Avenga

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.

Meh, need to finish my bloody avengers.

They're quite fun to fang around

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.

there is a blue avenger wagon that is done very similar to how yours is (both amazing) in hamilton that I saw the other day. Nearly pulled over on the spot and asked if he wanted to swap for the merc haha

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.

The '75 looks awesome! Loving the Tridens on it too...

Charger too, is naturally awesome but that pretty much goes without saying...

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.

that second photo- the side shot of the blue avenger- fuck it looks nice there!!!! I never realised how nice they look! Quite a stubby front end I like! nice stance.

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.

impressive!

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

here is what I made for my avenger race car.

you can see more pics at

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rich-mac/

http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auction_detail.asp?id=40758436

http://www.groundsky.co.nz/gssdriver.asp?srch=MacNaughtan[Richard]Chrysler_Avenger

E49 265 Hemi for my charger or a 426 hemi

yup that is the sort of engine the oil crisis really killed. the 426 hemi was my favorite mopar engine. I would love a 1971 cuda with a 426 hemi and a shaker but it is a bit out of my price range so I will just settle for my 265 hemi valiant charger. also the california emission testing was the final nail in the cofin of the 426, it was soo tight that they could not get the 426 to down to those level's. my avenger's 1600cc engine only just managed to get past the 1976 emission laws.

you can still buy brand new create 426 hemi's from mopar in the states, they cost about $7000us for a whole engine and heads. but you have trouble with them on the streets in the usa because of emission testing, like even my new holley carb says on it "warning this product must only be used for racing or off-hiway use. this is not legal to use on road"

that wasnt the last of the pushrod/carb era.. my 77, 78 and 80 all have pushrod/carb engines

my avengers are 1979 and 1980 but their engines first came out in 1972. even my 1984 laser was still pushrod and carb but what I mean by the end of the era was when it stopped being the norm to have pushrod carb engines.

the 70's engine still lived on until the early 80's like my big charger's 265 hemi was still used till 1981 in other valiants and so was my avengers engine.

speaking of bad looking new cars, have you seen the new impreza? it has the ugliest nose I have seen in years. a truely horid looking car.

I just think new cars are boring, they all the same (rubbish) and I really don't like the whole turbo thing. I like naturally asperated cars with big carbs and lumpy cams. cars that have a bit of attitude to them, not just a whiny turbo and blow off valve.

I don't mind re-powering cars as I race my avenger in hillclimbs and track racing and alot of the cars have modern power in them.

Infact I am selling my old avenger race car and building a new avenger powered by a 3s-ge with quad throttle bodies and custom ECU with W58 and hilux LSD.

really I like cars that where designed before 1973, before the oil crisis and before any of the emission controls came in which really hurt the way an old engine was made. that is why I brought my charger and my avengers. last of the pushrod and carbs era. real simple engines.

I also think people who drive old cars are into the mechanicals of their cars, like they know how to strip their engines and work on them themselves rather than just putting a bigger turbo and computer on it, and I think this gives them better respect for their cars.

Thanks, it was a bit of a score when I found it. it had been in storage for 16 years before I brought it. I heard of it from a mate who does the fibreglassing on my race car. it wasn't advertised for sale just one of those word of mouth rare finds you get.

I am building a new avenger. It is powered by a toyota 3s-ge 2L twin cam out of a 90's mr2 or celica. it's mods include quad throttle bodies with multiport direct injection, race head with huge stainless valves, double valve springs, race cams, adjustable cam gear, custom built megasquirt ECU running megasquirt'n'spark, cometic metal head gasket, forged pistons, extra large sump, custom intake with cold air box, custom extractors, super light flywheel made from a converted flex plate. the engine is north-south mounted and isn't running on a slant like in the toyota's.

for the gearbox I have a toyota W58 close ratio 5 speed off a supra and for the rear end I have a hilux LSD with 4.5:1 and 4.785:1 ratios.

suspension will be a totally custom coil over system at the back and mcpherson struts at the front which are adjustable by the lower arms.

I am going to be doing alot of fibreglass on the new avenger also, fibreglass bonnet, boot with spoiler, chin spoiler and front guards and the car will be totally stripped inside with a custom fibreglass dash. avengers are pretty light being only 850kg stock. so with the fibreglass I hope to get her pretty light.

I have done most the motor stuff on it I just need to sell the old avenger so I can afford to get the roll cage and some other stuff done.

It should be a monster when I am done.

It is just a standard 265hemi 3spd auto 770. I have put new extractors and a 2 1/2" pipe with a single coby resonator on it which gives it a nice rumble. I am just fitting a holley 390cfm 4 barrel vac sec carb to it.

I want to keep it pretty stock as it is pretty mint for it's age. it is totally unrestored, still it's original paint and everything. it is just my cruising and tow car. I have my avenger race car I use for when I want to go fast. my avenger is only used on race tracks or hillclimbs so I need a big car to tow it. I usually use our tow truck for towing to most events but it is good to have a back up car capable of towing.

this is a picture of my avenger and my old 1987 3.0L VL commadore I used to use as my tow car.

or for more pictures goto

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~rich-mac

or

http://www.groundsky.co.nz/gssdriver.as ... acNaughtan[Richard]Chrysler_Avenger

Hi guys just posting a picture of my charger.

also check out my avenger race car for sale on trademe at

http://www.trademe.co.nz/structure/auct ... d=39188037