Hi there!
A few days ago, I joined here with my 13B swapped Daihatsu Hijet. Thought it would be a good time to post its build thread. I bought this back in Nov/Dec of 2013 down in SoCal (living in the USA) after finding it on Craigslist there. It originally was to be bought as a backup to my 92 3000GT SL and quickly turned into something more. Took it to car shows and meets and took it to work.
Mid-2014 I moved out of San Diego and up to Lemoore, CA (mid California) for school (Navy guy here) and sold the SL and got a 91 VR4. Got the Hijet fresh paint. Also got the RX7 Toyo Koygo wheels re-bored on the inside to make more room for the hub and to be more aligned. The whole time they were resting on the 4 lug nuts and I had to tighten them up evenly to avoid the wheel becoming mis-aligned. Another thing I did was removing the 3 inch or so lift blocks it had just on the front. Also bought my Hello Special fender flares (which I later installed up in WA state). Another thing I did was add rhino liner… but it was a mistake as I failed to remove the fresh white paint and did the whole process backwards. So that later started bubbling off later years.
After school near the end of 2014, I moved up to Washington state. From there, I changed the registration and plates and all to WA state… and I sold the VR4 because why have 2 project cars when I can put all into one. For awhile I drove it as is. Then got into scootering with a Chinese knockoff of a Honda Ruckus called a Maddog to take up the backup vehicle job. I got new mirrors for that, and used the stock scooter mirrors to replace the floppy elephant ear Hijet mirrors. Gave it a nice classic feel.
I then got into driving to the mainland to go to other car meets and shows north of Seattle. My Hijet has been able to top out at 73mph and I have also had driven it once down the Pacific Coast Highway from Portland, OR to Lemoore, CA when I first went to school there. So yea, I met a friend at one of those meets who drove a JDM’d out RX7. Had the lights and everything and to top it off, the guy made his own decals. We decided to chill at his place and his car broke down on the way. I helped out. And later months I visited to help him out on car stuff. Like removing his RX7’s engine with tow hitch mounted crane I bought.
Later, I installed my fender flares, and later my roof rack I found on Rakuten. Then by stroke of luck found a Japanese company called Kei Zone that sold adjustable coil over kits for Kei trucks. The RX7 friend helped me install the rear half of it that included new leafs and adjustable coil overs in the rear as thanks for the engine help from before.
So all was fine and I also volunteered to watch cones for a Auto X event at Evergreen Speedway. Then my transmission locked up and I lost my 2nd gear on the way to that. I got there safely and after tinkering with it during the event on my times off, I decided to try it out on the track. It was ok… but I had to slam gears.
I decided then instead of replacing the transmission, to let it run its course and use that as an excuse to a engine swap I have been debating on the past years. I continued driving to car shows and stuff. The transmission refused to allow me to get into any gears by mid 2016. That was when I decided to swap a 13B rotary into it. Mostly influenced by my friendship to the RX7 owner. In return, he later bought a Sambar van hehe.
I was scheduled to go on a carrier deployment around January of 2017, so it was a perfect time to find a shop whiling to try the swap. Found one called J-Rod’s Garage and he was all for it. He got the motor out that Nov/Dec and before I left, he located a RX7 to use as the donor car for the engine and harness. And later to use for the whole subframe, brakes, and Rotiform wheels.
