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What's in them Starlets?!?BenzBoy
@benzboy
Club Retro Rides Member 7
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Hello, can anyone shed any light on what engines the Toyota Starlets had at RCS? I was surprised at how popular they are for modifying. I saw one on the rolling road which had a Pinto in it, but those scary quick ones out on the strip must have had something else  - sounded like 4 cylinder lumps, but what? Answers on a postcard, please...... |
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Interesting things Starlets. As standard they had an inline 4 cylinder, and rear wheel drive (the earlier Starlets at least,) and were qiute fast and tuneable. They still do a lot of rallying in finland. They're a kind of Japanese Chevette really, arent they?
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"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
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GrumpyOldMan
Part of things
Addicted to unreliable cars ?!
Posts: 182
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From what I heard at the weekend mainly Ford engine swaps,.. As the car in front of my on the way in said : "The car in front is a Toyota, because its powered by Ford"  |
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In the UK almost all (no, really!) Starlets are Pinto or Kent powered, the legacy of some old Hot Rod (oval track) racing regulations. The rules stated that you could use any car as long as it retained it's original drivetrain configuration...the Starlet was the smallest, easily available front engine/rear drive car at the time - so all the HotRod racers put their Escort bits under them!
In other parts of the world, people were switched on to the potential of J performance right from the start, so it didn't take a set of sneaky rules to open their eyes!
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What rmad's talking about wasn't so uncommon...
Imps, VWs and Skodas ended up the same way in shillouette racing, (where the famous 'Baby Bertha' Firenza came from) where the cars had to have the almost the same engine/drive configuration, and look similar to the original, so by sticking a huge engine in a mostly fibreglass Skoda or Stiletto body, they could just about manage a mid engined, rear drive Ferrari-frightener, while the Escort drivers struggled with front engines, and mini drivers were really buggered with front wheel drives, so couldn't get away with V8s and the like!
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"He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy!"
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most of the starlets at rcs were running harris built ford pinto's this is a popular swap into the starlets cause the running gear is based on the ford escort  |
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- sounded like 4 cylinder lumps, but what?
