hoodedreeper's K11 MIcra v3

Looking good dude. Catching up with your previous one.

Here's quite a large update

Gizfab X Brace installed





Another item from Gizfab was one of their Devil Wings. This was something I wanted to fit as soon as we got the car and would help with the Kanjo look.





Browsing FB marketplace and eBay every day for a new steering wheel started to get tedious. I ended up posting a FB status and a friend messaged me saying he's got a 300mm OMP wheel for sale. Although it's slightly smaller than I was looking for, its quite nice to drive with. Also managed to get some rev counter clocks so installed those at the same time



I had a pair of K11 March number plate lights hiding in my garage for awhile so it was time to fit them. The original boot handle holes will get welded when the NSR arch gets repaired, for now some tape will do



You may have spotted the new rear lip. After struggling to find a Seat Ibiza splitter to copy the last K11, I needed to find an alternative. A friend breaks and builds Volvos and he had a 940 lip spare. Some chopping about later and it fits surprisingly well





Filled the passenger door card with some stickers to cover up the damage



I noticed the boot spoiler had started to catch on the roof, despite no signs of catching when we originally fitted it.



I measured up the overall length of the gas struts and searched through a supplier's book at work to see what would fit. It seems K12 struts are 50mm shorter and should do the job.



Theres less head room now with the boot opened, but the spoiler no longer catches, thats something I can live with





Another item on my to-do list was to change the tail lights. Alot of people tend to fit the March prefacelift or cabriolet lights. I was very close to buying some cabriolet until I saw a photo of some Kouki March lights which had been split, inner coloured lenses removed making them red and clear.

I spoke to Andrew from Micra Mafia on Facebook who had stock of the stock kouki lights and placed an order. While I was waiting for them to arrive I ordered some chrome bulbs. Although now having them fitted, I think i'll need to order some LED stop/tail as the tail light element isn't very bright

A few updates rolled into one

I'll start with the most obvious one from the first photo...the kanjo door boards. This was one of the things I wanted to tie in the kanjozoku style and it happened to be one of the last things lol. You'll usually see the osaka kanjo hand or hockey mask but with the car not being a Honda I wanted something different, and who doesn't love Mighty Car Mods?!













The next change was an experiment. I had seen on Facebook some posts from a page called KBMER who are graffiti artists. The first post was of a blue 350Z painted in an Initial D style and it really caught my eye. A few more cars followed including an NB Miata, Civic and an RX7 FC, these guys feature darker patches for shadows/shading and made it look more realistic.

My issue was, I didn't want to commit to painting the car incase I didnt like it. So i purchased some 12mm pin strip vinyl from work and gave it a go. I posted the photos on Social Media and the comments were very positive with a few suggestions.







I left the pin strip on the car to see what it would look like with the door boards and I think I can pull it off





KBMBER uses ink markers to create the lines and the whole car is then clear coated. Again, clear coating the car is a large task for a drive way build, plus theres no going back. I'll stick with the vinyl for now and see how it goes.











Norfolk based company Wylde Wraps UK supplied and fitted the door boards, while the car was there they also vinyl wrapped the roof gloss black. This is the reason why the Gizfab spoiler was painted black and not colour coded











The last big change was the fitting of some aerocatches that I borrowed from my old MX5 carbon bonnet. The bonnet took quite alot of cutting just to gain enough access to fit them, its not the prettiest of jobs but the car is far from perfect haha. No real reason to why I fitted them, more because I had them laying about and I was bored

I got round to finishing the pin stripe and it looks much better now its all the same IMO. I had to re-do most of the passenger side as I wasn't happy with it. don't get me wrong, this is far from perfect and I'm sure its gonna lift in places over time but its a cheap mod for the time being































An engine swap was always on the cards, sadly nothing extravagant as an SR20 or GA16 but the CG13 or CGA13 from the K11. Fitting a CG13 1.3 Distributor wasnt straight forward as it'll have to be a mix and match of both engines (1.0 coilpack head, 1.3 distributor bottom end and a mixture of the timing chains from what I can gather).

I held out for a CGA13 1.4 from the later coilpack models as it'd be a direct swap. Luckily a friend was breaking her car due to the CVT box going wrong. Spent one Sunday removing the engine and stripping the car while we had the hoist and it was ready to come home.























The following Wednesday I got the block stripped down minus the crankshaft pulley and idler pulley (they've been removed since) ready to be wire brushed,cleaned and painted.



















The rocker cover was removed to check the condition of the top end and it's pretty clean considering its got 105k. The car was originally a 1 lady owner who had a Nissan Service pack on so its been looked after





The sump was recently removed so I could clean the oil pick up and check everything was good. Took awhile to remove the original sealant but some fresh VHT RTV was applied and the sump bolted back on.



I've done a whole heap of work but didn't want to bombard the thread with boring photos, including some upgrades But you'll have to wait for the next update to find out

This build looks awesome, as far as cheap fun goes, K11s are up there with the best. Fancy owning one myself one day. keep it up!

Love this thread dude. Loved your old mx5 one as well. One of my all time faves.

This car is quality. I had a 1L k11 and it was amazing but I have always keep been pulled towards k10s and have had a few variants over the years.

Needed a cheap car recently and I so wanted another k11, even more so after seeing your updates but alas I couldn't find the right one that was close enough to me and the right price. I would have settled for a 1L but I was amazed how much the cg13 cars had gone up in value. Ended up having to get a Skoda in the end. Ha.

Anyways keep the updates coming and put on as much information as you can be bothered to as I personally love seeing what you have done.

Spent a couple of days cleaning the block up and painting. The engine was pretty clean to begin with so luckily I managed to skip the degreasing stage. I used various wire brush drill attachments to clean it up and plenty of brake cleaner to get rid of the dust. With everything being aluminium it cleaned up really nicely.





The bottom end and sump was painted with Smooth Black Hammerite aerosol, while the head had the same treatment but with Smooth Silver. I've used Hammerite for years and never had it dry this glossy, how long that stays like that is anyone's guess.











I've replaced all of the sensors, waterpump and thermostat while everything was stripped. Not necessary by any means, but I know its all fresh and new







I've done my best to remove everything I can and paint it. Again, all of the silver is the same Hammerite spray but the black is Holts Simoniz Tough Black aerosol. Its covered just as good as the Hammerite and it was quite abit cheaper (another bonus of selling it at work)













I've also replaced most of the original nuts/bolts with Stainless allen cap versions. I've been recommended to use Nord Lock washers instead of normal flat ones. Never heard of them but it came from a close friend who's a perfectionist when it comes to this sorta thing so I trust his judgement.



I need to remove the alternator (only a couple of month old), PAS pump/Alternator bracket and Crankshaft Pulley from the 1.0L engine and swap it over before this gets fitted. I'll also paint any other bracket on the car and replace the hardward with stainless as and when I get to that stage.

So an update on the MyHermes nightmare....

The tracking showed the parcel was unable to be delivered and to contact the seller. Spoke to the seller who had rung them and was told the packaging was damaged. He struggled to get back in contact so I tried, to which they were quite reluctant on passing on any info at the beginning. Turns out it had arrived at my local depot with the packaging damaged and THE WHOLE EXHAUST was missing!

I updated the seller and I received a refund almost instantly, I can't fault him for that, it was beyond our control

The exhaust was the last piece of the puzzle for the engine swap,especially as its one of the first things you see when you open the bonnet. So I contacted Eden at Gizfab and asked what the lead time was for one of his 4-2-1 Manifolds, which is 4-5 weeks. The manifold and front pipe were more money than the complete system I had originally purchased, but this is made from scratch and will be a much better quality stainless than the Janspeed. This gives me plenty of time to get the swap going and luckily its the last thing I need to fit. Here are some photos from their Facebook page.











Last sunday my friend came over to help remove the engine, it all went pretty smoothly to be honest. Removing 90% of the parts a few days prior certainly saved us alot of time, especially while dodging the rain showers.







Remembering where everything goes will be a task in itself...haha







Heres the rust patch I mentioned in the previous post. I thought about fitting an oil catch can, but the inlet/outlets are facing the other side of the bay which isnt ideal. I started off with a degrease and rinse to see what I was facing and it cleaned up pretty well. Thats until it dried and I was left with this















There must have been something on the surface because the rest of the engine bay was fine. It would scratch off with my finger nail, but that affected area was very smooth, my finger would skate across with hardly any effort. I was limited with what products to try, the first was vinegar...nope...next was brake cleaner....nope. Hmm.....

I wanted to avoid painting the rusty area for the fear of not being able to match the red, but this was now the reason to do it. I sanded the area with 150 grit wet and dry and it removed this weird degreaser 'stain' and also helped remove the loose corrosion. Various grades of wet and dry sandpaper later the area was now prepped ready to be treated. Once treated and everything masked off it was time to paint.



I went with Holts Simoniz Tough satin black for 2 reasons. The first was the satin finish would contrast nicely against the gloss black and silver engine. The second being I used the gloss black version to paint all the parts for the engine, so I know the coverage and finish was going to be very good.

Here are a couple more photos before the degrease











A couple of coats later and its looking pretty good. The outside temperate was dropping as the sun was setting, so I didnt have much time.











Theres a few patches that need another pass over, one or two areas will be quite tricky to get to, mainly behind the brake servo







Yes I'm aware I've missed a bit above the steering rack, but you're not going to see it







Theres a couple of runs here and there but it was never going to be mint lol



Today (06/11/20) I collected the flywheel from the machine shop, a very fast turn around which was nice.

Next up is to paint the gearbox, once that's done I need to get the engine back in on the mounts which will be the hardest part for me. Everything else can be done as and when.

So today was finally the day we get the engine back into the engine bay,woohoo!

The first job was to get the engine on the hoist and bolt up the flywheel,clutch and gearbox. Followed by the starter motor (forgot to clean/paint this oops! but you can't see it luckily), engine to gearbox braces and the battery/alternator/starter motor wiring loom.



With the front and side mounts bolted in place we jacked the driver side up to gain alittle more access to the central brace to re-attach including the rear gearbox mount and gear selector.



Next up was the wiring loom. Unfortunately without extending and tucking there's not much you can do with this. We started off by plugging in the coilpacks and injectors and fitted the rest as we worked down the loom.

I'll be trying to tidy it up a little bit more, I may be able to move some stuff and cable tie it in a different position. I won't know until I start I guess



New fuel filter fitted and the removal of the carbon canister (just need to sort the last remaining hose) helps tidy up that corner. Battery tray was also refitted but need to give the fuse box a good clean.



Can't do much with the brake servo or PAS lines so that corner will have to stay as it is. I'll look into a replacement PAS reservoir as they all discolour and look curse word. Failing that I'll see if I can find one of those sock covers big enough to cover it up.



Driveshafts have been refitted too. Passenger side inner joint had no grease, it was more like really thin oil. That was cleaned out, both inner boots repacked with fresh grease and new clips.

The top slam panel and front brace needs to be painted

Awaiting delivery of a lower radiator mount rubber, PCV seal for the rocker cover and a coolant hose. Once they're here I can refit the radiator (purchased a new one for an Auto which are slightly thicker than the Manual ones), adjust the throttle and clutch cables and refill all of the fluids.

Then fingers crossed it doesnt leak fuel,oil or coolant on start up lol