gearbox upgrade options for 93 festiva??

[1968falconxt]

hi all,
I have an offroad buggy with an engine, gearbox and axles/hubs from a 93 festiva (carbie model).

the gearbox blew up on me. i want to know what other manual gearboxes will be a direct bolton to my engine (and if i need custom driveshafts to suit existing hubs).

also, i require a gearbox that i can replace final drive gears to something like 4.5+:1 ratio as i have large wheels on it...

any help would be appreciated.

thanks

[htchbck]

Mazda F series (from 323s and Mercury Tracers through '89, and '91-'94 non-turbo Mercury Capri) and Madza G series from '90-'94 Proteges and '91-96 Escort Gts and '91-'94 Mercury Capri turbo. Both of those are beefier than the stock trans, will bolt to the engine (though you will need to fab up new trans mounts, and if you can find the axles/halfshaft from the non-turbo Capri you shouldn't need any custom axles either. As far as gear ratios I'll let someone else answer that one as I'm not too sure. Lets see some pictures of that buggy!

[Movin]

welcome here!! What country are you? North America lost the
carb, by 1990 all were EFI . For a buggy a stock transmission
should be plenty strong, the ford aspire has some better gears
for what you are doing as well.
If you are crawling with that buggy there are some automatics
And lets see some action pics!!

[bhazard]

Guessing AU by the screen name.

[Rocketman]

Mazda F series (from 323s and Mercury Tracers through '89, and '91-'94 non-turbo Mercury Capri) and Madza G series from '90-'94 Proteges and '91-96 Escort Gts and '91-'94 Mercury Capri turbo. Both of those are beefier than the stock trans, will bolt to the engine (though you will need to fab up new trans mounts, and if you can find the axles/halfshaft from the non-turbo Capri you shouldn't need any custom axles either. As far as gear ratios I'll let someone else answer that one as I'm not too sure. Lets see some pictures of that buggy!

The nonturbo capri axles will not fit a g-series trans

[htchbck]

^^ I know a guy who used to run N/A capri axles with a cable G series? I thought the cable G series were only in the turbo Capris? Guess I was wrong then. Sorry bout that!

[Rocketman]

^^ I know a guy who used to run N/A capri axles with a cable G series? I thought the cable G series were only in the turbo Capris? Guess I was wrong then. Sorry bout that!

Cable g-series are indeed only in the turbo capri. He may have made some sort of hybrid, but the n/a inside axle stubs are smaller diameter and different spline count than the G-series axles

[1968falconxt]

thanks for the advice guys. I'm from Melbourne, Australia. We had the carbie model Festiva right through till 93 here. I deliberately chose my donor car for the carbie, for ease of probem diagnosis out in the bush. Engine has never missed a beat, but is very sluggish due to the 26" mud tyres on it (compared to the 20" stock tyres that the gearbox is designed for.

If anyone can help me out with gear ratio possibilities too thet'd be great! can you change final drive ratios on my stock festiva gearbox?

Here is some photos, as well as a link to youtube of a video I made of the very first time I ever got the buggy running. I used the whole drivetrain from my donor car and dumped in into the rear of my buggy. I then got another front end from a Festiva and used lower control arms from a Ford Telstar as the upper control arm on the front, and ran motorbike shocks. The stock rear suspension setup works remarkably well. I'm not happy with the Festiva torsion bar setup on rear though, as everything is rubber mounted and moves around a lot.

PS. Please dont hate me for cutting up the Festiva. I'd like to say that it was an old wreck, but it was actually a very clean example and mechanically perfect car that i bought for $250 AUD on EBAY. I was bored as hell at home, so I just decided to build a buggy with no plans. Just designed as I went along. It works well, but will never be a race machine. Only took 6-8 weeks to do, but I spent about 6+ hours on it per night lol!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kleOq1vWdOM

[gauge_half_inch]

I have always wanted to build the same kind of buggy.

[sasquatch]

sweet buggy! you should bpt swap it with a toyota trans... good luck breaking that trans, and the bpt will put out a weee bit more power than a b3 lol...

[1968falconxt]

The b6t is not real easy to come across here. i am going to buy a Toyota 4age engine and C52 gearbox tomorrow i think