Avenga

Yeah it is pretty crazy the difference. I forget how much work I have done on the Avenger until I see it next to a stock Avenger.

Yours reminds me of my race car when I brought that back in the mid 90's. It was a stock 1980 1.3GL with the same steel rims and hub caps as yours. mine so didn't pull off the hub cap look being that ugly cream colour but I think you wheels look awesome with the black steel rim and the hub caps.

Still need to go for a ride in yours so see what the power difference is like. what did you think of my engine vs stock after going for a ride in it? I was aiming for about double the power of stock.

here a picture of mine 1980 when I got it. This photo was taken in 1999 just before I turned it in to a race car.

Hi Guys, Great night out. Thanks everyone for making a Jafa feel welcome in Hamilton. it was really great to chat Avengers with some of the other Avenger nutters. Hunted it was cool to see your stock 1300 super, it is a tidy little car and really original, if a little high. Yowser hurry up and get one of your Avengers back on the road so we can have a little Avenger cruise.

I got a bit carried away chatting to Yowser about cars so I had to hoof it on the way home, got back to the North shore of Auckland by midnight so I made pretty good time on the way back, weather was really good on the way back, totally stopped raining and got some clear skies so it was a great night for a little night drive.

here are some pictures of the mighty Avengers parked together. Stock Vs customised.

I looked through my manuals and all but 1 shows the UK super dashboard (it has oil, volts, water, fuel and speed guages in a strip format) which has the voltage regulator on the back of the cluster. so does the round cluster Alpine version.

This manual has a photo of the back of the NZ super cluster and you can't see the voltage regulator but looking at the wiring diagram it does have one somewhere. I could email you picture so you can trace the wires back is probably your best bet. I have a double up of this manual. it covers a few things the haynes one doesn't I can give it to you on wednesday if you like. I got it of trademe for $1.

Sweet as. I went down and had a look at them again. drivers side has one rip on the base, about 5 inchs long. passengers side is mint. you could probably just take the good skin off the passengers and use it on the drivers.

The voltage regulator is really easy to spot. if you take the cluster out, it is on the back of the cluster sort of just above the speedo cable. its a rectangular box, usually gray.

I had to make some MDF spacers to stop my speakers hitting the door skin

6.5inch jobbies..

Mine are 6.5 inch also but I got away with not having to use spacers. I found that they use 2 different styles of those plastic door pouch. the black ones are much deeper than the tan ones. I found this out because I did my measuring and test cutting on an old tan one I had laying around and it would fit perfectly with heaps of room to spare so I went and cut a black one and the speaker hit the door. I layed them beside each other and the black one was about an inch deeper than the tan one. so what I did was use a tan back half spray painted black and a black front half.

its actually in really good shape apart from the dash and the drivers seat which has a few small rips in it. is still comfortable and supportive etc (as supportive as a 35 year old lowback seat can be haha)

Yeah dash and drivers seat is always buggered.

My low back drivers has a small rip on it but my passengers is perfect from memory. both are really good in terms of springs and comfort. I can take some better pictures if you like.

Yep I will be bringing the Avenger. I checked with work and they are sweet with me taking the arvo off so I will be down there for sure.

We can compare Avengers. I like the interior of your car. It is the same colour mine used to be. the old owners cut holes in the door car for some tiny little 4" speakers so I had to swap the door cards out with my old donor Avenger I had. it had a good set of door cards, darker tan with a carpet strip on the bottom. I also used some high back buckets instead of the stock seats.

How does your interior look? because I have some spare door cards and seats in your colour that I could be persuaded in to parting with.

Hi Guys, I have done a new update over in my project thread. It shows the broken stuff after my engine upgrade, newly painted bonnet and stage 2 of my audio upgrade.

Okay guys back to the project thread.

Avengers are known for breaking a few things after you increase the power of the engine. I learnt this on my race car but I thought I would be okay because I didn't think it was producing enough power to break stuff.

The funny thing is I was talking to one of my mates about how the standard fans flex and hit the radiator at high RPM and how we both had to switch to electric fans on our race cars, I told him I thought my road car would be fine without an electric fan then the next day on the way back from a mates place I heard this huge bang. Luckly I was literally at the corner of the road I live on so I coasted home and popped the bonnet water was pissing out of the radiator and I could see a missing blade. I walked back up the road and found the blade sitting in the middle of the road.

Also just before that happened I had the other weak link in the Avenger fail. The fuel pump. The shots below are it cracked after my 300KM running in. I replaced it with an electric fuel pump. I had the same thing happen on my race car but again I didn't think the little 1500 had enough power to do that to the fuel pump, it was brand new when I put it in, you can see pictures of it new further up the thread.

okay now for some pictures

Broken fuel pump

Damaged radiator

Broken fan

Spare radiator

Electric fan

Thermostat control box

Fan "on" light and manual override switch

My speedo has never been very acurite and with replacing the dashboard soon I didn't want to fix it so I decided to get a fancy GPS speedo. It is really acurite and it has a programmable overspeed warning which is cool.

Next I got the bonnet repainted, It got some paint stripper or brake fuild dropped on it by my mechanic which ate through some of the paint so he resprayed the whole bonnet for me for free!! it is sort of a satin black, not quite a matt black but not a gloss black.

After that I was taking it down to a car show so I thought I would give it a good clean, when I was finished it looked soo good I figured I should go take some nice pictures of it.

Here is a quick sneak peek at my next project, an Alpine dash and instrument cluster.

Next I went on to stage 2 of my audio upgrade. A kicker amp and sub with a new Pioneer head deck. I have also brought my rear speakers but they will go in over Xmas. I got really good deals all my audio gear from JB HiFi. for example I got the rear 6x9 Pioneer TSD-6902 speakers for $101.

Awesome. look forward to seeing your Avenger in person.

I am thinking of taking a cruise down from Auckland to attend.

You bringing your Avenger Hunted?

That is a common fault with the voltage stabilisers. happens on the Valiants also.

yeah you got to have them above like this.

Sweet as. they are strong little engines so the 1300 should last forever, give us a yell if you need any advice on the Avenger engine.

I wouldn't bother with the hunter engine. Just because it is slightly bigger displacement doesn't mean it's better.

The hunter engine is basically an old humber/minx engine with an extra main bearing. So it was designed ages ago in the 50s, it is a slant motor and in my opinion you can get more power out of an avenger engine.

For example a '74 hunter GT 1725cc was 79HP and a '75 Avenger GT 1600cc was 81HP. The gap gets even bigger the more you modify the engine.

In argentina they rebadged the Avenger as a Dodge 1500 GT-100 producing 105 bhp. It had the 1800 engine Avenger engine and only two Stromberg carburettors. if that had webers or dellortos it would heaps more.

The Avenger engine was designed from the ground up as a brand new engine. unlike the hunter engine which was a slant engine with pretty much square bore to stroke ratio (81.50 mm × 82.50 mm) The avenger engine was straight upright with a very over square bore to stroke (87.30 mm × 66.70 mm).

If you are keen on repowering your 1300 I could be talked in to selling my old 1500 with the downdraught weber. it went well but nothing like my new engine. If I was you I would do what I did and buy a 1500/1600 and strap a set of Dellorto DHLA40's on it. they go really well with a bit of modification.

Race car ones were custom made. I can't remember who I got to do them because I got them done 10 years ago. they are heavy as hell for tarmac racing.

The 1975 had it's springs cut by the last owner but I want to redo them properly.

This is my race car setup

cheers man. Your avenger is awesome, a big reason i got this one. never seen tridents look so good =D. keen to get some period wheels on this and lower it as well.

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.

Yeah this is nice, I have always liked these. Does it have the L shaped tail lights? These were pretty revvy to begin with weren't they?

Up to '78 they had the hockey stick lights. '79 onwards they were rebadged as Chrysler and went to flat tail lights / big ugly headlights.

Blue one had hockeystick lights, red has flat.

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.

nice avengers see your in auckland havent seen many of these down south yet,i left all mine back in eire i had 5 have 2 left the tiger and a 2 door i was goin to v8 but didnt get around to it,still have lots of parts at home if your stuck for anything tricky,im a member of the club to asoc in uk so most things can be got through them,or speedys in uk or mal stuart if you want go faster stuff,there is another member in wellington who has a rally one and a few donors.

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!!