Stock festy brakes sufficient?

[Basement_Modder]

I was wondering if, with an escort GT MC swap, new pads, rotors, drums, and shoes, festiva brakes would be good enough to for stopping with a BP engine swap? I want to keep the 4x114.3 because that opens the door for a capri swap without changing rims. (I will be upgrading those)

I will probably get 'Skeeter's Keeper'-style coilovers so no need to worry about that.

So will they be good enough?

[GenevaDirt]

working properly I would think they would be ok till you could do the swap.

[TominMO]

Depends on how you drive. For the kind of spirited driving your engine swap will permit, I'd say no, so just be more careful until you do the brake swap. When I upgraded to Capri XR2 front brakes, I finally felt secure using my turboed B6.

[Aaronbrook37]

It'll work just fine. People run the Festiva booster and MC with BP swaps and no problems at all. It's all driving habits to be honest. A BP doesn't actually warrant more brake power short of the increase in car weight... it's mainly how you drive the new motor that will affect this obviously. However, I'd think the master cylinder will be a little bit big for the stock Festiva brakes. Your pedal is going to be pretty touchy and the brakes will engage really quickly. The whole point of the Escort GT is to help compensate for larger-than-OEM brakes as I'm sure you know. Have you already purchased and installed these new Festiva brake parts? How soon would the Capri upgrade be theoretically?

NINJA EDIT: Yeah, basically what Tom said.

[Grey Vw]

Depends on how you drive. For the kind of spirited driving your engine swap will permit, I'd say no, so just be more careful until you do the brake swap. When I upgraded to Capri XR2 front brakes, I finally felt secure using my turboed B6.

Do you have a bigger MC? I have capri brakes and they are really soft.

[Basement_Modder]

The idea was to make the brakes really touchy lol. I don't have the said brake parts yet, but if I got something along the lines of vented rotors and top-of-the-line pads/ shoes, would they work nearly as well as stock aspire brakes?

(BTW, most of this is me being really cheap. XD)

[Aaronbrook37]

The idea was to make the brakes really touchy lol. I don't have the said brake parts yet, but if I got something along the lines of vented rotors and top-of-the-line pads/ shoes, would they work nearly as well as stock aspire brakes?

(BTW, most of this is me being really cheap. XD)

You know how the V8 guys say there's no replacement for displacement? The same is true for brakes... but with pad surface area and rotors. Check it out... this is all pulled right from Ebay and parts catalogs.

Festiva: 218.5mm by 11.0-13.0mm thickness with a weight of 7.5lbs. (SOLID)
AspireM: 234.8mm by 16.0-18.0mm thickness with a weight of 8.5lbs. (SOLID)
AspireA: 234.8mm by 20.0-22.0mm thickness with a weight of 10lbs. (VENTED)
EGT: 257.0mm by 20.0-22.0mm thickness with a weight of 12.5lbs. (VENTED)
CXR2: 259.7mm by 16.0-18.0mm thickness with a weight of 10lbs. (SOLID)

You can't get vented rotors for a Festiva or a Capri application. They're too skinny. You could get drilled and slotted... but that won't actually increase your stopping power much to be honest. Top of the line pads can't make up for the fact that Festiva brakes are still wimpy for performance applications. It's a sub-1750lb grocery getter with 60 horsepower, so that's to be expected. That's why we upgrade anyway haha.

What you accomplish from upgrading the brakes is a couple of things:

-Pad surface area. This is what stops the car obviously... the more bite, the better.
-Piston size and number. This is obvious... bigger and more numerous pistons are found in sports cars. Look at FD RX-7's for example.
-Thickness of rotor. This plays a huge role both in preventing warping, dissipating heat, and providing strength.
-Weight of brake assembly. It's sprung weight, yes... so it'll kill the fuel economy a little bit... but it's a safety thing.

[FestYboy]

Depends on how you drive. For the kind of spirited driving your engine swap will permit, I'd say no, so just be more careful until you do the brake swap. When I upgraded to Capri XR2 front brakes, I finally felt secure using my turboed B6.

so how do you like them now?

Do you have a bigger MC? I have capri brakes and they are really soft.

i run the festy MC with the capri swap and have a VERY firm pedal, i suspect you have some traped air and/or soft hoses that are expanding while applying the brakes, do a thurough inspection.

Festiva: 218.5mm by 11.0-13.0mm thickness with a weight of 7.5lbs. (SOLID)
AspireM: 234.8mm by 16.0-18.0mm thickness with a weight of 8.5lbs. (SOLID)
AspireA: 234.8mm by 20.0-22.0mm thickness with a weight of 10lbs. (VENTED)
EGT: 257.0mm by 20.0-22.0mm thickness with a weight of 12.5lbs. (VENTED)
CXR2: 259.7mm by 16.0-18.0mm thickness with a weight of 10lbs. (SOLID)

You can't get vented rotors for a Festiva or a Capri application.

wrong, BOTH XR2 and n/a capris have VENTED rotors (as do all generations of 323). need to check your evil bay sources. i suggest verifing parts and descriptions with RockAuto, they havn't failed me yet.

[Safety Guy]

I only run the B6 swap in both manual and auto applications. I would not want to run either one for long with stock brakes.

B3 Festivas with good stock brakes do okay for most driving, and if you are always a slow, careful driver, you might not need an Aspire brake swap with a B6. But then, why did you swap in a B6?

If you're getting a BP, double the trouble!

I'd get the Capri brake swap first and drive it with the stock B3 until you do the BP swap. Lots safer!

Karl

[TominMO]

Do you have a bigger MC? I have capri brakes and they are really soft.

so how do you like them now?

i run the festy MC with the capri swap and have a VERY firm pedal, i suspect you have some traped air and/or soft hoses that are expanding while applying the brakes, do a thurough inspection.

I have the Festiva MC and am happy with the brakes. This MC is fairly new, so I don't want to go out and buy an Aspire one. In fact I wonder if having the Aspire MC with the XR2 brakes would be too much, more prone to lockup, so I'll stick with this setup. For the same reason, I sold off my stainless brake hoses, because I wanted some expansion from the stock rubber hoses, for more control and less of an on/off feel to the brakes.