'89 Festiva build...

[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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[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]

Been greatly enjoying beating the hell out of this thing on the twisty backroads!



Been enjoying it so much, I bought another one. For the princely sum of $500 Canadian dollars, I got a ‘91 Festiva with a 1.8L BP engine out of a Ford Escort GT.







Came with the following parts:

Rust free hood
Good LF Fender
Rust free drivers door
Rust free hatch
Rusty hatch that has a wiper in it
Aspire knuckles
Aspire rear beam
All new aspire brakes except drums
Orange tach cluster
Grant steering wheel
G series trans
Another stock Festiva 5spd
Set of front buckets out of some rare early 90’s Japanese car
Boxes of odds and ends

Its sat for several years, was last started two years ago. Ive our a couple hours into trying to get it run without success, no power to fuel pump relay and no spark. No time this weekend to screw around with it, so it will have to wait till next weekend. Now the big question is what to do with it. Track pig? Clean it up and sell it? Strip and inventory for parts?


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[Zman86]

Finally got the car out on some twisty roads tonight, and it is an absolute blast to toss around! Can’t wait to get some more power into it.






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[skeeters_keeper]

Man that thing looks great!

[Zman86]

Brought it out of storage tonight for a wash. Feels pretty good, but I’ve yet to get it on twisty roads.






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[Zman86]

Got the car back from the detailer today. He removed the strip of ancient 3M tape over the rear pinstripe for me, as well as shampoo'd all the carpets, the stock seats and the Recaros. My ultimate goal is to have the stock seats dissected by an upholsterer and the original seat fabric used on the inner portion, but that will have to wait for now. Still debating on having a PDR guy look at the car before I put it back away or not.








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[ryanprins13]

At first it seemed the brake was not returning enough, it had to manually be released after pulling the ebrake. I took it apart and all I could find was that I must not of gotten the adjuster all the way in. A whack with a hammer and a small prybar seems to have remedied it.


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Ok, for me when i have the rear brakes stay slightly on after releasing the handbrake and needing to manually release it by reaching around the tire the cause was the 2 pivots on the self adjusting mechanism not moving freely. But it sounds like you fixed it, hope its a lot of fun this summer! You should take it for a quick drive down to the insanity meet to try it out!

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[Zman86]

Sweet! Why was the brake sticking?

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At first it seemed the brake was not returning enough, it had to manually be released after pulling the ebrake. I took it apart and all I could find was that I must not of gotten the adjuster all the way in. A whack with a hammer and a small prybar seems to have remedied it.


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[ryanprins13]

Sweet! Why was the brake sticking?

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[Zman86]

Stayed late yesterday to tie up some loose ends. Reassembled the interior, fixed the sticky RR brake, centred the steering wheel, bled the brakes, set ride height and rechecked the alignment. Took it out for a spin at lunch today around the local traffic circles. Though the roads are still wet, the initial impression is that this thing sticks like glue. The steering is much more tighter and responsive, car feels firm and planted no matter how hard I toss is back and forth, while the brakes both feel amazing and work much better.

Tomorrow it's going for a full detail before it gets put back away until spring. I wanted to have a PDR guy come look at it, but I think that's going to have to wait for now. Only thing left is to get the steering wheel a bit straighter and mount the Recaros, which will probly happen in spring as well.




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[ryanprins13]

Awesome! My rear wheel alignment on my festiva was messed up before i started, something may have been a little bent, it had way too much toe in. I fixed it with camber plates but then ruined everything by warping both my new drums. I cant check my alignment until i fix that. Did you give your back tire a spin and check for runout? Maybe a bent rim or drum. But it must be great to be able to drive it!

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[Zman86]

Finally found the proper inners through work





Everything installed



Replaced the ancient fuel filter while the booster was out of the way.



The shop that made the wrong rear line for me made me a new one on the spot with the proper fittings when I went back.



New hardlines for the rear beam



Extended the brake clevis so it could mount on the Miata booster and reach the peddle assembly in the stock position



Bench bled the new Miata master, then installed everything and bled the brake system with a hand vacuum pump the best I could. Had a couple fittings I didn't tighten enough initially, but nothing serious



Spent four hours Friday afternoon after work died down setting up the suspension. Man, I'm glad I don't do custom alignments for a living, it sucked. Got a baseline one done before I called it a day. Had to come back Sunday to finish it up, as the RF inner tie rod required 1/4" be trimmed off to allow more adjustment.







Came back Sunday and finished it up. Not happy with the camber on the RR corner, but there's no real way to fix it as the camber/toe plates are mirror images of one another and should match up. Must be something else wrong.



Torqued the wheels and took it out for a spin. Found some dry pavement on the main road and tossed it back and forth a few times, and I have to say it feels pretty good. Steering feels a bit heavier but much more responsive both in feel and action, ride is firm but not harsh, and the Miata booster/master combo paired with the Aspire brakes, even with an incomplete brake bleed, feel amazing. Going to put a few miles on it to settle the suspension, then reset the ride height and check the alignment again.






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[Zman86]

Picked up a set of MK2 VW Recaros for the car last week.



Ripped the stock passenger seat apart so I could see if the Recaros could be mounted on the Festiva seat bases. With some cutting and welding, it looks like it should work, though a member of the Festiva Facebook group is working on a better solution for me. They look good in the car and are quite comfortable!











Picked up the stainless flexlines I had made as well.




Stayed a few hours after work tonight to work on the car. It didn't go too well...

Started by installing the new stainless flex lines, RS went good



Noticed on the LS that the flare looked weird, almost like a metric bubble flare. Closer inspection found that the steel line from the proportioning valve to the LF flex line had been replaced, and the flares were absolute garbage. That line went in the trash and a new one was made. No pictures, but here's the LS done.



Onto the rear, once again the RS went in alright.



When I got to the left though, I noticed that the fittings that were used were different. My only guess is that they ran out of the fittings that were used on the rest of the lines and thought these would work. Well, I can't secure the line to the body of the car or the beam now, so I'll be taking it back and having another made with proper fittings.



My Festiva tie rods arrived earlier in the day from Rock Auto, having had enough of the brake system, I moved onto getting them installed. Pulled everything apart only to find this.



Well, I had ordered inners for an '89, the year of my car, unaware that they switched from fine thread to course thread on the Festiva rack in 1990 and continued to use course threaded inners on the Aspire rack. At this point, three hours in with basically nothing accomplished, I threw in the towel and called it a night. Have to head in for 6am so I can get it back together and off the hoist for 8.


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[Dragonhealer]

You can get a 25 pack in stainless steel from Mcmaster-Carr (macmaster.com) for less than $10.
The only purpose of the screws is to hold the rotor in alignment to the hub so the wheel bolts can be installed. If you have converted to studs they are unnecessary.