Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

This Forum is here for each member to post pics of his/her Gemini’s. Keep it to one thread per car.. if you get more pics etc, add them to your existing thread, DO NOT start a new one
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

This is my TE sedan. I bought this from the original owner in 1998 or 1999. It started life as a 1.8L diesel smoke machine.
In 2006 it got a G200Z 2L petrol motor. The motor came from a written off rallying gemini (went spinning through trees at around 160km/h). It has a balanced bottom end, bored out 40thou with flat top forged pistons. It was running a heavily worked 1600 head, this gave it too much compression (around 13:1), we put a 2L head back onto it. It would still blow head gaskets, just less frequently. My dad helped with the diesel to petrol conversion and a bush mechanic friend of dads helped us with the wiring.

Another year or two later and it had electronic ignition, a whole new exhaust system and twin dellorto carburettors. This setup made around 90hp at the wheels. It was tuned by some fiat experts who unfortunately didn't have enough jets on hand to tune it as well as they wanted to, they still charged me a lot for it! The tuning stopped it blowing huge flames out the back, the flames were due to one carb missing an idle screw, so whenever I backed off fuel was just pouring through one cylinder, excellent mod! :) Belconnen exhaust built the exhaust.

In 2012-13 it received electronic fuel injection and a turbo, all put together at home by me. I had been collecting parts for the setup for years, had no real plan for it, then the gemini blew it's head gasket at a time when I had other registered cars available to me so I decided to build it. There were a few issues along the way, many times I thought about putting it back to the twin carbs. The point of no return was when I cut the radiator hose to fit onto the rodeo inlet :lol:
Because I had been very haphazard with purchasing the parts there was a lot of missing sensors and other things I didn't think about when I saw other people's setups and thought "that's cool, I want a turbo". When it all finally worked it was a great feeling! but it took longer than it could have if I had been more prepared.
A list of the parts and prices can be found here: http://ozgemini.com/forums/tech/viewtop ... =1&t=24821

The wheels (apart from the 13inch hotwires) are XXR 513s, 16inch tall, 7inch wide +15 offset. Tyres are 195/45 Federal 595. My brother Mike and I bought a set of XXRs each (Mike got a different style) and got them shipped over from America together to try and keep the cost down.
Fixed back bucket seats and harnesses come and go depending on what I am doing with the car at the time.
Halogen headlights work a whole lot better than stock.
King spring low springs in the front, the rears switch between stock springs and King spring lows, depending on what I am doing with the car at the time.

EDITED BECAUSE ALL MY PHOTO LINKS DIED :(
I guess I'll just put a link to my facebook album for now. It's set to public so anyone should be able to see them...
https://www.facebook.com/dan.lance.75/m ... 079&type=3


Apparently I'm not good at taking photos during builds, I think it's because I just want to drive it... Having it off the road for 6months doing the EFI turbo stuff sucked, now I am overseas and it is killing me!!!
yes it needs painting, yes the engine bay needs tidying up.
Last edited by Danman on Mon Nov 24, 2014 3:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.
User avatar
Jonno
Korean Jesus
Posts: 2370
Joined: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:28 pm
Location: Canberra. Where the Fast Geminis live
Contact:

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Jonno »

Still time to leave now and make the nationals ;)
75 TX Coupe
GemiNats > https://www.facebook.com/GeminiNationals
Image
#TurboFamily #Geminats #Bucketship
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKSHb ... akJ04sOYjw
BLK-TDPANO
Regular
Posts: 634
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:07 pm
Location: Byron Bay, NSW

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by BLK-TDPANO »

1 1/2 firewalls?
User avatar
Jonno
Korean Jesus
Posts: 2370
Joined: Tue Jul 25, 2006 5:28 pm
Location: Canberra. Where the Fast Geminis live
Contact:

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Jonno »

All the diesels had them noise suppressor
75 TX Coupe
GemiNats > https://www.facebook.com/GeminiNationals
Image
#TurboFamily #Geminats #Bucketship
YT: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPKSHb ... akJ04sOYjw
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

BLK-TDPANO wrote:1 1/2 firewalls?
Yeah it had aircon so my diesel secondary firewall/noise suppressor was cut for the aircon box thingy. I removed the aircon when I fitted the twin dellortos because they hit on the box. So I have been rocking the half 2nd firewall for about 7years! lol, and I've got a full one at my parents place...
My gemini now has a replacement air conditioner/heater unit that I built myself, with minor success, I'll post that up shortly...
All fits behind the dash, has hot and cold settings, fancy switches and lights...

This is a pic of a different diesel gem, showing the aircon box thingy cutting through the firewall thingy:
PA071211S.jpg
PA071211S.jpg (150.56 KiB) Viewed 15521 times
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

Danman's behind dash fully electronic air conditioner/heater setup, secrets finally revealed!!!! :D
This is about as close to build pics as you get from me :lol:

After running the heater hoses to the turbo I decided to save weight and free up some space by removing all of the factory fan and heater unit. This gave me heaps of room to stash computers and excess wiring. I covered the hole in the firewall with a plastic cover made from a broken slider seat (we all have those lying around). Then I decided to re-add some creature comforts.
I'd been for a ride in Glen's car when one of his hairdryers caught fire (he was halfway through perfecting his "do" at the time). This put me off the hairdryer idea. I'd heard of bilge fans being used somewhere on here. So I bought one of these from ebay (they've changed styles now, wonder if they pump more air?): http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/12V-IN-LINE- ... 0274202459
Image

Then I decided I would create perhaps the most amazing cooler/heater system the world had ever seen (why hadn't anyone else thought of this!). From computer nerd friends I had heard of peltier coolers, little ceramic plate thingys that when you supply voltage to them one side gets hot and the other side gets cold (for the really nerdy, if you supply heat to one side electricity comes out the wires), if the polarity is reversed then the opposite sides gets hot and cold. These are what make those 12 volt cooler/warmer esky things work.
Being a fast and furious fan I bought 2, of the big ones! 154w's each, so when I switch them on I am using 308watts... sounds fine! (I'm no electrician)
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/ws/eBayISAPI.dll ... AQ:AU:1123
Image

I also just happened to have 2 heatsinks lying around (totally not a computer nerd) that neatly covered both of the peltier plates. My quality build photos only show one of them.
I "borrowed" a fan speed controller from my old PC (totally not a computer nerd), my idea was to use it to control the fan speed and also the amount of power going to the peltiers, but the peltiers draw too much power for it to handle, so it is only used for controlling fan speed and looking pretty... It has three extra controllers which I can later hook up to fancy dimming lights or whatever.

Then I bought some switches, one two way switch (on/off) to switch the fan on and one three way switch (on/off/on) to allow me to power the peltiers in both polarities, this required lots of thinking and I even drew a wiring diagram! (not pictured)

So my plan was to sandwich the peltiers between the two heatsinks and then somehow blow the air through one of the heatsinks and onto the vehicle occupants faces. So I needed some sort of square a tube to house the peltier/heatsink sandwich. In the garage I found some old colorbond that should work.
Here is a picture showing the bilge fan, one of the heatsinks, the plastic tube from behind the face vents in the gemini (bastard to get off the car, even with the heater gone) and a cardboard mock up of the tube which will hold the peltier/heatsink sandwich.
Image

My intital plan was to run the bilge fan directly onto the sandwich tube and that attached directly onto the face vents, but this arrangement ran out of space. The bilge fan would have had a restricted intake at best. Luckily I had an extra silicone bend (because I bought the wrong size at some point). So the new design went bilge fan->silicone bend->sandwich tube->vent->face.

This next picture shows all the parts, in a very confusing way. The silicone bend is not attached how it looks in the photo, it actually plugs onto the rounded end of the square tube, where the duct tape is helping smooth out the edges. The fan on top of the heatsink is to dissipate the heat from the unused side of the peltier plate, there is another heatsink in the tube which is what the air flows over, and on to the peoples faces. Also pictured are the switches which took ages to wire up, the fan speed controller and the face plate designed to house my alarm led, the AFR gauge, switches and fan speed controller, to be fit into the centre console.
Image

So just had to fit it all in. Here it is in place. The bilge fan points towards the drivers footwell and can be seen to the right of the console in some of the photos (white blurry thing).
The three way switch goes up for heat and down for cooling, or the other way around... Probably should label it. The peltiers won't power up unless the fan is switched on. The fan speed controller will only light up when the fan is on too. Fan can be on without peltiers being on.
Image

Image
Can just see the bilge fan on the above and below photos.
Image

Image

So does it work? Sort of... It needs some refinements. The peltiers draw so much power the fan slows down a fair bit, next step is to try it with only one of them.
The air temperature doesn't seem to change very much, this could be due to the air gap around the heatsink in the tube, filling in around the heatsink with expanding foam could help this.
Also need to add a tube to the ouside world to take away the heat (or cold) from the unwanted side of the peltier.
The fan blows mostly on the drivers side, this is a problem with the plastic tube design, doesn't worry me, kind of worries the girlfriend ;)
The fan doesn't blow enough volume, I wanted to be blasted!! Maybe a bigger fan next time.

On the positive side it was cheap and fun to make, I am not putting them on the market just yet though...
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

This next project is something I am working on while I am over here in the UK and will install it once I get back to Australia. It's an onboard computer sort of thing. The computer is a "Raspberry Pi". It's the size of a credit card! My plan is to use it for monitoring and tuning the Haltech E6X and when it is not doing that it can play retro games.
This info was first posted in the car audio section, but I thought I would put it here too.

The plan was to get a Raspberry Pi and install "Retropie" on it. Retropie lets you play games from loads of old systems and includes a DOS emulator so the Haltech DOS software works on it too.
http://blog.petrockblock.com/retropie/
The Raspberry Pi is not powerful enough to run a windows emulator very well and the Haltech windows software is not available for the Raspberry Pi yet. So I am stuck with just text based monitoring (no fancy gauges) for now.

First thing I did (before even receiving the Pi) was make the splash screen:
Image

The Raspberry Pi arrived! Same size as a drivers licence (the ports and SD card stick out a bit though). The SD card adapter pictured (with the fancy raspberry on it) doesn't work! Luckily I had my own one (no raspberry though).
Image
Image
Image

Then I made a box for it, from the box that it's power supply came in.
Image
Image
Image

Then after a LOT of stuffing around finally got it to work. Using the worlds crappiest tv, with built in VHS player! I don't think I'll fit one of these to the gem. It was really hard to take photos of the screen, different angles seemed to help a little...
Image
Need to adjust the screen settings so it is not just "ALTECH" lol... Hopefully this won't happen on an LCD screen...
Image
Image

It seems that the SD cards occasional stuff up and have to be re-flashed. Re-flashing doesn't take long and is not too hard, but it definitely sucks! I had it all going just the way I wanted it, was just finishing adjusting screen settings so it would say "HALTECH" instead of "ALTECH", and then it died again! It gets to the "Danman's Gemini Retropie" splash screen (the best part) and then goes blank :( re-flash it again Dan...
This is a major downside for having it in the car because you need a laptop to re-flash it! It has worked for a while now without drama, probably because I haven't been fiddling with the settings as much.

The other problem is the lack of setup information for these things. They seem to assume you will know all about how to install it and get it to work, so the instructions for everything are very minimal and/or out of date, or just plain don't exist! I feel like maybe I should write up my installation instructions and share them around because I had to make so many mistakes and had so much frustration before I figured out the correct way to do things!

Good part, once you've managed to decipher the way things are installed, it works quite well. The tuning software works nicely, even though it is the DOS version it's quite similar to the windows Haltech tuning program. And I've got 90+ NES games on it already :D

The plan for putting it in the gemini is to fit a multi media headunit and plug the raspberry pi into the headunit's auxiliary input. So the headunit plays movies, music etc and the Raspberry Pi just does retro games and tuning.

At the moment I am open to suggestions for other screen options. I am hoping one of these downward facing 7inch screen headunits will fit into the TE dash without the gearstick hitting the screen or too many other complications (like hitting the lower lip of the dash below where the headunit sits), If anyone else has fitted one of these sort of things please let me know how it went:
link to ebay advertisement Note: I don't think the screen folds away into the headunit, it just tilts up and down?
Image
User avatar
Holden202T
Regular
Posts: 492
Joined: Sun Mar 16, 2008 7:47 pm
Location: Tenambit, NSW.
Contact:

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Holden202T »

nice work :D
No matter what the question is, the answer is always more horsepower!!
BLK-TDPANO
Regular
Posts: 634
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:07 pm
Location: Byron Bay, NSW

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by BLK-TDPANO »

This is my screen in my TD dash

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b349/ ... G_0283.jpg

It's completely adjustable, tilt and how far you want it to come out and in.
Would definitely fit in the original tape player hole, I didnt know how adjustable it was until I re-mounted it lower.

I'll try find what model it is.

edit
Kenwood KVT-516
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

Thanks 202Gem!
BLK-TDPANO wrote:This is my screen in my TD dash

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b349/ ... G_0283.jpg

It's completely adjustable, tilt and how far you want it to come out and in.
Would definitely fit in the original tape player hole, I didnt know how adjustable it was until I re-mounted it lower.

I'll try find what model it is.

edit
Kenwood KVT-516
Thanks for the info! I had no idea that there were head units that adjusted out like that!
Most of my other stereo stuff is Kenwood too. Looks neat where you have mounted it.
When it's mounted in the original tape player spot would it cover the passenger side air vent? I would hate for the screen to be frozen by my air con :lol:
BLK-TDPANO
Regular
Posts: 634
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:07 pm
Location: Byron Bay, NSW

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by BLK-TDPANO »

Haha. Probably!
Didnt even think of that ha. I have my heater core all removed now, so wasnt really something I thought about, but would definitely be something to think about.
Dont know if it would do much to the screen, but its not overly cheap (with all the add-on's)

Its a sick head unit tho. I dont have any of the add-on's, but with them included, it'd be insane.
So many setting for music its insane.
That model's a few years old now. 4-5years old. So im sure there'd be a better unit getting around for sure.
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

You should build yourself a "behind dash fully electronic air conditioner/heater setup" like mine^... But probably should try and iron out some of the bugs... At the moment my air con will definitely not damage the screen, the girlfriend might complain about her air supply being even less though. haha.

It does look like a good head unit! It is pricey! I won't be buying one until later in the year (when I get back to Australia), so I'll just keep doing research until then.
After looking at some other flip up head units it's hard to find out which ones can move out far enough to clear the dash! :evil: Might go to some shops with a tape measure...
BLK-TDPANO
Regular
Posts: 634
Joined: Sun Dec 09, 2007 4:07 pm
Location: Byron Bay, NSW

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by BLK-TDPANO »

I'll put it as "not to bad"
I expected a bit more.. I paid $600 for mine back when it was new. That was without any of the extras.
In my opinion, it's a great unit. Plays DVDs, USB setup, iPod all that. Doesn't work on-screen with an iPhone, (sure there'd be a way around it)
But the actual menu visual quality is pretty poor. Back when I got it in '09 I expected a bit more.
Don't know what I'd expect now if I plugged it in.
Would probably sell it now actually.. Does have a small crack in the screen. New one looks pretty basic to replace and are only $50~

Sent from my ST21a2 using Tapatalk
User avatar
Danman
Danmother
Posts: 322
Joined: Tue May 23, 2006 5:35 pm
Location: ACT

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by Danman »

Back working on my gemini again after 17 months away!
02IMG_0079s.jpg
02IMG_0079s.jpg (227.6 KiB) Viewed 14790 times
The Gem and the Yaris both had dead batteries and tonnes of spiders!
04IMG_0080s.jpg
04IMG_0080s.jpg (167.66 KiB) Viewed 14790 times
Front tyres both flat, but pumped up ok.
05IMG_0090s.jpg
05IMG_0090s.jpg (186.38 KiB) Viewed 14790 times
Got them both new batteries, threw 20L of fresh 98 octane fuel in the Yaris and fired it up and it seemed happy enough.
Then went to work on the gem. I drained the fuel (pumped it out with the old carby fuel pump), changed the oil and filter (used the fancy Penrite oil everyone said I was supposed to be using). Put in fresh fuel, cranked it over with the spark plugs out and the injectors switched off.
Then fired it up and it runs smoother than ever! :D
User avatar
vivoacer
Regular
Posts: 147
Joined: Thu Jan 10, 2013 8:06 pm
Location: Brisbane

Re: Danman's TE sedan, Diesel 1.8L - Petrol 2L EFI Turbo

Post by vivoacer »

Sweet! now get us up some videos of you hitting boost in a few gears with the gemini ;)
TC g161z turbo daily
Adaptronic e420d, proboost gt2871

TG g161z drift car.
- G161z 1643cc, twin 40 dcoe webers.
14.994 @ 89.96/91.41mph
115.2whp @ only 6200rpm
Post Reply