Really Should Stop Modifying my Daily Driver into a Track Car

[Fusion Works]

Guess its a good thing I have other vehicles for the times I pull the Fiesta apart.

I picked up this 2016 last spring. It had 18K miles and had one owner who drove it around Indiana for a couple of years. Car was in good shape so let the modifying begin. Obviously when I first got it, I couldn't leave it alone for awhile.

Off comes the front end for an intercooler, air box, tune, etc. Added the Mountune intercooler, airbox, colder plugs, changed out clamps with T-bolts, etc

 

[Fusion Works]

Still wasn't good enough. Couldn't even hear the exhaust. That was annoying. A quick call and Thermal R&D to the rescue. Of course I didn't like their silly ass slip fit weird coupler flange. Lets whip out the TIG welder and fix that up.

Of course that will have to come off when the upgraded turbo and down pipe are added, but then I'll do a V-band.

 

[Fusion Works]

More HP and Torque didn't solve the ride height problem. Dear Ford, the Fiesta ST isn't a 4wd, get the ride height correct. You used different springs for the ST, they could have been a bit lower. Oh well, Suspension Techniques to the rescue.

Since the tires are so far away from the fenders, H&R had to add some spacers. I think they are 15mm, no way you can run more than about 3mm without changing spacers, so I added some longer studs to go with them. Problem solved.

 

[Fusion Works]

After all that its, time to go to Barber Motorsports Park to finish off those OE Bridgestones

Fun day with Just Track It. Car was a blast, better than I expected, but the OE Bridgestones suck and suck even worse when they are 2 years old. Expected that. The open diff ruins this car. Dear Ford, whose cheap ass idea was an open diff in this car? Also, who puts marginal brakes on a car this capable? Stupid. OH well, I have a fix for that.

 

[Fusion Works]

Time for some more upgrades, this time we get a little more...
For some reason this car seemed a little long on the gear, I was a chicken and didn't want to go to the 4.30 so I picked up the 4.06 and that was a good move. The car is snappier and it reacts better throughout the RPM range

This is probably the way Ford should have done it, Obviously they liked it enough for the ST200.

Then the MANDATORY limited slip that Ford should have made at least optional in this country. There is no excuse for not offering an LSD as an option.

While we were in there, lets toss this 25lb dual mass flywheel and replace it with a nice aluminum flywheel. Definitely a much better option.

 

[Fusion Works]

Now onto the serious work. Lets build a big brake kit for this car. None of the off the shelf options looked good, so lets build our own.
Start with these:

12.88 x 1.10 48vane Wilwood directional rotors. I could go probably .500in larger, but there isn't a reasonably priced rotor and I think this will do the job.

If we are gonna address the fronts, lets go bigger on the rear, cuz those silly rear rotors look tiny in those big ass wheels. So I dug around and found a 12in option.

They are quiet a bit larger than the SVT rotor I installed on the rear before Barber. Then I find there is a 13in option that I could use. Guess I'll have to make some new brackets to support those at some point.

 

[Fusion Works]

Up and running, they worked out pretty well. The lower control arm needed a bit of clearance, but that is no problem.

No before the nerds out there freak out, yes I know the rotor isn't fully covered with the pad. The rotor is 2in larger than the stock rear rotor. There is going to be a large space between the pad and the middle of the rotor. This was an exercise in getting a larger rotor to generate more torque at the wheel. Without going to a HUGE piston there is no way to get more pad coverage on that larger rotor, however the stock Fiesta ST pad is completely touching the rotor so I get as much torque as can be generated with the OE hydraulic setup. I don't think it needs more rear brake plus this should help keep the rear brakes from melting down on track.

 

[Fusion Works]

Now to the drawbacks. Since I picked a full floating hat to build my kit from, they are holy fuck loud. The floating rotor setup is fantastic for feel and when hot and smoking, the pedal feel doesn't change and there is no distortion in the rotor rings. For a track car they are awesome, but for a "quiet" street car, .015 free float is the most ridiculous, noisy, thing on the planet. When driving down the road you hear "Chatter from the front end", sounds like something is loose (cuz it is). You can turn up the stereo to drown it out a bit, but if you have a passenger its LOUD. Add in a road with a bunch of small bumps, cracks, disturbances, etc and it gets worse. When you put the brakes on the noise goes away as to be expected.

I'm gonna have to pull these off and machine some solid hats to stop this racket. Might be worth trying to make a "spring" for the t-nuts to see if I can take out the slack under normal conditions.

 

[Manta Ray]

Awesome build, curious on how the "spring" would work out for you.

 

[RubenZZZ]

Dude, you're a beast!

I thoroughly enjoyed all of these posts.

Sent from my LGLS992 using Tapatalk

 

[Ford ST]

This is impressive. Do you own a shop/do this for a living.
Great build.

Sent from my LG-LS997 using Tapatalk

 

[Fusion Works]

I think the springs would work out pretty well. If you look at all the OE cars that come with two piece rotors like the Camaro 1LE, Corvette Z06/ZR1, Audi products, etc, they have a different style hat but they float them and have a tension spring to keep them quiet. I don't know if there is room for a spring though. I may try it as a last resort.

The Wilwood hat is a little different than the Brembo/AP/etc. They float the mounting bolts instead of the rotor so there is an inherent noise associated with that freedom of movement. No big deal when you have no interior, exhaust, etc on a race car, but its really annoying when you try to drive quietly down the street.

Yeah, I own Fusion Works Fabrication. So I kinda do this for a living. HAHA

 

[Fusion Works]

Finally got around to making up some anti-rattle springs for these brake hats. They worked great, but were a huge pain in the ass to make. I made 24 of them and if I have to make more I will do them differently.

The sounds of silence are exquisite. Track day in two weeks at Barber for me to fully proof the setup, but I doubt I will be disappointed based on road testing up to this point. Definitely looking forward to it.

 

[shouldbeasy]

Is the underbody stock? I see two pieces which are different from mine (2014) - a cross brace right behind the engine (perpendicular to the car) and another smaller brace over the exhaust.

Have you changed those out?

How does the lighter flywheel feel?

 

[Fusion Works]

For the most part, its stockish. My car came with two little 1in wide strips that attached the front subframe to the underfloor frame rails. They bolted on with one bolt on each end. I felt the car needed something across the bottom to tie those two together so I removed them, used a piece of 1in square tube to tie the points across the floor together. Then I cut an angle on the ends and welded the strips to the bar. Doubt it made a huge difference, but was cheaper than easier than building an aluminum stress plate like I was thinking.

The other brace is a under mount for a hanger that came with the Thermal Exhaust. Its just a replacement for the stock underfloor tunnel brace.

As for the flywheel, I can't tell a huge difference. I like a car with a light flywheel period. That is me though. Seems like the car is a bit more responsive when I want to jump through a hole in traffic. That could also be the 4.06 final drive.

 

[rc328]

Kudos to you sir , great build , I wish i can have the tools and expertise. I'm looking forward to see more updates.

 

[Fusion Works]

Spent Sunday at Barber Motorsports Park with Just Track It. It was just a one day event so it fit nicely in the schedule. Several friends came down with me. A Mustang GT, Camaro ZL1, Acura CL Type S, and the E36 M3. All much more track oriented than the Fiesta.

Ran the car with the new brakes. They felt great. The pedal felt consistent throughout the session. I didn't even bother to put in my normal race brake fluid when I installed the kit. I ran out of time Sat to replace the fluid with the Wilwood fluid before loading on the trailer. So out we went with the Oreilly's DOT 4 fluid. HAHA.
The BP20 pads didn't hold up well for me. I cooked them to death. I also didn't have time to hook up my brake ducts before going either. (Had to rewire the trailer lights), but the my big brake setup has proven itself so I am happy about that.

I spent the day trying to get the car to rotate better. While not bad, I jammed three spring rubbers in each rear spring upping the rate 100-150lbs to get the car to turn. I'm running the Suspension Techniques lowering springs with stock shocks. When the time to change the shocks I may go to the Bilstein B14 kit.

I know this is on me as I'm not set on turning this into a track car. The Fiesta is a great street car, a kinda fun car to run at the track, but its never going to be a great track car.

Definitely want to add some more power. Looks like I am going to order a S280, but I am going to try and figure out if there is a better fuel pump option. Not a huge fan of aux fuel.

 

[green_henry]

Having come from the Honda (understeer) world, I've never considered rotation to be a challenge with the FiST. A couple of inexpensive ways to enhance rotation: rear camber plates and/or rear sway bar; front camber bolts also help; all of the above cost < $300 and are relatively easy DIY projects

 

[Fusion Works]

My race car doesn't understeer. HAHA

I have front camber bolts and am running about -2ish if I remember right. Don't get me wrong, the car turns fine, but street driving is completely different than track. I'm happy with the car on the street and it was OK on the track, but not razor sharp and the stock shocks don't have enough compression and rebound for real track work.

At Barber turn 2/3 and the Tunnel turn, both seem to really suck the ability out of the car. Its so easy to over drive the car through those turns. The car just doesn't have the grip. I'[m using a Maxxis VR1 tire as well. Car does some weird flopping around when transitioning into to turn 2 for example. Its a factor related to the shock valving.

 

[scooter123]

Nice work but you need to get cracking on that 914-6 sitting abandoned behind your FiST in the first shot. While not even close to a supercar back in the day the 914-6 was a great balance between compliance and cornering ability and at 2100 lbs the 125 HP motor made for rather decent pep back when emissions controls strangled any car sold in this country. BTW, I'll bet someone with talent such as your just might be able to shoehorn a WRX or old air cooled 911 Turbo engine into that Porsche.