1999 Chevy Metro 1.0L 5spd ecomodding thread

[Daox]

Ran around last night and this morning. With that kill switch bypass enabled it runs great. I still find myself grabbing for that switch though, haha. I'll solder in a new switch tonight probably.

[Katmandu]

Originally Posted by Daox

Its going to come down to time and cost for me. If I can nab an engine for a good price I'd go that way, otherwise I'll probably rebuild hoping that there isn't anything major wrong. In either case, I want to minimize downtime.

With either option I don't really want to exceed spending a few hundred dollars. The parts for the Metro are ridiculous cheap and I think that is quite doable.

When I was looking for parts for my Metros (a few years ago), I found a ton of parts on Car-Part.com--Used Auto Parts Market

[Daox]

Yep, I've looked on there. All the Metro engines locally have way more miles on them than mine. I'll probably rebuild one of these days. But, with finding my kill switch issues it'll probably be a while yet.

[Daox]

I soldered in a new switch last night. That fixed all the hesitation, misfiring, and starting issues. Todays commute in again saw a 70 mpg trip. Previously without the kill switch (doing less P&G even with engine on) I was only seeing mid 50s.

[MetroMPG]

Good to hear. So how does this affect your plans about the compression problem/engine rebuild?

[Daox]

I'm just going to run it for now. If I can find an engine I may nab one and throw it in. I'm not in a hurry. Its still getting good mileage. I just filled up the other night and it was my best yet (minus a short fill) of 60.5 mpg despite kill switch and other minor issues.

[Daox]

Woo, I had my best fill yet with the car. This tank came in at 64.8 mpg!

The gain is mostly from not having to picking up a friend I bring to church once a week anymore. This trip was half interstate driving and that kills the mileage. Another factor is it might be a slight short fill. And yet another oddity was most of this tank was run with a faulty PCV valve. The engine must have swallowed the guts of the valve. You could see right through it. This caused a high idle and surging idle once it was warmed up.

I sure wonder what I'd be getting if I had full / good compression on the engine.

I'm really hoping to finish up the rocker rust repair soon on the car and then shortly after that get the electric water pump installed. With the cool season coming in, heat is much welcomed and I don't like to have the engine running to get heat.

[MetroMPG]

Nice. Prius-beating results.

It's almost like the car is saying, "Please love me, I can do better!" Trying to convince you not to kick it to the curb.

One day you can try the torque monster Firefly for comparison.

[Daox]

Haha, we shall see. I test drove an iMiEV the other day and didn't super fall in love with it the way I half way anticipated I would. Its still a nice little car, but not worth what they're asking IMO. That being said, I'd still love one.

Anyway, it has been just over a year since bringing the Metro home to be my daily driver. I figured I'd give a overview of the last year.

So, first off... the mileage is ridiculous on this car. Its literally hard to get bad mileage in it. The engine is so small that it simply can not burn THAT much fuel to get bad mileage. Yes, this is an overstatement, but any ecomodder will generally find it to be true. Also, yes, it is slow but not painfully.

Here is my fuel log for the past year:



The reliability leaves something to be desired. To keep things in perspective this is a 16 year old economy car. So, can I really complain? Actually, yes I can. The rust issues are pretty bad and have consumed much of my time working on this car that could have been put into much more fun modding. The rest of the stuff I've done hasn't been that bad. Here is a list of the work I've done on it thus far (no mods included):

tires
cleaned the pcv valve (these get gunked up)
cleaned up the distributor cap several times
air filter
oil filter
wiper blades
battery
rust repair
pcv valve replacement


Issues and/or things that need to be done yet:

more rust repair
grinds going into 4th gear
low engine compression
MODZ!!!


Speaking of mods, here is a list of mods I've done in this first year. This is all documented in the garage entry (and I'd encourage you to do the same).

Tires at 50 psi
Kill switch
5W-30 synthetic engine oil
Synchromesh gear oil
Vacuum gauge
Grill block
Exide group 24 lead acid deep cycle battery
Custom 3d printed shift knob
Vacuum gauge mk2
Alternator disable
Air dam
Passenger mirror delete



Cost wise the Metro is doing pretty good. I have about $1200 (car) plus $400 (parts) plus $265 in gas into it. I could easily sell it for the same price. I've gone about 5k miles in it over the past year. So, you can say my cost is $0.37 per mile at this point. In just gas its a ridiculously low $0.05 per mile. In contrast, the iMiEV I recently test drove would cost me roughly $0.03 per mile to run in electricity. This would save a whopping ~$120 per year. I think I'll save the few grand and run the Metro for a few more years.


Future mod plans are to have fun with the car, perhaps try some newish stuff out. I hope to get to my electric water pump soon after this rust is taken care of. With winter around the corner it would be really nice to have heat while EOCing. Next up on the list is also about heat, and that would be utilizing the exhaust heat to warm the car up faster. I also may throw a block heater in it.

So, thats the summary. Its a nice little cheap car that does great as long as you don't take it on the interstate much.

[Baltothewolf]

Honestly you should turbo the new engine that will be going in your metro before you install it. Forced Induction ftw!!