MG Midget + Geo Metro 3cyl = MGeo

[nimblemotors]

Got the engine started up today!
It sounds great, just like a sportscar should.
Note my video my camera has a bad microphone and gets pops, here she be running.
I'm hoping to take a little spin tomorrow.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBP8npRmRjg

[guudasitgets]

I always wondered how cool my old metro would have sounded going down the road with headers , guess we will find out now. Sounds cool did you keep the exhaust going through the tunnel or did you route it underneath?

[nimblemotors]

The exhaust runs through the center tunnel. It is all wrapped in heat cloth.

Took the car for its first drive just around my dead end!
This is one tiny car, not much more than a go-cart really.

I've been getting some smoke from the exhuast where the header connects
to the pipe, seems like something burning, paint is my first thought, but it hasn't stopped as it usually does. we'll have to see if it goes away or not.

Now on to the rest of the wiring. I gotta come up with a dashboard and gauges. hmmmm.

[guudasitgets]

I had a Midget Ya it's hard to get used to all those BIG CARS all around you. Something you want to keep in mind when it comes to close quarter combat, trust me you will loose, so drive careful. The smoke your refering to is just the chemicals burning away in the heat tape, don't worry about that. It will take some time but it will burn away. And I mean it will REALLY take some time, like days. The thing you want to be concerned with is air in the tunnel. There will end up being a lot of heat in there from the exhaust and the tranny (sorry, gearbox it's an English car), the U-joint seals and the nose of the diffrential was never made for that kind of heat so you might have to somehow get some air flowing through there. If you ever pull that exhaust out for repairs of some kind this is something we had to do on Indy Cars wrap the heat tape as you have done, then some casting furnace insulation, it's call Rock Wool. Wrap that around it and then hold that stuff not too tightly with chicken wire fence, be nice if you found any of that in stainless. Then wrap that with aluminium sheet rolled around it. You hold all of that with hose clamps. The reason you don't want to wrap the Rock Wool too tight is it, like any insulation, becomes less effective the less air space there is. Gauges you can go modern or classic looking, I always liked good old Smiths, but , it's your car. The nice thing about gauges now is you can get classic "looking" new gauges. I had all old reliable fully mechanical gauges in both my Metros so you can do it. The water temp you just have to drill out and tap the head for 1/4 inch pipe thread, then an AutoMeter mechanical sending unit will fit.

[Varn]

Back in 1969 and 70 I had a Mk3 Sprite. You really couldn't see over the hoods of other cars. Was great fun passing cars on the inside and outside on interstate entrance and exit ramps. I was 18. We used to pack 3 people in the car with one folded up behind the seats.

Please make a video of your car once it is running in traffic.

[nimblemotors]

Here is the starting battery I've made for the MGeo.
I'm using the A123 26650 2.2ah cells, soldered them up into 3 in parallel, 4 serial, for 12v, and made a plastic box to hold them tight.
max 210amps, and 6.6ah. The G10 seems to draw less than 100amps
when starting, the lithium battery has no problem at all.
You can see how tiny it is, it weighs less than 3.5lbs! And I can fit it right next to the starter tucked in down low next to the frame rail.

No active controls, just the bare cells, so it charges from the 14.50 of the alternater, and can be discharged without limit. Well see how long it will last, the cost was only about $120ish, so not too expensive really for saving up to 30lbs of weight.

[Varn]

Tiny battery
It looks like the leads are pretty small (12g) for the impact of the starter draw.
Where did you get the cells?
Thanks

[UFO]

If you have a cell go bad, with no balancing scheme, the alternator will overcharge a stack, and then you will have a fire on your hands.

[nimblemotors]

Here is what I've used for the dashboard and the gauges.
I'm using the radio and climate control interface from a 96-99 Taurus.
I happened to acquire a SHO for its 3.4L 32-valve all-aluminum v8,
and took a lot of parts off it I will be using.
The Ford oval radio/control interface is quite nice.
Nice big buttons. It also has just the buttons up front, the actual radio and amp is a seperate unit that goes in the trunk, which means the weight is kept lower, and who is going to steal a stock ford radio?

The interesting part is that I replaced the SHO control unit that controls the climate buttons with the unit without them (or a tape deck), so it has just the upper radio buttons. Then I used the full button interface, but used just the lower buttons connected to my own microhardware. So I use these buttons for whatever, and replaced their faces with my own symbols.

I don't use an ignition key, but a button to power-up, and then you must enter a password to enable the engine and be able to start it.
I replaced the climate display with a 16x2 lcd, which does the prompting,
and also displays the RPM when the engine is running.


For the rest of the dash, I'm using a 40x4 LCD I had in my parts bin, it works quite well in fact, very visible and using custom chars I've bargraphs for the fuel, temp, volts, and oil pressure, and large numbers for the MPH and the MPG. This is a nice compact package to display the info.

And since my micro handles all this, I'm also encorporating a MPGuino type MPG into the display, reading the fuel injector pulses. To get the MPH,
the Samuri 5-speed has no speedo, I put a hall-effect sensor on the differential to get the driveshaft rotation signal. I use a micro to read this and the fuel level sensor, and transmit the data wireless to the dash processor, which also transmits the brake, light and turn signals to the processors running the tail lights.

[MGB=MPG]

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MG Midget + Geo Metro 3cyl = MGeo : MG Midget Forum : MG Experience Forums : The MG Experience