Hooligan 1800S BEAMS car. What the hell is a Hooligan 1800S BEAMS car?…you say…
Do you bench race? Do you build cars in your head? Do you have trouble falling asleep because you are thinking about the next build? Relax, it’s normal and you are not alone.
This is a 1967 body I bought as a parts car but it was way too solid to part out so I stuck it in my garage where it sat for many years. It has no interior or drive train so I feel I have an blank canvas to play with.
The plan is to build a pro-touring / restomod car. Other than bumper delete, wheels and stance, I will not modify the body in any way. I would be fooling myself if I thought I could improve on Pelle Petterson’s work.
Also, I plan to make the interior look fairly stock but I would think some better seats, roll-cage and four point seat belts would be in order.
I absolutely have to keep those beautiful gauges but I will have to modify the internals to match this powertrain including making the tachometer capable of 9,000 RPM! It will be fun to do the research on all this.
Wheels and stance are very important components of how a car looks and sits. There will be many different tire and wheel combos going through my head before I settle on something. These Crown Vic 16X7 looks pretty good on this body though and I do like the idea of an 80’s look.
The original Code 95 “ice-blue” or isblå in Swedish was only used in 1967 and 1968. Picture the ice-blue color matched with a set of 15 inch American Racing Torque Thrusts with polished lips and gray spokes.
This is fellow club member Bruce Reichert’s 1800S in 46 Red rolling on Americans. This brings the 60’s and 70’s out of the car.
The plan is to run this Hooligan 1800S with this Toyota/Yamaha BEAMS motor, also known as the 3S-GE engine. It was used in the Toyota Altezza for Japanese market only. The Altezza body style was sold in the US as the Lexus IS series but they had a six cylinder.
It is a 220 hp cross flow engine with a super smooth six speed transmission. It also have DOHC, VVT and OCD! It also loves 8,000 rpm. I plan to run a custom stand alone harness, Tunable ECU and 52mm ITB. (Individual Throttle Bodies)
The engine with six speed transmission is longer, wider and taller than the old B18.
A Celica was recently built with this engine. It was dyno’d to 198 RWHP! Turn it up!
Well, I’ll be…it fits! Well, sort of…I just dropped the engine in to get a general idea of fit. It will need a fair amount of massaging but I think we can make this work. However, that is all I want to do for now.
I am fighting the urge to get sucked in to this project, I need to stay on the 1963 P1800S until it is done. FOCUS!! I hope to have that car wrapped up by spring 2024.
This is the cool part of staying in one eco system, though. I want the 1963 car to be very nice so if and when I install any new parts, the take-off parts can be recycled on the Hooligan 1800S car.
On this build, I will not worry about nice paint or perfect detailing, at least not in the initial stages. The biggest challenge will be to make this engine run in this chassis.