A Rusty Ford Fiesta

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Well... basically I bought a rusty Fiesta as a daily and decided to “fix” it...

I’ve owned this car for almost 5 years now so a lot has happened..
now having no experience what so ever in cars, this was a huge challenge at 17 and was a lot of trial and error a long the way.
I’ve had no help other than google on this project.
I just always had this vision of creating a cool weekend car with a track / stance kind of look just by a change of wheels.
I know some will think why waste so much time and money on a pretty worthless car.. and to be honest I couldn’t even give you a valid answer :’)
I’ve always wanted a Supra or R34, but I just couldn’t afford to run 2 projects and pay a mortgage and quitting on the fiesta isn’t an option.

Modifications
1.7 Puma engine / S1600 plenum
Hydraulic Suspension
R32 Rear Diffuser
Shortened Plate recess
Smoothed Front bumper
Custom Civic spoiler
Escort cosworth dashboard
Escort cosworth wheels
Split rims
Wide arched
Smoothed door locks
Smoothed engine bay
Smoothed boot
Rear brake disc conversion
Front brake disc conversion
Smoothed & extended front wings
Kirkey Bucket seats
Wheel well
So much more to list...

Things I’m doing or going to do.
Turbo conversion
Roll cage
Pedal box
List goes on..

Here’s some before & during pictures

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This is where I am currently with the project.

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helix402 said:

Is this you at 17?

Haha, no that’s my grandad took it for a spin the day I bought it..
He’s 18

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Car-Matt said:

The interior with the leather seats and the new dash looks brilliant


The rest.....meh

No point in the engine swap, a set of cams ( shawspeed SS2) and a remap will give 160 bhp on the standard plastic inlet provided you have a decent exhaust manifold and exhaust already.

The Bodywork and lowering etc........its an aquired taste.

Cant fault the amount of effort in it though. Enjoy

Thankyou, the dash is out a escort cosworth and I’ve gone for more of a track interior now, so the leather seats have gone.
I’m also not doing any sort of engine swap.
I’m getting a turbo for the current set up..

Thank you all the same.

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Jimi.K. said:

As another poster said,10/10 for effort.

Genuine question though, doesn't slamming a car like that completely ruin the driving experience? It looks to me like you'll not be able to turn the wheel more than a couple of inches without rubbing, and the chances of going for a drive without destroying an alloy or bottoming out over a speed bump would be practically zero.

Hydraulic suspension....
Thank you

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Weso said:

Fair play to you.
You'll probably get loads of abuse from all the sad old gits on here who can't remember being young, I'm getting pretty old and have long grown out of this sort of thing, but can see why you are doing it at your age.
Fair play.
Wes

Yeah that’s very true, not that I care if they don’t approve, but perhaps not the best site for this type of project.
Thanks for the nice comment, Wes

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Pit Pony said:

S100HP said:

This will be fun...

Be kind.

I can see the craftmanship. I can see the time and energy and skill

But we all know that less is more.

I am jealous of the time you have, available to do the project, but i am not jealous of the result.

I would suggest burning the finished article.

Sorry

You literally have no idea what the finished article would look like..
Less is more is also your own opinion..
I wouldn’t be too jealous of the time I have available working 65 hours a week...

But thanks anyway bud.

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Aluminati said:

Weso said:

Fair play to you.
You'll probably get loads of abuse from all the sad old gits on here who can't remember being young, I'm getting pretty old and have long grown out of this sort of thing, but can see why you are doing it at your age.
Fair play.
Wes

Exactly this. You are creating something personal too you, well done. You’ll be doing it for the rest of your life, and your style will change with it.

I remember fitting my 1st Fibreglass aerial and Sharp apss stereo ( Ffwd and rev!) and thinking i was the danglers.

And as said, bloody fair play to you. Look forward to the updates.

Thank you for the nice comment and thanks to everyone else that commented wether you like it or not.
I won’t update on here as clearly it’s not the place for it, I don’t mind some feedback, but quite obviously it’s not the sort of project that fits in on this site
I’ll see my self out.

Thanks 🙏

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Hello all,
i appreciate all the support from everyone that wants me to continue this thread, but I have decided not to.
There really is no point with the amount of controversy and people who simply can’t “understand it” or the amount of debate which would occur because of some of the modifications, which I feel will defeat the whole purpose of my build thread.
It’s disappointing really as it’s all over stance / tyres and hydraulic suspension, I could raise the car at a push of a button and change the wheels in 20 mins and would have a whole different outcome on here, I’m sure.
The stance is just for show purposes anyway and the cosworth wheels for everything else..

I am getting a turbo conversion for the current setup and am hoping to achieve a 250BHP which will be some fun, but at the same time if I took it to a show I wanted to slam it on some wheels and achieve a different look by literally just changing the wheels.. that was kind of my whole purpose behind this build to have a track kind of look, but also show worthy at the same time. ( the car is in black primer, I haven’t decided a colour for it)

I may consider re posting the thread to eliminate 3 pages of comments due to how badly this started, but I really really don’t feel this is the site for posting something like this if people simply can’t respect different tastes in the community.

Edited by Rule on Friday 21st June 14:27

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AdamIndy said:

Dave Hedgehog said:

there is modding your car and then there is changing it dangerously because its fashion and you have to be a sheep

What exactly is “dangerous” about the way this lad has modified his car?

Hardly being a “sheep” now is he? If he was being a sheep he’d have a diesel golf/Jetta/A3/A4 etc with stretched tyres and the subframes scraping the floor.

This car looks to be done pretty well with properly widened arches which have been welded in rather than plastic over fenders and chopped rear quarters.

I love this forum sometimes, it’s a wealth of information but I hate it at times too. You don’t like it? Fine, move on to the next thread. This lad had come to show us what he’s been building and I for one was interested to see where it ended up.

Another potentially good thread fked by a few who think it’s cool to run other peoples cars down because they’re different.

I don’t blame him at all for leaving.

To the op. If you do happen to see this then Good luck with the project. The MK5 fiesta chassis is a peach, with 200+bhp it will be hilarious too! With just the puma engine they go well. I used to know a chap with a MK4 base model with an FRP engine and box. It was always a good race between that and my fettled 2.0 XR2i. Those were the days!

Thankyou Sir!

I think he is referring to the stretched tyres, obviously it depends to witch extent you take it if it’s dangerous or not..
Plenty of drift cars you see running pretty ridiculous stretch and get abused around a track with no issues..
I think it’s just one of those things that are heavily judged just by appearance.. and most likely a sheepish comment from him self from what he’s heard, but actually has no knowledge in the matter, but yeah, I’m the sheep because i stanced my car...
Let’s hope this doesn’t turn into a huge tyre debate now as it’s been covered many times already.
Let’s try to look past the tyres for the people who find it “dangerous” as it’s just for shows anyway....

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trails said:

Rule said:

There really is no point with the amount of controversy and people who simply can’t “understand it” or the amount of debate which would occur because of some of the modifications, which I feel will defeat the whole purpose of my build thread]

I think there are more posts in favour of you continuing and berating those that were unnecessarily harsh in their posts

You must have had loads of time to think about colours, care to share your thoughts to date?

Thankyou.
I’ve always wanted to keep the colour dark and simple, maybe just gloss black, but I am really tempted to do it the same colour as my M3...

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D4MJT said:

As everyone else has said, I’d love to see more of this. Love it. Keep posting Rule.

I chortled at the casual F80 M3 drop. In all honesty, I’d rather read about the fiesta! Moaaaarrrrrr

Haha, I was hoping people wouldn’t want to see the M3 instead :’)
I own a 350Z as well, but don’t really do much to either of them. I couldn’t afford it anyway as the fiesta takes up all the money haha.
I have thought many many times about getting rid of the 350Z and M3, but I’d only want a SupraTT or R34 GTR to replace, but I can’t justify driving one of those daily.

Edited by Rule on Saturday 22 June 01:18

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foxmeister said:

I'll pitch in with the "its not my bag, but very interesting build" too, being the grand old age of 37 now, although my tastes have changed over the years and less so in modding cars the aftermarket route, when i was 17 I suppose the 'Scene' then was massive 17's on small cars (i had a nova, probably ruined in some peoples eyes) so we have all been part of it in some way and its how i learned how to expand my skills etc, im quite handy at thinking outside the box and making some nice bits etc, so very interested to see how this turns out

Can i make a suggestion? Maybe some more detailed pics and info on the actual engineering you have done, like welding in the wider arches and things like that rather than just a pic showing new bits complete

The stretch tyre thing doesnt bother me much, not something i would do either but people are always going to be scared of the unknown, but i like the idea of the 2 characters of the build, track/show, not seen that before and keen to see it develop

Also, as soon as i scrolled down and saw the arse of the M3 i knew where it was going... well played

Thankyou
I’ll be honest taking pics during the work is a thing I didn’t do a lot off, I’m not sure why really. Just didn’t have the intention to do a build thread until recently.
Point taken though, and I will try to do more of that with the work to come.

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Bobberoo99 said:

Rule said:

foxmeister said:

I'll pitch in with the "its not my bag, but very interesting build" too, being the grand old age of 37 now, although my tastes have changed over the years and less so in modding cars the aftermarket route, when i was 17 I suppose the 'Scene' then was massive 17's on small cars (i had a nova, probably ruined in some peoples eyes) so we have all been part of it in some way and its how i learned how to expand my skills etc, im quite handy at thinking outside the box and making some nice bits etc, so very interested to see how this turns out

Can i make a suggestion? Maybe some more detailed pics and info on the actual engineering you have done, like welding in the wider arches and things like that rather than just a pic showing new bits complete

The stretch tyre thing doesnt bother me much, not something i would do either but people are always going to be scared of the unknown, but i like the idea of the 2 characters of the build, track/show, not seen that before and keen to see it develop

Also, as soon as i scrolled down and saw the arse of the M3 i knew where it was going... well played

Thankyou
I’ll be honest taking pics during the work is a thing I didn’t do a lot off, I’m not sure why really. Just didn’t have the intention to do a build thread until recently.
Point taken though, and I will try to do more of that with the work to come.

Does this mean you'll be continuing the thread? I do hope so, genuinely interested in the work you've done so far and hoping for some more info on it all.

Yes I will do.

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I’ll put a little more info here regarding the engine bay as it’s what I’ve been doing for the past couple of months now.

- Relocated header tank (under drivers side front arch)
This took a lot of tinkering about as the header tank needs to sit higher than the engine as it’s gravity fed.
I’m using a Daewoo header tank which I have tried and tested with the car running.

- Smoothed Bulk head, this involved quite a few things being removed-
-Brake bar
-Brake Servo
-ABS Pump
-Fuse box & Relays (relocated by passenger footwell)
- Removal of brake lines / Clutch pipes.
-Power steering delete
-Aircon delete
-heater control delete

- Smoothed wheel liner? Not sure what to call it, but basically smoothed of the sides of the engine bay so you can’t see the tyres & inside of the wheels.
-Smoothed rocker cover
-Smoothed strut towers
- Smoothed & Butchered slam panel ( this was to be able to fit the inlet.
I did try to save the slam panel, but after a lot of cutting and grinding I managed to get the inlet on and it looked pretty daft so it had to go.

Again not really any photos of welding or filling etc... not that you’d like to see my welding anyways :’)



This is me starting off with a bit of silver paint as I was so scared to even touch the engine bay lol.




Had a metal sheet cut to size and welded in.






A lot of cutting and grinding later... haha, yeah the slam panel had to go.

Edited by Rule on Saturday 22 June 07:33

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Bobberoo99 said:

That is seriously cool! Love how clean it looks, I take it your running air lift suspension so it's on bags? How do you find the ride quality?

Thankyou

Not air suspension.
It’s on hydraulic suspension, the ride quality is not all that much different than being really low on coilovers.. I wouldn’t say it’s uncomfortable, but it’s definitely not comfortable..
It’s a real expensive bit of kit.

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Rewe said:

Welcome back Rule!

I meant to ask earlier, is this your first project? Are you self-taught? Do you have help? Impressive work for 17.

Also [\nosey mode on] where do you get your money from!!

Hey, this is actually my second project, both projects have been MK5 Fiestas, although the first one was a 5-door 1.25Zetec which I bought at 16, so I owned it before getting my license. I always wanted a ZS shell to work with instead, But the insurance was ridiculously high, but I still went and bought one the year after..

I think people haven’t understood me properly when I said I’ve started this project at 17, and I’ve owned it 5 - almost 6 years now. I am now 23 years of age.
I started working as soon as I left school full time, so had a weekly income at 16 and purchased my first car before I even had any lessons driving, and I was already tinkering with the car (lows, bolt on arches etc) just silly stuff you do at 16/17 I suppose.
As I’ve said, I’ve had no help on this and no experience / background with anything regarding cars just plenty of research and studying online.
My parents passed away at the age of 3 and I was brought up by my grandparents so I can’t really ask my grandad to lend me a hand at 80 years of age either lol.
I built my first car on my grandads driveway, I then got a house with my sister at 18 which had a double garage ( the only thing I was interested in) haha, And at that time I already had the Zetec-S which had a considerable amount done already in only a few months of owning it, but I was never happy with so literally just decided to take it off the road one day and work on it my self with pretty much next to no tools.
I was literally buying parts and tools on a daily basis for this project.
So I’ll put a picture up of my 5-door I had and also the ZS before I garaged it.

My First car the week I had bought it..


This is it around a month before I stripped it and bought the ZS.
Was nothing too fancy, wheels, bolt on arches, seats, and I plastidipped the whole car.


This is the ZS before I had taken it off the road. I didn’t really want to include this part into the build thread as I feel the actual build was when it got taken off the road.

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foxmeister said:

What were the original leather seats you removed, Merc???

Indeed, C63 to be exact.

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[quote=RobXjcoupe]Do you have a picture of the car at the height it can be driven?
The flared arched and small diameter wheels are a bit retro to style now. Those wide wheels must play havoc with the meagre standard wheel bearings or have you modified the hubs to correct that?
I’ve still got a mk5 fiesta as a daily driver. Although it hits classic car status next year. I think that’s when the old banger will start to gain in value. Clean mk5’s are few and far these days. Below is a pic of my daily old fiesta ]

Hi Rob, It Would be nice to finally see them go up in value as they are becoming pretty rare, especially for a well sought after one with none or little rust.
Although I feel like I should of got mine for free given how rotten it was haha.
I don’t really have any photos of drive height, but having hydraulics means you can pick which ever height you want, I could even go higher than standard.

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Bobberoo99 said:

Loving that last picture!!
Is the system constantly variable? So you can just set it to a height/stance and drive it like that?

Sorry to hear about the loss of your parents, was going to post more but really unsure what to put, be very proud of where you are and what you've achieved.

Thank you dude,
but in all honesty no pity needed. it’s never affected me in anyway, I was way to young to even remember them, I’m just very grateful for my grandparents for taking me and my sister on board.

Yes the hydraulic system is as you say. Literally whatever height it’s set too it can be driven, you can even do it as you’re driving along lol.
I have a wireless remote that controls front and back so it’s just a simple 2 way system.
you can with just some wiring make it a 4 way system which would allow you to control each corner (kind of like those American low riders you see)
But I’ve heard from the manufacture that this can cause a lot of body flex / stress so I opted for the 2 way system.
Hope that makes sense.