Well... the car is still running fine after the cold winter which it braved by only sitting through it. It had been disabled after around 600 miles after the rebuild and running in period... the exhaust that was welded together precariously for the MOT decided it couldn't hack any more bodge repairs. I then set about hunting down a stainless exhaust for it but during this whole period (of not being able to drive the 126!) I ended up buying an exhaust from Ebay.de, wire brushed and painted it up in halfords high temperature paint only managed to get a little over a couple of coats out of two cans but certainly looks good now and will last
.
Owes me about £65-70 and a couple of hours which isn't too bad. So I can finally drive it around, certainly quieter than I last remember... you might see why... I had to limp home like this:
So whilst I was planning on making a stainless exhaust and designing flanges, I got thinking and ended up getting sidetracked with the idea of a turbo... CAD'ing up flanges, cylinder head gasket designs, decompression plate design. Been watching ebay for a suitable carb but nothing came up just yet at the right price... EFI might be another option. With each of these thoughts I seem to have been set back along the way, as it could of all been done by now theoritically
. A welder I bought turned out to be no good so I had to buy another at a larger financial setback
(long story short, long story is that I spent a few weeks trying to figure out what was wrong on the rats next of circuitry!).
Got a little click happy on auctions for turbos when considering it and ended up winning one from Japan which needs a real good clean inside, will rebuild it and replace journal bearing etc.
not sure if the scale will come off the compressor blades on that one so it may need to be replaced/balanced also. Actuator bracket also arrived sheared from the wastegate arm. It looks like it would be the one for the fiat really as the collector is small enough to get the turbo spinning and would be giving full boost early in the rpm range... although top end would be limited to about 50-60bhp (conservative... maybe more!?). I ended up with another turbo from ebay.it for 200 euro which after more research which would be good for 20psi theoritcally, this an IHI RHF3 VL37 from a 1.4 t-jet, bought with plans for 80bhp of intercooled power.
This arrived without the v-band clamp to hold the two sides together and also the actuator bracket broken off, does noone understand how to remove a circlip!?
. This is a fair bit bigger than the RHF3 VQ38 spec I won from Japan. More "Pint sized" as opposed to the coke can sized VQ38 from Daihatsu... On this the exhaust housing collector is much bigger... i'm not sure the two 1.25" primaries from the cylinder head would get it spooling quite as quick as we'd like but maybe... Its a quite capable turbo for 600-1400cc engines.
Then I ended up buying an engine from ebay and having a friend on facebook collect it for me on his way back home, unfortunately it appears a small part of the block and the oil housing cover both took a beating with the grinder when removed from the poor 126 BIS it was taken from a few years ago by the looks of things. Came complete with a weber carb, though which will be worth rebuilding although missing something on the choke linkage at the bottom, an alternator, dizzy (more importantly a zelmot dizzy cap to steal for my blue 126 BIS!.). Oh and yes another exhaust which i'd ordered a few days prior from Germany, typical! I think the engine might be a little siezed as I couldn't move it by hand but maybe not
. Either way... its something I can play with for turboing/exhaust fitting! Worst case there's a crank, a camshaft that could be sent away for an NA hot cam reprofile and hardening, some pistons... a block to play with... possibilities are endless
.
Now I need a pipe bender that will produce half decent results with a few tooling dies so I can get cracking on with both exhaust and turbo manifold projects! Buying premade bends seems like an option but could end up quite expensive in the end and slow things down, as would building a pipe bender. There are some interesting pipe bender plans so perhaps I might be able to fabricate something now I have a working TIG welder
.
I have recently been considering perhaps using the turbo's on something a little more radical as the whole investment into the BIS engine will result in either entire devotion to keeping my 126 on the road and in my possession... I have the spare engine to work with so I could keep the original rebuilt engine to throw back in there to revert it back to its original self in the future. It seems the prices for 126's are at a fairly stable high at the moment and as they are getting rarer, I wonder how my own car would be valued on the market with the engine rebuild and bringing it back to life after god knows how many years. Loads and loads of receipts and photo evidence I guess so should be respectable
. Perhaps I should sell it and help fund another project
. Its a hard choice on what to do! If I parted ways with this one, its not always good bye... another project isn't so daunting
. The funds would certainly come in handy. But I do love it and gotta love the handling and whole driving experience. I love the way the steering feels when pottering down the road... such an easy ride.
For now I need to find somewhere I can clean up the spare engine and work on it, as at the moment its in the back of the 126! Sitting quite low, a good test for the springs! Thankfully one journey like that was all its having!
