought back intermittent misfires on cylinders 1, 2 and 4. The codes cleared, but I was a bit concerned.
I was giving the car and oil and filter change today anyway, so pulled a couple of spark plugs to see what they looked like:
That looks to me like its gotten way too hot? The ground electrode is covered in white deposits and the centre electrode insulation is chipped/fragile. These are a matching set of Denso K20R-U11s and are about 4 years and about four thousand miles old which is quite worrying. As a comparison, the plugs in my daily W203 Mercedes have done 25,000 miles and look like new, with just very light brown residue and no burning obvious?
I’ll order up a set of 4 new plugs and will opt for NGK BKUR6ETB-10’s this time round I think.
The car hadn’t thrown an EML for me, and the only difference is that my friend put E10 unleaded in rather than E5 (super) that I use.
The oil and filter change went fine. I have used 10w40 this time, instead of the FS 5w30 I used before and I’ll see what the oil burning situation is like. The car gets through about 1L of oil per 500-700 miles on the 5w30, so I’ll check how I get on with slightly thicker oil.
The journey of 240 miles will probably have done the car the world of good tbh, spark plugs aside!
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I had intermittent misfire EMLs until I went back to using the three earth type of plug and messed around with the PCV system to try and reduce the amount of oil being burned. My car is the SL rather than the Rally 2
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Hi fella my names Scott I actually owned this car for a few years and drove it on the road. I was gutted when I had to sell it for financial reasons. If you ever felt like selling it please reach out.
The car used to have a a rally gearbox that blew up on me. it was a lot shorter and maxed out at 100mph. The car was as fast as an st at the time off the mark.
I would be keen to buy it as I sold it for £900 to maps when I fell on hard times. Since selling it it has left a large hole in my heart… sounds sad but I actually dream of driving it again.
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So, no updates for a while, I’ve mostly been just driving the Sirion!
No more EML since I changed the plugs, but I’ve been running it on super unleaded again. I tried changing the oil to 10w40 as noted previously, to see if it helped reduce the oil consumption but its not really worked. I filled it to ‘max’ on the dipstick when I changed the oil, and after about 300 miles its down by about 1/3rd of the distance between min and max. It doesn’t get used loads and I’m aware of its ‘drink problem’ so I’ll just keep topping it up for now. Its noticeably worse if you rev it out past 5k rpm, but its too addictive not to on the little Sirion!
I have a few things I need to get done in the new year. Firstly I want the exhaust muffler changed to a longer one. Its currently a 4" diameter 9" long centre silencer, but its just too loud. I have put a restrictor in the tailpipe which improves things a lot, but I think its sapping power by being too narrow and causing back pressure. Ideally I’d like to change the centre silencer to a longer one, and possibly larger bore too, to dampen more of the noise so I can run the tailpipe without the insert. I think maybe a 20" x 4" muffler (or longer, if it will fit) could solve the issue, or maybe move up to a 6" diameter.
Next is a change of wheels. I’ve never been a huge fan of the factory 15" wheels on the Rally 2. They’re a bit too big IMHO, and the slim spokes only emphasise how teeny tiny the brakes are! I’ve been looking for some 14" wheels which have fatter spokes and a friend mentioned he was clearing out some of his surplus MX5 bits. His MX5 NA had some 14" Enkei ‘Daisies’ which he couldn’t use because he’d upgraded his brakes and there wasn’t enough clearance so he’s had these cluttering up his garage for a while. He packed them up and courier’d them to me. The tyres are junk, but attached to demonstrate the look
Before:
After:
(Yes I know the tyre is a bit flat!)
I quite like the look. They hide the front brakes a bit better and still have plenty of clearance so they rotate fine. Being 4x100 stud pattern with a 56.1mm centre bore they fitted perfectly, the only difference is the Enkei’s have an ET of 45 and the factory Team Dynamics are ET40 so I’ll need to get some spacers at some stage. There is LOADS of thread on the wheel studs so spacers won’t cause a problem with lack of threads for the wheel nuts.
I’m considering what to do with the wheels before fitting though. I’d quite like to have the sandblasted and either painted or powder coated. I’d like to go got a bronze colour, or something wild like acryllic orange, then get some new tyres fitted as well.
Or I could just be lazy and paint them with rattle cans on the basis even if I make a total dogs dinner of it (not an unlikely scenario!) then I can always just go and get them blasted anyway.
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[quote=“Granger, post:22, topic:3337”]…As you can see, my house is being renovated currently…[/quote]That last image would make a lovely Daihatsu calender page. Where was it taken?
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It’s lovely isn’t it? It’s the ruins of an abbey/monastery which was later turned into a manor house . It’s near to where I live and a nice place to visit.
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Some more progress on the wheels idea, I wanted to mock up how it might look with the colour I had in mind for them before I go ‘all in’ and have the wheels blasted and powder coated. I cleaned two of them down, primed them and painted with a rattle can to see how it might look
What do people think? I quite like the look, I’m split between a dark copper colour like this, or a matt bronze (which I need another rattle can to demo!)
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I think it looks good, and if you like it that’s all that matters. I like the current colour.
[quote=“Granger, post:150, topic:3337”]…How forensically clean does this need to be?..does the entire flat metal surface need aned back to bright metal?..[/quote]Too late now. But, for next time, there is a high-temperature silicone available as a gasket substitute:
This would fill in any uneveness caused by gasket removal
[quote=“Granger, post:258, topic:3337”]…I’m split between a dark copper colour like this, or a matt bronze…[/quote]Those wheels look good in that colour. But, not really, against your car’s blue. That is, if it really isn’t silver and it’s just your camera playing tricks on us. For a light blue of which it appears to be, I would suggest either a gunmetal blue tone or a vivid sapphire blue
[quote=“Mr_Gormsby, post:76, topic:3337”]…I use Redline Lightweight in my Subaru Gp N DCCD gearbox and heavyweight in my R180 diffs…[/quote]Also owning a Suzuki Wagon R, the pertaining forum of which I’m a member of prescribes automatic transmission fluid for manual gearbox use. Older Hondas used 10 W - 40 of which made them shift precise.
Given that both Suzuki and Daihatsu share the same lubricant for circulating between both gears and differential, I could imagine that the automatic transmission oil’s thin viscosity would shorten the differential’s service life. Or is this only an unjustified fear?