Making a fist yourself

[Stkid93]

When I was younger in my home town there was a group of guys who owned srt4 neons. And one of them decided to build his own srt4. He did this because the base neon was about 500 ish pounds lighter than the srt4. He did it by buying a non driving base neon shell, and only put what he needed to for the car to run and drive like a real srt4. So the motor. Engine mounts, transmission, suspension etc. I believe he did also swap over the body panels and body kit so it looked the part too.

Now obviously adding some of that stuff back in added weight back in, but in the end, he had an srt4 that drove just like any other, but was about 300 pounds lighter than a legit srt4.

Do you think this would be possible to do with the fist? And how much weight do you think would be saved in the end? I know the base fiestas are maybe 200-300 lbs or so lighter than the fist. So it’s not as much as the srt4. (Which again had a 500 pound difference) but I do wonder what the final weight would be buying a non driving fiesta, and only putting the necessary parts in. Could probably save 150-200 pounds which would put us around the same weight as the uk 2 door cars.

lemme know what y’all think

 

[SteveS]

It's been done and documented on this forum but the purpose wasn't weight savings. It was to be a sleeper because it was done with a sedan. It wasn't easy.

Also I'm looking at Edmunds specs for 2019 Fiestas, and they show the non ST Fiestas about 100 lbs heavier than the ST.

On Ford's 2019 brochure it shows the ST as 190 lbs heavier.

In any case, by the time you added the turbo, its plumbing, the intercooler, transmission, and so on, I doubt the weight difference would amount to anything.

The only reason I could see doing it would be maybe to get an ST-Line in one of the colors that wasn't available on the ST and transplant it with real ST drivetrain and suspension.

 

[Stkid93]

Ahh, a sedan fist. Very interesting I didn’t know that could even be done. I’m sure it wasn’t worth the money unless you absolutely needed a sedan for some reason and have enough disposable income and time to throw at it. Otherwise it seems kinda pointless.

Weight would be the only real reason to do it for me. And in my opinion if you are doing it to save weight you would need to save at least 150 pounds to even consider it. Anything less than that just isn’t worth the time in my opinion.

The idea sounded much better In my head, I was imagining saving at least 200 pounds off the curb weight just by using a base shell with the necessary parts. And then by the time you do weight reduction, Take the back seats out etc. you could save another 200 pounds making the final weight 2300 lbs. which would be utterly ridiculous. But it doesn’t sound like the weight savings would be more than maybe 100 pounds max?

Makes me wonder how the srt4 neon was so much heavier than the base model… where did all the weight come from?

 

[Clint Beastwood]

Ahh, a sedan fist. Very interesting I didn’t know that could even be done. I’m sure it wasn’t worth the money unless you absolutely needed a sedan for some reason and have enough disposable income and time to throw at it. Otherwise it seems kinda pointless.

Weight would be the only real reason to do it for me. And in my opinion if you are doing it to save weight you would need to save at least 150 pounds to even consider it. Anything less than that just isn’t worth the time in my opinion.

The idea sounded much better In my head, I was imagining saving at least 200 pounds off the curb weight just by using a base shell with the necessary parts. And then by the time you do weight reduction, Take the back seats out etc. you could save another 200 pounds making the final weight 2300 lbs. which would be utterly ridiculous. But it doesn’t sound like the weight savings would be more than maybe 100 pounds max?

Makes me wonder how the srt4 neon was so much heavier than the base model… where did all the weight come from?

My SRT4 neon vs the base neon, all the suspension, handling bits were sturdier, lots of extra piping and beef for the engine. The SRT4 had a bad-ass bitch of an engine - it was built like a tank.