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Aiden Cheese
Tinkerer
QLD
Soarer jzz30

Posts: 52
Reg: 09-2009

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 01:32 pm, by:  Aiden Cheese (Chillpen) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Recently with a spout of proving that electrical wise, and mechanical wise I may not be the sharpest most clever person to have ever existed. This has caused massive shock among some thread readers and they have been somehow angered by this causing them to lash out.

However I'm hoping to redeem my status as the "smartest guy alive" and prove to you that i'm not just a useless unt. (all tongue in cheek)

Please read the story - it'll explain the stupidity and reason for the decision making involved in the following engine swap.

I own a daihatsu Charade, ever since it was 20 000km's old, i learnt to drive in it (on my L's) i drove it around mt glorius, and to sydney and lismore and up north to mackay. I've had all my girlfriends in it, its taken each of my mates home from a pub or party when they were too drunk to get home otherwise. I love the car. About 40 000km's ago my car got into an accident, now while it was comprehensively insured the repairer did a good job of fixing the transmission, steering rack and replacing the tie rods. Everything was almost okay, but the engine constantly leaked oil from the head.

Because 40 000km's ago i was easily pushed over by people telling me "nah thats your own problem now, we don't warranty our work like that" etc, I left it alone and for the last few years have driven it leaking oil. After getting disheartened by the constantly smokey smell in the cabin and taking less and less care of it, i made a mental note in my head to just the engine, let it die and when it does replace it.

40 000km's passed and no engine work was done, no oil changes, filter changes, coolant top ups. All i did was top up the oil and continue on.

One day not long ago it went BANG. It then forever ran rough (really rough) had about 1/2 the power, and the first cylinder compressed only about 1/4th what it should have (after compression testing it vs others).

I could still drive it, and I did. I looked and bought my soarer.

Last weekend, my friend pete says to me "Oh, you know the corolla? I'm shoving its 4ag engine into the feroza!" I reply, "oh really? whats happening to the feroza engine?". The answer was nothing, and i suggested we should shove that engine in the charade.

The engine was a 1.6L applause engine, it was reconditioned so my mate Pete could dump it in his feroza for some hardcore 4x4ing, mounted up with the 4x4 tranny and it went well.

So the rest of the story is pictures mostly. This is the story of a 2 day engine swap.



Thats a picture of the 1.5L charade engine which is standard. Its leaking oil and other problems (mostly probably valve or something). To start we just removed the battery and unplugged the wiring harness.



Unplugging the ECU is under the centre console, right behind where the spare DIN is under the radio.



One of us removed the radiator (pete) while the other took off hoses and more electrics, the intake and the exhaust.



Removed the wheels and the driveshafts. Actually we had trouble getting one nut off, and so we pulled one shaft out of the gearbox only and ziptied the shaft still attached to the hub to the underbody..



Everything undone, we pulled the engine out. I should mention we left the aircon just hanging around and had to get it under and out of the way as we moved the engine out from above.



Engine just dangling there :-)



Here's where we left the 1.5L motor and transmission. I was assigned to take off all the accessories and transmission while pete started removing the engine out of the feroza. We needed to use the 1.5L injectors just to make sure 100% the ecu would drive them without problems, because we were just going to leave the 1.5L ecu in the car to drive the 1.6.



The intake manifold hanging by various electrical cables as some mounts still held it to things like the alternator. We left all the ables and even the accessories just attached to the intake manifold, we figured we'd dump it straight onto the 1.6 all together.

At this point i actually went home to pick up my soarer because the project wasn't going to be completed that day. I raced home catching a lift with a mate who had come to watch... but when i got home...

This appeared for the first time on the soarer. What does this mean? It means the alternator is broken. The actual japanese probably means something else entirely, but a heap of errors came up and the car slowly shut down. I pulled out the alaternator and bosch said it's beyond repair, so just replace it new for $430 or find a second hand one... I chose the later, but that meant the soarer was out of commission which was a pain..

Suddenly this caused a panic in me, monday I had to get to work, I was in brookfield, and i had to drive to virginia before 7:30am. Public transport is out of the question (due to terrible public transport timings making it probably impossible).

This meant the best option was to get the charade done.

I got back to Pete's where he'd managed to get the engine out of the feroza, and a lot of effort started going into cleaning up the engine bay of the charade, and cleaning up accessories. They had 40 000km's of road dust etc sticking to oil which had been leaking.



Accessories started being swapped, including the sump. The sump for the feroza was mid, due to it being layed out the other direction, and the charade needed it to be a front sump.



We pulled out the oil pickup from the 1.5 and cleaned it up, cleaned up the sump and fitted them to the 1.6L engine.




We then got cracking on the manifolds and accessories. then the mounts for the engine mounts and shoved the gearbox in. We went to crank it over and disaster! Huge clunking. We feared the worst. We knew we thought we had recentred the cam and the crank to TDC and aligned up the markings but we thought we had it...

our theory was that the charade's clutch was and we'd put in the feroza's clutch. Sadly after closer inspection the clutch and pressure plates was about 5mm larger radius and this caused a knock on the bellhousing internally.. doh.



A wreckers later and it fit properly..



This is out of order slightly, but also there was a bearing for the 4x4 transmission in the flywheel which had to come out to fit the shaft in.


Accessories were all swapped - time to load the engine into the engine bay!








Hooked stuff back up..



Cleaned up the floor



Fluids in, bonnet down



Engine on.

To be fair we around a lot. It was also a very easy swap - the two blocks are identical except the bore internally, hence why it was so easy to swap stuff over.

The charade no longer a 1.5L 3.5 cyl car, its a full blown 1.6L 4 Cyl 16 valve Sohc speed machine!

Mostly its economical and running.

But thats a mechanics weekend if there ever was one :-)
Aiden Cheese
Tinkerer
QLD
Soarer jzz30

Posts: 53
Reg: 09-2009

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Tuesday, September 29, 2009 - 01:36 pm, by:  Aiden Cheese (Chillpen) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

haha i've posted a couple of pictures out of place, forgive me, the thumbnails were tiny - i've posted a pic of the feroza engine coming out instead of the charade one.. I'll fix it later maybe :-)

Thanks
James Harris
Goo Roo
QLD
GT Starlet

Posts: 3131
Reg: 07-2005

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 09:36 am, by:  James Harris (Haro) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

haha that is an awesome read Aiden and great to see some pics also!

As for the Soarer alternator problem, did you consider getting the 2nd hand one rebuilt before you installed it? I did that with my starter motor a while back as it gives peace of mind.

But anyways, good read none the less, so does that mean you will be rocking to work now in the ol Charade? Gotta love a daily.

Off topic:
So you live in Brookfield, i live at Jindalee. Where you work in Virginia?
Aiden Cheese
Tinkerer
QLD
Soarer jzz30

Posts: 55
Reg: 09-2009

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 03:11 pm, by:  Aiden Cheese (Chillpen) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


James Harris wrote on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 09:36 am:

me read Aiden and great to see some pics also!

As for the Soarer alternator problem, did you consider getting the 2nd hand one rebuilt before you installed it?


Not yet, this is because I don't actually have it yet! Its coming from some guy off toymods in perth. It was a pretty good buy, I may consider rebuilding it first if its cost effective, but the engine I just put in the charade cost about $590, including a bunch of belts, seals mounts and fluids. Its leaving me a bit poor.. Although it was a fantastic deal if you consider it basically was an engine which had done 70 000km's and Its had more than a 100k service.


James Harris wrote on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 09:36 am:

But anyways, good read none the less, so does that mean you will be rocking to work now in the ol Charade? Gotta love a daily.



I'll be taking the Charade till i get the package with the alternator in it! Its economical so I'll probably continue driving it a bit, one for peice of mind that the car is in top condition after replacing the engine, watching temps and listening for rattles etc.


James Harris wrote on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 09:36 am:

So you live in Brookfield, i live at Jindalee. Where you work in Virginia?


I work for a group called "Sema" which is in northlink place, just off Toombul road. We mostly do massive mailings for companies like Telstra and ATO etc. Its a reasonable place, I do low level IT work there (processing masses of data). I read that you were in Jindalea, when I fixed the soarer's heater hose which cracked i headed up there. I used to work (6 years ago) at the centenary shopping centre in the K-mart haha, i also had a few friends who lived in that area. I also spent my youth at the skatepark there, bending the laws of physics to do flips and etc. ;)

If you are interested in more pictures - most of them are in order:
http://s248.photobucket.com/albums/gg195/skythra/charade%20engine%20swap/
Michael Brown
TryHard
Queensland
V8 UZZ31 Limited

Posts: 123
Reg: 07-2009

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Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 04:04 pm, by:  Michael Brown (Madmike1491) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

Hahaha thats one awesome charade :-)
Aiden Cheese
Tinkerer
QLD
Soarer jzz30

Posts: 57
Reg: 09-2009

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Thursday, October 01, 2009 - 11:58 am, by:  Aiden Cheese (Chillpen) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)


Michael Brown wrote on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 - 04:04 pm:

Hahaha thats one awesome charade


Ha ha thanks mate, I love it.

I have to make a decision soon either to sell it or to keep it and make it into something. No point just keeping it in the garage for show. I've got half of a mind to make it the silly car for gassing around while keeping it as stock looking as possible (sleeper), it should look like a car any random grandma would drive then. I've got most of the means to do that, coilpacks and cam from the 1.6 DeTomaso charade and probably either low boosting turbo with new forged piston crowns.. or i've already got instead if i keep it NA for a cost saving, some extractors in the garage (which were off the feroza). I previously had routed a cold air intake after cutting the airbox a hole more than 2x as big as the stock one, siliconed that red pipe on, and routed it to the front left of the front bar where i had cut a hole. It worked in "scooping" in air to the airbox as i gained speed. I wouldn't mind doing that again with a proper exhaust. I had modified the air intake sensor with a resistor which read the air temperature at about 7-15 degrees (variable by a little knob) colder than the actual temps to compensate for the extra air with some more fuel. It worked pretty roughly but well.

See, all I want to do with the soarer is fix up the inside to make it really a good impression car, turn up with it mostly stock, a bit of a subtle stereo in stock mounts and hidden away, replace some internal lights to make it a slightly whiter and brighter cabin, and keep the engine just in top and reliable condition. Fix up any trim damage and have it as the car which always runs. The charade can be bashed around a little and off the road for a few weeks here and there, and you know when it is on the road its still going to be more fuel efficient.

Well thats one theory anyway. Everything always depends on funds :-) If i sell it off i can instantly make enough money to play with the soarer a fair bit too.. and the soarer is a beautiful car.
Michael Brown
TryHard
Queensland
V8 UZZ31 Limited

Posts: 128
Reg: 07-2009

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Thursday, October 01, 2009 - 12:25 pm, by:  Michael Brown (Madmike1491) Quote hilighted text Edit Post Delete Post Print Post   View Post/Check IP (Moderator/Admin Only) Move Post (Moderator/Admin Only)

yea soarers are beautiful cars . I have a 1993 magna wagon and a 1991 v8 soarer and i use the soarer for cruises of pickin up chicks and the magna for goin to work :-) i reckon pimp the charade right up it'd be hell sic.

Mick

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