Accepting Entries For April FOTM

[Damkid]

Post away!!

[FestivaBuilder]

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[FestivaBuilder]

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[Flw Sock]

Got stickers?

[Prafeston]

Dude likes Monster!

What is that rear spoiler off of? Homemade?

[Festevil3]

[ATTACH=CONFIG]11911[/ATTACH]

I REALLY want a RSD festiva

[RhodeStiva]

Accepting Entries For April FOTM

It looks like one of those square scion spoilers.

[Ford Fester]

It's a factory short length Kia spoiler

[Advancedynamix]

I'm diggin' the white lips.

[Uhuzit]

It's a factory short length Kia spoiler

Sure? Mine looks different.

[Damkid]

FestivaBuilder - you need a story to go with your pics otherwise it doesnt count as an official entry

Sorry for my absense everyone but lets get some more entries for April!!

[Tommychu]

Alright. It's April and most would call me a fool. Plus my third anniversary of owning the car is coming up this week. Let's do this.
First off, my car has been *ahem* less than photogenic lately, so I haven't been taking many pictures.
Specs:
'93 GL Sport
FrankenB8ME with EGT block, rods and crank, Protege MBSP, 10:1 Miata pistons, Protege head, lightly ported intake, BP throttle body; everything got rebuilt and I learned that T-gauges and Permatex "cherry syrup" and "grape jelly" are awesome
MSD 6AL and Blaster SS Coil (don't actually need it but it was free and looks cool on my firewall, plus the limiter sounds awesome)
Stock E5 trans (well, I blew the original one up and got a fresh one off Ian/fastivaca)
Civic short shifter with Hurst billet pistol grip knob, complete with 'Fast and Furious' button on the top that I haven't wired to anything yet
Aspire brakes on all 4 corners, Aspire swaybar
Rio GR2s up front, Festy GR2s out back, going to copy Charlie/Advancedynamix's spring setup out back now that I have access to a lathe, but I'm cheaping out and doing eBay sleeves and good springs up front
15" EGT 5spokes (because I got them for free!), wrapped in 195/45 Kumho Ecstas of some sort
A weird exhaust system that I don't really wanna talk about because I don't like it but can't afford to redo it
Other mods:
Stylus front bumper
Toyota Tercel rear bumper
1981 Toyota Hilux 7" round headlights, Grote 2" marker lights in place of stock corners
Grille delete (it looks cool and rads are cheap)
FC RX7 seats
Carpet replaced with spray-on bedliner, rear seat removed, rear seat brackets cut out ('cause I'm hardcore yo)
Battery relocate; plastic box out back vented to the old filler for the rear wiper reservoir
Homemade "ghost" stereo- 2001 Silverado AMFM unit modded for remote mounting of the display and controls, display hacked into factory clock location and power/volume knob mounted between the cluster and dimmer switch, EQ and tuning knobs just chillin' in the glove box.
Thread: http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?
Auto Meter Sport Comp gauges on custom panel that I never bothered to finish (speedo, tach, oil pressure, coolant temp, volts and fuel).
Thread: http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?29785
Alright. So I had this piece of crap third gen Camaro, got it for free, dropped in a 305 and it became a terrible rusty money pit. Never really went fast, never handled well, nearly got me killed (brake issues), cost me a small fortune in fuel and generally made everything bad. I scrapped it and got on with my life, but soon I got the itch to wrench on something again. After the gong show with the Camaro I realized that hot-rodding would be a lot easier with a lighter, somewhat newer, cheaper and much simpler car. Something not as desirable to the mainstream. And definitely something Japanese.
I considered Nissan first. I was still driving my B14 Sentra and hadn't started hating it yet so it made sense. But I can't fit inside a Pulsar or Micra, and couldn't find a Multi (yes I was thinking about souping up a Nissan Multi. Nobody said I was sane.)
Tercel? First gen is impossible to find. Second gen is godawful ugly. Third gen Tercels are going for like $5k around here.
Honda? Dead horse. Hemorrhoids (every ***hole's got one). Might as well buy another Camaro.
So it was down to Swift vs. Festiva. Joined both forums (a step I always take before buying a car nowadays- if the forum sucks generally the car does too) and... wait a tic. You can put the EGT motor in this thing? I was already familiar with how zippy the EGT is (my buddy had one at the time, the very same car my current rims came from), and OH GOD could you imagine what that monster would do in a car that weighed nearly 1000lbs less?! Where do I sign?
Took me another 6 months or so to find a decent Festy. And the one I found was in Edmonton (3.5 hours away). Oh, and the RH LCA/Ball joint popped out so I can't drive it home. And I didn't find out until the last minute that I didn't have access to a truck or car hauler. So my $500 car cost me $650 to get home, once the dispute with U-Haul was settled. WHATEVER I GOT THE CAR NOW WOOO!

Stuck a new LCA and CV shaft in it, k let's drive! What the...
Stock Festiva brakes suck. And the shocks were toast. This thing feels terrible. what am I getting myself into?
An Aspire swap, that's what. Got that done. Now we're talking! it's great!

So great in fact that I drove it for nearly a year on the B3. Still planned to do an engine swap but meh, I'll try to kill this little 1.3 first. It's got 260000 km, it's gotta be close to blowing by now.
I ran this car for just over 30,000km with no air filter, no exhaust (decided to throw the muffler out for fun), never changed the oil (I think I topped it up once, it was low enough to start losing oil pressure in hard cornering), driving like Ricky Bobby and bouncing off the limiter at every available opportunity. It had an aftermarket thermostat (and no heat because of that), so my warmup routine that winter was 5 minutes with a brick on the gas pedal, every day.
So while I was building this strange BP Hybrid I was all:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iS383gEdb_g

And, you know, I tore that engine down when swap time came around. Everything was within factory spec. There was no visible damage. 10 months of me actively trying to kill this engine and according to the service manual it was ready for another 300000km. In a reliability contest I'd stand the Mazda B3 up next to the Toyota 22R, Merc OM617, AMC 262, and Ford 300 any day.
So now it's a LOT faster. With grip issues I pulled 16s in the quarter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwlwoyPn-Dw

(and I REALLY suck at drag racing)
and still gets around 40 MPG. It's getting pretty rusty at this point but none of it is structural and everything is patchable at this point.

(the rest of the pictures I have are on my phone, have to make a second post)

[Tommychu]

Re: Accepting Entries For April FOTM





(was experimenting with 2-tone since I ended up with a red hatch and bumper- going to go back to white. Or more flat black. Not sure.)

[Tommychu]

Aaand I broke the link to my stereo thread. Here it is:

http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?34240-Stealth-radio-build

[Festevil3]

Tommychu that is an awesome car, I love the sticker kit