Recently purchased my first Geo (93 Metro, HB, 5sp, 1.0l). I had VW bugs (the old air cooled 1600cc) when I was a kid... well, the price of bugs has skyrocketed and I wanted something small, affordable, fairly easy to work on and somewhat unique - I'm excited about the Metro.

Hopefully I can both learn about the Metro via this forum and contribute as well - appears to be a great forum with lots of knowledgable folks.

cheers and glad to be here,

Recently purchased my first Geo (93 Metro, HB, 5sp, 1.0l). I had VW bugs (the old air cooled 1600cc) when I was a kid... well, the price of bugs has skyrocketed and I wanted something small, affordable, fairly easy to work on and somewhat unique - I'm excited about the Metro.

Hopefully I can both learn about the Metro via this forum and contribute as well - appears to be a great forum with lots of knowledgable folks.

cheers and glad to be here,

The Metro is a great little car - simple to work on, and, if driven properly can give years of trouble -free operation.

The engine was designed for low speed operation but for short sprints can be driven hard. If you intend to mash down the gas pedal for long periods you will find that the engine will lose power and smoke like crazy, but if you quickly back off everything will return to normal. I believe that this happens because of the huge amount of oil that puddles in the cylinder head. High RPM's just feed more and more oil into the head until it begins to suck/blow its way up the breather tube and into the air cleaner and down the intake. My Suzukiswift never did this, however both my Sprint and my first Metro did. I avoid this problem by - not exceeding 75 and by finding the sweet spot in the throttle that gives good performance without opening the throttle very far (High vacuum).

Interior pieces break because of the type of plastic they chose, but hey, its an economy car. Tune up parts are reasonable.

Enjoy, and welcome to the board.

Blake

The Metro is a great little car - simple to work on, and, if driven properly can give years of trouble -free operation.

The engine was designed for low speed operation but for short sprints can be driven hard. If you intend to mash down the gas pedal for long periods you will find that the engine will lose power and smoke like crazy, but if you quickly back off everything will return to normal. I believe that this happens because of the huge amount of oil that puddles in the cylinder head. High RPM's just feed more and more oil into the head until it begins to suck/blow its way up the breather tube and into the air cleaner and down the intake. My Suzukiswift never did this, however both my Sprint and my first Metro did. I avoid this problem by - not exceeding 75 and by finding the sweet spot in the throttle that gives good performance without opening the throttle very far (High vacuum).

Interior pieces break because of the type of plastic they chose, but hey, its an economy car. Tune up parts are reasonable.

Enjoy, and welcome to the board.

Blake


I just want to say that this is EXACTLY the year and engine size
I bought this summer. I love the little fart!

Click on:
http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=metrofrontview4ii.jpg

Question to DieInterim...

What RPM's is the best 'cruising' RPM to run it at?

Where can I get a reasonably priced ($40) tachometer
THAT WILL WORK WITH A THREE CYLINDER ENGINE ????

With 12 inch wheels - what are the RPM's usually seen at

4th gear - 50 mph
4th gear - 55 mph
5th gear - 55 mph
5th gear - 60 mph
5th gear - 65 mph

DoctorBill

I just want to say that this is EXACTLY the year and engine size
I bought this summer. I love the little fart!

Click on:
http://img364.imageshack.us/my.php?image=metrofrontview4ii.jpg

Question to DieInterim...

What RPM's is the best 'cruising' RPM to run it at?

Where can I get a reasonably priced ($40) tachometer
THAT WILL WORK WITH A THREE CYLINDER ENGINE ????

With 12 inch wheels - what are the RPM's usually seen at

4th gear - 50 mph
4th gear - 55 mph
5th gear - 55 mph
5th gear - 60 mph
5th gear - 65 mph

DoctorBill


I am not sure about what RPM's I run because I never purchased a tach.

EQUUS makes a decent tachometer that will work on the 3cylinder. 553 212 Is a tachometer that can be installed on cars with DIS (Distributorless Ign. System). Although our years have the distributor its the method of sensing that makes it work on our cars. With DIS tacometers a inductive wire is wrapped around one spark plug lead making it universal for all engines except 2 stroke designs.

I believe EQUUS sells that unit for about $60-70.

Blake

if you keep it around 60 in 5th it will get great mileage, starts to drop as you speed up. as for a tach look for a tach dash out of a 89-91 metro or 92-94 metro depending on your year, will swap in right in place of your instrument cluster, they came in some metro LSI's and all the convertibles i believe. keep a eye on e-bay and try teamswift.net
make sure its out of a metro not a swift or tach will read wrong, the swifts are 4 cyl

if you keep it around 60 in 5th it will get great mileage, starts to drop as you speed up. as for a tach look for a tach dash out of a 89-91 metro or 92-94 metro depending on your year, will swap in right in place of your instrument cluster, they came in some metro LSI's and all the convertibles i believe. keep a eye on e-bay and try teamswift.net
make sure its out of a metro not a swift or tach will read wrong, the swifts are 4 cyl

That's great news! I never had seen a Metro with a tach. Right now there are 3 or 4 on Ebay.

The Metro is a great little car - simple to work on, and, if driven properly can give years of trouble -free operation.

The engine was designed for low speed operation but for short sprints can be driven hard. If you intend to mash down the gas pedal for long periods you will find that the engine will lose power and smoke like crazy, but if you quickly back off everything will return to normal. I believe that this happens because of the huge amount of oil that puddles in the cylinder head. High RPM's just feed more and more oil into the head until it begins to suck/blow its way up the breather tube and into the air cleaner and down the intake. My Suzukiswift never did this, however both my Sprint and my first Metro did. I avoid this problem by - not exceeding 75 and by finding the sweet spot in the throttle that gives good performance without opening the throttle very far (High vacuum).

Interior pieces break because of the type of plastic they chose, but hey, its an economy car. Tune up parts are reasonable.

Enjoy, and welcome to the board.

Blake


Ok I stand corrected. In this post I spoke about oil puddling up causing the smoking/pinging condition that would vanish as soon as I backed off the throttle. Well I might have been wrong about this hunch but correct in another guess I had. It was leaning out!

I just replaced my fuel pump recently and guess what? My smoking/pinging is gone. I can rev it hard now and no problems.

So here is what was happening - Even though my fuel pump was within the specified pressure it simply could not provide enough volume when I was pushing the engine hard. Engine would lean out and cylinder temp. would shoot through the roof. As for the oil pushing through the breather... possibly caused by extra blow by from the high temps.

FWIW,
Blake