chevette engine conversion

[rs2000escort]

hey,

Im doing an engine conversion on my 1979 vaxuhall chevette, I have a G200 piazza motor and 5 speed gear box, and disc rear end.

I have fitted the rear end all is sweet with that, what i am wondering is with the engine conversion what engine moubts should i use ?? the standard 1275cc engine mounts or the g200 engine mounts ?? and with the gear box crossmember what mods do i have to make?? and what drive shaft do i need to use the standard chevette driveshaft or piazza one??

and last question im putting the front hubs, disc's and brakes from the piazza onto the chevette, im just wondering is the offset different or the same ??

any info will be primo.

thanks David.

[QCADTA]

id use the g200 engine and gearbox mounts, guess wore goin to have a bit more power so i wouldnt risk tearing the old 1275 ones to shreads and since your using all the piazza running gear wouldnt it make sense to use the drivehaft as well if neither one bolts straight up? do one of the front disc changes to one strut and you should be able to work out the difference in offset from there.

[Gaz]

http://nzgem.proboards51.com/ will provide you all the answers you need. I started a thread there a few months back asking similar.

Is it g200w or g200z?

Outcome:

Use

Gemini engine mounts

Gemini diff (bolts in)

Gemini driveshaft (doesnt need shortening)

Gemini sway bar (bolts in and is needed to clear the sump)

G200Z + box

All you have to do is wiring and make a gbox mount which is easy. Just rock it accross the bottom of the gbox and bolt through the floorpan with a plate ontop aswell.

If the engine is g200w then you may have problems with it fouling the brake booster. In this case a 2l cortina round type mount may give the added height to clear the booster.

I havnt yet got round to trying this but it all sounds easy peezy. All info is from people who have done the conversion before.

Goodluck.

Gaz

[mikuni]

As above:

Mounts: Get some G161Z Gemini mounts and put the right one on the left side of the block and the left one on the right side of the block, otherwise the engine will sit in the wrong position. These are the steel mounts that bolt to the block too. Once these are on it will line up with the little rubber chevette mounts, which you may like to replace with cortina ones (which bolt in) as the chevette ones will be fucked.

Gearbox mount is kind of hard to do because nothing lines up and you may want to cut out the original chevette mounts because they are in the complete wrong spot, but won't get in the way with the small gearbox you are using. Just knocking the floor to be abit flatter and welding in a couple of plates with captivated nuts will be the go for the crossmember. Not sure if I have pics of this in my project thread but something similar to what I did will work well.

Driveshaft: I'm not sure if the Piazza driveshaft will work here, because the Piazza wheel base is apparently 50mm longer. If it doesn't an end change will only be around $150.

Brakes: Piazza front stub axels will bolt on (with Piazza tie-rods) but CHANGE THE LOWER BOTTOM BALL JOINT for the very best one you can find (it can fail and causes bad things to happen! trust me ), Gemini ones will fit but PIAZZA ONES WILL NOT. Piazza tie rod ends have a different size taper, which you will need.

Offset: The offset on your Piazza diff is actually different to Chevette. It is 50mm wider so you will need to run rims with a strong FWD offset (ie +45) and probably 7 inch will be the widest you could go.

Piazza front axels will actually give a lower offset than the Chevette ones, in that the bolting face will be closer to the centre of the car. You will see what I mean when you get both of them side by side. I run Piazza front brakes on my car and have had no trouble with offset on the front. It may look a bit funny though, because you are moving the front in 10mm or so either side, and the back out 25mm either side. You may need to run spacers with the wheels you chose if they are FWD offset as mentioned above.

Swaybar: As Gaz said, sway bar is key. Get a Gemini one or you can buy and aftermarket whiteline one like I have for about $150 if you can find a second hand gem one easily.

Clearance: I had a G200W in my old Chevette and it went in ok. I actually cut the radiator support panel out to give me more room for a big radiator and thermo fan but you could probably get away with not cutting it, just modifying if slightly to run a rad underneath, like I have done with mine.

If you are using the twincam G200W you might need to modify the brake booster, again like Gaz says. The easiest thing to do is just grab the master from the Piazza with the remote resevoir, as this should clear everything alright. The clutch cable might also be an issue but this will be easy to resolve.

If using the G200Z singlecam you shouldn't have any clearance issues.

Hope that covers everything. Weren't you going to be using a turbo pinto or something? Was looking forward to that!

[rs2000escort]

cheers for that everyone.

and i had the pinto in and mounted with the 5 speed on it etc and it fitted sweet itfor sale atm but if it dont sell it i will rebuild it and run that at a later date depending on my money and others cars this is more of a side project for me atm but i will keep you updated.