Seeing as Tony has invaded this forum with his FRST I thought I'd do the same!
I've got loads of pics of the car from over the 2 years I've owned it but here are just a few
The day back in March 2003 when I first went to see the car (having just paid the deposit to the previous owner
).
mk6 RS2000 rims fitted alongside my mate's old S1
The car was still on standard suspension and was sitting too high for my liking so I decided to stick it on AVO coilovers
However, the car was too low and on my way to a show in May 2003 this happened!
I reset the suspension slightly higher and sorted the front arches out so that it wouldn't happen again!
I decided to take the car to get rolling roaded pretty much as it was when I bought it despite a service and got the following results
That was pretty impressive for the relatively standard spec. the car was running so I decided to stick some bigger brakes on the car, going for Cossie 4x4 280mm discs and calipers up front (thanks to Gadget) and RS2000 mk5/6 rear disc setup (just about perfect for the Fiesta IMO).
When fitting the Cossie brakes I discovered that the RS2000 rims spokes caught on the caliper so I had to get some new wheels
I decided on these ones after trying out all different rims to see what 15s would fit over the wheels without catching on spokes (the actual diameter of the wheels was big enough itself).
The car drove brilliantly for a couple of months after that - but when having a bit of a twist up with a Nissan Almera GTi (having trounced him royally!) I had a bit of a mishap and melted a piston!
I wasn't too sure what I was going to do with the car at the time so decided to take it off the road for a while until I'd got things sorted for it's rebuild. Unfortunately, because the car was sitting outside over the winter the dreaded metal rot started to show where the car's bodywork was weak (in particular around the fuel filler cap, sills and the bottom lip of the bootlid) so I decided that if I was going to rebuild the engine I might as well have the bodywork sorted, smoothed and resprayed at the same time
I decided on the spec. for the engine as well, although it has changed slightly since I got the car back last year
- stage 2 Specialised Engines 1900 CVH bottom end (bought secondhand from someone on fiestaturbo.com)
- CTS stage 2 ERST gearbox with Quaife ATB diff
- Polished and ported (standard) head with Kent CVH34 cam (already in car when I bought it)
- Felpro head gasket
- stage 2 hybrid T3 with ERST manifold
- Pace chargecooler (already fitted to the car after having it rolling roaded)
- Mongoose stainless steel exhaust (to replace the Scorpion one the car came with)
I had spoken with Gadget about my management options and a complete kit for converting my car to Cossie management came up at a reasonable price so I decided to take the plunge
I got the car back from having the bodywork done and was chuffed with how it looked
I then drove the car up to Gadget who promptly fitted the Cossie management kit that I had bought
Here's a pic of the engine after his handy work (whilst the car was off the road I'd also bought loads of shiny bits for my engine bay too!)
With the management now fitted I decided to install the prototype car computer system into my car (as I'm currently setting up my own business for supplying and installing these systems
)
(please excuse the wires in the last picture - as I'm testing out so many components on the system I get lazy when tidying up as I know I'm going to have to undo them all again anyway!)
With all of this done I took the car up to Grove Garage to get mapped but the news wasn't good!
The chargecooler wasn't going to be anywhere near good enough for the engine and turbo setup, and the turbo itself had a piddly little .36 exhaust housing on it which was going to strangle the turbo of the power it could provide.
So back to the drawing board and having seriously run out of spare cash to spend on the car I decided to take it off the road whilst I arranged for the money. During this time I decided that the Cossie rims were too much of a bind with all of the rubbing so they were sold pretty soon after and replaced with the 15s I had been running previously. It's a shame as the Cossie rims looked great but the 15s make the car handle the way it should - brilliantly!
This little lot arrived on my doorstep shortly afterwards
Pro Alloy single pass front mounted intercooler with SPAL fan and hoses and a Turbo Technics .48 exhaust housing for my T3
During all the mucking about with the turbo I found the rad had got a bit of a crack in it and was weeping slightly so I started putting the feelers out for a new one. As luck would have it a friend of mine from fiestaturbo.com had a nearly new XR2i rad going spare which he gave to me for free :thumbsup: Because I was going to be running a front mounted intercooler it didn't matter about the extra width of the rad compared to the standard FRST one and also because it had a thinner core it meant there was more room between the rad and the actuator bracket on the T3
T3 and manifold wrapped up
New Alcon 6 paddle clutch I decided to fit before mapping (I was running an AP fast road clutch before).
The car with the new intercooler and rad fitted along with extra lower hole in the front bumper to allow air to the cooler :moil:
The car doesn't look so great there - the lower hole needs meshing up (which I'm sorting out at the moment) and the suspension is still set for running on the Cossie rims. I've reset the front ride height now for running on 15s and the tyres could do with a good clean up too.
The car is now up at Grove Garage being mapped - I'll let you all know how it drives when I get it back next weekend!
Thanks for taking the time out to read all of this!
Andy
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