Introducing Fynn the Fiesta - DD/Autocross

Hi all,

Happy to join the FiST community with my new to me 14' Race Red Fiesta.

A bit of backstory on my acquisition of this car. I currently have a ~100 mile/day commute (99% highway miles) and though economical, I was growing tired of my wife's 19' Honda Fit CVT and it's lack of engagement/fun. I own a 1998 Mitsubishi Eclipse GST with many mods and it is far too fickle to daily drive, but scratches the itch of being loud, raw and "special" (to me at least). So that put me in the market for a fuel efficient (must be able to run on 87 octane), fun, affordable and manual car that is relatively easy to drive (my wife would be learning to drive stick on this car). Cars that I considered were the Honda CRZ, 3g or 4g Mitsubishi Eclipse (4cyl only), Hyundai Tiburon, 5th Gen Camaro V6 and of course the Fiesta ST.

I looked at a few cars but really felt that something like a CRZ compromised on the fun part and a Camaro may compromise from the fuel efficiency and practically standpoint. That led me to this Fiesta ST which I found on marketplace and had a productive phone call with the owner, Fynn. This is a 77k mile car with a few mods (Swave chassis brace, sway bars, Koni Orange struts, Whoosh intake) and a hand-written maintenance log dating back 6 years. I've heard the saying "when you buy a used car, you're buying the owner" which I think is incredibly true. This was the right owner. Very open about the car, diligent about maintenance and recording it, it's positives and it's flaws, which were minimal but include a rebuilt title. He also offered to throw the car up on his lift so I could get a good look under it. The cherry on top was he was located in Durango, Colorado, a very special place to my wife and I and it gave us the excuse to go visit a beautiful, familar place, see some friends and potentially come home with a new car.

Loaded with two dogs, tools, and a pocket full of cash, we made the 6 hour trip from Colorado Springs to Durango to meet Fynn, his beautiful property tucked in the mountains and of course the fiesta. I spent my time looking over the car, took it on a drive and inspected it from underneath on the lift. Man, this thing drives nice. Plently of power, handles and stops like a champ and has all the necessary creature comforts to drive 2+ hours a day. If I was not told this car had been in a front end accident that totaled it, I would've never known. Everything was straight, no leaks, signs of accidents and even the pinch welds are perfectly straight.

Fynn gave me the backstory on how this car was owned for many years by a friend he auto-crossed with and constantly lost to it before purchasing it himself, competing and winning many autocross events, completing scheduled maintenance and parking it for awhile as he started a family. He was excited for it to go to a good home but I could tell he was pretty bummed it was leaving and that he has not being able to use it as much as he'd hoped. In fact he had put only 5k miles on it in the 2 years he had owned it. Nevertheless, we struck a deal, loaded up the 2 extra sets of wheels & tires, along with many spare and stock parts and I hit the road back home.

Here are some moments from that first drive home



After returning home, very satisfied with the purchase, it was time to christen our new car. I'm not a big car name guy, my Eclipse which I've owned for 13 years is "The Eclipse", but my wife is by no means into cars and naming cars is one way she can be engaged. After some thought, we decided it should be named after the previous owner Fynn for the time and care he put into the car. Helps that the alliteration of Fynn the Fiesta flows well.

I'm a big fan of personalized plates, especially in states like Colorado where they don't add much cost. I spent too much time thinking about this and came up with a few options:
FISTFUL
FISTBMP
FIESTRO (Party animal in spanish)
ECNOBOX
LILBITS
FIESTIVE

Feel free to steal any of these, you can see what I went with below



The next chapter of this story is pretty damn boring. Fluid changes and putting 400-500 miles per week on the car, averaging ~35 miles/gallon. Slightly worse than the 38-40 the Fit can get but with way more engagement. I do feel slightly bad about the amount of mileage I'm putting on the car so I do switch it up and drive the Fit every once and a while but I have way more fun driving Fynn.

However, recently it was time to test for myself the capability of the car. I booked a spot at Pike's Peak International Raceway's Super Sprint event, a auto-cross style event that uses both the infield track as well as a part of their former NASCAR oval. I threw on the 200 treadwear tires that came with the car, put premium gas in it (for once), added some safety gear and attended my first event with it. I am still learning the car for sure but man this thing can take a corner. It did suffer on the oval sections compared to other more powerful cars but I managed times close to STI's and about 5 seconds slower than a fairly modified Focus ST.



Overall I am having a ton of fun with this car and am looking forward to continuing to learn about the platform and connect with you all

Peace!

Matt

Welcome to the club! How much did you end up paying, if you don't mind me asking? Car looks great, the red looks fantastic!

Thanks for the warm welcome! I paid $7k for the car which included the current all season setup, a 200tw track wheel & tire set up and a winter tire & wheel set up along with all the stock parts and a few extras

That's a fantastic price. My 2015 was $7,000 without any of those extras. I'm jealous! (But I did get Recaros so I guess that's worth something)

If the timing belt service has been done that's even more of a score, it's a good chunk of change to get done.

I was definitely happy with the price especially with all the recent maintenance and annoyances taken care of -- timing belt and water pump, rear motor mounts, vent actuators. Only thing that hasn't been addressed is the clutch slave cylinder but it'll get done when I eventually replace the clutch.

Those recaros would help a ton on the autocross course with the extra bolstering and I may look into adding them in the future but I personally love a cloth seat. If I were to ever look for a Focus ST I would never get the full leather recaros

Are you going to be at the pikes peak rallycross next month? I’m hoping to get down from northern Colorado for my first Motorsport event

I am actually planning on being at PPIR for their next super sprint event on May 9th. It looks like the rallycross event is also the same day, probably on or near their off-road course though I don't know much about it. I would say my car is not quite set up for rally cross so I'll stick to the pavement for now. But maybe I can wander over to rallycross area to meet up and spectate if you end up going or feel free to join me at the super sprints event

My plan is to get set for the rally cross, but at the moment it’s in the shop having work done in the clutch. When I get it back I have a skid plate to install, and some other stuff to secure. If I don’t get it ready in time I may try the super sprint

Nice, I hope it gets wrapped up in time for you to make it to one or the other. Keep me posted

Cool intro!

Thanks! I missed out on the hay day of forums but I think it's cool to have everything documented. Glad I can start from the beginning with the FiST

I'll continue to use this thread to post updates about ongoing activities with the car. Received the news that my local track, PPIR is shutting it's doors after this season. Huge blow. The first time I've ever lived within 30 minutes of a track and it closes. Hopefully that won't affect how much I can get the car to events too much.

The next closest track is Pueblo Motorsports Park, about an hour away (not too bad but I have been pretty spoiled with PPIR so close). A 1/4 drag strip with a road course that does open lapping fairly frequently. I had dinner plans with a friend who happens to live 5 minutes away from the track and the timing lined up that they were having their first Friday Drags test n tune event of the season so I decided to take the car way out of its element and support my local tracks by giving the quarter mile a shot.

I was not able to get any outside of the car footage or photos on the track but I did take a few while swapping over wheels and waiting to track prep in line.



I knew this thing would be slow. A stock FiST should run 15-16 seconds but thats likely not at 5000ft and with a superior driver behind the wheel. I made 3 runs with my first ending up being the fastest at a blazing 17.0 & 82 mph. First two passes I left pretty soft as I was pretty terrified of breaking something. The third pass I decided to be bold and launch at around 3.5k with TSC off and spun the wheels and wheel hopped pretty bad. After the poor launch I just putted down the track to an ET of 21.77. I decided not to chance breaking something and spectated for the rest of the night.



Overall a poor first drag showing for Fynn. Obviously not in the motorsports wheelhouse of the car but it was a cool experience. Perhaps another day where my mechanical sympathy is lower I'll give it another shot and see if I can manage a 16 (maybe even 15) second pass.

Looks like a fun time was had. Thats what counts!
I used to drag my 98 civic coupe on a 50 shot of nitrous. on street tires i could manage a 14.7.
I think your fiesta could do waaay better.

It definetly should do waaay better than a 17.0 but I'd be pretty stoked if it ran a 14 at this elevation. I need a ton more practice launching FWD cars. My turbo FWD Eclipse makes about 300hp and should run a 13 pretty easy. Only been able to run a 14.6 @ 101 with it. Need the seat time but also don't want to break things I can't afford to fix