Geo Metro XFI Convertible Project Finished

[MetroMPG]

From the look of that pic, you're all set to put a belly pan on it too, no?

[Coyote X]

yep the belly pan is already cut and made for it. I had it on for the car shows this summer. I didn't see any reason to show up at the shop with it on and have to deal with it getting the exhaust done so I took it off. It is pretty easy to add or remove now I can just hook the roll bar with the tractor backhoe and pick the car up and slide it out from under

I have another car show this weekend so I will do the last few details Fri and put the bottom back on for good hopefully.

The car show is Sunday 12-4 I think at the old Chapmanville High School for anyone wondering. There is another show the following weekend in Charleston but it is going to be a really big show and I am not sure if I want to deal with the crowds and mess going to it.

[Coyote X]

Sealed up the front inner fenders good finally. I put undercoating on it after these pics.



Now the air going into the engine compartment can't mix with the air in the wheel well. I left the back side open slightly so hopefully air coming off the back of the tire will go into that gap and take some of the air pressure away from the rest of the opening. It is pretty close to the tire so I am hoping it acts like a crank scraper type of setup. After I get some miles on the car like it is I plan on adding a scoop on the front of each tire to catch the air and channel it into the duct through the car. At least dumping it into the low pressure area behind the car hopefully will help as much as just pushing it to the sides of the tire.


And car show pics





It rained pretty good on the way to the show. the dirt patterns on the car showed some interesting stuff. The sides were almost totally clean and had no real patterns on them, mostly it looks like just dirt from the other cars around me spraying. The rear was almost totally clean. The trunk lid itself was dirty on the back but the tail lights and license plate were as clean as the rest of the car. So it looks like there is some bad air coming off the trunk lid but the tail light and bumper area seems to be working pretty good. At 65mph on a wet road I was not able to see a spray behind the car unless I stuck my head out and the only thing I could see was from the tires. I will try and get someone in a chase car sometime to record it driving on a wet road and see what it looks like.

The only problem with the car is the new exhaust is hitting something so it rattles pretty good at idle. I will track that down this week if I get time but I am going to start driving it to work seeing as how everything else is working. I will fill it up tomorrow and again Friday and see what I can get out of it driving it like I always do.

[taco]

u need to fix your side skirt man.

[Coyote X]

I need some better glue to get them to stay put

I filled up yesterday and when I got to work I figured my numbers had to be wrong and I didn't get a good fill(showed 65mpg). I drove it around yesterday and put another 50 miles on it. Filled up again today, took a bit over a gallon, and made sure it was totally full then I could combine yesterday and today.

Distance 480
Gallons 7.95
Mileage 60.38

I filled the car up right before driving it to the car show in June and again yesterday/today. I am kind of surprised by the numbers. This has been mostly testing and debugging the car. It has probably an hour or more of idling on that tank plus I took maybe a gallon of gas out of it for my 6 wheeler. I need to try and get 250 miles on it at least before filling it up again and hopefully I will have accurate numbers. I figure I have to have made a mistake somewhere because there is no way the car's mileage was that good. I was expecting that tank to be like 35-40mpg due to all issues and whatnot testing the car and putting it together.

[Coyote X]

Put a few more miles on the car but the driver side wheel was getting a loud grinding noise so I figured it was wheel bearing fixing time. The might as wells started catching up to me and I thought I would check out all the wheels and make sure the suspension and brakes are all in perfect shape. Back wheels were good. I changed the grease in the wheel bearings to synthetic. Prob not a big deal but while they were apart...

Front end the passenger side brake had one of the slider pins on the rotor binding and not letting the caliper slide. Took it apart and cleaned it up and got it sliding smooth. Drivers side bearing was shot so I pulled the knuckle off and went to swap some parts around. I discovered that the vert parts are different than the 95+ knuckle parts and are not interchangeable. The spindle height is also different so that is prob why the car took bumps funny and felt like it was out of alignment. Passenger side was a 95+ and the drivers was a vert. I looked around and found the drivers knuckle off the 97 and got all new bearings and seals and a new caliper with brackets to make the entire suspension off the 97 hatchback and easy to repair in the future.

I took the car for a spin. I drove it about a mile down the road and it felt good with no more grinding noises coming from the tires. I turned around and started back home and the new bearing apparently was no good because it just let go. The wheel was held on by the brake caliper but had probably an inch or so of play. I was close to home so I just eased it home really slow, the closer to home I got the shorter the walk to get the tractor When I got home I had to let it sit for an hour to cool down enough to take it back apart so I could exchange the bearing for another one. Got a new one on it and now the car finally runs good.

So it took me 3 days to do a 30 minute job and put a wheel bearing on it

The list of things wrong with the car now is very small and not really important. It has an exhaust rattle, rear view cameras need hooked back up, and I need floor mats to keep the carpet clean. I did order a mpguino kit so I'll wire the cameras back up at the same time I hook it up I figure.

And to update my first tank of gas. I filled up at 143470 miles. In one of the pictures on my site from building the car the odometer is visible and reads 143284 for 186 miles total at 23.29 MPG. That seems more reasonable for what the car should have shown. It really is no indication of what the car can do but I am just glad I figured out where the error was at.

[Coyote X]

Another thing to add. A while ago I shaved the head .040 to get the compression up about a point higher. This ended up being a bad mod and it makes the car knock all the time at low rpms so I really can't drive it under 1500 with any kind of load.

I have two choices. Either just swap the head to a stock one and get the compression back down to 9.5:1 or try cutting singh grooves in the shaved head. If I cut the grooves I will try and increase the volume of the chamber to get the compression back to stock.

I don't think the grooves would actually help anything and would probably end up with the same result either way I do it. But if you had to do one or the other what one would you pick?

[Funny]

Originally Posted by Coyote X

I have two choices. Either just swap the head to a stock one and get the compression back down to 9.5:1 or try cutting singh grooves in the shaved head. If I cut the grooves I will try and increase the volume of the chamber to get the compression back to stock.

I don't think the grooves would actually help anything and would probably end up with the same result either way I do it. But if you had to do one or the other what one would you pick?

If you have two heads available to you, just experiment with the head you already shaved, throw some singh groves in it and see what happens, then if it still has the knock problem, switch back to a stock head and work from there.No harm, no foul.

[ATaylorRacing]

Here's a suggestion for you. Take both heads and CC the combustion chambers. Take the milled head and start to slightly open up the chambers with a die grinder until enough metal has been removed to CC it to near original. Did you try to retard the timing a degree or two? I don't know if there are any head gasket options for a thicker gasket. Good Luck.

[Coyote X]

I got my gasket kit delivered today so I am ready to swap back to a stock head soon. I will probably just pull a head off one of the stock engines here and clean it up with stainless valves and new seals then just put it on the car.

Gas Log to this point:
Miles---gallons---mpg
186........7.95.....23.3
310.........6.4......48.4

So I am pretty happy with 48mpg. The car still needs a real alignment done and balance the tires, I know one of the back tires is 1/8 toed in. I have worked on most of the random issues through this tank and as far as I can tell everything else is right. I also have been playing with the engine's tune this tank so that doesn't help mileage much...

I had to put a real multi-position switch on the heater blower motor instead of just an on off toggle. The way I made the heater core basically a straight shot into the defrosters when the motor is blowing the car gets super hot inside, it feels like over 100 degrees in 30 seconds and the engine starts cooling off. Without a way to slow the fan speed down it really sucked. On a plus side I bet it could clear the windshield of a foot of snow in a few seconds