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I wish I still had pics of the process, but I don't. I didn't want to hijack the 185/60-14 thread too far off topic so I made a new thread.
It's been a couple of years ago since I did it so I may leave something out. I guess the best I can offer is a brief description of the process and some completed pics.
First step I did was to remove the stock bumper cover and support. The bumper support kind of comes off at the same time as the bumper cover.
Once it was off, I took the cover the rest of the way off of the support. Then I figured out how much I wanted to remove from the length. I marked the a curve parallel to the stock wheelwell cut out on the bumper cover
About like this - where X is the amount of length you want to take out.
Then I cut along the line with a pair of tin snips, cleaned the edge of the cut up with a file or maybe a dremel sand paper drum in a drill - I don't recall but it's really easy clean it up as the plastic is not particularly tough.
I believe I had to cut the same amount out of the part of the cover that runs along the body where the hatch closes.
At first I just screwed the cover back on with the screws that hold it in place inside the rear wheel wells. I may have added another pair of sheet metal screws in the same area. Obviously I had to drill new holes in the bumper cover for the stock screws because the holes that they originally went through were cutoff when I but the wheelwells.
After a little driving, I decided that it was not sufficient to hold the cover on with just a couple of sheetmetal screws. It would sag after a while and seemed like it was in peril of falling off.
I took the cover back off and made a small support to replace the stock support. It looks something about like this.
The top plate acts as a shelf for the top of the cover to sit on. A couple of holes were drilled through the cover and shelf and a couple of taper head screws and nuts hold the cover on.
The bumper is much more secure now, the shelf is much lighter than the original bumper support, but serves NO crash protection purpose. I suppose you could beef up the design and have a little bit of crash protection, but it's not going to be anywhere near as functional as the stock support as far as keeping the body from getting destroyed in an accident.
I think the Festiva looks cooler with the bumper trimmed and I think in anything more than a 10mph rear ender, a Festiva is going to be in bad shape anyway, but it's definitely not a mod for those that drive their cars frequently in traffic.
It's also removing weight from the wrong end of a Festiva. It just makes it that much more front biased...
Oh well...
ops:
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