My Former KP61 Project

What I started with:

Pretty much as it was when I picked it up for cheap from a neighbor. He claimed it had a bad starter, and he had just hadn't gotten around to replacing it for a year or two. I cleaned the battery terminals and fired it up! :-) Now if only I could get it to run on all the cylinders! :-) The bumper sticker read: "You're only young once, but you can be immature forever" Quite appropriate, given the way the car will become, and how it will get driven.

The original 1981 paint was badly oxidized and had some white house paint overspray on it, but the paint underneath wasn't in bad shape considering. When these pics were snapped, the car had just been rolled in out of the rain. The only mod at this point is the Corolla GT-S seats that can almost be seen through the dust on the windshield.

The good news about the condition of the car was that the starter was fine. The bad news was the horrendous axle noise at highway speeds, so the axle got replaced with another KP61 axle for now. Later, an AE86 LSD disc brake axle will slip in this spot. I just need to figure out how to reconcile the five-link Corolla suspension with the four-link Starlet geometry. Modify the Starlet floorpan for five-link, or modify the Corolla axle for four link? For high-speed roadracing use, the better geometry of five-link is the only choice, but for other use, I am thinking Starlet four-link for ease and simplicity.

Torn apart while I had the shop space, replacing the axle, straightening the fender the sheep bent while I was storing it (don't ask...) getting the battery tied down with something other than a bungee cord (how do so many used cars on the road lose their tie downs? Do shoddy mechanics not replace them when changing batteries?) and tracing vacuum lines...it still didn't run well, but I have that fixed now.

Since these pics were taken, I have gotten ambitious about bodywork, taking care of a few tiny patches of surface rust starting here and there, removing the trim strips and bumpers, etc. I got the broken window to wind again, and lubed the window tracks and door hinges (a must on any used car purchase.) I searched half-heartedly for wheels, but decided to get tires on the stock steel wheels until I least get it running well with decent brakes and suspension...then I will spring for lightweight wheels. So the car has some 13" Yoko A008's on it...on flat black steel wheels. Tires first, then brakes and suspension, then the engine and tranny. The Toyota 4A-G I had slated for this car is still sitting on the floor in need of new pistons and a rebuild. That particular motor is a daunting enough ($$) project that I have been toying with other options. Appealing ideas so far are to go for a used stock Suzuki Swift motor and Samurai transmission in the RWD Starlet. And why shouldn't I? It is a fuel-injected, 16-valve motor, forged crankshaft, revvy as hell, and close to the original displacement of the Toyota 4K...sounds good to me. Plus it would be wierd and totally unique! :-) Another thought is to try and lighten the car as much as possible, basically going for an all-out track car spec, with no interior, plastic windows, etc. and fit a motorcycle-engine and transmission, Legends-car style. This is all the rage in England in Lotus-seven type cars, and I would eventually like to build a seven to this spec, so what better way to get some practical experience?

September 2001 Update

It has taken me a while to getting around to making the 4K-C that came in this car run better. The intial test was pulling plug wires at idle, and I determined that it was running primarily on cylinders three and four. Compression testing looked good, or at least even across all four cylinders. The next thing I did was replaced the spark plugs. When that made no difference, I carefully checked the plug wires, distributor cap and rotor, several times and found no indications of a problem. Next up I traced the vaccuum lines and couldn't find much...there was one line leading into the bottom of the carb that had come disconnected, and was then plugged by the previous owner with a golf tee! With the plug pulled out, but disconnected, the car ran worse, but when I plugged the line back into the carb, the car returned to the normal three or two cylinders and refusing to idle well. So...spark isn't an issue. Nor is compression, but it will only run consistently on cylinders three and four, and somtimes two kicks in a little bit. The car was also using up fuel like a K-5 Blazer! These symptoms seemed to point toward the intake manifold, but as a precaution I disassembled and cleaned the carb. And sure enough, once we got a smoke machine on the intake manifold, it was leaking out slightly around the head on the front two cylinders! I assumed it would be as simple as replacing the gasket. While taking the manifold off, I realized the real reason it was leaking...one of the studs had stripped out of the head. Further investigation seemed to indicate that the stripped hole should have had a manifold bolt, not a stud...Hmmm. The stud that was in there was 10mm fine thread where the bolt went on, and 10mm coarse thread on the end that was threaded into the cylinder head. A-HA! Near as I can tell, the original 10mm fine bolt fell out, and someone replaced it with a stud with the wrong thread pitch. A tap, a new stud with the correct thread pitch, a gallon of loctite, and new gasket later, the car is running like a champ! Now it is really clear to me that the brakes and shocks should be my next focus.

Help With 4K-C Diagnostics

January 2002 Update

I have run out of time, energy, and storage space for this project, so I thought I might like to make it a dirt-cheap rallycross car; new shocks, new tires (and sell the brand-new Yokos) and rebuild the brakes...and then go for it. But now I am not even sure that I have enough time and space in my life for that effort, so the car has got to go!

CAR HAS BEEN SOLD...THANK YOU!





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