'87 Golf Zender resto - BUY MY SAAB!

[mikkey180]

Hello everyone,

I have a 1990 Daihatsu Charade 1.3 CX at my disposal, It is driven daily at the moment whilst my Volvo 940 turbo is in for an overhaul for its MOT.
After this we are going to hopefully turn the little beast into a turbocharged trackday project!

Here are a few pics of the car.




Test fitting the 13" alloys!



My idea of turning this little beast in to a track-day car came out of the blue after I booked a track time taster session at Rockingham speedway for my car at the time, A 1993 BMW 318is coupe. Unfortunately this was written off when a van pulled out of a junction into the side of it. The Charade became its replacement.

When the day came for my none refundable track time I thought "I might as well take the Charade as a laugh", see pics below.




(Note, also my Volvo 940, which was a friends at the time)



People at the event absolutely loved the Charade, and it turns out it has a brilliant chassis and handles amazingly! So I have decided once the Volvo is up and running again to turn the Charade in to a little project to see what we can get out of it!

Currently the little Carb'd 1.3 16V SOHC unit delivers a sprightly 75bhp, which in a car that weighs 750Kg is adequate! 



BUT, me and my friends have always wanted to turbocharge an N/a engine, so that is the plan! Although we are thinking of keeping the engine carburettor fed to keep wiring as simple as possible.

There has to be room for a turbo in here surely? That massive lump isn't actually a catalytic converter, so that can go!





This is going to be a long term project which hasn't officially started yet, but I will keep people updated on this thread if there is enough interest!

[THE_Liam]

This sounds like a great project. Love oddball track cars

[nel5on]

Will the Charade GTI 1600 engine fit?

[darrenh]

quite a compact cylinder head, is it one of those funky single cam with 16 narrow lobes like honda ?

[courseout]

There used to be a guy in our car club that hillclimbed his in the stock class (full stock, as in even the tyre size must be original!)

Went quite well, trading power and mechanical grip for lightweight. There was a great feature on one in the Australian magazine Zoom that was built for trackdays and turbocharged. I'm sure someone would've scanned it in, the little Charade was a successful rally car when it was new here

Have fun with it!

[mikkey180]

Thanks for the kind response everyone! I will keep everyone updated and try and be as helpful in the build thread as I can just in case anyone else is thinking of taking this kind of thing on!

The last real drive the Charade had until yesterday had been the track day. And I realised how tired the original springs are. The rear had started bottoming out over speed bumps.

Luckily I have just purchased these: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/121392226411

It looks like they should arrive in time for the weekend so I will let you know how I get on! (With pictures of course)

I would have liked getting some coilovers but for these little charades they have to be custom built and I have seen price tags of around £2,000+!

Hoping these springs will sharpen up the handling even more, and its a nice easy upgrade before the real work begins!

Also I am hoping to have the car set up on a rolling road so I will be able to accurately post the gains in power in the end!

Also, Darrenh - you are correct, it is a 16V with a single overhead cam, I'm not sure how they do it on an engine this small!
Nel5on - That would be interesting, although they seem pretty hard to come by now. Our aim in the long run is to fit the 1.6 from either the Grand Move, Sportrack or Applause (Daihatsu didn't do well on the name front did they?!) which is in essence the same block so we can transfer all of our turbo goodness from the 1.3 straight on to the 1.6 if we are craving more power!

[mikkey180]

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Due to my Volvo blowing up I was driving the Charade about as my daily runner. Then last weekend I decided to play some eBay roulette and ended up winning this peach for £560!!!












Because of this the charade project will be on hold for the time being, although I still have the lowering springs waiting to be fitted and will upload photos once they are on!

[jeffeRS]

Nice looking 924. For very good money. Well done that man. What's the history on the Porsche?

[baggabones]

That 24 looks great for the money, will be watching with interest

[mikkey180]

The 924 was a risky purchase that I made last Friday night, It was 200 miles away and was up for sale with a suspected "bad clutch throwout bearing" but still drivable.

I bought it and drove it home, the car is surprisingly solid for the price I paid for it! and only 97,000 miles backed with previous MOTs and service history.

Now for the interesting part:

The guy advertised it as having "Porsche service history"

He failed to mention that it has a fully documented service history from porsche or porsche specialists and also has tonnes of receipts for maintenance in the past, this includes around £2000 worth of engine overhaul work including refurbishing the head and having new piston rings and big/little end bearings fitted!

At the moment it requires a new clutch kit (and probably a thrust bearing guide tube by the sounds of it) and a midbox as it snapped on the way home (looks to be dated 1996 so I will let it off)

I MIGHT start a reader's rides thread for the porker if people are interested, I will also document the clutch change which will be interesting as it has a rear mounted transaxle!

Piece!

Michael.

[jeffeRS]

Of course we are interested.

[mikkey180]

OK when I am home from work I will start a new thread and hopefully get some photos of it along side my friends '89 Mazda RX7 FC (Ooooh the rival!)

[peter96]

That Porsche seems to have been a great buy. Well done. There was a turbo Charade in the 80s but i think it was based on the 1 litre engine. They made quite good rally cars and were run in the British Championship. They might even have been used in the British Production Saloon car Championship as well. You'll have to get a thread up about the 924.

[mikkey180]

Thanks for the kind words, these 2 cars are like my children haha!

The 924 seems to drive pretty much perfect other than the clutch and awfully loud exhaust!

The inspiration for the Charade was from the same generation model dubbed the Charade GTtI, it was a 3 cylinder 12 valve with DOHC and produced around 110bhp I believe, The specs say 0-60 in the late 7 second range!!! If I can get that out of turboing my 1.3 I'd be over the moon! (Although then it would be considerably quicker than the 924!)

I may start a separate thread for the Porsche, but I am thinking of re titling this one for both of them so that there are lots of updates in one place!

[peter96]

That's what i was thinking about the GTti. Bit of a mouthful. Just remembered it was the earlier boxy Charade that was used as a Prodsaloon.

[mikkey180]

Quick useless update:

The exhaust still hasn't arrived for the Porsche, it is supposed to be going to a car meet on Sunday but I am having a rather big issue with it.

When the release bearing is behaving itself, I can select gears perfectly smooth and all seems good. But when the clutch bearing starts acting up the clutch appears to drag and the car moves forwards if in gear even with the clutch fully depressed!!! I have tried tensioning the cable which has made the pedal feel better but the same problem persists. Is this certainly the clutch release bearing? As it seems a little logical to me!

Also yes, I have a friend with the earlier G10 charade, very characterful for a little box!

Michael.

[mikkey180]

Hello everyone! Exciting update!

Got some new wheels for the charade, and the lowering springs are now fitted, pics to come this evening!

[mikkey180]

So here are the pictures as promised! Let me know what you think and what I should do next!!


Michael.

[omega]

Jan 19, 2015 22:13:06 GMT mikkey180 said:

So here are the pictures as promised! Let me know what you think and what I should do next!!

use it in anger!!

[courseout]

I'm with Omega - drive it like you nicked it!

924 is ace too, wish they were that cheap over here!