Offcourse, it's not a real Chevy, but since Daewoo has become Chevrolet Europe, and in South America our Tigra is a Chev, and as we are all part of the happy GM family, well, I can cheat a bit. "Four wheels and a heart" is the European campaign instead of "The heartbeat of America".
This year eveything will become US style: Stars & Stripes, supercharger, Pennzoil, Chevrolet etc. etc. But first I will fresh up the new home of my car. Painting the walls, getting all the stuff in, you know. And because my garage doesn't have electricity, I bought a small unit for my powerdrill, flex, light etc. etc. Soon it will be light in the evenings, and I'm not going lay down in the dark and the cold to work on the car.
Stressed out!
Why everything at the last mo? Tonight is the clubs Meet & Greet and the doorcards are finished just today. Just having a look why the window on the left side won't go down. "Look into the doorconnector. There is mostly some water in them" tells me the mechanic in the garage. A little water? You can hide a whale in it! Everything is corroded and the wire is gone, bot sides of the connector. Damn! 3 hours before everything is working again. Now I can put the new door cards on. They kick ass don't you think?
The garage starts to look like something. Walls, tools and power: action!
How2replaceyourspeedometercable.com. So. Easypeasy. When the cable breaks, the cars stops, so a new cable is needed. This cable is made of two parts, and my luck is that the part in the engine bay broke. Unhook the two parts, use a spanner 22 to loosen the nut on the gearbox, and replace the new part the other way round. 15 minutes and done! The other part I will replace once the cockpit comes out sometime.
The matter of the chicken and the egg.
Should the tiger be inside the cage or should the cage be inside the tiger. Whatever, this is fase one of the rollcage. The nice thing about this cage made by Wichers in Germany is that the rear legs are going through the panels where the rear speakers are. So I moved the speakers to the rear hatches, where you can reach then a lot better as the original place.
The rest is lot of fitting and measuring, and a lot of patience, as usual. Then you drill 10 holes for the bolts and nuts and Bob's your uncle. Now the cage is removed for sandblasting and epoxy. I thought of blue fist, then red, yellow, but maybe black is nice too. Decicions, decicions...
Stress, again!
I've said it before, MOT is like an examn. No real problems this time. Only the CO was a little on the high side. At 2500 rpm it is only allowed to be 0,5 and it measured 1,1. Not a suprise, as the kat is not used the whole year. So just a few miles on the motorway, to get it real hot and there it was: 0,18! Not bad for a 10 year old car with 118.000 kilometers. We did find a nasty spot on a right front chassis beam. This is a well know spot on Corsa's, the man in the garage told me. Once I was in my garage, I took a closer look, and there it was, the rust devil was doing his thing.
So, the next day, along with my garage neighbour we made a good but temporarely repair. We got rid of the rust and welded an xtra sheet of metal over the beam. Next year I will replace the entire beam.
Last stage of the cage. Fitting it with Stainless bolts and nuts, decals and serial numbers and here it is. It has become black in the end, that matches the interior.
Accumulator.
So. It's time for a new battery. Not because the Optima is dead, but the gel batery is not for me the right one. Why? The Yellowtop is what they call a semi traction battery. It has a relatively low peak power and low voltage. So for the ICE freaks it's ok, because it deliveres power for a long time, but I do not need that. My car is not used daily, and it just stands there for days, sometimes weeks. And the Redtop is the better starting battery. So when my car is not used for 2 weeks, it's needs the high power output for the starter, and that s 100-150 amps at least. And don't forget, there are lots of things that use power when you are not using the car. The radio, the clock, the alarm. So all this time the battery is going weaker and weaker.
So in the end I got in contact with the guys from Exide, and the told me of this new kind of battery, with a new technology that is made for this problem. Its the STS (Sealed Technology Safe). So I got me one of these, and it is very light en a lot cheaper as the gel batteries!
This speaks for it self. I had a piece of a Sparco cage left and turned it into a better way to fasten the seatbelt at the rear.
130.000 km did the X14XE without problems. EGR was replaced once, but I know how to handle that now. Does alsmost 220 km/u and starts always. But, with all the 2.0 Tigra's around and the damned turbo diesels nowerdays it's time for an upgrade. The 2.0 seems the logic thing to do, but I'm not a logic guy. Besides, the 2.0 is too heavy for me, and requires too many adjustments. And then there are insurances, MOT's, law's. So, the 1.6 is the only option. But from 90 to 115 hp is not quite what I had in mind. I want a little more torque. And this is where the charger comes in hand.
A charger produces lots of torque, like a NOS bottle that just won't go empty. So I bought myself the last real GSI engine, the C16XE from the Corsa GSI. Lightened the flywheel, cleaned everything, balanced the crankshaft, you know.
Let the madness begin...
The Americans say charger, the English say blower and the Germans say kompressor. Whatever, this is my new baby, the M45 Roots straight out of an Cooper works. But getting hold of this was the easy part. Now it's time to figure out how this fit's into the picture...
Stripping the paint of an engine is not an easy job. I put stripping agent on it and with a set of brass brushes you come a long way. Cleaning the threats and cleaning the engine in a special washing machine. A new water and oil pump are already in stock.
Degreased the engin with thinner, 2 layers of primer. This looks quite diffirent. Tomorrow the color.
All in masking tape, some old bolts in all the holes and ready to paint. As usual, it's a lot of work, but the result will be fantastic.
And so another year has come to an end. Not a year with very big projects, but some very nice ones. The cage, the door cars. And we have finally made a strt with the charder project. And don't forget the perfect meeting with the TTC guys at Trax in Silverstone.
We will meet agian soon at the forum, talk by email or see each other next year at some meetings and gatherings. Happy Holydays!
