Pedro the Festiva's build thread.

[Advancedynamix]

It's amazing how quick you can strip these cars out after you've had a few goes at it.

Very true. I really only worked on this for about 4 hours today. These cars are so easy to work on. I'd also like to thank SiliconSoul for his great tutorial on dash removal.

Course now with the blower box exposed you could experiment with heat exchangers and oversize hoses but then again I have to remember you do live in Arizona where heaters were probably optional to begin with. Nice to see the absence of rust and to get to view the otherwise hidden corrugated panels and folded steel that goes into making a Festy so strong and yet so light.
USA Festys had electric-operated seatbelts (?) whereas this baby looks to have conventional belts; did you do this or is it a Canada/Mexico import car?

The U.S. spec cars received those annoying automatic seat belts in 1990. Earlier cars have manual belts. I do use the heat from time to time and have always been annoyed that it doesn't come out of the center vents. I don't know if I'll go to all the trouble to remedy this, but it is a thought. I'd like to replace my defrost vents and 1 of the flex tubes while I'm in there. AZ heat just disintegrates that thin plastic. If anyone has any solid vent ducting parts then please PM me with a price shipped to 85040.

[TominMO]

As far a heaters goes, has anyone tried installing an Aspire heater in a Festiva? You should get much better heat, plus the center dash ducts could be made to send out heat too.

[Advancedynamix]

As far a heaters goes, has anyone tried installing an Aspire heater in a Festiva? You should get much better heat, plus the center dash ducts could be made to send out heat too.

Interesting. I'll have to look at an aspire heat box the next time I'm at the yard. Having center heat would be nice. Tweaks heat works pretty good, I think the b6t warms up better than the b3. All my B3 Festivas have had weak heaters when you actually need a heater. Just one more reason that Ford should have sold them with the b6t. haha

[bhazard]

Same here the only time mine ever had decent heat is when it was a b6t. Even when I went BP turbo the heat started sucking again. Probably because I went to the bigger radiator.

[moz]

Hmmm... I didn't just read this...
I've just reassembled my interior after re soldering the heater core

[Bert]

Hmmm... I didn't just read this...
I've just reassembled my interior after re soldering the heater core

You only notice (and then curse a blue streak) seemingly non-existent Festy heat and defrost when it's -20 or colder. The rest of the time they blow 'sort-of warm' air. Neither Mazda nor Kia field-tested these cars in Arctic conditions before building them. They must have listened to lots of complaints over the years because Aspire heaters were designed much better.

[zoom zoom]

As far a heaters goes, has anyone tried installing an Aspire heater in a Festiva? You should get much better heat, plus the center dash ducts could be made to send out heat too.

I'm not gonna say it's not possible, there's some ingenuitive peeps around here, but I did compare most of the festy duct pieces to the aspire duct I had when I swapped dashes in Fiona awhile back and they didn't exactly match up...at all. Who knows, maybe digging deeper and trying to swap heater core shroud and all that junk... Eh...

[moz]

You only notice (and then curse a blue streak) seemingly non-existent Festy heat and defrost when it's -20 or colder. The rest of the time they blow 'sort-of warm' air. Neither Mazda nor Kia field-tested these cars in Arctic conditions before building them. They must have listened to lots of complaints over the years because Aspire heaters were designed much better.

Phewww....

The coldest it gets here is 5 deg c in the dead of winter.
And I've removed the ac [emoji37]

[Advancedynamix]

It gets cold here in AZ, not necessarily in Phoenix, but northern AZ gets some mighty weather. Practically the whole state North of Phoenix got hammered with snow last week. Flagstaff sees temps well below freezing quite often. Stock festy heat sucks below 30 degrees if you ask me. I am going to just try and find solid vent ducting for Pedro though and stick a 192 degree T-stat in this B6D and hope it warms up like the b6t does. This is a factory no AC car, so It's not an ideal summer driver here.

[fastivaca]

Part of the issue with Festivas is that there is practically nothing to keep any heat in the cat. For example, the doors have the thin card then airspace then metal then outside.

It's -26°C here in Canmore this morning as I write this. The Festiva will only get warm enough to take the chill off the inside air as we head up to Banff.

[Bert]

Part of the issue with Festivas is that there is practically nothing to keep any heat in the cat. For example, the doors have the thin card then airspace then metal then outside.

It's -26°C here in Canmore this morning as I write this. The Festiva will only get warm enough to take the chill off the inside air as we head up to Banff.

The Echo I'm driving is no different; plastic door card with less insulative value than Kia hardboard but I can darn near melt my boots with the heat on high.

[moz]

There's always the "cardboard rad block off" mod for real cold weather

[bhazard]

Corrugated plastic sheets. Cover the whole front end. Build a skid plate/belly pan, get a hood blanket/engine cover. Insulate the engine as much as you can.

[Advancedynamix]

Today I pulled the Fuel tank and lines off of Virginia to use on Pedro. Virginia is getting a fuel cell mounted in the passenger foot well so she won't be needing them. The tank is mostly rust free, but has a bunch of varnished gas and other crud in it. I'll be washing it out and replacing the pump with a Walbro 255. The 89 auto pump is set up just like an aspire pump, with the rubber hose between the pump and the top plate. This makes mounting a walbro easy peasy. I didn't take any pictures today, nothing really that exciting to see. I did find a picture of pedro, from the day I brought the car home.

[TominMO]

Looks really nice. What's that black thing sticking out of the grill?