Introduction

[AspenForester]

Hello all! AspenForester, aka "JB" here. You may know me from such venues as the driver of the Forester XT "00" course opening car at Ojibwe Forest Rally and LSPR. Or Stage Captain in the Orange CrossTrek at Ojibwe, LSPR, or Sno*Drift. I've been involved in Pro/Performance Rally for about 25 years now.

I ordered a Fiesta ST in the spring of 2016 and took delivery of it in November 2016 from Morries Minnetonka Ford. My wife dubbed it "Buzz".

Options:
Pearl white over black wheels with red calipers
Summer Only Tires
Recaro Seats
No Sunroof
No "navigation" - the salesman couldn't figure out why the backup camera didn't come on during the walk through

Mods I've done:
Lower motor mount
Montune Short Shift Kit (who thought it was a good idea to have that bolt thread up from the underside?!)
Rally Armor flaps
Cobb Exhaust
Goodridge brake lines
Snow Tires on Winter Wheels (actually had those before the car arrived!) - General Altimax Arctic on Sparco Drift wheels

Since I'm working from home right now, Buzz has been parked for three weeks; I went to drive him yesterday and the battery is stone dead.

 

[Fiestig]

Welcome to the party!

 

[MagnetiseST]

Montune Short Shift Kit (who thought it was a good idea to have that bolt thread up from the underside?!)

Never have I heard a more puzzling question, I asked this myself when I installed one.

Also, welcome!

 

[AspenForester]

Never have I heard a more puzzling question, I asked this myself when I installed one.

Also, welcome!

Right? I think they could have machined a counter sink or counter bore on the adapter itself, and made a custom nut that would be captured in the factory casting of the shifter arm.

 

[Hypergram]

Glad I'm not the only one wondering about that short shift kit. Welcome!

 

[Dpro]

Welcome!

 

[D1JL]

​

Dave

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Hello all! AspenForester, aka "JB" here. You may know me from such venues as the driver of the Forester XT "00" course opening car at Ojibwe Forest Rally and LSPR. Or Stage Captain in the Orange CrossTrek at Ojibwe, LSPR, or Sno*Drift. I've been involved in Pro/Performance Rally for about 25 years now.

I ordered a Fiesta ST in the spring of 2016 and took delivery of it in November 2016 from Morries Minnetonka Ford. My wife dubbed it "Buzz".

Options:
Pearl white over black wheels with red calipers
Summer Only Tires
Recaro Seats
No Sunroof
No "navigation" - the salesman couldn't figure out why the backup camera didn't come on during the walk through

Mods I've done:
Lower motor mount
Montune Short Shift Kit (who thought it was a good idea to have that bolt thread up from the underside?!)
Rally Armor flaps
Cobb Exhaust
Goodridge brake lines
Snow Tires on Winter Wheels (actually had those before the car arrived!)

Since I'm working from home right now, Buzz has been parked for three weeks; I went to drive him yesterday and the battery is stone dead.

I will agree with you on that GOD DAM BOLT! Mountune later updated the Kit to so you could get access from it up top Vs. the underside. In all my life I have never been as frustrated and wondering if it was gonna bottom out or what! But it is by far the BEST shift adapter period! Good luck &.....

 

[RubberDucky_82]

Welcome! Another MN forum member too. Very cool! I'm in W Bloomington and work at the U, also driving a Pearl White '16. Perhaps @TyphoonFiST and some others would be up for a drive sometime this summer!

 

[M-Sport fan]

WELCOME fellow long time ARA (and previously Rally America and SCCA) worker/volunteer (I go back to ~1990 when I first volunteered at STPR)!!

There are not too many of us on here, but I have met some other workers who show up driving FiSTs, but they must all be on the other forums, if at all.

There is one ARA competitor, campaigning a limited 2WD class Fiesta ST, who is (very infrequently) on here, but as far as I know he ONLY enters STPR now.

Do you ever get to go to any events outside of the upper midwest?

 

[Flaco]

Welcome !

 

[AspenForester]

Do you ever get to go to any events outside of the upper midwest?

I've run Net Control for SOFR each year it's run.
I've done Net Control for Sno*Drift a few times.
Last year I worked scoring for Olympus and Rally Colorado.

I haven't been to a rally east of Ohio since 2001, except for spectating WRC Rally Sweden in 2018.

 

[slowion2]

Hey man, I'm new too! Welcome! This board is a great wealth of knowledge so far!

I have a soft spot for XT's btw, used to drive with a buddy who had a modified one and I loved it.

Lots of respect for the rally life man. The rallys I do are on pavement with exotics haha, but I've always wanted to get into that eventually. I just imagine it's a lot of work and cost from wear and tear.

 

[M-Sport fan]

I've run Net Control for SOFR each year it's run.
I've done Net Control for Sno*Drift a few times.
Last year I worked scoring for Olympus and Rally Colorado.

I haven't been to a rally east of Ohio since 2001, except for spectating WRC Rally Sweden in 2018.

I usually work either the starts, finishes, or their controls, and once in a while a radio point or marshal point, at STPR, NEFR, and the ESPR, now a Super Regional event.

 

[AspenForester]

I usually work either the starts, finishes, or their controls, and once and a while a radio point or marshal point, at STPR, NEFR, and the ESPR, now a Super Regional event.

We've done a lot of starts and finishes at ojibwe, LSPR, and Sno*Drift, too.
We go where they need us.

 

[AspenForester]

Had the battery tested today, and the box at the Advance Auto Parts up the road from me says the battery is healthy.

Did I do it wrong, or is the battery just hard to get out of the car? Not physically so much as dealing with the connections to that fuse panel that's attached to the battery terminal. I ended up:
1) disconnecting the ground connection on the battery
2) unbolting the ground connection from the chassis
3) removing the first leg of the intake duct
4) removing the three cables attached to the fuse panel thing on the battery
5) removing the clamp from the positive terminal
6) removing the battery hold down.

While reassembling everything, I took the opportunity to more permanently install a connector for the battery tender I bought so I don't have to use the spring clamps

Yeah, I really just need to get out and drive it more.

 

[M-Sport fan]

When I just had to take out the battery itself, (and not the whole battery box), I just disconnected and unbolted the whole ground cable and took it off the car completely, and then unbolted the positive cable's connector.

Once the hold down is unbolted, the battery just lifted out, yes, while also finagling the positive cable out of the way.

 

[Phishy]

Hello all! AspenForester, aka "JB" here. You may know me from such venues as the driver of the Forester XT "00" course opening car at Ojibwe Forest Rally and LSPR. Or Stage Captain in the Orange CrossTrek at Ojibwe, LSPR, or Sno*Drift. I've been involved in Pro/Performance Rally for about 25 years now.

I ordered a Fiesta ST in the spring of 2016 and took delivery of it in November 2016 from Morries Minnetonka Ford. My wife dubbed it "Buzz".

Options:
Pearl white over black wheels with red calipers
Summer Only Tires
Recaro Seats
No Sunroof
No "navigation" - the salesman couldn't figure out why the backup camera didn't come on during the walk through

Mods I've done:
Lower motor mount
Montune Short Shift Kit (who thought it was a good idea to have that bolt thread up from the underside?!)
Rally Armor flaps
Cobb Exhaust
Goodridge brake lines
Snow Tires on Winter Wheels (actually had those before the car arrived!) - General Altimax Arctic on Sparco Drift wheels

Since I'm working from home right now, Buzz has been parked for three weeks; I went to drive him yesterday and the battery is stone dead.

I saw you rip the Baja last year at the rally I think. Or the year before. I think I met your dad in the crowd as well. Buddy and I are rally regulars up there to spectate. We will have to hook up this summer if the thing still goes off as planned.

Last summer I saw one red FiST with IL or MI plates in the spectators besides mine. Like 10+ FiST or Party car rally cars entered at least. We need to get more FiST folk out to Ojibwe to offset the absurd numbers of headgasket caressing scooby fanboys.

 

[TyphoonFiST]

Well Cars and COFIFI is cancelled here in Mn...even though its held out in a huge OUTDOOR parking lot! We should meet up and roll out.

 

[M-Sport fan]

I saw you rip the Baja last year at the rally I think. Or the year before. I think I met your dad in the crowd as well. Buddy and I are rally regulars up there to spectate. We will have to hook up this summer if the thing still goes off as planned.

Last summer I saw one red FiST with IL or MI plates in the spectators besides mine. Like 10+ FiST or Party car rally cars entered at least. We need to get more FiST folk out to Ojibwe to offset the absurd numbers of headgasket caressing scooby fanboys.

There is one Orange Spice FiST from Ohio, with gray Terras on it that shows up at some of the northeast ARA events to volunteer.
He volunteers on all of the mid west events, and came out to ESPR last year like only a week after LSPR where he claimed to shear some wheels off the car 'while working' LOL, and having to practically rebuild the car before heading east.