The Trade In- '89 L Driver, Clean Up & Upgrades

[theastronaut]

I tore down my '88 for it's B6d swap a few months ago and got tired of feeding my dually $100/week in gas so I started looking for another Festiva. I found this one on OfferUp, listed as a "three cylinder, five speed, 45-50 mpg". It ended up being a trade in at a used car lot and the guys there didn't know much about it. It's a L, so it's a four speed and has factory installed A/C and FM radio. I went and checked it over and test drove it, and made an offer. After a week and a bit of a runaround on the price we made a deal and I drove it home. It needed some serious cleaning as a previous owner must have been a smoker and hauled some sort of very hairy pet inside the car. The outside of the car was in great shape with only a few minor dings and barely oxidized original paint. It had 150k miles on it and ran pretty decent other than a slight flat spot in the mid range.






I got it home and washed it, then pulled it in the shop and swapped in the Advanced suspension and wheels/tires from my '88 all in the same day. Also fixed the shift bushings using Charlie's shoulder bolt/nylon washer trick. I took it to the Clemson Sports Car Club's autocross the next day and came in 22nd out of 52 cars, then took another 1.2 seconds off my best timed run afterwards on a fun run which would have placed me 18th. Not bad for a new to me car, and arriving too late to walk the course to see the layout before driving it. After my second run I bumped the timing up a little which helped the flat spot, but made it easier to overdrive the car since it had more power than I was used to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUT1NjLx1RM

[theastronaut]

The exterior cleaned up enough to be presentable with just a quick wash, but the interior needed a lot more work. The seats, carpeting, and all of the carpet padding were pulled and pressure washed (pre-soaking with Purple Power cleaner), then soaked and pressure washed again. The carpet was absolutely filthy, turning the water completly black even after two rounds with the pressure washer. After more soaking and blasting it finally rinsed clean and actually looked really nice. The seats also cleaned up very well. All of the interior trim was soaked with a cleaner from our glass supplier, scrubbed, then cleaned down again with more cleaner and microfiber cloths to make sure all of the nicotine residue and dirt was removed.


Before-






After, with Civic short shifter and a cup holder added.

[theastronaut]

The section of exhaust tubing right before the muffler was completely rusted away and the muffler had holes so I bought a tractor muffler and a stick of EMT and attempted to replace it myself. I packed the tubing full of sand so it wouldn't collapse while shaping it on my Harbor Freight pipe bender, got it to fit in place, the welded it and the muffler in place. I had the idea to use a stainless tumbler that had been laying around the shop as an exhaust tip, so I cut the bottom open with a hole saw and welded it on.








Also swapped in a tach cluster from Firebush357 and the Nardi from my '88. As you can see, it's very stable on the interstate with the Advanced suspension, allowing you to drive with one finger... even at illegal speeds while enjoying Taco Bell (*don't try this at home).




The autocross used up the remaining tread on the Nankang's and the compound didn't really like the colder weather so I bought a set of Federal's to go on the Escort wheels. I had a local wheel repair shop true up the rims before mounting the new tires, so now there's no steering wheel shake at 60 mph.

[theastronaut]

The next upgrade will be an escort carb with a Rocketman adapter. It started losing power and running rough a couple weeks ago and isn't drivable now. Both are ordered so I'll post progress once they're here and I start the swap.

I did pull the carb off of the old engine out of my '88 to get an idea of what I'll need to do with the vacuum hose mess.




Unneeded vacuum parts from the feedback carb.




After checking out the idle up system in the factory service manual, I think I can keep the A/C idle up and Electrical Load idle up solenoids and servo as long as the linkage can be adapted to the escort carb. Hopefully it works out so I can keep the idle speed low and the idle up system will even out the idle speed with the A/C on.






Two unneeded solenoids removed from the bracket, and the supply vacuum lines rerouted.

[Team Lightning]

Looking good John!!

[Dragonhealer]

I liked the video, a crisp, clean run!
Does the purple cleaner change the carpet color much?
How long did you let it soak?

[theastronaut]

Looking good John!!

Thanks Jerry!

I liked the video, a crisp, clean run!
Does the purple cleaner change the carpet color much?
How long did you let it soak?

I only killed two cones in the vid! :lol: No change in color on the seats or carpet. I used the "chemical" tip with Purple Power feeding into the P/W, so it got an even coating of Purple Power deep into the carpet instead of using the spray bottle. I let it soak 10-15 minutes each time before using a regular tip to blast it clean. It may need to soak longer if you're just using a spray bottle to let it penetrate the grime better.

[Dragonhealer]

Oh, IN the pressure wash resivour, haven't tried that, thanks!

[theastronaut]

Yeah, ours has a suction hose that works with a special tip to run cleaner through the pressure washer. Works great to really get the cleaner to soak into the material.

[theastronaut]

The carb came today, so I fiddled around with it and figured out that it has an adjustable vacuum servo set up for bumping the idle speed up.

I went ahead and ordered a timing belt kit, water pump, v-belt, rad/heater hoses, cam/crank seals, CV boots, and an oil pan gasket. I'm thinking about eventually pulling the engine to clean everything up, reseal the engine, and swap in the 5 speed from my parts car.


Anyone else hate unboxing NOS parts and ruining the NOS-ness of it?







Hooked a jump box to the choke wires to get it off the fast idle cam, the used a brake bleeder to check the vac servo.

[theastronaut]

Took the carb and as much of the vacuum mess as I could off tonight. Got all of the unneeded ports looped or plugged. Still need to figure out what to do to get the throttle cable hooked up, modify the air cleaner to fit the top of the escort carb, and block off the side of the air cleaner.

[theastronaut]

Got the adapter in the mail today so I was able to get the carb on after work. Started by making gaskets.





Decided to attempt to use the throttle linkage from the Festiva carb on the Escort carb, which ended up working great after shaving a few of the unneeded arms off it. It would have fit the throttle shaft but ended up dropping too deeply down the shaft, so I ended up leaving it on top of the throttle shaft nut and welding it to the tip of the shaft. Not the best idea if it ever needs to come off, but it works for now.







I wanted to use the PTC/EFE heater wires as the choke wires instead of running new wires. This was pretty simple, only had to make a new ground for the PTC relay so it would stay on all the time instead of being controlled by the computer. I dug through the factory shop manual and found the location and wiring diagram of the relay, then spliced in a new ground wire on the black/red wire.







Everything in place. Had to bend a new fuel line from 5/16" steel and cut/offset the throttle cable bracket slightly to line up the cable with the linkage on the carb.





After welding the linkage in place.

[theastronaut]

The Escort swap didn't fix the rough running issue... did a compression check and found that the rings arnen't sealing well, results were 165-125-100-135. Decided to pull the engine to swap it for the old engine from my maroon '88, and since it would be out I'm swapping the 5 speed from my parts car in. And while it was apart I thought it would be a good idea to port the head and swap it onto the new engine. And have a new cam ground since my machine shop has a cam grinder... the "while its apart" syndrome is strong with this one :lol:


Towed the parts car to the shop to pull the engine/trans and A/C components.







Porting the cylinder head.








Did a compression test on the old engine from the 88. All cylinders were really good except one (112-195-210-180) and adding oil didn't help it, so that's the reason I'm swapping heads. I forgot that the oil presure sending unit was removed and made a mess...





Pressure washed both the parts car engine/trans and the one from the '88.





The flywheel on the '88 looked like it had been replaced recently so I only had to clean it and scuff the friction surface with 220 on a DA sander.




Sandblasted the exhaust manifold and coated it with Calyx manifold dressing.




New seals/gaskets for everything, clutch kit, CV boots, hoses/belts, water pump, and timing belt.

[firebush357]

Did you finish the Head Porting? I still want to do this to one of my B3 heads, I didn't realize the one I started on had grooves worn were the Cam Shaft wasn't getting oil for a while...

[theastronaut]

I did, I mostly worked on the exhaust ports by rounding the harsh 90* angle, cutting the guides flush, and blending the transition from the bowl to the straight section of the port. The intake ports didn't look to need as much work, I left the guides in place and enlarged short side radius from the bowl towards the intake side of the port.