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The History of My Car & Engine

from Rally Basher to Weekend Racer

 

I have written these pages for people to check out and enjoy, and also as a bit of a diary for myself to keep track of the history and development of my car and engines.  If I didn't do it, I would have forgotten it all soon enough, and it would be lost forever.  Hopefully people can get some good ideas from it, sorry if some parts are a bit long winded.  

I have broken it up into "stages" because each section represents a different engine combo or new development.  Also I've broken about 8-10 engines, so each stage since the first turbo install is almost a new engine build.

STAGE 1 - The Rally Basher

STAGE 2 - Racing The Boys At Uni

STAGE 3 - High Compression, Lumpy Cam, Weber Fed Screamer!

STAGE 4 - Low compression G200

STAGE 5 - G200 Draw Through Turbo

STAGE 6 - G200 Blow Through Turbo

STAGE 7 - G200 Blow Through Turbo - Locked Dizzy

STAGE 8 - G200 Blow Through Turbo - Dyno Tuning & Water/Methanol Injection

STAGE 9 - G200 Blow Through Turbo - Intercooled & Modified Points Distributor

STAGE 10 - G200 EFI Turbo - Installation & Dyno Tuning 

STAGE 11 - G200 EFI Turbo - Big Cam & Exhaust

STAGE 12 - G180 EFI Turbo - Big Everything!

 

Like most guys my age, I started off with a V8, a HQ ute with a mild 253.  I had never even looked closely at a Gemini before, let alone driven one, but I knew about cars in general.  When I saw a Gemini at the local wreckers that was going cheap, I thought I could fix it up and sell it, maybe make some money off it.  It was a pretty rusted TE SL/X  with a blown head gasket, but it was complete.  

So I had my first gem in pieces, and my daily driver ute was in need of some panel work after a minor accident, so I decided to buy another gem for a run-around car.  That's when it started, and that run-around is the one I still have today.  $350.  Bargain!  It looks a bit different today though.

        

V8's are great, but I soon realised how easy a 4 cylinder is to work on.  Half the number of spark plugs to change, less ignition leads and cylinders to worry about, half the number of heads to port, etc.  I was really interested in finding out how this engine worked, and learning how to extract more power out of it.

As I've developed my engine combinations, I have encountered heaps of big and little problems.  It was fixing all these problems and tuning the engine in general that made my brain go click, and then I started to really understand how it works and why things happen they way they do.  I was only really when I fitted the turbo that this happened though.

 

STAGE 1 - The Rally Basher

Living next to a state forest gives a few opportunities to go rally driving.  Something I don't do today because I cant afford to throw tyres or paint jobs at the Gem every other day.  

Step one was making the exhaust louder.  Taking off the rusted rear muffler accomplished that, and had a piece of  straight 2" pipe fitted up from the diff rearward.  After all, I was a uni student, I didn't have money for much else.  I thought the $15 chrome tip was expensive.  

After a slight rally mishap and I backed into a dirt embankment, the 2" tailpipe was replaced with a 2.5" pipe.  I thought it sounded great at the time, and the 2.5" chrome tip looked alright too.

Of course, I thought more fuel would make this thing go harder, so a bigger secondary main jet in the Nikki was next.  After all, my exhaust was more free flowing now, but I was probably going slower than before as I had no idea what the air/fuel ratios were.  Likely too rich in the top end.  I was having fun though.  

Check out STAGE 2 - Racing The Boys At Uni.