Off Road Festiva...seen in sand dunes!

[motodave]

Look inside the March issue of DIRTBIKE magazine. It's pretty cool. My buddies in the mechanical assembly lab building NASA space cameras went nuts when they saw this photo. The mech gang restores WW2 Jeeps and they want me to build this Festiva dune buggy. The wife is bucking the thought....says it must be a guy thing. The Festiva is camo and has huge tires on it. If you want me to send you a JPG picture of it (in case you don't buy DIRTBIKE) let me know. I didn't see a way to paste the picture in this forum
I tried to contact the magazine to see who the builder is...nothing yet. He obviously raised it to get the bigger tires on it.
Motodave :lol:

[Kindred]

Email me the picture and I'll post it up for everyone to see. I'll only be in town for another 12 hours though, so be quick.

Kindred192@hotmail.com

[Kindred]

Here's his picture:

[88FESTIVAGTR]

man, that's cool

[motodave]

Somebody has to make one and share the build info

Friends of the Festiva,
Yesterday, I stopped by Superior Brake & alignment and talked with the owner. Booooooooob (sounds like the Goat-boy on SNL) when we say it, told me that the builder lifted it. Bob says it might not be as easy as it looks. He suggests that we contact the rather large fellow shown in the photo. I emailed DIRTBIKE magazine and asked if they'd give him my email address.
Maybe one of you can stop this guy and ask him how he did this? The magazine talked about the wild party atmosphere that GLAMIS Sand dunes has on weekends. Somebody find this guy. I noticed there is another fellow on here that wants to do a LIFT KIT on his Festiva.
Later,
Motodave

[motodave]

Motodave back again...

After checking this cool site, I found others that are interested in "Festiva Lift Kit". It's listed under the heading SUSPENSION, BRAKES & WHEELS.
Also there are guys that already did some of this lifting on our site.
On the HOME PAGE, look over at the GALLERY and click on David Moore's Stiva Truck. That is lifted, but he did not have any contact info.
There is another photo to look at in the Gallery, it's Andy Harris 1990 Festiva.
Hey David and Andy, how did you do this? :?
Back to our local suspension expert in Santa Barbara, Booooooob (Goat-boy) :lol: He thought that maybe this guy put a whole different chassis under the Festiva. Boooob thought it might be a Tracker. NO...I corrected him and pointed out to him that the guy did this on a budget! Notice the wheels are stock? Count the number of holes in the wheel, they are the same but have been widened for the larger tires. Booooob said Ohhhhhhhhhhh! These guys prep trucks for Baja 1000 and lifted my GMC 4x4 truck, they know what their doing, but the Festiva just confuses them to no end. Someone else wanted to put ATV tires on their lifted Festa. My only worry is that the speed rating on these tires might not be good enough?
We off roaders are just regular guys and living in Santa Barbara you see the ultra rich and all their excesses. I should add that this GLAMIS place is really far from SB. It is down south of us east of San Diego. It's on the highway 8 close to the Mexican border by CA/Arizona state line. Whoever lives close to this area, keep your eyes peeled!
Yell at him to "look at Ford Festiva dot Com"
motodave

[IdealSociety]

festiva lift

that other guy working on a lifted festiva is me :wink:


its not to tough to rearrange and drop most of the festiva suspension as long as you maintain the stock geometry much like a truck lift kit.

brackets to drop down the sway bar, which it looks like he did there because its easier to see than usual, an adapter plate between the strut and the hub assy. it would just put the hub farther down and keep the strut in place.

the axles should be able to hold a decent amount of flex.

as for the rears im currently working on a set of drop brackets for that too :wink: look for this whole setup to be done sometime within the next couple of months, im hoping i can lift it enough to get an agressive treaded demo derby 15" tire under there he he...

im also working on cutting out the fenderwells for the larger tires, if i can find a wide enough rim in 4x100 pattern to run a 31/10.50r15 i would have accomplished my mission

this is all geting mocked up on my parts car till its ready to pass on the regular driver...

this setup only has one real big problem i have yet to figure out how to fix... the same problem my car has now!!! speedo is waaaay off! im runing 175/80r13's and my speedo says 60 and im going almost 80 in reality lol...

anyone have diff speedo gears we could use to correct this?

[motodave]

speedo error

The speedo miles per hour problem has been a sore spot for many 4x4 trucks for decades. I know of a website that might be useful for us Festiva heads, even though it's for trucks. At worse case, there is a tire size calculator that figures out the ratios. Then maybe someone else can find the reduction cable source and post it.
Here's the web site address:

http://www.offroadexchange.com/speedo.htm

Maybe these guys can help out once you get into the lifted Festiva mode in a few months?
This off road, lifted Festiva tech is new ground for these critters. I'm a 4x4 truck and Yamaha 2 stroke 250cc die hard, so I mostly know about these truck sites for the age old problem of putting bigger tires on a truck.
"Oh Yes officer, my speedo only said I was doing 65MPH" :roll:
motodave

[Slide427]

That's sweet I've been thinking about doing that to my '93 since the '90 became the b6t car, now I'm going to have to that's too cool
I was thinking more along the lines of a mod'd broncoII chassis and so on but that's cool too

[On Lawn]

Anyone know what ever happened to Woody's Festivas?

[qaking]

That is an awesome looking festiva!
Someone looks to have done a descent job on it also, at least from the one photo...

[Rich Norman]

Seems like some light natured kidding was the editor's intention.

Yes, it's cute to make a Festiva FWD " dune buggy ", but take note what anyone who is even halfway serious about duning in Glamis is using.

So, anyone up for giving the Festiva a sandrail/sand car treatment ? Oh, yes, it means RWD.

I have ideas, no surprise given my other hobby are these things ( one of less returns that I'd like though, being I'm in a state where places to ride is few and far between ).

They have lot of potential to for cross over technology to build a pretty stout off-road Festiva for the dunes or light trails.

Sticking with the traditional VW torsion beam/IRS gives you affordability, decent performance. Great aftermarket support, easy to build.

Or you could go wild, emulating something of the radical sandcars you see in Glamis.

Good magazine to read if you like this stuff is Sand Sports ( magazine ).

[rotinaj13]

wow a festy that is ready for ww3 ;-) in a word suzuki. If I was gonna do this the car would b on a suzuki sameri suspension.. then start beefing it up from there... just my 2 cents though...

[motodave]

Samuri vs Festiva

I really love a vehicle that can go more places than the average vehicle. The Festiva has great possibilities for the average Joe.
I first took a Datsun truck and put sand tires, roll bar with aircraft landing lights on top back in the 70’s. It would do the “ONE WHEEL SPIN” all over the Anza Borrego desert (east of San Diego) but could not go up any steep angles of hills or sand dunes. It was a flatland and trail runner. Many at time I wished it was a 4x4 or at least a FWD, because FWD pulls the vehicle and the pushing RWD falls short in canyon trails. The Datsun was basically was the retrieval vehicle for our desert motorcycles. Finally I bought a new GMC Sonoma 4x4 in 2002, so I do the huge technical stuff out in the desert now.
The Festiva will probably never be a GLAMIS dune winner, but it got out into the sand without getting stuck! VW buggies were great out there, but they were always gutless wonders of a motor! Friends put in Porsche and Corvair turbos in them to get them to move. Other pals that raced Baja 1000 had to deal with what they had and put in Chevy pistons to bump up the size to 2180 inside the reworked VW case. We once put a Pinto 2 liter motor in the back of a VW bug, so it would get out of it’s own way!
Festivas are already going on trails around the country, but they will be able to do tougher terrain with the larger tires and lifted suspension. They are also not gutless, and lighter than the original bug. Oh, and yes much cheaper too. A kid with a lawn mowing job can afford to buy one. Average price is around $500.00
I think the “big-boned” fellow in the picture might have started a trend?
Kids, adults and grandparents….Grab your Festiva and
HIT THE TRAILS!
As for the Suzuki Samuri idea, I did see some last weekend out in Mojave desert and they look fun, but they are too top heavy and don't really have the stability for any angles without going over. I use to be in a Jeep club and let's say they are worse than a Jeep for tipping over. The Festiva can only lift so high and will be OK.
Who's going to be the first one post how to build an off road Festiva? :?

motodave

[rotinaj13]

what I was meaning was use the suspension off of a suzuki on a festiva instant 4x4 I made a rabbit 4 wheel drive like that.