Supercharged 4AGZE powered X

P

patrickza

Low Mileage
Ok after testing the uno turbo powered X I wasn't sure, so I went to go see a second one tonight. This one is a 78 with the supercharged toyota 4agze engine in it.

The good news:

  • The car has been resprayed and all rust has been removed.
  • This car is seriously seriously quick.
  • The workmanship looks great, it was a 6 year project for the guy who's always had a fetish for the X.
  • He has a brand new spare windscreen which he'll throw in with the deal.
The bad news:

  • Tiny paint cracks where the windscreen joins the body.
  • The fuel tank is now in the front boot, and only 25 liters.
  • The rear boot is also taken up by the engine.
  • It's very loud!
  • The left mirror is missing.
  • Couldn't figure out how to adjust the passenger seatbelt.
He's asking about $1500 more (just about $5000 in total) than the guy with the turbo powered x, but I think it's well worth it.

This is the one I'm going for, it looks fantastic, goes great and has been well taken care of. To be honest was looking for more of a cruiser than a racer, so the noise bothers me as does the small tank up front, but I'll quite likely fit a quieter exhaust when the time comes.

Here are the pics, they were taken at night so it's a little dark:
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Well... well... well...

Ya gotta get this thing out in the sunlight...

I dunno if its ROUGH or its just DARK...

But my first impression is that it is not engineered that well... and my second impression is that it will require some work to meet MY needs, and my third impression is that it's probably one hell of a ride!

Lastly... if yur talking about the equivilant of $5000 USD then for all the trouble its gonna cause ya and all the fun yur gonna have... its really priced about right!

I think the first thing I would do is tilt the radiator forward and vent it up outta the bonnet and then install a wall to wall fuel cell. Secondly... some kinda small rear trunk could be fitted and third... with what appears to be some clean lines and body work... a later model engine cover would be to my taste... with raintray removed!

Please DO take some more fotos for US!

Good luck with this also!
 
It's mine!

Offer accepted, $4800, and he's going to put it through roadworthy (kind of like an MOT in South Africa), fix the passenger seatbelt and replace the door mirror.

Expected delivery on the 18th of September, I can't wait!
 
congratulations

it should be a lot of fun for you, I to would really like to see some better pics.
 
Oh yeah, this would be big fun

Let's see, a JDM 4agze has 160hp, add the HKS overdrive pully and you're at 180, mild cams and you're at 200. And a lot of the 4agze's came with LSD in their trans too.

And your car looks stock; won't you be surprising a lot of people!

Congrats!
 
Looks Great!

One thing, though - the negative battery cable grounded via the strut plate seems a little dodgy...
 
So look what followed me home... With pictures

Lots of work to do on this car:
-It dies while idling fairly often, I'll take it to a tuner next week.
-I need to fit new mirrors, one was lost on the left, so I've got a matching pair of bullet style mirrors to fit.
-The left window tries to slide down at an angle and gets stuck.
-Speedometer is not working at the moment, will check the connections.
-I don't like the interior, I'll fit some new seats and try do some neatening up in there.
-Sounds like the front right wheel bearings need replacement.
-There might be some brake binding as it doesn't roll as freely as I think it should.
-The steering column seem to move a fair amount when pushed up, down and from side to side.

If you guys could point me in the direction of the thread to solve some of these I'd really appreciate it.

The supercharger is turned on via a switch on the dashboard. Running without it gives plenty power though and is really quite smooth (apart from the occasional idle issue). Once you flip that switch though it's an absolute animal. It shoots through the rev range in every gear! I'll try to hook up a GPS to do some timed runs to 60 to see how they come out. It feels very quick! Oh yes, and it does have a limited slip diff.

And here are some daytime pics for you guys:
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Sure looks GREAT w/o marker lights and bumpers...

... as for your troubles though... outside of the windows, yur basically on your own... as everything else is a custom installation on this car.

Your window issue is PROBABLY a cable or roller off its track... possibly a broken roller axle. If so, it MAY haveta be rewelded to repair... and I dunno about the door skin if ya haveta do that!

Have fun regardless!
 
It's a nice project ....

But that battery should be relocated well away from the fuel source for safety's sake.
I'm not sure why the builder placed the rad in that position. The standard rad can cope with 240bhp easily, with only a supplimentary fan by the side of the standard fan.
If the rad was re-relocated back to its original position then you could cut out the kidney dish panels in the rad shroud and vent the hot air from the rad out of the front bonnet area. (Well you could if you still had the rad shroud!)
The relocation would allow a standard fuel tank to be placed within the chassis rails and the fuel pickup can be switched to suit the new flat location.
Looking at where the intake is sited means, with the radical rear body mods, that dust will be drawn into the K&N filter. Better if it is relocated to pick up clean air from a side vent, or similar. This would be better for power as the engine heat would not be drawn into the inlet too.
Last point. The loss of the front rad shroud means that, if in the event of a frontal shunt, like a lamp post or similar, there would be little to stop said post crushing the front section and bursting open the fuel tank. Perhaps a hefty cross brace to reinforce the front structure could be fabricated?
 
Updates

So I've fixed a few things and found a few more:

  • It idles! Just upped the idle speed with a slightly longer screw, so now it idles at 1200, but really smoothly. I'd like it to be a little lower, but 1200 rpm is fine for now.
  • We have speedometer. Seems it's an electronic speedo, so it just needed to be set correctly. It shows the right speed now, but I think it's measuring distance in miles rather than km.
  • Figured out the seatbelt adjustment. Still I'm not fond of these 30 year old belts, I'd love to put some normal belts in, is there something that bolts in?
Sadly I've found some rust. Was under the dash looking up at the master cylinder and saw the underside of the dash has rust on it. Nothing majoy, it's quite light seems to be only surface rust, but it's there. Looks like it could be quite a job getting to that spot. I imagine it was an oversight when they cleaned up and resprayed the car...

Then I was also told the break lights aren't working. Checked and they're not. I don't have a copy of the fuse diagram which is what I'd like to check first. When I brought the car home my friend following said they were working. Hopefully just a fuse then. Anyone have the fuse layout to share?
 
HA... a fuse layout for WHAT???

I'm afraid yur gonna haveta start tracing out the wiring for yourself on this animal. Why would you think there would be a common wiring diagram? What BASE year is/was this car anyway?

As for seatbelts... there are PLENTY of aftermarket belts available out there but probably NOTHING that is a "direct bolt in" for an X1/9.

I'm sure there are belts that will indeed bolt in... but don't be looking for a catalog listing them for an X.

GOOGLE seatbelts and also look for them at Summit Racing. Summit usually gives ya specs on all their parts also. Measure your own belts for length, and bolt hole sizes and type of buckles. You'll want at least a 3 point belt... but maybe ya might wanna go to a 4, 5, or 6 point harness for this beast!

Good luck and send us MORE fotos when ya decide.
 
Hahaha, oh dear. Well I guess I could spend some time with the multimeter in hand. I was hoping that there might be someone with a '78 owners book in hand with pictures and a fuse box layout like there was for my old e30 bmw :doh:
 
There are some pages of wiring layouts ...

on this site in the archives Patrick, but '78 was a particularly bad year as it was the intro year for the 1500. The result was that Fiat used up a lot of old wiring and introduced new colour codes which makes that year worse than most.
My guess is that you wiring has been modded extensively anyhow.
 
9151 said:
But that battery should be relocated well away from the fuel source for safety's sake.
Click to expand...

um... safety of what? Maybe I'm missing the obvious. Because I would consider the battery itself as the bigger threat over the fuel cell.
You're insinuating that the battery being by the fuel is un-safe. Well I'm trying to figure out how. Because 90% of cars on the road have whats known as a fuel pump. And it's located inside the fuel tank.... that fuel pump has two wires that are submerged in the fuel too. They're the power wires for the fuel pump. And they usually go to a connector on the fuel pump with exposed spade connections. which means that...... um the same 13.6 DC volts that's powering up the fuel pump are are submerged in gasoline. Dang.... if that was a problem... you would think that 90% of all cars on the road would spontaneously burst into flames.
Unless what you are suggesting is that in a wreak some metal could short the battery creating a spark which could ignite leaking fuel.... which would be true with any part of the vehicle where power and fuel are in close proximity.
But really... any metal shorting out the battery would be more likely to make the battery itself blow up and be the danger... and if that happened on any car no matter where the fuel tank is it would be bad and potentially ignite fuel even if the tank were on the other side of the car..... just because I know that batteries can blow up quite impressively by themselves.
That's my theory on it.... just curious if maybe there is an angle on all this I'm overlooking.
And I ask..... because my lead acid battery is mounted up there with my fuel cell too.... and if it really is dangerous.... I'd like to address that.
 
You make a good point Matt

My concern is that location of a fuel source and an ignition source is a basic safety aspect. Show me one car in production where the battery and the fuel tank are in the same, non-partitioned, unsegregated area and I'll concede.
As a scruitineer in Modsports racing in the UK for ten years in the '70s it gives me the heebie jeebies when I see such installations.
Another point is this, which immersed fuel pump are you refering to? Not in the exxy anyhow. My own Faran has a Facet solid state pump mounted on the bulkhead next to the fuel pickup, but even then the fuel tank is behind a bulkhead.
Immersed fuel pumps are potted - that is Zone Safety Class 4 protected (UK spec) and have built in spark flashover protection. Allied to that protection they have thermal breakers to prevent overheating and fuses built in too.
Most cars designers affix the fuel pump to the engine block (front engine installs) with the fuel tank between or in front of, the rear wheels for protection. It's more efficient to pull a column of fuel along a fuel line to where it's needed that to try and push that fuel from the back of the vehicle forwards. Pumping frictional losses work that way. Diesel installations always use this layout because the fuel gets thicker the closer it gets to its CFPP (Cloud Filter Plugging Point) during cold weather - hence the term 'waxing up'.
To drive any vehicle without a strong front crossmember, a fuel tank immediately behind and a high amperage ignition source directly aft of that location, requires a singular lack of imagination as to the possible out come of a frontal smash.
You may be too young to remember the '70s and the Pinto/Maverick fuel safety reports that showed what can happen to a car, in this case rear ended.

One last point. I've never seen a battery explode due to accident damage. Saw one flashover when a jump-starter was connected to the electrode posts once on a cracked battery but that just blew out the safety bung and showered everyone with acid.
 
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