FX's "Red Headed Step-child" Build Thread (56k Go and re-evaluate your life!!)

[miragesmack]

Drill Baby Drill!! Yeah, that plate needs to be on the bumper, not the grill. You like the quality of that plate? I have a new screen name planned, and euro plate, but I need to do a few mods before it will work.

My car rides rough as shit now, almost feels like my new front Koni are blown. Only had them on 3 - 4 weeks. I can feel a dime if I drive over it, and I'm on the softest setting. Maybe I need different springs. Have you noticed a dif with the prothane bushing? I may go back to stock ones, its just too damn rough right now. I had some crazy rough roads in Michigan last week.

[djwrg04]

Have some time before my Sociology class so I thought I'd get down to updating this as it’s been a while since I had the time to get on here with my laptop being broken and all the work that's been piling up.

As far as the euro plate goes, I really don't wanna drill the bumper so I'm going to try and figure out an effective way to mount the plate in the stock location without having to mess with drilling holes or doing epoxy/ any of that. But that won’t be for a lil’ while.

Went up to Indiana on the 29th with my dad and girlfriend in the focus to pick up my secondary winter project; a 1978 Columbia Commuter.

It’s definitely going to be a massive amount of work. Everything’s there except for the chain guards and one switch (possibly run/kill buttons) and all the brake cables/clutch/throttle cables are totally done for. For sixty bucks though, it was worth it in my opinion.

After picking up the bike in Bicknell, Indiana I made the hour and a half journey to Evansville, IN to go see Disciplerocks’s (Dustin) V8 swap project in the flesh. I’ve gotta say he’s done more in less time than anybody else… and with 1/5th the budget and all self-made parts (no kugel kit, just straight up bolt-in fab!!).

Today fall break starts and runs through the 7th. It’s a whole 4 days but it’s enough time to do a few things to the car!! I hope to get the header I got from mikebontoft heat wrapped (already ceramic coated by my dad) then installed.


Also I’m getting the parts I need from Miragesmack sometime this week to do a really intensive swap that I’ll let the details out about soon.

I’ll go more in-depth with the details and all the visual picture rape by Monday.

[djwrg04]

Sociology classes need to go die… Haven't had any time at all over the past two weeks.

Over the 4 day fall break I got three or four things done to the Anya. Most notably the header (which d'ucking rocks btw.) and cleaned my interior. And got some things done to the 2012.

Anyway, here's the picture rape!



Starting with the bike I got:





Let the old man drive on the way home from dustin's place due to me being completely exahusted. IIRC it's he's Anya for the first time in over a year. Can't believe he bought it about 12 years ago as just a regular SPI sedan.


My buddy Stephen doing the Captian Morgan before we tore down the bike.


Officially the name we chose for the bike is: "The Mumblin' Banshee"


~~Now, here's the header awesomeness~~


Started out by soaking the Titanium Wrap so I could wrap it tighter. Yeah, I did my research!!



Got it halfway done then found out that the EGR tube I had been using for leverage to wrap the header tighter cracked off the pipe…..



Has to unwrap it and cover the header with wet dirty rags to protect the rest of the wrappped tubes.



Gotta say… this is the best weld I've ever done…. Ever!!



Nice little close-up of the awesome!



Re-wrapped and on it's way to being finished.



Header installed



The old manifold and cat I pulled off



Full shot of engine bay lookin' smexy!


Here's the compact jack package I got off eBay for a 2012 Focus. Fits way better in my trunk than the old jack and it seems to have cut down on some road noise being that it fills up a gigantic hollow space in the tire-well.


~~~~Interior LED dome light swap on the 2012~~~~

The old man got bit by the car modding bug, prolly caught it from me lol. He said that he wouldn't start modifying his new 2012 untill the warranty was gone but eventually he couldn't resist any longer and gave in (mostly due to me showing him how to use eBay).

He's been looking at everything and anything for his 2012… New front seats, gauges, HIDs', you name it… he's thought about it. He's planning on doing a ST clone with a mixture of all the models. Just keeping the engine stock until the warranty is long gone.

Here's his list of things to do:
-ST rear wing
-Push button start
-Titanium HIDs
---blacked out housings (if they aren't already that way)
-Titanium fog light surrounds (with the black)
- ST style gauge pod
---Oil pressure, Oil Temp, Vacuum.
-ST engine cover
-electric focus taillights
---nightshade or tinted
-ST steering wheel
-ST graphite wheels
-2008 Focus ST front bumper insert (the trapezoidal black plastic part in the middle)
---will need a lil fiberglass work to be made to fit but that's way down the road.





We did two mods to the 2012 over fall break, the first one was blue led dome lights. Dad ordered a kit off eBay and got it in pretty easily.



Front dome light taken apart



Skip to the finished result

Only snag that happened was the polarity of the wedge being opposite of what the bulb holder was. All we had to flip the contacts on the wedge that went into the bulb holder and everything worked!



Next thing we did was a little cosmetic surgery. The new focus has always looked kinda lost without the exhaust tip on the left side as far as my dad was concerned.



Here's dad grinding down the section of pipe we welded to the muffler so it sits flush and comes out at the exact same point as the stock right side.



Here, you can see that there's provisions for a dual exhaust on the muffler itself. After a visit from my buddy Ryan who drives the new ford escapes and inspects them all day long at Ford, he told me that the muffler on the Focus is the same one as the muffler on the Escape. Only difference is that there is an internal baffle (a thing flat horizontal piece of metal about the size of a credit card) that equalizes the flow between the pipes.

That leads me to believe is that you could just take a hole saw or whatever and cut out the blanking plate and weld on a elbow and tip (or no tip idfc honestly) and you would have working dual tips.

Instead of going to the trouble of cutting it out we just decided to tac-weld the elbow onto there to where it's pretty tough so we can easily pull it off at a later date and remove/ cut out the plate to make it work.



Finished product. If you look closely, the tips are pointed out to the sides and just ever so slightly downward to give it a bit more of an aesthetically pleasing look rather than directly pointing straight back/out.


That's all for now.

Hope you all enjoyed everything.

Engine information will have to come next time when i get a chance to write it all down and get the specs organized in one place.

Till next time!!
-Dave

[pyroinsa]

Wow! Your pops should join FF and start a build thread! I am very intrigued by the 2012 jack set, does that fit under your spare? What did your dad think of how you Focus handled and drove before and after all your mods? That header, the welds coulda been better, I have seen better in person, was that being sarcastic?

Anyway, I love your build, you and your pops are going to have some great many memories cause of these Foci!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[djwrg04]

Winter-prep update coming monday!

[disciplerocks]

You need a good auto darkening helmet

[djwrg04]

Finally Getting some free time this week!!! It's a miracle!!!
Definitely need to update this with all the stuff/new engine build information!

[TheGlassMaker]

Hey david! Its been along time, haven't even seen you post on fb. Good to see ya still around I started to wonder just the other day how things where going. I think I'm going to look into the jack set for my mazda. The previous owner bought a full size spare for it but the jack set is gone.

[alteredego]

Remove the ST badge.

That's ridiculous.

Love the SPI mods. Could be a fan of some different headlights however.

What did it dyno at?

[djwrg04]

UPDATEEEE TIMEEEEEE!!!!!


Okay… sooo…. It’s been a long time FF, been real busy with my academics this semester so I haven’t been able to sit down and gather all my information into one single spot and go through with it all.

First order of business is to clear up what I’m exactly doing as I’ve realized that 3am thread updates usually aren’t posted with sleep or clarity in mind lol.

Here we go….

Anya is doing well for the most part, as she always has.

But as time goes on, parts fail, need replacement, and just wear in general.

One of my biggest fears is the transmission. It’s the second one that Anya has had and with how scarce IB5 transmissions and parts for them are(mostly due to for discontinuing support ), I was only able to get a used one (from ford might I add) with about 88,xxx miles and an unknown history (was it a lil’ old lady or a Tanner Foust wanna-be?).

My original Transmission lasted to about 100k miles but it decided it didn’t wanna live anymore and “grabbed two gears at once causing the pressure inside the case to build up so high that it blew a half-dollar coin sized hole out of the casting” (At least that’s what the guy replacing my transmission said at ford).

The replacement trans I have is nearing 110k miles and is already starting to give me some problems and show signs of wear and does the “clack clack clack clack clack…” noise when at idle without the clutch pushed in.

With my replacement transmission on it’s way out, the best course of action (for me at-least) is to swap to the MTX-75 transmission sitting in my garage.

Here’s where the engine info comes in!


Before I go into it all, let me just outright say this: no…. I’m not going to directly swap to Zetec/Duratec. I am sticking with an 8v motor!
With that being said, this new motor is going to be a hybrid (hence my use of “directly”) so without further blabbering, lets just get it out there.

(This is where you start doing the drum-roll on your computer desk/lap)

…
… …
… … …
… … … …
… … … … …

The new engine is going to be a “ZVH”!!!
The ZVH engine is a mix between the British “CVH” engine (the SPI over here in the states) and the Zetec and is British in origin (as in they’re the ones who’ve been doing it).

To shorten things up, it’s easier to just say that I’m taking an SPI head and putting it on a Zetec block.

By going with a ZVH, I get to keep all my nicer performance parts that I’ve got on my split port engine (header, intake, big a$$ throttle body, etc…) and have the strength of the Zetec bottom end and the ability to run an MTX-75 trans without having to do much work. Not to mention, I don’t have to deal with re-wiring or getting a new ECU or doing much of anything honestly in terms of electronics except for tuning.
I’ll get to keep my A/C too!!

I'll also have the engine prepped and ready to accept a turbo setup if i decide to go that route by getting the appropriate oil line stuff drilled out so I can do it in the future!


Before I start naming off things, keep in mind that this is my first ever engine build, and I’m not familiar with most (if not all…) of the procedures involved in professionally building an engine outside of port matching a head and bolt-on improvements. (all of the past engine work was done by a shop on the original engine and I simply footed the bill lol).

So remember, if you have any tips, tricks, warnings, or anything and everything… let me know lol

Now, you’re probably asking “how is this possible??” or “why the f#@k would someone put a SPI head on a Zetec motor???”

Well, the first question is easy to answer, the second one… well, you need to stop skimming through my posts lol.


How to do this/ what I’m going to do (a temporary summary):

1. Get Block cleaned and checked out (ensure everything is within correct tolerances)
2. Bore/hone block to 85mm(or whatever it needs to be)
3. Measure piston squish & deck heights
4. Get block face decked
5. Measure cylinder head combustion chamber volumes
6. Calculate dimension of dish needed in piston
7. Put brass plugs in the four block oil drains for the Zetec exhaust side camshaft. ( SPI head has no use for these holes)
8. Drill and tap block with new water pump holes for 1.6L escort water pump. (Zetec water pump flows coolant in wrong direction for SPI head)
9. Drill and tap block with holes for 1.3L Escort Tensioner (can’t use the stock tensioner…nuff’ said)
10. Notch pistons for oil cooling jets
11. Put oil cooling jets on block
12. Block off block oil breather
13. Get new clutch for MTX-75
14. Get flywheel lightened (or just buy a lightweight one to begin with)
15. Get crank knife-edged
16. Get roller-rocker arms done to head by Harland sharp
17. Re-paint valve cover with rattle-can black wrinkle paint
18. Get ARP studs for everything!!! (head, bearing caps, etc…)

Overall, I expect that there's gonna be at least 20 hours of shop work involved in this build and haven’t done anything yet though as I’m still jumping through hoops with odd jobs to get up the money to do this build as it is.


And now for the specs of this new engine:

--which are more or less thrown together last-minute just to give a very rough idea of what the end result will be

-Compression: 9.3:1(n/a) 8.2:1 (boosted w/ 16 psi max)
-Redline: 9,000 (current engine is at 8,300) Will be limited to 7600 via ECU
-Cylinder bore diameter: 85.xx mm
-Zetec connecting rod with 22mm pin and 5.427" length.
-Compression Height 1.205"
-Piston diameter: 84.00 -84.80mm


That’s about all I’ve got to tell for now, If I get ahold of this type 9 transmission(for free I might add) then there will be the possibility of doing this up as a rear wheel drive conversion over summer… but as far as I’m concerned that’s way too far off for me to really get started on that lol ( not to mention if I start typing up my ideas I’ll get too far into it for my budget to handle lol).

Pictures of another ZVH swap to get the point across:


Oil drain holes that need to be plugged/Zetec and SPI


Holes that need to be drilled & tapped on Zetec block


early Escort tensioner & water pump placement on Zetec block


How it should look when it's done (minus the green & blue paint...)



Reply time!!

Originally Posted by disciplerocks

You need a good auto darkening helmet

That is on my Christmas list lol

Originally Posted by TheGlassMaker

Hey david! Its been along time, haven't even seen you post on fb. Good to see ya still around I started to wonder just the other day how things where going. I think I'm going to look into the jack set for my mazda. The previous owner bought a full size spare for it but the jack set is gone.

James!! I'm still around, just had so much stuff going on with college and keeping grades up/ technology issues (lack of a laptop that liked the internet) for the last couple months which limited me to facebook & FF on my phone. The jack set works great for my car and fits nicely under the full-size spare(split spoke stocker) I have in the trunk, It also rattles a lot less than the original jack set.

How's your ride doing? did the swap work out?

Originally Posted by alteredego

Remove the ST badge.

That's ridiculous.

Love the SPI mods. Could be a fan of some different headlights however.

What did it dyno at?

What's ridiculous?

The lights are gonna be on the car for a while unless I can get a nice pair of ST170's or Mach's.

My car dynoed out at either 98.7 or 89.7 horsepower as of June 2012. I cant really remember what it was exactly due to me forgetting to write it down...

So just go with 98bhp @ 5500 rpm.