I have moved on from driving Metros
 

I sold my last Metro a couple years ago, after driving/modding them for 8 years. I bought a Saturn LW300 from my car dealer friend. It was ready to tow behind my motorhome which was a major consideration. Fuel mileage was about half of my Metro at it's peak of 54 mpg at 27mpg. Let the festivities begin, after much research I found that they made a few 4 cylinder/5 speed cars L series cars. All the v-6 cars had automatics as well as most of the four cylinder cars. Saturn pulled this fairly large car from their Opel line, it is a Vectra B. Since GM bought Saab in the early 90s they also used this chassis on their 900, early 9-3 and their 9-5 until the sale. This is the first use of the 2.2 L Ecotec dohc all aluminum engine. General Motors spread use of this engine across several model lines starting in 2002. Like my father told me years ago " Don't buy a first year anything", holds true with the L61 four cylinder.

So the search was on for a loaded four cylinder stick shift Saturn L. I started with a 2002 and later found out this was the one year the all came stock with ABS, traction control, side curtain air bags and four wheel disc brakes. So I searched for many months and traveled 800 miles round trip when I found this car with a bad engine. It has what appears to be all the options, heated seats, fog lights, sunroof, leather etc...
I have installed a used engine with a new clutch, added a set of Saab wheels. The first eco-mod will be to change the final drive ratio from 4.45 to 4.05. That's 10% folks, should drop rpm to 2400 @ 60 mph. Now it is 2650 @ 60 mph. There is an elusive 3.86 ratio final out there somewhere that fits this Getrag F35 trans. I think it only came in the v-6 Saabs mid 2000s, pretty rare as most had the turbo four cylinders.
http://i863.photobucket.com/albums/a...o/IMG_0648.jpg

I've often wondered if GMs convient use of identical dimensions from the 50's onward spilled into all the 2.2 4 bangers GM made since the dawn of compact?

If they did a 2010 cobalt XFE would drop in XMSN and all

Would need your own ECU or the Cobalt one and an interception device

With hypermiling a Cobalt is good for north of 50mpg, mild driving techniques easily get in the mid 40's

So you may be able to out of the box the car if you can find a cheap XFE motor and transaxle.

Good luck

The issue with the XFE powertrain swap is his car has the F35 trans, not the F23, and the 07-08 L61, or the 09-10 LAP aren't directly compatible with the L series PCM (different reluctor wheel on crank)... He could maybe adapt the F23 transaxle, but it would be a fair amount of work to do so...

On a side note, the car looks great with the Saab wheels...

Thanks Bone.

Hey, you know, if you were tearing a trans apart, you could add in the Quaife limited slip from the G85pkg Cobalt SS.. That, and the 3.86 final you mentioned would make a great trans for your car...

$500+ for a new posi, I have a spare tranny for the first swap. I will see what I find in time, my used Saab connection knows what I am looking for now.

Nice L series. I drove one for a short time while working on it for a friend. I was pretty easily able to achieve 40+ with it (according to an uncalibrated SG), and it was impressively peppy for its size and 2.2L engine size. I'm sure with some tweaking a lot more potential can be unlocked. I look forward to seeing how you do with it.

Here is my very short thread on it: http://ecomodder.com/forum/showthrea...bit-29670.html

Sad!

Just kidding! Every time I drive a "modern" car and then go back to the Firefly, it's a bit of a shock to the system. (Until I get 70 MPG and it's OK again.)

When you do the diff swap, please post some details. Are you swapping the whole trans or just the final drive gears?

I've moved on as well. After driving Types I, II and IIIs since 1967, I got a water-cooled VW.

The Superbeetle gets ~30mpg burning clear premium. The diesel Dasher get ~40 mpg burning [potentially] vegetables. The Superbeetle is currently stored under a car cover in a carport. The NADA mid-book appreciated $400 in the last six months. It will sell when Arcimoto ships my SRK.

My personal best mpg is still 47.5mpg in a loaner Metro.

I have been searching for information on these cars. I have a complete set of factory service manuals for the 2002 L series. Wikipedia is incorrect by stating that the L series cars have a Getrag F23 transmission. This car has a Getrag F35 like the Saturn Ion Redline uses. There are rod shifted and cable shifted versions of this tranmission used in various cars. L series are rod shifted just like the Metro transmission. The Saab version is cable shifted in the 2003+ 9-3. It looks like the axle spline count is different also.
Genuinesaab.com has great information about everything Saab. They have some articles about what fits what and what interchanges on these transmissions. It looks like the differentials swap for axle spline counts and all the internals work in either style case. So I will use a Saturn diff and Saab guts in a Saturn case. I will let everyone know how this works, probably easier than replacing all the bearings in a Metro trans or swaping a crown wheel and output shaft. I have a spare Saturn trans on the bench.