Kansei's Garage Queen

[kansei]

glad to hear. the only harbor freight around happens to be right by the shop where i rent time on the lift, so I'll grab it on the way. I don't think they have a vice or anything so I'll just hang on while I torque on it (or mount it up to the car before using the expander).

yeah i have a pretty large tool bag full of single use tools like this. I'm the guy friends come to when they need that sort of thing. Already got my exhaust hanger pliers ready for this job too lol.

thanks again Ron.

 

[ron@whoosh]

glad to hear. the only harbor freight around happens to be right by the shop where i rent time on the lift, so I'll grab it on the way. I don't think they have a vice or anything so I'll just hang on while I torque on it (or mount it up to the car before using the expander).

yeah i have a pretty large tool bag full of single use tools like this. I'm the guy friends come to when they need that sort of thing. Already got my exhaust hanger pliers ready for this job too lol.

thanks again Ron.

if the exhaust isn't installed yet
I'd just do this with the pipe on the ground
There are only 2 slip fit connections that could be out of round if I remember correctly

 

[M-Sport fan]

Nice. Can't wait to see what the black tips look like, and the single tip. I still think I'd like a well situated single tip over the dual.

The sound I cannot wait for.. the crackles and pops of the stratified tune are cute and oh so quiet with the stock exhaust. Most of the stock sound is definitely on the induction side of things, not exhaust.

I realize now I had 2.5" exhausts on my two previous turbo cars (and they were a 2.0 and a 1.8).. 3" piping looks so serious, like way overkill for our little 1.6 heh

Yeah, I only had a 3.5" Mufflex system on my LS1 f body, and that was a 5.7! (but NA).

IF I do not like the way the single tip (it's ~4.25" in outside diameter) 'can' looks, I will cut it off of the cp-e tail pipe, and try either that 4" turn down (WRC Fiesta RS style) tip from Ultimate Exhaust in Toronto (they are willing to sell it without the whole system, but for an EXORBITANT amount of coin), or one of the more reasonably priced, clamp-on, 4" turn downs from Gibson, either one will also be black CeraKoted, or black chrome finish PVD coated.

 

[kansei]

some updates:

installing the CP-E exhaust:

got ST badge overlays in gold, thinking they might be close enough to bronze, which they aren't but leaving for now, I still like it better than red. Not a fan of red at all, don't let the almost red orange car fool you ha. Anyway the set came with three badges and three sizes so I was confused for a minute until I poked around and realized the third one is for the engine cover

last but not least, a photo of the exhaust installed. Tip looks crooked but I think it's just the way they are staggered making it look like it in this photo.

I have a bunch more photos of the install work on my non-phone camera, but I ditched it down in the parking garage and ran when I accidentally set off a car alarm with a loud pop from the exhaust. I'll wait until the coast is clear later tonight to retrieve that stuff.

 

[kansei]

with the gold front badge. happy with it until I find a place to do it more of a bronze.

 

[M-Sport fan]

with the gold front badge. happy with it until I find a place to do it more of a bronze.

From a distance, and since it's not right next to them, it looks like it matches the 1.2s.

 

[Ragincajin89]

Awesome build! Clean. Diggin' the Orange on Bronze. Where did you get the engine cover overlay?

 

[kansei]

Awesome build! Clean. Diggin' the Orange on Bronze. Where did you get the engine cover overlay?

Thanks! *anything* on bronze is a great choice hell even brown on bronze or bronze on bronze haha. The ST emblem set is from DMB http://www.dmb.uk.com/prod/2220/fiesta-mk7-st-badge-inlay-set?preview and took maybe a couple weeks to get from the UK to Seattle via the Royal Mail and USPS which isn't half bad.

Got to actually use my car for what I bought it for today, being in nature (ish, in a city park). I found a park in the city that I hadn't been to and that wasn't super convenient via transit and drove to it. This was a dual-purpose trip, as I also wanted to make sure that the car can be driven with the Stratified "crackle" tune in a way that won't get me arrested. Great news, it is possible. If you drive the car in a very relaxed manner, it's quite tame. There are still plenty of pops during deceleration and on up and down shifts, but not the gunshot loud ones you get if you use the throttle more liberally. The exhaust is *loud* at idle and at low RPM, which I really love. On the highway, it's tame. Reminds me of the stock exhaust on the Mazdaspeed3 in that way. I also noticed that there's definitely a lack of sound deadening in the trunk area as with the windows all closed, seats up, the parcel shelf in place, the trunk floor in the upper position, and a weathertech mat on the actual metal trunk floor you can very clearly hear the sound of the exhaust coming through the floor. I like it, but I wonder if rear seat passengers would. May need to apply a little bit of sound deadening in that corner of the trunk? The tone of the exhaust itself is a delight though. It's a bit bassy and a lower tone than I think I expected.

the car is nice and dirty too, last washed more than three months ago at the dealership before I took delivery. Dirty is good because it reduces the excuses I have for not driving.

and a shot showing off the CP-E exhaust

today I brought the maxton spoiler extension down to test fitment, and it definitely will need some massaging with a heat gun. Since I don't have electrical to run a heat gun in the parking garage, I'll have to remove the rear spoiler and bring it up the elevator to my apartment to do that work. I didn't get a chance to install the rally armor mud flaps yesterday when I was at the shop, maybe next time. Those will help keep the sides of the car clean a ton, less of that black behind the front wheels.

 

[kansei]

I flashed the "no exhaust crackle" version of my stratified tune today and went for a drive to visit some parks. Even without stratified doing their magic to cause more, the exhaust has a really good amount of popping and crackling to me. Even got a loud pop while rev matching for a 5->3 downshift. A+ work on this exhaust system from CP-E.

only snapped one photo of the car .. this spot is apparently where all the tuners go to shoot photos of their cars with puget sound and sunsets and stuff in the background. You can see some of them in the background

oh and this being the longest trip I've taken with the car, and the most entertaining roads I've been on, I'm finally starting to really appreciate this little machine. It's such a treat to drive. Definitely going to go with some sort of short shift kit though, stock isn't by any means bad but the throws are a lot longer than I'm used to.

 

[M-Sport fan]

^^^Looks GREAT whether clean OR dirty! (It just SITS perfectly and looks phenomenal with those wheels in that color!!)

Glad to hear there is still a little p&c noise even on the non-p&c tune, since I will have the no p&c Strat tune installed most of the time as well.

Even my LS1 Z28 had a little between shift/off throttle pop when it was cold, probably/possibly due to open loop running until warm, AND the large, 3.5" Mufflex exhaust system on the car, even though it was still on the stock spec, minimal overlap factory cam, and factory cast iron manifolds/catcon down pipes.

 

[kansei]

Thanks! Yeah I'm a big big fan of the wheels still too. I actually did raise the rear suspension slightly this past weekend when I was doing the exhaust install. I was dropping the rear subframe to do the no-cut removal of the stock exhaust so I had the suspension removed anyway. I only raised them one turn though which is probably only 1-2mm. I still haven't had any instance of tire rub so I think I'll be able to stay at this height and go get it aligned now.

 

[M-Sport fan]

If you carried through with the no-cut, subframe drop, factory exhaust removal procedure, HOW were you going to get the stock system home, or were you just going to leave it at the lift rental place??

 

[kansei]

If you carried through with the no-cut, subframe drop, factory exhaust removal procedure, HOW were you going to get the stock system home, or were you just going to leave it at the lift rental place??

was always going to have them scrap it, I tried the no cut removal mainly because I was working alone and didn't have a good tool for cutting. The shop was all yeah sure we have the perfect tool for that over the phone, but when I got there the perfect tool was an electric grinder with a 6" cutoff wheel, no guard or handle. I wasn't keen on cutting my fingers off so I went the other route. Eventually the retired mechanic who supervises the place was tired of watching me not use the grinder and came over and offered to cut it off for me. the subframe was already lowered at that point, but i didn't pull the exhaust out the rear in one piece.

As much as the lift rental place is a nice to have, it's nothing like working in your own garage. You're working against the clock and don't have the option of giving up and finishing the next day, which can suck.

 

[M-Sport fan]

As much as the lift rental place is a nice to have, it's nothing like working in your own garage. You're working against the clock and don't have the option of giving up and finishing the next day, which can suck.

True, and that IS a real drawback, but at least you do get to use a lift, and not strain/pull a 62 year old neck, shoulders and arms, and help destroy a 62 year old back which already has trauma fused vertebrae in it on a freezing cold garage floor.

Also, I don't know if you ever stated just what that place charges per hour; but I just had to pay $225.00 today to get the Nexus put on the car, the high cost of which was at least partially due to the out of round pipe ends (which I am now guessing we ALL had on the group buy- effing UPS!! ), especially the last, 'ball joint' junction for the tail pipe which has to be almost perfect for the tail pipe to get onto the Helmholtz section, and took A LOT of time to get right.

Of course, the BEST scenario is to have your own garage, FULLY equipped, lit, and heated, and with a multi-lift (4 point/drive on/trans and axle hydraulic lifts in it), but, not all of us are Bill Gates wealthy, or own a shop.

 

[kansei]

$40 an hour, so I ended up at $120 + the $20 tool to fix the pipe ends. It definitely would have been more like a 1 hour job (on a lift) if I had a good method for cutting off the exhaust earlier in the process. I thought I was going to have time to install some mud flaps haha. Now I guess I'll schedule a time to install the flaps, fswerks short shift adapter, and the boomba symposer delete since the CP-E intake from the group buy won't be in until April-ish.

 

[kansei]

a friend linked me to this: https://www.facebook.com/StewsSelfServiceGarage/

my car (and me under it) made it to the cover photo of the place haha

some photos from a trip today

 

[M-Sport fan]

I meant to ask you; how do you like the Star Specs so far for STREET driving?

The Tire Rack reviews are ALL OVER the place on EVERY different performance aspect, even from some FiST owners (maybe even you and others on here??).

I will be getting the same exact size you have, only on 8" wide 1.2s, so I trust YOUR opinion on these.

 

[kansei]

I have almost 1000 miles on the Star Specs, but 0 of those miles were fun roads unfortunately (bought the car before winter). I put the Z1 Star Specs on a past car:

and absolutely loved them, from city to highway or autocross and track use they were great. I bought the ZII Star Spec based solely on that trust.

While I'm only using like 5% of the potential of the tires I can comment on one thing: they're very loud tires. I didn't notice this with my MX-5 because the car was fairly loud (exhaust) and I drove with the top down 100% of the time. It's chillier here than Phoenix where I owned the MX-5, so I'll admit I sometimes close the windows when on the highway for extended periods of time. The ZIIs roar on the rough I-5 concrete south of downtown Seattle (I'm told this concrete is original from when the highway was constructed). On smoother surfaces it's a hell of a lot more tame.

Few updates. Have been lazy slash don't have a great place to work on my car, which I will be remedying in a major way very soon.

Last week I got the windows tinted by Accutint in SoDo, Seattle. 30% formulaone pinnacle ceramic film all around. I had debated having them ignore the moonroof since there's the sliding blackout shade anyway and I'd rather have more light in the cabin, but in the end let them do it. I haven't really looked at the car since getting it back to see how it is curing, but sitting in a cold concrete parking garage it's probably still a work in progress.

This past weekend a friend was house/dogsitting for another friend at his lake house and he offered his garage / driveway for car things. I drove the hour down there with a trunk full of not yet installed parts (and that wasn't all of them) and got to work. Started with the rally armor mud flaps while my friend installed the fswerks short shift thing (set to the more extreme setting). Then we tackled the intake, but since my apartment building lost part of the intake, had to install it without the 2016 fix kit. I bought some random check valves and tees and vacuum lines at an O'Reilly but none of it was useful aside from the vacuum caps and small hose clamps, which I used to cap off anything that was open. Drove the 30 miles back to the city and no CEL so far. Car was 100% drivable. I ordered the 2015 evap purge lines per this thread: http://www.fiestastforum.com/forum/...d-solution-for-my-2016-intake-cel-codes-p144c because it seems like the most correct fix for it so far, since it's all OEM.

showing the tint:

the car got rained on there so it's very dirty now

and one of the installed cp-e intake. I thought the plexi cover would be too rice for be but it's growing on me...

Next up I need to figure out how to pull out the symposer tube or other routes through the firewall for a couple things .. under-seat subwoofer and boost gauge for now. Would be cool to get those installed, I'd be almost done with my to-do list.

 

[M-Sport fan]

THANKS for the (at least partial) review of the Star Specs.

I will admit, I do like the tread pattern of the Z1s (like on your Miata) better than the Z2s, but I still may get them in the future, or whatever Dunlop comes out with in our size, since so few other manufacturers even bother.

I went with the Federal RS-RRs (and regrettably gave up the .3" of tread width ), but glad to hear that they will probably not be any louder than the Star Specs on the highway.

I also have to install my Rally Armors, but since I am not going to work any rallies this summer (no coin for motels, and no bigger side wall winter setup to throw on the car to handle driving down the rough stages), I may wait until late fall for that, although the possibility of the sticky tires throwing much crap against the lower body panels/sill, is compelling me to install them anyway.

That tint looks GREAT, but every LEO around here would be pulling me over for that, if I tried it around here, even if it were totally legal in Pennsyltuckey.

 

[kansei]

I actually washed my Fiesta today wowww. I gave it a spray maybe sometime in December so it definitely needed it. Had nothing to dry it with so it got air dried by a little scenic drive along the shores of Lake Washington. This car is a treat to drive really casually on windy narrow city residential streets. Like 15-20 mi/hr in 2nd gear. Has the power to accelerate up steep hills with liberal throttle application, which also elicits some great turbo whooshes courtesy the cp-e intake. Careful though, don't go into boost or the crackles from the Stratified tune and cp-e exhaust might frighten pedestrians. The car feels small and nimble on the tight curves too at low speeds. I wish visibility was better, I miss the thin pillars of my old Protege5. This was really one of the first times I drove the car casually in the city, so it was a nice learning experience. I live downtown with only a couple blocks to onramps to I-5, or a handful of blocks to a vehicle ferry over to some islands so I can avoid spending any time on city streets.

Soon it may become more of a habit, though. There is a car club opening soon, effectively a country club for fancy car people mostly. It's a member's only club and vehicle storage facility, with lifts and on-site mechanics, fabricators, etc. Car wash bays, a fancy restaurant, all sorts of other nonsense. It's right up my alley so I fully intend to join. With that, a place to work on my car whenever I want! Yay . They're going to laugh when I roll up in a Fiesta though. The owner will be happy though, because he doesn't want it to become some exotics-only place. When I went for a tour this past week I and a friend took the light rail down to it (only 10 minutes or so) and apparently missed the memo because everyone else brought their cars. Mostly 911 GT3s, a Lancia Delta Integrale, an old Alfa, an old Dodge Challenger and a couple german things. Inside, the first members with cars stored included a Ferrari Testarossa, A couple GT3 RSs (an RS Cup and an RS 4.0), and a Carrera GT. My Fiesta will fit in here just fine . The best part is that it's only 10 minutes by train and maybe 15 by bicycle from my apartment to the place. Where I'm likely moving when my lease is up is down south even closer so it. I might be willing to let the car live there full time. The car storage part of the facility will look like a museum, with every car on display all the time. They valet the cars in and out. It's the most ridiculously fancy thing and I love it.

Anyway, no pics for now, just celebrating that I actually used the car for pleasure for once. Next weekend I'm hoping I might have the evap parts needed to make my intake install proper. Surprisingly still no CEL even though I did the super crude thing and just capped everything off so the system certainly isn't functional. I'll try to schedule time at the place I've rented a lift before to do that install and an oil change. I bought a bigger filter (a purolator pureone or whatever they call it now) and some pennzoil platinum because that's what the oil nerds on that oil nerd forum recommend for DI turbo cars.

After that, I still need to schedule an alignment since I never got one after installing the coilovers a thousand miles ago. Then I need to do some weekend trip to get some miles on the car and data log to send to stratified for an updated tune. If it's still boosting as much as it was before the intake (I saw it peaking at 26.99psi) I think we can definitely pull the boost down a bit. The car makes too much power really, too easy to overwhelm the tires. Still readjusting to FWD life.

Tempted to go hit up the car with some quick detailer and a microfiber to clean up after the spray touchless wash, but it's after midnight and I'm trying to build better sleep hygiene.