Friday - 12 July
So I bought my Jap MX6 half cut today. I got it from Asian auto spares in Slacks Creek. I found out about them having the engine by chance. I had told the engineer who approved the rest of my Baja about my plans to put a KL motor in the Baja, so when he saw one for sale he gave me a ring and told me. I gave them a ring, confirmed the price and went down for a look.
I took my mates Brad and Rhys down for a second opinion and to make sure I down buy something crap through impulse. When we got there it looked a little crappy because it has been in the weather and the alloy had started lightly corroding. I rubbed the corroded parts with my finger and the corrosion rubbed off so it hadn't set in yet. We checked the oil which was a little dirty, and checked the water which was perfectly clean and fluoro green. The car had done 90,000kms which wasn't too bad for that sort of a motor.
The
good thing about buying a half cut is you can get them to start it up for you
before you buy it. They hooked up some fuel and a good battery and started
it in the shop and it sounds awesome. Rhys is probably still smiling from
the sound. It has a real nice high performance exhaust note, much nicer than the
boring V6 sound of a commodore (Buick 3.8 for the American readers). Of course it had no muffler so it was nice and
loud. We watched it run and decided it was in good condition so I bought it.
AUS$2500 seemed pretty cheap to me, especially when I can sell the brakes, suspension
and 5 speed gearbox.
mmmm, climate control, CD, fancy stuff...
Friday - 19 July
Thanks to my nice friend Brad, we managed to go pick up the half cut on Monday morning. During the week I had a bit of a play with the half cut. I pulled all the air intake (not manifold )and filter assembly off so I could see the engine a bit better. I have decided that the MX6 radiator will be too big for the Baja (wide) so I may have to hunt around for something smaller.I ordered a workshop manual and SAE paper on the engine so I could try to learn some more about it before I started pulling it apart. The SAE paper had a good cross-sectional drawing of the V6 so I tried overlaying it on a VW motor cross-sectional drawing to see how big it will be in comparison. I scaled both engines drawings such that 1 pixel = 1 mm.
This is the two motors overlayed on each other. The KL sump is
currently 30mm lower, but it should be possible to reshape the sump and
regain the 30mm.
*** Note - Other sectional pictures moved to the "will it fit" section ***
The V6 is also longer, but I currently have exhaust behind my engine, which the V6 won't have. So the V6 should still fit in the engine cage. I think the engine should look good in the Baja engine bay. It should fill the space out nicely.
Wednesday - 24 July
Just a quick update. Last weekend was spent cleaning up the shed and the house. I am trying to sell all my old vw junk to fund the V6 transplant. So far I have sold enough stuff to pay for over half the engine which is good. I even sold the MX6 gearstick for $50 on a MX6 forum.We spent a while getting the half cut off the trailer. Then I started pulling apart a couple of vw wrecks and sorting them into "to be sold" and "take to the dump" piles. This weekend I will take the junk to the dump and finish cleaning the shed. I might even get my rear half of a beetle jig finished.
Tuesday - 30 July
Cleaning the shed took longer than I thought, and I had to make two trips to the dump. I had Brad's car trailer chockers with bits of cut-up old beetles and other assorted junk that I couldn't be bothered trying to sell.I managed to get most of the rear beetle jig made. I bought some caster wheels so I can move it around, and made the 2inch lift kit for it (out of wood), I just need to put it all together. I should easily be able to do that this weekend. I also managed to get the half cut under the front of the shed and out of the weather, so I can start pulling it apart now.