Avenga

Thanks man. It is really good to see how many Avengers there are on this forum. Yeah Avengers really suit an old school set of mags and lowered. I only lowered my 1975 Avenger a little bit. I like how it sits. that was just done with lowered springs. My race car is lowered a lot more and it has totally custom front struts and shock turrets sticking up in to the boot and an Estate diff with custom upper arms.

Nice Avenger. I am about to do a dual headlight conversion on mine. I got my 4 headlight grille for $1 off trademe a while back and got the lights and buckets for about $30 off another guy on trademe. I was just going to fabricate a new mount for them but I will let you know how I get on. I will be doing it after Xmas. I am also doing an upgrade on the instrument cluster. upgrading it to an Alpine cluster. Check out my Avengers in the project thread and PM me if you need any help with the Avenger.

Awesome. It was good to see all the South Island cars down there. I go to so many car show on the North Island you end up seeing the same cars all the time so it was great to get a breath of fresh air and see some new cars.

I got my cage homologated in the early 2000's and it was easy back then. as long as you have good line drawings then your sweet. I also got my national race license which was a really easy open book test. I never bothered getting my authority card because I don't drive it on the street.

Are you the guy I talked to before the cruise at the reclaim the city? I took tons of photos from the whole of the south island cruise and at MiN. I don't know if I am allowed to link to other forums here but PM me if you are keen on seeing the pics. is this your car?

Yeah I have heard of people using Princess 4 pots. I was going to use them on my Avenger but after some research I decided on the Volvo ones. They stop it really well. Thinking of doing the same on the '75.

Awesome stuff!!! keep up the good work and I can't wait to see your next progress shots. When I get around to it I will post some pictures of my race car's suspension and brakes. I have done heaps of work to the suspension in that and run Volvo 4 pot brakes.

Yeah I did do the Reclaim the city run around Christchurch. that drive along the port hills was awesome. The city lights look so really nice from up there. did you go to MiN or the reclaim the city? if so what car were you in? They didn't have the domain hillclimb this year because of funding and council issues but I did do the domain hillclimb in 2004 and 2005 in my red Avenger. I still go every year to watch. I haven't seen another Avenger at that hillclimb other than mine. The best thing about the auckland domain hillclimb is you get really good photos of your car taken by ground-sky photography. you can see my photos from 2004-2005 on their site. either go to the event or just search for Chrysler Avenger. I am the only Chrysler Avenger on that site. Everyone else races Hillman Avengers. Car no. 76 http://www.groundsky.co.nz/ Most the rally guys use 1800cc Brazil engines, In Brazil and Argentina they had Avengers with 1800cc engines sold as Dodge and later VW. they continued till 1990 and even brought out a 5 speed model in 1988. they looked really different in the 80's but you can still see it is an Avenger underneath. I never got round to sourcing a Brazil engine. They are pretty rare now and the rally guys pay top dollar for them so I am happy with my 1600, it is bored out to about 1750 anyway so it is close enough and I have heard parts like the crank are a nightmare to find on the 1800. I don't know how many of the 2000cc engines they made but Chrysler got BRM to make a twin cam 16 valve head and got some Brazil 1800's and bored them out to 2000cc. it was to compete with the Ford BDA but it never really took off. it is a shame because that would be a really hot little engine. The Avenger Tiger was a hot 1500 with dual webbers etc and uprated suspension. there was only 200 Mark 1s and 450 Mark 2s. Mark 1 was only available in yellow with a black bonnet bulge and the Mark 2 was available in red or yellow with a standard bonnet painted matt black. They are super rare now which makes it pretty damn awesome that we have a member here with a genuine Mark 1 tiger. only 200 of them made and god knows hows few are left. I'm really excited about the idea of a Tiger coming to NZ. "avengertiger" would be the man to talk to about Tigers, He would know much more about them than me.

Thanks Valiant. As Yowzer said they rebadged so my 1975 (blue) is a Hillman Avenger with the L shaped hockey stick lights and my 1980 (red) is a Chrysler with the "flat tail lights / big ugly headlights" I like the pre-facelift Hillmans better myself but my 1980 was my first car and I have owned it for about 15 years. brought it in the mid 90's and turned it in to a race car in the early 2000's Avengers do rev well from stock. Stock the redline is around 6,000RPM. My 1975 I shift at 7,000RPM. this is about where you get stuff breaking. I will be posting in my next update what happened in the first few 100km's of giving it full noise in my '75, I cracked the fuel pump and then shortly after lost a fan blade in to the radiator at high revs. I have switched to electric fan and fuel pump. I knew these were a weak spot from my race car but I figured they would be able to handle the power and revs of the '75 but I was wrong. My race car can do 9,000RPM. It valve bounces at about 9,100RPM but most the time I used to shift around about 8,000-8,500 to help the valves last a bit longer. Thanks. I really like your Tiger. I would love to see it in person one day. Thanks for the offer of parts. NZ has a pretty good Avenger comunity. I am pretty sure I know the guy you are talking about in Wellington with the rally avenger (is it an orange one with tiger strips) If that is the guy then I email him quite often. Awesome rally car he has. There are a few of us Avenger guys in Auckland and I know maybe about a dozen other guys around the country who are in to them. there is a guy down in Palmerston North who imports Rootes group parts so he is a good source of parts. I brought the domain name www.avenger.co.nz a few years ago and I really want to get an Avenger site up and going. maybe have some Avenger meets. I belong to a chrysler club for my Chrysler Valiant Charger and we just went to a big meet in Nelson followed by a tour around the whole south island (4500km) so I was thinking of doing something for the Avengers. Maybe like a annual or bi-annual Avenger meet somewhere in the middle. I haven't done any of the web design yet but I plan to do something with the site in the new year so I will let you know if there is any updates on that. I know there is a lot of people who would be keen to see your Tiger. I don't think there are any other Tigers in NZ. there is only a dozen or so 2 doors also. I have seen 2 of them in person, only was a rally car with a 1800 brazil engine!!

Nice Valiant. The 383 looks great in there. Looks like it just fit.

Thanks. I am really pleased with the engine. It's not as aggressive as my race car engine but it is a strong fast street engine. It has heaps of get up and go but tame enough to sit in Auckland traffic.

Okay now on to the fun stuff, the new engine. It is a 1973 1500cc Avenger Alpine engine. It has all new lightened and balanced internals, polished crank etc. Heaps of work done on the head. custom ported and flowed with new valve guides and inserts. Custom cam made for the flow of the head. New GT double valve springs. Carbs are dual DHLA40's on a modified manifold which has been port matched to the head and a set of modified headers. It is pretty quick for a 1500, it loves the revs. pulls 7,000RPM with ease. Any questions feel free to ask at //oldschool.co.nz/phpbb/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=25075 Custom Kelford cams spec sheet Engine in the shop all ready to be swapped over Engine fitted in the car ready for its running in. I couldn't get the K&N's in time for the running in so I did my first 300km with no filters. sounded awesome After the running in with the K&N filters on. I have since removed that ugly cable going across the carbs and done some more engine bay clean up.

After sorting out the interior a bit I turned my focus to getting more power. I found the intake manifold new on Trademe for around $100 from aussie then the Dellorto DHLA40's were 2nd hand on Trademe for abour $500. also found a new fuel pump on Trademe. Next thing was to search for a good block to built the engine on. I was looking for a 1600 Avenger Alpine engine because they have a dual timing chain, double vavle springs and a better head to start with. I put a wanted ad in trademe looking for an Avenger engine. I got a few replies. the first was a standard 1600 from Hamilton for $200 which I passed on because the engine was pretty rough. Next offer was a pair of 1600 Alpine engines up north for $100 but they had been sitting outside for years so I passed on those. Finally I got the offer I wanted. It turned out to be only a 1500 but I bored it out so it is the same bore as a 1600 but just a slightly shorter stroke which can be a good thing. The engine was out of a 1973 Avenger Alpine, the only year Alpines had a 1500. It was the guys fathers car and the engine had been rebuilt in 2000 then put in a garage in 2004. I got the engine for $100 for the block and head only. I also brought some new headers and got them HPC coated. it was about $250 for the headers and about that again for the HPC coating but they look really great so they are worth it. When I pulled the engine apart it was mint inside, you could still see the hone marks on the bore from the last rebuild and all the bearings were mint. Because I was building this as a performance engine I decided to replace all the internals even though they were pretty good already. Carbs and intake manifold New fuel pump. see it's demise in later posts Shiney headers. they look soo cool. it is a real shame they are hidden by the carbs when they are in the car because they look awesome The new 1500 Alpine in it's old home in Wellington before it was pulled out and sent up to Auckland The new engine stripped and ready to start the rebuild

I am a bit the same with my 1980 race car. I really should do something with it. at least now I have more garage space so I can keep the race car and Charger in the garage and '75 in the car port. I haven't started the '80 in a few years so I hope it still runs.

Hows your Avenger going? I remember reading your project post on it a while back. have you done anything since? Avengers are great fun to fang around in. they are really light and you can get a fair amount out of the engine. I will be posting some engine pictures tomorrow.

haha cool. I will keep an eye out for your tooting and hollering. actually it is funny how often that happens. I was up in Albany on Saturday and I had a guy on a bike pull up beside me at the lights and ask what I had under the hood. most people are surprised when I say its only a little 1500.

Yeah, it's pretty hard to miss the Avenger. It turns a lot of head. Probably would have been Friday you saw me. I was driving the Charger on Monday. I will definitely pop out to the burgerfuel thing. I will decide on the day which car I bring.

I have just put up some more pictures of some of the stuff I have been doing on the Avenger so check it out. I will post up some pictures of the engine build and swap later. I think I may know the wagon you are talking about. there was a wagon for sale on trademe about 6 months ago that was a same color as mine and was made about a week later than mine (late september 1975) The wagon was sold in Auckland so it is very likely that it went to Hamilton. It is a factory colour called Crystal Turquoise. Mine is still factory paint. it is in pretty good nick for it's age. the first owner owned to for 28 years and I am only the 4th owner so it has been pretty well looked after for most it's life. I used to own an Avenger Wagon but it was just a parts car I brought for $125 so I could use the estate diff in my race car. Thanks. I like the tridents. having Hotwires on my race car and Womags on my Charger wanted something different. I was glad that it came with the tridents when I brought it because I think they really suit it. Yeah the Charger is just a beast. I have just finished a 4,500km cruise around the North and South Island back in October and it was awesome on the windy roads of the west coast etc. we had a whole bunch of Chargers with us on the cruise and they are just awesome cars.

At the same I expermented with different Avenger seats I had and after a bit of driving around I decided to go for the high back buckets because the low backs are pretty uncomfortable with the lack of shoulder support. At the same time I replaced the seatbelts and started my audio upgrade. I replaced the door cards which the old owner had cut up to put some crappy 4" speakers in. I went for some Pioneer TSD-1720 6.5" components with the woofer in the door and the tweeter in the dashboard. it has some old Pioneer 6x9" in the back which I will be replacing with some new Pioneer TSD-6902 speakers soon. I have just finished the second stage of my audio upgrade but I will post the photos of them later so it says in chronological order.

My first project was a bit of an interior dress up. I am still not finished this as I have an Alpine dash to go in but that is on my to do list. First thing I did was get rid of the steering wheel and gearknob. After that I pulled up the ugly checkerboard they had on the floor. Once I pulled up the checkerboard I could see why they put it there in the first place. The carpets were completely rotted away. there was a few leaks which would have caused the carpets to get wet and rott. I guess the last owner just wanted to cover up the problem so I stripped out all the carpets and fixed all the leaks. I got a new set of carpets made for me by Autodec in Manakau and spent the weekend pulling out the old stuff and installing the new carpets. When I first saw the state of the carpets I was really worried thinking I would have heaps of rust on the floor to deal with but as you can see it was sweet once I got the carpets out. Drivers side front before And after Passengers side before After Passengers rear before and after Drivers rear before After Back section fully stripped This is the only solid bit of carpet I got out of the whole car. anything touching the floor was just sludge. Mostly clean, ready for the new carpets. I did some more scrubbing after these photos just to get it spotless before installing the carpets. Installed some underlay to help with the road noise. Then came the new carpets. I had to modify them a bit to fit but all the joins are hidden by the center consoles so it looks mint when everything else is in.

Okay. I am going to start from the beginning of my 1975 Avenger projects. As this is my daily driver I have been doing little mini projects so I don't have to use the Charger too much, I like to save the Charger for the weekends. Before I brought this car I had been eye it up at a few car shows. I saw it for sale at Galaxy of cars and at the MoPar nationals and since I had just become self employed I was looking for a new daily driver. Here are some pictures from the night I went to pick it up. When I brought it it had a stock 1500 with a down draught weber and Alpine exhaust manifold on it. It went okay for stock but it was pretty gutless so I knew that had to go. But more about that later.

Thanks. That is one of my favourite pictures of my 1975 Avenger. I am a bit bias but I do think Avengers are a damn fine looking car. I took that picture on a club run down in Napier. Cheers. It's good to see another Avenger out there racing. You have more guts than me racing your Avenger on gravel. I only race mine on tarmac. I lent my race car to one of my mates for a year to do some gravel racing in return for doing the new paint job and he said it went really well on gravel. I should drag it out of the garage and take some pictures of it with it's new paint job.

Hi Guys. This is the discussion thread for my cars. You can see them here: viewtopic.php?f=17&t=25074 I will be posting heaps more pictures of all the customising I have done. Mostly on my 1975 Avenger because that it my current project. Cheers guys.

Hi Guys. I haven't been on the forum for about 5 years or so. I usually hang out on a MoPar forum but I have had some guys from this forum contact me about my Avengers so I thought I would share my collection of cars with you guys. Here are some up to date shots of the Avenger At the moment I have 2 Avengers and a Chrysler Valiant Charger. My daily driver is a 1975 Hillman Avenger which I brought earlier this year and am slowly customising to my tastes. I have just replaced the engine with a 1500 Avenger Alpine engine with dual Dellortos etc. I also have a 1972 Chrysler Valiant Charger which I have owned for 6 years and is mostly stock, I rebuilt the engine last year and put drop spindles in the front and bigger tyres but other than that it is all original. My Last car is my 1980 Chrysler Avenger race car, I have had this car for about 15 years and it was my first car. I raced it from about 2000-2006 now it is sitting in my garage taking a back seat to my other projects. So here are some pictures of my rides. My 1972 Chrysler Valiant Charger 770 My 1975 Hillman Avenger My 1980 Chrysler Avenger race car