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so my festiva has been sitting a while. the last engine i put in it i thought was knocking like mad when i put it in and so i was mad at myself and let the project lay for a year or two. Eventually i lost my job and had to sell alot of the turbo parts to make rent including my turbo/manifold, MS unit, LC1, and most of the stuff that went with it except for a spare tubular T25 manifold and a cheap ebay turbo that wont even bolt to it.
Down the road, i now am in school full time during the days to get a proper college degree and work at an Advance Auto Parts at night to help with parts cost and make a little money on the side (my main income is unemployment while im in school). Now that i have time and more stability i can afford to pick back up where i left off. Now luckily i managed to find a used MS unit with a bunch of sensors off a VW in a box, everything seems in place and the harness is more than long enough and complete.
So with only a few pieces to start with, im going to rebuild. This last weekend i pulled it out of the yard (by pulled i mean dragged, the rear drums were frozen solid) and put it into the garage.
The rear shoes had seized themselves to the drums, to get them loose so i could roll the car into the garage i had to gut the drums of the shoes/seized material and then reinstall. At this point i pulled the engine to see what was causing the crazy knocking noise that just didnt quite sound like rod/crank problems.
After removing the engine and trans i checked the clutch over. the 6 puck looked great and the SPEC pressure plate was clean and unmarred as well. At this point i noticed a couple flywheel bolts looked odd and upon inspection i realized they were all hand-tight and coming loose. Thankfully i had never really ran the engine so the flywheel didnt have a chance to mess anything up so everything is good and clean yet.
Everything is back in-place now to run N/A while i collect the rest of the go-fast goodies except for the intake tubing and trans shift linkages. the shifter linkages need some adjusting so ill have to modify them before it goes back on the road.
At that point i called it a weekend since i need to order up some aspire rear pads and hardware as well as run some new brake lines to the rear (it did after-all sit for about 2 years, so at least 1 line i know of is leaking).
Here is what has gone into the car so-far:
BP swap
g5mr hydro trans
aspire brakes
custom coilovers
crossmember elimination
civic short shifter
pontiac fiero seats
15" alloy wheels w/ 195/50r15 tires
upper hatch spoiler
tach cluster swap
power mirror swap
Mazda 121 badging
Late Mazda 323 steering wheel (the one that doesnt look like the festivas)
full 2.5" straight through exhaust w/no cat
im sure theres more than that, just cant remember offhand atm since its been years since i did most of the mods (ive had this car since 04 and its been BP powered since then). As things go on, ill keep track of it all in here. Next weekend i should have it back on the road (its parked at my parents house almost 2 hours away so i only have weekends to get it running till i can drive it back to my own garage).
Once its running again ill start rebuilding this MS unit like i had my last one built, everything that could was a direct plug into the factory harness that used an old ECU/Plug i had cut apart and used. The extra wires for the LC1 and extra sensors were ran in their own loom that was easy to remove so when i had to go back N/A it only took removal of the piping/oil lines/turbo manifold/ect and reinstallation of the MAF/stock ECU/Etc. It shouldnt take much to get everything set back up since its the 2nd time around (unfortunatley i think i lost my old wiring diagrams i sketched up) and im hoping that by the time winter hits ill have all the parts to get it ready for some turbo timeslips when next spring comes
Along the way if money permits ill also be experimenting with several suspension design mods ive come up with since starting my engineering classes, if all goes well ill hopefully have a design that bolts into the stock locations for easy removal that wil replace both the front and rear suspensions with tubular IRS suspension based on double wishbone design but with remote shock/spring locating more akin to formula 1 cars (or even a Caterham 7 for those who know how the front suspension works). The shocks will be up in the strut tower but much smaller and will bolt to a pivot assembly which will then connect to the lower control arm allowing space.
Also, after having seen some of the j-spec style fender flares floating around on here, i may opt to go that route so i can run even wider tires and open up the wheel arches to get the center of gravity even lower.
Down the road, i now am in school full time during the days to get a proper college degree and work at an Advance Auto Parts at night to help with parts cost and make a little money on the side (my main income is unemployment while im in school). Now that i have time and more stability i can afford to pick back up where i left off. Now luckily i managed to find a used MS unit with a bunch of sensors off a VW in a box, everything seems in place and the harness is more than long enough and complete.
So with only a few pieces to start with, im going to rebuild. This last weekend i pulled it out of the yard (by pulled i mean dragged, the rear drums were frozen solid) and put it into the garage.
The rear shoes had seized themselves to the drums, to get them loose so i could roll the car into the garage i had to gut the drums of the shoes/seized material and then reinstall. At this point i pulled the engine to see what was causing the crazy knocking noise that just didnt quite sound like rod/crank problems.
After removing the engine and trans i checked the clutch over. the 6 puck looked great and the SPEC pressure plate was clean and unmarred as well. At this point i noticed a couple flywheel bolts looked odd and upon inspection i realized they were all hand-tight and coming loose. Thankfully i had never really ran the engine so the flywheel didnt have a chance to mess anything up so everything is good and clean yet.
Everything is back in-place now to run N/A while i collect the rest of the go-fast goodies except for the intake tubing and trans shift linkages. the shifter linkages need some adjusting so ill have to modify them before it goes back on the road.
At that point i called it a weekend since i need to order up some aspire rear pads and hardware as well as run some new brake lines to the rear (it did after-all sit for about 2 years, so at least 1 line i know of is leaking).
Here is what has gone into the car so-far:
BP swap
g5mr hydro trans
aspire brakes
custom coilovers
crossmember elimination
civic short shifter
pontiac fiero seats
15" alloy wheels w/ 195/50r15 tires
upper hatch spoiler
tach cluster swap
power mirror swap
Mazda 121 badging
Late Mazda 323 steering wheel (the one that doesnt look like the festivas)
full 2.5" straight through exhaust w/no cat
im sure theres more than that, just cant remember offhand atm since its been years since i did most of the mods (ive had this car since 04 and its been BP powered since then). As things go on, ill keep track of it all in here. Next weekend i should have it back on the road (its parked at my parents house almost 2 hours away so i only have weekends to get it running till i can drive it back to my own garage).
Once its running again ill start rebuilding this MS unit like i had my last one built, everything that could was a direct plug into the factory harness that used an old ECU/Plug i had cut apart and used. The extra wires for the LC1 and extra sensors were ran in their own loom that was easy to remove so when i had to go back N/A it only took removal of the piping/oil lines/turbo manifold/ect and reinstallation of the MAF/stock ECU/Etc. It shouldnt take much to get everything set back up since its the 2nd time around (unfortunatley i think i lost my old wiring diagrams i sketched up) and im hoping that by the time winter hits ill have all the parts to get it ready for some turbo timeslips when next spring comes
Along the way if money permits ill also be experimenting with several suspension design mods ive come up with since starting my engineering classes, if all goes well ill hopefully have a design that bolts into the stock locations for easy removal that wil replace both the front and rear suspensions with tubular IRS suspension based on double wishbone design but with remote shock/spring locating more akin to formula 1 cars (or even a Caterham 7 for those who know how the front suspension works). The shocks will be up in the strut tower but much smaller and will bolt to a pivot assembly which will then connect to the lower control arm allowing space.
Also, after having seen some of the j-spec style fender flares floating around on here, i may opt to go that route so i can run even wider tires and open up the wheel arches to get the center of gravity even lower.
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