1982 Lada Niva

Suzuki is defunct now here in Canada. I don't know if Suzuki is still making the Vitara at all.
 
Suzuki come out with the new jimny, very good little 4x4 but its 28 grand here, that is way too much money, here is a review from the net.

 
All the snow outside made me want to drive my little Niva. So when i got back from work i got straight to work. Started with removing the carburetor, intake and exhaust manifold, then i removed the water pump. Then i took the valve cover off and set the crank to the timing mark and the cam is one and a half tooth off, that explains what is killing the power on top of the rpm range. Remove the crank pulley inspected the timing set, it definitely has a new bottom sprocket and chain also one chain guide is fairly new other has been chainsaw by the timing chain also seen something floating in the oil pan, its the protective guide for the chain. Seeing this i took off the camshaft and its cage and its wiped out, this engine has been run without oil definitely also the tencener has been welded on. Seeing this made me think the head has been off this engine, so i took it off and clean off the first piston to look for size and did not find any so its factory one but i did found marks where intake valves have hit it. So the head has been definitely off. This task took lots of time but now i know i've been missing lots of power with the timing being so retarded. Enjoy the pictures of the dirty engine.
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Today the weather is like spring outside. I decided to take advantage and clean and prep the wheels i just bought for paint. I managed to wash and skaf up all the wheels with rims, i still have 15 rims to clean and sand to get them prep for painting. I use oven degreaser and couple other chemicals as well as abrasive pads and sand papire. I did managed to move all of them at once in my car from one garage to the other.
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Today i've got some news that are seriously making me reconsider should i continue with the diesel engine conversion on this vehicle. The terrible news is that my country will be enforcing vehicle emission, with the mechanical diesel vehicle wont be factory specs and wont pass emissions also after talking with couple of persons that have diesel nivas are saying they often run out of engine RPM , it has plenty of torque but not enough RPM to clean off the tires when driving thru mud. After thinking about it all the hoops i had to jump thru with certifying my 605 as a diesel. Also with the fuel freezing on it this winter, i'm changing direction and will be rebuilding the factory engine, i'll be doing all the tricks i can to get more power and better response, like porting, grading the camshaft, decking the block and head to raise compression. Tell me your thoughts?
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Today i had little less than an hour to spare but i want to continue making progress on this car, so i decided to try out the new valve spring compressor. The caps are a bit small for the russian valves, but one by one i managed to remove all the valves from the spare head and couple from the head of the little niva. Pleasant surprise was that my head has valve seals this engine is not an oil burner, no surprise they are beyond hard, the crumble on touch. The head has lots of carbon in the combustion chambers, it will take lots of cleaning to get it to a point where i can inspection to see is it usable.
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GoceKU said:
Today i've got some news that are seriously making me reconsider should i continue with the diesel engine conversion on this vehicle. The terrible news is that my country will be enforcing vehicle emission, with the mechanical diesel vehicle wont be factory specs and wont pass emissions also after talking with couple of persons that have diesel nivas are saying they often run out of engine RPM , it has plenty of torque but not enough RPM to clean off the tires when driving thru mud. After thinking about it all the hoops i had to jump thru with certifying my 605 as a diesel. Also with the fuel freezing on it this winter, i'm changing direction and will be rebuilding the factory engine, i'll be doing all the tricks i can to get more power and better response, like porting, grading the camshaft, decking the block and head to raise compression. Tell me your thoughts?
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I had a lot to say. Unfortunately... I tried to edit a double quote and lost 3 paragraphs. I can’t go there again right now so stay tuned
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Okay, now that I had another cup of coffee I’ll try this again.
I have an old 1989 MB 300TD. I like the cool factor and like the almost total mechanical aspects of the diesel injection system. Still have an electric fuel pump, but that’s about it.
Only real problem is that a gallon of diesel costs @ 80 cents more a gallon than regular here in the USA. That kind of kills any benefit of economy in my opinion.

That said, I’ve never been a fan of big modifications like you are describing. In my opinion the vehicle loses it’s dependability. Just too much modifications. I like to keep most modern vehicles original equipment. It was different in the early 70’s
But once the fuel shortages of the mid 70’s.... all cars have added too many fuel savings modifications at the factory.
Its kind of like buying a black and white TV and then converting it to color. Anyway, stick to OE if you want a dependable vehicle.
 
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Tim9 said:
Only real problem is that a gallon of diesel costs @ 80 cents more a gallon than regular here in the USA. That kind of kills any benefit of economy in my opinion.
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Tim, here fuel prices are different, here diesel is about 15% cheaper than gasoline and 22% for lower quality diesel, that i run in my 605. But of course there is always the alternative that is propane for gasoline engines, i've run the little niva on propane since i've built it. Running it on gasoline is just too expensive.
 
Today i spent some more time in the big garage. Started with cleaning the cylinder head, the deck surface will get resurfice but the cylinder chambers needed lot of cleaning, i did this cleaning with a spray bottle and couple of brushes, dirty but not hard work. Then i went to the engine block, clean off the tops of the pistons and decided i needs to come out now. So i went under it unbolted the front drive shaft and dropped the front diff, then i unbolted and separated the engine from the gearbox and removed the engine. I can tell that will be some big damage in the bottom end, there is loose steel in the oil pan. At this point i stopped, i'll be taking apart this engine block tomorrow to see what it will take to get it back to spec.
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