Introduction and questions...

[ryanprins13]

^ very cool. I did see your thread, and I love outside-the-box thinking. I've done quite a few things that people thought were nuts... it's kind of a badge of honor for me. Last June I rode my bicycle 303 miles in 23hrs 47mins. The goal was 300/24.

Anywhooooo

Last night after I got it running, I put about 30 test miles on it. The right front strut is completely seized up, or close to it. A little flex in the mount, and some in the tire, but I think that might be it. I'm also hearing slight bearing noise, I think from the same corner. So I'm gonna load up a triumph 955i motor that I sold on ebay, and leave for a 1,150 mile round trip delivery straight from work tomorrow. Hopefully be home in time to watch OSU-PSU Saturday night!! Wish me luck...

Wow, thats a long ways! Longest i ever biked was like 75km in high school, lol.
Wow, hope your trip goes ok! Maybe lower the air pressure in that tire a little for some more give? Lol. Hope its not front bearings, their a bit of a pain. Rear bearins are easy but common to make noise because many people either never grease them, never replace the seals so water gets in or over/under tighten them.
Have you heard of rockauto? Lots of cheap car parts there. Are you doing the advanced suspension right away or will you order a $30 stock strut first to get you by for a bit?

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[Smoker]

Do I want these? Both are 5-speed and run... besides brakes, what would be desirable from these cars?

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[Studebaker]

front seats are more confortable and a easy swap. 5 spds have a different gear ratio than festivas. still grab the parts and scrap the cars

[skeeters_keeper]

You can use the engine/trans if you want stock stuff. About the only thing I pull off aspires these days is the front knuckle and the e-brake cable. The aspire got coated cables that don't rust through as often as the festiva ones.
The rear brakes/beam on the aspire are a lot heavier and actually are slightly detrimental to handling, so its best just to use the aspire fronts and re-drill the stock drums to 4x100. That opens up the wheel options a lot.

On the brake debate, as Ryan said, properly operating stock brakes can lock up pretty much any rubber up to legal highway speeds, so they are capable of stopping the car just fine. However if you like to stop from 100+ or are braking hard/frequently (like on a track) they will overheat quickly. IMO once you get over 120 hp or so you should deff be on aspire brakes. I like the NB miata booster/mc combo, it leaves a little more room for the intake on BP swaps, but takes slight fab work.

Hope your trip goes well! Have you seen the posts about Festiva Madness next weekend? Biggest Festy meet of the year, and just down in Raleigh.

[Smoker]

Somewhere in TN... First tank: 41mpg, mostly 70mph [emoji106]

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[Smoker]

You can use the engine/trans if you want stock stuff. About the only thing I pull off aspires these days is the front knuckle and the e-brake cable. The aspire got coated cables that don't rust through as often as the festiva ones.
The rear brakes/beam on the aspire are a lot heavier and actually are slightly detrimental to handling, so its best just to use the aspire fronts and re-drill the stock drums to 4x100. That opens up the wheel options a lot.

On the brake debate, as Ryan said, properly operating stock brakes can lock up pretty much any rubber up to legal highway speeds, so they are capable of stopping the car just fine. However if you like to stop from 100+ or are braking hard/frequently (like on a track) they will overheat quickly. IMO once you get over 120 hp or so you should deff be on aspire brakes. I like the NB miata booster/mc combo, it leaves a little more room for the intake on BP swaps, but takes slight fab work.

Hope your trip goes well! Have you seen the posts about Festiva Madness next weekend? Biggest Festy meet of the year, and just down in Raleigh.

Good info. What is NB??

I did read about madness. So ds like a blast. Unfortunately I'm out of town tonight and tomorrow, my wife and kids are in PA for the weekend, and I'm out of town for work tues/wed this week, so me getting away again next weekend is not likely. I'll look forward to pics!

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[Smoker]

Second tank was hammer down, mostly 80+mph. 37mpg

I'm rather impressed so far. Even with a seized strut and bone stock, this thing feels very stable at 90mph

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[ryanprins13]

Good info. What is NB??

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Second tank was hammer down, mostly 80+mph. 37mpg

I'm rather impressed so far. Even with a seized strut and bone stock, this thing feels very stable at 90mph

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NB is a generation of miata.
Thats pretty decent for a carbed car at that speed and with a motor in the back i think! My festiva is efi and would get 46us mpg commuting to work at 62mph. My best ever tank was 52.2 us mpg.
My new festiva was a little worse. Also efi and a 5 speed but my commute was at 70mph and busier traffic and lots of city driving. 41.5 was average and i would have to actually try to be able to get 44.
I have never done high speed driving like your doing for a whole tank of gas except with the trailer this summer. 77-84mph down hills but only 50-55 up hills, lol. Also very stable with the trailer but i did a decent amount of work to make that happen.

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[skeeters_keeper]

Yea, the NA miata was 90-98, NB 99-05, NC 06-15, and now we have the ND.
Either NA/NB will work, just slightly different port positions.

For a carb'd car (4 speed?) getting 37 on the highway is pretty decent! EFI/5 speed should be in the low 40s at that speed.

[Smoker]

Final numbers from the trip:
1,120.3 miles (GPS)
91.5 mph top speed
27.4 gallons
40.9 mpg... not too shabby!

Other observations:
- the speedometer suffered a slow, painful death. When I first got the car on the road, I noticed it was reading 5-10mph slow, and would occasionally spike to accurate numbers. The more miles I put on it, the worse it got. At this point, it's reading roughly 15mph at 75mph. Lol. The odometer is still working like normal, so I guess it's not the cable. Not sure if I care or not.

-she's burning some oil. Not a ton, but a motor swap might be closer than I thought. I probably lost a little over 2qt in the 1,120 miles. It had cheap 10w30 in it. Not sure if I should try something else or not...

[firebush357]

I had a similar problem with my Speedo so I pulled it out of the cluster and cleaned it out with some compressed air and then sprayed some WD-40 Dry Lube in the mechanism and it seemed to fix the issue. I also had an issue where it wasn't working at all and it ended up being that the speedo cable was pressed too tight against the cluster and wouldn't let the magnet spin so I had to pull cable a little bit from the engine bay to relieve the pressure.

[ricko1966]

I had a similar problem with my Speedo so I pulled it out of the cluster and cleaned it out with some compressed air and then sprayed some WD-40 Dry Lube in the mechanism and it seemed to fix the issue. I also had an issue where it wasn't working at all and it ended up being that the speedo cable was pressed too tight against the cluster and wouldn't let the magnet spin so I had to pull cable a little bit from the engine bay to relieve the pressure.

Awesome tip thanks, I will try it one of mine goes up down up down then pegs and stays at 85mph, What rio rack are people using?

[ryanprins13]

Final numbers from the trip:
1,120.3 miles (GPS)
91.5 mph top speed
27.4 gallons
40.9 mpg... not too shabby!

Other observations:
- the speedometer suffered a slow, painful death. When I first got the car on the road, I noticed it was reading 5-10mph slow, and would occasionally spike to accurate numbers. The more miles I put on it, the worse it got. At this point, it's reading roughly 15mph at 75mph. Lol. The odometer is still working like normal, so I guess it's not the cable. Not sure if I care or not.

-she's burning some oil. Not a ton, but a motor swap might be closer than I thought. I probably lost a little over 2qt in the 1,120 miles. It had cheap 10w30 in it. Not sure if I should try something else or not...

Great that you had a good trip!
Speedo sound fixable if your willing to take it apart and spray wd40 in there, worked well for mine.
With the oil, maybe degrease and pressurewash the engine and check for leaks first. I have had a crankshaft seal leak oil faster than that on my car. It probably leaks oil somewhere. Crank, cam, oil pan, valve cover, distributor o-ring are most common sort of in that order. The crank and oil pan seals leaking can get rid of a lot of oil very quickly for you.
For oil consumption check the pcv valve, they can get gummed up and stuck in one position and suck oil. If it doesnt rattle freely spray some carb cleaner into it. Most commom burning oil cause on a festy is blowby blowing it through the pcv system into the intake.
Next most common burning oil causes on a festiva are valve stem seals and rings.


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[theastronaut]

That's really good mileage for a four speed carb car! The best my '88 four speed ever got was 38.

I have stock brakes on my '89 and they're plenty adequate for a b3 car. I have had sticky NS2R and R888 tires on it it'll lock up the brakes at any legal speeds. I've tried to make them fade just to see how much abuse they'll take... I can do two back to back stops from 65-70 on R888's with no fade, then I'll notice fade on the third stop. The R888's work the brakes much harder than even the soft compound NS2R's, so I doubt you'd ever be able to push the car hard enough to notice fade on normal all seasons unless you're towing something heaving and going downhill. I'm going to look into the 323 brakes for my '88 that has a B6d swap so I don't have to change wheels.

[Smoker]

That's really good mileage for a four speed carb car! The best my '88 four speed ever got was 38.

I have stock brakes on my '89 and they're plenty adequate for a b3 car. I have had sticky NS2R and R888 tires on it it'll lock up the brakes at any legal speeds. I've tried to make them fade just to see how much abuse they'll take... I can do two back to back stops from 65-70 on R888's with no fade, then I'll notice fade on the third stop. The R888's work the brakes much harder than even the soft compound NS2R's, so I doubt you'd ever be able to push the car hard enough to notice fade on normal all seasons unless you're towing something heaving and going downhill. I'm going to look into the 323 brakes for my '88 that has a B6d swap so I don't have to change wheels.

It's actually a 5 speed.

As far as brakes, I'm pretty sure the stock ones will be adequate for my needs. Design and wheel bolt pattern would be my reasons to swap to aspire. But my stock alum wheels have brand new tires, and I'm a cheapskate, so I'm not in any rush to swap wheels out just yet. Suspension first!

On that note, I stopped at a buddy's shop the other day to help him figure out suspension for the front of his current rat rod build. It's a little different than other stuff I've helped him with because it's 4wd ifs. No room for bags in there because of the cv shafts. We're going to try using coilovers, using the stock bottom shock mount and we'll build hoops to mount the top. So he found a deal on a returned but new set of mk2 coils for $100 shipped on eBay. He's using the rears, and I'll take the fronts.

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