The Canadiana build thread

[Advancedynamix]

Charlie, did you not use the outlet on the oil pan for this? I've got vent lines running from the former PCV bung on the valve cover and the block vent with the drain going to the oil pan bung. I get a bit of an oily smell once in a while.

Pedro has a non turbo capri pan. It's like a stock festiva pan with a baffle plate, so no drain pipe like the b6t has.
If you vent the separator to atmosphere, you'll get an oil vapor smell. Pedro is vented to the inlet pipe, where the valve cover vent goes on a Capri b6d. This took care of the oil smell and it draws a light vacuum on the separator.


The hose on the top of the separator is the vent hose, it goes around the engine to the intake pipe.

Here you can see where it plugs in, making this setup EPA friendly. This car is an 88, so this method is congruent with the CARB standards for 1988. 50 state legal system.

[fastivaca]

Pedro has a non turbo capri pan. It's like a stock festiva pan with a baffle plate, so no drain pipe like the b6t has.
If you vent the separator to atmosphere, you'll get an oil vapor smell. Pedro is vented to the inlet pipe, where the valve cover vent goes on a Capri b6d. This took care of the oil smell and it draws a light vacuum on the separator.


The hose on the top of the separator is the vent hose, it goes around the engine to the intake pipe.

Here you can see where it plugs in, making this setup EPA friendly. This car is an 88, so this method is congruent with the CARB standards for 1988. 50 state legal system.

Could that be done on the B6T by routing that vent hose to the inlet just before the turbo?

Ian

[Dragonhealer]

Ryan that's great work!
You may want to go for a little toe in in the front fully laden, even if that is a little more than you want un-laden.

[Advancedynamix]

Could that be done on the B6T by routing that vent hose to the inlet just before the turbo?

Ian

Yup.

Ryan, sorry for the thread clutter. I know you're interested in building an AOS for your car, so this is sort of on topic.

[ryanprins13]

Yup.

Ryan, sorry for the thread clutter. I know you're interested in building an AOS for your car, so this is sort of on topic.

No problem, keep talking! the more i learn the better. Besides, it gets a little boring when no one says anything on here, thats why the last few updates have been weeks or months behind.

Could that be done on the B6T by routing that vent hose to the inlet just before the turbo?

Ian

Reason i asked where you are venting is because if the wind blows the vapor toward or into the cowl it will be sucked into the cabin by the hvac system. If you choose not to route it into the intake and you havent done it already routing the vent hose underneath the car should get rid of most of the smell. Run it down and back a little bit underneath the car and tie it to something. That should prevent most of the smell while your moving.

Ryan that's great work!
You may want to go for a little toe in in the front fully laden, even if that is a little more than you want un-laden.

Thanks! i do want toe in and i will be resetting that toe before i tow. Just got tired of moving it and the suspension was gonna settle and change it anyway. I also wasnt expecting that toe out to happen with load.
Ill probably check alignment in a week or 2 again, Westiva will probably be the first decent towing trip and i will set it just before that as well in july.

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[bravekozak]

Ryan, when you had the valve cover off, did you clean under the baffle?
That is where the PVC vapors are usually blocked by buildup.

[ryanprins13]

Ryan, when you had the valve cover off, did you clean under the baffle?
That is where the PVC vapors are usually blocked by buildup.

No, on the engine for my red festiva i did, but there is a bit of a gasket in there that came apart then. I used a different valve cover on it. This time i let it soak in solvent and blew out the baffles. Not much came out. So far after almost 2 weeks there is nothing in my catch can. I dont think this car has a blowby issue, so it was probably reasonably clean.

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[ryanprins13]

So the Monday after we went to the graduation there was may 15, I had decided a long time ago that I would never use oil additives again because their a dumb idea 99% of the time. However there was a lot of varnish in my motor and I decided to add some atf to the oil to help clean it out. After work I put about 3/4-1 liter in and drove home about 35 miles taking it easy. Next morning I added some seafoam as well and drove back to work taking it easy again. The plan was to warm up the car nicely after work and change the oil. However another member here (festyfreak39) came to drop off some parts for me to work on and check out my car. Went for a drive which turned more into going for a rip, lol. Took it up to 4-5k rpm a few times and had the pedal to the floor a bit.

I changed the oil and cut the old filter apart. Now after the oil change it sounds a bit rattly. When its idling it kinda sounds like someone gently shaking a tin can with a few marbles in it. From by the oil pan more, not the top of the motor. Oil pressure is still good, 5w30, 20psi hot idle, 50psi at 2800rpm-ish, 60psi when i rev it up when hot because I shimmed the oil pump.
This is what the oil filter looked like:





My theory is that when i was revving it way up the bypass valve in the filter opened and let a bunch of those carbon chunks through the motor. Thats why I only use Wix filters, the have the bypass valve at the front of the filter, not the back so this doesn't happen, but whatever... This is the filter that was on the car when I bought it. Those little chunks are quite hard. Theres usually a couple in my oil filters but nothing like this, that was fairly fresh oil too. I am not 100% certain that this noise wasn't there before, maybe I just noticed it after the oil change, but I doubt it. Heres a video of the noise which didn't turn out the greatest.

https://youtu.be/-YrKBqNebPg

Anyway I still don't recommend ever using oil additives. The only kind would possibly be the oil flush ones where you put it in and idle the car for 10min, then drain. But i wouldn't leave the oil after that in for more than a day and wouldn't work it before changing it again.

The rest of the week i installed my tpms, found my rear cardboard and carpet, started planning my a/c and bought some stuff for it. I also discovered I had one spark plug come loose which was weird. Pretty sure I never touched it. Reason I started looking for a problem was my check engine light came on for 20 seconds but went out before I could check it. Hasn't come on since.



fri may 19 I started working on the a/c. did the cabin air filter, re-did the disintegrating foam on the airbox, Went to install my new expansion valve and it was wrong. So I cleaned the old one and put it back in.
The reason all this wasn't done before was the orings I ordered from rockauto were wrong. So I ordered the NOS Ford o-ring kit and it took a long time to get here and was very expensive. Listing was called "Ford OEM Air Conditioner O-Ring Kit NOS E1ZZ-19B596-A YF-982"



Guess what? I think 2 or 3 of them fit, that was it. So I used the 2 or 3 that fit, a couple of the green ones that sort of fit and the rest all ended up coming from a universal 70 shore A nitrile kit I had handy. I wasn't going to order more and start this all again later.
I had installed everything before, so i removed the lines and flushed them out with isopropyl alcohol. I had previously flushed the condenser and evaporator. I blew and vaccumed them out, removed the compressor and went to dump compressor oil into something to measure it with and there was none in it. So I put 5oz oil in it and installed the compressor. The system is supposed to take 10oz of oil and I flushed everything so I tried to put the rest of the oil into my new dryer but it wouldn't all go in there. So I ended up putting the rest into the hoses and compressor. 10oz is a lot of oil by the way!
Your supposed to use mineral oil on the o-rings, but I couldn't find that anywhere I called. So i used air tool oil.
By then it was about 10pm and I was thinking of going home (since its an hour drive) and finishing Saturday but I realized that the oil is hydroscopic and since I had no way to vacuum the system it would absorb moisture which would be bad. So I had to finish. I installed everything else, some things taking a real long time since I was tired and they just weren't fitting and everything was going wrong.... This was actually the most frustrated I have ever been working on a festiva.





I bought an r-12 knockoff because we cant buy real refrigerant in Canada. I will try to add a photo of it later.

started the car, hooked up the adapters and put some refrigerant in that was left over from when my brother last did his. That was enough to make the compressor kick in and out a couple times. The instructions say in bold to not charge into a vacuum, only into atmospheric pressure, so because I didn't vacuum it I put in a can thats supposed to dry out the system by converting moisture into lubricant. Who knows if it actually works, but whatever. I had misread the directions, the low side adapter wasn't working properly and I punctured the seal on the can before it was threaded on all the way on. Actually before it was threaded on at all. So I had to thread it on while it was spraying and I was sure I was going to have frostbite on my hands but I didn't. They were numb for what seemed like ages though.
Anyhow, then I installed a full can of refrigerant which brought the low side pressure to 38psi. I ran the engine to circulate it quite a while, then called it good and cleaned up to go home, left just after midnight.
I tried to drive home with the a/c on but only made it 25min or something before I was way too cold.
The only problem seemed to be that the small fan doesn't go on.

The next day, may 20th i did a test drive for the a/c. It was 70f ambient, 90f in the car. I had 75f air blowing through the vents after a couple miles on the highway. Then i turned the a/c on. It cools it to 42f, compressor kicks out and it heats up to 47f. Kicks back in and cools to 42f and continues that cycle while driving.
The engine fan and compressor kicking in at the same time causes a noticeable drop in power. Have to press the gas harder when they kick in and let off when they kick out.
The cabin filter slows down the airflow a bunch i think but its not bad and i think its worth it.

Later that day i hooked up the trailer to go to my parents and get a rototiller for our garden. Its about a 3hr drive. With my red festiva i didn't care if the inside got scratched and i just put the rototiller in the back. I care about this one too much and have to use a trailer. Kinda too bad. But whatever, thats how it is.
Used the ac a bunch on the way there which was nice. Noticed that having the a/c on heats up the coolant
I was falling asleep and decided to draft a semi for a while to stay awake. That increased both the oil and coolant temps by 10f which was interesting.
I got some parts from my parts cars which are at my parents. Went to take a tire off but i put these cars on soft ground. Dug a hole for my jack but then the jack would just sink rather than lifting the car! It held it enough that i could dig out underneath the tire and get it out though.



The next week i finished up my a/c install, checked and lowered pressure on the a/c slightly (i thought more was better....). But most of my time was spent on other things. Took a good half a day to rototill our garden, had to clean up the yard and house for a birthday party for our son, bunch of work on the house and wife's car that had been neglected all winter...

[ryanprins13]

Was super hot and sunny out the Tuesday-was 85f when i went to a funeral in the afternoon. Almost unbearable to be outside. Ac worked decent, took a bit to cool the car off but once it cooled off it was enjoyable. But when you park and shut the car off it takes like 15 seconds for the car to be roasting again... :/ its just a greenhouse. Need some window tint.
The ac sure heats up the coolant too.

Then i brought the rototiller back to my parents. This is my view on the way there:



This is once it starts getting dark.



So i am trying to start on my trailer now. The car is not done but working, the trailer however needs a ton of work in the next month and a week to get it ready for camping at westiva.
So this week I am just doing little stuff like checking spark plug wire resistance, taking tools home from the shop, got some extra keys cut.... need to check wheel alignment tomorrow, change transmission fluid, fix my speakers, but thats about all for the next bit. Just kinda pausing on this build.

Since i started daily driving it not quite a month ago i have put 1700 miles on it, 1100 on the new oil and there has been no blow-by in the catch can, no oil burned and the oil hasn't even begin to change color on the dipstick. Still almost clear. I'm happy! Its quiet, drives smooth and straight, back end is a little stiff but not bad, has good power, looks nice..

[ryanprins13]

This is the photo of the a/c charging hose i promised. The cans i used are in photos above.


Found out today i can still fit 2x4's in my car even with a/c, the rear panels and seat, cargo cover... not near as many but enough for what i needed.


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[XR2KID]

What a cool build, makes me miss my festi more and more.

[ryanprins13]

Thanks!
I just realized ive never taken a photo of my whole engine bay. Here is the packed messyness i have created...



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[ryanprins13]

So now that I have a bit over 3,000 miles on the suspension and it should be all settled I checked my alignment again. The camber is now -2 degrees all the way around and my toe is still at zero in the front. So that was good to know.
Julian came by to pick up his struts and took my car for a spin, seemed to like what the negative camber does even on stock suspension. I rode in the passenger seat for the first time and got to appreciate in a different way how quiet and smooth and nice this car drives compared to any other festiva I've driven.

2500 miles or so on the engine oil and its still golden and there is not a drop in my catch can which I find odd but good.

I am having 2 issues, one being I don't seem to have a good speedometer cable out of the 4 or so that I own... needle is jumpy. Second is fuel milage. I have only gotten 2 tanks of gas where I wasn't towing the trailer, racing it around or using the a/c the whole time. I wasn't trying to get good gas milage on those 2 tanks but just driving it normally-which is more spirited than most others on the road, lol. I have a 35 mile commute, through the capital city of our province, another city and then a town during rush hour each way. Lots of stop and go, and the 75mph stretch of freeway is too busy to keep a constant speed. But my ceiling seems to be 43 US mpg. I know this commute is hard on gas, this car is super heavy compared to my other one and the tall tires don't help in the city but i was expecting more. I think part of it has to do with this dual stage mazda thermostat not working properly anymore. I bought it late last summer and it worked fine for the couple months in my red festiva, wasn't used over the winter and i put it in this car. Seemed ok for a couple days but it doesn't let the car warm up now, I think the smaller part is stuck open or malfunctioning. This is as high as it gets on a morning going to work.

[Advancedynamix]

Ryan, 43 mpg in those driving conditions is stellar! What are those gauges next to your boost/vacuum guage reading? The numbers are weird for a temp guage, is that EGT in Celsius?

[ryanprins13]

Ryan, 43 mpg in those driving conditions is stellar! What are those gauges next to your boost/vacuum guage reading? The numbers are weird for a temp guage, is that EGT in Celsius?

Ya? Ok. I was getting 45-46 in the red festiva but i always felt it ran lean.
Here is a better photo of the gauges when i was driving in the middle of the day and it was hot out.

The one on the left is water temp and the one on the right is oil temp.
The numbers are weird because their too low, lol. The oil temp on my car seems to track with the water temp quite closely so far.

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