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

[theastronaut]

Nice work John! I think it's great that you had more grip than the carb could handle haha. That tire/wheel combo is looking stellar!
Can't wait to see the YT clips.

Thanks Will! Yeah, its funny now but wasn't in the middle of a run lol. I need to get Blake to hurry up and get the vid up.

Is there a specific bike you'd be looking for as far as a donor? I know a lot of the vw guys have been running early R1 carbs on their aba's for years. I know there's a reason they go after those specifically, but I forget what that reason is...

I haven't done enough research to know what to use yet.

Racing:
An engineering exercise to determine what part breaks first.

Amazing. Keep up the good work!

Yep. The stock carb was ok with Achilles but breaking up with NS2R's, and now we've found the limit of the Escort carb.

[theastronaut]

Haven't updated this since 2018, lots to catch up on. Still have this one, it's currently apart for a new b3 build.


To catch up, the car was a lot more competitive at autocrosses with the R888's, and later on slightly stickier Nankang AR1 tires.

The first big autocross I took it to was in Nov '18 at Michelin's Laurens Proving Grounds with a huge skidpad for the course. This was an employee and friends/family of employees event set up by the SCCA. The Festiva came in 10th overall out of 50 cars.









In January of '19 I drove it out to Festiva Insanity again, this time with stickier AR1 tires, a race seat to hold me in place, the FMS cam, and a header for a little more power. It ran a fastest of lap of 2:17 in 2018, and did better with a 2:14.75 this time.
























In February I got my first top 5 finish at an autocross.






September had another big autocross at Michelin, and the car placed the best it ever had at third overall.






I found a killer set of 14x7" 100+ Octavo wheels in February of '20 and dropped them off for sandblasting with a batch of parts I was having powdercoated. I shot them with SPI epoxy primer and single stage urethane that I had mixed to match the original '89 Festiva paint code.


















By March I had killed the AR1's so I bought a new set in the smaller 175/50-13 size to drop weight and to keep the sidewall from rolling/folding under. The added lower gear ratio effect really helped acceleration in third and fourth gear.




The shorter gearing limited speed in second gear which hurt it on bigger course layouts, and the next big autocross had a really straight/fast layout where I was at 60-65 mph in a couple of places, and having to shift between second and third which killed a lot of time. The layout really favored cars with more power so I only placed 19th at that event.




In June a tree limb fell on it, damaging most of the panels and totaling it. I bought it back and kept driving it since the damage was mostly cosmetic.

[theastronaut]

The last post caught it up to June of 2020. Since then I've been collecting parts to build a new b3 for it, shooting for 100 hp and 8500 rpm.


Old engine out-






I CC'd a stock head, did the math to figure out what the chamber needed to be to get to the compression I wanted, filled it with that many CC's of water and measured down to that point, then had a stock head shaved .100".










Had the original block bored .030" and honed for .003" piston to cylinder clearance, a little bigger than stock to account for added thermal expansion.






Before and after exhaust porting.









Steven Bloomfield 3d printed and test run an intake manifold that adapts Yamaha RX1 carbs, then printed patterns to sand cast intakes out of aluminum.












The block was drilled and tapped for an AN fitting that will vent the block to a breather box/catch can setup.






Steven also got a Kia Rio crank and rods for the build. This has all b3 dimensions but has dual counterweights instead of single. It also uses a rubber damped cast iron balancer with grooves for serpentine belts for both the alternator and AC belts. This should help reduce harmonics at high rpm, the old engine literally shook parts loose from being revved to 7000.






Deshrouded the chambers for more air flow around that side of the valve.








Practice porting on a scrap head to see where the water jackets were at. This was the final port design to try to straighten the port and flow more air on what was the blocked side of the valve guide.




Finished intake ports in the good head.










Short block mocked up to check piston to valve clearance with clay.






Bridgeport tilted 22* to match the valve angle, and a boring head set to .060" larger diameter than the valve for enough radial clearance. HSS bit ground with a slight radius so the corner of the notch would be smooth.








Short block assembled for the final time.










Some of the parts gathered for the build. Lots of NOS parts including all bearings, oil pump, rockers, pistons, rings, gasket set, timing covers, escort carb kit, plug wires, factory serpintine AC compressor for a car that had power steering, and water crossover hose. I had a cam reground by American Custom Cam and bought an adjustable cam gear from K.A. injection.






I threw the engine together with the old cylinder head last weekend (then new head is still at the machine shop for a valve job) in an attempt to make it to a local autocross but after thrashing on it 26 hours between friday after lunch and all day Saturday I gave up. At this point I'll finish getting it running in this configuration since I know the Escort carb works great, then swap the new head, header, and RX1 carbs on later. I have a flange and tubing to build a 4-1 header that will pair nicely with the reground 280 duration, .444" lift cam and the RX1 carbs. The new head will have dual Ferrea valve springs which will be good for all the rpm I'm willing to throw at it. The header primary sizes and lengths will be tuned for a HP peak around 72-7500, but I want it to rev to 83-8500 to be able to stretch second gear out longer at autocross events. I also installed a small lightweight EXT14 battery in a tray I made to save around 27 pounds. I'd like to get the car down to 1650 pounds with carpet and AC. I bought thinwall 18g 2" exhaust tubing to help save weight compared to the usual 14-16g tubing. Another thing I want to try is to assemble a close ratio F series gearbox using a cable clutch 323 five speed with NA Capri gears, the Capri 2/3/4 ratios are very close which will help the low powered b3 pull third and fourth better. It'll be stronger than the E series yet lighter than a G series.

[william]

Great work as always! Keep it up