Avenga

I started the build about 2 months ago, over on the Avenger forum. I wanted to make sure that the V8 would at least fit before posting it here. Slightly more different modgies. My rear diff is about 100mm narrower than the standard Avenger diff so I am going to have to run quite a bit of negative offset which sort of limits my wheels. They are pretty much going to be the chrome version of the black D windows on my 75 Avenger. Yup. That's the dash. It's an AIM MXS Strada, street icon version. It's pretty cool. Has really good software that lets you design how you want the dash to look. and then you can store 6 layouts then just switch between them on the fly. You can add a GPS and it can do lap times etc so if I am doing a track day then I can just switch over to one of the track layouts and it will show all my lap times etc. Yeah. I will be lifting the rev limit. The throttle bodies and better exhaust should let me pull some more revs. I have the link ECU so I will run it up on the dyno when I am tuning it then decide where to set the rev limit based to the HP curve.

Yeah. It’s staying stock other than the mechanicals. I have hidden all the reinforcements under the body and I hope to get the trumpets under the hood, so it should look really stock, until you open the hood or start the car. The modgies are going. I am going to replace them with 15x7 chrome D windows.

Started on the hydraulic clutch pedal and master cylinder. The reservoir will be mounted in the engine bay, next to the brake master fluid so I can keep an eye on the fluid level easily.

Yes, the diff was built by @johnny.race I brought it off him on trademe, didn’t know he was on the forum. He did an awesome job on the diff.

I’m getting Bygone Autos to do all the fab work for me. They did really great work on my other Avenger Yeah. Should be a really cool sleeper because nobody would expect a V8 in a little Avenger Wagon.

Thanks guys. It should be pretty fun to drive when it is finished. I'm going to try to keep it looking like a total sleeper, so hopefully I can fit everything under the bonnet.

Discussion thread for my V8 powered Avenger wagon

Some shots of the radiator. Clearance between the motor and radiator is going to be tight On the front we are running two big electric fans which are tucked away nicely behind the grill I found a really nice narrowed Hilux diff on Trademe, so that saves be getting my one narrowed and it came with all the brake set up It is narrowed from 1470 down to 1290mm from WBF (wheel bolt face) to WBF, with a 5 x 114.3 PCD. 4.1 LSD. Rekitted Rx7 s4 rear calipers, new vented rotors, new brake pads. Waterjet cut 8mm thick disc brake adapter plates. It is about 100mm narrower than the standard Avenger diff so I will be running more negative offset on the rear rims. Should look pretty sweet. Got all of my electronics. The loom was built by NZEFI, custom made for the V8 Avenger wagon There is a crap ton of wires. I am going to have a go at wiring everything up myself. It is all really well labelled which will make it a lot easier. And I brought all new connectors for everything on the engine, and all new sensors. Also got the digital dash. It looks a little small outside of the car but it should look pretty good once it is installed Finished the firewall and transmission tunnel. Looks really clean from in front, you can hardly tell it was cut when the engine is in place Looks really nice one the inside It nicely sits under where the old heater used to be Finished new chassis rails. And the other side It connects up to the factory rear chassis rails

The V8 fit surprisingly well ;D Looks good from below. It is a front sump so the sump clears the crossmember Length looks okayish. I might push the firewall in because we want to move it a couple of inches back. Width is good. We might even be able to fit the factory headers on. Height also looks good so I think we might be able to fit the trumpets and everything under the bonnet so it will be a real sleeper. Bell housing fits inside the transmission tunnel. Here is a better look at the Hydraulic clutch bearing And how it bolts on to the gearbox. So was officially the point of no return. We marked out where we wanted to make the cut in the firewall. And then made the big cut. It looks so strange being able to look up and see the roof of the car from below the car Next up we made the chassis reinforcement rails And the other side Looks really tidy from above. From the front you can see back seats What do you think of the little modification to the number plate? we changed from AVENGA to AV8NGA. It's a nice play on Avenger and V8 combined. I checked and it is available but it is about $1000 for a personalised plate so I don't know if it is worth it. It looks like a Fred Flintstone car from the inside Gearbox crossmember is finished. This thing looks like a piece of art, its a shame it's under the car and no one will ever see it. looks super strong. It is attached to the new chassis rails. The V8 looks great in position with the trumpets on

Already had the 1UZ-FE engine from another project Avenger that I never got around to. Brand new R154 gearbox for it Independent throttle bodies And Hilux Limited Slip Diff Brought the clutch, flywheel and pressure plate. Got the hydraulic clutch release bearing This is a specially modified bearing from Manon Racing Products (MRP) The independent throttle bodies look so sexy on the V8! They ever so slightly overlap And they are a little bit staggered Installed the clutch. The kit I brought didn't come with a ring gear so I had to use the one off the old auto flex plate. Installed the clutch release bearing in to the gearbox I also decided on the ECU. I am going all out and getting a Link G4+ Storm. I am buying it from NZEFI and they do bundled easy wire kits for the 1UZ They also do a complete new set of connectors so I will be able to just crimp these on to the premade kit and it will be really tidy, I won't have to use any of the old Toyota loom, it will all be new and only the bits that I need. I have also decided on the dash. I am going for a AIM MXS Strada Digital Dash Display. It is pretty awesome. It has tons of different layouts and I can load 6 different ones to the switch between while driving. They are all customisation also. They have ones like the photo below, but also ones with your classic analog gauges for speed and RPM. It also has shift lights. It's not going to be cheap. It is about $6K just for all of the electronics but it will be worth it because it will all be new and all be top of the line stuff.

Discussion thread Hi Guys. I haven't been on the forums for a while. Some of you might remember my Avenger "Panther" Well I have started my next Avenger, this one is code named Hydra for reasons which will become clear. A little back story first. Went up to view the wagon back in September of last year. Loved it so much that I took the Charger up the next weekend and towed it back home Only took me a couple of days to get it back up on the road. Pretty much only needed the brakes redone. Looked pretty damn sweet with my personalised plates on it. Cleared out some room in the garage so I could fit all three cars in Took it on a little road trip over the Xmas break in the Wagon, but it only had the original 4 speed gearbox and a 4.11:1 diff so it revs at 4,000RPM at 100KPH, so I knew something had to be done. First night we stayed in this awesome little bach in Urenui, just north of New Plymouth. Then we did the Forgotten Worlds Highway. Had this awesome tunnel and gravel roads, that was a bit challenging with how low the wagon is. Then the next night we stayed at a bach in Mangakino Also took it to some car shows with my Avenger Panther, and one of my friends Avenger's Then took the wagon down to Papamoa for the long weekend. Now is where the fun bit starts.

You can borrow the Charger. It would be perfect since it's paint job is from a 70's cop chase film. It was the main hero car driven by 2 ex-Nascar supermarket robbers and their female side kick. They extorted $150k from a supermarket to fund their NASCAR dreams but the cops gave chase. It all ends in a massive fireball as the Charger is hit by a train. It is actually a pretty cool movie. Just as long as it doesn't end up like the car in to movie

Sweet. I have always wanted to try my hand at speedway. got any mods you would recommend? I have Next Car Game. I don't play it that much because it doesn't support motion or any of my gauges. Here is a video of Next Car Game I recorded a while back.

Thanks. This started off as just a G27 with triple monitors but I sort of got a bit carried away somewhere along the track. Yeah, I play rFactor 1 & 2, Assetto Corsa, Dirt 2 & 3. Just preordered the new Grid game. I also play Euro Truck Simulator 2, got to love those big trucks At the moment my favourite sims are Game Stock Car, Formula Truck and rFactor mods with oldschool cars like Historic GT and DRM Revival.

Thanks guys. I have spent the last 6 months building my rig. Took me ages to import all the parts. I should probably make a build thread under the "Other Projects" section. I took heaps of progress shots as I went along. The same guys who built my Avenger did all the fabrication on my rig. I have one or two upgrades to go and then I can get back to my V8 Avenger.

Yup. Here are some more photos. This is my rig in it's current form. It is always a work in progress. This is it in my F1 configuration. I have quick release steering wheels so I can switch over to a BMW GT3 rim for my rally stuff. This is sort of my POV while racing. I sit a bit lower but the camera isn't wide enough angle so I needed to take the photo from above the seat. I just added a GS-4 seat which simulates g-forces while cornering and braking etc. Here is a close up of my gauge cluster I use a hydraulic handbrake and sequential shifter when I go rallying I have 8 transducers in different places around my rig which reproduces the vibrations you feel in a real car. The are positional so if I run over a ripple strip with my left front wheel then the left front of my rig will shake. In this photo you can see the one on my shifter which does engine vibrations and gear shift effects and in the background my front left shaker which does the suspension effects. I also have ones on the pedals, under the seat and on my sequential shifter Here are some videos of my rig in action Here are the full specs of my rig GT Omega Evo race cockpit SimXperience GS-4 motion seat. Fanatec Clubsport Wheel with BMW M3 GT2 & Formula rims Fanatec Clubsport V2 Pedals DSD CSW dual button boxes DSD hydraulic handbrake DSD Short Shift Pro-Comp Sequential Shifter Logitech G27 H-Shifter running through a Basher Boards FL2 USB adapter (to be replaced by a Fanatec clubsport shifter SQ when they become available in New Zealand) DYI digital handbrake 1 x Buttkicker Advance, 5 x Buttkicker Mini LFE SE and 2 x Aura AST-2B-4 Pro Tactile Transducer with Simvibe 3 x Kool Sound LX-2450 2 x 450 Watt RMS Amplifiers Buttkicker BKA300-4 1 x 300 Watt RMS Amplifier Logitech 5.1 Z906 speakers TrackIR Pro 5 Siminstruments Dash Symprojects Pro-gauge and Rev Burner running 8 Autogauge gauges My PC Specs are Intel i7 3770k 3.5GHz 32GB RAM Nvidia Geforce GTX 680 3x Asus 27" monitors running in surround and 1x HP 24" screen for telemetry data 512GB SSD + 2x 1TB RAID 1 HDD

I use something like that on my PC sim racing rig. Main switch is the ignition and the button is a starter. here is a diagram of how you would do it in a car.

I'm keen

Hi Guys. My photos from Kumeu Hotrod Show are up on my website now. http://www.rpmphotography.co.nz/index.php/Kumeu-Hotrod-Show-2014

I am meeting a few of my MoPar mates at westgate @ 8:30am on Saturday if anyone is keen to join us.

I would be keen to convoy with anyone going.

The ones on Trade Me are twin Stormbergs. He is after Dellortos.

Hi. The manifold is the hard bit. I got mine off trademe from a guy from Aussie. Try joining the Avenger forum at http://www.avenger.co.nz/forum You will probably have better luck over there.

A bit of bad news. On the way back from the South Island the engine in the Avenger went boom. I was hoping it was just a blown head gasket but after we got the head off we found that it had melted one of the pistons. Looks like one of the carbs got blocked then the engine ran lean. I had this same thing happen to my race car down the back straight at Pukekohe. I need to replace the pistons and rings etc, clean up the bore and get rid of all the melted piston. after that I need to crack test the block and rebuild the rest of the engine. It will be out of action until after xmas.

Coming back from the South Island. I had complete over 2,500km of my trip and I was just coming up the Bombay Hills. I was gunning it up the hill, foot flat to the floor in third, pulling about 6-7000RPM hooning up the fast lane then boom! lost all power, chucked it in second and darted for the first exit up the Bombays. Spluttered through the intersection on like 2 cylinders then stopped and waited for a tow. I think it has blown a head gasket between two of the cylinders. The temperature jumped up to about 3/4, there was no oil in the coolant or vice versa, I didn't lose any coolant but I lost about a litre of oil so I think that when the gasket blew it blew into one of the oil galleries. The gutting thing is I could see Auckland from where I broke down. All that way and let go less than an hour from home. Just got it towed down to Bygone today so I will see what they say next week.