'89 Festiva build...

[Zman86]

So, finally had a chance to work on the swap car today. The main power relay is toast, as bypassing it produced a functional fuel pump. I pumped as much old gas out as I could then put in about 15L of premium. Nothing. Check for spark, nothing. Went over everything I could think of, all looks good, found a wee bit of corrosion in the wire run from the distributor to the Ecu, repaired it, put everything back together, voila! Theres spark, but no starting.

Pull the plugs, they are soaked and in disgusting condition, so my friend picked me up a set while he was in town. While I was waiting, I did a a compression test, it’s around 70-75psi across the board, rather low in my opinion, but it has been sitting for several years, so I figure it’s stuck rings or lack of oil on the cylinder walls. Put in new plugs along with a teaspoon of oil in each cylinder, cranks but won’t fire. Pull plugs, all soaked with fuel.

Here’s where it gets weird, noticed a Smokey mist coming out of the VAF when cranking, Mist smells like raw fuel. If you hold your hand over the VAF while cranking, the engine is pressurizing the intake system. Go around to the back of the car, there is air being blown out the exhaust tip while cranking but there is no fuel smell in it at all.

Checked the timing, looks good up top anyways, can’t get to the bottom with out pulling the wheel/tire/engine mount, which wasn’t in the cards today.






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[Zman86]

Moved the blue car along, it just wasn’t in the budget to fix/track it. Found it a great home with someone who works as a fabricator in the aerospace industry who was massively excited to get going on it.



Also made a decision on the engine. I know keeping the B3 is not a wise choice, but I truly enjoy how the car drives with it in that I can push it to its limit and not really get myself into trouble. I’m hoping to pull the engine this winter for a refresh and a few modifications for next year to get slightly more pep out of it. Given that decision, I sold the B6T swap to a local member of the Festiva community.

With less than 1500km on the suspension swap, the RR strut has started to leak somehow, so I’ll have to deal with that. I bought one of the pre-made sets that were offered a few years ago, and I don’t know if I can swap the Southwest Speed sleeve over to a new shock or what other modifications were done to the shock.


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