Papez

@R_Blue - the sedan was considered for production from the start, as Favorit was supposed to replace all Škoda models that were in production. Bertone was tasked with design of hatchback, sedan, estate and coupé, Škoda later derived pickup and extended panel Van. However, developing new car from scratch was too demanding and there weren't money left for another variants - Forman went to production only because it was needed for police forces and because it shared most parts with the hatchback. There's also 1991 prototype called Felicia, supposedly to come into production with planned modernization, but that was at time when VW bought Škoda and decided to keep current production and then develop new models instead.

Funny thing, this was planned to be one of the first upgrades for 1968 model 1000MB, there were even engines in production with modified chain cover - but it was withdrawn later. It is possible that it was because of politics again - polymer used for chain slider was made in West Germany and relations with western countries were a bit more relaxed before August 1968. This looks like relic from 1000MB, where oil filter wasn't full flow, this was addressed by modifications in Estelle to increase oil change interval.

I'm interested what'd he say about it. Yes, but it didn't work like that. Socialistic economy was planned for 5 years and when there was plan to industrialize Slovakia, there was no money left to invest into passenger cars (Skoda 720 - you have "new" 10 years old factory and tools to build 1000MB, what else do you want?) - other plans to develop new car (740) with Trabant and Wartburg failed after years of development.. So all those great engineers did what they could to keep 1000MB platform living until late 80's (atleast they managed some improvements instead of making the same car for decades). Favorit project was only greenlit when government realised, that current cars would be too obsolete to be sold in western markets, which would mean losing one of few sources of foreign currency.

It just was like that in whole communism ridden Czechoslovakia. Chief engineer of the project had to beg to get funds for engine modification. Headlamp supplier was already making reflectors for Samara, so Favorit had to have them too. And so on. Reading story of Favorit development, I was wondering how they were even able to make it. Yes, it was case of highly modified engines (I don't know what pushrods they use to rev that high). The 130LR that competed in this years Dakar had power reduced to around 130HP to improve reliability - I believe it was because of crankshaft (and they already used 1.4)

The car was already developed before I was born I just read some books on the topic and found some info from good folks on the internet, who got their hands on prototypes and shared it iirc, it had just 1mm narrower bearings, it was quite close to production parts, but it needed more work to run properly. So they kept what was working. 3 bearings become issue in higher RPM beyond stock redline (7-8k), where oscillations can break even strengthened Fabia crankshaft.

They tried 5 bearing prototypes with increased displacement - they had issues with lubrication, so they kept 3 bearings.

These engines were designed for minimal changes of parameters in first 250k km - massive improvement of reliability was main reason behind development of 135/136 engine.

I thought the same. It seems that SP-EL has issues with QA lately..

Maybe slightly. Vanplus had same front springs as estate, so effect should be minimal.

No, the seats are different, hatchback/estate has coilovers, pickup has standalone spring seats with different spring profile. There is "heavy duty" rear spring for estate, originally for Vanplus, it should be around 2cm higher than estate spring.

I missed a word, I meant My Felicia (136M).

What, it never happened to you? It happens here quite often with ignition cables (luckily, Felicia doesn't have any :D), and bonnet insulation, which seems to be tasty for certain animals (martens and mice). In this case, bunch of cable was missing near firewall, where it diverts from main harness and passes to interior

I had SP-EL sensor and it worked well for about four years, until something ate wires to computer... It looks like damaged cable or bad pin contact

They didn't think, they just took radiator straight from Estelle. It worked in Central Europe, they didn't think about export to tropical countries or even such luxury, which is AC. Anyway, I'm not sure if it was mentioned earlier, but did you have original Skoda radiators or some Chinese replicas? Chinese ones have limited cooling capacity, barely enough to handle summer in Europe on non-ac car.

Computer itself is indeed same, but sensors of injected fuel are different for BMM and MPI. In case of SP-EL sensor, there's even difference between 1.3 and 1.6 due to different polarity on injectors. 1.9 doesn't have any source for fuel rate, so consumption and range doesn't work on TC-6 - TM-3 is variant without these functions.

Modern cars have bonnet sealed all around and covered most of the engine bay from the bottom and don't have problems. Maybe your mod just lifted the bonnet a little, so rubber around ventilation inlet didn't seal properly? Or it could force fumes to high pressure area under windscreen, which pushed it back to ventilation? Did you seal the bonnet all around or just sides? What dust do you mean? in engine bay?

Airbox has been designed for 99HP 1.6 engine (you could see same design in Forman prototype). Intake is in front panel, well isolated from heat in engine bay. So I think that thas part doesn't need improvement.

thermostat would be needed for oil-air cooler, oil-coolant exchanger is cooled by engine coolant, which is kept at constant temperature - which means that it also helps with warming up in cold weather.

he said that there space between radiator and frame, i understood that hose goes around radiator to engine compartment. Problem with oil is, that it shouldn't be cooled too much - which could possibly happen with finned oil pan. I think that oil-coolant cooler would be absolute best.

I wouldn't be sure about that, air acts weird in rear portion of those cars. Models with radiator in back had issues with getting cooling air into engine compartment. Also, these old engines were running with different oil... I think that if finned oilpan was needed, they'd include it - apparently they knew how to make it with hose going around the rad?

And oilpan is already exposed to underbody airstream, so there's nothing to improve. For oil cooling improvement, it's probably better to use heat exchanger. What improvement do you mean?

Well, it's watercooled engine, so rad cooling=engine cooling. That engine has been designed to run in the back, so it already has plenty of extra airflow in Felicia. Maybe, by getting the duct more tight to make sure that all air from bumper is forced through radiator.

That won't help, there's already duct (or it should be there) between bumper and front panel, that directs air from bumper vents to radiator - air from foglight housing won't pass over it

I think that hole under the engine bay is big enough to get hot air out. If you have issues with overheating, you need to check your cooling system. If you don't have issues, but you want to improve cooling anyway, you can get larger radiator, for example from diesel model.

What do you want to achieve? Engine's inlet is under bumper bumper, so scoop is useless for that. And ventilation inlet is placed in spot with atmospheric air pressure, so scoop is not needed. Some racing felicias have engine inlet under ventilation grill, no scoop involved.