My n/a super b3 build

[greywolf200]

Just found your thread today and can only say fantastic build and congratulate you on doing it your way in the face of the "we do it this way crowd".

[drumnerd33]

Thank you! I have always been the guy who says screw the popular way.... im doing it my way...lol I honestly didnt see the point in swapping motors when i knew the b3 could be built to perform. It has been an extremely fun build and im continuing the build with capri front brakes, just picked up some knuckles from the yard, my brakes actually worked fine but i was on the highway one day doing 80 and almost missed my exit so slammed on the brakes to catch the exit and smelled hot brakes.... well i didnt like that because what if i had an emergency stop at 80mph?? so i decided i need bigger vented rotors. Im going to rebuild the calipers and paint them, clean the knuckle and paint it, press out the old rotors and discard, clean and repack bearings and put on new slotted rotors.

[greywolf200]

Thank you! I have always been the guy who says screw the popular way.... im doing it my way...lol I honestly didnt see the point in swapping motors when i knew the b3 could be built to perform. It has been an extremely fun build and im continuing the build with capri front brakes, just picked up some knuckles from the yard, my brakes actually worked fine but i was on the highway one day doing 80 and almost missed my exit so slammed on the brakes to catch the exit and smelled hot brakes.... well i didnt like that because what if i had an emergency stop at 80mph?? so i decided i need bigger vented rotors. Im going to rebuild the calipers and paint them, clean the knuckle and paint it, press out the old rotors and discard, clean and repack bearings and put on new slotted rotors.

:laughing5: I was looking at Capri brakes and got the "do the Aspire swap" over and over, the Capri's are bolt from behind, we all do the Aspire swap argument. Well, I looked at everything involved and am buying a set of Capri's from Festivel3. Carbs, Capri brakes, we just walk a different path.....:thumbs_up:

[drumnerd33]

Yeah its called a captured rotor and it doesnt bother me, i have a press and a solvent tank to clean and repack the bearings so no biggy just a little bit of extra work but only needs done every now and then. Plus you get bigger brakes and keep the festiva pattern. I am also looking at doing an aspire transmission swap which people dont understand either.... its for the differential ratio, the aspire ratio matches the tire size if you are running 14s so the speedometer is correct and will make acceleration way better.

[sketchman]

its for the differential ratio, the aspire ratio matches the tire size if you are running 14s so the speedometer is correct

I still can't wrap my brain around this. I remember 3 ratio options available to Neon trans, and it was never mentioned that the speedo would be off because of it. 3.55, 3.94, and 4.11. But maybe it was a given to those in the know. IDK The only thing that I can see changing the speedo (in my brain) is either a different speedo gear combo or a different tire diameter.

I'm not calling you a liar. I just don't get it.

EDIT: I think I just figured this out. It's not gonna work like you're thinking, I don't think. When the speedo is on the trans and the rear end is independent of it you can change the ratio to change the speed that speedo gear is reading. But when the speedo gear is on the diff, it is LOCKED to the speed of the axles, NOT the driveshaft. So only the tire diameter or a speedo gear change will change it. The diff CANNOT(excluding one wheeled wonders) turn faster/slower than the axle does, and the speedo reads off the diff in our cars.

You had me worried about my brain.

[drumnerd33]

In the case of th festiva and aspire transmission the speedometer gears are identical, the differential gear ratio in the festiva is 3.77 the aspire differential gear ratio is 4.05 so by putting a aspire transmission in a car running 14 inch rims with the 185/60 tires this will put the speedo back to stock... some transmission swaps have a different gear for speedo so may not fix the problem... but the main reason for this swap isnt the speedo but more to have my gearing back to stock... my gears are really long right now and 5th gear is useless till about 75mph this will fix that problem, now you could go more extreme and do the capri n/a swap which would give you 4.105 gears and give you a ton of low end torque for drag racing but you would lose some top end and mpg.

[drumnerd33]

You can use a gearing calculator to put in your stock tire size and stock gearing then put in new tire size and it will tell you what gears you need to have the proper gear ratio for the tire size you are running. In my case stock 1988 lx festiva tire size is 145/80 r12 with a gear ratio of 3.77 the tires i am running now are 185/60 r14 and the calculator calls for a 4.06 ratio... the aspire ratio is 4.058 so its so close its the proper ratio.

[sketchman]

I wonder if they changed the gear on the diff for the Aspires but left the cable gear the same. That would explain it.

[drumnerd33]

By the way just an fyi the capri xr2 ratio that i am seeing in the specs is showing a 3.85 ratio and the n/a is 4.105 so the xr2 is really not much improvement over the stock festiva tranny, it is alot stronger and if your running turbo then you may not need the shorter (numerically higher) gears but for a n/a it makes a big difference to have shorter gears for a faster shot off the line and over all driveability. I am planning to run nitrous in the future so i considered the capri but im gonna try the aspire and use a smaller shot of no2 and see what fun i can have. nthego:

[william]

if you do go capri f series i have one for sale
just a fyi the na capri is hydro not cable.if you didn't know.

[drumnerd33]

Yeah I knew.... That's the only problem, well that and I'm gonna swap to the aspire for the time being then if I grenade it then we'll see about the Capri swap

Sent from my LG-LS970 using Tapatalk 4

[moz]

KIA Rio uses a cable f series. Heard nothing but good things about it.

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 4

[greywolf200]

Yeah its called a captured rotor and it doesnt bother me, i have a press and a solvent tank to clean and repack the bearings so no biggy just a little bit of extra work but only needs done every now and then. Plus you get bigger brakes and keep the festiva pattern. I am also looking at doing an aspire transmission swap which people dont understand either.... its for the differential ratio, the aspire ratio matches the tire size if you are running 14s so the speedometer is correct and will make acceleration way better.

X2 on every thing you said. How often do people change their rotors(Charlie not included)?

[drumnerd33]

Exactly.... Only issue would be technically it is a good idea to turn your rotors everything you put on new pads, but in this case these brakes are massive and I plan on running slotted rotors and good pads, so these brakes will probably have at least double the lifespan of stock brakes.

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[bhazard]

The Capri swap is cool at first....and cooler when you do the galant upgrade to them. But then you realize you can't run 13's anymore and you pretty much tripled your unsprung weight up front for brakes that aren't really any better on a festiva than aspire brakes.

But yeah if you think Capri brakes are "massive" check out the galant upgrade for them.