Ford Focus ST3
Discussion
d kids!
WKZ12 said:
Don't bother with the Mountune kits we had one on the rolling road and it made nowhere near the advertised power and that was on a day where the Dyno was being 'kind' to other cars. My dad was gutted.
Yet my MP260 has two separate dyno printouts, from two different rolling roads, 18 months apart - both showing 262bhp.As it was decent weather, I thought I'd do the wishbones on Saturday - its only 4 bolts each side, it'll be simple, right?
Wrong.
8 fecking hours it took me - although that does include taking the noisy spanner to my balljoint splitter to make it big enough to actually split the balljoint & bending a spanner to fit inside the new wishbone so I could attach the headlamp levelling bracket thingy
Before:
Ahh, so *thats* why I got wheel wobble (video):
After:
Not driven the car too much as I'm waiting until I get alignment done (tomorrow) but from the short drive that I have done, it feels a lot better!
Wrong.
8 fecking hours it took me - although that does include taking the noisy spanner to my balljoint splitter to make it big enough to actually split the balljoint & bending a spanner to fit inside the new wishbone so I could attach the headlamp levelling bracket thingy
Before:
Ahh, so *thats* why I got wheel wobble (video):
After:
Not driven the car too much as I'm waiting until I get alignment done (tomorrow) but from the short drive that I have done, it feels a lot better!
Podie said:
WKZ12 said:
Don't bother with the Mountune kits we had one on the rolling road and it made nowhere near the advertised power and that was on a day where the Dyno was being 'kind' to other cars. My dad was gutted.
Yet my MP260 has two separate dyno printouts, from two different rolling roads, 18 months apart - both showing 262bhp.You might have had air leaks, actuator fault etc (don't rely on the boost gauge). They are usually pretty strong to tuning.
Podie said:
Those hard race wishbones are supposed to be good - be interested to see what you think.
Got the alignment done this morning & took it out for a proper blast.It feels like a whole different car, the steering is so much more immediate & the front end feels much happier to change direction.
Not sure if this is because of the hard race wishbones or just the fact the old ones were buggered, but I'd still recommend them to anyone that's thinking about it!
Thanks for all the comments!
The Alpine head unit was about £260 (I got it here: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-ive-w530bt)
As for the fascia, I cocked up and bought the wrong one (and only realised it was the wrong one after spending £50 on getting it hydrodipped
) as its a pre-facelift model it's a bit iffy in finding the right one , in the end I used something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DFP-07-09-Ford-C-Max-Foc...
All in it probably cost me about £350, by the time I bought the extra leads to connect the ipod & be able to control the headunit from the stalk by the steering wheel.
No more mods as of yet - I'm still skint from doing the brakes & bushes! but I'm very impressed with the hardrace bits.
Annoyingly, I've got really bad brake squeal coming from the rear, so the pads will be coming off & getting copper slip plastered all over the backs & hopefully that should sort it.
I'm off to the Nurburgring next weekend so I'll stick some pictures up when I get back, if you could all keep your fingers crossed that I don't bin it, I'd be very appreciative!
The Alpine head unit was about £260 (I got it here: http://www.caraudiodirect.co.uk/alpine-ive-w530bt)
As for the fascia, I cocked up and bought the wrong one (and only realised it was the wrong one after spending £50 on getting it hydrodipped
) as its a pre-facelift model it's a bit iffy in finding the right one , in the end I used something like this: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/DFP-07-09-Ford-C-Max-Foc...All in it probably cost me about £350, by the time I bought the extra leads to connect the ipod & be able to control the headunit from the stalk by the steering wheel.
No more mods as of yet - I'm still skint from doing the brakes & bushes! but I'm very impressed with the hardrace bits.
Annoyingly, I've got really bad brake squeal coming from the rear, so the pads will be coming off & getting copper slip plastered all over the backs & hopefully that should sort it.
I'm off to the Nurburgring next weekend so I'll stick some pictures up when I get back, if you could all keep your fingers crossed that I don't bin it, I'd be very appreciative!
Well I'm back & didn't stick it into any armco - which is always a bonus!
There appeared to be a massive ST/RS gathering at the ring, there were bloody hundreds of them!
I also spotted a couple of PH stickers - one on the back of a white 1 series that I had a bit of a battle with on track, which was nice!
It was a little bit wet...
but still managed a tarty posing picture
I'm now hunting through the thousands of pictures from the photographers that often lurk around the ring to see if any of them make me look decent!
There appeared to be a massive ST/RS gathering at the ring, there were bloody hundreds of them!
I also spotted a couple of PH stickers - one on the back of a white 1 series that I had a bit of a battle with on track, which was nice!
It was a little bit wet...
but still managed a tarty posing picture
I'm now hunting through the thousands of pictures from the photographers that often lurk around the ring to see if any of them make me look decent!
Finally found a couple of photos that were taken by people at the 'ring, I'm pretty chuffed:
Had an interesting weekend, I was driving on friday night and about 2 miles from home & I hear a horrible squeaking noise that sounded like a cross between a belt forcing itself over a seized pulley and a steam train. I slowly drove home (keeping it off boost) and with the engine running I pulled out the dipstick. The sound went away but it was pulling quite a lot of air in through the dipstick tube - so that's a split diaphragm in the oil filter housing then.
Arse.
9am sat morning I phone the local ford dealership, borrow a car & head over there to hand them £lots in exchange for this:
3 and a half hours later the car looked like this:
Changing the housing wasn't too bad - just a bit fiddly, but getting the bloody airbox off was a complete twunt, ECU has to be removed from its position (meaning battery needs to be disconnected), the rad/intercooler need to be lowered to get enough room. All the bloody rain didn't help!
On slightly better news I'm booked in on a rolling road day with the northwest lot from the focusSTOC forum next weekend, so it'll be nice to see what the car is putting out as standard
Had an interesting weekend, I was driving on friday night and about 2 miles from home & I hear a horrible squeaking noise that sounded like a cross between a belt forcing itself over a seized pulley and a steam train. I slowly drove home (keeping it off boost) and with the engine running I pulled out the dipstick. The sound went away but it was pulling quite a lot of air in through the dipstick tube - so that's a split diaphragm in the oil filter housing then.
Arse.
9am sat morning I phone the local ford dealership, borrow a car & head over there to hand them £lots in exchange for this:
3 and a half hours later the car looked like this:
Changing the housing wasn't too bad - just a bit fiddly, but getting the bloody airbox off was a complete twunt, ECU has to be removed from its position (meaning battery needs to be disconnected), the rad/intercooler need to be lowered to get enough room. All the bloody rain didn't help!
On slightly better news I'm booked in on a rolling road day with the northwest lot from the focusSTOC forum next weekend, so it'll be nice to see what the car is putting out as standard
Edited by brockovrs on Sunday 20th July 12:47
Just realised I've not updated this in a while!
I went to the RR day with the owners club back in August-ish & got a fairly respectable 218hp at the flywheel - not bad for a standard car on a very hot day.
Since then I've not really done anything else with the car, bar replace both driveshafts as they were causing a godawful wheel wobble.
I've now had the car for just over a year & I'm bored of it. Whilst I like the noise, the toys & the comfort, the sheer thirst of the thing is annoying (I get about 20/22mpg on my stop/start commute) as is the lack of power in 1st/2nd meaning it's only really "fun" in 3rd gear onwards, which means you're doing silly speeds.
So I've now got a 2005 EP3 type R, I'm just waiting for the DVLA to sort out my private plate transfer & then I'll be prepping the ST for sale!
I went to the RR day with the owners club back in August-ish & got a fairly respectable 218hp at the flywheel - not bad for a standard car on a very hot day.
Since then I've not really done anything else with the car, bar replace both driveshafts as they were causing a godawful wheel wobble.
I've now had the car for just over a year & I'm bored of it. Whilst I like the noise, the toys & the comfort, the sheer thirst of the thing is annoying (I get about 20/22mpg on my stop/start commute) as is the lack of power in 1st/2nd meaning it's only really "fun" in 3rd gear onwards, which means you're doing silly speeds.
So I've now got a 2005 EP3 type R, I'm just waiting for the DVLA to sort out my private plate transfer & then I'll be prepping the ST for sale!
I was the first commenter saying how 'i fancy one next' and here I am:
Map it and you'll forget any lack of power thoughts. Cat back will make it sound mega too if your into that...
MPG shouldn't be that bad - pull the kam fuse for 30 mins and replace - mine jumped around 4/5mpg. Fuse 26 under the bonnet on the facelift - not sure about pfl.
How did the dice fair in the end
?
Map it and you'll forget any lack of power thoughts. Cat back will make it sound mega too if your into that...
MPG shouldn't be that bad - pull the kam fuse for 30 mins and replace - mine jumped around 4/5mpg. Fuse 26 under the bonnet on the facelift - not sure about pfl.
How did the dice fair in the end
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