1. When changing out coolant to water/water wetter and then back to 50/50 AF/water, is it as simple as draining out the fluid and then adding more? Do I need to do anything "special" such as when I bleed out the brake fluid?
2. When replacing to uprated brake lines, how difficult is it to do this and where are the brake lines that are replaced located at? Would I start at the brake fluid reservoir in the engine bay and follow back from there?
The only problem for the coolant, I believe, is that I don't think the stock radiator has a drain valve. Since it's always my shop that does that stuff, I'm not 100% sure. If not, then you could disconnect the lower coolant hose to drain. Have a bucket or bed pan or something ready, right? Not sure if that will drain the reserve tank. Any way you can get the fluid out will do the trick. Gravity draining when possible is always nice. Any friendly shop, even the Ford dealer shop, should be happy to give you pointers, eh?
As for the brake lines, they are the lines right at the brake calipers. There's one per caliper.
StopTech,
FSWerks, and
mountune have them for sure. I think the
Goodridge lines for the ST180 work for our car, but you'd want to check. I have the StopTech ones. They're all pretty comparable. Again, use something to catch the brake fluid, then refill and bleed.
On race cars, I think these are considered wear items, so every year it's worth inspecting and probably swapping out as needed. Having said that, I had the same set on a 2004 SVT Focus for 7 years of pretty frequent tracking and never changed them.
This pic more or less shows the brake line (at right) assembled to the the right front caliper
Honestly, I would leave the car stock and run it. Chances of having a problem at the track go up exponentially once you start changing things. The best and more enjoyable track events for me have been with 100% stock cars. You aren't going out there to set FTD or a new track record, you are out there to learn the car and enjoy being out on track. The Fiesta ST is very capable right out of the box, in fact, it is far more capable than 90% of the people driving them. My brother and I ran the Fiesta Movement car very hard, way harder than I would run my own cars, and we never had a single issue. A number of others in the program ran at Sebring and Horse Thief Mile without any problems. Those were 100% stock cars and being ran very hard. Leave the car stock and focus on learning and managing the car on track.
That is good advice for folks who really are not going to do this with high frequency. Get a feel for your car and then determine if it is worth it to make track-specific adjustments.
However, [MENTION=1313]BRGT350[/MENTION]: Take a look at the [MENTION=2925]Rhinopolis[/MENTION] signature. Heh. His car is *already* not stock.
Indeed...it is FAR from stock. My car is closer to stock. LOL.