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Kermit. Perhaps highest BHP 8v 1289cc Favorit in UK


Favorit Ken

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Thought it about time I put some info on this forum about my long term project "Kermit". This is an on going topic which I'll add to when I get round to or if people are interested enough to ask questions. I've previously used the other Skoda-Forum and most of my posts are in the FAQ section. So here goes: I bought Kermit in about 2004 to drive to work in and thought he was great to drive but needed a bit more go and better handling so I did a few boy racer mods and decided to try a trackday and thats when the obsession started. I found that to do anything worth while to the engine a mappable ECU would be needed and chose an Omex 600. To get this to work I had to mount a trigger disc on the crank pulley. trigdisc1.jpgtrigdisc2.jpg

Which I thought needed lightening trig2.jpgtrig3.jpg

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Yeah the Octavia goes well, when I've done some more to it, I'll perhaps do a topic on it.

Mean while something I forgot to mention while Kermit was at 85bhp was the cam which probably isn't worth mentioning because it was so mild and to be honest a waste of time and money but if I remember rightly was a P371 from Kent Cams. Anyway I soon changed that for an SK6 which is the same as a Ford 244 (all cams from Kent Cams). Total lift of 11.3mm with 1.5 to 1 rockers but Skoda use 1.7 to 1 rockers so you get a bit more and duration of 290 degrees. A 244 is the most you can go with a regrind cam, after that you have to have a billet cam made at £336 a time.

So with the 244 cam came the Jenvey 40mm separate throttle bodies, Skoda kit car inlet manifold, tubular exhaust manifold and lightened and balanced crank and flywheel.

eng.jpgTB4.jpgfw1.jpgfw2.jpgfw3.jpg

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It wasn't that dear actually Tom, I have a machinist who does all my work and I think he charged me £80. I'll show you the newer one soon though,that was a lot more money though. At that time I was using all steel push rods, as you probably know there are 4 steel and 4 aluminium, I used the steel 'cause i was told they were stronger but I'm now using the aluminium ones because I needed to shorten them and they are much easier to shorten, they seem plenty strong enough though even at 8300rpm. Here's a cross section of the flywheel for you.

Flywheel.JPG

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Here are a few engine bits and pieces I missed out. When the head was ported I also installed stronger valve springs to cope with the higher RPM's and went for the VS1 spring by Kent Cams, to go with these I had to get some spacers made, to go underneath, to get the install height right.

VSS.JPG

The new springs are on the left as you look at them.

valve%20springs.jpg

With the new springs I also got Kent to make me some titanium spring top retainers. These are lighter to help with higher RPM's.

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In the mean time i.e stuff other than engine work, I'd found that round the track it leaned so much it felt as if I was at sea on 50 foot waves so some anti roll bars, strut braces and new suspension was called for.

bly2.jpg

Front strut brace was easy as most of the later Felicia's had them but rear I had to make myself.

Front strut brace:

engbay.jpg

Rear strut brace:

brace2.jpg

which I also mounted the battery on to.

Battery.jpg

Front anti roll bar came from a Felicia pickup as they have the biggest diameter ones but to fit it meant fitting Felicia wishbones because they have the correct holes to bolt to. Initially I drilled the subframe, for the subframe to ARB bracket bolt holes but I have since changed the whole front subframe for a Felicia one.

anti%20roll.jpg

anti%20roll%202.jpg

As you can see I also had some rear wishbone bushes made up, out of nylon.

For the rear anti roll bar I used a Felicia one, which I think is on all Felicia’s. To attach it I just needed to drill two holes.

arb%20rear%2011.jpg

The suspension I bought from Czech via John Shelly it’s made by HP.

HP.jpg

140lb progressive rear srings and 240lb progressive front, although I have since changed the springs.

The rear beam has now got some harder beam bushes. The new ones are on your right hand side:

RBB%205.jpg

It corners much flatter now.

1L080912.jpg

Edited by Favorit Ken
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Brakes were the other thing and I went for Wilwood 4 pot 44.5mm diameter pot calipers, 242mm vented and groove cast iron Compbrake front discs. On the rear Audi 80 stub axles discs and VW aluminium 38mm calipers (I got the rear discs drilled). I removed the servo and bought a twin master cylinder brake box from Compbrake, with 0.62” master cylinder for the front and a 0.7” master cylinder for the rear, with a Compbrake bias valve to control front to back pressures. Oh and copper pipe and braided stainless hose through out.

 

rearstub.jpg

 

RD%201.jpg

 

RD%202.jpg

 

Brakes.jpg

 

brakebox.jpg

 

brake%20bracket.jpg

 

To have enough room for the front calipers/discs I had to get some Skoda works magnesium wheels because these are two piece split rims and have more room within them. I had to change the stud PCD to 98mm from 100mm to achieve this meant changing the hubs to MK1 Favorit ones and redrilling the rear discs I wanted to keep to 13” rims  to keep the look, light weight, same gearing and cheap slick tyres. 

 

wheelcal.jpg

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Ken did you get a custom rear brake hose made up to go onto the banjo fitting on the caliper? Or did you just find an adaptor or somthing? I must going to use the mk4 aluminium calipers on my 20v car but I could figure out a suitable solution to the brake hoses so I went with the cast iron golf vr6 ones instead.

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Ken did you get a custom rear brake hose made up to go onto the banjo fitting on the caliper? Or did you just find an adaptor or somthing? I must going to use the mk4 aluminium calipers on my 20v car but I could figure out a suitable solution to the brake hoses so I went with the cast iron golf vr6 ones instead.

Hi Tom. I found a guy on Ebay that would make up bespoke hoses but I had abit of a look round but don't seem to be able to find him now.

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Gearbox and diff.

The gearbox is 5 speed straight cut, close ratio. In 5th it does about 110mph at 8000rpm, where as with the standard box it would do 145mph in 4th (and God knows what in 5th) at 8000rpm on the rolling road that is .

I bought the gears, synchro’s and CWP from Ivan Sixta in Czech via John and Eddie.

Eddie brought it all back in his hand luggage.

I then had to get it all put in a box, which I got some supposed gearbox experts to do but they made a lashup of it i.e gears rubbing on housing, silicone sealent blocking oilways and too much end float on diff. Fortunately me and me mate Jim sorted it.

The LSD was made by Gripper, and gave us a problem at first as it was too smooth on the outside and didn’t throw the oil around the box enough to lubricate 1st gear which rotates steel on steel. So I made some very small paddles and got them welded to the outside of the diff, which seems to have cured the problem, well it hasn’t seized up again anyway.

diff1.jpg

diff2.jpg

diff3.jpg

Diff with paddles welded on:

diffpaddle.jpg

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Ok back to the engine mods.

These are the graphs I got with the 244 cam, Jenvey TB’s and other mods mentioned.

 

There are 2 curves on each representing before and after mapping. The figures are at the flywheel.

Omex%20power%20graph.jpg

Omex%20torque%20graph.jpg

 

Next I decided to try a 254 Ford profile Kent cam made from a billet. Which gave me about 14mm lift and 300 degrees duration.

I made a few other mods at the same time:

Bigger valves:

Going from 34mm inlet to 38mm and 30mm exhaust to 32mm.

38v34.jpg

38v34-1.jpg

38v34-2.jpg

RWH%203.jpg

Changed the block for a 1.4 Fabia one but put the 1.3 crank in it to keep it to 1289cc.

I used the Fabia block because it has a strengthening main bearing cradle which I hope will stop the block warping with the high rpm’s.

Evo35.jpg

I had to get the block skimmed by 4mm and moved the shoulder on the liners up by 4mm as well. The 1.3 pushrods had to be shortened; the 1.4 ones were too short with the solid lifters. I had the Fabia pistons skimmed on top by 1mm to make them flat and blocked off the oil ways for the hydraulic lifters.

Fabpist.jpg

Used the 1.3 conrods but had to get the little ends machined smaller to fit under the 1.4 pistons. Got the gudgeon pins lighted by having them spark eroded.

gudgeon.jpg

I got the crank knife edged:

crank.jpg

I tidied up a few other bits like an exhaust leak and matched inlet manifold to head.

All this lot got me about 130bhp but the curve wasn’t good so decided to change the cam again.

Edited by Favorit Ken
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Ok nearly there.

Decided to try a Skoda Favorit works cam next which I bought off Darren Jones but this wouldn’t fit in my Fabia block so I got Kent to copy it to a billet and machine it with Fabia journals and correct sprocket journal. The cam has less lift and less duration than the 254 but has more overlap, which according to David Vizard is the thing to go for. The other thing is that Skoda made it and probably spent a lot of time and money developing it.

I drew up and had made a vernier cam sprocket so the timing could be altered easily.

CS2.jpg

CS3.jpg

Vcam.jpg

 

Had some issues with the drive (worm and worm wheel gears) to the oil pump eating it’s self so I made an extension oil jet to lubricate it better and got the gears tuftrided.

exjet.jpg

 

I made and fitted some windage plates in Kermit's block to stop the oil dripping off the cam, hitting the crank and atomizing, thus thickening the atmosphere that the crank has to cut it's way through, hopefully releasing some power.

wind1.jpg

wind2.jpg

wind3.jpg

 

This time I got 138bhp and 100ft/lbs of torque at the flywheel.

The graph is at the wheels, torque curve is the top one:

Saxon1.jpg

 

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You know Ken, looking at the oil feed to the worm and worm, the cam driven gear is turning against the oil jet in effect, do you think there would be a way of getting the jet above the 2 gears and firing it in there so the gears draw it thru?

if you see what I mean the big gear is already past the small one by the time the oil jet sprays it and it just flinging the oil away before it gets back to the small gear.

maybe???

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You know Ken, looking at the oil feed to the worm and worm, the cam driven gear is turning against the oil jet in effect, do you think there would be a way of getting the jet above the 2 gears and firing it in there so the gears draw it thru?

if you see what I mean the big gear is already past the small one by the time the oil jet sprays it and it just flinging the oil away before it gets back to the small gear.

maybe???

Look again Jim I know what you're saying but you have the rotation wrong. Try and visualize looking through the timing cover from the outside, not in it as in the photo.

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To summarize, if you want to do the same, you will need:

Fabia block with 1.3 Favorit knife edged crank.                           

Lightened and balanced all bottom end parts.

Windage plates.

Polished and ported cylinder head with larger valves, 38mm inlets and 32mm exhaust.

12.5 to 1 compression ratio running super unleaded and octane boost.

Skoda Felicia kit car inlet manifold and exhaust manifold.

Jenvey 40mm throttle bodies, air horns and filter.

Omex 600 ECU.

Works Skoda Favorit cam.

etc. 

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