[Jim-Bob]

Through a fluke of availability I now own 2 Geo Metros: a 4 door 3 cyl/5 speed I bought yesterday for $250 and a 2 door 3/auto I got a month ago for $350. The 2 door needs an engine and I was building one. However, I needed a 5 speed setup so I answered an ad for a $300 4 door. It turns out that the 4 door is in fairly good shape and already runs and drives as is. It needs some sorting, but that is to be expected at this price. I offered $250 and the owner accepted. As of today, I have installed the battery from my 2 door, paid for the title and tag and it is now on the road. It had sat in this guy's yard for about a year or so but it seems to be none the worse for wear. It needs something in the front suspension, a properly hooked up and cleaned EGR system, an intake air temp sensor and it's plug, and a good general cleaning. So far I have pressure washed the majority of the car-including the interior. I took it out today and worked on it with some Simple Green and a scrub brush first. It seems that all my cheap Metros are doomed to smell like dog. It all turned out to be in decent shape except for the carpet and driver's seat. I'll deal with them later as I hope to find replacements in the junkyard.

The goal for this car is to improve my economic situation as a pizza delivery driver/returning college student. I figure it should save me $150-200 a month in fuel costs over my Nissan Frontier. I believe it should be capable of 40+ mpg under these circumstances but my goal will be 50 mpg city. As such, I feel that the stock gearing is adequate as a lower gear should permit the car to accelerate with less throttle opening than it would with a taller gear. I do plan to experiment with taller tires though in order to try and fine tune the sweet spot where mileage and my driving needs mesh the closest. It is a harder task in some ways than maximizing highway mileage as you cannot just tune for steady state speeds. You also don't get too much benefit from aerodynamic tweaks either as the giant magnetic sign on the roof pretty much stands to negate any gains you might see.

The engine in this car is a big, giant question right now. I was planning a new engine for my 2 door Metro and had shipped the head off to Suzuki G10 guru 3 Tech Performance for a fuel economy head and cam package with stainless exhaust valves. I do plan to complete this engine. However, which car should I put it in? If this engine is good then it will probably go into this car and this engine will go into the other car and it will be sold off. If the compression check does not come back good tomorrow then the new engine goes in the 2 door, the 5 speed comes out of this one and I will sell the 4 door shell off to an individual who has expressed interest. This then is a tentative build as things may yet change dramatically in my little Geo universe. One thing will remain the same though ans that is that I WILL build a car and chronicle it here. Without further ado then, here are the pictures.