Full EGT Suspension Swap.

[Jimmy]

I finally finished up my Aspire swap. It made a huge difference in braking and cornering ability, but I think I want to go a little more extreme. I picked up a '92 EGT as a parts car a few months ago. I didn't realize how cool the EGT suspension really is - actual struts at the rear with two lateral links and one trailing link per side. Easy to make custom arms to make everything adjustable.

So, since it would be off to the scrapper anyway, I figured I'd pull it apart and get a good look at it.

So far it looks like the front knuckles will drop right in in place of the Aspire/Festiva parts EXCEPT that the spline on the axles is larger on the EGT. That might be a PITA to deal with, but I figure worse case scenario I'll have to have EGT axles narrowed to fit the Festiva chassis. Hopefully that will allow use of an EGT intermediate axle too - so I don't have to hunt down a Capri/323GT piece.

Ideally I'd like to use the EGT front struts too, but I don't have an extra Festy strut to compare the EGT strut to at the moment - height might be too different, I know I'll have to make a custom upper mount, but I can have that CNC milled at my work. I want to make upper mounts that use spherical bearings anyway.

So as for that cool independent rear...


The left is a stock Festy rear beam. The right is the EGT strut and links.

Strut height between the two is pretty similar. I planned on using coil-over sleeves anyway, I think Ground Control coil-overs for an EGT will work fine. Again I'll have to build a custom upper mount, but I was looking for an excuse to do that anyway.

A new -much shorter- trailing link will have to be built. Probably use sperical bearing rod ends (Heim joints) since the alignment may not be perfectly straight to the Festy pivot point anyway.

I think I'll go with the stock lateral links and narrow the crossmember they pivot on. Actually with a little ingenuity I can build my own crossmember with adjustability designed it for tweaking the rear roll center.

I don't plan on putting the back seat back in my Festiva - I like the delivery van look and I have a comfy 4 door daily driver. So the plan is to reinforce the stock Festy strut towers and build a crossbar that also triangulates to the floor where the crossmember that picks up the lateral links attaches under the floor. I will also brace that back to the rear bumper mount area and forward to the subframe near the gas tank.

I figure I may also lose the spare tire well...

Anyway, these are the goals :
Adjustable toe, camber, height, and roll center in the front and rear
Use of dampers that allow for more performance options
Total overkill on the brakes
Adding a little weight to the rear of the car without just ballasting for ballast's sake.
Something different - without going overboard.


A pic of my car - post Aspire swap with Tracer LTS wheels.

[Damkid]

hey i just got done the swap too!!! i love it!!!

hopefully you can get the EGT suspension in your festy that would be cool to see

[DuritzCrows17]

Thats awesome, I am a big fan of escort gt's so that would be awesome to see, I like the tracer wheels on there btw looks very nice and keeps a low oem profile at the same time.

[nattyphysicist]

Jimmy, you are my hero. I'm really looking forward to see where you go with this.

[htchbck]

I'd love to see this happen, there's been talk of it before, but I haven't ever seen anyone put this much thought in it yet. I wish you the best of luck man!
hmmm... LTS wheels... gotta remember that next time I'm at the wreckers

[Jimmy]

Here is a pic of the front knuckles. The left one is the stock Festiva piece, the EGT is on the right. They are similar, but there are a few key differences.

The measurement marked A (in red) is the centerline of the spindle hole to the bottom of the ball-joint face. That measurement is 1.25" shorter on the Festiva part, therefore the EGT knuckle will lower the baljoint 1.25" relative to the centerline of the wheel. This means that the centerline of the wheel (therefor the ride height) can be lowered 1.25" and come out with stock geometry - preserving the stock roll-center on a lowered car.

This is good.

The measurement marked B (in blue) is the centerline of the spindle hole to the centerline of the balljoint hole. This measurement is about 1" shorter on the Festiva knuckle. Effectively this makes the wheel pivot on the steering axis fewer degrees for the same amount of steering input - lower steering effort, but also decreasing steering response.

This is not so good.

The measuement marked C (in yellow) is the centerline of the spindle hole to the bottom of the strut mounting holes. This measurement is a little less than 1" shorter on the Festiva part. This means that if the EGT knuckle where swapped onto a Festiva with no other modifications done, the ride height would be increased about 1". In other words, it's going to require sacraficing 1" of suspension travel at the spring/damper to retain the same ride height, further sacraficing will be necesary to get a lowered height and restore that other geometry mentioned above.

Again, not so good.

Finally, like I said before, the spindle hole is bigger on the EGT than on the Festiva necessitating different axles. Just another hurdle. On the plus side, the balljoint sizes are the same - the EGT has a cool removable balljoint that will help me finish up my custom control arm project too.


Above the knuckles is the EGT stock rear strut with the spring and perch removed and a CheapBay coil-over sleeve (not mine BTW) stuck on just for kicks. Kind looks cools anyway.



This is the EGT rear knuckle and caliper bracket sitting in an anodic de-rusting bath. I'm excited to see how well it works.

More info on that here...

[Safety Guy]

Absolutely great plans, Jimmy!

I would suggest taking a look at the Kia Rio front brakes, model years 2000 to present. There was a change in front brakes around the end of '02, IIRC. Early Rio rotors are the same as auto Aspire rotors, and the pads should be the same too. I'm not sure what knuckle changes were done, if any, to the later Rios, but since I think Escort brake pads are the same fitment to ATX Aspires, maybe there is a chance Rio knuckles could work and would have fewer critical measurement differences? Just a guess. I've never had the time to find and examine Rio parts at the 'yard.

Escort tie rod ends work well and are cheaper for the Aspire brake swap. Again, I think there may be quite a few possibilities for Aspire/Escort/Rio interchange.

Karl

[B6T]

Doesn't it seem like a lost-cause to get the EGT front suspension to work on the Festiva when the Aspire stuff is already good enough, or can be upgraded even further, and given the amount of work it's going to take to get the EGT stuff to work? You're going to need really really short struts after you're done putting those EGT spindles on. I've been toying with the idea of relocating the front strut towers on my Festiva... that may be something you should consider if you really want to use the EGT spindles and want to retain some form of usable strut stroke. You could move the strut towers further up, and possibly further inwards if it would improve your suspension geometry.

If your only reason for swapping the EGT front spindles on was to take advantage of the larger rotors, there may be an easier way to go about getting those larger rotors. You could use the Aspire hubs, with the EGT rotors (definitely has a common bolt circle, and most likey has a common centre bore), and a custom caliper mount that hold FC Turbo II RX-7 all-aluminum 4-piston calipers. That would be cool and a hell of a lot less work. Would probably out-brake any EGT setup too. Plus with the lighter Aspire spindle, an aluminum caliper bracket and the aluminum Turbo II calipers, you'd be reducing unsprung weight over the larger cast iron EGT spindle and calipers. If you encounter problems designing a proper caliper mount due to the mounting bolt location on the Turbo II calipers, you could always go with a universal Wilwood racing caliper which would have the mounting bolts parallel to the rotor surface.

Anyways, not trying to deter you from what you're doing, just throwing some suggestions out there.

[Jimmy]

Yeah, I'm still up in the air about what to do with the front pieces. Another detail I noticed last night while I was cleaning up is that the Escort parts have a wider bolt bolt spacing where the knuckle bolts to the strut necessitating use of the Escort struts. I still need to measure and compare with the Festiva parts, I'd much rather come out of this using Escort struts because of the (slightly) better selection of performance dampers, but not if it means losing all my travel.

I was actually thinking that the RX-7 Turbo II calipers would be an easier upgrade on the Escort knuckles. You might be right though, if the Escort rotors fit on the Aspire hubs and I'm building caliper brackets anyway, it might be best to stick with the Aspire stuff. I was planning on taking all the Aspire parts off and sticking them (and the Tracer wheels) on my girlfriend's Festy once I got the Escort stuff swapped onto my car... We'll see how things play out over the next week.

I'll take a look as Rio parts next time I'm at the Pull-a-part. I had forgotten that they are similar to the Festy/Aspire. The local lot has a couple of recent model Kias but I've never noticed models what they are.

[B6T]

If you really wanted to use bigger front spindles, the BF 323 GT parts fit on the Festiva. I know they are larger, like the EGT spindles, but I don't know if they share all the same differences in dimensions. I know you're able to use the Aspire hub in the 323 GT spindle (I have 323 axles in my car with Aspire hubs, so it should work), so another alternative would be to use the 323 spindle, the aspire hub, and the EGT rotor. You would have to find some justification for using the 323GT spindle over the EGT spindle though. I know there isn't any difference in caliper bolt mounting locations because I used a spare Festiva brake caliper on my 323GT, and they were identical.

[Jimmy]

The two main reasons for me wanting to use the EGT knuckles was the larger brakes and the taller height (really the ability to lower the car a bit without losing the control arm geometry). If the Aspire parts could be upgraded to the Turbo II calipers, then maybe it doesn't really matter. I had previously thought about just making balljoint spacers to get the adjustment in the geometry that I'm looking for - spacers is a little more sketchy idea though.

I really want to make this car a competent autocrosser. I know that geometry is really important to get right, that's really my main goal. Big brakes don't help much on an autocross course - that goal was more for safety sake when bombing though the mountain passes.

[Jimmy]

Few more pics of things.

I decided to look into these RX-7 4 pots that I've heard about.


From the top:
EGT rear caliper
Festy front caliper
EGT front caliper
RX-7 4 pot.
Festy knuckle and rotor
EGT front rotor.

To the left and again from the top.
Festy pad
EGT front pad
RX-7 front pad
EGT rear pad

EGT rear rotor is on the right.

The RX-7 calipers are almost certainly a no-go on the EGT knuckles. I'm hoping that on the Aspire knuckles they will be a little less hopeless. Still going to take some other kind of rotor to make it all work - maybe VW or Honda???

I also got these a few days ago.



Rota Pulse 15x6.5 35mm offset. They're 195/50-15, but if I can make the EGT suspension work (which remains to be seen) I can make the larger wheels fit too. I really wanted to work around that size anyway so I have more tires to chose from.

I like the wheels because they have a Panasport style about them - 8 spokes that arch out and then meet with the front of the center hub rather than intersect it at the edge - if that makes sense - but they also have a newer tuner style to them too.

Plus they were hella cheap.

Off topic:

RX-8 seats. :twisted:


GTX BPT intake manifold. Hoping it gives me a little more clearance at the firewall when the BP goes in. Hoping not to have to cut the firewall. Might not work.

I'm done buying stuff.Now it's time to get stuff done...

[B6T]

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm RX8 seats. It sucks to hear that the RX7 calipers won't work. Care to go into detail?

[Jimmy]

Basically on the EGT knuckle, they interfere with the caliper mounting ears that are part on the knuckle casting.



No matter where you try to rotate them around the knuckle, they hit something - the strut area, the steering arm, the ball-joint pad.

If you cut the mounting ears off of the knuckle, then machined the meaty part further towards the hub and made new mounting ears, that part might get close, but then you still have this to contend with.



The calipers overhangs the mounting surface on the rotor by more than an inch. Finding wheels that can accomidate that is a tall order. I have the same problem on my Sentra with Brembo 4 pots, but to a less degree and there is still only like the models of aftermarket wheels that work.


There isn't any room to get a rotor with a deeper wheel mounting surface to pad surface so that rule out the chances of a simple solution there.

If you found a rotor that had less offset from the wheel mounting fact to the pad surface you could move the caliper out to where is might clear the mounting ears on the knuckle, but you would just exaggerate the wheel problem.

They problem seems about the same on the stock Festiva knuckle, I don't know how much different the Aspire knuckle would be, they don't seem that much different than the Fesiva parts, but I can test that when the weather starts cooperating.

They might work somehow, but it's going to take machine work on the knuckle, finding the perfect rotor, or wheel spacer. Maybe all three.

[Jimmy]

FWIW, there are a couple of pics in this thread at ClubProtege. It seems to show RX-7 calipers on BG knuckles, but it does appear that the mounting ears have been cut off, holes drilled farther in, but there is much debate as to what the rotors came from, plus it seems to have some spacers and possibly a custom hub or a spacer behind the rotor...

Anyway, it's a professionally built rally car so who knows what kind of work went into it.