1 9 9 4   G e o   M e t r o / S u z u k i   S w i f t

GM's little import My 1994 Geo Metro is basically a Suzuki Swift that was made in Canada by CAMI-AUTOMOTIVE INC. and sold at Chevrolet dealerships. Under the hood is a 993 cc aluminum inline three, producing 55 hp @ 5700 rpm and 58 lb-ft of torque @ 3300 rpm. A three-speed automatic transmission is bolted to the engine. Suspension is coil springs and struts on all four corners. Brakes are non-vented discs up front, and drums in the rear.

My friend got this 1994 Geo Metro really cheap with a bad engine. We couldn't get it started and it sounded odd when we were cranking it over. We checked the timing belt and it was off a tooth or two. After resetting the cam timing it started and ran on two (out of three) cylinders. So we pulled the head and discovered a piece of the number three cylinder's exhaust valve was missing. A junkyard valve thrown in the head got it firing on all three cylinders. But there was a lot of smoke. So we pulled the oil pan and found the oil control ring along with a chunk of the piston sitting in the pan. A junkyard piston complete with old rings reduced the smoking much further. We then discovered the catalytic converter was plugged, so we unplugged it with a heavy steel bar. It was later sold with the understanding that it probably wouldn't last very long. It didn't last very long. So my friend got the car back and gave it to me. So I got a barely running one liter three-cylinder Metro with an automatic transmission for free.

It's my new project car. It's not in the best shape, but it's almost rust free. That's a nice change from my last car (see TanVan). It could use a little body work, thanks to a couple of minor accidents that left the bumper cover cracked and a dent in the previously repaired hood. The interior needs a really good cleaning and some new carpet. A four-cylinder engine and a manual transmission will be replacing the stock components. Some brake and suspension upgrades will be done as well.

I recently bought a 1992 Suzuki Swift as a parts car. It has a 1298 cc four-cylinder engine and a 5-speed manual transmission. It's not the 100 hp DOHC engine from the Swift GT/GTi, just the 70 hp SOHC engine. The Swift also has a front anti-roll bar and other some miscellaneous parts I can use. I have discovered that the 18 mm first generation Toyota MR2 front anti-roll bar I have should work in the rear of the Metro without too much fabrication.

I found oil in the coolant of the 1.3, which made me suspect a blown head gasket. But the compression is even across all four cylinders, and the oil looks fine. So I drained the coolant and flushed the engine out about a dozen times. It's running good now, with no sign of oil in the coolant. I'm hoping someone accidentally poured oil into the radiator. I need to get at least a right side axle, since the outer CV joint on the Swift has come apart. And neither car has good brakes, so I will try to use the larger vented brakes from a 1995 or newer Metro.

The three cylinder engine has left the Metro. Next to go will be the transmission.

The transmission is out and I discovered that the driver's side transmission mounts on the two cars are different. The automatic Metro has a bracket on the frame rail that the mount bolts to. On the manual Swift, the mount bolts directly to the rail. I plan to cut the mount off the Metro and drill the holes for the manual transmission mount. I also removed the struts, axles and steering knuckles. And the rusted end of the clutch cable broke off when I tried to loosen it.

I made the hole for the clutch cable in the firewall. There are two layers of sheet metal there, the holes for the cable existed in the inner panel only. With some careful drilling I was able to get the (still broken) cable mounted. I got some carpet from Walmart to replace the factory carpet that was not worth trying to clean. Plus the new carpet is really light weight. I also started cleaning the engine compartment and repainted the front of the hood with aerosol touch-up paint. It looks fine if you step back and squint a little. Maybe a couple more coats and some buffing will help.

I got the engine and transmission out of the Swift. I'm a bit concerned about the two gear teeth that came out of the transmission with the gear oil. They look like they belong inside the differential. I wonder how long it will last like that?

I removed the automatic transmission mount from the "frame" rail with a sawzall, and then a cold chisel and a hammer. And I started tracing the wires in the pile of harnesses to decide which ones I want to use.

I have started making the holes for the transmission mount. The holes are already there on the inner panel, but they are hidden by the outer layer of metal. There are no threads for the bolts inside the frame, so I'm drilling larger holes on the other side of the frame to let me pass a socket and nut through for the bolts to thread into. And the clutch release arm is extremely difficult to move, so I'm working on removing that to clean and lubricate it. At least I have a brand new Valeo clutch from the parts Swift. I also discovered that the starter from the three cylinder Metro engine is smaller and lighter than the one from the four cylinder Swift. I like when parts are lighter.

I got the holes drilled into the frame. I had to buy a 3/4" drill bit from Sears to avoid hours of filing to enlarge the smaller holes I had drilled. How can one drill bit be $20? And I found a nice muffler at a junkyard. Straight-through OEM Toyota muffler. While I was there, I also grabbed factory electric oil pressure and temperature gauges from an Isuzu Trooper. Not bad for $10 total, it almost makes up for the drill bit.

Winter has left my cars under a thick blanket of snow and slowed the progress of the swap. I've been collecting some parts while the snow falls. I have a 1993 Metro service manual, a 1991 Swift Service manual, and a 1992 Swift supplementary manual, all found on eBay. The Suzuki manuals are much better than the GM manual, but it's still nice to have them all. I also bought a pair of front seat belts from a member of the TeamSwift message board. They are from Canada and mount to the pillar, not the door like US models. And I bought some maintenance and replacement parts from SuzukiParts.net (site has been shut down).

I'm thinking of turbocharging the 1.3 liter engine once I get it installed and running good. I have purchased an exhaust manifold on eBay which came from a carbureted Swift that I believe was a Japanese domestic market car. The manifold came with a close-coupled catalytic converter that can be removed, leaving a flange that can be used to mount a turbo using an adapter plate. And I got a junkyard aluminum valve cover from a 1995+ Metro 1.3 to replace the steel one that came on my Swift engine.

6/20/04 A week ago I picked up another red Swift. And I just got rid of the first one! This time it's a free 1991. Free is good. It has the same 70 HP engine as my other parts car, but this one has 208,000 miles on it. It runs like it has half that mileage. After sitting for two years it fired up like if it was used daily. Now I have good axles and a good transmission. I also recently bought some NGK spark plug wires. I intend to get my Metro running this summer.

I bought a pair of Hyundai Accent wheels at the junkyard. They are 13" x 5" aluminum wheels with an offset of 46 mm and weight about 12 pounds. The steel Swift wheels I have are only 13" x 4.5" with an offset of 45 mm and weight about 14 pounds. If you know where I can find two more for a really good price (I paid $12 each), let me know. They have five double spokes and I believe they were used on 1998-99 Accents. I also grabbed a Bosch blow-off valve from a Saab 9000 to use when I try some boost. And the second red Swift is gone. I cut it up and hauled it to the junkyard after pulling every useful part.

Another junkyard trip and I have more parts. I found a Metro LSi gauge cluster with a tachometer. And some Toyota brake line plumbing parts so I can use a Honda brake master cylinder on my Suzuki/Geo. This way I can have manual brakes without drilling new mounting holes. Yes, the Honda master cylinder bolts up to the Suzuki firewall, but the Suzuki master cylinder doesn't. Here's a picture of the test fitting. The brake line part I got was a three-way line splitter. This is necessary since the Honda master cylinder only has two outputs, I need three to use a Suzuki proportioning valve.

I pulled apart my bad transmission from my '92 parts Swift. I'm glad I found that second parts car. I was correct about the gear teeth coming from the differential. Some of the pieces look like they got to the countershaft pinion gear and chipped a couple of its teeth. Maybe I'll weld the diff and see how I like a Lincoln locker.

And I learned how to take apart an outer CV joint. I've always heard that they were not rebuildable. I have been lied to! The joint is held on by the same kind of wire clip that holds the axle inside the transmission. Just carefully hammer the outer joint off by hitting the part closest to the axle shaft. I'd recommend a brass drift or something soft, but I just used a hammer. A large vise to hold the axle would be helpful here, but I was able to do it without one. Now I can be sure I got all of the dirt out of the axles before rebooting them.

I also won an auction on eBay for a Tech 1 scan tool with Suzuki cartridges for less than $190. This is the tool dealerships use to access all the incoming and outgoing data from the ECU. This will really help me turbocharge this engine without blowing it up.

There are some suspension differences between the cars I have. The 1991 SOHC Swift has an 18 mm front anti-roll bar and the 1992 SOHC Swift has a 22 mm front bar. Neither Swift came with a rear bar. My 1994 Metro came with no anti-roll bars. I'll be installing a rear bar only (from a 1995+ Swift/Metro), to reduce understeer and help keep both front tires in contact with the ground in turns. The 1992 Swift and 1994 Metro front springs are made from the same diameter wire, but the Metro springs are longer by a quarter of a coil, making the spring softer. I'll just cut the Swift springs a little more, maybe half a coil front and rear. I haven't looked at the Metro rear springs yet and I think my Swift springs are all the same.

I'd love to use the KYB GR-2 front struts from my 1984 Honda Civic Wagon in the rear of the Metro, they have a lot more damping than the Swift struts. They are so close to fitting in the rear knuckle, I think with some filing or grinding they might fit. And the struts from the 1992 Swift parts car have much thicker shafts than the 1991 Swift or 1994 Metro. I don't know who they are made by, but they are made in Spain.

I finally got the engine in! Here's a crappy picture. Now I need to make it run again.

I found a set of 5" x 13" Nissan wheels on eBay. They were only $25 and were close enough to pick up. These wheels weight 12 pounds, just like the Hyundai wheels I bought earlier. I seem to be collecting a lot of wheels. Six 13" alloy wheels, ten 13" steel wheels, four 12" steel wheels and three temporary spares.

I got it running and even drove it a bit in my driveway. It runs a bit rough and misfires a little. I haven't figured it out yet. I don't think it's anything serious, half the time it's OK. I also got an 18 mm rear anti-roll bar from a 1999 Metro. It's much easier than the MR2 bar I was going to try and use. I just need to drill mounting holes into the spare tire well and make some plates to reinforce the sheet metal. The end link holes on the control arms line up just fine with the '99 bar. My LSi gauge cluster isn't working out too well. It's meant for the three cylinder engine, so the tachometer is reading a bit high with the four cylinder ignition pulse. I sort of expected this, but I've been told that the tach signal from the ECU is the same for both engines. I have to admit it's fun to see the tach needle swing past the "8" and not be on the 7k rev limiter yet, maybe I'll keep the tach!

I need to update more often! I made a shifter that eliminates the torque rod connecting the shifter assembly to the case of the transmission. The shifter feels better now, but moves too much when the engine moves. I'll have to either find a way to further control engine movement or go back to a stock shifter setup. I have the stock engine mounts filled with windshield adhesive, but it's not enough.
Shifter pictures: one two

After illegally driving up and down the road testing the shifter, I noticed something about the coolant overflow bottle. Revving the engine made it bubble and dump coolant out. Never a good sign. I knew it wasn't boiling over since the coolant wasn't hot enough, so I hooked up a compression gauge. Number 4 was a little low at 180 PSI (should be about 200 PSI), but more importantly there was those now-familiar bubbles when testing #4. So I pulled the head and saw black carbon between the combustion chamber and coolant passages. Nothing is warped as far as I can tell, so I just need a head gasket. I wanted a Suzuki head gasket, but didn't like the $62 price I found, so I went with a $20 gasket I found on eBay. I haven't installed it yet, I'm thinking about attempting some porting while the head is off. And I need to pick up a cam seal.

I also painted the bare interior with cheap grey primer from Walmart to match the door panels and dash.

Here's how the engine looked before I pulled the head: Click me

I got a new electric die grinder on eBay for about $10 and I ordered two carbide burs from CarbideBur.com for a total of about $20. I think I did a pretty good job with the ports, I just need to get the surface a little smoother now. I'll try to get pictures of what I did.

I also picked up a set of four brand-new 145/80-13 Nokian Hakkapeliitta Q studless snow tires for $89 shipped from Tire Factory. I'm mounting them on my 13" x 4.5" Swift steel wheels that I had sandblasted and primed at a local technical school. I'm painting them white. You can see them here.

I had my brake drums and rotors turned at the same school. My spare crankshaft pulley and flywheel are still at the school, I'm having them lightened. Since it's a school, labor is free!

I realized that the automatic locks on Metros are actuated by motors, not solenoids. So I can reverse the polarity to the motors to unlock the doors. This gives me power locks that I control instead of doors that lock automatically every time you move the car.

I finally found myself a gauge cluster with a tachometer. It's from a Geo Tracker. I believe the 1996-98 Tracker and Suzuki Sidekick clusters fit. I think the Suzuki X-90 clusters might work too. I had to pull the cluster apart and swap the idiot light strip with one from a Swift. Some of the lights are in different places or just totally wrong like the 4WD light. I wish I could add 4WD with a cluster swap!

MKI Toyota MR2 front strut tower braces are very close to fitting the Metro/Swift body. I got one and ground off the welds on one side of the brace and cut it shorter to fit my Metro. I had to also do a little grinding to get it to sit flat on the strut towers, but it was worth it for a $10 junkyard brace. I still have to get it welded somewhere. Here's a picture of the whole bar, driver's side and passenger's side.

And I got some Cibie E-code headlamps on eBay to replace the worthless sealed beams. I intend to use H4 bulbs with 80 watt low beams and 100 watt high beams. They also have built-in "city lights" that work as extra marker lights.

The flywheel I had lightened by students didn't work out too well. They made it a bit too thin and I've been told by numerous people that it's not safe to use. I'll have to locate another one and be very specific about where and how to remove the metal. I'm not risking the good one that's in the car now.
Pictures of the flywheel:
One
Two
Three

The lightened pulley came back much better. I had the A/C pulley cut off.
Picture

And I picked up a used performance reground camshaft from a member of the TeamSwift forum for $40. Originally sold by 3Tech Performance. It's a fairly mild street cam, which should give me a nice boost in power. The specs are 0.375" of valve lift and 216° of duration at 0.05" of lift. Stock is about 0.330" of lift and 192° of duration.

I bought a set of Optilux 1100 fog lamps on eBay. They are really bad, I'm surprised Hella puts their name on these. I wanted them only to light up the sides of the road that the head lamps miss so I can see deer and other things that like to run into the road at night. They get really hot and the light output is very uneven. I had to take them apart and grind down the bulb shield to get a little more light from them. I could take the shield out, but then I'd be blinding everybody. Don't buy these if you want light, these are for "bling" only.

The brake lines are mostly done. I can now use a Honda master cylinder bolted right to the firewall. I used a Toyota 3-way brake line "T" to split one of the Honda master cylinder outlets to connect to the two lines on the Geo/Suzuki brake system. I might need to replace a few of the brake lines, they are pretty rusty.

I got a 16-LED third brake light from a Chevy Impala to replace the original incandescent light. I plan to install it in the top of the rear window instead of the bottom where the original light was. This LED light will allow me to see better out the rear window, light up faster to warn tailgaters and be more visible to drivers of tall vehicles.

And the cylinder head is close to being ready to go back on. I just need to finish assembling it. I decided to try putting grooves in the head, based on what I read here:
www.somender-singh.com

The cylinder head is back on and it runs. But it's misfiring a bit and I think it's a fuel issue. I'm going to try an injector from the junkyard and see if that makes a difference. I might also try to get my hands on a cheap fuel pressure gauge and see if the pressure is where it should be.

I found some seats to replace the horrible Metro seats. I wanted Swift GT/GTi seats, but nobody will sell a pair below $100. I got a nice pair of seats from a 1993 Swift Sedan. Here's a picture. On the left is the '94 Metro seat, in the middle is the '93 Swift sedan seat and on the right is a '91 Swift 2-door hatchback seat. I like these seats and they bolt right in.

I also bought a small and light battery. It's a Briggs & Stratton (made by Exide) lawnmower battery with 350 CCA (cold cranking amps). It starts a 1.3 liter engine just fine in July. It should be OK in the winter too, but if not I can just toss in a bigger battery for the season.

While reassembling the cylinder head, I opted to replace the rocker shaft retaining screws with something better. The factory screws have phillips heads and tend to fall out. My engine had two missing out of the ten. One was jammed between a valve spring and the cylinder head. The other was stuck in one of the oil drain holes in the block. Even worse was the damage they did before getting to their final destination. One had gotten under the camshaft and the lobe smashed the screw into the cylinder head, leaving screw-shaped dents in the head and chipped the cam lobe. Not a major problem for me since the head is OK and I'm not using that camshaft. There was a bit of damage on the rocker arm too, so I replaced that with one from my spare engine. The screws I got have a allen socket head and I used Loctite thread locker to keep them in place.

A picture of the old screws: click
A picture of the new screws: click

There isn't a whole lot of progress to update at the moment, but I probably should add something occasionally anyway. I found a Grant steering wheel at the junkyard in a Geo Tracker. New with the adapter it would be about $100. Way too much for a steering wheel, even if it is made in Italy. I got it for about $6. It's a 13" wheel, smaller than I'd like, but I'll have to drive the car with it before I decide if I like it.

I also got a few more lights on eBay. I got a pair of brand-new Hella FF75 driving lamps. I might put them in the front bumper in place of the turn signals, they are the same size and shape. Then I'd have to make the corner marker lights into turn signals. And I also got a pair of new Hella headlamps similar to the used Cibies I bought before. I'll probably use the Hellas, they seem a little brighter.

I've been working on the brakes. The rear brakes are done and the front brakes are half done. I noticed the brake lines running to the rear are really rusty. I'm thinking I should replace them now, before they fail. And if I'm doing that, I might as well replace the fuel lines, which are just as rusty. I'll probably have to drop the tank to do this, so I might as well upgrade the fuel pump too. I work outside, so this might not happen until spring.

And I bought Energy Suspension polyurethane bushings for the '99 Metro rear anti-roll bar I have. It's an 18mm bar, I got the 11/16" bushings, which are about 17.5mm. They fit on the bar pretty well. I also got the end link grommets.

I've decided to go with stainless steel brake lines. Summit Racing sells it by the roll. Steel just doesn't last in NY. And for fuel lines I'm going to use plastic lines from the junkyard. And I finally got one of the Swift GT fog lamp switches that I've been looking for. Now I want another so I can turn the defroster switch into another fog lamp switch.

I'm not going with SS brake lines. Apparently SS is very difficult to flare, and I have trouble getting a good flare with steel tubing. So I'm just using pre-flared sections of cheap steel tubing from the auto parts store. To keep them from rusting, I'm running the lines inside the car. Honda does it, why can't I? And I have another parts car! Like the first two, it's a 2-door, 1.3L SOHC, 5-speed Swift. But this one isn't red, it's blue. It's a 1990. I found it on eBay for $99. It's actually drivable, but it's very rusty and needs brakes. It smelled really bad from the mice that had been living in it. You could smell it from a few feet away with all the windows closed. I couldn't work on it or even walk by it, it was so bad. So I ripped out and threw away the interior. Then I hosed it out. Much better.

I haven't done much with the car since the last update. The misfire that I've mentioned before is still there. If I make it run richer, it misfires less but fouls the plugs. And it likes a lot of ignition timing advance. I'm replacing the fuel pump and rusted fuel lines. I'm hoping that will make it run better. If not, I'll be looking for another engine. I've tried replacing everything else and nothing has made a difference.

I got a 14" Grant steering wheel on eBay to use instead of the 13" wheel I found at the junkyard. It's in pretty bad shape, so I might try recovering it. And I also bought a new IHI RHB5 turbocharger for $200 to use if I ever get the engine running right. It's originally for an Isuzu I-Mark.

Stay tuned - Always more to come