1982 Lada Niva

Can't wait to see what you do with that trailer.:)
 
Due to the pandemic hitting its second phase, the movement restrictions are again in force in fact from today till monday morning we are not allowed to leave our homes. This gave me one unique chance to have my entire city's streets to my self, so first thing that come to my mind lets see how fast the little niva can go. I found me a long straight road and set up an old school GPS to read my actual speed. The little niva got up to 124 km/h (77 mph) it was indication around 140 on the speedo. Definitely the slowest vehicle i own, even my fiat 600 was faster. That wasn't the end of the story, the oil pump really did not like that high Rpm run, my oil pressure is now at 0 even when cold, still no knocking but is not healthy. The diesel conversion may need to happend faster then i tought. Sorry no pictures, the little niva is a handful to handle at speed.
 
The trailer i bought needs to pass inspection, but the electrics are a real mess. The cable was too long but damaged in the middle, so i used crimp connectors and heat shrink to fix the middle and cut both ends, the cable had rub thru on every place where the cable went thru steel. No rubber grommets, so i drilled the holes bigger and installed new rubber grommets. But then thought, i'll need to remove everything again to paint the bumper, so tough i'll take care of it now. I used a wire brush on an drill to clean off all the loose rust and apply anti rust acide. left it over night, and painted a coat of primer and some gray paint, waited a bit to dry and started installing the lights and licence plate holder. The tires on this thing are comical, they have 8" rims.
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Okay, I've looked though all of the pictures. What engine is that? Many of the parts are recognizable as Fiat or heavily Fiat influenced. But I don't recognize the engine. Weber DCD carb. Ignition looked more Bosch than Marelli. But the engine is?
 
This is a Lada (Vaz) the engine is the factory one lada engine, they look like fiat engine because, the russians(lada) bought the rights to copy the fiat 124, all the parts look identical many are interchangeable with the old fiat's of the 60's. Carb is a copy of solex carburetor, not a weber. Ignition is made by Vaz (lada) but old fiats have the same shape distributor, but the russians use different trigger because the other types would freeze and not work in -50degress , in fact they adapted a fiat to work in russia and manufactured it.
 
That's the thing. I expected it to look like a Fiat engine. It does not, at least it does not look like the Fiat engines brought into the US. Our 124/125/131 came with a twin cam in displacements from 1500 to 2000. Our 127/128/138/Yugo (Yugoslavian 137 that was imported until the revolution) used a single OHC in 1100 to 1500. But it didn't look like that.

One of my gigs is rebuilding transmissions for the old 124 Spyder and X1/9 owners. We can still get brand new parts,, I believe out of Romania. 1970s Fiats, still in production today.
 
It's been a long time since i've messed with fiat engines, i've forgotten there markings, but as far as i know this is the copy of the base engine that was fited in the 124 sedan. It started life as a 1200cc chan driven engine, and grow to 1600cc in my niva, and letter to 1700cc in the new niva, which is still in production. The 127/128 engines are different family they are belt driven engines, i know them intimately, they are domestic cars, my country was part of yugoslavia and yugo's 101,128, fico are still driven but most of them are in scrap yards.
 
Ah. We went from pushrod rear engined 600 and 850s directly to belt driven OHC front engine designs. Rumors are there were a few early pushrod 124s imported, but I didn't see one.

Back to the trailer.
 
I own a fiat 600, 1969 ex hillclimb race car. I have good knowledge of the 767cc engines, 843cc and 903cc fiat pushrod engines.
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We got an 817 for a few years. Seems the emissions laws were written defining an automobile has being at least 50 cubic inches (819cc). So we went from 843 to 817 for two years. Then the loophole was closed and they went to the 903.

In one of the storage buildings where I work there are two Abarth 750TCs and two Allemanos. There's even a 903 engine in the bosses office, Right next to the 948 BMC I will be putting in the Lotus 7 America one of these days.
 
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