View Single Post
Old 09-06-2017, 06:01 PM   #4 (permalink)
freddyzdead
EcoModding Lurker
 
Join Date: Sep 2017
Location: Australia
Posts: 22
Thanks: 0
Thanked 1 Time in 1 Post
Ha Ha, 4-wheel motorcycle, indeed. Not really, but there are some similarities. With the 1.3 engine, it no longer qualifies as a Kei car. I never heard of a naturally aspirated version, that's a new one on me. Copens stopped coming into this country in 2003, thanks to Toyota, who now owns Daihatsu outright. There are no more Daihatsu dealers in this country, sadly, so Copen owners have to become proficient at maintaining their vehicle themselves and chasing up spare parts, which can get frighteningly expensive. I bought an A/C compressor from AliExpress for $92 U.S. instead of the $AU650 they wanted for it here. I couldn't even find a new radiator for it over here; if there had been one, it would have cost around $400, so I ended up getting a custom made heavy-duty one from Japan for a fraction of that. It's beautifully hand-made from welded aluminium, not the plastic crap we're usually stuck with these days.

I'm intrigued by the whole idea of replacing the battery with a bank of capacitors; not long ago this would have been science-fiction. I'm looking at a LiFePo4 battery to go with it; trying to find out what kind of terminals it has. It's 7.6 Ah, $99 delivered. I've already got a small booster box which contains a ridiculously small battery that starts the car effortlessly. Yesterday I was looking at some sort of capacitor starting box at my local Aldi, but they want $170 for it, which seems a little steep to me. I wouldn't mind taking one apart to see what's inside it, though...
  Reply With Quote