TeamSwift

Haha, thanks...yeah I own a few sets of wheels. They are mostly leftover from my nissan over the years. They happen to have the same bolt pattern. The 13" alloys on it now were acquired from a friend of mine that has a 98 geo. He upgraded to rx7 14's.

The front bumper is from a subaru wrx. A probably 10-12" section was cut out of the middle to make it narrow enough for the geo. The previous owner, Bryan, did it. I like the look of it alot, but in it's current state, it didn't seem too good for aero. I could feel the car being thrown around on the freeway from what I assume is those big fog light buckets. I do have plans for it, and it may just make it back onto the car this summer/fall.

Next week I should have the vinyl wrap for the hood...pretty excited about that. Maybe I'll have some more of the interior put back in as well. Right now, only the passenger door is complete in the car.

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I hear ya. Maybe the huge foglight buckets could be filled with the Subaru units. I thought it looked similar to a Subi, but hard to tell with body kits popping up everywhere. Keep up the good work.

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'94 Metro LSi 'Green Machine'
'94 RHD (Totaled)
Vail, AZ


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That was my idea as well. I will definitely do some work to it before trying it out again. I did notice that my engine temps have been much more stable since having the stock bumper. Even after :30-1:00 min stints in boost while going up long grades, the temperature didn't budge. Before, it used to creep up.

I work right next door to a bumper dealer/distributor so they have every bumper cover you can imagine sitting in a huge lot. I may go see if they have another wrx bumper that is in better shape or something else that fits well with the body lines. I do kinda miss the bumper..

Got sick of the little red riding hood...did a little body work while at it. Only was able to get the epoxy primer on in the time I had. I plan on painting it a medium/dark green and then laying the bright blue vinyl wrap over the top to try and match the stock color.



I did a little work and fitted the hood a little better and added some rubber gaskets to the top of the headlight to make a better seal there...

Carbon Fiber Blue Vinyl from ebay. Kinda funny how they are called "Metro Restyling". It was much more bright blue than the factory color so in an effort to darken it and make it more green, I bombed the hood with a dark/medium green.





Preview. I don't have any pictures of the process of applying it. I will take some pics of the final product soon. Color is off, but its just a Geo. It looks good enough to pass in my eyes.

As much fun as it was to run around with metro badging and surprise people, I had to rebadge the car to it's proper status.

$23 shipped to my door...

I was not too keen on the factory fonts so I made my own..

why not...

the turbo firefly is running good with a couple exceptions.

The check engine and the battery lights are on anytime the car is running or in the on position. Also, when it's below say 35F outside, it will start, then immediately die. I start it immediately again and it runs no problem. Just kinda odd.







Peter

Time for an update.

I was really sick of the 13's I had on the car. They were free, but the tires were pretty worn after a year of commuting. Instead of spending the dough on new 13" tires, I decided to put the $170 toward some adapters.

ezaccessory.com made these 20mm thick, 4x114.3 to 4.110(mazda pattern) adapters. I got these because my friend had a mint set of these 14" mazda meshies that I could acquire for very cheap.

Bolting on the spacer/adapters was a pretty straightforward affair....





Here is the wheels on the car.



Before and after offset...extra-flush, but I think when I get the proper tires, I should be ok...





I had to roll the fenders with a 3lb hammer pretty extensively to drive it with these tires...It was a rushed job that I'm not very proud of but it kept the tires from being sliced up during medium speed cornering.

rear


front...the slash guard will have to go most likely...


I plan to getting some tires soon and install sway bars I have. I need an exhaust really bad too.

I've have a video when I get the tires on and it aligned a bit better.

Adios!

new tires...

175/65/14

...and then I advanced the timing a bit and the head gasket blew. :/

I found this while doing the head gasket/timing belt/waterpump job....


tensioner was not set correctly...

Also, is there supposed to be any alignment dowel pins on the engine/head or is it just floating?

P

I guess I just had to search, duh...

There are alignment pin in the block or head to align the gasket and block/head. The fact that the motor didn't have any could have been part of the reason it blew the gasket. The thing was walking around all over probaby...doh!

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not likely because the headbolt have a slight shoulder on the top....
the head and block mating surface must be very clean and dry( no oil or dirt)
so the graphite gasket seal better
torq it in steps up to 59-62 lb drive it a few heat cycles (couple days) retorq
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What boost are you running at WOT.?
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought the head bolts were there to hold the head down, but the alignment dowels are there to keep it from moving around and get proper alignment when assembling. Anyway, I had to go on a 2 hour journey, but rounded up a couple of dowels and assembled the engine the right way this time.

Both block and head were clean and oil free. I also used copper spray on the gasket to fill any imperfections since I didn't have anything machined.

I've never had a boost gauge on this car so I'm not sure what boost it's getting to. I also haven't really gone WOT much cause I didn't have much confidence in the engine. I did look at the throttle plate and cable action while my buddy put the pedal to the metal and it doesn't seem like the throttle is opening all the way either. This might be because I stretched the throttle cable accidentally when I was pulling the engine out of the red car.

The alignment pins will ensure correct placement of the head,
but more importantly they make certain the gasket is placed
precisely. Without them, it would be virtually impossible to
line up the head gasket correctly.

You can also buy some thin-wall tubing and slice off a few bits
to make your own. I had to do this for the alignment pins on
the intake manifold as the old ones were pretty beat up after
pulling them out with a plyers. You just have to make sure they're
the right height. Measure the OD with a micrometer to determine
the right size tubing and be sure to chamfer the ends after
cutting the pieces.

Like minds I guess. I thought about those solutions as well, but since I had the extra head and block that Brian threw in with the deal, I was almost sure I was going to find some there.

Due to this head gasket issue, I have been forced to give the firefly more attention that I normally would have. One by one I've been sorting out the issues. I got the check engine light to go out after finding the inappropriate grommet in the air intake temp sensor plug that was not allowing the plug to seat properly.

I still have the battery light on and it flickers sometimes and there is a clicking in the dash that corresponds to the dash light blinking. It's not a pattern, seems like a bad/loose connection issue somewhere. It's intermittent.

I have a new alternator so I'm not suspecting that, but who knows...

Putting together a video...

So here is a little video of the head gasket process. I took more things apart than I really needed to if I just wanted to do the head gasket, but I wanted to clean and inspect all the parts while I was doing it.

I didn't mention alot of the common sense things like what tools to use and how to prep surfaces and gaskets for different situations. (i.e. silicon around the coolant passages between the head and intake)

What is the thing that I am missing that bolts to the back of the intake...

I haven't been able to find out what that missing thing is on the back of the intake yet. There is a loose brown plug that on the harness that seems to correspond with the location.

In other news...






A little ukrainian man heard about my battery light and poked and prodded around till he figured it out...

The alternator I have is probably not wired the same as the OEM one so it was tripping the light on the dash.

He hooked up a jumper between two of the three pins on the alternator plug and bingo...no more battery light!!





I have to put some insulation on it, but I'm quite happy now that according to the dash, there are no issues with the engine. The thing does seem to be running pretty good, but by the sound of the transmission, it might be getting time to swap trannies soon.

Look at the wire colours and refer to the wiring chart. My guess is that it's the purge solenoid.

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Good stuff for sale!

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=42901&start=0

red/green and white/blue... let me look...

it's hard to read, but it does look like the canister purge.

the front of the car was looking so wimpy, i decided to make a lip.

it's a stock bumper cut and flipped over so it bolts right up and fits perfect. I have to do some more trimming to get it where I want it, but yeah..

I may integrate a little splash shield into it later on..

Moving is always fun and the little firefly has helped me move the brunt of my stuff twice in the last month and a half. Here she is one the new street parking all by herself under the streetlight. I finally have my own garage space for the first time ever. I will be doing alot more things in the next few months..

I hope to find some oem side skirts soon so I can paint em' black and go two-tone with this thing! Yeee