[V8] The saga of the Black Mariah continues

[Roger M. Woodbury]

Lovely car.  I went to Portland on Monday.  That's a bit more than 300 miles
round trip, and included about fifty miles of two lane before reaching the
interstate and then nearly 135 miles of interstate to the City.  The car is
now performing absolutely as it should, with smooth and effortless power and
amazing torque from the five cylinder inline.  When I had my '89 200 Avant,
my mechanic at the time and I spend some hours thinking about putting a V8
into it.  The choice of engines was a 4.5 litre Porsche 928 V8 that was in a
basket case car at the local junk yard.  We measured and probed, and
pondered, and decided that it could be done, but would be very expensive.
The biggest problem was whether or not we could fit the necessary cooling
for the big engine.  The 928 V8 was quite a lot bigger than a 3.6 litre Audi
V8, despite the fact that the engines look nearly identical.  In the end, we
decided to explore other things to do with the I5, and then he went out of
business and life moved along.

I was wrong to think about a V8 in the Type 44 Avant.  It would be a pure
waste of time and money to try to do the conversion, I think.  From my
experience, what I was really looking for was a '91 20-valve, with some
modifications to the ECU, which is exactly what this car is.  Of course, I
can't take credit for having done any of this, as the ECU was modded before
I got the car, and only now, that all the little rubber gizzies have been
replaced is the truth known.

I pulled the panel off the passenger footwell side wall to expose the ECU
but didn't pull it free, so I still do not know who did the modifications.
I'll do that the next fair Saturday that we have.  Apparently the company
that did the modification marked the back of the unit, and it must be
removed.  Right now, I think it was Intended Acceleration, but I am not
sure.

What the car does, is pull 2.5 bar in all gears except fifth and sometimes
fourth if the car is on an incline.  No matter:  the car accelerates like
there was a pretty strong V8...certainly no mismatch with my former 4.2 V8,
and I would not be surprised if the Avant would run away from any stock V8.

Limitations?  Yes.  I think the engine needs better breathing, and probably
the pinch point is the down pipe.  Since I need a new center muffler anyway,
I am thinking about the possibility of replacing the whole exhaust from the
manifold back, just to see what separate pipes might accomplish...just out
of curiosity, mind you.

Also, the transmission is a bit notchy on this car....not surprising for a
gear change that has almost 160,000 on it.  I shift carefully and with
deliberation, because there is so much torque as the car is right now, that
the engine will pull the car into the kind of traffic that I have on a daily
basis without fancy gear work.

Yesterday I had to go to Bangor to interview a "new" air compressor for duty
in the quarry.  I didn't plan on the trip, but it was necessary to get it
done yesterday, so that the beast can be on site on Monday.  A bit more than
a hundred miles total after lunch, on two lane Route 3 in bright sunshine
and calm winds.  On the way back climbing the hills through Lucerne and then
just before Ellsworth, I was following an idiot from Kentucky driving a
Honda van.  When the van accelerated to pass a line of traffic going uphill,
I could see that the transmission downshifted and the van accelerated away,
up the passing lane.  

With about 3/4 throttle the Black  Maria started to close the distance, and
had I downshifted and given the car some "right foot", I could have climbed
up and over the van going up hill.

Turbo lag?  Well, I am tempted to say that there is none.  But in reality, I
suppose it is there.  The modified ECU is very strong right off the line,
and somewhere around 2300 rpm or so, there is a steepening of the
acceleration curve that seems to have no end...or probably more precise, the
available road ends before the curve starts to flatten out, regardless of
gear.

But the car is docile, and fuel mileage remains in the low twenty range,
which is what my '89 200 always did as well.

Now that the suspension is fixed and "restored" to new, with new shock
mounts, new front struts and all the other rubber gizzies and control arms
replaced and all that jazz, the limitation of the tires is apparent.  I am
running Bridgestone G009's that were new on the car last year, and now have
about 6500 miles or so on them, at most.

We have the same tires on my wife's '94 100CS Avant Quattro, and they are
excellent on that car. But not on the 200.  I do not feel that the car is as
firmly on the ground with these tires.  They are "H" rated, but even so, on
the '89 I ran through a couple of sets of Firestone Touring LH tires, which
were also "H" rated, and they were WONDERFUL.  I feel that the Black Mariah
is squirmy on these tires, and when they are worn out, I will replace them
with something different...not another set of G009's. 

Right now the plans for the Black Mariah are to drive it through the next
two seasons, and then consider the possibility of a complete exterior and
interior restoration.  Does this car justify such treatment?  I dunno.  I
have a total of around eight grand in the car right now, including original
purchase price, and as a daily driver, or "beater" as we call them here in
Maine, it is superb.  One test will be to do a full compression leak down
test on the engine and see what that is before spending cosmetic dollars.  

A full restoration would involve all the chrome gizzies around the nose that
always fall off these cars, plus quite a lot of dent and ding filling and
sanding.  I would remove the roof rack, and replace all the door seals and
do all of the things that would be nice to do, along with having the wheels
refinished.  The "panther black" finish would be smashing if completely
redone, and if by next winter it looks as though there are no more, serious
mechanical issues developing, I will have to consider completing the
restoration of this wonderfully performing Type 44 Avant.

Roger

P.S.  I don't NEED better breathing for the engine, but it would be neat to
see what a bigger downpipe would yield considering what feels like nearly
300 horsepower right now, in very mild form.