Time for another LeMons race

[Coldhand]

We made it through safety Tech!! Car is running good. After a couple hours of testing, we think we are moving battery forward and cutting weight outta the rear. It's gonna be a fun weekend with the weather in the upper 60s and clear.

[Advancedynamix]

Small, light cars are less prone to crushing when hit because they move easier. The festiva was one of the most rigid chassis of it's day according to SAE documents ( this was researched by Larry Pond of Pro Autosport).
A ping pong ball can take one heck of an impact, however, make the ping pong ball the size of a basketball and suspend 20lbs in it while not increasing the thickness of it's shell and it would shatter when dropped. Larger cars are still made of 18-21 gauge sheet metal, but they weight more. Big and heavy =safe is a common misconception.

[Coldhand]

A very good day was had. We got thru the safety technical inspection and had time to run almost four hours of testing. We moved the battery way forward and removed some of the unnecessary welded pieces to the rear past the back bumper. One of my teammates is a welder and only after several people have concurred let me grind out the huge piece. I jus save 20 pounds in the rear!
The car with the BP and the new suspension seemed TOTALLY different. We will be passing cars and having fun.
image.jpg. I think this car is a little cheating!

[Advancedynamix]

good to hear. That car has nothing on your Festiva, don't let all those cylinders and zeros in the price tag fool you. Haha. Can you guys get video?

[Coldhand]

The video camera was forgotten. I want to say how much fun it was to Apex early, braking late, and then pulling the car straight with throttle. We will only be getting better.
Eagles Canyon Raceway is a challenging track. It has several elevations that add to excitement. There is a corner after a good straightaway that you can only see the beginning of as you crest a hill, you have to know its medium left.

We are using the tiny stock single core radiator with no problems, I am happily surprised.
Ok, well it's back to sleep, I get a bit restless before a big raceday.

[Advancedynamix]

Excellent stuff! What's nice about those blind curves is that these cars really shine on those "oopsy" moments, so they are a real confidence booster. I've spun Tweak 1 and a half rotations and I never even left the track surface! (don't try this lol). The more you drive that little car the more you'll wonder why the racetracks of the world aren't flooded with Festivas. Stable at 150+ mph, and will outright embarrass almost anything with fenders in the corners. I gotta fix Tweak, I'm having withdrawals. Best of luck, find someone to get pics or video but most importantly enjoy the drive!

[russian]

how did you guys do?

[Coldhand]

I am very happy with the handling performance. We were able to take corners as fast as the fastest cars. With a few more adjustments it will be even better. We ran the back tire pressure quite low on the rear Azenis, the car never under or over steered. I need to get better at braking later and just scrubbing speed by apexing early in the corners. It was not easy to "trust in the Festiva" and FWD the the corners. We were upper middle 29 out of 70 only because of team incoherence. Now I have to complain about the shop I took the head to. We were burning oil at 2quarts an hour by the end of the race.
I was surprised by how much strut tower/body flex we had after hitting the dirt from contact at turn 4. We need to add a front support between the strut and stiffen the towers. We could also use a couple more HP from the intake manifold and the exhaust header. The Russian has a great set of brakes that I covet and will install so that we can keep up top speed longer. Before swapping in the BP, I did not shift into fourth gear I just ran up to 6000 RPMs on the B8. Now fourth gear got us where we needed to be in the straightaways. image.jpg

[Coldhand]

Another couple photos. image.jpgimage.jpg
I hit some dirt after being tapped in a corner going three cars wide in a hairpin turn. I was good holding my line, but an exceptionally fast model T squeezed from out of nowhere and should have braked earlier. It doesn't take much force when pushing it hard in a corner for the festiva to bounce away safely.

[Advancedynamix]

The source of your flex isn't the strut towers, it starts at the front of the car. Flex in a Festiva starts at the front lower core support (where all your HP is focused, torque is pushing the car around through your sway bar and sway bar mount plates.) The flex is multiplied and it shows it's ugly head in places like the strut towers and firewall are. If you reinforce these areas you are only putting a bandaid over the problem, to stop the flex you must strengthen the area where the stress is applied. If you strip the car down to just the shell you will see how weak the front lower support area is. This is acting like a runner sled (for those of us who remember those things) causing the car to twist with engine load and this causes torque steer and wheel hop too. I have had the chance to drive several engine swapped festivas in comparison with mine, and there is a huge difference when this area is reinforced. I have over 20K track miles (2K on slicks!) with hundreds of off track adventures and I only have a little cracking of the seam sealer by my strut towers.

[Coldhand]

Ah! That makes more sense. The passenger side shock tower moved two inches and bumped into our engine mount. Ok, so start with reinforcing the front and welding into chassis. I looked at your Photobucket pictures, and I am again impressed. Do you have a more detailed thread of the support? We can band-aid but for sure it will put that pressure someplace else if we don't start with the bottom up.
Your advice is ALWAYS well received.

[Festevil3]

The source of your flex isn't the strut towers, it starts at the front of the car. Flex in a Festiva starts at the front lower core support (where all your HP is focused, torque is pushing the car around through your sway bar and sway bar mount plates.) The flex is multiplied and it shows it's ugly head in places like the strut towers and firewall are. If you reinforce these areas you are only putting a bandaid over the problem, to stop the flex you must strengthen the area where the stress is applied. If you strip the car down to just the shell you will see how weak the front lower support area is. This is acting like a runner sled (for those of us who remember those things) causing the car to twist with engine load and this causes torque steer and wheel hop too. I have had the chance to drive several engine swapped festivas in comparison with mine, and there is a huge difference when this area is reinforced. I have over 20K track miles (2K on slicks!) with hundreds of off track adventures and I only have a little cracking of the seam sealer by my strut towers.

Do you have any more detailed pics or any more information on this mod (bottom side pics?)

[rbrown]

I am just looking at the little tiny radiator... This is next in my fitting in my swap.

And good going. Can't wait to come see the car.

I have a buddy that switched to Chump Cars and finds it more fun. http://www.nismorons.com/

[Coldhand]

Rodney, we used that "tiny" single core Festiva radiator and the temp never exceeded 195 under hardest driving. If you don't have an adequate fan it will NOT be enough sitting in traffic or even fast idle for the smog test.

[rbrown]

Rodney, we used that "tiny" single core Festiva radiator and the temp never exceeded 195 under hardest driving. If you don't have an adequate fan it will NOT be enough sitting in traffic or even fast idle for the smog test.

Yeah it looks like Charlie has a puller on his in this pic. Since I have the turbo in the way I have to see what will fit.