Need Advice and Guidance Rebuilding a 1991

[CrookedHalos]

Alright I have a 1991 Festy 5 speed. B3 engine with 130k miles (not sure if actual)
Anyways the maintenance on it has been very bad but the engine starts up and runs like no ones business even in 30 degree weather.
My suspension is pretty much non existent and my exhaust is rotting off.
For the future I plan on putting a BP engine in from an Escort GT along with its transmission. What should i do to restore my struts/springs/brakes and exhaust (inches?) if I plan on going BP.

Also I'm getting 33 MPG.. That seems low to what I'm hearing from other owners. All I do is city driving though with travel never lasting over 20 minutes. I do have an oil pan leak and I haven't done the oil change yet because I'm going to clean that up soon.
Thank you for your time!

[jjk1224]

Need Advice and Guidance Rebuilding a 1991

Is it a daily driver? I vote race land coilovers and Rio brake upgrade! As for exhaust, it is entirely up to you and what you plan on doing to the engine.

[CrookedHalos]

Yes it will be a daily driver, street demon. Haha.
What rio year would I look for and do I need the axles from the aspire or the rio as well?

Umm which race land coil overs am I looking at? Do they require mods to fit? I don't see Festiva on their website. Sorry for being a newb!

[jjk1224]

Need Advice and Guidance Rebuilding a 1991

It's fine, look around the forum a bit, there is a ton of specific information about these parts. As far as I know, VW mkII raceland coil kits work with very little modification. As for the rio brake kit, you want to look for an 02-05 I think. They are a good upgrade because they ditch the captured rotor design that the festiva has and gives you a nice chunky free floated, vented rotor. Be aware though that it will change your bolt pattern and you will require 14"? wheels to fit over the calipers. At that point, I recommend you swap in an aspire real axle/beam. This will allow you to use the same bolt pattern on the rear as the Rio fronts and is also an overall more solid suspension/brake setup compared to the weak festivas.
Like I said, look around a bit. I know there are some good writeups and most of them are recent too.

[CrookedHalos]

Yeah I've looked around and I'm familiar with the aspire swaps. But everything else seems a bit scattered and I was looking for something for BP applications just to make sure ^^. I don't want to get certain suspension upgrade to find out its not compatible with the BP for whatever reason you know?

[jjk1224]

Need Advice and Guidance Rebuilding a 1991

I hear ya, for a DD you might want to look into KYB shocks/struts and run stock sprigs. It would provide a much nicer ride quality but I don't know how the suspension would react to the heavier engine.