engine rebuild and fuel economy mods

[bhearts]

im new to the aspire world of modifications. i have a 96 with the b3 motor and a manual transmition. my motor is getting up there in mileage and im looking to do a rebuild with a couple unique motor mods.

1. while i plan on doing my rebuild to its fullest (valve job, head planeing, new bearing and gaskets, inspecting my injectors) i want to modify my internals without spending too much money. im looking to build a high compression na motor. idk if anyone makes a high compression piston for these cars, if someone does! thatd be great and answer the whole rest of the number 1 idea. some company (cant think of the name right now) makes an aluminum epoxy. its supposed to be machinable and acts just like alu when its dried/hardened. the product is alumaputty. i think itd be great to add this to my combustion chamber be it on my pistons or up on the head. i could build a nice quench head to help with the fuel swirl or just build the pistons up a little to take up more space. anyone with inputs on the product, the placement, or a replacement(high comp pistons).

2. my second biggest part of the build would be on the intake side. i will design a water/meth steam injection system. now everyone knows (or should know by now) of the benefits of water injections. knock resistance, steam cleaned internals just to name a couple. performance guys use ambient water temp sprays into their intakes to help cool a turbo charge, and to keep the egts down under load- deseil guys. with the steam injection i want to have it warm up my intake charge and the steam will take up more space of were the air should be. this should require my throttle body to open up more under cruise which would in turn raise my intake side efficiency. i know you might shake your head and say that the warmer air may cause knock. but you have to realize that i plan on heater water/meth into the steam which methanol is a fuel known for its knock resistance. at if worse comes to worse, the steam still have plenty of ability to absorb unwanted heat outta the combustion chamber. share inputs on steam injection setups please

3. i am in the process of building a new header for the car. ive seen a couple after market jobbers that people have slopped onto their 1.3ls. but i think these look way too flowy with their big primaries. you may ask "whats wrong with flowing". well....not really anything....but ive read multiple times that ever 1/8 inch the primaries are sized bigger, your torque peak raises by 700rpm. so if your pipes get too big, our baby motors may never be able to take advantage of the size. thats why im planning my header build around a 1" primary and 1" secondary header. and i plan on making the rest of the exhause 1 and 1/8 inch pipe. all these measurements are internal diameter fyi. i want the primary lengths to be around 1 ft. and the secondaries of this 4-2-1 header to be longer than 2 foot. ive researched and longer lengths seem to be the best the tune my motor for max tq at my cruise rpm....which im guessing is around 3.3k at 65mph. the biggest problem im having is sourcing a flang to attach all my pipes to. does anyone have any flanges already made up...or are there any alternatives. ive built one header already (urine poor design) but it did achieve me a constant 39 mpg bump from 36. i used the stock exhaust manifold which was just chop sawd from the rest of the pipes. i believe the stock manifold to be crappy design and i would like to get one that is port matched for my motor. any ideas here? is the 1.6 ports the same as the 1.3l?

thanks guys. if you made it to here! im proud of you for reading past my gramar errors. but just lemme know what you think. hp doesnt matter. im not building a race car. i just want max mpg. id love to say i get better than a prius!

[GenevaDirt]

hello...glad you finally decided to post. I am not the one to offer the advice you are looking for but I am sure that you will get plenty of feedback.
When you start your build be sure to start a thread in the garage forum so everyone can follow the progress....good luck.

[FestYboy]

3300 rpm will have you at 75 mph.

hav youre primaries 1/8-3/16" ID larger than your port opening, same goes for the secondaries.

yse water injection, no need for steam unless you can readily control your water temp and have a large container.

[bhearts]

the steam injection

here was how i am planning on doing it. i plan on mating some fuel rail stock (google search it) to one of my primary pipes. pump the water/meth through the pipe then run it into my intake through a flow rated nozzle. and as long as my nozzle doesnt flow too much, the water mix should stay in the heater chamber long enough to reach an effective temp. even if it not steaming, i think anything above ambient would be great. itd sure help on those winter days with extra fuel atomization.

[Bert]

Glad to see you're enthusiastic about trying to push the envelope with a B3.

Problem is a lot of time, money and engineering went into purposing that motor 'as is'. Try to transcend those specs by a wide margin, such as you are proposing, and inevitably you will have a hole in your grill or firewall and a 'suddenly-become' boat anchor sitting between the wheels. If it's outright power you're looking for, cheap and reliable, then start looking at B8 and BP engines as candidates. 'Right out of the box' these motors have way more power than you'll ever get out of a backyard-modified B3, and guess what? They bolt up to an Aspire/Festy transmission just fine and into an Aspire/Festy car without too much grief.

By the way, I destroyed a few engines in my younger days too. Some from over- enthusiasm with limited funds and others by inexperience at properly assembling things.

Just before posting this response I re-read your entry and in the last line I notice it is fuel economy you are aiming for. The only experience I have with that (aside from driving/accelerating slow and keeping the revs down) is that I once built a sprint engine (for slalom racing) and to ensure it had a proper run-in cycle put on a dinky carburetor and stock exhaust. With that stuff on the engine had no power or revs but the fuel economy was spectacular. Race motor that couldn't breathe, nor blow.

[bhearts]

id would be interested in upgrading to the b6 motor. i do see alot more people using this and i know there would be alot bigger part follow up. like cams and internals. but id like for this to be a last choice.

[Pu241]

Bert, I guess the title didn't provide a clue?

[Pu241]

bhearts, a location in your profile would be nice so we have some idea if any of us are near you.

In case you don't know, we are having the Festiva Madness Meet in Raleigh, NC.
At which many people with an interest in optimizing the B3 for MPG will attend, including your truly. Please consider attending if you can. I look forward to updates on your project. Fuel is not ever going to be cheap again!

[bhearts]

so no one has any input on water/meth steam injection. that combod with a warm air intake should have some potent fuel eco potential.

[TheresGabe]

I've got a shiny nickel for you, if by adding power to a B3, you can make it as economical (Let alone MORE economical), or as dependable as a stock B3.

[FestYboy]

^ it can be done...

i submit to you: Matt Dickmyer 100hp B3 with top end work only (use search function)

[blkfordsedan]

If I were going to build a B3 for max MPG.....

You're right, compression is a good thing, but the B3 is not exactly low compression to start with (~9.3:1 IIRC?). I wouldn't get too worried about extensive internal mods...and I certainly wouldn't try any kind of epoxy putty in the combustion chamber. The chamber already has a good swirl design and quench. I would mill the head about .010" to .015" (leave room for future work) and polish the chambers. If you can find or custom order a thinner MLS head gasket (maybe .040" or so), that will give you a nice bump in compression as well. You could also have the block decked to bring the pistons up closer to 0.00 deck, which will also bump compression and help eliminate spent exhaust gasses. This should get you very close to 10:1 (I can calculate it if you wish) which is plenty high for street use. Do some mild port/pocket clean-up on the head and call it as good as it's gonna get. I would also use an Aspire roller follower cam and consider an adjustable cam gear. You can advance the cam a few degrees to increase dynamic compression, improve low RPM cylinder filling and compensate for the timing effect of the reduced cam-to-crank center distance.

For the short block, having the crank ground and keeping the bearing clearances on the low side will allow use of thinner full-synthetic oil. You can also consider some of the new hi-tech coatings for the piston skirts (low friction) and piston tops (to keep the heat in for more efficient combustion).

If you want to build a header, I would do a try-y design and do the detailed research on the primary size and length. You may be able to use the Aspire tubular steel manifold as a starting point for the flange.

I would also consider a MSD style multi-strike ignition for more complete fuel burn.


I would love to see someone build a max MPG B3.....just to see what it's capable of!

Sorry- just re-read your post. I see you already tried using the stock Aspire manifold! The B6 has fairly bigger ports, but there was a B3 header that FMS sold that has smaller tubes. I don't know of any aftermarket higher compression pistons available, but I don't think you need them to get what you want.

[Advancedynamix]

To utilize water meth injection to it's full potential for a fuel mileage build you will also need a tunable engine management system. Also, rather than extruded aluminum fuel rail stock that will corrode extremely fast with heat, moister and methanol ( highly corrosive fuel) you should use 1/8" stainless steel or copper tubing wrapped around your primary tubes. This tubing can then be flared to use stainless fittings going into your nozzles. Steam injection does work better on a naturally aspirated engine than just water meth alone, because water doesn't atomize well with most available nozzles and cold iat temps in an N/A engine tend to allow pooling. Poorly atomized water droplets in the combustion chamber do the same thing as poorly atomized fuel droplets, but much faster (fouls the spark). We always called it " blowing the spark out" in the dyno room.

[Advancedynamix]

Also, don't put epoxy in your combustion chambers. Has it been done? Yes, does it have a high success rate? No, not at all. If epoxy was an acceptable way to permanently reshape combustion chambers then I wouldn't have spent so many years welding heads.

Just simply having the head surfaced about .020" will increase your squish area and promote better swirl along with the higher comp ratio ( and more sensitivity to detonation). This with some gapless second rings will boost the engines VE alone. Also, gapless second rings are a good idea with steam injection as well. Steam increases cylinder pressure and causes ring blowby as well as breaking down the engine oil faster.

[blkfordsedan]

OR..................

You could just buy a "fuel atomizer" magnet and "tornado" insert to put in the intake tube. "As seen on TV"..............Bwaaahahahahaha!