Blackdragon Racing

16/05/2026

With the gearbox back in, i could scan the top of the shifter bracket and the tunnel to make a boot to stop any potential fire/smoke/fumes getting into the cabin.

One of the cool things in having the shifter bracket already designed is I could just import it and align it to the scan so had an easy base to design off.

Couple of iterations later, I have the final boot printed in Bambu Lab TPU 95A 1.5mm wall thickness (using PLA supports) which gives it the needed flexibility.

Really tidies up the shifter hole in the tunnel quite nicely.

02/05/2026

Big milestone achieved with getting the gearbox back in the car, still a lot of work to do to get it remotely close to race ready, but that's a massive win.

28/04/2026

Work continues on the plumbing, more brake lines done.

And have redone the rear brake line, fuel lines and main 12v feed to be a lot tidier (brackets are just prototypes and will be black for final version)

06/04/2026

The Honda S2000 Shifter relocation is nearly done just waiting on 3d printed aluminum brackets to arrive in couple of days.

Work has been progressing on another pain point with the car, the pedal assembly.

Anyone with a starlet will know this, but putting a pedal box into them is a fair bit of work (made worse by a roll cage), the trouble really occurs when you have to work in that area. It is a full days job (a true 8 hours+) just to remove the pedals, master cylinders, pressure sensors and pipe work for me. And that's with an access hatch from the engine bay.

And don't even think about just trying to adjust the balance bar between the cylinders, not possible.

I need to make it easier to work on, and also add a clutch pressure sensor (for future fun stuff) so out with the angle grinder and I have a new access hole from the top.

I've now scanned it, and will design a 3d printed lid and top to go there to seal it back up (will be printed in polycarbonate flame retardant), technology these days is so cool.

Additionally I wanted to simplify all the pipe work, and make it much easier to change the pressure sensors if I needed to. So it made sense to just move that stuff to the passenger side (left) of the car, that gives a huge amount of room back around the pedal box.

So out with CAD and a 3d printed prototype bracket, then while i was there I made a whole system for mocking up the brake line bends and working out where to run the pipes...

Here's where I'm at with the lines, absolutely stoked with how they are turning out, cleanest job I've done so far.

26/01/2026

Thanks to Engine Swap Depot for doing an awesome write up on the car, it gives a really good overview of it all. Go check them out

Ben Herron from Blackdragon Racing in New Zealand built his 1984 Toyota Starlet (KP61) for touring car racing. Ben spent many hours developing the car and detailed the progress in the build thread. Ben acquired the Starlet with Toyota 3S-GE BEAMS inline-four. Eventually Ben wanted to go in a differe...

03/12/2025

Feels wrong to cut up another perfectly good rear Honda S2000 transmission housing, just to shorten the shift lever position, but here we are.

Prototype V1 of the bracket to verify hole locations, overall positioning, easy of getting on and off.

Absolutely stoked being only 2mm off on a couple of the main holes. Needs a lot more strengthening to take loads front and rear, but side to side is looking really good considering it's just printed in pla for now with only 15% infill.

01/11/2025

Safe to say if I had continued racing at Speed Festival it would have ended up very badly.

White paint is the crack in the rear transmission case.

31/10/2025

I've been hitting the rev limit at the end of the straight in 6th (209km/hr), into the hairpin in 5th and in 4th into the 1st Esses.

One of the changes while the rear axle is being straightened is to change the diff ratio (current 4.55) to improve this situation.

I just happened to have a 4.1 spare so have installed that as a "no cost" fix.

Then an opportunity came up to buy a rebuilt gearbox with the same AP1 gearset but AP2 reduction gear (plus a few other goodies), since my gearbox has to be pulled apart anyway to replace the housing it seem like a good opportunity to switch and put my current gearbox back to original spec and sell it.

It's almost too nice to cut the housing up on the new one, but has to be done, thanks to Pepper Performance NZ for the gearbox.

See the speadsheet for the impact it will have, but fundamentally will make the car even quicker in acceleration.

20/09/2025

Housing has been scanned and chopped up virtually to move the shifter as close to where I think it needs to be compared to old one (without taking the current gearbox out).

Everything is still a very rough work in progress to get the overall shape of it (fillets etc will come later), and the intention is to get it 3d printed in metal rather then CNC.

Currently I've got a flat base to mount the shifter too. The challenge with this bracket is all going to be in mounting the shifter housing itself to the bracket as it's all curves, and I'm not sure yet what space I have within the shifter for bolts.

19/09/2025

Always cool to see pictures of my car in action.

Thanks to Mark Hellyer for the awesome photos.