Project Procrastination....a B6 swap

[sasquatch]

Amen, im still rocking a festy trans in my b6T. That thing wont break, i dont know if its just a really good trans or its the way you drive it.

i should throw a e-series in my car for fun one day and stick it on the dyno and see how much power it will hold before it goes boom.... its launching it that kills them but i wanna know how much hp they can take before the gears just strip right off lol... that would be fun

[bhearts]

so...once you had your head milled the second time, you got a compression boost due to the smaller chambers. but how did your cam timing change. i always hear talk about the slack in the timing belt and how the cam is closer to the block. does this cause it to lose power. gain power. ? and whats the safest amount that a 1.3l could be milled. arent the 1.3 and 1.3 stroke the same?

[blkfordsedan]

so...once you had your head milled the second time, you got a compression boost due to the smaller chambers. but how did your cam timing change. i always hear talk about the slack in the timing belt and how the cam is closer to the block. does this cause it to lose power. gain power. ? and whats the safest amount that a 1.3l could be milled. arent the 1.3 and 1.3 stroke the same?

Yes, the cam timing will be retarded slightly. The slack in the belt is taken up by the tensioner assembly, but what happens is that the cam and crank sprockets have to rotate ever so slightly in opposite directions (i.e. retarding the valve events) to compensate for the decrease in center distance. How much is a function of the belt pitch and the pitch diameters of each sprocket. You must also remember that cam timing is expressed in crankshaft degrees, or relative to crankshaft position. If you rotate the cam sprocket 2 degrees, you change the actual valve events by 4 degrees (because the crank turns at twice the speed of the cam).

For example, let's say you mill the head .020"....thereby decreasing the center distance by .020". To compensate, you rotate the cam gear CCW just enough to displace the extra .020" of belt length. The timing belt is a 8mm pitch (.315"). The cam sprocket has 42 teeth, so the circumference of the sprocket at the pitch line is 42X8=336mm (13.228" or ~4.2" diameter). This means that every .0367" of rotation at the pitch line is worth 1 degree (13.228/360). Sooo....(.020"/.0367"= .5449 degrees). If you double that for crankshaft rotation, you get ~1.09 degrees. To simplify, milling the head .020" with a cam sprocket of 42 teeth and an 8mm pitch will result in retarding the cam timing events by 1 degree. If you left the cam sprocket in place and only rotated the crank sprocket CW, you would have to move it twice as far....so you end up with the same results. To put this in prospective, when dialing in camshafts, the rule of thumb is 4 to 6 degrees (crankshaft degrees) to make a difference. 2 degrees is usually not noticable and 8+ degrees usually means you picked the wrong cam profile.

Retarding the cam timing will weaken the torque curve below the torque peak and augment it above the peak. It will lower the dynamic compression since the intake valve will close later in the compression stroke, allowing more cylinder pressure to bleed out the intake. Also, the intake valve will open later on the intake stroke, so the valve will not be as far open during the ATDC crank position where cylinder filling is most effective. The result of all this is usually a weaker torque curve at lower RPM but a higher peak Horsepower. Changing the cam timing by only 1 or 2 degrees will not have much noticable effect....providing the camshaft is well suited for the application.

Note: I have no idea if the actual belt pitch of the B3 or B6 is 8mm or if the cam sprocket has 42 teeth. I used those figures for example only. However, I'm 99.99% sure that milling the head .020" will not effect the cam timing by more than 1 or 2 degrees at the most.

[bhearts]

for compression boost. is the only option on these motors to mill the head. what would keep someone from filling the piston reliefs with some sort of product. ive heard jb welb has been used in combustion chambers before. thatd take up 5cc of space. equivilent to 50mil of head taken off...right?

[blkfordsedan]

I've never seen anything used to fill the piston dish before. I don't believe i would trust anything. The best bet would be custom pistons. The other easy option is a thinner MLS head gasket. Every .001" of thickness reduction on the gasket is worth way more than milling the head the same amount. The gasket reduces volume over the entire area of the bore, as opposed to just the area of the combustion chamber. I planned on using a MLS gasket, but finances didn't oblige.

[blkfordsedan]

Finally able to get started on the actual engine swap yesterday! I just got a new iPhone as well, so I thought I would try out the HD camera :p.

Here's the Festy in "pre-op", getting ready to begin the transplant and receiving some words of encouragement from his "bigger but younger brother". Amazing how good the Festy paint still looks compared to the 2004 Mustang.




Here's the old heart.....nasty, oily and weak......


Here's the new heart awaiting transplant. It was packed in ice, but it melted.....BECAUSE IT'S SOOOO HOT!!!! :p



And the procedure has begun! I forgot how low the FMS springs and 175/50-13 made the Festy sit. I couldn't fit any of my floor jacks under the car. In fact, I can't even fit my fist between the front sway bar and the ground (~4") :eeeeeek:. I managed to get it up on jack stands with enough room I can comfortably manuver under the car. I only had a short time to work on it, but all I need to do is pull the axles and the old motor is ready to come out.

[bhearts]

brilliant work! i love reading your build! its motivating to me

[leapin]

Every time I look at your car I like it a little bit more. The blue is so nice, and I am partial to the pepper shaker wheels of course. Geez it's clean!

[Prafeston]

What are those pepper shaker wheels from? Thought they were the RX-7s, but looking around those are only 8 holes and these are 12.

[blkfordsedan]

Every time I look at your car I like it a little bit more. The blue is so nice, and I am partial to the pepper shaker wheels of course. Geez it's clean!

Thanks! It actually has a lot of flaws up close. Lots of rock chips, small scratches, hail dents, cracked windshield, etc. The clear coat on the roof is now starting to peel as well. The interior is pretty filthy as well and the drivers seat is torn. Overall, it's still pretty nice....a good "driver condition". No rust except for the lower radiator support, and that will be fixed as soon as the motor is pulled. Once the new motor is in, everything will be either new or rebuilt (transaxle, clutch, axles, suspension, brakes, etc.).

What are those pepper shaker wheels from? Thought they were the RX-7s, but looking around those are only 8 holes and these are 12.

I believe they're off of an older 323. They're 13x5 and fit the stock Festy pattern. I still need spacers in the back so I can install the bearing caps and still keep the wheel center caps.

[blkfordsedan]

Finally got the chance to pull the old B3 out. It doesn't look like it in the pictures, but it was a complete oily mess. By the time I got the engine pulled, I felt like I had taken a bath in cooking oil. Everything was covered in a film of oil due to all the blow-by. Here's a pic of the old B3


I spent a whole afternoon with a bottle of Simple Green, a rag, a brass bristle brush and a garden hose....cleaning the engine bay. All in all, it came out pretty good. You can compare to the "before" pics posted above. I don't plan on spending any time repainting anything, since this will be a "driver", but I hate to put a clean, new engine in a dirty engine bay.




I did find that the new rack & pinion boots that I installed only 2 years ago were completely shot already. I would not recommend buying the replacement boots off eBay! I ordered some new Raybestos boots from Rock Auto for a '94 Kia Sephia w/manual steering...I'm hoping they'll fit without too much effort, and I'm hoping they're a better quality rubber. I also found that the oil leaking onto the shifter stabalizer bushing turned it to Jell-O! That would explain the slightly "vaugue" shifter feel that developed over the last 6 months of driving it with all the blow-by. I think I'll try to mod some Urethane sway bar end link bushings to fit.

[Prafeston]

That bay looks really clean!

[sasquatch]

looking good

[festyfreak39]

getting there

[blkfordsedan]

Still making progress....slow but steady. I did have a few "minor" setbacks. I did confirm that the #1995500-2120 brownish-red top injectors I had are off of a 2nd Gen SOHC 8V B6. This worked out great, since they plugged right in to the Festy harness with no mods. The 1st Gen B6 intake had the nipples for the throttle body coolant cast into the intake. The B3 has the nipples on the actual throttle body. I decided to use the ones in the throttle body, so I cut the nipples off the intake and filled the passages with JB Weld. I resurfaced the flywheel, and the new Exedy clutch I installed 20K miles ago still looks like brand new. All the accessories are swapped over from the B3 and the transaxle is bolted up. Basically, the motor/transaxle is hanging on the engine hoist and ready to drop in. I still need to install the B6 ECU and add another 1.5" of drop to the custom downpipe and trim the ears off the outlet flange on the B6 ehaust manifold (it interferes with the coolant crossover tube mounting bracket). If it were not for all the cleaning, detailing and extra parts replacement I'm doing, this would literally be a "bolt-in" swap. With any luck, I should have it ready to fire up by Sunday afternoon or the following weekend.


Some people had asked about the differences between the B6 and B3 EFI intakes and ports. Here are some pics that compare them. You can see that the runner diameter and plenum size/volume is substantially larger on the B6. Also, there is a substantial difference in the fuel rail.






Here are my Technical Advisors; Husgrrr and Uno....


This is Kadoe....he is not impressed with anything I do, except when I have food.