A Track Day in the Mighty Car Mod's Copen

I've decided to come down here to Wood to a track day, stick a helmet on, cut a couple of hot laps, and see how this thing goes straight away. What do you get? Smiles that's what you get. 5,000 RPM, 6,000 RPM, just hooking its way around the corner flat chat so good brakes nearly spun it yes, oh this thing's brilliant I wouldn't say it's fast but it's absolutely engaging. The end of the straight you're at 7,000 RPM you've still got another thousand till the red line which is just crazy. The gear shift is so smooth, the engine is so smooth, which is unusual for K-car engines when they're little three cylinders, which is what most kits are, they sound great but they are a little bit rough this is not rough this is smooth as silk 7,500 RPM, little bit of brakes for the end of the straight downshift it you don't really need to but we're going to add it's just fantastic it just makes you want to cut lap after lap after lap. What do you do if you want to go faster what do you do if you want to modify well, Japan has your carpet of course there is a whole bunch of modifications you can get for this car out of Japan made by all the big names or of course, there's always dhatsu Lego otherwise known as engine swaps in Europe these cars actually came out with a 1.3 L and the best 1.3L that Datsun ever made is the K3 VE that's right it sounds familiar to some of you, it's the engine that we put in the blue Turd it comes out of a Syrian GTV and guess what people, it's all the same platform you know what that means means you can engine swap this thing but the question is do you want to engine swap it do you want to take away the lightness, the revv of the little JB D engine it's a 4-cylinder 660cc.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhave a guess who's bought a crash Supercar so they can fix it on YouTube uh not us no but Marty has been back at it again uh buying nuggets uh from the internet that he probably shouldn't be buying and I know I also buy nuggets off the internet that I shouldn't be buying but Marty's got something very special it's in his blood here it is people new to the mighty kon's garage a d shitzu copen excuse me what the best convertible sports car ever made welcome to another episode of Mighty carels now recently we went to Malaysia and we raced a k car at a 24-hour endurance event by the way K Luma that was our team name you can get this t-shirt for a limited time on show back show them the back look at that we were the first Australian racing team in history to compete in the kar Global 24-hour endurance race if you haven't seen that film it's called racing midnight we'll leave a link to it here we saw a lot of copons we liked them we saw a lot of fast copens and I was not expecting that these things were just blitzing us on the track they were so fast there was like the tube frame custom made race cars and then these That's who was doing really really well and there is a reason for that which I'll get to later but right now look what I found laying around so quite often things don't move too slow around here when one of us goes you know what the other day I was reading about it that thing arrives like within a day so um I Disappeared for probably two days went camping came back uh and Martin's like got a copon but in the days leading up to that this magazine ultimate 660 World which is basically just little K cars featuring copens um you know I found this lying around so I was like I knew it was actually happening um I don't know much about these cars other than in Malaysia on track they were incredible uh like absolutely incredible we spoke to some owners that actually own these cars and they love them they had aund different reasons why they love these particular cars but before we dive into that and what we're going to do with it let's give you a quick little rundown about this car the specs some engine stuff just some info about this coping to get you up to speed until I saw these cars ripping up seang circuit and until I drove one I would never have considered that this is one of the best and most fun cars Japan has ever made this model is known as the l880 and it debuted at the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show it's got a 660cc turbo 4-cylinder engine making the legal limit of 47 KW that meets Kar regulations in Japan meaning less tax and more parking options this model was sold for 11 years in Japan Europe and Australia you can pick one of these up for somewhere between around 88 and 15,000 Australian do Bock for a car that does it all that is a bargain so there you have it everything you would ever need to know about copens and the secret as to why they are just that little bit more special is that jbd engine a four cylind 4 cylinder which is unusual for dsu's 660cc engine this thing is has a giant engine cover on it it is also turbocharged it is also intercooled and it's a really really sweet engine it's really revvy and it really does a good job of making these things fast I know it kind of looks like a piece of garlic bread or like a loaf of garlic bread do but this is so surprisingly capable it really really is weird looking but it's got MX5 Vibes only smaller and I would argue more fun so what going to do obviously before we kick off anything with this car and it's kind of the Marty mods playbook in that way we're just going to check the fluids and do the basic service stuff make sure everything is in there and looking great and then wheels and tires and seats recently we did this series called Cash verse trash I got this little um Suzuki Swift and probably the best mod that I did to it I mean we always talk about tires of course and wheels but one of the best mods I did was the seats it just it was a game changer on the track this car is going to the track soon so today um I picked up some mad seats uh secondhand Marty's picked up some wheels and tires secondhand so I think we're just going to dive into it get going before we do get going though I do want to show you an all new product we have Mighty Car Mods magnetic Parts tray these are freaking awesome we're going to be using these today and for a limited time uh we got fre key tags so you might get a chopped one you might get a myy cods one it won't shop in your cart but you will get it so um grab one of these from the mighty Cod shop and you'll get one of those as well Martin first step is Jack up your car I didn't buy this thing just to look at it I bought it to drive and drive it hard so every fluid is getting checked and if necessary replaced the oil filter was changed just a few days ago and it's running Castrol Edge 530 which only needs a small topup the brake fluid passes the moisture test so it can stay for now what isn't passing the test is the coolant it's more water and mud than coolant and we saw what happened in Malaysia with a neglected cooling system oil is good brake fluid is good coolant not so good we use our test strip and it uh looks like it needs to be replaced so we're going to jack it up and see if we can drain it out uh interestingly the subframe under this looks exactly the same as just about every other dutu so it's like all built on the same frame same platform this is the same platform more or less as our proo Kalisa that we raced uh so a lot of the stuff will fit to get the coant out we'll jack up the car put it on jack stands and then drain the radiator through its bottom bung while we're at it we'll also remove the thermostat to help drain what we can out of the engine itself the thermostat looks pretty new and the gasket is in good condition so it can be reused now is the time to check all the hoses for any hard or cracked rubbish next the wheels can come off these are stock ones that have been plasti dipped black and can go in the bin because I've got something way better lined up if you're into small weird cars like I am there's a good chance that you're always on the hunt for Wheels cuz it can be hard to find wheels that fit K cars you don't have a lot of room to play with in there the copon is 4X 100 for the stud pattern the stock wheels are okay but they are 15in which opens up a little bit more Wheels because Civic people need 15in Wheels along with some others so these are a secondhand wheel I got they're called Ray itero I found them on Marketplace and drove out to some dude's Farm it's about to be turned into an airport uh and picked them up they're extremely extremely light came with tires which is cool so secondhand Wheels secondhand tires these will be perfect for the copin and we're always saying people Wheels tires and seats so these are going on there as I've learned recently on the track one of the best options you can get for your car when you're talking about modifying it after your wheels and tires is a mad set of seats and one of the best options of course is getting an oem seat or something that was an option for a version of your car that 700 bucks which as far as I'm concerned for a set of raros is a bar a uh so um let's throw them in and see if they fit while the seats are out we're going to vacuum everything it is possible to put ricaro seats in just about any car but the rails and adapters can often make them sit higher up than stock which in this car is a deal breaker orange seats are a bit yuck in my opinion but I can deal with the groy color because they fit so well and make the copon even more excellent to be in while the seats are being bolted down I can bleed the cooling system with a funnel bucket then the engine cover can go back on and we can get the car down off the jack stands ready for a test drive we are very fortunate to have a hoist over at Super Garage where we can work on some of our bigger projects but my favorite place to be is still here in the mighty car mod shed working on all of our nuggety little cars and even though there is no hoist here over the years we've still managed to do so many awesome projects here and we do that by making sure that we are use these quick jacks or we're using jack stands and making sure they're the right weight and installed in the right position for you your car we also use this low profile tool proo Jack all of this stuff is available from super cheap auto so if you're just getting started this stuff with a basic socket set is going to let you do most of the projects that you need to do for your car so next up um we're going to go for a drive but I'm also Keen to see how the retractable roof Works we've had hard tops on the S2000 and the MX5 but they haven't been mechanical ones they're ones that you kind of got to attach this I think is the first car we've ever had on Mighty Car Mods that has a mechanically retractable hard top so I want to see how that works then we're going to hit the street let's see the hard top Martin let's see what all the fuss is about oh these seats are so good the stock ones aren't bad but these are just next level and they just look cool I don't like orange I don't like orange I know why you don't like orange does anyone like orange uh orange is my favorite color it's legitimately my favorite color is it orange is in my top three fruit yeah not not the not the taste but the fruit but on the on the color wheel it's cuz orange is the opposite of blue and you only buy blue cars if this car was blue oh dude if this car was blue be froing I don't think you can get them easily why do you like blue cars so much m i find blue very relaxing I think it's cuz I like water and I like the sky and the cars and it's just a very calming color I reckon that's what it is the water is not blue though that's just a reflection of the sky and that's not blue either that's just an illusion based on the spec cuz it's black but you've got it's the air molecules as the light hits it that makes it appear blue all right show us this thing oh it's cool all you do is you press and hold a button directly here under the gear under the uh hand break and it all happens look at this bang once it's down you flick this in flick in your things it'll beep when it's done and then all you do is pull your windows up and watch the windows go up in stages watch this little back ones and once they're up the front ones it does look like garlic birad I was really surprised by how nice it feels to drive straight away off the bat he's doing the mouth thing isn't he whole body so straight away I was surprised shocks feel good I'm going to sound like a car r it's very compliant and the ride's good sporty yet agile with good handling but it doesn't shake your teeth out over speed bumps pay me money manufacturer um no seriously it just it's just a good package they've done a good job and if I had I'm nearly done we went to the biggest K car race in the world a 24-hour endurance race and these things chop the out of everyone isn't that all you need to know seriously like they're actually good and they're fast and we should get Stu and go for a drive there's two statements I'll let you have one they're good they're fast you can have one of those I love that you love it I'm not trying to rain on your parade or you are I am you are no just cuz it's not fast you haven't even been in it yet I don't need to it's convertible it's fast compared to slow cars fact compared to really slow cars it's a bit faster it's fast for what it is we should drive it then we'll decide yeah let's go you can't not have a good time man it's convertible it's small it's fun it handles so good it revs to what was it rev to 72,000 listen to that we're not even breaking the speed limit dude that's pretty good that's pretty good so I just want to have a little second gear pull M I just want a little let me just experience I'm sure it's not about that go Turbo's on here we go we still revving you I reckon with like 300% more power it would be really fun dud with 50% more power be even better 50% more power this is this is essentially a convertible Lotus if you think about it it's a convertible JDM Lotus it's lightness man the gear shift is like so nice nice and sweet and it's Revy and it's just like all the controls feel really good the steering feels dirty but it's like it's front wheeel drive thing but how good it feels look at this if you could straight Swap this for a Lotus like a Lotus exe supercharged s240 would you have this to the Lotus no money change hands the straight swap oh the Lotus would you yeah and I'd sell the Lotus and buy Six of these yes that's the that's the right answer well Martin I've actually got a day of organizing a bunch of like up GTI parts so what I'm going to do is I'm going to allocate a couple of hours and buy you a couple of bits cuz that magazine you can get like exhaust there's intakes there's all sorts of mad stuff yeah so um we'll have a chat with Rob can you get me some bits and I'll order you some bits so good you can go drive around in your car I'll get my bits get your bits and then um yeah I'm interested to see how it goes I'm not saying I'm too embarrassed to go to the racetrack with you in this car but when are you going going yeah I'm not available but you enjoy it and um no I'm I'm actually interested to hear about how it goes yeah and if it's as awesome as I think it's going to be if we throw some mods at this another round of mods I think it'll be even better and then this vers up GTI yeah cuz they're both front-wheel drive both turbo I think it'll be a cool little battle yeah all right I've brought the car down to Pheasant Wood circuit this is where the blue turd got chopped years ago but the track has had some serious Renovations since then and he looking excellent I'm Keen to see just how good this little car is on track where there's no speed humps and no speed limits as we're driving around seang circuit we kept having these cars whizzing past us and these dudes just look like they were having the best time ever and they were in dihatsu copens it's actually a close relative of the cars that we have dealt with so much the seor and the syrians and all those other little dhatus it is based on a similar platform and as such in Europe they actually came out with a K3 ve which is the engine we put in the blue turd the and a race that I lost at this very circuit here at Pheasant Wood this car is from a time where some of these manufacturers in Japan were really trying to do something a bit special it does look like a figuro and there's a reason for that it's kind of based on similar styling it's also supposed to look like an Audi TT which is kind of hilarious and what they've ended up with is a car that kind of looks like a piece of garlic bread if you look at it from the side for long enough and if you're hungry it's absolutely a car that makes you want to put the top down hit the road and take in some nice twisty driving roads driven a lot of dhatus I'm a fan of them it's no secret why cuz they're cheap nuggets you get a lot of value for your money they're easy to fix and did I say they're cheap they are cheap this one's one of the fanciest ones that was ever made the engine being a JB D 4cylinder 660 engine is unusual because they're normally three cylinders this one is a lot smoother the red Line's at 8,000 but it will rev beyond that if you want it to uh and it just keeps spinning it's really really smooth and it was made as more of a kind of pre premium version of dsu's offering of the time in terms of equipment you got power steering you got air conditioning you got a taco this one's been upgraded with a carplay head unit there's also a catalog of aftermarket mods you can get for these things out of Japan they are actually really popular and as you saw they get turned into race cars flat out and I had to understand what it was about that's a bit of info about the car to help me understand why so many people are campaigning them at seang circuit and having such a good time I've decided to come down here to wood to a track day stick a helmet on cut a couple of hot laps and see how this thing goes straight away what do you get Smiles that's what you get 5,000 RPM 6,000 RPM just hooking its way around the corner flat chat so good brakes nearly nearly spun it yes oh this thing's brilliant I wouldn't say it's fast but it's absolutely engaging the end of the straight you're at 7,000 RPM you've still got another th000 till the red line which is just crazy the gear shift is so smooth the engine is so smooth which is unusual for K car engines when they're little three cylinders which is what most I hatus are they sound great but they are a little bit rough this is not rough this is smooth as silk 7,500 RPM little bit of brakes for the end of the straight downshift it you don't really need to but we're going to a it's just fantastic it just makes you want to cut lap after lap after lap what do you do if you want to go faster what do you do if you want to modify well Japan has your carpet of course there is a whole bunch of modifications you can get for this car out of Japan made by all the big names or of course there's always dhatu Lego otherwise known as engine swaps in Europe these cars actually came out with a 1.3 l and the best 1.3 l that Dadu ever made is the K3 ve that's right it my sound familiar to some of you it's the engine that we put in the blue turd it comes out of a Syrian GTV and guess what people it's all the same platform you know what that means means you can engine swap this thing but the question is do you want to engine swap it do you want to take away the lightness the revv of the little JB D engine it's a 4 cylinder 660cc to 4 within Kar rules do you want to get rid of that and put a big heavy engine in potentially make that lift of the rear even worse I guess we'll find out the plan with this car is to modify it with whatever off the shelf stuff we can get tweak it a little bit see how it turns out and then we might think about a big BLX swap my first lap was a minute 16 and my fastest lap was a minute 11 so 5 Seconds Improvement it does seem like everyone's a little bit confused by the copen until they get in it or until they drive it because this little mad hatchback nugget is an absolute blast at a track day I cannot wait to see how fast it is once we've done some mods not only did I buy it in the dark I also insured it in the dark which is cool cuz Shannon who our sponsor of Mighty Car Mods now have an online self-service system so you can get your quotes your policies uh that will also ensure motorbikes and your daily drive and your partner's car and your house and all that sort of stuff so if you're in Australia check them out you also get agreed value and choice of repairer which is two of my favorite things and if you've got an imported car a special car there's laid-up cover as well there's all sorts of options available for car Enthusiast so check out the Shannon's website and thank you to Shannon of course for being proud sponsors of Mighty Car Mods uh next up of course we're going to be hitting a little bit of Volkswagen up GTI it's been an ongoing project that is way bigger and grander than anything we could have imag we said we'd do it in a week uh we said we'd do it in a day we just said we'd swap the motor um but of course we've had a couple of problems that is going to be kicking off again next um some parts are going to be on the way for this and um I mean look welcome to 2024 people we got some uh absolutely epic plans for this year nuggety cars big things happening some overseas trips so thank you for watching and of course if you do want to support the show I'm looking for my magnetic Parts tray which I've lost we have magnetic Parts tray a magnetic Parts tray which has got free key tags on it um I don't have it but look at this a photo is about to appear it's not a photo Martin has it here it is so you can get a magnetic straight right now from the mighty kods website uh will include a free key tag with it as well that's at mighty.com and that directly helps support the show and helps pay for this video that you are watching so thank you very much we're off to get some lunch and see you next timehave a guess who's bought a crash Supercar so they can fix it on YouTube uh not us no but Marty has been back at it again uh buying nuggets uh from the internet that he probably shouldn't be buying and I know I also buy nuggets off the internet that I shouldn't be buying but Marty's got something very special it's in his blood here it is people new to the mighty kon's garage a d shitzu copen excuse me what the best convertible sports car ever made welcome to another episode of Mighty carels now recently we went to Malaysia and we raced a k car at a 24-hour endurance event by the way K Luma that was our team name you can get this t-shirt for a limited time on show back show them the back look at that we were the first Australian racing team in history to compete in the kar Global 24-hour endurance race if you haven't seen that film it's called racing midnight we'll leave a link to it here we saw a lot of copons we liked them we saw a lot of fast copens and I was not expecting that these things were just blitzing us on the track they were so fast there was like the tube frame custom made race cars and then these That's who was doing really really well and there is a reason for that which I'll get to later but right now look what I found laying around so quite often things don't move too slow around here when one of us goes you know what the other day I was reading about it that thing arrives like within a day so um I Disappeared for probably two days went camping came back uh and Martin's like got a copon but in the days leading up to that this magazine ultimate 660 World which is basically just little K cars featuring copens um you know I found this lying around so I was like I knew it was actually happening um I don't know much about these cars other than in Malaysia on track they were incredible uh like absolutely incredible we spoke to some owners that actually own these cars and they love them they had aund different reasons why they love these particular cars but before we dive into that and what we're going to do with it let's give you a quick little rundown about this car the specs some engine stuff just some info about this coping to get you up to speed until I saw these cars ripping up seang circuit and until I drove one I would never have considered that this is one of the best and most fun cars Japan has ever made this model is known as the l880 and it debuted at the 1999 Tokyo Motor Show it's got a 660cc turbo 4-cylinder engine making the legal limit of 47 KW that meets Kar regulations in Japan meaning less tax and more parking options this model was sold for 11 years in Japan Europe and Australia you can pick one of these up for somewhere between around 88 and 15,000 Australian do Bock for a car that does it all that is a bargain so there you have it everything you would ever need to know about copens and the secret as to why they are just that little bit more special is that jbd engine a four cylind 4 cylinder which is unusual for dsu's 660cc engine this thing is has a giant engine cover on it it is also turbocharged it is also intercooled and it's a really really sweet engine it's really revvy and it really does a good job of making these things fast I know it kind of looks like a piece of garlic bread or like a loaf of garlic bread do but this is so surprisingly capable it really really is weird looking but it's got MX5 Vibes only smaller and I would argue more fun so what going to do obviously before we kick off anything with this car and it's kind of the Marty mods playbook in that way we're just going to check the fluids and do the basic service stuff make sure everything is in there and looking great and then wheels and tires and seats recently we did this series called Cash verse trash I got this little um Suzuki Swift and probably the best mod that I did to it I mean we always talk about tires of course and wheels but one of the best mods I did was the seats it just it was a game changer on the track this car is going to the track soon so today um I picked up some mad seats uh secondhand Marty's picked up some wheels and tires secondhand so I think we're just going to dive into it get going before we do get going though I do want to show you an all new product we have Mighty Car Mods magnetic Parts tray these are freaking awesome we're going to be using these today and for a limited time uh we got fre key tags so you might get a chopped one you might get a myy cods one it won't shop in your cart but you will get it so um grab one of these from the mighty Cod shop and you'll get one of those as well Martin first step is Jack up your car I didn't buy this thing just to look at it I bought it to drive and drive it hard so every fluid is getting checked and if necessary replaced the oil filter was changed just a few days ago and it's running Castrol Edge 530 which only needs a small topup the brake fluid passes the moisture test so it can stay for now what isn't passing the test is the coolant it's more water and mud than coolant and we saw what happened in Malaysia with a neglected cooling system oil is good brake fluid is good coolant not so good we use our test strip and it uh looks like it needs to be replaced so we're going to jack it up and see if we can drain it out uh interestingly the subframe under this looks exactly the same as just about every other dutu so it's like all built on the same frame same platform this is the same platform more or less as our proo Kalisa that we raced uh so a lot of the stuff will fit to get the coant out we'll jack up the car put it on jack stands and then drain the radiator through its bottom bung while we're at it we'll also remove the thermostat to help drain what we can out of the engine itself the thermostat looks pretty new and the gasket is in good condition so it can be reused now is the time to check all the hoses for any hard or cracked rubbish next the wheels can come off these are stock ones that have been plasti dipped black and can go in the bin because I've got something way better lined up if you're into small weird cars like I am there's a good chance that you're always on the hunt for Wheels cuz it can be hard to find wheels that fit K cars you don't have a lot of room to play with in there the copon is 4X 100 for the stud pattern the stock wheels are okay but they are 15in which opens up a little bit more Wheels because Civic people need 15in Wheels along with some others so these are a secondhand wheel I got they're called Ray itero I found them on Marketplace and drove out to some dude's Farm it's about to be turned into an airport uh and picked them up they're extremely extremely light came with tires which is cool so secondhand Wheels secondhand tires these will be perfect for the copin and we're always saying people Wheels tires and seats so these are going on there as I've learned recently on the track one of the best options you can get for your car when you're talking about modifying it after your wheels and tires is a mad set of seats and one of the best options of course is getting an oem seat or something that was an option for a version of your car that 700 bucks which as far as I'm concerned for a set of raros is a bar a uh so um let's throw them in and see if they fit while the seats are out we're going to vacuum everything it is possible to put ricaro seats in just about any car but the rails and adapters can often make them sit higher up than stock which in this car is a deal breaker orange seats are a bit yuck in my opinion but I can deal with the groy color because they fit so well and make the copon even more excellent to be in while the seats are being bolted down I can bleed the cooling system with a funnel bucket then the engine cover can go back on and we can get the car down off the jack stands ready for a test drive we are very fortunate to have a hoist over at Super Garage where we can work on some of our bigger projects but my favorite place to be is still here in the mighty car mod shed working on all of our nuggety little cars and even though there is no hoist here over the years we've still managed to do so many awesome projects here and we do that by making sure that we are use these quick jacks or we're using jack stands and making sure they're the right weight and installed in the right position for you your car we also use this low profile tool proo Jack all of this stuff is available from super cheap auto so if you're just getting started this stuff with a basic socket set is going to let you do most of the projects that you need to do for your car so next up um we're going to go for a drive but I'm also Keen to see how the retractable roof Works we've had hard tops on the S2000 and the MX5 but they haven't been mechanical ones they're ones that you kind of got to attach this I think is the first car we've ever had on Mighty Car Mods that has a mechanically retractable hard top so I want to see how that works then we're going to hit the street let's see the hard top Martin let's see what all the fuss is about oh these seats are so good the stock ones aren't bad but these are just next level and they just look cool I don't like orange I don't like orange I know why you don't like orange does anyone like orange uh orange is my favorite color it's legitimately my favorite color is it orange is in my top three fruit yeah not not the not the taste but the fruit but on the on the color wheel it's cuz orange is the opposite of blue and you only buy blue cars if this car was blue oh dude if this car was blue be froing I don't think you can get them easily why do you like blue cars so much m i find blue very relaxing I think it's cuz I like water and I like the sky and the cars and it's just a very calming color I reckon that's what it is the water is not blue though that's just a reflection of the sky and that's not blue either that's just an illusion based on the spec cuz it's black but you've got it's the air molecules as the light hits it that makes it appear blue all right show us this thing oh it's cool all you do is you press and hold a button directly here under the gear under the uh hand break and it all happens look at this bang once it's down you flick this in flick in your things it'll beep when it's done and then all you do is pull your windows up and watch the windows go up in stages watch this little back ones and once they're up the front ones it does look like garlic birad I was really surprised by how nice it feels to drive straight away off the bat he's doing the mouth thing isn't he whole body so straight away I was surprised shocks feel good I'm going to sound like a car r it's very compliant and the ride's good sporty yet agile with good handling but it doesn't shake your teeth out over speed bumps pay me money manufacturer um no seriously it just it's just a good package they've done a good job and if I had I'm nearly done we went to the biggest K car race in the world a 24-hour endurance race and these things chop the out of everyone isn't that all you need to know seriously like they're actually good and they're fast and we should get Stu and go for a drive there's two statements I'll let you have one they're good they're fast you can have one of those I love that you love it I'm not trying to rain on your parade or you are I am you are no just cuz it's not fast you haven't even been in it yet I don't need to it's convertible it's fast compared to slow cars fact compared to really slow cars it's a bit faster it's fast for what it is we should drive it then we'll decide yeah let's go you can't not have a good time man it's convertible it's small it's fun it handles so good it revs to what was it rev to 72,000 listen to that we're not even breaking the speed limit dude that's pretty good that's pretty good so I just want to have a little second gear pull M I just want a little let me just experience I'm sure it's not about that go Turbo's on here we go we still revving you I reckon with like 300% more power it would be really fun dud with 50% more power be even better 50% more power this is this is essentially a convertible Lotus if you think about it it's a convertible JDM Lotus it's lightness man the gear shift is like so nice nice and sweet and it's Revy and it's just like all the controls feel really good the steering feels dirty but it's like it's front wheeel drive thing but how good it feels look at this if you could straight Swap this for a Lotus like a Lotus exe supercharged s240 would you have this to the Lotus no money change hands the straight swap oh the Lotus would you yeah and I'd sell the Lotus and buy Six of these yes that's the that's the right answer well Martin I've actually got a day of organizing a bunch of like up GTI parts so what I'm going to do is I'm going to allocate a couple of hours and buy you a couple of bits cuz that magazine you can get like exhaust there's intakes there's all sorts of mad stuff yeah so um we'll have a chat with Rob can you get me some bits and I'll order you some bits so good you can go drive around in your car I'll get my bits get your bits and then um yeah I'm interested to see how it goes I'm not saying I'm too embarrassed to go to the racetrack with you in this car but when are you going going yeah I'm not available but you enjoy it and um no I'm I'm actually interested to hear about how it goes yeah and if it's as awesome as I think it's going to be if we throw some mods at this another round of mods I think it'll be even better and then this vers up GTI yeah cuz they're both front-wheel drive both turbo I think it'll be a cool little battle yeah all right I've brought the car down to Pheasant Wood circuit this is where the blue turd got chopped years ago but the track has had some serious Renovations since then and he looking excellent I'm Keen to see just how good this little car is on track where there's no speed humps and no speed limits as we're driving around seang circuit we kept having these cars whizzing past us and these dudes just look like they were having the best time ever and they were in dihatsu copens it's actually a close relative of the cars that we have dealt with so much the seor and the syrians and all those other little dhatus it is based on a similar platform and as such in Europe they actually came out with a K3 ve which is the engine we put in the blue turd the and a race that I lost at this very circuit here at Pheasant Wood this car is from a time where some of these manufacturers in Japan were really trying to do something a bit special it does look like a figuro and there's a reason for that it's kind of based on similar styling it's also supposed to look like an Audi TT which is kind of hilarious and what they've ended up with is a car that kind of looks like a piece of garlic bread if you look at it from the side for long enough and if you're hungry it's absolutely a car that makes you want to put the top down hit the road and take in some nice twisty driving roads driven a lot of dhatus I'm a fan of them it's no secret why cuz they're cheap nuggets you get a lot of value for your money they're easy to fix and did I say they're cheap they are cheap this one's one of the fanciest ones that was ever made the engine being a JB D 4cylinder 660 engine is unusual because they're normally three cylinders this one is a lot smoother the red Line's at 8,000 but it will rev beyond that if you want it to uh and it just keeps spinning it's really really smooth and it was made as more of a kind of pre premium version of dsu's offering of the time in terms of equipment you got power steering you got air conditioning you got a taco this one's been upgraded with a carplay head unit there's also a catalog of aftermarket mods you can get for these things out of Japan they are actually really popular and as you saw they get turned into race cars flat out and I had to understand what it was about that's a bit of info about the car to help me understand why so many people are campaigning them at seang circuit and having such a good time I've decided to come down here to wood to a track day stick a helmet on cut a couple of hot laps and see how this thing goes straight away what do you get Smiles that's what you get 5,000 RPM 6,000 RPM just hooking its way around the corner flat chat so good brakes nearly nearly spun it yes oh this thing's brilliant I wouldn't say it's fast but it's absolutely engaging the end of the straight you're at 7,000 RPM you've still got another th000 till the red line which is just crazy the gear shift is so smooth the engine is so smooth which is unusual for K car engines when they're little three cylinders which is what most I hatus are they sound great but they are a little bit rough this is not rough this is smooth as silk 7,500 RPM little bit of brakes for the end of the straight downshift it you don't really need to but we're going to a it's just fantastic it just makes you want to cut lap after lap after lap what do you do if you want to go faster what do you do if you want to modify well Japan has your carpet of course there is a whole bunch of modifications you can get for this car out of Japan made by all the big names or of course there's always dhatu Lego otherwise known as engine swaps in Europe these cars actually came out with a 1.3 l and the best 1.3 l that Dadu ever made is the K3 ve that's right it my sound familiar to some of you it's the engine that we put in the blue turd it comes out of a Syrian GTV and guess what people it's all the same platform you know what that means means you can engine swap this thing but the question is do you want to engine swap it do you want to take away the lightness the revv of the little JB D engine it's a 4 cylinder 660cc to 4 within Kar rules do you want to get rid of that and put a big heavy engine in potentially make that lift of the rear even worse I guess we'll find out the plan with this car is to modify it with whatever off the shelf stuff we can get tweak it a little bit see how it turns out and then we might think about a big BLX swap my first lap was a minute 16 and my fastest lap was a minute 11 so 5 Seconds Improvement it does seem like everyone's a little bit confused by the copen until they get in it or until they drive it because this little mad hatchback nugget is an absolute blast at a track day I cannot wait to see how fast it is once we've done some mods not only did I buy it in the dark I also insured it in the dark which is cool cuz Shannon who our sponsor of Mighty Car Mods now have an online self-service system so you can get your quotes your policies uh that will also ensure motorbikes and your daily drive and your partner's car and your house and all that sort of stuff so if you're in Australia check them out you also get agreed value and choice of repairer which is two of my favorite things and if you've got an imported car a special car there's laid-up cover as well there's all sorts of options available for car Enthusiast so check out the Shannon's website and thank you to Shannon of course for being proud sponsors of Mighty Car Mods uh next up of course we're going to be hitting a little bit of Volkswagen up GTI it's been an ongoing project that is way bigger and grander than anything we could have imag we said we'd do it in a week uh we said we'd do it in a day we just said we'd swap the motor um but of course we've had a couple of problems that is going to be kicking off again next um some parts are going to be on the way for this and um I mean look welcome to 2024 people we got some uh absolutely epic plans for this year nuggety cars big things happening some overseas trips so thank you for watching and of course if you do want to support the show I'm looking for my magnetic Parts tray which I've lost we have magnetic Parts tray a magnetic Parts tray which has got free key tags on it um I don't have it but look at this a photo is about to appear it's not a photo Martin has it here it is so you can get a magnetic straight right now from the mighty kods website uh will include a free key tag with it as well that's at mighty.com and that directly helps support the show and helps pay for this video that you are watching so thank you very much we're off to get some lunch and see you next time\n"