'88 L Street/Track Build- Coilovers • B6ZE • Weber DCOE's • Widebody • Chopped Top •

[shorestiva]

I have out braked newer Porsche cars on the track with a festiva that had original brakes and suspension, but had modern 165/45-15 tires. The stock brakes do require more pedal effort than upgraded parts, and on a road coarse the solid rotors overheat faster, but they work pretty good. The captured rotor design not a great one of you plan on lots of hard braking. It requires wheel bearing changes whenever the rotors are replaced.
Upgrading to a miata master/booster will help dramatically with the pedal effort. I prefer the NB master cylinder.

Do you know what year nb stuff your using? Seems the master cylinders are all the same but there's a difference between boosters.

Master cylinders from 90-00 are 7/8" bore. 01-05 are 15/16" bore. This size does not affect brake balance.

The proportioning valve affects brake balance. Refer to this for factory prop valve specs: http://www.flyinmiata.com/tech/stock_bpv.php

The 01-05 non-abs prop valve gives the most rearward bias of all factory valves, besides the ABS ones which are just straight through.

AFAIK, brake boosters on all NAs are the same, 99-00 might be larger, and 01-05 non-sport is definitely larger.

I have installed in my car the 02 non-abs prop valve, master cylinder, and brake booster. Some would say the NB2 sport booster is ideal for optimum pedal feel, claiming the non-sport boosters provide too much assist. I just used what I had on hand.

Swapping in the 01-05 master cylinder was pretty easy and only required bending lines by hand. BUT, you would have to swap the booster in with it too, otherwise the pushrod would require lengthening or something. I can't remember.

[theastronaut]

I stuck a NA booster and M/C on it already. Much easier to control it from locking up right at the limit. Next mod is to add a Rio rack and pinion.

[Advancedynamix]

I have out braked newer Porsche cars on the track with a festiva that had original brakes and suspension, but had modern 165/45-15 tires. The stock brakes do require more pedal effort than upgraded parts, and on a road coarse the solid rotors overheat faster, but they work pretty good. The captured rotor design not a great one of you plan on lots of hard braking. It requires wheel bearing changes whenever the rotors are replaced.
Upgrading to a miata master/booster will help dramatically with the pedal effort. I prefer the NB master cylinder.

[theastronaut]

I sometimes get irritated with the early VW community for bashing the stock drum brake system. I have completely gone through the entire brake system on my '64 and with good tires it pulls .97g from 60 mph. They will fade a little stopping from 70+ mph but with 40-60 hp you don't really ever go over 70. Most guys use skinny, rock-hard 135/80, 145/80 or 165/80 tires up front and complain that it "doesn't brake well". They'll throw aftermarket disc on it and say that it has better pedal feel but you never hear them say that it stops any better... wonder why that is!? I have 195/50's up front and wouldn't go back to skinny tires unless it's a dead stock car and it needs to be as stock as possible. I've seen festiva guys make the same comments; it's a tire problem, not a brake problem.

[Advancedynamix]

Yeah, with properly maintained components, these cars stop really well. Those little 12" tires are the weak link with the stock brakes, that's for sure.

[theastronaut]

Wow the car looks great. I love the look of the escort wheels. Keep the updates coming.

Thanks!!

I bought everything to completely redo the front brakes. Also bought a water temp sender and a valve cover gasket. It's developed a slight wheel bearing noise between 35-40 mph and the right front caliper is leaking. I've put a little over 10,000 miles on it since July, and ever since the suspension has been done they haven't been easy miles.

I decided to stay with stock festiva brakes for now. I've measured 1.06g braking on a semi-damp road with the old pads and rotors which look fairly rough. Since I'm only autocrossing or driving on the street I don't feel that it needs "better" brakes since I'm not having fade issues and the brakes will lock up the Achilles tires at will at normal speeds. My old Conquest with upgraded four wheel disc and decently sticky rubber would only pull .98g.

[XR2KID]

Wow the car looks great. I love the look of the escort wheels. Keep the updates coming.

[theastronaut]

That's sad to see but could have been much worse.
Did you have an extinguisher?
Ever since my dad's truck burnt that had worried me .
I keep a pwc extinguisher with me it's small but if I get to it quickly it could save a car.

I didn't have an extinguisher. I took my shirt off to smother the initial flames, and I had left the car cover in the back seat so I pulled it out and stuffed it all around the header. A guy I knew from car shows happened to be driving by right as it happened, thankfully he stopped to help. There was a church about 1/8th mile away so he drove me there and I ran in the side door (still shirtless, thankfully it was an empty hallway) to grab an extinguisher, went back and got it under control fairly well. Had to go back for a second extinguisher before the fire department arrived. There was so much oil that having a small on-board extinguisher wouldn't have helped. I will keep one on board in the future for certain, but it will be larger than the normal size usually seen under a dash or seat. I joked that I'll have a double NOS bottle holder behind the seat holding fire extinguishers after this... I'll also make sure that whatever chemical is in it isn't corrosive. I spent today tearing everything from the windshield/dash back apart today to start pressure washing the powder residue away. Its already started rusting the places that got wet from the FD spraying water, and it's starting to oxidize the carb bodies. It's been a nightmare for sure.

Nice looking stuff.

210 hp 2.3 NA?

Thanks! Yeah, 200 is fairly typical from a well built NA 2276cc or 2332cc VW engine, that's roughly 1.4 hp/ci. This one has a few extra tricks and I'll do a little more port work to the Wedgeports before they go on.

[sketchman]

Nice looking stuff.

210 hp 2.3 NA?

[william]

That's sad to see but could have been much worse.
Did you have an extinguisher?
Ever since my dad's truck burnt that had worried me .
I keep a pwc extinguisher with me it's small but if I get to it quickly it could save a car.

[theastronaut]

I'm definitely keeping/fixing it. No need for a Porsche engine, this was was approximately 130 hp and I have most all the parts I need to build a ~210 hp 2276cc stroker. Ill probably go with a strengthened trans when rebuilding so I can beat on it without worrying about it.

Engine that burnt:




82mm forged 4340 chromoly stroker crank that I lightened, smoothed, and polished. It'll have Wiesco/aircooled.net 94mm Super Squish pistons, Weber 48 IDA carbs, CB cnc Wedgeport heads, ported main bearing webs in the block, etc.

[Fordverde]

Keep it if you can!!! now that the original engine is dead, try to find a 914-2.0L engine, swamp the whole thing!! You'll have an engine that fits and EFI!, and you'll have a base engine to do all sorts of upgrades!! Originally the 914-2.0L had 90hp if i'm not mistaken, but you can get it up to 150hp without needing to mod the block.
Also, if you want to keep it all original, restore it! get a 911 turbine, couple of webbers, nikasil cylinders, JE pistons, 911 trans, etc etc etc....
Bugs are so fun to work with!! Love them!!

[theastronaut]

This is not the update I wanted to post but... All plans for the festiva are off until I get my '64 VW straightened out. I'd had the engine out to fix a broken valve spring and do some upgrades. Got it running and went out for the first test drive on Sunday afternoon. The oil drain plug took a hard hit which loosened it and dumped oil all over the header, catching the tail end of the car on fire. It's going to be a huge job to get it fixed. I'm selling the Miata this coming Sunday and the VW was going to be my second car while I swapped the Festiva. Really sucks as the VW was my first car and my only daily driver up until I bought the conquest a couple years ago. I took my drivers test in it and drove it to tons of VW shows with my dad and VW club. It was still 90% original paint and matching numbers. I spent 1.5 years and ~$3500 on getting the engine fixed and making improvements to bring it from 90 hp to up around 130 hp and it only made it about two miles before going up in flames.

[ThisVelologist]

Totally agree. Starions were one of the best looking of the 80's for sure.

[theastronaut]

I've been really enjoying your build progress. You certainly have good taste, my friend. Thinking of your widebody aspirations, I saved this pic for you:

Thanks!! That's similar to the way I'll widen the fenders, just not that aggresively. If you're familiar with Starion/Conquest style box flares then that's what I'm going to try to do. I'll split the original fenders and quarters in the middle of the slight flare thats already there, and add a tapering filler panel to widen them out 1.00-1.50", keeping it more subtle than over-fenders or universal fender flares.


'83-mid '85ish Starions were flat fendered, and don't really look like anything special IMO. Just another 80's sporty hatchback.





'86-89 widebodies though, they're one of the best looking cars ever made. Just adding the flared fenders, staggered/deep concave wheels, rocker sills, and wrap around spoiler completely transformed the looks of the car. This is my old '87 that I owned for around a year.