Ford Festiva - Hybrid How-To - Engine Swap

Cooling
It's unadvisable to use the stock Festiva radiator, as the cooling capacity simply isn't great enough for the kind of heat the turbocharged B6T can provide. Waugh used a '92-'95 Civic radiator, which requires fabrication of upper and lower mounting brackets. An aftermarket performance unit for the Civic would, by extension, work as well. If you insist on using the stock unit, however, you'll have to trim the stock fan shroud and fan blades as they interfere with the turbo compressor discharge pipe.

In order to route coolant from the engine to the radiator and back, we simply bought a mule load of used hoses of all shapes from the junkyard and sliced and diced until we had something that worked.

Other issues
The stock Festiva fuel pump can't handle turbo duty, so it must be ditched for an upgraded unit. Waugh used the stock fuel pump from a 2.2-liter Prelude for his Fastiva; we used a 255 LPH BBK aftermarket unit from JCW Sport Compact for the third-generation RX-7, which is a direct bolt-in.

The Festevil is Born
The first turn of the key yielded a smooth-running, gnarly-sounding miniature pit bull. It runs, but attempting hard use of the vehicle with stock 145/80-12 tires (mind you mounted on factory alloy wheels), dinky solid rotors and blown dampers might not be the best idea. We'll sort these items out in our upcoming series as Project Shoebox is born. We'll start with making the car stop, stick and handle... and then comes the noise.

Swap Basics
*Chassis
At under 1,800 pounds, a Festiva is just over half the weight of a WRX. Festivas sold well, but few love them, so they're readily available and always at a bargain price. Most chassis parts are interchangeable with the Ford Aspire, which, surprisingly, actually has some better brake and suspension parts to offer.

*Engine
Essentially a front-drive turbo version of the Miata's 1.6 liter, the B6T first saw production in 1986 and was produced until 1994, meaning it's available, if not exactly abundant.

This stout little iron-block four-cylinder earned a reputation for its durability on the rally circuit and responds well to modifications. Many people find it easier and just as cheap to buy a complete donor car (Capri XR-2s are more common than 323GTs or GTXs).

*Concerns
The major shortcomings of the Festiva are the drivetrain and the brakes. Festivas came with both four- and five-speed transmissions, neither of which is robust.

Brakes, discs in the front and drums in the rear, are adequate for stock power and nothing more. Solid, tiny, back-mount fixed rotors are very old tech, and were replaced by still tiny but vented floating rotors in the Assfire, er Aspire. All these issues can be solved in a variety of ways; we'll list them and masochistically attempt the most difficult ourselves when this car spawns Project Festiva.

Also, given the popularity of downsized mom-driven combines on the road, physics presents the flyweight Festiva itself as a safety hazard.