New car, new goals. 91 Ford festiva

[Christ]

Tires and rims are something I don't have, I just sold the last Festiva-patterned set with the last Festiva-patterned Festiva I had.

I'll msg you about belts and such... may have some yet.

[Flakbadger]

Hey paintme205, did you ever get the gaskets replaced?

Also I'm sure you did it already, but you might check into a Festiva forum to see what a lot of those guys are doing. Usually car-specific forums are a gold mine of pertinent info. And I don't know how mechanically inclined you are/how much time you want to invest, but often deleting the mechanical fan and installing an electric one gains you a good bit of efficiency. Might want to consider it if you haven't already.

Anyway, good work. 41+ MPG is a pretty respectable number!

[Christ]

Festiva = FWD = already has an electric fan.

On average, most guys end up upgrading to Aspire suspension and hubs/rear beam [it's a big brake swap and 4x100 change plus better suspension], using 175/70 or smaller profile R13's [easier to come by than 155/12], and then basically just doing regular maintenance. Some of the guys in manual cars are claiming in the 40's, average seems to be right around 35, lots of these cars aren't running 1.3L engines anymore though.

[E.Roy]

Whew, riding the lightning with that 63hp! I had a '90 festiva 5spd, I would get 38mpg at 70, but the car would cruise great up to 80mph. I autocrossed mine and got 5 runs within .250 seconds, just wouldnt go any faster on the 12" tires.

On the wheel issue, you can use Hyundai 13" allloys with the 4x4.5 bolt pattern. Although, if you can find the time, swapping to the Aspire 4x100 hubs brakes and wheels is best. The Festiva bearings are a pain, and front rotors and rear drums are a pain because bearings have to come apart.

On weight, what about removing the back seat

[Geocritter]

I was able to purchase a 1988 Festiva for $300 back in 1996 for my daughter in college. I purchased it cheap because someone had jacked up the rear of the car from the center of the rear axle slightly bending the axle and destroying the alignment. I purchased a replacement rear axle assembly for $150 from the junk yard, installed it and the car was good to go. My daughter loved the car!
The lesson here, DON'T EVER JACK UP THE CAR FROM THE CENTER OF THE REAR AXLE!
Good luck with your Festiva, I hope you enjoy it as much as my daughter enjoyed hers.
Steve

[paintme205]

Well I decided to stick with stock tires. It has 155's on it and I ordered four more. So no rim upgrade for me. For some reason I though it had much smaller tires.

I'm very mechanically inclined (race three cars) so I will be tackling the leak shortly.

Hopefully today I can find a piece of sheet metal for the grill block. Weather just turned cool so I'm itching to do it.

I may end up taking out the back seat. Kind of depends on whether my wife will let our daughter ride in it or not. If not, out it goes.

[Christ]

Even if you end up needing the seat, it comes out and goes in with 4xM12 [14mm head] bolts, and literally takes longer to get the seat back into the car than it does to line it up and bolt it in place. I typically only use the two that are on the front of the hinge, so I don't even have to tip the seat up to remove it.

[paintme205]

Good to know. Looks like it will be coming out.

Leak gets tackled tomorrow. I was bored tonight though so I did this:



I might start design of a kammback tomorrow. I'm trying to maintain rearward visability so not sure if it will work out or not. I'm going to at least test it out though.

[paintme205]

Kammback is on. Will get pics tomorrow. Only thing I'm worried about is the angle. Factory roof angle is 22 degrees down on the factory hatch and I made the kammback 17 degrees. Hopefully that is pretty close to ideal. I know it isn't perfect.

Oh and oil leak is gone.

[crashnzuk]

Cool project, my wife bought a 93 Festiva new and it was a good little car. I think it was the first year of the port fuel injection and it had a 5 speed. She always got 38-40 mpg with that thing and it was fairly peppy and fun to drive.
Travis..