Engine-swapped MK6 Fiesta, MK6 Fiesta ST and a shed
Discussion
Fortunately enough, the current COVID-19 situation hasn't affected me in that I have a job where I can work from home; what it has done, however, is take away the freedom to do a lot of the things I enjoy - so whilst I'm bored I figured why not make a thread for my humble collection of cars?
At the moment I have three cars:
Fiesta MK6 engine-swapped track car
Fiesta MK6 ST150
Nissan Micra K12 (the daily shed)
I'll start at the beginning, and hopefully over the course of a few updates I'll get the cars to the point they all sit now; probably too much to cram into one post!
Having passed my driving test a few months prior, I had some birthday money for my 18th and set about buying my first car; having test driven a MK5 Fiesta amongst some other bits, I ended up buying a MK6 Fiesta 1.25 Freedom off my next door neighbour – off the top of my head, it was on 85k miles and was a tidy example inside and out. I don't think I have any pictures of it complete and standard, but this is the gist of it except mine had the grey dashboard:
With it being a Freedom, it had electric windows, aux in and a Bluetooth module that could handle calls but not music – everything you need in a first car! With a black box in for the first year, I managed to keep my insurance premium to a pretty reasonable level for an 18 year old lad.
I loved the car and took it from 85k miles to 122k miles in just under two years, with no significant issues along the way – a small bump with a wall after literally sliding on s
t damaged my front bumper, NSF wheel and some of the suspension gubbins, but other than that it just needed two tyres, bulbs and a couple of wheel bearings. After having the car for 18 months or so, the urge for more power was strong, so I set about looking at ST150s with them being a natural step-up from a standard MK6.
After a few weeks of searching, I found one in pretty much my perfect spec: Performance Blue (no stripes), heated leather seats, climate control, Bluetooth and aux. The car only had 49k miles on it and was completely standard as well as rust-free, so even though I couldn't insure it and it was over 100 miles away it ended up on the drive. After waiting a couple of months, I decided I was going to insure it regardless of price - it ended up being £1,600 or so, but I did get £200 off my previous insurer for the 1.25's insurance since they still couldn't insure me on the ST. So in October 2017, I got it out on the road and enjoyed it – 150bhp was plenty for me (at the time) and I ended up covering 24k miles in the first year including a road trip to Cornwall:
Obviously, with me being 19 at the time and the premium already being £1,600 there was no scope for modification, however I did make some centre caps for the wheels as the car only came with one out of four of them (which is fine by me since I'm not a fan of the original centre caps) – you can see these in the rolling pic, before they fell off one by one...
Whilst I was driving the ST every day, I still had my old 1.25 sat on the drive as I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of selling it - I'll update the thread over the next few days with what happened to that!
At the moment I have three cars:
Fiesta MK6 engine-swapped track car
Fiesta MK6 ST150
Nissan Micra K12 (the daily shed)
I'll start at the beginning, and hopefully over the course of a few updates I'll get the cars to the point they all sit now; probably too much to cram into one post!
Having passed my driving test a few months prior, I had some birthday money for my 18th and set about buying my first car; having test driven a MK5 Fiesta amongst some other bits, I ended up buying a MK6 Fiesta 1.25 Freedom off my next door neighbour – off the top of my head, it was on 85k miles and was a tidy example inside and out. I don't think I have any pictures of it complete and standard, but this is the gist of it except mine had the grey dashboard:
With it being a Freedom, it had electric windows, aux in and a Bluetooth module that could handle calls but not music – everything you need in a first car! With a black box in for the first year, I managed to keep my insurance premium to a pretty reasonable level for an 18 year old lad.
I loved the car and took it from 85k miles to 122k miles in just under two years, with no significant issues along the way – a small bump with a wall after literally sliding on s
t damaged my front bumper, NSF wheel and some of the suspension gubbins, but other than that it just needed two tyres, bulbs and a couple of wheel bearings. After having the car for 18 months or so, the urge for more power was strong, so I set about looking at ST150s with them being a natural step-up from a standard MK6.After a few weeks of searching, I found one in pretty much my perfect spec: Performance Blue (no stripes), heated leather seats, climate control, Bluetooth and aux. The car only had 49k miles on it and was completely standard as well as rust-free, so even though I couldn't insure it and it was over 100 miles away it ended up on the drive. After waiting a couple of months, I decided I was going to insure it regardless of price - it ended up being £1,600 or so, but I did get £200 off my previous insurer for the 1.25's insurance since they still couldn't insure me on the ST. So in October 2017, I got it out on the road and enjoyed it – 150bhp was plenty for me (at the time) and I ended up covering 24k miles in the first year including a road trip to Cornwall:
Obviously, with me being 19 at the time and the premium already being £1,600 there was no scope for modification, however I did make some centre caps for the wheels as the car only came with one out of four of them (which is fine by me since I'm not a fan of the original centre caps) – you can see these in the rolling pic, before they fell off one by one...
Whilst I was driving the ST every day, I still had my old 1.25 sat on the drive as I couldn't be bothered with the hassle of selling it - I'll update the thread over the next few days with what happened to that!
Edited by jase_llan on Thursday 2nd April 23:14
As I mentioned in my first post, my old 1.25 was sat doing nothing in the garden and I wanted a track car - it did cross my mind that I should sell it in order to fund one, but a mix of sentimentality and the urge for a "proper project" lead to me deciding on using it as a base for a track car. I had a few ideas for what I could do with it - super/turbocharge the standard 1.25, drop an ST150 engine in it or perhaps even an old Zetec as these are a good base for turbocharging further down the line. This was always intended to be a budget project since I was on minimum wage at the time and also had the ST's lovely fuel and insurance bills to contend with, but my man maths lead me to this:
It's a low-mileage (<20k miles) 1.6 Ecoboost from a written off Fiesta ST180, which I bought off a guy who intended to stick it in a KA but had a change of circumstances - I purchased an engine, gearbox, driveshafts, two clutches and all ancillaries off for £1,500. They also came with a Mishimoto racing thermostat, as well as a Ford Racing air conditioning delete kit which I still have if anyone's interested? The original air conditioning compressor from the ST180 is in my possession as well, which I have no use for. The bloke I bought it off was kind enough to send me a load of photos of the invoices re; various bits, which he forgot to give us on the day... Did I mention this was collected in my dad's old Jag, thankfully 4x4, during the middle of the Beast from the East?
(March 2018)
Although I did know my way around an engine bay, I had no clue about car wiring (besides CANBUS being a pain in the backside) and had never attempted any kind of project so this was always going to be an uphill battle; budget constraints told me I would need to use the standard ST180 engine loom, ECU, clocks etc. and as far as I knew at the time, nobody had done it before.
One thing I did know was that MK6 and MK7 Fiestas share a lower engine mount, so I knew at least I could have a solid base from which to get the engine mounted properly. First things first was a good tear-down both inside and out:
From this, I could mock up the engine in the bay:
Thankfully I had my dad and his cousin (who owed us one after my dad has converted his Ford Cougar to 4x4) around that weekend to help manoeuvre the engine into place, as I don't think it was possible for it to be a one-man job. A bit of cutting of the inner arch on the driver's side (thanks Dad) was all that was required to get the engine into place properly:
Next post, I'll try to go through some of the challenges I faced going forward from this point, as well as some of the other upgrades the car got in light of it going from 74bhp to a starting point of 197bhp... To anyone who might be stupid enough to consider this swap, I'd say go for it though! As you can see, the engine goes in reasonably easy (although clearances are tight) and having a common lower engine mount made things doable for a first-time project.
It's a low-mileage (<20k miles) 1.6 Ecoboost from a written off Fiesta ST180, which I bought off a guy who intended to stick it in a KA but had a change of circumstances - I purchased an engine, gearbox, driveshafts, two clutches and all ancillaries off for £1,500. They also came with a Mishimoto racing thermostat, as well as a Ford Racing air conditioning delete kit which I still have if anyone's interested? The original air conditioning compressor from the ST180 is in my possession as well, which I have no use for. The bloke I bought it off was kind enough to send me a load of photos of the invoices re; various bits, which he forgot to give us on the day... Did I mention this was collected in my dad's old Jag, thankfully 4x4, during the middle of the Beast from the East?
(March 2018)Although I did know my way around an engine bay, I had no clue about car wiring (besides CANBUS being a pain in the backside) and had never attempted any kind of project so this was always going to be an uphill battle; budget constraints told me I would need to use the standard ST180 engine loom, ECU, clocks etc. and as far as I knew at the time, nobody had done it before.
One thing I did know was that MK6 and MK7 Fiestas share a lower engine mount, so I knew at least I could have a solid base from which to get the engine mounted properly. First things first was a good tear-down both inside and out:
From this, I could mock up the engine in the bay:
Thankfully I had my dad and his cousin (who owed us one after my dad has converted his Ford Cougar to 4x4) around that weekend to help manoeuvre the engine into place, as I don't think it was possible for it to be a one-man job. A bit of cutting of the inner arch on the driver's side (thanks Dad) was all that was required to get the engine into place properly:
Next post, I'll try to go through some of the challenges I faced going forward from this point, as well as some of the other upgrades the car got in light of it going from 74bhp to a starting point of 197bhp... To anyone who might be stupid enough to consider this swap, I'd say go for it though! As you can see, the engine goes in reasonably easy (although clearances are tight) and having a common lower engine mount made things doable for a first-time project.
dom9 said:
Loving this - keep it coming!
I will do, over the next week or so I'll try to get the thread up to speed with where I'm at with the three cars!Danj8608 said:
This running now? I'm sure I've seen a vid on the fiesta groups of a mk6 without its front end haha
One group I'm on is fiestastoc.com but the car is running completely now; I don't think I'd post it of it wasn't, nobody wants another 'unfinished project for sale on eBay' thread although I completely understand how things don't get finished! The track car took from March 2018 to August 2019 to build, although that's in spare time as I have a few trips in the ST worth noting during that period... All in good time!So, as mentioned I did run into a few problems along the way - starting with this:
That is a fuel line that appears to have been hacked apart with a fork and knife... even though there's a bulkhead connector on the MK7s (from what I've read), which require a special tool that can be had for peanuts. Initially, I removed this pipe and took it to my dad's place of work so that he could braze a straight piece of pipe on the end with a CAD-designed push-in fitting, which would connect to the original MK6 Fiesta fuel lines that were still run up and down the car; my measurements on the PC were spot on and the fitting didn't leak, but unfortunately the cut pipe was damaged sufficiently that we couldn't get it to seal perfectly to the new pipe - there was a tiny pinhole which, over time, would leak lots of fuel which is obviously a bad situation. The fix? Rubber hose and fuel pipe clamps of course, works a treat and no more leakage - we just cut a clean end on the pipe, removed the push fitting on the car fuel line and put the hose on, making sure to sleeve it with a fuel-resistant metal pipe to ensure the hose wouldn't expand or compress too much under pressure.
Another problem I had was trying to trace a bad earth - in the end I took the car halfway across the country to someone who found it for me... a second pair of eyes can work wonders! There was also the small matter of the engine being slightly too tall for the bay, fixed with some homemade (this is a theme) bonnet raisers:
Other than that, it was just a case of finding places to mount all the additional modules that a MK7 has over a MK6, as well as routing wiring and cutting an inspection hole for the fuel pump - the MK7 pump assembly drops straight into the MK6 tank thankfully:
At this point, the front end was also mocked back up and the engine cover put on - you might notice it's not an ST180 engine cover, but actually a Kuga engine cover which has had the writing painted; the original owner of the engine wanted to show that his car was "not an ST" - a sentiment I agreed with, but I fancied having a small nod to it with the ST being in red:
Apologies if this post is a bit pic-heavy, but I figured why not share the documentation I made at the time?
That is a fuel line that appears to have been hacked apart with a fork and knife... even though there's a bulkhead connector on the MK7s (from what I've read), which require a special tool that can be had for peanuts. Initially, I removed this pipe and took it to my dad's place of work so that he could braze a straight piece of pipe on the end with a CAD-designed push-in fitting, which would connect to the original MK6 Fiesta fuel lines that were still run up and down the car; my measurements on the PC were spot on and the fitting didn't leak, but unfortunately the cut pipe was damaged sufficiently that we couldn't get it to seal perfectly to the new pipe - there was a tiny pinhole which, over time, would leak lots of fuel which is obviously a bad situation. The fix? Rubber hose and fuel pipe clamps of course, works a treat and no more leakage - we just cut a clean end on the pipe, removed the push fitting on the car fuel line and put the hose on, making sure to sleeve it with a fuel-resistant metal pipe to ensure the hose wouldn't expand or compress too much under pressure.
Another problem I had was trying to trace a bad earth - in the end I took the car halfway across the country to someone who found it for me... a second pair of eyes can work wonders! There was also the small matter of the engine being slightly too tall for the bay, fixed with some homemade (this is a theme) bonnet raisers:
Other than that, it was just a case of finding places to mount all the additional modules that a MK7 has over a MK6, as well as routing wiring and cutting an inspection hole for the fuel pump - the MK7 pump assembly drops straight into the MK6 tank thankfully:
At this point, the front end was also mocked back up and the engine cover put on - you might notice it's not an ST180 engine cover, but actually a Kuga engine cover which has had the writing painted; the original owner of the engine wanted to show that his car was "not an ST" - a sentiment I agreed with, but I fancied having a small nod to it with the ST being in red:
Apologies if this post is a bit pic-heavy, but I figured why not share the documentation I made at the time?
trails said:
Highlights and lowlights 
Thanks, you're probably right - will update EDIT: Pistonheads crashed mid-update so I'll crack on with it another night as I have work tomorrow.
Edited by jase_llan on Monday 22 June 23:22
Just clicked and been looking through the build.
I'm in the middle of getting everything myself.ive got all engine and box and shafts now. Just finding a 3inch downpipe.
My question is do you have any info or pictures to help with the top 2 engine mounts as this is my only thing I've not yet sorted out
I'm in the middle of getting everything myself.ive got all engine and box and shafts now. Just finding a 3inch downpipe.
My question is do you have any info or pictures to help with the top 2 engine mounts as this is my only thing I've not yet sorted out
jpb511 said:
Hi there I’m currently doing this I have the engine and gearbox sorted and I have found an unlocked ecu kit so I can retain the st150 dash etc. what did you do about power steering mate this is the bit I’m really stuck with
I used the original MK6 power steering pump (not ST) in place of the AC compressor on the engine - it's a direct bolt-on fit. I then used the original steering column as well, and just mounted the transponder unit onto it.Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff