1983 Toyota LiteAce KM20 review from Australia and New Zealand

At 16500km the fuel pump went, stranding me between Sydney and Melbourne, my mate came up from Wagga and we did the change on the side of the road!

The carburettor accelerator pump went at 120000km, and was replaced with a whole new fuel injection manifold from a 4K-E

If you are wondering why everything started to fail prematurely, its because the engine saw itself over 5000rpm most of its life, plus I really thrashed it.

The 4 speed Toyota gearbox started to wear out and eventually failed completely on the motorway at 140000km. Was replaced with a 5 speed Toyota Supra gearbox and custom shift kit to fit a van.

The valve on cylinder 4 got stuck and resulted in a costly fire that destroyed the manifold, injectors, wiring and part of the cylinder head

The engine finally died at 194200km and was removed for a V6 conversion.

After the engine fire, the 1.3 litre engine was replaced with a 3.8 litre V6 Holden engine that was lifted from a write-off VN Commodore. I have had no trouble with the V6 at all. Adapting it to the Toyota Supra 'box was easy, I bought an aftermarket bellhousing to fit.

The diff gears had to be made taller with the extra power also, from 5.125:1 to 3.55:1

I had the engine mounts fabricated by an engineer and the radiator swapped for a Holden V8 radiator on its side to fit and the hose connections and cap relocated, a thermo fan was fitted too.

A big jump of power was made from 70kW to 140kW!

The LiteAce is very quick and handles well, after I put Brembo 4-pot disc brakes all round.

My previous car was a Holden Torana with the Opel 1.9 litre engine and 4 speed crashbox, was pretty slow even on a good day, the Liteace is faster with the 4 cylinder in it than the Torana.

I retrimmed the interior and just made it neat and tidy and gave the exterior a respray in Metallic Cobalt Blue and fitted 15" CSA alloy wheels.