Downsize from 15 to 13" lightweights

[Click_It]

You are correct with the gearing assumption based on your calculations of diameter and circumference.

Thanks for all your help - I was only seeing part of the picture before you jumped in. Now I've saved $600 and have a much better understanding on Festiva dynamics

+Rep given.

I will read your suspension thread, I'm trying to avoid anything requiring too much modification, one because I'm not overly handy and two I have to run my car over the pits (we call it a blueslip in Australia) later this year due to moving interstate and now returning back (the new state didn't care, but the original state checks cars coming in despite the car previously lived 17 years there) - I'm told they check everything with a fine tooth comb. I'm not even sure if the Aspire swap will be an engineering problem. So I'm going to avoid doing anything too tricky until after that takes place. That $600 is going to come in handy I think

Thanks again!

[Click_It]

Unfortunately the Federal Formoza FD1 tire is hard to get in Australia. I can readily get "Achillies ATR-K Economist but clearly not in the same category as the Federal.

Something to figure out.

[Click_It]

Scratch that, just found an awesome deal on 165/45's, $100 for 5! All with less than 1 mile on them.

Nankang brand which is probably comparable to the Achilles, for that price who cares, I can always swap them out for Federal's later if I don't like them.

[sketchman]

^Yes.

[Click_It]

Once everything is done I'll come back with my fuel economy, braking and acceleration findings, no doubt someone in the future will find themselves in a similar boat and value the results.

[Advancedynamix]

Nankang, Federal, and Achilles all seem to be about the same quality. I have all 3 brands mounted on high performance wheels currently and my tire guy has been impressed by the quality of all 3 of these brands. He normally mounts high dollar tires on expensive wheels for exotics and supercars here in Scottdale, AZ, so I trust his opinion. The last time I was in there he was mounting tires for a Liberty Walk wide body Gillardo, with ano Enzo waiting next in line. He says the Achilles mount up and look just like Continental pro contacts.

[Click_It]

In case anyone was interested, I ended up sticking with the 15" wheels and running 165/50 tires (almost identical to stock).

Swapping out the 195/50 to 165/50 has made some noticable improvements. Handling (steering) is much better, so much lighter. Torque improvement is noticable and climbing hills at 60-70 (mph) is much easier, with much less need to drop back to 4th gear all the time like before.

Grip in the rain has also been impressive, these skinnier tires grip extremely well. Nankang sports tread, a very nice looking tire (and a true bargain for $15 USD each!)

Fuel economy has also improved, I haven't updated my fuelly for awhile but I'm now seeing 35-36 up from 31 before.

Next thing I need to do is rebuild the carby, apparently it can't be adjusted (carby shop), I thought it was running rich but it's actually flooding. So that'll improve economy more once fixed.

So for those with a B3 (or B3 carb) like me, I say forget about big wide tires, the power tax isn't worth it.

[red90festyonair]

Thanks for the update, I was wondering what happened with this. Great information

[Advancedynamix]

Great to hear! Snap a few photos to compare before and after.

[sketchman]

$15 tires? Where?

[jason_]

They're around. I found some $22 carry out sunnys. I got 40k out of them.

Sent from my One using Tapatalk

[Click_It]

Great to hear! Snap a few photos to compare before and after.

Sorry for being slack with this thread, I am travelling around a lot right now. But I do have my hard drive with me (with all my old photos) so a before/after will be easy to do. I'll get that up for you in the next day or 2.

I'll also update my fuelly so you can see the fuel economy improvement.

It's certainly put some life (fun) back into the little festiva.

[surfersami]

Coming from the off-road arena, (Suzuki Samurai) tyre size is so much more important than the wheels. I ran everything from stock 205-70-15s to 31x10.5-15s on the sami. On light Alloys, the 31x10.5 were still too much for stock gears. Had to down shift to 4th going over overpasses on the interstates. By changing to a 235-75-15, I gained ground clearance over stock, kept some economy, and did not rub fenders anymore with a 3" lift. Felt like a new vehicle accelerating. Nothing like the stock 205s, but deffinately better than the 31s! Engines are cammed for power/torque at certain rpms, when gears change through tyre size, it the affects the smaller engines in a dramatic way. Steering and breaking are also affected as well as drivetrain wear (especially the clutch!). Just changing from a street tread design to mud tread on the same size tyre made a huge differecne in economy due to roll resistance. If you change the cams, transmission gearing, or final drive (differential) gears, you can sometimes compensate for tyre size changes. From the response to your tyre size change I think you are seeing the results of all this. Bigger is not always better!!!
JP - Lancaster, SC.

[Click_It]

Humble apologies for the delays updating this.

As requested here are some pics! As previously mentioned, I ended up getting 165/50 not 165/45, as much as I wanted the latter, the option was performance tread in 50's and crappy budget tread in 45's so the choice was simple in the end.

Before (195/55)


After (165/50)


After (165/50)

[Click_It]

And one more...


The next thing on the list is getting a Weber 32/36 installed. Stock B3 carb (Australia never got EFI festys) so I'm hoping that'll improve performance a little, even if it's at the cost of some MPG. Much of my driving now is on 60-70mph highways and I feel the stock carb is holding me back a little.