StanceStiva, How to stance a Festiva?

[16Jared16]

Hey guys, I recently picked up a 1988 Festiva LX on the cheap and I know this is really ricey idea but id love to stance it out and take it to car meets and laugh at all the funny looks ill get. Only problem is ive been a muscle car guy pretty much my entire life and never really done much suspension work. Yeah I have replaced struts and shocks but that's about it, to be honest ive never even installed lowering springs before. How hard and expensive would it be to lower the car and camber it out a good bit?
My game plan would be to pick up some cheap deep dish wheels, fender flares, lowering springs (or cut the springs) and camber the rear wheels as much as possible. Is there even any camber kits out there for Festivas?

Thanks and hopefully ill be starting a build thread soon!

[Rick the Quick]

Welcome to the Forum Jared. There are a lot of reasons to lower and camber your car. Doing it for funny looks seems like it would be at the bottom of my list but if you are so inclined you will find the information here. Festivas can be very competent cars with a little bit of effort. You may not know it but your little B3 is in the Mazda B family. There are a bunch of readily available engines that can be swapped into it. At 1700-1800 lbs., 200 horsepower will make for a fast little car. As for lowering and cambering, it has all been done. It may be a bit harder to modify than a Honda Civic in the sense that modifications are usually not out of the box bolt on parts but often parts from other brands of cars modified to fit and work on the Festiva. VW coil over shocks are fairly easy to modify to fit the Festy. This is one way of lowering your car. Some guys slot their front struts to de-camber. There are also strut mounts that can de-camber. There's a guy on here (skeeterskeeper /Nate) that makes a nice kit to de-camber the rear. If you go to the Forum and scroll down to "custom modifications" and look for a link for "suspension, brakes and wheels" you will find the information you are looking for. Two good reads are Advanced Suspension by Advancedynamix and Ultimate Street Suspension by Mike Mounlio. These two guys have built some real fine machines. There's a good video on You Tube titled "Chasing a Stupid Fast Festiva" It's filmed with the camera in a Dodge Viper that is chasing a Festiva around a road course. The Festiva happens to belong to Charlie, the Advancedynamix guy. The big bad Viper V-10 finally manages to pass Charlie only to overshoot the next turn. As he does there goes Charlie (undoubtedly laughing) in his Festiva. I bet the Viper driver wouldn't give your car a funny look if he saw it. There are a couple other guys on here that posted videos from the drag strip with their cars beating plenty of so called muscle cars with huge engines. I'm one of the senior guys on here and have owned dozens of so called muscle cars and can honestly say as far as overall driving I have no doubts that a properly modified Festiva will outrun most of the vintage cars. My 440 Challenger could sure smoke the tires, never could get it to hook up right. Never had it at the strip but doubt if it could get down in the 13's. The drum brakes were down right dangerous as was the feeble handling. Then factor in the single digit gas mileage and the unbearable heat in the summer (440's throw out a lot of heat) and the ridiculous rpms it turned on the highway with it's 3:90 gears and you have a car that turns a lot of heads and sounds cool but as far as driving is a real pos. It was however a good investment and I did like most of those cars make a bunch of money on it. Good luck with your car and to those that give it funny looks they are in my opinion ignorant.

[ryanprins13]

You can buy suspension to lower the festiva and get -5deg camber in the rear. -3.5 up front is still common though. With that setup and a well tuned b6t you can beat a 2018 shelby gt350r around a tighter track. That was done in arizona in febuary, the festiva gained about a second per lap for 3 laps on a 2min course before the mustang left the track.
Your not going to beat that same mustang in a drag race unless you spend a lot of money, but around a track you can keep up with/beat mustangs, vipers, camaros and so on easily enough.
There is a 9.5sec 1/4mile festiva but thats a lot of work and money....

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[ryanprins13]

I have suprisingly few photos of cambered festivas or ones with nice wheels on my phone but here are a couple.

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[16Jared16]

Thanks for all the help man! Ill go check those write ups right away, but i'm not really trying to make it into a track car as of right now. Maybe in the future ill do a b6 or bp swap but for now I just want to getting the little b3 in tip top shape and slam the car and take it to some local meets. I have actually seen the video of the Festiva beating the viper around the road course before, that video is one of the main reasons I looked at Festivas when looking for an affordable little project car to troll around in!

[16Jared16]

I have suprisingly few photos of cambered festivas or ones with nice wheels on my phone but here are a couple.

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Thanks for the pictures, yeah this is right on the same route I would like to take the car!

[bhazard]

In that case you will inadvertently be turning your festiva into a track car. Not such a bad thing.

[Festiver]

It's tough to really slam these cars without the unibody getting in the way I've run -5° in the front with no major issues just faster suspension wear I've gotten the car down to maybe 3-3.5" from trans crossmember to ground

but I was in the same field as you looking to just have a goofy car then I fell in love with how it drove and its capabilities you probably will too it's easy to fall for these things

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[skeeters_keeper]

I'm in the process of making the -5 plate group buy now, it's pretty noticeable but not quite VW boi crazy. If you want to get in on a set sign up here:

https://fordfestiva.com/forums/showthread.php?61673-5deg-Rear-Camber-Plates