NORTH LAGUNA

The traffic police my car was registered on 16 August 1995. And already the 17th in the morning my whole family went to travel on the route Moscow — Ufa — Naberezhnye Chelny — Tolyatti — Tyumen. Two weeks clocked on the speedo the first 4 thousand miles.

 

Scary to embark on such a long rally on a new, completely neobkatannaya car? No, because he was one hundred percent confident that the Laguna will not disappoint. After all, every design element, every possible nuance of its behavior on the road, I carefully figured out in advance and did nothing anyhow, at random. Mileage shown: “Laguna” is a very reliable, economical and user friendly car. During the trip not happened a single failure. Fuel consumption on the highway amounted to only 8.7 liters per 100 km. Amenities can be appreciated only ride on the “Lagoon”. Tyumen journalist S. September, participating in road tests, described her experience: “On my way, I tried to listen to… aerodynamic noise and the behavior of the car on the road. We drove, though not fast, but up to 80 km/h in the car was quiet. If it’s not full-proof aerodynamic purity (at this speed in the classic “Lada” is quiet), then, at least, talked about the fact that the apparent errors in the design and calculations no. As for the ride and “road holding” factors — the expansion of the gauge and increase the base (the dimensions of “Laguna” is comparable to “the river”, but it is 200 kg lighter! — Ed.) justified: the machine goes smoothly, confidently enough, not jumping from side to side… the suspension I would subjectively rank above “volgovskoe”…”

From myself I will add that for ease of driving there were even such seemingly minor, but nevertheless very useful things that increase active safety, as support for the driver’s left foot area and increased brake pedal. The first assessed primarily on a long trip, when the leg starts to tire from the strain. The second meet is that on the Executive machines. By such pedal will not miss in any situation. And the leg feels it differently.

 

Passive safety of the “Lagoon”, I think, is also higher than the production car. The interior belted tubular frame and therefore very hard. The energy absorption ability of bumpers own design is superior to “Zhigulevskoe”, they absorb shock more effectively.

 

Speaking of convenience, not to mention such important components of automobile comfort as the chair. Initially it was planned to “Zhiguli” of the seat (from the VAZ-2109). However, later I bought a beautiful chair from “Toyota mark II” — soft, comfortable, with electric heating (!). And with lots of adjustments: headrest moves not only up and down but also forward and backward; the movement of the lever, you can quickly inflate the cushion under the lower back or, on the contrary, to remove it.

 

Project your car I finished in October of 1986. Then a few years picked up the necessary components and parts. Four years spent on construction. To describe the difficulties that await those who will follow the path of self-production car, I think not.

 

 

 

The Car Is Laguna.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

People ask me sometimes: how I could “nine” besiege these “bells and whistles”? But my car VAZ-21099 nothing in common except doors and racks. What is this “nine”, if it has a base and the track is more classical layout with rear — wheel drive? Just the body shape is dictated by the requirements of aerodynamics. Of course, the opportunity to purge the machine, or at least the model in the wind tunnel I had, but in the design of the body I widely used books & reference on aviation subjects and the recommendations of the famous year preparing the car for the rally — for the sake of improving its reliability and performance.

 

“Laguna” — a four-door, five-seat sedan. Bearing part of the body consists of a power frame and safety cage surrounding the interior, which considerably improves passive safety.

 

Power frame is assembled from steel profiles with rectangular cross section with dimensions 60×40, 50×25 and 20×20 mm with the use of the front side members and extended at 170 mm front cross member of the frame of the “Moskvich-412”. “Donor” for the latter was the same knot that was used to cut a piece length 170 mm. All the pinch welds reinforced arc welding.

 

Safety frame made of pipes with a diameter of 3/4 inch. All welding work was performed by arc welding, constant current application electrodes of the Japanese brand 1.In-520 with a diameter of 4, 3,2 and 1,5 mm.

 

And now about what the “Laguna” differs from other machines. Except for the doors, all removable body panels — hood, trunk lid, fenders, bumpers, and other elements of the composite made from foam and fiberglass. Used rigid foam stamps ПХВ1 -115 — thermo-,noise – and vibration-insulating construction material (leaves standard: 600x600x50 mm). It is well processed by various tools — from hand planer to planer(depending on the size of the blanks). To the required theoretical contours given by the templates of fiberboard, the surfaces were brought with a grinding machine with coarse sandpaper.

The foam panels were shpaklevanii, polished and papered both sides with three layers as thin as silk, fiberglass (after it was burnt paraffin, for which it was heated on a hot plate to the appearance of smoke). Adhesive epoxy.. Then surface again specialise, ground, gruntovalnoy and finally painted. Used paint company “Sadolin” colors “trout-metallic”, coupled with a proprietary solvent. To use any other solvents, as recommended by some “experts” do not recommend: nothing good will come of it — the color with stains.

 

To body panels are attached with pasted them in all sorts of embedded items: bolts of different diameters, G – or U-shaped metal staples.

 

Movable hood and the trunk lid is equipped with a custom inner loops.

 

Front and back glass are installed on a layer of silicone sealant and pressed metal straps around the perimeter at intervals of 300 mm. As a disadvantage note the absence of them decorative frames — could not find a suitable material.

 

Windshield — from “Rafiq”, triplex, slightly cropped at the sides. The angle of inclination less than that of the VAZ-2108, and is 30°. To improve the aerodynamic qualities of the body of wiper blades hidden in the hood of the niche and is attached directly to the glass through two drilled holes in it.

 

 

 

Engine “Lagoon” — from the “Moskvich-412” with great potential. To use them, I modified the motor all I could.

 

First, to improve the filling of the combustion chambers and creating the minimum resistance of the exhaust gases expanded inlet and outlet channels of the cylinder head, and their corresponding nozzles. Did the cutter, and then a semicircular chisel and in the end emery tape, secured in the Chuck of the drill. Priter also the joints of pipe connections on head unit and adjusted at the place of laying as unreliable connection would lead to a significant loss of engine power and all my previous tricks would have been in vain.

 

Second, the changes in the design of the valve guide bushings. With the help of a special mandrel vibrissal them from heated to 170° C head, cut off the machine and re-pressed into a hot head. When the head has cooled, supplied bushings “Zhiguli” valve stem caps.

 

And about the valve mechanism. For more reliable operation at 6000 or more rpm subvalvular springs put washers 1.5 mm thick.

 

Thirdly, with the aim of improving throttle response of the engine reduced the weight of the flywheel. Instead of the standard 8 kg, he now weighs 4,2 kg. And the metal cut away from the center to reduce the magnitude of moment of inertia. With such a flywheel, of course, re-ambulancewoman, the engine runs evenly, and the car pulls away more smoothly.

 

Fourth, changed something in the design of the pump of the cooling. Removed from cover steel bushing with the standard “moskvichesky” seal, bored through the seat and pressed (with preload 0.02 mm) seal from the “Lada”. In addition, to increase the performance of the pump has replaced the standard impeller, too, on “Zhiguli”, which handled the shaft so that when napressovannye new impeller was the interference of 0.02 mm. the Rear end of the latter is also bored through up to the size ensuring a gap of 2 mm between the blades and the pump casing.

Rear axle spacer (rear view):

 

1 — Carter, 2, 3 — eyelet mounts top and bottom longitudinal rods, 4 — Cup spring rear suspension, 5—spacer (steel 30).

 

Steering — all the way from the “Moskvich-412”. However, I have the idea to install the “Lagoon” management of power from a Toyota — all self-respecting company car weighing more than one ton used hydraulic actuators. I think in a short time to implement the plan.

 

Electric car homemade, but installed using the mounting block from the VAZ-2108 and wires with the factory plug-in connections. Lights — from “the Muscovite-2141”, front — “Zaporozhets”, the rear lights, a heater and a beard dashboard — from VAZ-2108, instrument panel — from the VAZ-2107, the dashboard is homemade.

 

And finally — very important. All these years the wife and two sons, and was sympathetic to my constant disappearance in the garage. Moreover, helped to build a “Lagoon”. Of course, the cost was very high. And the time and effort spent a lot. Nevertheless, we are satisfied with their car. Over the past year, hitting more than 21, OOO km. I did what you wanted!

 

A. KLUNK,

Tyumen