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Hey all, I am new here and somewhat new to the Festiva. Name is Phil and I'm a KIA technician here in Medford, Oregon.
ANYWAYS. Little bit of backstory. Friend of mine bought a Festiva from a dealership I worked at in California a few years ago (used) and soon found out about swaps and whatnot through his own internet research. Well turns out his motor would go BOOM after just a month or two and so he swapped the 1.3 out for the 1.6 (cheaper at the time then doing a BP-t) and then unfortunately would loose all gears in a matter of about ten minutes about a week after this, and swapped out the 4-speed for a 5-speed. He kept this car and modified it with exhaust and a few minor intake modifications (more like a mesh screen over the carb!) and managed to suprise everyone (including myself) in our street-race get togethers by beating down on Civics and 300zx's. I never thought the car could do that!
Now my story!
So now I live here in Oregon, and wrecked my '05 KIA spectra5 (another long story) and was forced to buy a cheap car. I came across a 1990 Festiva, that was in need of soem repair. The car ran, but sometimes dies out (and still does, havent had the chance to get at that yet) and the trans basically had all its gears but each one was missing, well, a few teeth. A few other electrical problems existed and have been fixed (i.e- inop guages, lights, and horn). The previous owner had found a good replacement 5-speed for it and it was sitting in the backseat. I limped it to my shop (hazard lights flashin' and wavin' people past!) and quickly got to work. I changed out the tranny and installed a new clutch and axles (all boots torn and as I would find out clicked REALLY bad when turning) with it. Of course NAPA defeated me again by giving me a axle that would break as I pulled the car out of the shop, and to make matters worse would NOT come out of the tranny. A few diesel truck pickle fork purchases, modifications, and a 10 pound sledgehammer, and we finally got the axle back out after 3 DAYS of fighting it. Of course the car ran INCREDIBLE after all this was finally finished. At first it was a go-have-fun cheapy car and some friends and I took it out to the local off-road park. Thing is so light it went everywhere my buddies 4x4 Toyota's would go. Never got stuck! Well I'm an idiot sometimes and didnt think to wash the engine off, and well the alternator would soon take a dump, and was found to be full of mud. Oops! Well more NAPA parts failures later I was back on the road. So far it's treated me well since then. It needs a new drivers side window regulator (won on e-bay just days ago) and could use a stereo (gotta love that Zune with computer speakers!).
I added cab lights from a '06 Dodge 2500 truck, originally as a joke but also to improve visibility of the tiny car at night around the big trucks around here. They work and come on with the parking/headlights. As for the horn fix, well the pad was present when I bought it but holding on by just "threads." Christmas came around the time it finally fell off (didn't work anyways) and my pop's bought me the airhorn kit from Harbor Frieght for one of my X-Mas gifts. It's hilarious and sounds like (and this is the few different versions people think of) a taco truck, ice cream truck, or clown car. It's loud enough to use as my normal horn and just runs on a momentary switch I installed with the kit.
Well.... That's my story! I hope to find more valuable information here as well as maybe make a few friends. The car is my daily driver and insurance (even with my SR22 OUCH!) is cheaper then any insurance I've EVER paid. It wont be my fast car by any means, but its fun to fool around with and still be dependable on.
Thanks for reading my huge introduction! I will try and post up some pics of the car soon! There are definetly other things wrong with the car but I will get to those with the pics!
Also come to find out the previous owner is registered here! His name is Andrew and he goes by Cancer on here, so if you have seen his Festiva, that is mine now! Haha.
ANYWAYS. Little bit of backstory. Friend of mine bought a Festiva from a dealership I worked at in California a few years ago (used) and soon found out about swaps and whatnot through his own internet research. Well turns out his motor would go BOOM after just a month or two and so he swapped the 1.3 out for the 1.6 (cheaper at the time then doing a BP-t) and then unfortunately would loose all gears in a matter of about ten minutes about a week after this, and swapped out the 4-speed for a 5-speed. He kept this car and modified it with exhaust and a few minor intake modifications (more like a mesh screen over the carb!) and managed to suprise everyone (including myself) in our street-race get togethers by beating down on Civics and 300zx's. I never thought the car could do that!
Now my story!
So now I live here in Oregon, and wrecked my '05 KIA spectra5 (another long story) and was forced to buy a cheap car. I came across a 1990 Festiva, that was in need of soem repair. The car ran, but sometimes dies out (and still does, havent had the chance to get at that yet) and the trans basically had all its gears but each one was missing, well, a few teeth. A few other electrical problems existed and have been fixed (i.e- inop guages, lights, and horn). The previous owner had found a good replacement 5-speed for it and it was sitting in the backseat. I limped it to my shop (hazard lights flashin' and wavin' people past!) and quickly got to work. I changed out the tranny and installed a new clutch and axles (all boots torn and as I would find out clicked REALLY bad when turning) with it. Of course NAPA defeated me again by giving me a axle that would break as I pulled the car out of the shop, and to make matters worse would NOT come out of the tranny. A few diesel truck pickle fork purchases, modifications, and a 10 pound sledgehammer, and we finally got the axle back out after 3 DAYS of fighting it. Of course the car ran INCREDIBLE after all this was finally finished. At first it was a go-have-fun cheapy car and some friends and I took it out to the local off-road park. Thing is so light it went everywhere my buddies 4x4 Toyota's would go. Never got stuck! Well I'm an idiot sometimes and didnt think to wash the engine off, and well the alternator would soon take a dump, and was found to be full of mud. Oops! Well more NAPA parts failures later I was back on the road. So far it's treated me well since then. It needs a new drivers side window regulator (won on e-bay just days ago) and could use a stereo (gotta love that Zune with computer speakers!).
I added cab lights from a '06 Dodge 2500 truck, originally as a joke but also to improve visibility of the tiny car at night around the big trucks around here. They work and come on with the parking/headlights. As for the horn fix, well the pad was present when I bought it but holding on by just "threads." Christmas came around the time it finally fell off (didn't work anyways) and my pop's bought me the airhorn kit from Harbor Frieght for one of my X-Mas gifts. It's hilarious and sounds like (and this is the few different versions people think of) a taco truck, ice cream truck, or clown car. It's loud enough to use as my normal horn and just runs on a momentary switch I installed with the kit.
Well.... That's my story! I hope to find more valuable information here as well as maybe make a few friends. The car is my daily driver and insurance (even with my SR22 OUCH!) is cheaper then any insurance I've EVER paid. It wont be my fast car by any means, but its fun to fool around with and still be dependable on.
Thanks for reading my huge introduction! I will try and post up some pics of the car soon! There are definetly other things wrong with the car but I will get to those with the pics!
Also come to find out the previous owner is registered here! His name is Andrew and he goes by Cancer on here, so if you have seen his Festiva, that is mine now! Haha.
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I guess Ill focus on my second goal now, making it on the ffc calendar.
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