Should I buy this Escort GT?

[fudge]

What do you guys think of this car? and in general when I'm looking for cars to swap engines with how many miles is too many miles?

heres the ad: https://fredericksburg.craigslist.or...862559751.html
edit: just realized its an automatic and I want to keep my car manual, so I probably wont get it lol

oh also I saw this ad for this protege and it has a sun roof so it should have a mazda BP: https://richmond.craigslist.org/cto/5841612271.html

just always looking for cars and I have a little money saved up so I am in the market. Thanks for looking

[firebush357]

Looks like a decent deal to me. I just bought a XR2 Capri blind for $400 and the engine has 187K miles on it. You could use a lot of stuff off of this car for the Festiva. The seats are a really good easy swap and the engine isn't difficult to swap from what I have read.

If it were me I would buy the Escort.

[fudge]

Right now I'm talking to the guy about the protege, that is closer to me and cheaper. also it has less miles, I have some nice leather-backed seats that I got from a festiva in a junkyard so i dunno about the seats but I could definitely grab some other goodies. Does anyone know what transmission a manual 1993 mazda protege lx uses and if I can use that in my festiva?

[fudge]

heres a pic of the protege engine, I think I am going to buy this car later this week.
Mazda BP.jpg

[firebush357]

Is that Duct Tape on the intake hose? I would try to get a picture of the Engine on the Escort before you make a decision. The Protege looks like it has had a Hard life for only 133k miles on it.

[firebush357]

The Protege does say make an offer so you can probably get it for around 250 so that might be the better deal.

Good Luck!

[Festiver]

The lx has a hydro g series I'm not sure of the exact trans code you can use this trans and get an adapter off the festiva store to make it a cable

Sent from my XT1585 using Tapatalk

[fudge]

I think I want to buy a car that has an engine and transmission so I'm gonna offer the guy $300 and if he says no then $350 is fine because he said someone is coming to buy it this weekend but he will sell it to whoever comes first.

Thanks Festiver thats good to know because I just read this guide that said dont use the protege tranny but with the adapter cable its possible!

Thanks for the responses guys Im super excited!

[fudge]

Just got the protege for $350, got a new battery for $48 and then and oil change for $50.
Total so far: $448
I plan on doing the brake swap and the engine swap in one weekend but first I want to upgrade the suspension. So my question now is, what's the best budget suspension upgrade? I saw the ultimate street suspension thread and one by Advancedynamix but those seemed a little more costly. I was just wondering if there was an article that had a cheaper suspension upgrade or just what other options I have in that aspect.

[TominMO]

Just got the protege for $350, got a new battery for $48 and then and oil change for $50.
Total so far: $448
I plan on doing the brake swap and the engine swap in one weekend but first I want to upgrade the suspension. So my question now is, what's the best budget suspension upgrade? I saw the ultimate street suspension thread and one by Advancedynamix but those seemed a little more costly. I was just wondering if there was an article that had a cheaper suspension upgrade or just what other options I have in that aspect.

Cool!

Are you an experienced mechanic? Otherwise, one weekend for the motor/trans might be optimistic.

Suspension upgrade will depend somewhat on what size tires you are using. If the car will be lowered, then you probably will not want to use tall tires, esp. on the rear.

2001- 2002 Rio front struts will do fine, along with heavier springs (like gen1 Miata) to accommodate the BP motor/trans. For the rear, the VW struts with the narrow aftermarket 120# springs, like Advancedynamix's setup, are hard to beat, bang-for-buck. Gives you lots of room for wider wheels/tires, and more leeway in offset too. You can buy top hats pre-made from eBay or use two sizes of washers, about 4-6 of each, from the hardware store to make a top hat.

The front seats will swap too. Not the rails, but everything else.

[fudge]

I am not an experienced mechanic at all. I have a lot of friends who are though and I am hopeful

Right now I am using 175/65/R13 tires but I might switch to the 14 inch rims that came on the protege, or maybe just switch the rear if that works better.

I saw one guy use the rio front struts and his car seemed to sit higher/same and I definitely want mine at least an inch or two lowered. Can I use the springs off of the festiva store? link: https://squareup.com/store/the-festi...wering-springs
Can I use gen 3 VW caddy struts for the rear? I think on the ultimate suspension thread they said you can use the front but idk if you can use the rear too.

Thanks a lot for all of this info man.

[TominMO]

I am not an experienced mechanic at all. I have a lot of friends who are though and I am hopeful

Right now I am using 175/65/R13 tires but I might switch to the 14 inch rims that came on the protege, or maybe just switch the rear if that works better.

I saw one guy use the rio front struts and his car seemed to sit higher/same and I definitely want mine at least an inch or two lowered. Can I use the springs off of the festiva store? link: https://squareup.com/store/the-festi...wering-springs
Can I use gen 3 VW caddy struts for the rear? I think on the ultimate suspension thread they said you can use the front but idk if you can use the rear too.

Thanks a lot for all of this info man.

I would recommend the Rio fronts and VW rears. I'll look for my thread on what I did to use the stock rear Festiva springs. You will need the full-length stock Festiva or Aspire rear springs, not shorter ones. Edit: here's my thread: Cutting my Festy's springs. Post #28 discusses which rear VW strut to buy. Page 9 gets into using the rear VW struts and stock rear Festy springs, which are on my Aspire actually.

On the front, you can use stock Festiva springs, cut 1 - 1.50 coils, at least to get you going. A kwik job with a cutoff wheel. Yes the front Rio springs will be too stiff, especially for the stock motor. The Festiva Store lowering springs might be good for the front, but you will still need narrower coilover springs for the rear, so I'd just cut the stock front ones.

A good rear tire size would be be 165/55-14, like these, which is what I use and love. Absolutely no rear clearance issues with height or width, with any suspension setup I have ever heard of. Almost any tire size works up front, within reason.

Just getting the suspension and tires right will make the car hugely more fun to drive, even before the swap. :-)

One negative side effect of lowering your car: until you get used to it (about 50 hits or so), you will be constantly hitting your head on the open hatch as you bend back up, resulting in colorful language.

Your mechanic friends are still going to have a learning curve if they are not familiar with Festys; but the principles of an engine swap are the same for any car, so hopefully they have experience doing swaps. Recommend a lot of reading up by you on how to do this, if you haven't already.

[fudge]

I really don't want to stick to my stock springs, I don't know how much of a difference it makes because I'm just an average car driver lol. Temporary is ok but I do want new springs that aren't 24 years old. or Maybe you meant buying festiva/aspire springs and cutting them.
I just looked back to the ultimate street suspension guide and it says use the VW Golf mk2 coilovers for the front.
My question is, I don't know if struts are normally sold in sets of 4 but, could I get the same VW coilovers or struts for the front and back? Not like both front on front and back but like say VW caddy mk3 front struts or coilovers for the front and VW caddy mk3 rear struts or coilovers for the back?
I like the idea of having taller tires in the back to make my car lean forward, that sounds sick. I did a calculator and the 165/55/r14 is smaller than my current 175/60/r13, generally I think of bigger rim = bigger tire so would I still get this tire size and use those up front or get a bigger tire size for the 14 inches for the back?

I read some of the thread but could I ask you a big favor in your thread: http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...-springs/page9
what was the setup you ended up using for the front and rear specifically and what was the setup in the pictures specifically? thanks

[TominMO]

Festiva:
Front is Rio struts and Festiva front springs, cut one coil. (Should have done 1.25 coils IMO.)
Rear is VW Bilsteins with stock uncut Festiva rear springs. Expensive struts; they damp very well but IMO not worth the huge cost difference over the VW KYBs, for a daily driver.

Aspire:
Front is Aspire KYBs and springs cut one coil.
Rear is VW KYBs as per Advancedynamix, with 10" long 105# springs (he recommends 120#, but generally the car is empty, so I went with 105).

To be clear, I recommend the setup on the rear of my Aspire, and the front on my Festiva. You could go with stock Miata front springs on the front with the Rio struts, for 150# springs.

I'm going to swap my rear setups between the two cars; makes more sense.
--When the Bilsteins go on the Aspire, they will get 120# coilover springs.
--The Festiva will then have 105# springs front and rear. I have replaced my normal heavy Festy battery with a tiny Powersports battery, taking maybe 30# out of the engine bay. My motor is just a SOHC B6 with a built head, so no extra weight there. In the rear I have no rear seat, and have moved the spare tire to behind the front pass. seat for a lighter rear, thereby effectively increasing the spring rate a little.

I may still go with front Miata springs on one or both cars, we'll see.

[fudge]

sweet I'll definitely go with the VW struts in the rear with 120# springs. I'm kinda skeptical on using front rio struts because I want my car to sit lower and of the festivas I've seen with rio struts they seem to sit the same/higher for bigger wheels. is this a silly thing to think? with the rio front struts and 150# springs will my car sit lower? I don't want it to be slammed but I want to be a lil lower and pass the shoe test haha. here is a pic of how my car sits that I took when I got home today.
IMG_2284.jpg
If it's not too much to ask could you post a pic of how your festiva sits? you don't have to if you don't wanna. I'm excited to do all this soon!