Sigma-galant.com

Hi all,

My name is Ben, and i've recently acquired a 87 highroof sigma wagon as a daily driver, something a bit cheaper to tun than my twin turbo galant vr-4.

I came across this car on gumtree, and ended up purchasing it for $1800. It has absolutely no rust. It also has a rather large list of mods, and i'd be interested to see what people in the community have to think about it, or any tips/tricks for me.

The mods list is as follows:

Engine:

Reconditioned Astron II 2.6L block with Magna head
LPG System
Gas Research Vaporiser/Regulator
Gas Research gold series throttle body
TN Magna intake manifold
3" air intake with K&N Pod filter
Crane Fireball Ignition
9mm Top Gun ignition leads
2" heat wrapped exhaust system
3 core radiator
SPAL thermo fan
Air Conditioning (believe from a magna)
Mazda RX-7 oil cooler
Mocal Sandwich plate
Speedflow fittings and lines
Power steering (retrofitted)
TR magna power steering reservoir
Nissan Skyline R33 Power steering cooler

Transmission
Reconditioned 5 speed

Differential
Reconditioned OEM 3.42:1

Wheels/Tyres
3 piece Rays Volk racing GTP-A, 17x7 (F) and 17x8 (R)
Michelin Pilot Sport 3 205/45/17 (F)
Bridgestone Potenza RE050A - 235/45/17

Brakes
Ferrari 612 Scaglietti (Brembo) 4 piston brakes (F)
Nissan skyline R33 brakes (R)
GN Sigma brake booster
TR Magna master cylinder

Suspension
Custom adjustable lower control arms
Custom solid swaybar links
Full bush-less rose jointed front end
KYB front shocks
Gabriel Gas Ryder rear shocks
Reset OEM springs

Interior
Momo steering wheel (genuine)
Recaro Drivers seat, reclinable (period correct)

Other
Tow bar
Custom front to back roof rack


At the moment, i'm attempting to find someone in SA that can tune it for me. It sat not running for a long time, and unfortunately chomps a fair bit of gas, and also backfires when turned off, waking the neighbours up

If anyone can share any insight on my car, or any experiences that may help me out, I would greatly appreciate it. Unfortunately the previous owner of this car, and the person that made it like it is today, has passed away, so I really don't have any way of getting information about it.

Pictures:
1) The car:



With its roof racks:


2) Wheels and brakes
Fronts:


Rears:


3) Engine


4) Interior


5) Custom solid front end:





6) And my other baby, A 1998 Galant VR-4, 180kw @ all 4. Running 16 psi of boost, and its one of 11 factory manuals ever made in the colour, Roanne Red. Also running a Petrol/Direct gas injection set-up.




Thanks in advance for your future help

Love the wagon . Cant help with your problem but ..
I have had over seven LPG powered cars over the years . None of them backfired when they were switched of .
The first 4 only backfired from the carb or the throttle body only on start up or sharp accelerating . The remaining 3 have never backfired .
With the back fire is it out the exhurst of throttle body ??

That a great looking wagon..even love the colour.

1st guess regarding your LPG, the car is running lean

Thanks everybody I think i've picked up a good one!

The backfire is out of the exhaust. Its getting a tune this weekend coming so that should solve the issues. Its either a timing or mixture issue i think.

So I had a bit of luck at u-pull-it here in Adelaide, and i've found some Aunger headlight covers for $5! Winning

So I thought i'd update this just in case someone else has the same issue and stumbles along this page. All that was needed was to bring the idle down, to stop overrun upon turning the car off, which was causing the backfiring. It now idles around 800 rpm, and behaves perfect

Next up on the list of things to do, front ball joints, potentially wheel bearings, new front and rear shocks, and all rear bushings. Fun times ahead

Nice wagon Ben, looks like I am a little late to the party but I get all my tuning done by Decs at Garage 7. He is very switched on and can do wonders with all sorts of systems and installs.
http://www.garage7.com.au/home/index.php

^ Thanks mate! I'll keep them in mind for the next time I need something done. I have been recommended them once before for my VR4, as that also runs on LPG its difficult to find someone that would take the time to get it right. Adam from AT Performance & Fabrication recommended them to me when he did my exhaust

Well I've found some venetians and a sunvisor, and here are the results

A picture from a little hills run I took the sigma on



Some more goodies for the near future

Turbo is rebuilt.
Manifold/Dump has been dipped and painted.
Balance Line kit for the LPG bought.
Oil feed/return lines on the way..

... not long now

So where is the LPG tank located ??

Sigmaproject wrote:So where is the LPG tank located ??

The gas tank is located under the car, as a replacement for the petrol tank. Unfortunately that means that I don't have a spare wheel

Spare wheels are dead weight anyways

You use the LPG tank everytime you start the car.......you use the spare tyre when you get a puncture

Would the factory spare wheel get over the front brakes anyway??? they look quite big for a std wheel

Scorpma82 wrote:Spare wheels are dead weight anyways

You use the LPG tank everytime you start the car.......you use the spare tyre when you get a puncture

Would the factory spare wheel get over the front brakes anyway??? they look quite big for a std wheel

Couldn't have said that better myself

Nope, no stock wheel is even close. The disk rotor, from memory is about 14 inches, yet alone with the caliper.
It has about 2-3mm of clearance on the front on a 17x7 (+15?)

As far as a spare tyre goes, I have a random 16" wheel that I carry around, with roughly the same rolling diameter as a back wheel, which will clear the smaller rear brakes. Then I swap the back one onto the front!

I also have the racks, and with the purchase of a roof basket I could always stick a spare in that.

I'll just call the RACV....they can tow me to bob Jane's to repair my puncture on the spot

More updates... Rebuild turbo and restored dump pipe / intake manifold. Should be ready to go on in the next couple of weeks!








The goal will hopefully be around 100rwkw. As it stands now, it has 65

Did u lose any hp with the use of LPG?????........I would've thought 100kws at would be achievable without the turbo

I honestly have no idea, I purchased the car in exactly the way my first post showed!

I'd say it would loose around 20-30% of the power figure from the use of LPG.

Stock standard back in the day was about 83kw at the fly, so about 75kw (or less) at the wheels. So I was pretty happy with my figure of 65 considering its on LPG It may have also had a really bad tune on it, i'm not sure how 'well' the guy tuned it before it was dyno'd.

In any case....I hope it goes well and you get more than the 100rwkw.....safely

Scorpma82 wrote:In any case....I hope it goes well and you get more than the 100rwkw.....safely

Thanks mate, gonna start it off at 10psi or so, and see how we go from there. Will post on here the results

My efi N/A 4G54 makes 93rwkw, you should see a healthy 120+rwkw from a turbo motor on a daily tune

A112H wrote:My efi N/A 4G54 makes 93rwkw, you should see a healthy 120+rwkw from a turbo motor on a daily tune

Awesome! That looks very promising


So i've taken the sump off, and bolted things together. The sump is off at a shop getting a bung welded into it.

Turns out my sumps got custom baffling inside, and a modified oil pickup? This car never seems to stop giving me cool things...

(i'll add pictures when I get it back)

Also, a question for y'all:

I took the sump off and measured it, and its 260mm wide. Does this mean its a narrow block? If so, does that mean the engine's been replaced? I thought that GN sigmas with 5spd's were all wide block. :p

I purchased two gaskets, a 260mm wide one, and a 280mm wide one. Simply because I didn't know what I needed

Post a pic of the face of the sump and I will tell you narrow or wide !
Cheers stealth

brichman wrote:lso, a question for y'all:

I took the sump off and measured it, and its 260mm wide. Does this mean its a narrow block? If so, does that mean the engine's been replaced? I thought that GN sigmas with 5spd's were all wide block. :p

Ran into the same problem with my GN wagon.

The BELLHOUSING BOLT PATTERN designates a "WIDE" or "NARROW" block, not the sump. In preparation for the Magna, the sump and front timing cover were modified slightly along with a rear facing water port at the back of the block. Only the GN sigma (as far as I know) had these blocks.

Cheers.

For some strange reason I cannot get images to load.. The term wide and narrow block is actually to do with the width of the bell-housing across the bottom two bolt holes. 330mm is wide..310mm is narrow. Nothing to do with the width of the block/sump. The sump gaskets differ between Astron I and Astron II...the Astron II is narrower

hmmmmmmin the 10 minutes I spent trying to upload an image.. Superscan811 got in before me.

Narrow and wide block , sump and front cover all go with either wide or narrow
So the sump and front covers are different
It make no difference if it astron 1 or 2
Magna blocks are astron 2 narrow
Cheers stealth