Aspire brake upgrade for Festiva

[AspireBill]

alright now i didnt see this question on here and if it is i am truly sorry for postin this... Now i wanna do the aspire brake upgrade on my 89 festiva. Do the festiva rims still fit after this or do i need to upgrade my wheels also?? Thanx

[25Horseplay]

No the Aspire has a 4x100 bolt pattern and the Festiva has a 4X114.3

[CelicaGT4]

I am going to do the aspire brake swap as well. Especially after I went to 2 junkyards looking for 14 in. steelies to mount my slicks and drag radials on. No yard had these in steelie form...just aluminum which were 110 a wheel. Thats crazy talk.

[Gforcefd]

Its also crazy they where charging 110 a wheel for a used rim, you can get a fricken new set of rims for that price.

[bobstad]

My beautiful 13" '87 Mazda 323 rims have to go?

After painstakingly getting contributors to advise me on greasing my Festiva front wheel bearings in stock form, I'm now deciding the Aspire swap is going to be "a better idea."(anyone remember Ford's "a better idea" advertising campain? Maybe just before going into recievership, they might think one "better idea" is to produce anything but the gas guzzlers they dumped the Festiva/Aspire line for...whatever happened to the transportation for the masses Henry Ford built his empire upon, with the Model T and Model A and other a-Ford-able products...which by the way is what I got started wrenching on, a father-son project with a '29 A circa 1963, where you can guess who was supposed to do all the work)

I feel really heart-broken to have to switch my rims once I do the Aspire swap, since I've gotten '87 Mazda 323 13" rims I had powder-coat painted a contrasting color to the car's paint job that are the same bolt pattern as a Festiva's. Is there no way I can't juggle the components between the Aspire and Festiva to be able to continue using my cool looking wheels.(I know if this were likely someone would've already figured this out...I'm just whining out of pain here, sorry folks!!!)

See photos of out my "FestivaL Car" in my member profile as "bobstad" at <http://www.tribe.net>(where I'm also moderator of ORNITHOLOGY tribe, for fans of the music of great legendary jazz alto saxophonist Charlie Parker...one of the smaller tribes at 27 members now; though some tribes are over 12,000...sort of a radical left version of <myplace.com>)

Thanks to <fordfestiva.com> for continuing to be the resource and inspiration for one of the most important tools in my life.

[Jimmy]

Take the wheels to a machine shop and have them drill the 4x100mm pattern? :dunno:

Other than that, I think you are out of luck. I went through the same rim grief when I did my Aspire swap, but I've moved on.

[bobstad]

An afterthought

post script: Those Mazda 13" rims cost $10 each, and the powder-coat paint job was another $125. I think the end result was a lot nicer and more unique than custom alloy rims; and likely less money than alloys might've cost.

Anyone know of which rims might fit the Aspire, besides the stock ones?

By the way, when I got the Mazda rims, the man at John's Wrecking here in Eurkea was very careful in telling me that I didn't want just any rim with the same bolt pattern, as the angle on the chamfer the bolts fit in is also important to match, as otherwise the bolts can work themselves out with potential disasterous results. He had a whole long list of rims which were appropriate, which I copied then went to a used wheel and tire place where they'd had a resource book with pictures of each rim available, so that I choose the one which I thought would look best.

[muscle_Car1]

Umm alot of rims will fit cause you would be using the hondarific 4x100 botl pattern. Hmmm Rims that fit
miata
mx3
early protege
2 gen escort
civic
Early sentra
blah blah blah

I think there is a link at the top of this section pertaining to just this sort of info.

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=142

[oxbrain]

Regarding the wheel nuts. You only really have two styles to worry about. The 60 degree cone and the acorn. You can tell by looking at the wheel where the nut will seat and seeing if the surface is flat or curved in. Some race wheels will use a 45 degree cone, but you won't find those in a junkyard. BMW used a ball seat on some of their alloys in the 80s. They did this because they hate simplicity.

The easiest thing to do is find 4 matching wheels and take the lug nuts/bolts from that car. Stick to the japanese cars and you won't have to worry about stud sizing and bizzare offsets.