Easy upgrades

[Advancedynamix]

The Festiva is a different kind of car. They are fun to drive and work on. They aren't intimidating like most newer cars can be, and the parts for them are still pretty easy to get and relatively inexpensive.
That's awesome that your dad is excited about this car and is helping you out with it, your lucky to have that!

[bhazard]

Like others have said first thing is to get it into good shape in stock form.

Some mods lead to other mods. An example is the brake swap. You will have to get better wheels and tires then.

Given your age, and not to discriminate, but I'd recommend focusing on handling and braking well before adding power. But at the same time you're starting off with a carbureted engine and those can be very troublesome. Personally if I were stuck with that I would definitely look into the carb swaps. That's more of a reliability thing than power though.

[lessersivad]

Like others have said first thing is to get it into good shape in stock form.

Some mods lead to other mods. An example is the brake swap. You will have to get better wheels and tires then.

Given your age, and not to discriminate, but I'd recommend focusing on handling and braking well before adding power. But at the same time you're starting off with a carbureted engine and those can be very troublesome. Personally if I were stuck with that I would definitely look into the carb swaps. That's more of a reliability thing than power though.

No carb. It's a '89 automatic. The 'bastard' year.

[Studebaker]

He has a 89 auto which is fuel injection. Show this thread to your father. After general maintance, a brake upgrade is a must.
If it was mine, a auto to manual trans swap would be the second upgrade.

[bhazard]

Ah I didn't see that. Saw "89 L" and assumed manual trans.

[w4rkry]

Escort Dome Light. Pretty easy mod, gives better interior lighting by adding maplights. There is a how-to somewhere, hopefully with working pictures.

One of the easiest mods you can do.

[Sleeper]

Fist thing you should do is buy a haynes repair manual. I just bought one off amazon... it's not a "mod" but will give you the knowledge to do many mods. If i were inyour shoes i would do the dome light swap and the honda short shifter as well as the advanced shifter linkage mod. Also repairing any rust is very important.

[TominMO]

Escort Dome Light. Pretty easy mod, gives better interior lighting by adding maplights. There is a how-to somewhere, hopefully with working pictures.

One of the easiest mods you can do.

Or just swap in one of the new LED lights available for dome lights. Super-bright white light.

[w4rkry]

Or just swap in one of the new LED lights available for dome lights. Super-bright white light.

I did both! Escort Map lights and bright LEDs in the rear. I may even be getting LEDs into the maplight portion. If it works out, I will make a write-up.

[TominMO]

I did both! Escort Map lights and bright LEDs in the rear. I may even be getting LEDs into the maplight portion. If it works out, I will make a write-up.

I did both too. Interested to see the writeup for the map lights.

[jawja jim]

I did both! Escort Map lights and bright LEDs in the rear. I may even be getting LEDs into the maplight portion. If it works out, I will make a write-up.

The LEDs I put in my map lights were a disappointment, didn't focus properly or something, so I put regular lights back. Putting adhesive backed foil tape in the maps light area as a reflector does help the regular bulbs, though.

[firebush357]

I put the LED's in my Map Lights but that was before I installed it so I don't know what it looks like with regular bulbs. I like the white light compared to the regular bulbs but I can say that they do not focus light in one spot very well. I get all of my LED's from Superbrightleds.com because they have a vehicle selector so you always get the correct bulb. You can replace every bulb in the vehicle with LED's now.

[w4rkry]

I am converting it to actual spot LEDs with lenses, instead of those drop in bulbs that don't focus well. Should end up being crazy bright

[1990new]

And don't forget the hood struts to make life easier.
http://www.fordfestiva.com/forums/sh...ht=hood+struts

[Advancedynamix]

+1 on hood struts! I get a warm fuzzy feeling every time I pop my hood and don't need to fuss with the clumsy rod.