So my cousin has a Starlet that his father abandoned a number of years ago. We're looking at basing a Lemons build around it. I don't know a lot about these cars except that they are lightweight and rear wheel drive. There was a guy in my autocross region 15-20 years ago who positively ruled with one featuring a Camry 4-banger. It's a given that we will put all due resources into safety, and reliability's of high importance, but after that, what's the ticket?
They are light 1600lbs, I would be inclined to go with a 3TC as that keeps them light. They can also be taken out to around 1700cc, full race.they are over 200hp but 125 at the wheels would make it go well.
4AG and a T50 gearbox. Throw on some Webers or Mikunis and let it eat.
I was just thinking about Starlets the other day and how I would consider putting a BMW M42 in one. They're readily available since everyone in BMW-land upgrades to sixes and never takes them at junkyards, have 130-140hp on tap, very stout, pretty high-revving with a chip, and the G240 tranny behind it is strong and pretty light. Pull one out of any e30 or e36 318i for cheap.
We ran one in a 2700# e30 rally car and it moved pretty good. In a Starlet, would be loads of fun.
We had a damn good time racing our Starlet in Lemons with the stock 4K engine (maybe 50 crank horsepower?). Slow, but even with stock suspension the car handled well enough to just throw it around the track with the throttle pinned to the floorboard permanently. It went around and around reliably all weekend (except for two stops to reinstall pushrods that tried to escape and relash the backed-off valve adjusters).
4A-GE is the traditional swap, fits well and provides plenty of performance. But they're getting harder and harder to find (especially with the trans) and I'm not sure of their reliability in Lemons.
The biggest issue for swap fitment is length. The 4K is something around 18" from bellhousing flange to crank pulley, so lots of modern 4 cylinders just won't fit. I would imagine a BMW four is just way too long, if not also too tall.
I'm in the middle of installing a Suzuki H27a V6 into our Starlet. Fits great length and width-wise, height is going to be solved by a custom sheetmetal oil pan and intake manifold. We also considered GM 60-degree V6es since they're cheap/compact/available, and also looked upon favorably by the Judges during BS inspection. But we think the Suzuki mill is weird enough that the Judges will be interested.
I'm honestly worried it might be too much power for such a light small car with small tires. I don't think you need a whole lot of power for a Starlet in Lemons.
The 1.5L gas portion of Gen2 Prius makes just 76hp. Probably enough for a Starlet. I have no idea how to make that work, but...
Low mileage version can be bought for $300 all day through full service junkyards (engine already pulled)
These engines spend their whole lives never getting overworked.
Again, no idea how to manage the engine or mate it to a trans, I just know these gas engines run very reliably and are cheap to buy.
Somehow, these engines are related to Echo/xB/xA engines
Newrider: That V6 looks sweet in there! Thanks for the input, have been doing more reading and the Starlets are pretty competitive with the stock 58 HP motor! As unglamorous as it may be, if the engine is in decent shape, maybe we start from the bottom. I'd rather have 58 HP and 24 hours of racing than an hour of glory, ten hours under the hood and 13 more sitting around feeling dejected.
But if we did.... How much HP can the stock transmission/differential take? And what's the story on the stock brakes?
In reply to John Welsh :
The xB engine is the same as the Prius with different cams and compression ratio (lower), but makes 108 HP. A 108HP Starlet would be a hoot. The engines are aluminum block and head, so not very heavy. Mating a RWD transmission would be the issue.
What about a bike engine or rotary?
In reply to Kreb (Forum Supporter) :
The stock rear drums are fine, the stock front discs are microscopic. We swapped to some bigger Honda rotors with Subaru calipers (just what I had in the shed) with custom caliper brackets; even before racing it with stock power.
The rear differential is fine for stock power obviously, but we plan to swap for something bigger like a Toyota 6.7" out of some sort of Corolla. Think the stock Starlet ring gear diameter is something like 5.6", tiny. The stock transmission doesn't fit anything other than the 4K as far as I know (needs swapped even if swapping within the Toyota family ie 4A-GE). We're using an Aisin 4 speed auto out of another Suzuki Vitara. They are easier to find than 2wd Suzuki manuals, and we have had excellent luck with the same trans in our other Lemons car (plus we have developed paddle shifters for it already).
Paddle shifters? Are you doing a build thread where you illustrate this magic?
Not much interesting progress there yet, our Lemons program was mostly on hiatus for 2020.
A couple pictures and tiny bit of info about the paddle shifters in our other car here:
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/articles/meet-1uz-powered-volvo-940-wagon/
Wasn't there a snowmobile-engined Miata that was really competitive in LeMons? Seems like that would work here too.
Kreb (Forum Supporter) said:What about a bike engine or rotary?
Most of Puerto Rico agrees with the rotary part, I believe.
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