Poor Mans KP61 ('84 G11 Delilah)

[MrLawless]

Hi Guys!

I must admit I have been lurking on this forum for a bit longer than I’d like to admit (yes, I have done my intro, Mr Gorms).

This week I picked up my first dai!

What could be better than a 1984 G11 Charade non-turbo? 185,000km, full interior, changes gears like a dream and full service history! Pulled from a barn in Ipswich, serviced and sealed then sold to me.

The plan is (like the tittle) is to build a poor man’s kp61 starlet using mostly daihatsu parts. The astute amongst you might have seen the rear suspension of a G11 and can see where this is going. I won’t give too much away just yet but there is a k3 (or 4/5efte) planned and my emphasis is going to be on weight. She’s a clannish example but the plastics are cracking so I don’t feel too bad doing a stripped interior. I already have an engineer I’m talking with, so hopefully will stay legal. Next step is rego and daily-ish duties.

-Lawless

[MrLawless]

DELIAH IS ROADWORTHY!

Was a slight struggle with the roady being concerned about the valve cover gaskget, however a hit of degreaser revealed no leaks, just grime. Its been such a fun little car to run around in! Now that its road legal, I’ll recap on the few touches I’ve done this month.

First the door handles… front passo was snapped and not opening the door, a need be for roady. Swapping it with the diagonally opposite door meant I could still use the symmetrical handle design and retain 4 working doors.

Luckily I had a few m6 hardware avaliable to replicate a few features. Then it was zipties instead of a sirclip in the front:

After that it was nipping some tinworm:

Then a great discovery! The sealed beams have been h4 converted with genuine japanese 5x7s.

And lastly a special treat for the mightyest of shitboxes!

-Lawless

[evilhighway]

Love the build and your plans! I think you should change your title to “Smart Man’s KP61” hahahaha. Similar result with less money spent is smart

Don’t mind me just having a giggle

[MrLawless]

Its been a minute… I’ve been in between jobs but will start my apprenticeship next week so funds are inbound.

What I’ve been up to:

Slim’s Burgers is taking off!

I started stripping the bumpers and plastics down, sanded with scotchbrite and 320 grit, then 2 coats of MTN Bumper and grill paint. I found this range in supercheap, 15 a can, no primer and super good coverage. Really dresses up the car.

To take the bumper off I had to remove the battery… surprise surprise, there’s rust, so I treated it with acid and sprayed it with epoxy. Battery tray is like fibreglassy, so it got the bumper paint treatment too.

Doesn’t that look tough??

The bolt for the crash bar bellow the previous 35 years of leaky batteries was stuck fast and fought me even with an angle grinder. In the end I welded the cut back up and left that bolt out. Typical old car and 1 bolt ruining the day type things.

Took the charade to an Empire meet on the northside of brissie, had a cruise with a mx-5 for a bit. I think the teeth suit the car.

Was feeling a little bit bored of the interior, green may not match the interior but the turf at my college was getting replace so I asked and pinched a few brand new pieces of astro turf! Score! I also 3d printed a gear knob out of PETG, its comfy and has a printed thread on the inside. M12x1.25 on a 15mm shift lever for reference. Printing is the other big hobby of mine, I find it solves a lot of car problems and the occasional birthday present! HMU if you want one maybe?

Saving he boring for last, Adam, the previous owner (same name as me) was sorting the g11 for his son, so included was SLOTTED disk brakes from DBA and a set of new pads and lines. So I chucked them in, not many pics unfortunately but they feel good and the old pads had 2mm left on them which was a surprise! Timing belt was also done in preparation for this weekends drive to Kandanga for “A Dai In The Countryside”. Retarded the cam a tooth (or two?) than set the timing a bit advanced, car no longer pops on decel at 3k rpm to idle. Previously (carby lyfe ik), as soon as the car was warmed up, every downhill coast was a continuous run of puffs and pops, which was hilarious at first but I’m glad its sorted now.

Interior is getting stripped slowly, car probably weighs 650kgs without seats and my butt. My mates and a stranger picked my car up and parked it sideways at TAFE last month too!

I’ve got a saas gt wheel in leather for sale and the interior trim up too on facebook if anyone needs it.
Next jobs should be fixing the cigarette lighter, mono wiper mod (the right way), led head lights from stedi and ofc, some sick aluminium, aviation inspired door cards!

-Mr Lawless

[Mr_Gormsby]

Excellent effort. Looking good

[Butch_Butcher]

[quote=“MrLawless, post:2, topic:6786”]…The sealed beams have been h4 converted with genuine japanese 5x7s…[/quote]Sealed beams on a right-hand drive car? I used to think that such nonsense was only practiced in North America. Luckilly, vintage rectangular and completely round sealed beams are standardized to the point where their conversion to H4 units are straightforward.
I shipped my Renault 5 from North America to Europe, before registering it here. I was required to do away with the sealed beams. So I attended scrapyard for harvesting a set of H4s from a Mitsubushi van

[MrLawless]

Hiya again,

Been pretty active with the Dai in the past weeks, have settled into this new job nicely and can put more attention (and money) into this thing.

Way back in November, I cleared the shelves of my local suoercheap of their Wattyl HD primer and Gloss white, TWICE. All in an effort to have a good suply of paint for my flaking steel wheels. Ive tried white knight previously but figured id give the Wattyl a go. My dad has land rover parts from the 90s that still look good and my expectation is I’ll have to re coat these wheels after i take them rallying. 2 cans of primer and 2 if colour did inside and out side of 4 13" rims, bit patchy on the inside. Treated the wheels with phosphoric acid and penitrol to ensure no further rust and deflated the tyres to mask with wheelie bin bags lol.

While the paint was drying, I printed off a bunch of nut covers (hehehehe) just to hide the tired wheel nuts with the freshy painted wheels. I could probably make some new centre caps for the rear too.

Next I started on the silly single wiper mod. After deleting the rear wiper and plugging the hole with a nut, bolt and o-ring, I decided it would be funny to copy the DTM, BTCC and ATCC single wiper design, the CORRECT way ofc. I pulled out the tired wiper assembly, which due to terrible grounding was barely wiping a wet window, repainted and rust proofed the bracket and made sure it was still full of grease. In order to increase the wing of the centre wiper, geometrically, the wiper motor arm must be extended or the wiper arm must be shortened, I chose the former and blobbed in a calculated 6mm extension to the motor arm. Its relatively simple to calculate this in a CAD software. In fusion360 you can draw up all the lengths, set a few constraints and play with the angles and lengths. I made a cardboard template of how far I wanted the wiper to move on the windscreen, then matched that in CAD. I’m pretty sure its still legal as it wipes the whole window, the wrong police officer might not like the vertical “Aerodynamic” position. You must also straighten the wiper blade if it has a kink like below.

Another quick fix that has since broken again, so still needs work, is the horn. I was never happy with the original SAAS one and possibly due to missing parts, it never fitted well in my wheel. So i printed off a 2 piece clip with bezel to hold a 6A rated Jaycar push button.

Its a bit ugly but it works, could do with some more insulation on the back side as the button sometimes grounds on the boss kit.

More printed parts:

I had the idea ages back to put motorcycle bar end mirrors on the fenders like 70s Corollas and 240?260zeds. I’ve always had a soft spot for that styling. Enter the Ebay special “Black CNC Round Bar End Mirrors”. They have 2 potions that they can be mounted in, I personally like the “Up and Over” but the sideways “Out and Up” looks cool too. Drilling into the quarter panel was a bit scary and choosing how far forward they should sit was a bit of an internal debate but I’m happy with the outcome. They have a m6 hex/cap screw on the inside that normally pulls a cone into an expanding clamp inside the handle bars (like a dyna bolt) I’ve got it clamping the mirror to the guard with a fender washer and a 3d printed spacer. You can see a surprising amount with them (Not that any 80s car has blind spots or good mirrors in the first place). I’m yet to remove the original mirrors, not sure what my plan is there, maybe a piece of steel, welded nuts and body filler. Bolt it in on the inside for security then sand the filler to the contour it needs to be. Easy to revert in case i get defected too!

Onto some fun stuff!

I started on the door cards this month too! Fully stripped out the doors, taking all the vinyl trim etc off (IN THE BIN). If you’re ever faced with that goo-ey silastic sikaflex adhesive that holds the plastic weather sheeting on inside the door, you know, the stuff that sticks to everything and never actually sets. Forget kero, acetone, MEK, metho etc, mineral turps was the stuff! Absolute life saver! took me an hour but I mostly removed it all, or at least enough that I could RIvNut all the old trim clip holes and start creating carboard templates.

Still waiting for the metal shops to open again in the new year but I’ll be getting them to rough cut some 1mm Ali sheet on their guillotine, then I can trace my templates and bolt up the templates (should be easy right?). My plan is stainless washers and button head hex drive bolts. Should look pretty cool against the brushed Aluminium.

I printed off some prototype webbing triangle things in PLA too. These would hold 25mm webbing (probably hot pink) and bolt them too the door. I tried pretty hard to snap them and it looks like 5mm is enough plastic to more then close the door.

Another part for the door is the latch release. I plan on using a loop of wire or a T handle that runs through a printed fairlead (with brass insert to prevent erosion). I don’t know if i like the chamfered edges but its a proof of design at least.

On Boxing day, I made some mud flaps. these are 3mm rubber mats from Bunnings for 6 bucks each. Arguably too thin but we’ll see. Simply removed the old arch liner, RivNuts in a few holes with the rubber being held tight by fender washers and socket head cap screws. Might regret the choice of screws as I know how bad they can strip with dirt and rust but at least I can grab them with vicegrips. I should probably put some conduit on the exposed wiring under the guard and ziptie it out of harms way. I’ll run the body harness in the bay at a later date,

I also riveted the dead pedal/foot rest I built during spare time at aviation college. Yes, that’s 6061 T5 and 2024 T4 Alclad at about 60 thou thick. Dimple holes for shits and giggles but should help with grip. It fits perfectly next to the clutch and exhaust tunnel. I’m yet to decide if ill put in the heel plate, but who can say no to sexy race car parts?

And lastly… absolute deal of the year (apart from the car). A freshhh Cobra Monaco popped up for sale on Marketplace, scored it for $250 vs $585 brand new! An engineer has agreed to write it up for $350, If anyone knows a decent mod plate mob in brissy/logan please let me know. I like engineers that are happy to advise you on bracket design more than the “here’s a blue plate mate” type.

Yet another long post, I need to do better! Merry Christmas everybody and happy new year!

-Mr Lawless

[MrLawless]

First rally day done!

Had an absolute blast doing a test and tune with the Ipswich and West Moreton Auto Club. The day started at 0800 with a supper muddy track, allowing newbies and pros 15 free sighting laps to compact the track. By 0930 we were released in groups of 4 for 5 laps at a time with the fast and slow bois separated.

I think I started the day doing a 1:00+ time but after a few ride-alongs and passengers (and finally using the brakes) I was at 55 second laps for the 1.2km course. I highly recommend any one who desires a low (ish) wear and tear but extremely fun track experience to try out rally sprints and kahna-cross! I certainly understand a lot more about the limitations of my car but also how to control slides. My biggest take away was the power of lift off over steer and how its super handy when trying to rotate the car. Only damage to report was a bent numberplate from eating 2 cones (understeer became over steer super quick) and my dizzy is squeaking but I luckily have spares on hand and the car should be perfect by the next rally day!

*** Shameless Plug ***

My First Rally Day! | G11 Charade Gets LOOSE

Car did experience decent oil surge. I don’t know if the oil light came on but under hard right cornering with lots of swing, there was a large puff of white smoke. I think its oil going up into Cyl 3. Obviously that means the oil isn’t in my sump on the right? I’ve heard with CBs that you must keep them full and tbh my oil was a bit low after those laps with the smoke. It actually scared me a bit, but alas, I drove it home fine!

So about those door cards…

I’m halfway there with them, little bit annoyed that my templates were way out in a few places So much so that the 12mm OD washers I have don’t cover the dodgy looking holes… Some bigger washers should make it all look a bit cleaner. Same with the window winder holes etc. No need for precision when you have adjustability?

I’m yet to finalise the door straps, cupholders and map pocket but progress is progress.

Also since the last post, I’ve gotten my vinyl cutter dialled in and made my own stickers for motorsport days.

The next event is the 19th of Feb, another test and tune before the first sprint event a week later. Hopefully I have some slow (ish) vw beetles and minis in my class so I actually stand a chance!

That’s all for this one! I’m making some videos here and there of my progress, currently making a fire extinguisher mount that bolts onto the passo seat and I’ve finalised the stock mirror deletes!

-Lawless

[MrLawless]

Well… The mirrors are done!

The plates are 16g aluminium from Jaycar of all places, About 1.6mm thick with a slight bend. I ended up going with sikaflex body adhesive, which I was worried wouldn’t adhere to the aluminium well, due to the oxide layer. Unbeknownst to me, aluminium is one of the things it sticks the best! By the time I googled that, I’d already taken to the back with a grinding disk and a scribe to increase the “key” of the bond. Surely cant hurt! As usual, I treated the door frame with phosphoric acid and gave them a good sand. I did leave them unpainted but the acid leaves a coating and the sikaflex should cover it all. For paint, I went with an etch primer ofc, bet you can’t tell it was brushed! Then finished with MTN Texture Bumper Paint from SC. This stuff is the goods! Hopefully they hold on okay, they’ve been through some rough driving and wind buffeting without lifting yet.

My birthday was a few weeks ago and with it came some goodies for the car!

Stedi H4 LED Conversions:

The heat sinks stick out the back a fair way and are certainly not suited for enclosed headlight units. The quality feels decent and together with my parkers, they draw 4amp on low and 6amp on high! Compared to the standard that use 5amp each on low even! I haven’t had a chance to see how they are while driving yet but I think the pattern should be good, my alternator will certainly appreciate the lighter load!

A mandnatory 1kg ABE fire extinguisher:

I built the bracket myself, painted ofc with Wattyl Pewter (not just primer) which is close enough to the grey I want to paint the car. For anyone wondering, the width between centres of the front seat bolts of a 1985 G11 Charade is 418mm, the more you know lol.

And the sickest shirt ever from my GF:

Custom embroidery from some online place. Apparently its the picture from when it was parked outside my work!

Another short one, not that that’s a bad thing. Still waiting on washers to fix my ugly doors, still a few more prints to do too and maybe start on the bucket seat mounts. I plan on posting the measurements of the springs, shocks and struts from this platform then either getting getting some custom springs made or searching wreakers for longer than stock springs to cut down (same ride height but stiffer rate) Maybe even shorter rear shocks, modified adjustable camber tops rotated to increase caster. Both the front and rear lower spring perches on the g11 have a spiral, as if Daihatsu only made one end of the coil square, which is suited to “scientific choppies” with new shocks ofc. I also plan on making my own bushings on the lathe etc. Lots of plans, just need to do!

-Lawless

[Mr_Gormsby]

Oh yeah!!! How many people out there think they are fast and play boy racer? Tons. A Dai is the perfect race car. I don’t even mean “beginner”. A race car on a budget in which you will get tons of seat time

[MrLawless]

Absolutely! Seat time is the only way to get better at driving. Tim Hart posted a 80s Rally NZ coverage, the G11 surely is capable as an underdog.

[MrLawless]

I’m Alive,

The last two dirt events were fantastic! The second test and tune had perfect weather, lots of water truck passes and heaps of sideways action. On my second run of the day, while fully crossed up, my shoulder felt like it popped out or over extended… needless to say it hurt and gave me good reason to install the bucket seat I had acquired previously:

Brackets are a strip of 25x5mm that goes across original mounts like the rails would, then bolted to it is 50x50x3mm angle using all m8 12.9 bolts. Like the extinguisher mount, it was painted in the wattyl pewter colour. Its super solid, I sit nice and low and don’t flop about. I swapped the seat bolts to socket heads which makes taking the seat in and out super easy since I haven’t got it engineered. I built it to satisfy CAMS and TMR regs and it’s overbuilt anyway.

More prep for the actual timed sprint event:

The clipboard bracket was super satisfying to make, simply using 3d printed dimple dies in petg. I also split the rack boot and as you’ll see later I couldn’t be bothered replacing it so a bit of leather and zipties and it was fine, even passed scrutineering!

The sticker sheet was just a parody thing I made up, a mix between edgy gt86 drivers, bogans, borat, the late show (sh*t scared), MCM and ofc, Live To Dai.

The actual competition went almost smoothly. My main rival for the day in the 1600cc class was a stock 1.6 Getz. The whole day we were within half a second of each other! Being an outright sprint, it was the best lap of the day that counted, my best was 53.0543, the Getz did a 53.6007. Overall winner was a 46.0598 in an Imprezza stock rally followed by a 4AGE 20v fwd Corolla and 4 more Subies. I was at the heels of a 2.5L Kombi powered beetle all day, in the end he was .4345 seconds ahead of me. Pretty good for a 998cc carby from 1985! Only kissed 2 cones and drove it home!

Ill have to find the pic with my rear wheel OFF THE GROUND. I was amazed, tripod on stock springs?? The photos my Dad took also highlight my tyre almost debeading at 24psi.

I think that’s a good enough update. Still lots of work to do, I’ve got tie rods, rack ends and boots to install. I also ordered a set of Nankang NS2R in 155/65r13. Only left in Taiwan and I have 6 on a ship thanks to Hacketts Tyres in coopers plains! everyone at the club uses AR1s on the dirt but they don’t come narrow enough for stock rims. I hope the stiffer sidewall helps with cornering! Also grabbed some Cusco pillow bearing strut mounts from an EVO, I’ll post a full parts list and guide to the madness that is going on there…

Stay safe in the rain for my SEQ Dai harders!

-Adam

[MrLawless]

As promised… some action shots:

Under steer central! That’s with 26psi in the fronts and I dare say there will be dust in my rims lmao. The nankangs should fix that considerably and other racers say I’ll drop seconds from my laps, cant argue with that!

On another note, anyone in the cb world know about oil surging? My sump was over full, which while better then low (I’ve heard CBs should always be top of the dip stick), resulted in lots of blue and white smoke out the tailpipe! I suspect its oil going up into the cylinders during direction changes (chicanes) but also after chatting to Excel rally drivers, oil build up in the head is common on their cars (cup of oil in the catch can at lunch time after 3 runs deal), so i might be doing that?

I’ll make a catch can and baffle the sump but anyone experience that before?

Onto some building… I made some “caster tops” the hard way.

The easiest way to solve my ancient cracked strut top problem would be to buy the OG mounts or test some g100/g200 tops which I think do fit. But where’s the fun in that? I’ll drop the parts etc if anyone cares, s13 coil overs may have been the smarter move but I’m broke and come from a motorsports family. This set up would let me put standard (or kyb adjust) l700 shocks etc or any coilover onto my car and have caster adjustment which is more important for the dirt!

Cusco makes it super easy to fit any strut top to any car. The spherical bearing is identical for all strut tops (MAYBE other brands too if 18mm ID) and they just use a bunch of adapters to fit different shafts and spring perches. With dual camber bolts I can still get speedway mounts of camber.

Fabrication just involved overlaying the dimensions in cad and 3d printing some templates but it could all be done with pen and paper or blank 6mm aluminium plate and a scriber. Reusing the studs required test drilling a hole in scrap, it’s around 11.6mm or 31/64ths, easy to find a good press fit size in imperial for metric hardware. If you damage the treads on the shock shaft for what ever reason… like I did, Sutton makes a 1" die in m12x1.25 and are available at trade tools.

I had to cut the bearing plates to enable enough caster adjustment as the studs are now closer to the slider area.

My spacers were made from the plug a 28mm holesaw cuts out of 6mm mild steel bar, then drilled out to 12mm, the cusco part I believe is for a ra20 soara rear coilover.

The shock tower holes had to be opened up a smidge, as even though I used a drill press, this isn’t a cnc level build. They’re already 10mm for stock M8 studs to allow for inaccuracy when the shell gets built.

Quick tip with spring compressors, used 12mm hose clamps to stop them sliding down the coils… had one bite me back during install.

I bought the adapting nut from RHD japan 2x for 73 bucks including their cheapest dhl express shipping, came in 3 days, literal overnight parts from Japan.

All in all, car grips better on the dirt due to jacking forces in the steering and snaps to centre reliably, especially when you enter a chicane too hot and need to let go of the wheel with your foot planted… oops.

Parts list:

Cusco Evo 2-9 Camber plate P/N 564 60M 01S

Cusco pillow ball nut P/N 00B 450 HS or H

Cusco pillow collar P/N 00B 451 06

https://cuscousainc.com/pro…/pillow-ball-nut-pillow-collar

https://www.cusco.co.jp/…/pillow_ball_upper_mount…

https://www.rhdjapan.com/cusco-pillow-ball-upper-mount…

Random measurements:

-G11 strut top bolt spacing: 112mm

-G11 strut top studs: M8 Standard

-G11 shock shaft thread M12x1.25 (very fine)

-Cusco evo bolt patern: 125mm between studs or 3x144.33

-Cusco evo studs: M10 standard

-00B 450 HS: M12x1.25 with 5mm counter bore (H is 0 or 3mm counterbore)

-00B 451 06: 22x12.5x6mm spacer

They survived the raceday in the second “action shot”. On that day I had 2 casualties, my right front shock has left the chat as I forgot to install a bumpstop… and I ended up in the in field trying too hard to not lift the throttle. I have gopro footage and you can hear the “bonk” of my floor pan being dented, and so it is. Its not noticeable but still, I should expect worse from rallying.

I was lucky enough to snag a cb61 and turbo gearbox in a deal plus pick some parts (door handles and dashes) from a dai owner local to me, made a friend I hope! I’ve now got a turbo dash and dizzy, electric dizzy, spare cams for regrinds and a bunch of lights!

May and June are looking like great months, I’ve started a catch can project, designing a new airbox with a bigger filter, picking up some semi slicks, doing wheel bearings, welding and bracing seat mounts, before then co-driving in a rally at jimna state forrest and racing short course autocross the next day…

Biggest thank you to my speedway cousins in Bundy who have moved to a mirage in junior sedans from a g200 3cyl. For a carton of beer I’m getting a cammed built race engine, a spare engine plus any parts off a donner g200, If anyone needs anything… ahaha

Hope to have some more posts out soon!