Drag-Racing newbie needs some help...

[bhazard]

I think you have a lot of work to do to get that much power to hook up in a festiva. 185 tires, even R compounds are not gonna come close. That trans is a G series right? What kind of mods to keep it from exploding?

[Advancedynamix]

No reinforced front support. The only thing that reinforces the front chassis is the direct bolt-on of the engine and transmission crossmember directly to the chassis without rubber washers.

The engine is rubber mounted; custom engine and transmission mounts filled with diy PU shore 75 stuff.

All the engines TQ is pushing the car via the sway bar, which is a sound bit of engineering, however the sway bar itself and the metal it's attached to are flimsy. You want to have some flex in the bar to help absorb shock load, but you don't want it to flex to the point of massive toe in, which will break the tires loose. You really don't want any chassis flex at the very front of the car, where the bar attaches, this causes TQ steer. You also want the softest engine mounts that you can run without the engine trying to jump out of the car. Inline 4 cylinder engines create very bad harmonic pulses that work like an impact wrench on tires, breaking them lose. The larger the bore and stroke of the engine, the worse this gets. You'll want to really focus on absorbing and isolating these pulses. Wrinkle wall drag slicks do a great job at absorbing unwanted frequencies, however they aren't allowed in your class, so you're going to have design around that. Does the f series engine have a balance shaft?

[Uhuzit]

I think you have a lot of work to do to get that much power to hook up in a festiva. 185 tires, even R compounds are not gonna come close. That trans is a G series right? What kind of mods to keep it from exploding?

True. Those 185 tires are out of question for drag racing. On the street, those 185 are my only legal option.

Bo0sted_Rafi and his buddy @ mx6 runs roughly the same engine / transmission combination in a MX3 RS. His MX3 FE3 Turbo dynoed 430whp and his friends 323 GLC over 500 whp and both cars are in the 10 sec. with a 2.0 N/A tranny. Only mods are a LSD. Nobody said it will hold infinite.

[fastivaB6TG25MR]

fist off, awesome build, im super jealous of your ride. i wanted to do the FE3N swap in my festy but i thought i didnt have enough room. you will want to make reinforcing braces from the front bumper area to the strut towers if you want to keep the car for more than a few years( i didnt and pretty much ripped everything connecting the firewall to the engine bay with a turbo BP) you should be way faster than mid 13's with an fe3 on 1bar of boost. what was your trap speed on your 13.5 sec pass?

who has done your tune up to this point? what does your timing/fuel map look like? what are your afrs under boost?
ive found that dyno tuning a light car is not as effective as street tuning because the dyno tends to overload the car making the tune slightly off in real racing.

traction:
plug in your lap top to your ms2 with a buddy in the car and have him watch when the tires start breaking loose. then take 1* of timing to effectively cut power to reduce wheel spin then taper up from there get to peak power.

hope this helps

[Uhuzit]

All the engines TQ is pushing the car via the sway bar, which is a sound bit of engineering, however the sway bar itself and the metal it's attached to are flimsy. You want to have some flex in the bar to help absorb shock load, but you don't want it to flex to the point of massive toe in, which will break the tires loose. You really don't want any chassis flex at the very front of the car, where the bar attaches, this causes TQ steer. You also want the softest engine mounts that you can run without the engine trying to jump out of the car. Inline 4 cylinder engines create very bad harmonic pulses that work like an impact wrench on tires, breaking them lose. The larger the bore and stroke of the engine, the worse this gets. You'll want to really focus on absorbing and isolating these pulses. Wrinkle wall drag slicks do a great job at absorbing unwanted frequencies, however they aren't allowed in your class, so you're going to have design around that. Does the f series engine have a balance shaft?

No balance shaft on F series engines.

Soft engine mounts? Doesn´t that produce wheel hop?

[fastivaB6TG25MR]

Soft engine mounts? Doesn´t that produce wheel hop?

it could if theyre too soft. you want just enough give to lessen the shock transfered to the tires to keep them from spinning. and enough stiffness to keep from wheel hopping

My current turbo bp in my 1988 323 sedan is running stock engine /trans mounts with the front trans mount filled with urethane glue(hopped before filling with glue) my festiva trans was solid mounted to the cross member and wasnt bad as far as vibrations go. not sure if the FE vibrates more or less than the BP.

[Uhuzit]

fist off, awesome build, im super jealous of your ride. i wanted to do the FE3N swap in my festy but i thought i didnt have enough room. you will want to make reinforcing braces from the front bumper area to the strut towers if you want to keep the car for more than a few years( i didnt and pretty much ripped everything connecting the firewall to the engine bay with a turbo BP) you should be way faster than mid 13's with an fe3 on 1bar of boost. what was your trap speed on your 13.5 sec pass?

who has done your tune up to this point? what does your timing/fuel map look like? what are your afrs under boost?
ive found that dyno tuning a light car is not as effective as street tuning because the dyno tends to overload the car making the tune slightly off in real racing.

traction:
plug in your lap top to your ms2 with a buddy in the car and have him watch when the tires start breaking loose. then take 1* of timing to effectively cut power to reduce wheel spin then taper up from there get to peak power.

hope this helps

That 13.5 "pass" was meassured with a Racelogic performance box. I had it mounted only for two pulls on a country road. I think it was in the ballpark of 167 or 176 km/h. Not sure.

I tuned the car myself. My maps are more on the safe side. Under boost 11 to 11.5 afrs.

[Uhuzit]

Conclusion:

- i need drag radials, something like 24x8x15 (?)
- engine and transmission-mount stiffness is very important for traction
- gearbox will break sooner or later (ok, im little naive and belief other guys statemants that it will hold over a range of time)
- stiffer chassis front

Hmmm.......

[fastivaB6TG25MR]

nice. you might be able to boost your kph a little with more timing. i keep looking on miataturbo.net for a MS2 boosted timing map for an FE3N but cant seem to find one for you to compare with yours to see what else you can squeeze out of it safely.

11-11.5 seems to be just about perfect from what ive seen. ive been boosting a 100% stock bp to 1bar at those afrs for 4 years with no issues yet. i can send you my .msq from my ms1 if you want to take a look

[Advancedynamix]

On my next track Festiva build, the turbo will be behind the engine so that I can move the engine even further forward. I'll have a tubular front support and trailing links, rather than a sway bar. The further forward you can place that driveline, the more power you can put down. Every mm counts. Also, a rearward angle on the CV axles pushes the wheels downward with TQ load, which adds to the tractability. I learned this tuning Porsche cars. It is like cheating in the traction game.

[Advancedynamix]

By the way, please post more pictures of the car. I know many of us have dreamed of an Fe3 swapped Festiva. There are plenty of kia sportages out here and the Mazdaspeed protege tranny bolts right to it, complete with factory torsen LSD that is much better than a helical diff IMHO. Other than the drawbacks of larger displacement 4 cylinder engines, it's a perfect powertrain for these little cars. What did you do for hood clearance?

[Uhuzit]

Robin hood?

[Uhuzit]

Joking. You have enough hood clearence.

A Mazdaspeed protege gearbox fits? The German ass..... Mazda MPS 3 equivalent? Fu.... I need one

A FE3 swap is easy. You need a professionaly friction welded driveshaft or a driveshaft made from one piece on the driver side, a custom made crank pulley, 3 custom made engine and transmission mounts, cutted passenger frame rail ( 4 cm deep), daihatsu alternator with a custom made small drive pulley, because the alternator pulley will hit the passenger side frame rail. You need to shorten the shitty factory inlet manifold 1,5cm behind the injector or it will hit the firewall. If you use a cable clutch, its easy. Hydraulic conversion is harder. I think thats all. But in that stage, you only have a na engine that doesnt pull any fish from the table. Turbo conversion is easy to. Use a EVO manifold with a FE3 manifold flange. So, pistons and aftermark rods are easy available. Stock pistons are eutetic; POS.

The shorted driveshaft is a must have, or your diff. goes buuuuum after 5 miles of driving. Its 2,5 cm to long. No Kia RIO, Capri etc. OEM driveshaft will fit. All to long.

[Advancedynamix]

Not the Mazdaspeed3, the MS protege was f2t, it is a g series box with upgrade synchros and a torsen diff.

[Uhuzit]

Ahh ok.Thank you.

So i´m lost with my G5 gearbox. Cry :-)