The Story of a Car

Jburks · Jan 16, 2015

looking good man, i love these svt focus's

Focus?NoFocus · Jan 16, 2015

CRP16 said:
Cool thread, this is making me want an SVT lol.

Did you ever figure out the clunk?

Not entirely, but driving it down the rutted road to the junk yard definitely helped me narrow it down to the passenger's side. My friend suggested it could be from the strut mount, but I haven't pulled it apart to check it.

If you find one for a good price, they make neat little project cars.

Focus?NoFocus · Feb 4, 2015

2/4/15 update! Starting with the good, the $20 I spent on that Blaupunkt radio wasn't wasted. A friend of mine did a pin out on it, and it worked! Now its just a matter of making it work in the car. The steering clunk is gone as well. It was in the upper strut mount, so I tightened it up, and no more noise. I was also able to get my passenger's side rocker panel off, and down to the paint shop for painting and whatnot. So that side of the car is naked. Lastly, the headlights don't look like fido's arse. nboyles made a comment about using rubbing compound on them, and originally I thought he was being sarcastic, but I tried it one saturday when work was slow, and got results I never would have expected. Four hours later, the headlights looked fantastic. Sweet.

Still have a long list of things to do, but it's a far cry from the piss poor shape it was in on day one.

slow_solo_focus · Feb 4, 2015

Pretty sweet!

Focus?NoFocus · Jun 4, 2015

Oh, boy. It's been a while. Where to start? Well, the Blaupunkt radio is in and working, minus the steering column audio controls. Now I have a working radio, and I can actually adjust my fade and balance. The downside to that is I discovered I have a couple of bad speakers, but whatever. I'm going full Blau anyway. I even rounded up a Blaupunkt ProComponents 10" sub for $35 on eBay. Tested and working, now it needs a home. Hopefully, it'll find a stealth box to call home.

I'm also towing! I bought a Curt receiver for it, and mounted it up. Pulls my little Sea Doo like a champ. Its pretty obvious you're pulling, but its not like its working all that hard to yank it along. I've already successfully launched and retrieved it at one of the local landings. So, for anyone wondering, yes, the SVT Focus is a decent tow vehicle for light duty work, if you do not have to pull with any real frequency. The lower valence did require some modification to make it work, but before I started cutting into it, I removed it entirely to ensure I could actually pull with it and not break anything. I'm still in the process of making it fit correctly, so I'll update more on that when I'm done.

Lastly, I put some new shoes on her. I've had BF Goodrich g-Force sport tires before on a Tiburon, and loved them, so I got another set. Infinitely better than the Rotalla tires I bought it with. With the pending sale of my Saturn, I may be making some significant changes in the near future, so I'll try to keep this updated.

Focus?NoFocus · Jun 9, 2015

New things done! My Saturn is sold, and my budget is freed up a good bit. On to repairs that have been long overdue! But in the mean time, small victories are good.

With the addition of the hitch, like many others have done, I had to trim my rear valance. Since I had done that already, and I was bored, I decided to pull it back off, paint it, and re-mount it correctly. Because of the way the Curt hitch mounts, in addition to cutting the large notch in the middle, I had to trim out a small notch on the passenger's side for the bracket to clear properly and the valance to not look bent. I also used longer screws and plastic collars to space it out. The end result is that the valance sits more flush with the bumper now, which looks pretty cool.

New speakers and a euro grill are on the way.

CanFocusFan · Jun 9, 2015

Hi: Focus?NoFocus... To clean any yellowing from the headlight lens' I use Brasso. Just like any wax...apply with a good rub, let it haze dry, buff it off.
Read your "Sorry Story". I hope she didn't take the dog?
CanFocusFan[Wave}

prerunnerwannabe · Jun 9, 2015

Looks good man! It's cool to see a Fofo do some towing

Focus?NoFocus · Jun 9, 2015

prerunnerwannabe said:
Looks good man! It's cool to see a Fofo do some towing

I've got to hand it to the little car. It yanks my Seadoo around like a champ. I wouldn't want to do much more than that with it, though. It doesn't struggle with it all that much, but it doesn't make much torque down low, so you'll end up having to downshift when you're climbing hills.

Focus?NoFocus · Jul 30, 2015

Well, this hasn't been posted to in a while. Why not fix that? 7/30/15

A lot has happened since last I updated this. My new Blaupunkt speakers are in, replacing one busted Polk, one mystery-brand-possibly-stock speaker, and two Wal-Mart Special Pioneers. Sub is still sitting in the house, with no home or amp. After that, added a CFM big bore throttle body. I bought the silicone coupler, and, as it turns out, it doesn't fit. However, the one with my Steeda intake does, so it worked out. I'll post the coupler for sale in the FS/FT section later. Anyway, if you have an SVT, you neeeeeeeed to have this throttle body. I noticed two things immediately: Better throttle response overall, and better low end response, which was the one thing that drove me crazy. Additionally, I bought a FSWerks Stealth exhaust, but it is not on just yet, due to the crap custom job having modified the hangar locations. I'll have to have one moved for the one at the tip to mount correctly, but its on the back burner right now. So that is the good.

Now for the not so good. Starting from the top, I procrastinated about it for the longest time, but I wound up finally replacing the valve cover gasket that was supposed to have been done when the timing belt was done, yet had been leaking down onto the thermostat housing. This was due to the fact that the tech laid down a large enough glob of silicone to fill and seal Paris Hilton's vagina, causing a poor seal in the cam groove, though I'm not entirely convinced he actually put a new gasket on there, either. Butt eye die grass. In doing that job, I discovered I had more than one leak in the gasket. It turned out that it had been leaking down into the spark plug cavity, so I wound up cleaning that up as well. While I was at it, I decided to pull my plugs out to inspect them, and found that the porcelain had cracked on cylinder #4's plug. Jeez. It was after this I learned that NGK plugs are not well suited for these cars. Stuck at the shop with a cracked plug, and its 11:45 at night. Damn. Next day rolled around, and I got a stand-in plug until my Motorcraft plugs came in, and threw in some new wires as well. Why not?

With that done, i moved on to the next task, replacing my split thermostat housing, which had been leaking slowly, but not enough to leave a puddle. That was about the only thing that went right that day. Now, she's decommissioned and hanging out at the house, waiting on me to give her some love after I broke either a motor mount, trans mount, or lost a bushing between home and Atlanta on my way to look at a Subaru Outback I've affectionately named Gramps. How original.

What a month.

slow_solo_focus · Jul 30, 2015

was a month hahahaha

Focus?NoFocus · Jan 5, 2016

It's a new year, and I haven't been here in a while. How about some good news?

After the last post I made, the car sat for a while with no insurance and no tag, mostly because transferring the tag from it to the Subaru was the easiest way for me to get the Subaru home to Central from Atlanta, GA. It got moved around on occasion to keep the battery up and make sure it all stayed working.

Come October, I switched insurance companies, which allowed me to re-register the car, so I used the opportunity to get a vanity plate. My first choice was "NOFOCUS," which I didn't get. I wound up with my second choice. I'll provide a picture, so next time you're in the upstate of SC if you see this tag, honk, wave, shoot me the bird, something. Okay, maybe not the bird.

Anyway, with registration taken care of, I got to move her down to a friend of mine's shop, where I got her up on a lift and found that the dogbone bolt had stripped the threads out of the end of the transmission case and was loose. That wound up being my mysterious clunk on my drive back from Atlanta in June, so in the grand scheme of things, everything worked out quite nicely. And my luck held once again, as the remaining threads weren't galled too badly, and in the ever present bucket-o'-bolts that shops tend to have, I found a bolt that was the exact same diameter and thread pitch, but about 1" longer. I loaded it up with thread sealer and ran that joker in there. Cor.

Then, it was off to the TRACK DAY BRO!!! Yep! My very first Autocross ever! That was the most fun I've had in a very long time. Clemson Sports Car Club had their final Autocross of the fall, and I got to go with my shop-having friend, his son, and his MkIV Toyota Supra. There aren't any other MkIV's around here that I'm aware of, so needles to say, he drew quite a crowd. I made my first pass staying in 2nd gear, and that was all I needed to know that I needed to just run in 1st the whole time. At the end of the day, my best time was 49.101, which was middle of the pack for the most part, but I would say respectable for a complete noob.

So here we are in a new year. Lets hope its a good one.

slow_solo_focus · Jan 5, 2016

Haha nice tags.

Svts are a strong contender stock. What class were you put in? H stock?

Sent from my ASUS_Z00AD using Tapatalk

Focus?NoFocus · Jan 5, 2016

No classes. Too small of an event. So I was out running with boosted miatas, wrx's, and a Chevy Colorado, which ran faster than me.

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SPIinDisguise · Jan 5, 2016

Hey, if you have a great time whats it matter...but winning makes it better...haha

Sounds like you are hooked!

prerunnerwannabe · Jan 5, 2016

Nice! Autocross is where it's at!

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