New car, new goals. 91 Ford festiva

[paintme205]

Originally Posted by Pu241

The school supply area for poster boards and the like.

Where does your temp gage sit when it is warmed up?
I found the connector to the temp sender on the head tends to get corroded and reduce the range and sensitivity of the gage. I cut the connector off and soldered the copper wire directly to the sensor. It now has full range and I you can see the temp drop or rise going down a substantial hill verse going up. The top grill block I run all year round (mine happens to be polycarbonate zip tied to the grill). And because there is a gap between the blockage and radiator, if the fan ever kicked on the it could still pull air through and remove heat from the radiator. I need to make a temporary lower grill block.

Temp gauge is right in the middle. It goes slightly higher climbing a hill if the weather is warmer 75+ but then settles back down. I may end up just putting a real gauge on it since I have some lying around.

My car has so many gaps and holes I hardly worry about ventilation. It is a beater for sure. Plus the lower grill block actually leaves about 4 square inches behind it open to pull air in. Just at a side angle instead of straight on....I'll try and get pics since that may not make sense.

[paintme205]

Well tomorrow I take my first roadtrip with the new side skirts. I did those and also added a chip spoiler up front to deflect air up and around the sides instead of under the vehicle. It only added about 2 inches but is just about perfect height for the lowest hanging suspension pieces.

I will be doing 70-75 the first tank but will try and do a 60 MPH run on the way back to have a better comparison to my last tank on the highway. I'm hoping for 57 MPG or better at 60 MPH. Ultimate goal is 60 MPG at 60 MPH but I need to do some wheel covers and underbelly stuff first.

Kind of hard to see but the bottom piece is what I added. You use to be able to see the front swaybar jutting out.

[cowmeat]

I haven't had any heat issues with my grill block yet, and I gained around 2 mpg between the grill block and removal of the a/c components.
Summer in Florida will be the true test. I like the front air dam you added, I might try one too, I'll probably just copy yours. I still have enough flashing left over to add the rear skirts, and I think I'm gonna also copy your kammback since you already did all the leg work, nice job!

[paintme205]

Thanks man. It is a work in progress but fun.

I took my road trip today and managed 49 MPG. Guessing MPG went down because of colder weather, using lots of electrical components compared to my 51.x MPG run and tons of hills and mixed speed limits. I kept slowing down and speeding up for 300 miles straight.

Hopefully in a month or two I will do the same leg as the 51 MPG run to get a better comparison on the same road. It is all interstate so I can maintain one speed more easily.

[cowmeat]

I'm curious about the racing stripe and the lightning bolts . . . .Did you do those, and how many raw horsepower did they net you?
Getting ready to paint the front of mine (4 cans of flat black from Home Depot for a total investment of 3.96 plus tax) with black flames or something like that, mainly to camo the giant shiny grill block
I'm pretty much just having fun with mine now, while I search for a Metro or a Rabbit diesel to replace it

[MetroMPG]

An equally modded Metro isn't going to do an awful lot better than this. If paintme is getting 55 mpg at a steady 60 mph, that's already better than my car is currently doing.

[paintme205]

Originally Posted by MetroMPG

An equally modded Metro isn't going to do an awful lot better than this. If paintme is getting 55 mpg at a steady 60 mph, that's already better than my car is currently doing.

That makes me feel better. I still have a couple more easy mods to do and hopefully then I will be close to 60 at 60. It may be unrealistic but thats half the fun of modifying a car. To see what it can do.

If the car was a little newer, I would do a rebuild and deck the heads for more compression and try to improve the efficiency a little on the engine. For now, not worth it.

Cowmeat, My buddy asked to paint my car one day to practice. I came out and that stripe was on it. My little nephew liked lightning mcqueen (cars movie) so we put some lightning bolts on it for him. It's a beater to me so I could care less. The paintjob is actually flat white. Previous owner couldn't even use gloss. I won't wash it because i'm afraid it will peel off.

I have a new truck and a couple mustangs when I care what people think. I actually think the car is pretty fun in it's own weird way.

[cowmeat]

That's funny man! The Festivas are already so funny looking that you can do whatever you want to them without regrets
My kid is gonna help me spray paint mine next weekend, I'll post a pic of the (dubious) results afterward.
I've been looking around for free-to-cheap materials for an air dam, side skirts, kammback, etc. . .I've seen some promising car parts laying on the side of the road, so I may be able to do the next mods for free!
Like yours, mine just isn't worth a rebuild, but a couple of bucks here and there don't kill me. I keep it mainly for the challenge of squeezing every dime's worth of gas out of it, so everything I do to it is on the cheap

[Christ]

I gotta finish my Fesdiesel... you guise and your "mileage" lol

[cowmeat]

LOl, I have to admit dropping a diesel into your Festiva sounds awesome, but it doesn't make any sense unless you happen to have one laying around (which I don't).
I once calculated it out because it sounded way cool, but here's how it broke down:

As-is: 11,500 mi a yr @ 44 mpg = 261 gal @ 3.50 = 915.00 yearly outlay
Diesel:11,500 mi a yr @ 60 mpg = 191 gal @ 3.90 = 747.00 yearly outlay

If the swap cost me a thousand bucks, I'd have to drive almost six years (67,000 miles) just to break even. Of course the #'s could be way off one way or the other, but unless a diesel motor and tranny and everything that goes with them happen to fall out the back of a truck, it doesn't work on paper. I'm not sure my car has that many miles left!

I'll stick to my current plan of action (free-to-cheap mods). I'm about a buck fifty into my mods and I already averaged two more miles a gallon on the last tank