The Batmobile Festy

[bravekozak]

I bought my stock Festiva orange tach cluster at a junkyard in Roseville, Michigan.
What does the blue light on your tach do? Tell you when to shift? or warn you if you are over-revving?

[Dex~]

Both, programmable shift light and redline indicator

[Eviljimchicken]

That shift light is so tachy

[eurotiva]

I have some pics somewhere, when it was in Florida a couple years ago

[w4rkry]

You (and your roomie) are very popular on Woodward haha

[Dex~]

Not the first time it's been YOHB/YOHMA'ed on Woodward lol, at least I got the engine looking better today, even if I did fat finger a rocker too far over putting it back together

[ricko1966]

On the cheap I'd pull the head and check ring ridge. No big ridge,then have the head rebuilt, bead hone it, ring it ,rod brg it, probably mains too, all while I waited on the head to be done,Rings and rod brgs can be done without pulling the engine,haven't done mains in car on a festy but I'll look at one of my blocks tomorrow and see if I can see why you couldn't.If you bead hone an engine without pulling it here's a few tips remember you only need to hone where the rings travel not all the way to the bottom of the bore. wrap your crank journals with cardboardstrips and wrap with masking tape. put oily rags at the bottom of the bore to catch the debris and pull your oily rags out the top when finished to keep the crap off your crank. Wash everything with soapy rags and water. No it's not going to last 200k but it's cheap,fast and will get you a solid 80k before it starts to use oil again

Thanks for the heads up on the clutch, it's going to be a few months before I start getting everything together and tearing into it though, my big annual vacation is coming at the start of April and I'm working on getting a house after that so those kind of take priority right now.

I'll definitely do my my homework here before pulling the trigger on any parts, I want to keep the B3 for now and just rebuild it into a fun reliable daily, as the Batstiva is primarily going to be my wife's car




Just enough to fix the rust and clearcoat it =]

[Dex~]

Welp, the smoke show is getting really bad and it feels like I'm losing compression, struggling to get up to 60 at this point when was fine cruising at 85+ before, going to be doing whatever small repairs/mods I can afford and minimize drive time until after my vacation at the start of April.

Once that's done and I have some money saved up again I'll be pulling the trigger on the lower engine rebuild kit on rockauto along with an Exedy clutch kit and new motor/trans mounts (I know know, B6 swap <.< ) unless someone here wants to sell me a running donor motor for less than $500 a rebuild looks like the best option for me at the moment.

Kit has options for stock, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0mm oversize pistons, what would you recommend for a reliable daily?

Also head bolts, nowhere I've looked so far seems to have head bolts for these cars, and I've had it drilled into me that you never ever reuse head bolts, is that still true here?

[w4rkry]

Welp, the smoke show is getting really bad and it feels like I'm losing compression, struggling to get up to 60 at this point when was fine cruising at 85+ before, going to be doing whatever small repairs/mods I can afford and minimize drive time until after my vacation at the start of April.

Once that's done and I have some money saved up again I'll be pulling the trigger on the lower engine rebuild kit on rockauto along with an Exedy clutch kit and new motor/trans mounts (I know know, B6 swap <.< ) unless someone here wants to sell me a running donor motor for less than $500 a rebuild looks like the best option for me at the moment.

Kit has options for stock, 0.5, 0.75, and 1.0mm oversize pistons, what would you recommend for a reliable daily?

Also head bolts, nowhere I've looked so far seems to have head bolts for these cars, and I've had it drilled into me that you never ever reuse head bolts, is that still true here?

I would never recommend rebuilding a B3. Running B3s are 100-200 bucks all day everyday. Buy a new one, don't bother with a tear down

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[Dex~]

Guess I'll make another WTB thread when I'm ready to pull it, still grabbing the clutch and new mounts, and just keep fixing the non engine related stuff in the mean time. I'll probably just keep the old motor around for spare parts then

[chrisofna]

Did a quick search, I don't know how far Spring Lake is from Detroit but they have a 1988 Tracer (B6) engine. Might be a good bet.

[Dex~]

It's about a 3 hour drive for me, but it'll probably be around mid April before I pull the trigger on the new engine for financial reasons

thanks though =]

[ryanprins13]

It's about a 3 hour drive for me, but it'll probably be around mid April before I pull the trigger on the new engine for financial reasons

thanks though =]

There is a free one about 4hrs from you in central NJ on facebook right now

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[Dex~]

Barring me getting the free B3 being fourth in line, looking around it seems that a running junkyard B6 is about the same price as a running junkyard B3

While I still want to rebuild the little B3 as a side project/money dump sometime in the future, because I'm a stubborn bastard and it seems like I'd enjoy it. I'm now coming to understand why everyone here pushes for the B6 swap, it just makes the most sense.

I've rebuilt motors before but the only swap I've done was a 318 2bbl out of a 78 Diplomat into a 93 Dakota with a 3.9l smoke machine under the hood, that entailed a new oil pan, motor mounts, and moving the harness over.

A B6 out of say, a 91 Mazda 323, should be pretty much plug and play right, I just have to move the trans/motor mounts a bit?

In the mean time I'll be getting the little details polished up and keep this thread updated, thanks for the help so far on here and the facebook page, you guys are awesome =]

And on an interesting note, it's amazing how much bigger and floatier a Plymouth Horizon feels after a month of driving a Festiva, those 195/70R14's soak up a helluva lot more than the 185/50R12's

[Dex~]

https://detroit.craigslist.org/okl/cto/d/ford-festiva-for-parts/6558931327.html

Welp, found the answer to my smoke machine problems, this little guy is around the block from me.

I'll be getting a running B3, a set of alloys, and whatever GL parts I feel like swapping over to Batstiva, for about what I'd pay for a running B6.

I might keep the blue shell to B6 swap later if it's clean.