- With 650 horsepower from a turbocharged Honda F20 engine and only a touch over
800kg, there's no argument here that Angel's KP61 Toyota Starlet presents
a fairly phenomenal package for circuit racing.
We're here with Angel from Horsepower Techs to find out what makes this car tick.
So Angel for a start, when you are deciding on a platform for going circuit
racing, power to weight, obviously that's key but you also want a bit of wheel base
and track in order to make the car balance so maybe the KP61 with 650 horsepower
wouldn't be my first choice, although I do love these cars.
So let us know where you mind was at when you were choosing this car.
- Well honestly being the car that it is, just being a little bit different than
anybody else, love the car since I was a young kid, always loved the Toyota
Starlets, any Toyotas overall, always wanted to have a right hand drive, so finally I got one.
I've been tracking her for quite a few years now and it was just time to make a little
bit more power so.
- Before we get into the power, you have owned this car for a long time which you're
just alluding to but it's got an interesting back story which I wanted to dig into a
little bit.
So it's got a bit of history here so can you tell us where the car came from and how
you found it?
- OK so basically the car came from Tokyo and actually they used to use it
for a drift school.
So from the information they gave me back in 2000, they built 10 cars identical
and basically for drift school, I was just lucky enough to actually go in the auction
and I found it.
Right away when I saw it, I had to have it, I had to have it, brung it over
and ever since it's been a great little car.
It just creates a lot of attention, I really enjoy feeling like you're in a go-kart
on steroids because that's basically how it feels when you drive it.
But no it's been great.
- Now the condition that you bought that car in, I mean that's a pretty lucky situation
sort of stumbling upon that on a Japanese auction site.
But it is essentially, other than the aero that you've added which we'll get into shortly,
essentially was already the same with the wide body kit on it?
- Yes actually these are the factory TRD wide body kit for it.
The car already had the paint job, it already came with a supercharged motor
so it made 180 horsepower which was awesome, great to drive.
- Now that was with the Toyota 4AGZE engine?
- Yes supercharged with a basically stock supercharger, it was completely stock.
And it was awesome to drive I mean it was really great.
It just needed a little bit more for the application that I'm over here pushing it
to actually track the car.
When it first came to me it still had the rear drum brakes, it still had the original
brakes in the front so it was really hard to stop, and the corners.
- Yeah probably stuff that would be OK for a couple of laps when you're drifting but
when you want to stop repeatedly from high speed lap after lap, you need a little bit more?
- Yes and you know a lot of people will ask me why should I step on the brakes before
to the point, it's like well I got to pump my brakes so they won't fade out.
Not everybody knew what was going on.
Not being the slowest, not being the fastest, it was just having fun and you know it was
a crowd pleaser.
- Let's talk about the current build of the car, I assume when you decided you were looking
for more power, those 4AGZEs we're pretty intimately familiar with those back home
as well and particularly the supercharger becomes the restriction there.
Not really able to make a lot more power with a 4AGZE with the stock supercharger.
Pretty common though to go to the turbo setup on the 4A base, you haven't gone that
way though, why did you discount the 4A with the turbo.
- Well I mean it's kind of like I wanted to make a little bit more power because I had,
later on I had more plans to actually build the car to handle the power.
RIght now I know she's overpowered at the moment.
The motor, I just had it, I had all the parts, I figured why not, let's just do something
a little bit different.
The fitment on the car itself, the motor looks, fitted really well.
But by being the platform it is, it's just basically reliable, fun and that's really what
I was looking for.
To make good power and still keep it just fun.
- Now that F20C, obviously it helps that these come out in a rear wheel drive
application so you've got the ability to run the matching Honda gearbox as well.
But in terms of adding a turbocharger to what was a naturally aspirated two litre
engine, what's been required in terms of the internal setup of the engine to cope
with boost?
- Well at the moment she is completely stock, at the moment.
The plan is basically, the motor's going to come back out, we're going to actually put
forged internals, we'll probably keep it at the same power or less, we just want
to rebuild it at this moment.
But the car's, I mean these motors are capable of making so much power,
these motors are so efficient, it has a 3582, she pulls pretty good for what it is.
But again it is a lot of power for the weight, that's something that we're going to be
working on over the winter, to actually dial her in really nice.
So for next summer we'll be able to compete.
- Alright so talking about that power level, obviously when you've got a turbocharged
engine at your fingertips, you've got the ability to adjust the boost and make just
about within reason, whatever sort of powerband you want or power level
that you want so let's start by talking about the electronics, and I'll sort of get into the
boost control as well, what have you got controlling this engine?
- Well what we like using for our shop is basically AEM.
It's a series two box, basically I have the Race Spec also from AEM.
The real nice thing about AEM is basically is it allows us to do everything that we
need to, it's kind of simple for us because we're so used to working with AEM also.
- Now AEM have got their Infinity range, you're running the series two,
their Infinity is their newer ECU although now that it's been out for a fair while,
it's pretty well established, so what would drive you between the series two
and the Inifinity?
- You know honestly, I hope AEM's not listening to us because I really do want
Infinity, the reason I use the AEM series two box is because really this whole swap
I had in a different car so it was all available for me.
So basically it works, it works great and we kind of transferred everything over
to the Starlet.
But most definitely I would like to grow and really go with the Infinity but
meanwhile it works so it's like if it works...
- If it isn't broken don't fix it of course.
Now what are you using there for boost control, are you doing this through the ECU
or is that something separate?
- No actually going through the ECU, I mean at the moment, today being SEMA,
we also learn a lot by going around.
Really we would like to get the Turbosmart, the new wastegate they released.
That'd be really nice, so we'd be able to control a bit better.
But right now it's basically all from AEM, we've just got three port boost controller
on it.
Low wastegate pressure just because again, the car's making more power than it should
for the body.
But again hopefully over the period of time we are able to use everything that
we have thrown at it and still be competitive and fast.
- Now again given the fact that you've sort of mentioned a couple of times now,
you're basically making more power than you can put to the track.
Are you using anything there in terms of gear or speed dependent boost or are
you looking at adding traction control at some point?
- Yes we are looking at traction control, most definitely the car's still under
development for next summer so we've still got little things that we have to do.
But most definitely I want to look into traction control, that's the main,
the main goal right now is to dial her in for traction.
Making the power, great but the key here is going to be traction.
So we still have a lot of work to do but sooner or later it'll get there.
- Now I did notice that on the top of the trans tunnel there you've got AEM's
IMU or inertial measurement unit with G force as well as a gyroscope so can you
tell us what you're using that information for?
- Well I mean we want to do some data logging also so we are able to
actually fine tune and basically get more data back for our suspension, G force,
you know from the track itself.
It is something new that we're going to be experimenting with.
We have used it before, customer's car, but my own personal car, this is something
that's going to be new for us.
So I'm hoping to get better data so we are able to actually fine tweak
everything a little bit better.
- In terms of getting that data you've also got the AEM colour dash there
as a driver display.
Also what are you using for a central logging location, how are you logging
that data?
- This is something new so it's going to done next summer, we really haven't,
I mean we played with the system, it's great, but right now one of the main reasons we
used it was because even from before, never had a cluster, so never had RPM
miles per hour, never had anything, it was all basically drive and just..
- Off feel.
- Just a feel so now it's going to be a little bit nicer and the input that we're going
to get back, that's what we like to use back and dial the car in a little bit better.
- Now I just want to touch on the fuel system for the car as well, what fuel for
a start are you running it on?
- Well I'm using, basically for fuel system, I'm using Radium, great quality.
- So that's the fuel cell in the back to start with.
- All the fuel cell, basically everything's related with fuel, except for the fuel
rail that we made our own custom one.
But the fuel pump, the fuel centre unit, the fuel cell itself was from Radium,
we are using One Ethanol, 117 octane which is the R and basically at the moment,
we just try and get the motor a little bit cooler.
- Well ethanol definitely helps with that and also helpful when you are running
still that stock F20C with a compression ratio designed for a naturally aspirated
engine, you've added boost so yeah the ethanol's definitely going to be helpful there,
making sure the engine's going to run reliably.
In terms of injectors, what are you running?
- Injectors, I've been using IDs, 2000cc.
And like right now basically we have two maps, so in other words we have a race fuel
map and we have a pump gas so if we want to take it on the street and enjoy it,
we could also do that so we just change the fuel and enjoy it on the street.
- Now in terms of the overall look of the car, it's impossible to not notice the
significant aero and I'm guessing that's not how the car came out of Tokyo.
So can you talk to us a little bit about the aero development you've done on the car?
- Yes so basically APR gave me, KC from APR gave me a lot of help to actually do
a starting point of the Starlet.
Again same thing, they'd never had, for example the GT1000 APR wing they'd
never had on a Starlet before.
So going back and forth, he actually helped me a lot where basically we are able to
at least get it to a starting point.
And then from there we'd get some feedback and see if we got to make any changes.
But the splitters, everything's from APR, the rear diffuser's custom made by us also.
It's adjustable, it has a 10 degree adjustment on it so there's quite a few little things that
we did to actually improve it but again it's going to be so much to actually get
it dialled in but once we do we are hoping to actually be really competitive on the track.
- Look Angel the car really is a work of art, I mean I've got a personal passion for older
Toyotas, having gone through a few myself so it's really awesome to come here to SEMA
and see such an extreme example.
Now you're running this car in the Gridlife Time Attack series.
Obviously you've got a little bit of development to do over your off season,
over winter but we wish you all the best for next season and we look forward to
following the development of the car, thanks for the chat.
- Thank you so much and if you guys want to see more pictures go follow me on
Horsepower Techs but yeah.
- Where could people go to find you at Horsepower Techs?
- Howerposer Techs Instagram, Facebook.
And hopefully for next year, hopefully you guys can see us again, we have another
project that basically we want to bring for next year.
- Can't wait to see it, thanks Angel.
- Thank you, thank you so much.
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