Da Groj

Loren wrote:Cost less to swap in a 1.6 or 1.8 Miata engine and with bigger gains vs. Hopping up the 1.3. Plus, we're having fun playing in M4!

Once you get into the deep end this is where you just plain "go for it". I have no idea what you will do with all that HP and Torque but it will be great fun to watch.

I think we went off the deep end when we decided to buy a Festiva as an autocross car.

Ben and I got in another half-day of work on the Festiva today over at Joe Brannon's. Joe's a lot better at welding than I am, so we made a bunch of sparks today.

We got the fender flares finished other than a little grinding and paint. Checked a few more items off of the list, as well. Got the swaybar modded and new bushings installed. Shed a few more pounds in the form of more speaker wire and front tow hooks.

OMG, this car is fun! I didn't feel much difference from our latest round of mods/repairs/tweaks. Maybe a tiny bit more steering precision, but otherwise the same. Steve insisted that it was understeering more than it did before. Didn't hear any complaints from Ben.

Another event done, 21 more runs. Best overall finish ever, 4th of 50!

Actually, I totally forgot to ask Ben what he thought.
And whether it pushed more or not, it sure didn't hurt my times...

I'm not the most sensitive of drivers, but yeah, I think Steve might be right. Granted, I was driving like crap, but I felt like it wanted to understeer a tad bit sooner. Might be all in my head, who knows.

It's possible. I'm a very adaptive driver. I do what the car lets me do. Our swaybar mod could have made the bar slightly stiffer. Subtle difference that I'd be hard pressed to notice. I say we give ourselves another event to feel it out. Tampa Bay Downs will tell us if it's understeering too much for sure!

I'm still wondering about our tire pressures. (and we rarely play with them other than to say "yep, there's air in them, and the tires aren't rolling over too much) I know for a fact that Steve checked the tire pressures when we did the skidpad at the last event, though I don't remember what they were. And I know for a fact that we rotated the tires a week later. And I'm reasonably certain that nobody adjusted the tire pressures after that (I didn't, and nobody else claims to remember doing it) What's weird is that when I checked them today, they were at about 40 in the front and 35 in the rear... which seems "okay".

I do remember from brief skidpad testing that the rears are barely getting warm. So, there's little tire pressure increase in the rear due to temperature. But, in the front, they were getting pretty hot, especially the outside (of course). On this course, I know we were scrubbing the tires pretty hard, so the fronts probably got pretty warm, which would raise the front pressures quite a bit.

I sort of remember that our tire pressures were typically pretty even front-rear when WARM before (the only time I think to check them). So, if they were say 38-38 hot, and we know the rears don't get as hot... cold pressures were probably more like 32 front and 35 rear.

So, if we rotated them without adjusting pressures, we'd have had 35 front and 32 rear... rears gain 3 psi, and fronts gain 6... puts us about right where I measured them today.

Bottom line: We might simply need to add a little air to the rear tires! (and bleed a bit from the fronts) Subtle, but we know that stiffening the rear transfers cornering grip to the front. This could be what y'all were feeling.

Moral of the story: Adjust the damned tire pressures when we rotate the tires!

and here I thought Ben's runs looked good through station 2 today lol

Ben did okay. He was only 3/10 off of Steve. Steve's time was hard to beat!

Loren wrote:I think we went off the deep end when we decided to buy a Festiva as an autocross car.

Most all of my life I dreamed of building/designing a car. You are living your dream. I never dreamed of making a butt ugly car fast. I merely dreamed of building an awesome looking sports car that is fun to drive. Guess ugly wins. Go UGLY. Go Lornen, Ben and Steve. They all kicked my ass.

I don't have the patience or skill to make things pretty. And I'm old enough that I just don't care if it's pretty. I'm all about having fun without spending a lot of cash, and I've found that it's a lot of fun to surprise people with an "underdog" car.

Saw this on Jay Leno's Garage today. The Ford Festiva Shogun. Take out the 4 banger and put in a Ford SHO V6 and transmission from a SHO Taurus. Cmon Ben!

https://youtu.be/3XR9SoQU16c

Way out of our budget or skill level to complete!

We did add some lightness today, though. Ben vacuumed the car for the first time since we bought it!

Loren wrote:Way out of our budget or skill level to complete!
We did add some lightness today, though. Ben vacuumed the car for the first time since we bought it!

AND you both kicked the crap out me in my Z51 Vette for pete's sake. UNCLE. Guess tires and maybe rims are inevitable for me now? Fastiva has some of the look all ready with those fenders. You need a wrap with FAST adverts and other things people pay you for. Cheaper than paint.

Find people to pay us, we'll wrap the car. Even pay you commission!

Loren wrote:Find people to pay us, we'll wrap the car. Even pay you commission!

Well for starters you could write the whole year's car racing expenses off if it were covered in FAST only info. Like "800 Ask Lorn".

I never really thought of that. I suppose we could. (I'm sure that's what David Bess is doing)

ADDED some weight today in the form of some leftover steel seatbelt spacers and longer bolts to lower the steering column to match the height of the race seat. Been meaning to do this since we put the race seat in 7 months ago! Took about 5 minutes to do. Feels GREAT! Can't see the speedometer. Oh well, how fast can you go with 60 hp, anyway?

This won't make the car any faster, but if it makes us more comfortable driving it... couldn't hurt!

Verdict on the lowered steering column: We all liked it! A little easier to drive, and doesn't feel like you're driving a bus.

Between three drivers, we racked up 12 practice runs and 12 competition runs at the Duel.

The front tires are toast! We should be able to rotate them to the rear and use them for long enough to wear out what's left of the pair that is currently on the back of the car. There's easily 2 events left on those tires. We'll be fighting cording the pair that's moving to the rear.

Noticed on the way home that the car isn't quite shifting right. I'm guessing either the clutch cable has gone out of adjustment so that it's not releasing the clutch 100%, or we've knocked the shifter out of adjustment or... most likely, our ratty old shifter bushings have given up. Will have to look at that soon.

In other news, we're probably going to try to add some lightness to the hood next week.