hoodedreeper's K11 MIcra v3

On the previous K11 I had some DTM mirrors fitted with what seemed to be one of the very few sets of base plates in existance. Having failed at finding them again I was on the hunt for alternatives. I came across a website which had a large selection of photos of mirrors and I came across VW Golf MK3 base plates which looked very similar. A friend had some M3 style mirrors and baseplates for a Golf, a quick test fit confirmed I could do something with them to make them fit.

Abit of cutting and drilling and these were the results. Not a 100% fit but they're pretty close



























Finding some wheels that suited the car and being cheap seemed a tricky task. Doing a search on google,Facebook and the forums I came across some examples of BMW E30 14" bottletop wheels. I managed to find some locally for a total sum of £40.00, winner! A friend is currently sand blasting them then I can get them painted. Originally we thought white, but the spoke design would make keeping them clean a nightmare. The second choice was a gun metal grey, silver may be too plain/boring.

Also found a set of 185/55r14 locally from a friend which saved us alot of money





With all of the parts finally arriving, it was time to finally lower the car. Alot of people tend to go with Corsa B coilovers, but I didnt like the idea of drilling/filing the top mount holes on the car. So we went for the Daewoo Matiz set up instead.

This compromises of Mk1 Daewoo Matiz 35mm lowering springs (rear only) on front K11 shock absorbers. The rears are Corsa B KYB shocks with 're-engineered' K11 lowering springs. I've read of people complaining about the rear springs being too soft if you use the originals, thats why we went for lowering springs instead.





I ran into some issues along the way, sadly it wasn't all plain sailing. Firstly the driver side inner CV joint popped out. Secondly the upper nuts on the rear shocks wouldn't undo due to the centre spinning in the locking grips. In the end I cut the shock to get them out, made abit of a mess in the boot (oops). The last thing was the collar from the original panhard rod was seized on the car and took alot of grinding to get it right.







Browsing through the Facebook pages and market place and I found a universal back box made to fit the K11. Being quite impatient I drove almost 2 hours to go collect it. Being a second facelift the rear bumper doesnt really have an exhaust cut out, so the backbox sits lower than the others which made fitting it that little bit more tricky. But we got around it and my bumper cutting even surprised me!









I also made a start on painting the chrome and faded plastics, starting with the bonnet grilles and fog light covers.

little under powered cheap cars are the best. My granddad has a exactly the same car for his customer car at his garage, pinkish in colour, basic interior etc, i tried getting it off him for years but he wont budge with it.

I have a Vauxhall Agila I'm doing some little mods to at the moment, i fricken love it, bit hard to get parts for but you "make them fit". look forward to see what happens with the micra

In for updates, I only came across the Total Nissan issue with your original K11 micra in the other day whilst re-organising my shelves.

I do love a smoothed boot lid and bumpers.

Are you leaving the VIBE sticker on the bootlid and adding an accompanied vibe audio install?

is the stickers from the original going to be replicated on this one. reminds me of your skyline design

Its been a busy few evenings working on the car. The lower trims and corner bump strips got painted gloss black to match the grilles and fog light covers









The 14" BMW Bottletop alloys finally received a coat of paint. One of them isnt the great of conditions so I'll be on the look out for another one in the future but for now it'll be fine. A friend sand blasted them for me and I used Holts Simoniz Wheel Steel paint for the colour













The BMW centre bore is 2mm smaller, so my options were to get them machined or use spacers. I had a pair of 3mm and 6mm spacers in the garage so I went with this route.



















The interior has been stripped, the front door cards will stay on until the new flat aluminium ones are made











You may have noticed the seats have changed. We've also fitted some Almera GTi seats





The front two mounting holes line up spot on. The rear outer mount requires a plate welded on and a new hole drilled. The rear inner mount uses the OEM Almera bracket which needs trimming and drilling in the centre to line up with the OEM Micra mounting hole on the transmission tunnel.



I forgot how curse word the DTM mirrors are for visibility (but they look cool). To help improve this a friend kindly donated a 5 panel wink mirror for the build. It takes some getting used to but its a vast improvement

They remind me of Compomotive TH and Renault Speedline Turbines. I agree they do have a motorsport look to them which I like alot.

I am toying with colour schemes, mainly something that works with the faded red paint as I really don't want to respray the whole car. I've got a look/style in mind which is slowly coming together

Super build so far, I'm warming to these little K11's. Bookmarked.

Going to follow this one. I've always loved these and Me and hannah got her sister to buy one as her first car. When I was in the UK last year I borrowed hannahs brothers k11 Micra to go to RRG. Fantastic fun little car. I've been after one for ages now and might just buy one when I take the Imp off the road to swap the engine.

Sadly there aint as many in NZ. They are called a March here- pretty much all Japanese imports. Most are 4 door autos :-(

That's quite ridiculous that most of them in NZ are Japanese imports, yet they were actually imported to Australia from the UK production lines.