I've searched... haven't found quite what I'm looking for

[DrMaxwellEdison]

I've seen people on here talk about a RWD swap on a Festiva, I got to thinking about how hard it would be, if doing a RWD swap, how hard would it be to just go ahead and do a AWD festiva instead of just a RWD festy.... if there is a link somewhere that someone already did this before, could someone point me in the right direction... I just thought it'd be neat because I've seen a BP on eBay with an AWD trans....

[Damkid]

Converting a festiva to AWD or RWD will be a very intense swap, basically you would need to do a lot of fabricating for either one

[JoDan]

Ketchup did a rwd setup with a BP. Look up his threads and see what setup he used for the rear drivetrain.

[DrMaxwellEdison]

well the Polar Express is in need of an engine, I just thought if I bought the BPT w/ AWD trans that I may as well make use of the AWD trans...

[jacklene dunson]

I have a 93 festiva engine. running and a extra one that is still in a extra festiva i have for parts. I just have just starting to have front end problems and I just want another 93 that is togather. Some repairs just our too big for me to handle. Kaytallant@yahoo.com.

[Aaronbrook37]

You need to talk to Matt/Rocketman. He converted his Capri XR2 to AWD, and would be the person who knows what's up with AWDification. You're looking at spending a lot of money though, especially if you don't have and or can't weld.

[Festiva_Fred]

I plan on doing it to mine when I rebuild it.. I'll be doing all the fabrication and welding on it, I can weld and I'm going to school for Automotive Collision Repair right now so I should be able to tackle that project when I get to it. 8)

[MEXTIVA]

I think its possible using maybe the mazda gtx components..I was looking at the turbo colt-mirage site and they are doing this with dsm components.they cut and weld into their little cars.if you go to youtube and watch videos of them,they become little beasts...I would say go for it,just do a search so you know what ur getting into...here is a link to the colt awd section.

http://www.4g61t.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=57&sid=ac7c89a85b06ce08e28c5920a2298766

[DrMaxwellEdison]

I have the ability to weld, just have to borrow my friend Jerry's shop space to do it... I was originally going to mock things up on my parts car Festiva but ended up selling it for lack of money... hopefully I'll get another one that I can do that to while maintaining DD status of the Festiva that it will eventually end up going on....

[Aaronbrook37]

Well I think the easiest way would probably be to just really maximize your space in the rear end. If you've read any of the Mazda/Kia/Ford propaganda, the back of the car (aka doors back) was designed to be compact and very lightweight/efficient. As such, you really need to re-orient it if you're going to be stuffing independent rear suspension, a whole driveline with axles, and a new exhaust wrapped up through that, especially if it's 2.5"+ in diameter.

If you look at the 323/Protege/Escort rear cuts, there's a heck of a lot more room. Let me put it to you this way... at minimum, you're going to need to cut out the spare tire well. Replace it so that the whole rear end is flat, and you get back a great deal of space for placing a perpendicular exhaust and proper thick steel welding and bolting points with no restriction on space. Likewise, dump the Festiva tank for a fuel cell in the trunk or something, and once you drop the rear Festiva beam, you'll have a ton of room to size up your rear end and driveshaft angling, which is crucial.

http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss280/323permin/DSC00890.jpg

That's what the 1990 Protege GT rear suspension setup looks like. Sorry for not embedding, it's too large for our image requirements. You can see how it needs a lot of space both in terms of latitude and longitude. Obviously you won't be using these parts, but they're there to give you a sense of how many bendy parts you need to jam underneath the newly-sized trunk. Some other good food for thought from ClubProtege.com:

http://sharkpork.com/gallery/d/3318-2/P1010200.JPG

And some Rocketman contributions:

http://www.werbatfik.com/img/gtxr2/gtxr2_19.jpg

http://www.werbatfik.com/img/gtxr2/gtxr2_17.jpg

http://www.werbatfik.com/img/gtxr2/gtxr2_23.jpg

http://www.werbatfik.com/img/gtxr2/gtxr2_60.jpg

http://www.werbatfik.com/img/gtxr2/gtxr2_44.jpg

[Rocketman]

Theres been a *lot* of threads aboot making an AWD conversion. (not just here) Most of the people who have been "dead serious" have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

Its a heck of a lot of work - You'll need an entire donor car (which, depending on the car, is very frowned upon) or a lot of time collecting parts. I spent over 2 years collecting parts for my conversion. Finding an AWD mazda will be a challenge, it might be more worth it to find somehting like an AWD DSM as a donor, certainly more common. Wouldn't be too much more work to jam DSM bits in there...

You can't be shy with the cutting. The Festiva rear is different than the BF/BG chassis, so you'll have to figure out what to graft into there.

I have some pictures of my conversion up here: www.werbatfik.com/gtxr2.htm

Also, your mileage will take a massive hit! I went from about 36 highway to 24!

-Rocket

[Damkid]

I think its possible using maybe the mazda gtx components

That was my plan for my GTX IF i was not able to license it in ontario

Theres been a *lot* of threads aboot making an AWD conversion. (not just here) Most of the people who have been "dead serious" have been nothing but smoke and mirrors.

I have to totally agree with that statement right there

[Rocketman]

Not to say that people aren't serious though, it seems one in 1000+ might be serious. I was one of those guys back in the day, although I spent/still spend thousands of hours reading forums and project threads trying to absorb information, techniques, etc. rather than "can it be done?", as I was sure it could be.

There's a couple AWD conversions out there, Kevin has his GRM challenge AWD Tracer based off a BF GTX, I'm pretty sure there is a partially completed MX3 over on CP.com, and one or two aussie folks that converted lasers over there. There's one ridiculous RWD Laser, setup with a RWD bp maybe? not sure if that one ever got finished. Some of these projects are deep in the woodwork and take a while to come out.

It'd be neat if more people did some conversions, you guys have the SHOGUN stuff, that's awesome!

Just my $0.02
-Rocket