Ian's B6T Festiva build

[TWFodor]

Great looking Festiva and its my favorite color! Making me jealous over here

[fastivaca]

Made some more progress today. It's still running a bit hot but at least the cooling fan is working!! Turned out to be a dirty connection in one of the plugs. Will continue to work on the heat issue and then I'll figure out the tach.

[ryanprins13]

What is telling you how hot it is? Same gauge and sensor as your last car or are you plugging your gauge into whatever sensor was on the car? Is it a readout with numbers or just what is on the stock instrument cluster?


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[fastivaca]

Running the stock gauge with a 323 sensor. I was thinking of checking to see if the Festiva and 323 sensors were different. Other than the gauge you can tell it runs hotter than the B3 just opening the hood! Charlie suggested that I do my best to get all the air out of the system. I'll be doing that later today.

[shadetree]

Change the temp sensor to the Festiva sensor . Let it run with rad cap of for ten min or so !

[ryanprins13]

Ian's B6T Festiva build

You probably know, but jack the front drivers side of the car up real high while warming it up with the rad cap off untill it flows real well. Then install rad cap and run it for a while still jacked up till the fan comes on. Then lower and drive a bit. What thermostat do you have? I still have a real hot one in my car that i like for the winter because it keeps the gauge over half way up even in -30c. But when it is +30 like the other day it looks a bit high. Like this:


When its only +20 out or even down to -20 it is about here:

Even at minus 30 its just a hair below that, so nice.
If i take my IR temperature gun out the block and the oil seems to be at 200 degrees, which is only 5 over where the thermostat opens. Fans on my civic turn on at 205, not sure about the festiva. My fan is on a switch and this is with no fan on. I will be installing more accurate gauges with number readouts soon for oil and water. Also a different thermostat i think, lol
If you dont have one of those temp guns keep your eye out for one on sale. This is the first one that came up on google if you dont know what im talking about http://cf-t.com/product/milwaukee-22...FceCfgodsB4Kvw
I use mine all the time for all kinds of stuff. Canadian tire had it 80% off for $40 or so at the time.
Coolant at the proper mixture can safely get to 230f, but thats the hottest i would ever let anything i own get and where your sensor is is not nessacarily the hottest spot and any gauge isn't necassarily super accurate and you dont want it that hot of course and just driving around it should never get close to that. But i dont worry too much about anything below 210f if the coolant is new and properly mixed with a good pressure cap.

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[fastivaca]

One of many more photos to come....

Ordered a new thermostat from Mazda today. I'll put that in and bleed the cooling system later this week.

[sketchman]

Beautiful! drool

[Icedawg]

Change the temp sensor to the Festiva sensor . Let it run with rad cap of for ten min or so !

I agree with Shadetrees' advice.

In the longer run, with the B6T in the car you should think about putting an after market, accurate temperature send and gauge in the car. I like having a boost gauge and a wide band air/fuel ratio gauge to monitor things too, but the truth is those two gauges are useful only when you are tuning the car or monitoring it for some problem. After it runs well you would rarely look at them, but when it has a problem they are invaluable.

The car looks really lovely Ian, well done!

[fastivaca]

I agree with Shadetrees' advice.

In the longer run, with the B6T in the car you should think about putting an after market, accurate temperature send and gauge in the car. I like having a boost gauge and a wide band air/fuel ratio gauge to monitor things too, but the truth is those two gauges are useful only when you are tuning the car or monitoring it for some problem. After it runs well you would rarely look at them, but when it has a problem they are invaluable.

The car looks really lovely Ian, well done!

Thanks Jed.
The temp gauge is on my "next up" list along with the oil pressure gauge. I have VDO gauges for both already but the senders I have are not the correct threads. I'll be looking into those very soon. If you're down this way at all perhaps we could hook up for a coffee or something.

Cheers

Ian

[sketchman]

Hope you don't mind. GRM on Facebook asked what your favorite hatchback is. I posted a pic from this thread. If you don't want it there I'll delete it.

[fastivaca]

Hope you don't mind. GRM on Facebook asked what your favorite hatchback is. I posted a pic from this thread. If you don't want it there I'll delete it.

Not a problem. Thanks for sharing it!

Ian

[blowby]

I knew that welder would quickly become your favorite tool! Everyone should have one.

What kind of welder for this kind of work. Thanks

[fastivaca]

What kind of welder for this kind of work. Thanks

I picked up a well used MIG welder a year or so ago to help with this project. I'd not done any welding prior to this!

Ian

[Advancedynamix]

Did you order the dual element thermostat from Mazda? They are listed for the 89-93 miata iirc. It's got 2 elements and helps the car warm up faster and then run at the proper range better.