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February's FOTM winner is a personal favorite of mine. It's great to see A Festiva being used in so many different forms of competition. So, without further ado, congratulations to WTFestiva!
I'll throw in on this as its our car's 5 year anniversary being risen from the dead...
TL/DR: Acquired running 1992 Ford Festiva by chance for $200 for the 100 Acre Wood Rally, ended up loving it, buying a couple more, and now play with cars and do most of my family mechanic work in my free time.
Backstory:
We have a rally race that comes to town called the 100 Acre Wood Rally, if you don't know what rally racing is here's a video from our first race (we made the highlight at 2:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eayk3bRiR10
We'd been volunteering to help manage crowds and block off roads at these events for about 5 years at that time. Ever year we'd say "Let's build our own car!" but we never had the guts to go ahead with it. Then one fateful October, a friend of ours who had been with us at the events told us he knew a guy who had a running hatchback, and just wanted to get rid of it. The price? $200. At the time I was still in college, and my brother in high school, so $200 was a kick of money for us since we had no idea what we were up against car-wise. I knew how to change oil, my brother could fix a spare, and that was the extent of our knowledge. My dad took my brother to go see the car. It had been "sitting for a couple years" they jumped it and it actually started! We bought it right then and there.
Here's a picture when we picked it up in the storage lot.
With that we started prepping the car for racing. When I say preparing, I mean taking all the bolts out and getting the car as stripped down as we can so our friend could weld in a cage for us. We had a month until the race and all bets were against us... a couple weeks went by with 40 hours of work and 40 in the car...
A month Later (FEB 2012) we finished in the parking lot while waiting for the inspector to come tech out our car. The drivetrain was still stock at this time. Here's a couple pictures from that first race.
Here it is all shiny and ready to race, before all the mishaps which ill talk about later...
Starting its first race stage!
Couple of good action shots.
you might notice our light bar was all screwed up, that's because we nailed a tree on an off the 2nd day.
Through the years we've done a number of rallys and rallycrosses in Missouri and as far north as Minnesota. And performed a number of different mods which I'll list later, for now moar pikchers!
Here's another mishap
... and another... IN THE SNOW
Here's a pic from our BP swap
and here's a couple good action shots again:
At this point the post is getting quite long so here's the current mods to wrap it up!
Body: 1992 L
Engine: 1.8 BP
Transmission: Capri G5M
Wiring: BP Performance Specialty's Evo Harness
Injectors: KA injection 600cc injectors
Body wiring: custom harness
Roll Cage: 6 point FIA by Bill Cannon's Cages
Brakes: Aspire Swapped (fronts and rear)
Suspension: Stock with upgraded springs
Seats: Speedaddy?
Belts/Harness: Geforce 5 point
Intercom system
It's been fun learning cars and with all the help in this forum, it's been a blast. I hope to setup my next project soon (Street/track day car) and post pics of it soon!
Thanks for reading.
I'll throw in on this as its our car's 5 year anniversary being risen from the dead...
TL/DR: Acquired running 1992 Ford Festiva by chance for $200 for the 100 Acre Wood Rally, ended up loving it, buying a couple more, and now play with cars and do most of my family mechanic work in my free time.
Backstory:
We have a rally race that comes to town called the 100 Acre Wood Rally, if you don't know what rally racing is here's a video from our first race (we made the highlight at 2:50)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eayk3bRiR10
We'd been volunteering to help manage crowds and block off roads at these events for about 5 years at that time. Ever year we'd say "Let's build our own car!" but we never had the guts to go ahead with it. Then one fateful October, a friend of ours who had been with us at the events told us he knew a guy who had a running hatchback, and just wanted to get rid of it. The price? $200. At the time I was still in college, and my brother in high school, so $200 was a kick of money for us since we had no idea what we were up against car-wise. I knew how to change oil, my brother could fix a spare, and that was the extent of our knowledge. My dad took my brother to go see the car. It had been "sitting for a couple years" they jumped it and it actually started! We bought it right then and there.
Here's a picture when we picked it up in the storage lot.
With that we started prepping the car for racing. When I say preparing, I mean taking all the bolts out and getting the car as stripped down as we can so our friend could weld in a cage for us. We had a month until the race and all bets were against us... a couple weeks went by with 40 hours of work and 40 in the car...
A month Later (FEB 2012) we finished in the parking lot while waiting for the inspector to come tech out our car. The drivetrain was still stock at this time. Here's a couple pictures from that first race.
Here it is all shiny and ready to race, before all the mishaps which ill talk about later...
Starting its first race stage!
Couple of good action shots.
you might notice our light bar was all screwed up, that's because we nailed a tree on an off the 2nd day.
Through the years we've done a number of rallys and rallycrosses in Missouri and as far north as Minnesota. And performed a number of different mods which I'll list later, for now moar pikchers!
Here's another mishap
... and another... IN THE SNOW
Here's a pic from our BP swap
and here's a couple good action shots again:
At this point the post is getting quite long so here's the current mods to wrap it up!
Body: 1992 L
Engine: 1.8 BP
Transmission: Capri G5M
Wiring: BP Performance Specialty's Evo Harness
Injectors: KA injection 600cc injectors
Body wiring: custom harness
Roll Cage: 6 point FIA by Bill Cannon's Cages
Brakes: Aspire Swapped (fronts and rear)
Suspension: Stock with upgraded springs
Seats: Speedaddy?
Belts/Harness: Geforce 5 point
Intercom system
It's been fun learning cars and with all the help in this forum, it's been a blast. I hope to setup my next project soon (Street/track day car) and post pics of it soon!
Thanks for reading.
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