Salvage Auction L700

Well its a bit embarrassing to call something like this a build or a ride, but its definitely a project.

Thought I’d put in a little bit about the car so the background is there if I’m asking future questions.

It’s a L700 Cuore with the auto 3 speed. Picked it up at the salvage auctions for a measly $250 which I was pretty pleased with, and its goal in life is to give me something to tinker with to keep me away from the other cars that we need to start in the morning.

Anyways, the car itself was in great condition, but have received a hit to the passenger rear wheel which bent the axle, and dented in the panels, plus a secondary hit to the front that had messed up the bonnet latch

The Car

The Damage (I’ve already been working on it a little.)

The Damage Side on

Was pleasantly surprised at the K’s on this thing! Under 100!

And what whaaaat! Yeah full service history on a $250 car!

So what’s happened so far, well its sat around a lot to be honest. Have had a go at the panels, front is now latching securely but I need to work on panel gaps, its on hold a bit though as a Gino conversion is in the works. The side is really teaching me a lot about how I’m not a panel beater. Welding the rear bumper hangers back on has gone well, but the metal has stretched and creased which makes it an annoying job to do without a full respray. I’m thinking flares will be required down the track though so that’s also impacting the amount of effort I’m putting in lol. The rear axle has been swapped out and the car now runs straight and true, with just an unidentified clunking coming from the passenger rear that needs diagnosing. Picked up some parts during a jaunt to Japan, so that’s where the dash, steering wheel and rear lights came from.

Future? Well I’m still right at the beginning of the learning curve for the marquee. At first I was having visions of a lightweight hatch with a highly strung triple (I’ve a triumph speed triple with a similarly addictive exhaust note), but my investigations are not going well as far as the transmission goes. I currently drive a manual in traffic for a 45 min inner city commute each day, and the older I get the more it shits me, so an auto or sequential is on my radar. Also am aware of the number of AWD offshoots in the Daihatsu family tree, and the idea of a warm hatch with four paw catches my interest too… but mechanical losses and the cost of bringing in all of that drivetrain are making the 3 pot shakier and shakier…

Right now I’m trying to learn what I can about the car and the Daihatsu parts bin. If the EJ really shape up as a dead end I’ll probably start looking to the K3VET, and if I’m going there, then will be looking into an AWD conversion. The next trip in sept will involve a stopover in Malaysia, and 80kg of luggage allowance, so I’ve already asked a few of the wife’s friends to try and help me out with the wreckers there. Hopefully can get the parts for a gino conversion (will have to cut the bumpers to get them into my baggage allowance :frowning: but the bonnet and guards should squeak through) and will also be trying to crawl around under some AWD YRV’s to take some photos and measurements.

There’s no urgency at all with this build, I have a few others occurring alongside and tend to switch between when one is particularly pissing me off or is delayed by parts and the like. I tend to build slowly and cheaply, waiting for the right parts to arrive rather than “overnighting from japan”. As for final goal I’m really not sure atm… keep going back and forth between it ending up a hysterical highly strung track car (supercharged EJ with a manual) or a warm streeter that may become my commuter (warmed up k3 with auto)… see where the researching takes me.

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Nice…I’d like to see someone fit the jb-det 4cyl turbo to one of these, it’s something they do a lot of in Japan.

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What a little cracker of an engine, I like the way you think. Will need to have a look at how they’re building them in japan, but reading about it and the jcdet I’m quite surprised the numbers they’re reporting with just chip tunes. Thanks for the heads up.

Plus you don’t need to swap out the sub frame or muck about with the front suspension geometry. Copen brakes suspension etc all bolt up and the l7 already weighs about 100 kg’s less than the copen.

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For gino bits locally, look up Bardan Rai @ Import Monkey on facebook, he was advertising a few parts fairly cheap.

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Man I’m getting great advice on this forum. Cheers folks. The more I dig into the jb and JC engines the more I like and import monky is an awesome heads up, just msgd asking about the availabilty of bumpers. Cheers again!

There is a gino kit available in Sydney.

JB-DET can be sourced locally from a Copen, great engine I put one in an L200 was a great fun car

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Thanks for heads up, have been looking around on forums and gumtree but haven’t sourced it, was it on a Facebook group?

I’m following all leads I can ATM, am in Malaysia in September and planning on bringing parts home, but if I can source the bumpers in particular locally it’s going to save me an argument at the airport/the pain of having to cut a good bumper in half.

Having imported from Malaysia personally, and with the amount of bits your talking about bringing back make sure you have a couple of grand for customs mate

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Do you mean as in shipping the parts? I bring my stuff back as luggage most of the time unless it’s gas suspension or the like and the airlines wont carry it. Never really had any problems with customs at the airport, open it up so they can check there’s no dirt on it and swab for drugs then send me on my way.

After paying out a dozen odd middle men at the ports in my last time shipping stuff in found it was way cheaper just to fly over and bring it back myself for anything less than a halfcut.

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Have been collecting odds and ends of information in my travels and thought might as well chuck them in here, who knows might be of interest to someone or spark some discussion.

Long term plan is shaping up to be a JB-DET running as much of the JC internals as I can source and then messing around with whatever daft idea comes into my head. Will attempt to source the block and transmission from an Australian delivered Copen with the automatic 4 speed sequential. Given I’m in Perth, waiting for the right car to come up in auction is going to take a while…

So, in the meantime!

EJ-DE with the three speed auto.

Source and fit Gino Body Kit, following up with a few Australian leads. Fingers are crossed but shipping from east coast is not looking promising so may be more cost effective to bring in from overseas. If I have to cut the larger panels to get them back cost effectively I am toying around with the idea of pulling moulds and replacing them in fibreglass or carbon. The panels themselves are already surprisingly light and return on effort for weight reduction may be better spent elsewhere, particularly given that my resources only stretch as far as resin infusion. That said a one piece flip front design might be an option and instead try cut down weight by removing mounting hardware on a current four piece front end. Need to consider intrusion bars etc though.

Gearbox, options are looking limited without going for a manual swap and I’m not yet convinced of the benefits of this for my likely application, street vehicle with perhaps a smidge of motorkhana and non-competitive speed events. Maybe bump line pressure, but without solenoids for me to hack into and no aftermarket shift-kits my options are limited. Performance torque converter is probably unlikely without big bucks. Continuing to investigate differential options, starting to toy with the idea of those LSD converter kits floating around. Life expectancy and actual capabilities are questionable, but that they’re being routinely fitted to larger honda’s in the US has given me pause. The lower power and weight of the daihastu comes into play with the idea, but I really need to figure out if these are just another electric supercharger kind of idea.

Speaking of. Supercharger. Toyota SC12 looks a likely candidate, cost to output is on the money. Manifold will need to be fabricated, was quite keen on trying a 3d print followed by some foundry casting, but the amount of metal for a full manifold is going to be unrealistic. Alternative is something like below, making the runners in carbon and casting or possibly machining the manifold flages/injector bosses as one. Will be able to integrate a laminova cooler core into the plenum this way which appeals, but I’m going to have troubles with the weight of the supercharger. Additional bracketry required to support it will probably negate any weight savings, but I like the idea of the compact intake tract.


Engine internals, reviewing the notes of Jenga who inherited one of the MCM cuores, after a fair bit of follow on work he seems to have achieved reasonable results from a boosted EJ running stock internals, otherwise looking at low cost options, K3DET pistons are cheap to source and may decrease compression, appears to be popular in malaysia to rebore and fit toyota 2E pistons for FI. Honestly not sure about thick head-gasket options if I go real cheap.

Engine control, question mark. Build mentioned above has had success with megasquirt, also seems to be a number of Japanese aftermarket ecu’s and piggy backs that work well with the JB engines, unsure on EJ, but they would be a cost effective if available. Need to really consider how much boost I’m intending on running as to staying with factory ecu or going aftermarket. Not wanting to throw a ton of money at the EJ if it’s to be swapped out so may be happy with aiming for a low but wide power band over peak output.

Suspension I haven’t really put a great deal of thought into while I’m trying to figure out my transmissions. Japanese coilovers are a pretty cost effective solution, and could be removed and resold easily enough later, alternatives, koni inserts and sourcing springs. Would probably give better practical performance if tuned in, but one way modifications that could lead to issues later if I do track back to AWD concept.

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I reckon look for an aftermarket ecu, that way can be retuned to suit any motor. cheap wise look at a Speeduino, uses Tuner Studio like Megasquirts, or maybe spend around $1k and look at Link G4+Atom or Adaptronic. Only say these as i was quoted $1400 + tune for an MS2 from perth :open_mouth:

Did you find any more info on running the stock Ecu? I’m attempting something similar with an amr500. I read somewhere in Asia that some guys were running low boost on stock Ecu with just an FPR and even an Apexi piggyback fuel interceptor