Thoughts on building a drag car...

[bhazard]

So within the next year or so I'd like to build another fasty...leaning towards a full drag setup.

I currently have an 80k mile BP, an aspire atx that I gave to fb71 to yvanify, a China t3/t4, and a turd of a 92gl auto car.

I wanted a nice rust free roller but I think ill have to pass for now. Besides the worse it looks the more shocker value it has in my opinion.

I would be running it on megasquirt. I'd also use the stiffest rear suspension I could. The car has an aspire swap in progress.

Any thoughts...ideas...suggestions?

[IdealSociety]

unless its a built BP youll basically be building what a bunch of us already have

A proper FWD drag festiva needs some suspension changes, as well as a cage that has extensions into the engine bay to connect the 2 box design together, the chassis loses alot of power due to flexing in the body when putting power to the ground in high torque applications.

Build your BP, get some aftermarket pistons and B6T or better rods. Also if you want higher hp you may want to look into a quiafe diff or even going towards a toyota trans swap like the higher hp BG chassis guys do. The g series tends to grenade itself once you start beating it over 300hp consistently.

get some dual valve springs and some cams built for turbo applications (BP26 cams can be had for a fair price if you shop around) the stock NA cams are built to make power by keeping the valves open longer to let more air in, giving the head a good porting as well as a better intake manifold (a gtx or gtr intake) port matched as well will allow a larger turbo to flow that air into your piston chambers better.

also, dig up some ARP crank studs and a crank girdle (found on the miatas as well as the OBDII BP escorts (96only) and later protege's i believe. this will help keep your bottom end together under the intense stresses your crank will be seeing for higher hp applications.

I highly recommend investing in a better turbo, even if its just a cheap garrett or Holset (an HX35 and HY35 are great turbos for small Cu.In engines looking to make big powers on high boost #'s) The cheap china ebay turbo's are hit or miss and often times are not balanced properly (a terrible thing considering that a turbo can be spinning at over 150k rpm depending on the model) and that they are all float bearing turbos.

MS is the way to go on this for an ECU, but youll have to pick up the addon stuff for transmission control if you plan on keeping the automatic. i recommend checking out whatever it is the guys on clubprotege are using for theirs, i know theres an aftermarket controller for the trans but i cant remember what its called.

Suspension, are you taking fully dedicated to track or drive it to the track? i have vw golf coilovers in my car atm which are stiff as hell (the mk2 golf weighs about 400lbs+ over a festiva) and when raised all the way up help to keep the weight transfer forward on the front wheels.

Thats all i have for now, unless you have any other specific questions or ideas towards HP range your looking to run (to compete with some of the current set times in the racing section, youll want to be running 250+hp) which can be done on a stock block, but your tuning has to be premium and even then ill recommend if you have access to the injectors and fuel go cornfed. Ethanol has an equivalent octane rating of 110 (at least it does here in MN) and using MS you can easily run higher boost before getting detonation, downside is youll probably want to run larger fuel lines (due to having to pump so much more fuel into the engine to make the same power #'s as gasoline, ethanol requires roughly 25-30% more fuel flow to make the same BTU output aka thermal energy, which is what makes your engine go yay vroom!) as well as larger injectors to deliver it to the cylinder chambers.

Im sure i could add, but offhand i cant think of anything else... this is the stuff on my list "to do" so far

[eurotiva]

I have one in the works......

a/c 11 sec festiva......

[Joe Dirt]

Traction will be you biggest enemy , my car is pretty much a drag car only yet slower then most it has severe traction issues. Once I start turning the power up I can only expect it to get harder and harder.

If your considering a "all out" race car id suggest looking into swapping to rwd. Just my personal opinion. I've been tossing around throwing a 5.3 in mine like I have in my maverick.

[bhazard]

Oh great here goes Greg :p

And yeah I probably wouldn't push it too hard with the China turbo. An hx35 with a divided header would be awesome. A friend of mine built his header for his 2.3 Ford and gets 26+ psi by 3000rpm with a Holset.

Ill be running a built aspire auto. No electronic controls.

Ill still want to drive it to shows and stuff. Not worried about comfort though.

E85 is a great idea too. I'd prolly ditch the stock gas tank for a cell anyway.


I've thought about just converting my current bpt car to auto but its just not a good setup for drag...the car weighs 2100lbs. A fat-tiva.

[bhazard]

I'm actually not *that* worried about traction. My current car didn't have much problems hooking up with 8 inch slicks...and that was with crap rear suspension. The auto will help too I think.

[FB71]

an aspire atx that I gave to fb71 to yvanify

classic! I love that term! Yvanify FTW!!!

Also, I've decided to have the school build a drag Festy out of the spare parts I have lying around, too!!! Got clearance for it Monday!!! We're goin to use it as a recruiting tool.

[Joe Dirt]

I'm actually not *that* worried about traction. My current car didn't have much problems hooking up with 8 inch slicks...and that was with crap rear suspension. The auto will help too I think.

Was just throwing it out there its always a concern with a fwd race car and even more so the more weight you take out of it , but since its all I use my car for I'm always on a mod quest to make it 'work' I've got a spare set of coilover adjusters that will fit the rear if you are interested . Do you still go over to turboford? I haven't been over there in years
.

[IdealSociety]

rwd it, throw an FE3 from a sportage into it with a turbo, use a miata or stronger transmission and tube frame the chassis.

[/thread]

[gauge_half_inch]

For rears struts, I would look into the mirage agx struts, on 8 the back barely squats. I launch all the time on the weekends. For being on street tires, not drag radials, it gets out of the hole pretty good after they get warm. I'm running the 205/50/15 BFG g-force sport, I can only imagine if I had slicks....

[gorgonheimer]

your better to stay fwd with this one. the miata trans suck and also the rx7 that can replace them suck. the festy is to short for rwd. it would be super squirrly. a traction bar setup in place of the front sway bar, really stiff rear coils, and an extra rod in a aspire rear beam are the way to go. as mentioned before, full cage with extension into engine bay are a must.

btw i love this idea so much i have a car in the works for the same purposes. now that it is cooled of enough in texas to go outside, i should be making some progress. we can compare notes!

[eurotiva]

Bhazard..........y u h8tn...?

lol

Who has the fastest ac car? lol

[bhazard]

Ain't h8in u greggycakes. Can't w8 2 c u next year <3

[Rocketman]

put the engine + autotragic in the back of the car

[eurotiva]

put the engine + autotragic in the back of the car

Ding, Ding, Ding.......thats the best way to make it all happen.

That's my plan !!