Lemon's X47 track ST

[lemonjs]

I was at Brands Hatch yesterday for an evening track day. There were some serious cars there, including a GT3 RS, R33, R34 and R35 GTRs, FD RX7, as well as the usual M3s. As capable as the Fiesta is, it's always mind blowing when you're driving alongside some of the bigger cars, they're just in a different league!

None of these cars drew a crowd in the car park though, that honour went to the K20 swapped 106 GTi:





I don't know if these ever made their way to the US, but this was my dream when I was 17!

Quick shot of the Fiesta in the garage just before we left:



One thing that really disappointed me was the cooling performance. I was really hoping to keep temps close to 90c (194f) but they were higher than before the radiator swap. I'm going to wait until a friend is free to use their pressure bleeder as I'm pretty sure I didn't bleed it correctly, but in the meantime I spent some time closing all the gaps up in the radiator pack.

The gap before:



After:





I hope I never have to take the crash bar off again!

 

[lemonjs]

Few photos from the track day:

 

[M-Sport fan]

We never got any of the hot hatch Peugeots here in the states.

But, one crazy competitor did bring in a 205 T16 fully prepped for gravel rally, first evolution Group B car, way way back near the end of that class's era, to pilot it in the open class of our SCCA Pro Rally series.

 

[Intuit]

Curious about the weight differences between four and two door versions...

 

[lemonjs]

Curious about the weight differences between four and two door versions...

I don't have any data on this, except that the doors on the two door cars are so freaking heavy. You have to remove a door to get a half cage in, and reinstalling it solo almost killed me

 

[Intuit]

What's on your door jamb sticker?

 

[lemonjs]

What's on your door jamb sticker?

View attachment 63769
View attachment 63770

The euro door sticker only includes the max carry capacity, and max capacity per axle, it doesn't include the actual vehicle weight sadly

 

[lemonjs]

Picked up a used Forge intake and Pumaspeed hose to replace my Mountune airbox.

There's no reason for doing this other than wanting some more pshh pshh noises, and it does that job very well! I have a full height intercooler and there's a heat shield for this intake so I'm not worried about intake temps increasing, they are always around ambient anyway. The heat shield doesn't line up very well because of the thicker radiator, but it's wedged in there pretty good.

I went for a test drive and the noise is hilarious. Not something I'd want in a daily driver, but good fun on the track car.

Before:


After:

 

[LucasHigh]

I was at Brands Hatch yesterday for an evening track day. There were some serious cars there, including a GT3 RS, R33, R34 and R35 GTRs, FD RX7, as well as the usual M3s. As capable as the Fiesta is, it's always mind blowing when you're driving alongside some of the bigger cars, they're just in a different league!

None of these cars drew a crowd in the car park though, that honour went to the K20 swapped 106 GTi:

View attachment 63742

View attachment 63743

I don't know if these ever made their way to the US, but this was my dream when I was 17!

Quick shot of the Fiesta in the garage just before we left:

View attachment 63744

One thing that really disappointed me was the cooling performance. I was really hoping to keep temps close to 90c (194f) but they were higher than before the radiator swap. I'm going to wait until a friend is free to use their pressure bleeder as I'm pretty sure I didn't bleed it correctly, but in the meantime I spent some time closing all the gaps up in the radiator pack.

The gap before:

View attachment 63745

After:

View attachment 63746

View attachment 63747

I hope I never have to take the crash bar off again!

what kind of tape did you use here, and how has it help up since install I'm been thinking of making a custom shroud to do something similar, as well as i want to make custom ducting

 

[lemonjs]

what kind of tape did you use here, and how has it help up since install I'm been thinking of making a custom shroud to do something similar, as well as i want to make custom ducting

It’s called aluminium foil tape, I think it’s what they use to seal HVAC ducting. I used this stuff specifically.

So far it looks exactly the same as the day I did it. I have another track day in a few weeks which will really test it, I’ll report back then!

 

[M-Sport fan]

That's the same stuff I used to seal the gaps due to warpage (of the plastic fan shroud) between my factory fan shroud and the factory radiator.

It has mostly stood up to ~6+ years of temperate climate heat cycling, with only a few small sections of adhesive letting go in that time.
Looks bad, but who cares since no one sees it under all of the covers, etc.

 

[lemonjs]

Here’s how the Forge intake sounds. Going to keep my Mountune intake in the garage and see how things go. It sort of sounds like a VW TDI engine!

 

[lemonjs]

I managed to sneak one last track day in for the year. Here in the UK it will now rain for 6 months straight, and a lot of the tracks close for the winter, so it was good to get one last day out. The weather for the day was mixed - it rained a lot over lunch, but eventually dried out.

The ducting changes I made a while back made an incredible difference to the cooling. Later in the day the ambient was 18c (64f) and dry, and coolant temps never got above 90c (194f). This should give me plenty of headroom on the warmer days next summer.

I did the entire day on the Pilotsport 5s and they were phenomenal.











Here's how the Milltek non-res race exhaust sounds in a drive by:

 

[lemonjs]

Today I decided it was a good idea to remove the dashboard so I could remove all the sound deadening, the last remaining airbag, and unused wiring. I don't ever want to have to take the dash out again, it was one of the worst jobs I've done on this car!

Dash out:



While everything was out, I raised the accelerator pedal about 10mm to try and make heal and toe a little easier:



There's still a bunch more wiring to chase back and remove, but I've thrown it back together for now. I'm also undecided on whether to remove the heater core. I think I'll leave it in over the winter and remove it if I don't use it. The lower half of the dash has also been cut out:

 

[lemonjs]

Had the car weighed today and it came in at 1120kg (2469lbs). It might be time to say goodbye to the glass windows and door cards!

 

[M-Sport fan]

If you could live without the factory screen/entertainment system, and all of the speakers, you could save a few pounds/kilos as well.

Do the M-Sport, R5 car flocked dashboards weigh significantly less than the factory dash?

 

[lemonjs]

If you could live without the factory screen/entertainment system, and all of the speakers, you could save a few pounds/kilos as well.

Do the M-Sport, R5 car flocked dashboards weigh significantly less than the factory dash?

Definitely. I think when I do the door cards / windows I'll rip out the audio at the front of the car. The rear is already gone.

There's not much left of my dash now, but I would imagine the R5 is still way lighter!

 

[lemonjs]

Had a busy day today!

First up was some SuperPro lower control arms with the castor increase. The arms themselves seemed like OE quality - I'm not sure if they're using FoMoCo parts as a base, but they're pretty damn close to the sock ones.





I used all new Ford bolts for the lower arms, and finally got the chance to install my Mountune subframe centring things:







I also removed the heater core from the cabin. I cut one of the hoses that went through the bulk head and connected it to the return. Not much weight removed, but should hopefully stop it getting so hot inside the car on the track:



And finally installed an Airtec oil cooler. This took a lot longer than I expected it to. I forgot to take more pictures, but here it is mocked up against the intercooler:



I've booked a morning session at Goodwood in two weeks time. I've always wanted to do this track but it's usually out of my price range.

I'm a bit nervous, as my favourite ever build of a Fiesta ended up meeting its end at this track. I highly recommend reading this through, even if the ending is a bit tragic.

 

[lemonjs]

Had a fantastic day today at Goodwood. Most of the guys on here are from the US so you’re likely unfamiliar with this track, but it’s very prestigious and focussed on classic cars and historic racing. During the summer I could never justify the prices they charge, but it was pretty reasonable off-peak.

My fastest lap was 1:34 from the middle of the day. This was the first time I’ve driven here and improved considerably by the end of the day, but always got caught behind something so never set a faster lap.

And here's one full session:

 

[M-Sport fan]

Most on here would know Goodwood for their annual Festival Of Speed held there in late June or early July, with all of the recent, vintage, and historic race and rally machinery run there (and on the hillclimb as well).