Couple of Car Quirks

[Aaronbrook37]

Hey all,

Just got the newly swapped B6T Festiva back from Sasquatch's place and it's doing marvelously well. Such fun performance and great handling as well even though the motor gained some weight . Got a few miscellaneous quirks that hopefully somebody can help with:

1. The turn signals. The bulbs are all new, but the front corners and indicators work intermittently. 90% of the time, only the rear ones flash rapidly and click away on the dashboard at mach five. Maybe it's a bad fuse, but I know the front bulbs are good. Occasionally while I'm driving, the left ones will randomly come back and switch to normal again.

2. The brake system. On the drive home (approximately 80km/50mi) I made it most of the way fine, but the final 10km/6mi was strange because I almost completely lost my ability to brake. The pedal slid to the floor and I was left manually braking and using the e-brake in order to make it home safely. I can't hear any obvious leaks or see fluid from the MC/BB, but I assumed they were toast. This morning, I put a pair of vice grips on the booster hose to shrink it and help start the car up. Worked magic, and the brakes seem fine today... but I worry that when the car gets really toasty or worked up that it may happen again. Any ideas? Air in the lines seems unlikely...

3. Butt dyno / happy pedal is broken. At about 3900/4000RPM in any gear under load only, the car loses boost and sort of hits a wall in terms of power. It will continue to ascend in speed and revs, but I can hear loud popping noises from the exhaust and the car gets pretty sluggish. This motor has about 100km/60mi on it period, and I rarely venture that high while breaking it in... but something to think about. It could be the stock fuel pump, the stock Festiva exhaust, or a combination of both. I hope to remedy both shortly.

4. Driver's axle clicks. Only when turning right, it sort of clops like a horse would gallop. Can I ride on this safely for a month or so give or take until I can get it fixed?

5. The headlights. Randomly, the headlights and presumably rear lights will cut out while I'm driving... and then pop back on after a random period of time with no semblance or clue of what's going on. May be related to turn signal issues.

Other than that, it's been a wonderful car thus far and I'm really thankful to Sasquatch for his help and this community for all of the assistance as well! Thanks for any help you can offer on any/all of the five.

[Damkid]

1. Check your grounds on the stock harness make sure they have a good connection

2. Like as we discussed over text, possibly need a new booster if it's causing a vacuum leak which would also cause a drivability issue

3. You could be right with lack of fuel (stock pump) but a wideband would help you diagnose that if you don't have one already

4. I've driven on a bad axle like that for months before replacing

5. I'd say related to the turn signal issue, double check the grounds on the stock harness

[FestYboy]

1. look at your bulb connections in the sockets as well

5. there's a fuseable link just for your headlights, make sure that is good and clean and double check the grounds (near the LF headlight inner fender).

[GenevaDirt]

was told that the stock fuel pump is not big enough for the B6T.... bought one from the bay pretty cheap to replace mine when I get the swap done.

[Aaronbrook37]

1. Check your grounds on the stock harness make sure they have a good connection

2. Like as we discussed over text, possibly need a new booster if it's causing a vacuum leak which would also cause a drivability issue

3. You could be right with lack of fuel (stock pump) but a wideband would help you diagnose that if you don't have one already

4. I've driven on a bad axle like that for months before replacing

5. I'd say related to the turn signal issue, double check the grounds on the stock harness

1. Will do. It's possible that there were some issues when the harness was relocated into the fenderwell. I'll also build a grounding kit for the car, which I found works wonders on accessory electronics on all of my other cars lying around the yard.

2. Yep... probably. I'll hopefully be able to find one cheap shipped, because local yards really suck to say the least.

3. I'll have a wideband and a whole pile of gauges and datalogging in two weeks!

4. Sounds good.

5. Sounds good.

1. look at your bulb connections in the sockets as well

5. there's a fuseable link just for your headlights, make sure that is good and clean and double check the grounds (near the LF headlight inner fender).

1. They were a little bit messy... screwdriver didn't do much, but I'll try electrical parts cleaner maybe.

5. I'll replace those with the fancy ones... it may have gotten wet or something at some point. I'll shine up the grounds I find too!

was told that the stock fuel pump is not big enough for the B6T.... bought one from the bay pretty cheap to replace mine when I get the swap done.

Good to know. I'll pick up maybe an RX7 or Supra one perhaps... don't want Walbro noise!

[Aaronbrook37]

Thanks guys! That should keep me busy for a while.

[zoom zoom]

I had some issues in a 626 where the turn signals and headlights did about what you describe, it was what festyboy said, the metal contact points in the sockets needed pried out to keep good contact on the bulbs.

[skimsucka]

was told that the stock fuel pump is not big enough for the B6T.... bought one from the bay pretty cheap to replace mine when I get the swap done.

ive been running stock festy fuel pump on mine at 10 lbs for a year now no problems and spark plugs show a nice burn color if anything the slightest show of lean . Its not good for anything over 10lbs of boost iirc, which is why i have a 255lph sitting on the shelf

[Aaronbrook37]

I had some issues in a 626 where the turn signals and headlights did about what you describe, it was what festyboy said, the metal contact points in the sockets needed pried out to keep good contact on the bulbs.

Sounds good. I sprayed and cleaned em up, but didn't have a whole lotta luck. I'll check the factory grounds the best I can soon and hopefully that'll clear it up.

ive been running stock festy fuel pump on mine at 10 lbs for a year now no problems and spark plugs show a nice burn color if anything the slightest show of lean . Its not good for anything over 10lbs of boost iirc, which is why i have a 255lph sitting on the shelf

Good to know! I'm gonna throw the oil and plugs and toss in a new set shortly as I break in the motor, and we'll see if that's what was causing the issue. I'll look for lean mixtures or hot colours. But yeah... I'm making 8lbs flat across the board, so it should be okay if the pump is healthy and the lines aren't gummed up or anything. I made it to 5000RPM (by mistake) in first today successfully, which was an improvement to say the least.

[Aaronbrook37]

So I sprayed and cleaned out the corner sockets with no luck unfortunately... I'll go at them with compressed air and some more cleaner I guess and hope for the best. If someone has a picture or description of these headlight grounding wires, that'd be ideal... as someone with big hands, it can be tricky to find things under there!

I also swapped out my plugs with a fresh set... a little bit of white frost on them, but nothing too bad. We'll have a wideband in the car soon and datalogging/netbook capabilities, so that'll help sort us out. We also have a Corksport ECU to throw in, which will spice up the air fuel mixture pretty nicely right out of the box I suspect.

Still getting the stutter/shutter/halfstall at 4000 under load though... kind of a pain, but it's manageable. Feels like it's still lacking power... I may head to Home Depot to build a boost leak tester and go to town with my bike pump! Brakes seem to be doing well, and the handling's better now that one of the tires isn't at 10PSI anymore... all tightened up nicely.

I'm also looking for some better ways to enhance the road grip feel of the car. I feel pretty withdrawn from the road. So far the plans are to either get Rio top hats or WRX camber plates, and some nice grippy 186/60-13's when I downsize along with new bushings and rubber all over the place. Anybody have any other ideas?

[Aaronbrook37]

Got the left signal working, and the light comes on for the passenger side parking light now too. It took a while for the wires to settle and dry I suppose... hopefully the right one will come up soon as well!

Still looking for some help on the stutter/missing at 4000RPM and above though. Thinking about ordering some WRX camber plates... would those improve the steering response more than the Rio top hats?

[getnpsi]

Add a test pipe and see how it does under load. That will tell you what to check next

[Aaronbrook37]

Add a test pipe and see how it does under load. That will tell you what to check next

New 2.5" downpipe-back exhaust is going in at the end of the month, along with all of my gauges. If it happens to be a clogged cat, we'll know pretty quickly! Thanks for the advice... I hadn't thought of that. Especially since the car has 300,000 miles on it, and the exhaust has most of those as well!

[RhodeStiva]

when i had a clogged cat. i beat the guts out of it . so now my car isn't very environmentally friendly

[getnpsi]

When I put my cats back on they work great, oulut is clean. California cats cost triple arizona cats and are designed to fail regularly