Any tips for modifying a Festiva?

[notahybrid]

Ok, I'm kinda new to this forum. I bounce around different sites and forums, and happened to find this one. It seems with the price of gas, everyone is looking for new or old solutions. Anyway, I'm an avid hot rodder and racing enthusiast so I guess most of you would be wondering what I'm doing here. Well, I picked up an '89 Festiva awhile back to replace my current daily driver. At a rated 55mpg, it hasn't done too bad since I'm realistically getting lower than that. The Festiva has alot of strong points and weak ones. The strong: It's cheap, easy to maintain, reliable, manueverable in tight spaces, is so light I can pick up the back end with my bare hands, and is fuel efficient. The weak: It's loud, simple on comfort and styling, sluggish, and has poor handling. I've been addressing many of the safety issues and other mechanical short comings, but all in all, she still beats the fuel economy of a new Prius, not bad for a 20 year old antique, kinda makes me wonder what's holding the auto industry back from the easily produced ecoboxes they were able to make 20-30 years ago. Anyway, I would like to see what kind of figures I could get if I exhausted every possible avenue. I am currently cutting weight and reducing mechanical friction wherever possible. I have equipped the car with ram-air and am also running the car off of alky/water injection which has helped greatly. I may also experiment with a homemade HHO booster to further help keep fuel in the tank. In the long run, I think it would be interesting to experiment with turning it into an extended range vehicle like the Volt, but with cash restraints, I just want to see how far I can get with the ICE directly powering the wheels. Obviously, aerodynamics plays a major factor which is why I want to know if there is anyone here who has aerodynamically improved a Festy. I have basic ideas: belly pan, rear diffuser/spoilers, fender skirts, and nose cone. A more expensive mod would be to chop the top a couple inches. Doubt I'll do that. The nose cone is a particular interest of mine. I believe I could gain alot by following the example set by Superbirds and Firebirds/TransAms. Those cars experienced significant gains with thier nose pieces, especially the Superbird. The improved aerodynamics over the base Roadrunner makes the Superbird one of the most slippery production cars of all time and is the reason it took the 1970 NASCAR season by storm. It also makes it rare due to what was then considered ugly. I really don't care much about looks, just the most efficient way to get the job done.

[NeilBlanchard]

Hello & welcome to EM,

You can check the garage for other Festiva's -- there are some; and check out what they've done.

[bhazard]

55mpg rating? I wish. For your 89, autos are rated 26/29, 4sp are 32/36, and 5sp is 33/39. You should be able to average 45 pretty easy assuming you are either 4 or 5sp.

And compared to other cars in its class, festivas are pretty peppy.

And if your car is loud, first off make sure the exhaust is whole, mine is stock except the cat is gone, and its still almost inaudible at idle. If its noisy inside, its because we have no insulation under our carpet. A belly pan should help this, along with some insulation under the carpet.


As for the handling, stock festivas do have a lot of body roll. Go to fordfestiva.com and look up "aspire swap". It gives you aspire brakes all around (MUCH bigger/better) and also the aspire rear axle (which has a swaybar). Greatly improves handling.

[notahybrid]

I stand corrected; however, i believe the standard for measuring economy changed sometime in the '80s, but my memory is kinda vague on that so I could be wrong again. I am already a member of fordfestiva.com and the folks there have done alot in helping me address certain issues and filled me in on alot. I even learned how to build a Ferrari beating Shogun and still maintain 30mpg, but I'd rather squeeze the 1.3 for what it's worth. Thanks for the help.

[MetroMPG]

Welcome to EM.

Originally Posted by notahybrid

The nose cone is a particular interest of mine. I believe I could gain alot by following the example set by Superbirds and Firebirds/TransAms. ... Superbird one of the most slippery production cars of all time

I found a reference to a Cd of 0.28 for the Superbird. That's better than average, even today. But there are many production cars that have since beat it.

Anyway...

Because your Festiva is a hatchback, with a large trailing wake (relative to its projected area), you'd actually find far larger gains with a tail cone than a nose cone.

[bottonavy]

I did a rear seat and interior removal along with some tools and other junk I never use. which equalled about 70 lbs. (I have the exact totals in another thread)
On the exhaust I replaced my whole exhaust. The cost was about $190.00 total. Make sure your cat. converter is still on. That makes a big difference. I also stayed with the stock size exhaust. No cherry bombs or exhaust tips.
I have also noted that when I increased the tire size alittle 175R vs. a 165R my MPG increased a few MPG. This might help the cause. Good luck and welcome .

[aerohead]

My thoughts are running parallel to MetroMpg's. If you can find the Phil Knox aerodynamic photos album in the archives,there are some development photos if the original VW Rabbit,that Hucho was involved with.---- You may find the nose of the Festiva similar to that of the VW,and even though it looks kinda frumpy,it nevertheless has clean attached flow.So your on the way.------------- If you fish around a little more,you'll find photos of the VW's wake.------- I believe this is where your mpg challenge presents itself.--------------- basjoos aerocivic can serve as a standard by which to measure the aft portion of the Festiva,and anything you do to make your car shaped like basjoos' should pay you at the pump.

[thirdman]

A detached, flat spoiler looks good in a quick-n-dirty airflow simulator...

[Sean T.]

My first thoughts are an air dam on the front, a kammback (cant remember it that's what they're called) on the rear, and possibly a wind deflector over the wiper blades.

Then I would go onto adding wheel skirts, removing the passenger side mirror, and I'm not sure what a Festiva's doors are made of, but a magnetic panel over the door handles could help a tiny bit.

[COcyclist]

The size and shape of your car remind me of the Mighty Dihatsu Mira. He has done several aero mods to his car and decreased the Cd significantly. He has several build threads and good pictures to help you out.
Daihatsu Mira aerodynamic modifications