Voting For July FOTM

[Damkid]

This month we have 4 Entries for FOTM, those entries are from:

Rectilinear
schaefz28
snackman508
MrFishah

Here are the entries again starting with Rectilinear's

How do you feel about aqua with a goofy theme?
Just a few months ago, this car was rescued from a pasture near Cleburne, TX. It had not been driven in over two years and actually has bite marks on the roof from a horse.


We prepped it for the 24 Hours of Lemons and raced it at Eagle's Canyon Raceway with Rio/Aspire brakes and very little more.


We had a few oiling issues early on in the race as dried up ex-oil started flaking off the block and clogged up our oil pickup screen. We essentially ran the car out of oil 3 times in the first 3 hours of the race until we dropped the pan and flushed it out with a gallon of atf. One thrown and replaced belt in the 5th hour and the car was a champ for the remainder of the race.


At the end of the 24 hour race we crossed the checkered flag after over 900 torturous miles. We finished 21st overall (out of 53) and 9th in our class (B). When we got our paddock packed up, I then drove the loaded Festy another 75 miles home. There seems to be no stopping this little thing!!

[Damkid]

schaefz28's entry

Well, it might be hard to beat a racecar But since we're doing red white and blue ones, I'll throw mine in. I bought it a couple years ago for $350 with ~89,500 miles on it. It came from Texas and had been sitting for the past 10 years.. Luckily this means there there isn't a speck of rust on the whole body! The paint was severely dull, the tires were dry rotted, and there was some awful stuff in the tank that used to be gas. We pulled the gas tank, cleaned it out as best we could, then swapped it with a cleaner tank off of my old teal festy. We flushed all the fluids, put on a new fuel pump and new battery and she fired right up! I've since replaced a few clacking hydraulic lifters, all 4 tires, front control arms / ball joints, tie rod ends, all new front brakes, timing belt, alternator belt, and the transaxle - twice.

The story on the transaxles goes like this.. I originally bought a teal '93, knowing it was stuck in 4th gear. Brought it home and swapped it out with a junkyard transaxle, it worked great and it was in the car when i sold it. So now I have the red festy, and I drove it for about a year with the tranny making some growling and other unfriendly noises.. Then finally I lost 4th gear, then first, and reverse was hard to get into so I parked it. I still had that original trans out of the teal car sitting around, so I tore it apart, turns out the shifter arm was popped out of it's socket, and the bracket was busted.. replaced the bracket, and got it all put back together. Put it in the car... still stuck in 4th! As you might imagine... I was pretty upset.. So I pulled it back out of the car, took it apart again, and everything seemed to be working as it should! After putting the case back together, I figured out that it's pretty easy to knock it down into gear if you aren't really careful putting the case back together... ah well. Chalk it up as a learning experience, and got it back in the car, and drove it for about another year. Bearings start going out on this one too! So I park it, pull out the trans again.. This time I had a guy rebuild it as a side job, $350 for labor and parts. Not too bad in my opinion. That was just a few weeks ago that I got her back on the road again, and so far - so good

The only mods I've done so far are the beauty rings on painted steelies, and added a tach cluster (I lucked out and it only had 7k miles less than my actual miles). I also hated looking at the pea shooter sticking out the back, so I cut a little off, and put a nice little exhaust tip on it. I was considering doing something with the grill, but I never got around to it.. and the camaro is eating up all my time this summer - full restoration!

On to the pictures: These were taken the fall after I brought her home. The paint surprisingly buffed out nicely, and it looked pretty good after I spent a day waxing.





And here's one with big brother:

[Damkid]

snackman508's entry

First off I would like to say this is my fist Festiva and have not been in the Festiva game to long, but every day I drive it I realize how much of a tank they are. This past December my work truck would not pass PA state inspection so I decided it was time to retire it, instead of replacing the frame rails that had the patches rusting off. I was in need of a cheap car that could hold a lot of tools (I work construction) till I could find or build the truck I want. I asked Ghost if he knew of any Festivas or 323s for cheap and he directed me to festyboy who had one for $400 but.... had 210k mile, needed a new bumper, new head light and the front corner was smashed in.I must have been sitting for some time, because when I turned the vent on all kinds of crap came out and it smelled like mice bad. I jumped on the deal because all parts needed were included. Every thing was bolt on except the smashed in corner, so I took a chain and a truck and a few tugs later it was close to normal. You can see I still have a wrinkle in the frame.



Next it was time to gut the inside and put some shelves in, and turn it into a real Worksteva. Once all my tools were in it I was worried someone would see and steal them, so tint was a must. All it needed was a good radio and some speakers, I upgraded the head unit to a sweat alpine (with tape deck) and swapped some pioneer speakers in.





wanting to clean the looks up a little, I painted the top black to cover the flaking clear and give it a nice 2 tone look, also hit the wheels with some silver. I must put a shameless plug in here for rustoleum it turns out good if you spray when temps are low. O also I should say I Also sprayed foam in the holes by the wheels, not just to stop the water but to stiffen the body up a little.



The next big thing that happen was I blew a head gasket. I was driving to work beating the crap out of it like always and did not know the temp gauge reads low. It was at a little over half and steam was coming out of my hood. I had to get to work because my boss just yelled at me the day before for always being late. I drove it 10 more min and made it to work on time. It was a cold day high of 20, there must not have been any antifreeze in it, and froze up not circulating water in the motor (and the heater core I was cold to) thus over heating. I looked at it at lunch time, there was a frozen puddle under the car and what looked to be a slushy in the radiator. That night after work it would barely start do to all the ice in the water pump but some hot water in the rad cleared it right up, made it home to put some antifreeze. It ran for 2 weeks till the HG went out all together, I was driving across town and it just stopped running. When ever I would put any lode on it would die, it would idle and rev but die when it was in gear. I was feeling to lazy to replace the HG and they cost like $100 so I did the next best thing, no not RTV, an HG in a bottle.




To show you how cheap can bee I didnt get the $20 one with 20steps I got the $12 one with 2 steps. I wormed the motor up dumped it in, ran it for 15min with the heat on and let it cool over night. The next day started up and ran good as new, burn outs and every thing. That fixed the coolant from leaking but I was/is still loosing oil. Oil leak stop helped but some times if I dont check it for 3 or 4 weeks (this happens a lot) I would have to add 2-2.5 qts of oil. I may start putting used oil out of my other car in it, because im using it so fast. There is no other big problems with it other then little things like the brace under the motor rusting out. 2 bolts fixed that. Brake line rusting threw and losing all brakes, I made it to the auto parts store using the E brake and the 4sp.

Last mod was the fender stripes gives it a sporty no nonsense look.
I would have to say I didnt believe people when they said these motors are bullet proof. But this is one tuff motor.

[Damkid]

And MrFishah's entry

So I'm pretty new to this forum, but I'm team-mates with "Russian" on our lemons team. I figured if the Korean delivery Festiva can play, why not throw another race car into the fray.

This is our 1993 Festiva. Mazda BP with escort trans. Aspire spindles, coilover suspension, and custom everything.

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