FJ1600 Question

[psq947]

I recently aquired from Japan,a Subaru powered race car. An FJ1600 built by Tokyo R&D in 1994. It is powered by a EA71 engine. It has a Subaru transaxle. 5 speed. It appears to have no reverse gear. I have not had the unit apart, so I don't know what is inside. Does anyone have information on the vehicle? It is very well built and appears to be not unlike a formula Ford.

I have tried the internet but most of the information is in Japanese and I am not familiar with the language. Any help would be appreciated.

[1whillary]

Hi there,

I am replying to a very old post about your FJ1600.Do you still have it?Let me know and we may be able to exchange info,as I have one as well.Mine is a Manatee Mk8 and I have just started racing it here in New Zealand in sprints and hillclimbs.

Cheers

Wayne Hillary

wayne.chris@kinect.co.nz

[Logan K]

do either of you have pictures??

[LeoneTurbo]

I have a (Japanese) magazine with an article about the FJ1600 and the twin-carb EA71 1600cc engine. Is that helpful?

[swampbrat]

come on ....have a heart! POST SOME PICS for us - it's bad enough we won't ever get a ride in one!

[pickstock]

yeah somone post some pics

i dont wanna go and have to google it hahah

 

we are starting to think about a new race series in the same format as formula first/formula vee. currently using volkswagon stuff but even thast getting rare and expensive cause not many poeople are bringing them in from brazil.

so we were thinking about using that sort of thing, a cross between formula ford and formula vee.

 

subaru ea82, single carb of free construction, single port heads, pistons free, crank free mounted to a subaru EA82, 2wd transaxle mounted the correct way etc with free suspension.

 

would be awesome to have a 4wd box though hahahah

[1whillary]

If I can figure out how to post photos on here I will post some of my car.Its a 1980's FJ 1600 Manatee Mk 8.EA 71 engine with twin carbs.Dont know whats inside,but mine is great to drive.Have had a few 1/4 miles some hillclimbs and competed on Teretonga race circuit in Invercargill(Lower Sth Island,NZ) last weekend.1/4 mile times were 14.2 best time.Top speed on flying 1/4 a few months ago around 200km/hr.Very simple car,probably easy to fabricate.5 speed gearbox(now have reverse,with a bit of playing with gear lever),weighs around 450kg.If anyone wants photos for possible construction,I have not had much luck with info about these cars but believe they are around 100hp.

 

 

Email me direct and I will send you plenty.Email...wayne.chris@kinect.co.nz.

 

Cheers

Wayne Hillary

Dunedin

New Zealand

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

come on ....have a heart! POST SOME PICS for us - it's bad enough we won't ever get a ride in one!

 

Could it be one of These?

 

Edited July 31, 2014 by Loyale 2.7 Turbo

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

I Found a couple of Cellphone Pictures of the Subaru SRX Race Car, actual Look in a Garage:

 

 

 

 

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

The Name of those Racing Subaru Cars, is MANATEE,

 

is Still Written and can be Partially readed on this Pic:

 

 

 

Just behind the Driver's place.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Loyale 2.7 Turbo

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

The USMB member 1whillary (Wayne Hillary) from Dunedin, New Zealand,

 

Kindly sent me via e-mail, Pictures of his second gen Subaru Manatee:

 

 

 

Which is the Most Beautiful Subaru Manatee I've ever Seen.

Thank you Wayne for letting me Post your Pics, You're So Kind.

Best Regards

Edited July 31, 2014 by Loyale 2.7 Turbo

[Astro12]

Hi Guys, I know this thread is old but very relavent for me. I recently aquired an FJ1600. The car was driving when I bought it but I plan to strip it down and rebuild it for hillclimb and sprint use. This has been on hold whilst I bulid a trailer for the car. Researching these cars has not been easy but this forum has certainly helped. Also getting parts is not as easy as it would have been years ago when there were a lot more Leone's around. I have started a parts manual for the car so that future maintenance is easier. I hope to make contact with other owners of these great little racecars so that we may compare notes. ps will try to workout how to post photos.

[Willy Fisterbottom]

Hi Guys, I know this thread is old but very relavent for me. I recently aquired an FJ1600. The car was driving when I bought it but I plan to strip it down and rebuild it for hillclimb and sprint use. This has been on hold whilst I bulid a trailer for the car. Researching these cars has not been easy but this forum has certainly helped. Also getting parts is not as easy as it would have been years ago when there were a lot more Leone's around. I have started a parts manual for the car so that future maintenance is easier. I hope to make contact with other owners of these great little racecars so that we may compare notes. ps will try to workout how to post photos.

Hey mate, I'd be keen to check out your FJ1600, I'm looking at importing one but, I'm worried that I wont fit in it as it's probably made for shorter people, would be good if I could see if I fit in yours before shipping one over :-)

[Astro12]

Hi Willy, These cars are built for junior drivers, so are very sparse as far as driver space is concerned. This was my major concern when purchasing mine. As it turns out I can just fit in the car, but I would not be able to drive it as my elbows do not have enough room to move the steering wheel. I am 175cm 100kg (not quite the racehorse that this car was designed for).The car itself, I am absolutely happy with. I could not build this car for the money I paid.These cars were made by many different manufacturers, resulting in several different designs. There is one available on Ebay in Brisbane at the moment for $15000. I plan to modify the driver cockpit to accomodate my larger girth. Which means cutting out bars and welding in new ones, modifying bodywork to suit, but I still think that I would be much further along than if I had built one from scratch as I had previously planned to do. Where are you located Willy?

[Willy Fisterbottom]

Hi Willy, These cars are built for junior drivers, so are very sparse as far as driver space is concerned. This was my major concern when purchasing mine. As it turns out I can just fit in the car, but I would not be able to drive it as my elbows do not have enough room to move the steering wheel. I am 175cm 100kg (not quite the racehorse that this car was designed for).The car itself, I am absolutely happy with. I could not build this car for the money I paid.These cars were made by many different manufacturers, resulting in several different designs. There is one available on Ebay in Brisbane at the moment for $15000. I plan to modify the driver cockpit to accomodate my larger girth. Which means cutting out bars and welding in new ones, modifying bodywork to suit, but I still think that I would be much further along than if I had built one from scratch as I had previously planned to do. Where are you located Willy?

 Hety Astro, I'm 187cm so I'm in the same boat. I've seen the one on ebay but I could get 3 delivered from Japan at that price, I made an offer but he didn't accept it. I'm located in the Blue mountains.

[Astro12]

Hi Willy, If you can get them at that price I'd go for it if I were you. You need to be prepared to do some modifications to fit your size. Assuming that you can do the modifications yourself, you will end up with a car that is way cheaper than the equivalent racecar available locally.And also understand that these cars will not be world beaters, performance-wise, but if your goal is to have an affordable open wheel racecar, then these,FJ 1600's, I believe to be great value per dollar. BTW, I am compiling a parts list of my car so that future maintenance is made easier. I would gladly share this info with you. Keep me updated as to how you are going with the purchase of a car.

[Formula1600]

Hi All,

 

I bought the FJ1600 that was listed for sale in Brisbane. I intend to get it running for the next Noosa Hillclimb in November this year.

The car is a Tokyo R&D Model F4/92 and has a Subaru Ea71 motor with twin Hitachi carbs.

Anyone that has any specs or setup info for these cars that they can share it would be greatly appreciated?

 

Regards

 

George

 

george.brook@commsecservices.com.au

 

Edited August 29, 2014 by Formula1600

[Astro12]

Thought I would post the only photo's this website will allow me to. Apparently there is a limit to how much content you can upload. Does anyone know of an alternative? 

[Astro12]

Hi All, I thought I had better update this post with some progress on my car. I have constructed a jig to bolt the car to, using suspension mounting points.

Cut the car in half,( a lot of measuring and thought was expended prior to actual cutting). One essential feature of this jig was that I was able to slide the two halves of the car apart to lengthen the cockpit whilst maintaining the suspension mounting points relationship to each other.

Mount two halves of car on jig and construct new cockpit section incorporating a new CAMS compliant roll hoop assembly. I then had to fab new aluminium floor and side panels for the cockpit along with all the associated mounting points. A fiberglass seat along with mounting points was added. I have progressed a little further than this but that will have to wait for my next post. Sorry for the random order of the photos, they were in order but this post decided to mix them up.

 

[Astro12]

 

Hi All,

 

It’s been a while since I posted on this thread. I can’t
seem to find enough time to actually do the work let alone write about it, but
it seems to be a popular thread so I’ll continue to post when I can.

 

Work has been slow but steady and after completing the main
chassis construction my attention turned to the myriad of brackets and fittings
required to get this car back on the track. I‘ve fitted a new fuel tank, oil
catch can and cooling system header tank. The cooling system itself required a
major re-fit as the original had the twin radiators plumbed in series rather
than in parallel. Parallel is a much more efficient configuration. New cooling
tubes were made, as well as a reconfigured thermostat housing to accommodate
the new layout. The battery was relocated from the nose of the car, to just
behind the seat, hopefully that will improve the weight distribution. The old
exhaust used to snake down under the engine to the rear and finish with a
muffler which stuck out way past the back of the car. I decided to scrap the
old exhaust system and make twin exhausts, running forward from the engine and
exiting the bodywork on each side. This has made for an extremely short
exhaust. The next issue I had was finding suitable mufflers which I searched
for, but could not find anything which I liked, so I decided to build my own.
The mufflers are all aluminium apart from the perforated tube, and are easily
rebuildable.

 

 With the majority of
the chassis completed, it was time for some modification to the fiberglass
bodywork. As I had lengthened the chassis by 60mm and widened the cockpit by
120mm, the original bodywork was never going to fit well. I had to section the
under-tray and the sidepods and blend the whole lot together, not an easy task,
but I’m getting there. I plan to fit front and rear wings at some point so I
have made mountings for these, but at this stage, I just need to get the car
back on the track, so I will initially run without them.

 

That’s about all I have at this time, so I’ll post some
photos I have so far.

 

Astro.

 

[Yella7]

Astro 12 (and anyone else reading this)

 

I now have the FJ1600 that George from Qld had. (The car is a Tokyo R&D Model F4/92 and has a Subaru Ea71 motor with twin Hitachi carbs).

Living in Victoria, I have driven in MSCA & PIARC sprint events but would now like to have it CAMS log booked.......and therein lies the problem. I need proof of its history.  

So, does anyone know where i can get a copy of regulations that these cars raced under in Japan?

 

Cheers,

Les

[Astro12]

Hi Les,

Congratulations on your new aquisition. I have tried researching these cars and have found information somewhat spotty at best. There is a Wikipedia page relating to them, but it is in Japanese, and I also found a webpage which depicts motorsport championships from around the world.

http://www.thefullwiki.org/List_of_motorsport_championships

There are quite a few youtube videos of them racing in Japan.

They are still raced in the Phillipines, http://www.windsformula.com/

I have previously contacted Tokyo R&D by email to get some details of my car because I believed it was made by them. They replied that they did not have any records of the model I gave them. (SK 94  Bullet). Maybe they could provide you some information. I am not sure, but I now think that my car may have been made by Oscar. I assume you want this documentation to be able to run in a historic class? I would also like to do this but I think that proving the history would be way too difficult. I have rebuilt my car to current CAMS regs and plan to log book it as a new build.

 

Pete.

Edited August 23, 2016 by Astro12

[Yella7]

Thanks for that Pete,

It appears we've both been searching for the same things in the same areas and both came to the same conclusion......we need a motor sport friendly Japanese person to do the research for us!  So, at the moment, all we can do is log book our cars as-is for use in Sprints.  However, I do intend running in Historic class so will follow your lead and write to Tokyo R&D.

 

In regard to the new acquisition,  the car is actually still owned by Tony Parle in Griffith but I garage it, service it and drive it. OK, so i am a reasonable driver but feel the main reason Tony has me drive it is because at 76kg and 172cm, I fit in the cockpit    

 

Where in NSW do you live?  Who knows, I may be driving past you one of these days and of course if you happen to be driving past Bacchus Marsh, you are always welcome.

Cheers,

Les 

[Loyale 2.7 Turbo]

There is a company called "Japan Treasure Hunt" which brings rare vintage Japanese car parts, to America and other areas, they do an intermediation between the english spoken people, and the Japanese people, as they are in Japan; I believe that they could help both of you, to research and find the needed documentation, in Japan, regarding your Subaru Manatees (FJ1600) so, I kindly suggest you to write them, and ask... worth try:

 

~► https://www.facebook.com/jpnhunt/

 

~► http://jpnhunt.com/

 

Greetings from Honduras.

[Astro12]

Thanks for that Pete,

It appears we've both been searching for the same things in the same areas and both came to the same conclusion......we need a motor sport friendly Japanese person to do the research for us!  So, at the moment, all we can do is log book our cars as-is for use in Sprints.  However, I do intend running in Historic class so will follow your lead and write to Tokyo R&D.

 

In regard to the new acquisition,  the car is actually still owned by Tony Parle in Griffith but I garage it, service it and drive it. OK, so i am a reasonable driver but feel the main reason Tony has me drive it is because at 76kg and 172cm, I fit in the cockpit    

 

Where in NSW do you live?  Who knows, I may be driving past you one of these days and of course if you happen to be driving past Bacchus Marsh, you are always welcome.

Cheers,

Les 

Hi Les,

I'm in northern NSW between Nimbin & Byron Bay. You're welcome to call in if your ever up here. I've all but given up on further research. I reckon I'll just have to figure things out for myself like racers had to years ago, before the internet  You're welcome also, to bounce some questions or ideas off me for repair or mods to the car. I have some photos of this car which you may or may not have. Taken before it was sold to George. I have a couple of spreadsheets in progress for my car,(parts & fasteners) some of which may be relevant ​to you. I'm a fitter/machinist by trade & hobby so I prefer to make parts myself, rather than pay someone to do it for me. Couple of questions for you. What tyres are you running and how much ground clearance do you have?

Pete.