My '12 SE Picture/Project Thread

[Glockboy98]

These things are great. The girlfriend bought me one for Christmas. Impressed so far and i'm Pinching pennies to get the stealth exhaust. Driving with it is fun. The car is louder, which isn't a bad thing, and maybe it'll save me some cash on gas...

[Twenty]

Mods, can this be moved back to the showroom?

[Sonic_HedgeHog]

That should have fixed it!

[scada]

Just finished reading thru all the posts. Thank you for all of the details. Gives me a lot of ideas on what to do to my silver sedan.

[Dialed]

Hehehe.. unless you're pretty liberal with the pedal, trust me, this AI can very much be heard from the cabin.

In the summer when the bay gets full of hot air, the engine makes the sexiest f---ng noise you can imagine for 4-5 seconds until all that hot air is flushed... You'd swear you're driving a WRX STi

[Twenty]

I liking the subtle roar at lower RPMs, and then at 3500-4000 it really gets loud.

I will try a small isolator on one of the heatshield mounts though; a nut is right on metal of the engine bay and I suspect it's the cause of an infrequent rattle when the pedal is pushed harder. A small rubber washer should work.

Originally Posted by scada

Just finished reading thru all the posts. Thank you for all of the details. Gives me a lot of ideas on what to do to my silver sedan.

No problem, thanks for reading it all!

[Twenty]

Intake part II:



Tonight I picked up a couple of parts and updated the intake a little. The assembly now consists of the FSWERKS heatshield, a K&N filter, and a K&N prefilter.

The reason for the filter swap was due to availability of the oils for the two filters; I can easily get (and have) K&N re-oiling supplies whereas I didn't know if I could get the specific supplies for FSWERKS' filter. Plus I have experience with this brand and like their products.

The prefilter had to go on for winter as the intake's location puts the filter in the path of dirt and water being sprayed on the front of the car.

I have no actual complaints with the original filter though, just to be clear. This is more about personal preference and making maintenance easier for myself.

[Twenty]

An important note for Mk3 owners with intakes:

As my last post showed, I swapped in a new K&N filter a few days ago. Well, the next evening trouble popped up. I noticed when driving that night that the engine note was a little different. It wasn't by much, but I was able to pick up on it. Shortly after, the CEL suddenly came on. I was just coming up on a gas station so I pulled in and popped the hood. The problem was easy to spot; the filter had fallen off!

I reinstalled it and finished the short drive back to my house, after which I promptly swapped back to the ITG filter. I figured the K&N just wasn't gripping the MAF sensor housing enough and wiggled loose. I left the car like that to come back later and check for dirt in the intake tract.



This morning I pulled it apart to check inside the intake pipe and throttle body, hoping that the dislodged filter hadn't allowed anything troublesome in. That all looked good fortunately, but I found the potential culprit for the issue.



That is the OEM MAF sensor housing, which the FSWERKS intake uses. Note the nice bend in the foreground; it would seem that using a clamp on this can cause the plastic to crush slightly under the pressure. It's relatively thin and from the factory the filter merely sits on it without being tightened down.

For the time being the filter still seals and the Focus is back together; the CEL has to be cleared still though. A replacement housing will be on its way soon.

If there is good news to come out of this, it's that there's potential for a machined metal sleeve to be made, to fit inside the plastic housing and prevent this from happening with aftermarket filters; Sonic's Mk3 Crew is always looking to stay one step ahead.

[87astro]

How and where do we go about getting one of those machined metal sleeves you speak of?

[TiStick]

Originally Posted by Twenty

An important note for Mk3 owners with intakes:

As my last post showed, I swapped in a new K&N filter a few days ago. Well, the next evening trouble popped up. I noticed when driving that night that the engine note was a little different. It wasn't by much, but I was able to pick up on it. Shortly after, the CEL suddenly came on. I was just coming up on a gas station so I pulled in and popped the hood. The problem was easy to spot; the filter had fallen off!

I reinstalled it and finished the short drive back to my house, after which I promptly swapped back to the ITG filter. I figured the K&N just wasn't gripping the MAF sensor housing enough and wiggled loose. I left the car like that to come back later and check for dirt in the intake tract.



This morning I pulled it apart to check inside the intake pipe and throttle body, hoping that the dislodged filter hadn't allowed anything troublesome in. That all looked good fortunately, but I found the potential culprit for the issue.



That is the OEM MAF sensor housing, which the FSWERKS intake uses. Note the nice bend in the foreground; it would seem that using a clamp on this can cause the plastic to crush slightly under the pressure. It's relatively thin and from the factory the filter merely sits on it without being tightened down.

For the time being the filter still seals and the Focus is back together; the CEL has to be cleared still though. A replacement housing will be on its way soon.

If there is good news to come out of this, it's that there's potential for a machined metal sleeve to be made, to fit inside the plastic housing and prevent this from happening with aftermarket filters; Sonic's Mk3 Crew is always looking to stay one step ahead.

That ID is already the chokepoint in the air tract leading to the throttle plate. IMHO, you don't want to put anything in there that will reduce that ID. A solution to this particular problem is the bracket that Mike(Shade-010) made, which keeps the filter bottomed out on whatever housing it is sitting on. Or, attach(superglue) a thin band of rubber to the outside of the OD, which would give the filter hose clamp something a bit softer to grip, while also increasing the OD just enough to make it tighter to the filter ID.

I really want one of Steeda's aluminum MAF's, but I want to adapt it to my closed airbox also. Someday....