Switchback's Fiesta Fun Car Build

Ill have to trim the plastic around the cooling fan, I was looking at this yesterday since you mentioned it. Seems like the fan assembly will be the issue.

It’s been a minute since I last posted here, but work continues! I recently installed the Pierce Motorsports tow hook kit, but made a bit of a change to the design.

As you who have installed this kit know, you have to *somehow* get a pair of bolts and washers inside the crash bar to hold the bracket in place. Instead of doing that (and hating life) I used a rivnut tool we have been using on the Lemons project. It worked perfectly and from my research is as strong (if not stronger) than the original washer and nut setup Pierce includes with the kit.

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While I was in there, I also replaced the center bumper support as it was broken. The bumper no longer sags as much! The original piece is held in there with hot glue so after the tedious process of peeling it off I got some new hot glue (the industrial heavy duty stuff) and glued on the new bracket.

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EDIT: apparently mobile safari doesn't like to embed images properly. I'll fix it tonight when I'm home from work.

My bad luck just keeps on coming. While swapping out the turbo for a slightly used one and installing new exhaust manifold studs, I found that one of the previous owners snapped one of the exhaust manifold studs (far passenger side). This is very possibly why I was having low boost, if the exhaust manifold was leaking/warped.



I'm seriously starting to wonder if I should just rid myself of this Fiesta and go get something else.

Plug the port and weld a nut to the end of that stud, then back it out and move on with the car. It will be a bit of a pain, but beats pulling the engine.

Honestly my comment is more about everything that's continued to happen to the fiesta since I bought it. Exhaust, Timing, Brakes, Tires, Transmission (4 grand for 2x slave cylinder replacements), and now the exhaust manifold stud that's likely the cause of my boost leak. Just saying I've had really bad luck with this fiesta.

Well after a weekend of swearing, yelling at the sun (and sweating) a friend and I were able to pull the stud out. Welding was a bust, harbor freight reverse drill bit worked and I've replaced the studs with ARP studs from whoosh. I really want to encase this bit of stud in resin as a victory trophy.




The Fiesta has been reassembled with a used turbo, time to see if I'm making any more power and if the car is stable and healthy again. I will say the test drive I did while the Scroth belts were installed made me feel very racecar.

Well, my incredibly bad luck with my Fiesta continues.

Took the car out for a trial run and some canyon blasting, and after about 20 minutes of sustained driving I got a nice assortment of codes:
P0300 - Random/multiple misfire
P0301 - Cylinder 1 Misfire
P0304 - Cylinder 4 Misfire

Cleared the codes and continued driving (to see if it was a one-off) and P0304 came back within 5 minutes of driving. Cleared them again and aborted my drive and drove home (on the highway, cruising) without any new codes. I recently re-loaded my Dizzy stage 2 tune, which seemed fine for daily driving (even smashing the pedal when getting on the highway etc). I had planned on doing a time attack on Tuesday but that is probably not going to happen.

I recently (less than 2k miles ago) replaced the spark plugs with NGK Ruthenium HX gapped to .028 so I certainly hope it's not a plug issue, but at this point I'm sort of over the constant problems.

Well I tried to pull the spark plugs, turns out the mechanic who I initially had them check for boost issues overtorqued the coil packs and now the bolt is rotating freely so I can't pull Cylinder 1s coil pack and sparkplug out.

I'm fed up with dumping tons of money into this car, I'm selling it. Guess coming back to a Fiesta was the wrong move overall.

Damn, such a bad spot to be in. It looks like it's been one thing after another with this car.

Yeah, this is the worst part of this car is it seems to be a never-ending pit of despair. The operating cost per mile is double what the Corvette is, just due to all the deferred maintenance that I've had to complete.

On the good-ish news side, we took the whole coilpack mounting bracket off (I was previously unaware that the Coilpack mounting bracket and the valve cover gasket were the same piece, which is (luckily) not the case. We popped it off, and (redneck engineering) used a rivnut to replace the heat set insert. I'll hammer on it next weekend and try to see if it misfires and if it does, does it return on the same cylinder or if it moves. Current consensus is the car was getting hot (30 minutes of backroads in Cali inland summer) and the coil packs are iffy at high temps/high load.

The thing that really peeves me is that when the car is driving well it's such a blast to drive. Yeah it doesn't have the power or planted feeling of my Corvette but it just darts in and has such a lively feeling, just with how lightweight it is. One of the Discord groups I'm in even mentioned how different it is owning a C8 and a FiST, but I think they are extremely complementary. The 30 minutes before the misfiring was really great fun, and temps looked great with the Mountune radiator and Whoosh v3 Intercooler, even with the temps in the high 70s ambient. I truly think the Fiesta would/will be a great track car with how different it is (C8 can just power through bad track placement), I just need to build back up my confidence to make sure it's good for a track event.