advice on festy-aspire dirt race car

[jaketlong11]

so a close friend of mine has stoped quad racing and now has started pure-stock racing. i want to bring a festy to the playing field because of weight and power-to-weight ratio. need advice on whether to use an aspire or festy because im tired of seeing these non road worthy ones on CL. another thing i need advice on is that i want to port the head and do anything else that will "appear" stock but adds HP.

[bhazard]

Festiva is the clear winner here. Just find one thats already too far gone to be considered "nice".

If you can get away with it, swap in a first gen B6. Looks identical to a B3.

[jaketlong11]

nice idea^ thank you very much would it help to shave the number off the block or do you think they would even know anything about the car never seen one race here before but i may race at heagerstown maryland also...

[festyxfi]

I've got a good buddy who lives in Waynesboro PA, right up the road from Hagerstown. He knows a lot about festivas, I can put you in touch with him.

nice idea^ thank you very much would it help to shave the number off the block or do you think they would even know anything about the car never seen one race here before but i may race at heagerstown maryland also...

[jaketlong11]

that would be very nice festyxfi

[Festy46]

Read your rules. If the rules say "any stock 4 cylinder FWD car", then you can probably get away with swapping engines as long as you can say the engine is "stock". If the rules state "the engine must be make, year, and model stock for that car", then you are pretty much stuck, unless you want to deliberately cheat. We always made use of any gray areas in the rules. If it doesn't strictly forbid using something, then we assume we can use/do it until the tech guy says we can't. We ran a B8-ME most of the time and had the tech guy actually comment that "we had such a small engine". The single cam B8-ME does look small compared to a DOHC engine with the wide valve cover.

Even with the B8-ME it's hard to be competitive any more with the newer generation of 4 cylinder cars pumping out way over a 100 hp and having much better suspension.

[jaketlong11]

theres no DOHC at my track. mostly cavilers and a probe.

[jaketlong11]

another question should i use an auto or a manual trans?

[jayber]

manual if you have the option

[jaketlong11]

got it thanks

[Festy46]

theres no DOHC at my track. mostly cavilers and a probe.

A B8-ME powered Festy can beat pre -2000 Cavaliers and Probes. Newer Cavaliers are going to be tough. We ran a race at Woodhull, NY several years ago against a 2004 Cavalier and a Probe (plus other cars). This was the first time we ever ran at that track. We beat everything but the 2004 Cavalier. At the end of the race during the interview, the driver bragged that his car was "totally bone stock". It was a two year old car that had 45,000 miles on it that had been rolled and declared "totalled" by the insurance company. Here's a link to that race: http://www.jmflumber.com/xtrafiles/Woodhull.mpg

[WTFestiva]

Suspension. I didn't believe in rally suspension until i tested it out in my friends car, and now i MUST HAVE IT. You will feel planted and have the power you're trying to use in your motor without all the craziness of the potholes and ruts you usually feel. It'll be bouncy as all get out when you drive it around on the streets, but amazing on dirt and gravel.