Aspire Rack, will it fit my 92 festiva.

[scartigue]

Need a new Rack and pinion on my festiva, found a 97 Aspire with good rack and good motor. Can I used either or both? Thanks guys!

[shadetree]

Yes. They will both fit .
Rack will work but inner and outer tyrods are dif .
Engine will work intake will not ,that must be swapped from your old engine .

[Bert]

I believe the steering rack will work (somebody on here will be able to confirm that). Use a tape measure to determine whether the rack mounting brackets are located same as a Festy and do the same for where the steering connection is. I'm assuming this is a non-power steering setup otherwise you're in for more work than it's worth.

Aspire engines (the long block) are same as Festy but the peripherals; electrics and fuel injection etc are different. 97 is an OBDII setup whereas the Festys only had OBDI, at best. You'll have to swap over all the Festy stuff on to the Aspire engine. I can't confirm this but the roller rocker arms on the newer B3s may generate a few more horsepower. Carb Festys had 58hp, FI 63hp and various sources seem to indicate later model B3s developed 70hp.

Good news now that you have a donor Aspire, consider swapping over the rear trailing arm and the front hubs while you're at it. This site's search feature will bury you with details. The larger, vented and floating front disc rotors are a vast improvement over the bonehead Festy set up and you will also get 100mm wheel nut spacing which means you can readily/cheaply escape from having to use 12 inch tires. Attached pictures are of all the 97 Aspire fixins required to swap over a Festy to superior suspension and brakes.

I retained the use of the Festy handbrake cable on my first swap but if you can salvage the Aspire cable all the better.

[scartigue]

Thanks so much for your input, very helpful both of you.