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!