My first engine swap build thread

[freshtiva]

Just thought of this. Are you gonna switch to studs on the calibers?

Yes I think I will, Wes suggested the same thing.

[eurotiva]

Put those on already we are ready to see pics. What are they off of?

[freshtiva]

Wes said they are Pro alloys off of a Protege. They are 14 X 5.5 seven spoke. Wes is a walking encylopedia of cars and car parts !

[festivaWES]

Stop it, I'm blushing....

They clear the strut upper mount bolt just barely by 1/4 inch. They'll fit with tires, and not rub.

Marcus if you decide to do the stud swap...search BMW stud conversion on ebay. There is a used set on there for studs but you may want to go with the spline drive lug nut too.

[91blufestiva]

Well, he does work at a junkyard...

[freshtiva]

Got a blue hood from FFC member crazyinkc. A real nice guy as most festivians are ! Nice to get that burnt hood off and away from my clean engine bay. BTW crazyinkc has a festiva for sale for $100. Im going to post a listing for him in the FS/W forum. I may go get it for myself if no one else does. Id already have it if I didnt have a full garage already.




Old hood below

[Festiva_Fred]

Looking better everytime!

[Damkid]

Very very incredible job you have done!!!

[sasquatch]

now thats a bit better looking good

[freshtiva]

Topped the first 1000 mile mark coming home last night. No problems with the car to date with the exception of the exploding fuel filter. Checked my mileage and Im getting 36 MPG mixed driving. There have been several "lets see what we got " runs in those first 1000 miles and Ive have had the A/C running constantly so I think thats pretty good mileage. Redford usually gets 38-40 MPG so not much difference. Good trade off in my opinion. Going to get a better hatch this weekend if all goes as planned.

[neanderpaul]

Cool Marcus. thanks for the data!

[freshtiva]

Put a new hatch on today. Below is a picture of the hatch when I got the car.




Pics from today

This hatch came off of a "L", it took me almost 45 minutes to get the small L decal off of the hatch. It also had a DARE sticker on the glass. That had to come off. DARE is a crutch for people who cant handle drugs.






The GL has an extra wire harness in it so I had to pull the GL harness out of the old hatch and fish it back into the L hatch. Wasnt bad at all.






While I was at it I put in a grounded hatch latch for the cargo light and had to install the rear wiper off of the GL hatch into the L hatch. Havent got the spray nozzle in yet but the tubing in ran. Just a matter of making a hole like the tracing I made of the old hole. Just use the right size bit and then use a file to make the square notch at the bottom of the hole. I ran out of energy before I got this done. It like 120 degrees out in the shop today. It will wait for a colder time.





End result, still a little work to do but an improvement I think. Once I get a rear bumper cover painted to match the car it should be looking pretty good.




Im going to wait until festivawes swaps out the rear glass for me before putting my FFC sticker and Korean Festiva decal on. Going to put a factory tinted rear glass in with defrost.

[MONSOON]

Howd you get the L decal off?

[freshtiva]

Howd you get the L decal off?

I started with goop and my thumbnail and ended with wd40 and a plastic scraper. Ive seen a lot of festivas and the decal has chipped off. Not this one, it was stuborn ! To hot to use a heat gun.

[Festiva_Fred]

Looks great!