Hello there
This is my ‘98 Cuore Fun 5-speed with 82kkm on the clock, which I picked up last December. It previously served a single family and it looks like they had fun playing bumper cars with it. But no, for real, pretty astonishing how they managed to scrape such a small car along stuff this much. Anyway, it’s not very pretty cosmetic-wise, from the faded paint to the very neglectful “repaired” sills and dents etc. Haha, but I like it either way, especially the fog lights and rpm gauge.
The Dai now serves as my November–May winter car. The first thing I did to it was throwing a KO HKS filter at it, roars really nice. I also installed Alpine SXE-1725S, an AliExpress active sub and the 2-din head unit from my MX-5. The sound is okay, not more, not less. Noriyaro being a big influence for me getting this chassis, I of course planned to PVC drift it, so a tire sprayer system was mounted. I also changed the oil, which was very much needed. This stuff happened in the time period of me waiting on registration and the car sitting in the backyard.
After some days out there driving the Dai, it gradually turned into a 2-cylinder. Turns out ignition coil connector 3 has a broken-off lock and wiggles itself loose. That needed some fixing.
After a lot of research I picked up ~2m of big pipe from a Kleinanzeigen seller, nice guy and nice price. I went with a DN500 KG2000 drainage pipe, it’s a little different from the grey PVC pipes you usually see being used in Japan or USA. But I figured this will be fine, and we don’t have these grey pipes in Germany to my knowledge. Cutting it into even rings was quite the mess..
I spent a lot of time figuring out a fitting wheel and tire combination, and after many failed attempts and not finding 4x12” 4x100 wheels for a long time, I finally have a working setup. Unfortunately the winter kicked in and doing PVC drifting on ice doesn’t work. So this project is on pause until my skid pad place thaws out.
Driving the Daihatsu around spirited actually isn’t that bad on the stock suspension, it does not have as much body roll as I expected. But I couldn’t stand looking at this large fender gap anymore. This being a low-budget car and me being in Germany, I put it on 30mm/30mm TA Technix lowering springs. It looks very much normal now, not low at all. So I think the cops won’t ever bother to pull me over for it. I can’t recall the comfort being different than before, but it understeers a bit more now. That sucks. I’m currently still in the process of shortening a Sirion rear sway bar to combat that. And yes, I know you shouldn’t weld spring steel. (there was no Copen at the junkyard)
In the spirit of making the engine bay a little nicer, I polished the valve cover. Looks out of place for now, but I hope I can get everything less crusty and rusty soon. One problem is that the two lower bolts of the heat shield were already completely rounded off and rusted. Cleaning up the heat shield without undoing the front bumper to drill out those bolts will be impossible, I guess.
Btw, it looked scary under that valve cover lol, this thing has seen 4 oil changes at max.
