Favorit Ken

Kermit at Stanford Hall:

Forgot to say, I use the V rated ones and for £50 a piece I don't think they can be beaten but I do have a limited slip diff on my Octavia so that pulls it round the corners better than your standard cars and traction is brilliant.

I've been using those for the past few years on my Octavia and find them good for the money. I was doing about 60 miles a day so I'm now on my 3rd set, which should last a while longer as I only do about 10 miles a day now.

Yeah you're probably right Tom but I guess I can put the stuff on 'cause I can always take it off again. I'll put some photo's up when I have and you guy's on here can tell me what you think lol.

Oh dear, I've ordered a front splitter/bumper from Czech and some side skirts from a guy in UK. I was hoping to get some aerodynamics. I was also thinking of making underneath as flat as I can with a defuser at the back and some gills in the front wings to let the air out. Do you think these will ruin your 'kosher' of Kermit ?

Yeah he is a Favorit, same difference I guess.

How about, two wheels on my wagon ?

A snap from Llandow today. Great fun.

Gutted. RIP

http://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/292003-kermit-perhaps-highest-bhp-8v-1289cc-favorit-in-uk/?p=3478278

Forgot to mention the flywheel and paddle clutch, which I had made by Helix at great expense but it is very light. While I’m posting might as well mention the engine and gearbox mounts which are harder and also lower the engine by 7mm, which helps the centre of gravity. I used a Felicia/Favorit front wishbone rubber for all of these. Lower gearbox steady: Gearbox top mount: Engine mount: There was the suspension top mounts as well, I bought some blanks and modified them to give more camber and a little caster. Had to alter the turrets a bit as you can see.

Well I reckon if I was to build another it would cost around the £4000 mark thats not including the gearbox. So that would be about £28 per bhp which seems very cheap but this one probably cost about £8000 which is around £57 per bhp which still seems cheap.

Oh and the other day I made a bigger pulley for the water pump, as it doesn’t need to rotate quite so fast. So Kermit is over 200bhp per ton and about 107bhp per litre.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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. 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:

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. 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. 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. 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. 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. I got the crank knife edged: 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.

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. Diff with paddles welded on:

Next is lightening which helps acceleration, braking and handling, all in one go and I’ve managed to get Kermit down to 685kgs, with about half a tank of fuel. He’s been on a diet of: Interior striped out and lighter seats Polycarbon windows. Fibre glass bonnet. Magnesium wheels. Small alternator. Small battery. And much more.

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.

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. 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.

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. Front strut brace was easy as most of the later Felicia's had them but rear I had to make myself. Front strut brace: Rear strut brace: which I also mounted the battery on to. 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. 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. The suspension I bought from Czech via John Shelly it’s made by HP. 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: It corners much flatter now.

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

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.

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.