Geo Metro XFI Convertible Project Finished

[canhonkey]

Wow, she had the cancer bad eh Rick!?! I had to fix one of the rockers on my convertible, behind the pass door, I used fibreglass. Actually, once I cut out all the bad stuff, I used spray foam to shape a mold and then fibreglassed over that.

The only thing I didn't realise was what an odd drainage system these convertibles have..water drains out through the rockers from the inside of the car. Since the top can't seal perfectly, where it bends at the rear top edge of each door, water can actually get in. Then there's a collector that funnels it down into the rockers and out. Odd eh?! No wonder they rust out, its a moisture trap! Ever since I've been racking my brain trying to think of a way to redesign this..but might have to live with it........

Great build post btw,


Ken

[Coyote X]

58mpg last tank so it is looking like things are about right. I might have been closer to 60mpg if I didn't have to drive home using only 1 3 and 5 one day The shifter came apart. I forgot to tighten a bolt on it But that didn't seem like a big deal really. I just had to rev it a bit more between gears. Going up some of the long hills sucked using 3rd gear at 3500rpm but it made it up no problem.

Still need to swap the head and get a proper alignment done. I can tell it doesn't roll quite as good as it should so I figure a wheel is off a bit somewhere. I will probably dig out the old xfi ecu and read the bin file off it and see if it is possible to extract the timing map from it to use as a starting point once I swap the head back to stock compression ratio. If not at least it will give everyone an easy way to go to an xfi ecu if they feel the need by just burning the bin file onto a 24c128 chip and sticking in their car.

[MetroMPG]

Getting the XFi computer secrets out there will be interesting. For some reason, I was thinking about that yesterday. Oh, right - because I was driving the Flea for the first time in about a month.

[Fox]

'cause it's a metro. For whatever reason, their windshields are annoyingly expensive. My windshield installed on my '91 was around $240. And that was on the cheaper end of quotes given me.

[eco_generator]

Updates?

[Johnny Mullet]

Originally Posted by eco_generator

Updates?

It's done as far as I know. I had a rare chance to see this car in person at GeoPalooza 2009.

[eco_generator]

Yeah, I found the electric drive thread... which I had already commented on. . . . embarrassing! Didn't realize he had tube framed the whole car at that point!

[Coyote X]

I am not sure how many miles I have on the car in the new frame and body but it has a few thousand at least.

I took the car to Geopalooza but didn't drive it there. The car would have no trouble driving 6 hours to get there but it is a pretty rough and noisy car. No sound proofing or considerations were given to comfort when I built it. I was only concerned with making it get good mileage. So It is a fun car to ride in as long as you don't want to go a long ways away. Maybe with a kidney belt and earplugs it would be tolerable for a 6 hour trip if your back is in good shape.

The electric drive stuff has brought the mileage down to about 55mpg when driving gas only. Still pretty good for a car with 7 batteries in it I took the sprocket off the axle and the drive chain out for now. I need to use it as a daily driver till January or so. My van needs some work done and I didn't want to be motorcycle only all winter. I should start a thread on that van but I don't know if it really counts as much of a ecomod since it is going from a 4.3 engine to a 5.7 gas or 6.5 diesel. I am going to do some work to the engine before installing it so hopefully it stays around 25mpg normal driving.

I guess this conversation should be continued in this thread http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...ress-5599.html I really need to finish it. I am so close to done but I have to keep it on the road for the next month or so unless I drop the van project for now. With only a few more weeks of school left I will probably just wait till December to figure out what I am actually going to do.