Questions about Aspire upgrade and FMS lowering springs

[dieseltweaker]

First off guys what a nice site for the proud festiva owners, I have a 91 5sp for over a year now and been thrashing the heck out of it. It is my beater car but the more and more I drive it, welll it just grows on you. I'm a mechanic and what I'm wondering about is are there any little tricks or anything special you have to do with the aspire brake swap, and will the lowering springs work hand in hand with the brake swap.

Also any of you guy's that need any Mazda parts let me know,,, I can get one heck of a deal on factory Mazda stuff

Zach

[packrat427]

Welcome to the site.
How about a new B6T in the crate ,"for cheap" :lol: :lol:

[oxbrain]

I just did an aspire swap with the lowering springs and superstruts up front, gr2s in the rear. Honestly, I think the rear springs could be better. They are dual rate, the low rate is too low so you pretty much just compress it by sitting in the car, this means you're constantly bouncing off the high rate part of the spring, which hurts the ride. Considering that you don't have to replace the shocks or springs to do the aspire swap, I would do them seperatly, just to have a better baseline of what parts make what changes.

[Motoxpress]

I just finished my Aspire swap and it wasn't all that bad. Some points of interest though.

First rear axle beam when you get the Aspire unit also get the mounts with it you can use the Festiva mounts but you will have to trim the stop tabs on the Aspire unit to match the Festiva tabs.

Second the front Be careful when reinstalling the pinch bolts on the ball joint if you force them back in they will strip out when you tighten the nut use a pry bar to make installing the bolt easier.

Last but not least be ready to get an alignment (eyeball alignment is good enough to get you to the shop but I wouldn't go further).

Good luck
Will

[Hot_Wheels]

does anyone have pictures of this swap?

Thanks
Rick

[oxbrain]

What pictures are you looking for? I have a few I took while I was swapping, now I have two festivas, one with aspire parts, one with stock parts.

[dieseltweaker]

well made it to the junk yard this weekend, managed to score rear axle, frt hubs with struts, and 4 13'' wheels for 150 bucks.

Now I just have to get everything ready for the swap.

Zach

[Safety Guy]

Use a lot of PB Blaster on the bolts and nuts, and make sure your rear drums are good inside.

Worst I had it was the second one (Luxstiva), where the large left rear axle bracket bolt would not come out. I had to take apart the fuel filler area pipes and hoses, chisel a larger hole in the body, and stick a socket down in there to stabilize the nut so I could get the bolt out.

Good luck!

Karl