Really Should Stop Modifying my Daily Driver into a Track Car

[Fusion Works]

Funny you should mention that. I have a EG33 sitting under the pallet rack to go in that car. Came with a 2.5RS gearbox. Should make a fantastic little street car. I daily drove a 914 back in 2000. That was one of my first builds. 2056 four cylinder car, weighed about 2200lbs with a driver made 118hp at the wheels. I didn't know anything back in those days, but I made it work. It was a pretty raw car. Had to drive it with a coat, gloves and insulated boots in the winter. HAHA. Aircooled "heat" for the winter.

 

[Fusion Works]

OK, upgrade times. YAY. Swapping in the S280 finally. Wanted to build a down pipe and of course that goes off the rails as do all things I do. The outlet on the S280 is 3.5in why do all of the off the shelf downpipes come in 3in, at least at the flange.

So lets start cutting some tube.

Yep that is a full 3.5in tube from the flange back to the flexjoint at the firewall. From there I am stepping down to 3in and that flows into the Thermal Cat back. Thats a full 3in from the front to the back.

Of course this is quite absurd, but I tend to do dumb shit like this from time to time. HAHA.

Finished welding today, but that isn't where it stops. Gotta add the O2 sensor bungs, figure out some heat shielding, port the manifold and turbine housing, then send those out for ceramic coating.

One thing I don't like with the S280, why do I need to hack the factory water lines off. I think I can make some adapter fittings that will allow me to use the OE Ford water lines which makes me happy.

Maybe I will finish this before Xmas. LOL

 

[Economatic]

It's waaay past Christmas...did you get this finished?

 

[Fusion Works]

Hell no, I am so far behind with my own stuff, I wonder if I will ever drive my Fiesta again. Haha.
I'll take some pics of where it is tomorrow. I did finish machining the two adapter fittings so I can run the OE hard water lines, bolted the turbo to the coated manifold, and stuck it back in the car. The realized I forgot to reinstall the watstegate actuator after I took it off to install my special fittings.

 

[Fusion Works]

Has the snow melted yet so you can get back on track?

 

[Fusion Works]

Couple of updates. Car is back on the ground and running. Waiting on the tune from Randy at Tunewerks. Did drive it off the lift. Was amazed the battery lost almost no voltage while sitting disconnected from August of 2020. Kinda cool

Anyway here are a few pics of the turbo installed. I made some stainless steel fittings to let me use the Ford hard lines for the water. I had to make one spacer for the cylinder head to move it out a little and tweak the angle of the lower line a little to get them to line up correctly. Now I don't have to worry about the little silicone adapter hoses failing.

The 3.5in down pipe

and added a Vband and extension to my Thermal exhaust cuz I always hated that weird transition and the 2 bolt flange from Ford.

 

[Fusion Works]

Yes I know its rubbing on that brace. I have a new design in mind that will eliminate that issue. Tuning first then deal with this and installing the rear camber shims on the knuckles. Also need to pull the trans apart again because I cheaped out and didn't replace the two bearings on the input and output shaft and now they are rattling. Dumbass. Oh well.

 

[M-Sport fan]

You're not worried about the noise/knocking of that transition pipe hitting that brace effecting the tuning at all?

 

[Fusion Works]

I'll probably pull it off this weekend. First test pull will be to test wastegate actuator capability before real tuning starts. I would be happy with a base tune to drive out the old fuel in the car right now. Have 3/4 of a tank of 9month old fuel and no safe driving map for this turbo.

 

[Fusion Works]

Rattly bastard. Tomorrow morning that brace comes off and I'll continue without it until this weekend. There appears to be a water leak somewhere on the back of the engine. I'll be checking that first thing in the morning when I get to the shop.

 

[Economatic]

It's good to see you're making progress...well, aside from the water leak and bad bearings. I'm looking forward to seeing the results of the finished product.

Has the snow melted yet so you can get back on track?

Yeah, I made it on track a couple times already. I got out to my normal track (Oregon Raceway Park) last weekend and was finally able to run the same direction to do some comparisons of lap times with the mods I did to the car last year.

From mostly stock to the coilovers and rear sway bar I got from you I shaved off 3 seconds. And last weekend I knocked off another 3.5 seconds with the Mountune power upgrades. This was all on a set of 340 TW tires that started chunking towards the end of the day. At least now I'm no longer the slowest car on track.

I'm still decided what if anything to do to the car next. Maybe an LSD or possibly just stop with the Fiesta mods and start tracking my other car.

 

[flbchbm]

Sent from my SM-N960U using Tapatalk

 

[Fusion Works]

LSD at a minimum. To me Ford should have offered the LSD on this model from the beginning. It would have made this car a real contender with many of the other hot hatches. Being able to apply power quickly coming out of the turns makes this a whole different experience.

 

[Fusion Works]

OK, things have gotten good. YAY. Found a boost leak this morning, that is why it really sounded like a jet engine taking off. Apparently when "my mechanic" (as in me) was fixing the water leak at the hard lines last week, the main hose clamp on the compressor outlet was left loose. The hose couldn't come off, but it sure could leak a shit ton of fun stuff out around the sides.

Now on to the fun bits. On tune version three from Randy at Tunewerks. Added 5 gals of leaded race gas, (yeah I know its hard on O2 sensors), but its cut with 7 gallons of 93 so it should be good. First log tests this morning with the latest tune would spin tires in third at 50+mph. HAHA. Party time. Should get another map to test today and will probably street test that one, then I'll probably put the car on the dyno and finish up the major tuning there. Plus its supposed to be hot towards the end of the week so I can at least get a sample of what to expect in the middle of August in AL. Once all the dyno work is done I should have run out most of that race gas and can go back to pure 93 and do a couple of logs pulling up the side of the mountain to get the final worse case scenario out of the way.

 

[M-Sport fan]

You could not find any unleaded race fuel (don't they offer it in up to 110 octane nowadays? I know that Torco has a 108 unleaded), or did you specifically want the leaded stuff for some reason?

 

[flbchbm]

OK, things have gotten good. YAY. Found a boost leak this morning, that is why it really sounded like a jet engine taking off. Apparently when "my mechanic" (as in me) was fixing the water leak at the hard lines last week, the main hose clamp on the compressor outlet was left loose. The hose couldn't come off, but it sure could leak a shit ton of fun stuff out around the sides.

Sounds like that mechanic should lose his ASE certification...lol

To me, it sounds like a pressure relief valve or opening the drain valve on a compressor tank. I have had two come loose since the LSD was done. I'm going to double clamp them...

 

[scooter123]

Just in the event you haven't heard of them here is a link to Woolf Aircraft. They offer a large variety of pre-bent elbows that can be a big aid in piecing together something like your downpipe. For example they offer 3.5 OD stainless 90 degree elbows in either 3.50 or 4.50 centerline radii at a cost of only 45-50 dollars each.

https://www.woolfaircraft.com/?utm_source=google&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=GMB

 

[Fusion Works]

The off the shelf elbows can't get tight enough radius for what I needed to do, otherwise that would have saved me a shit ton of time.

Leaded was easy to find at a pump north of town on Sunday morning. Unleaded would have required me tracking down some vendor and buying a 5 gallon pail for $50+. The leaded was available. It will be fine for the tuning session.

I'm bolting it to the dyno tomorrow for the duration of this tuning because its blowing the tires off in third gear and screwing up the logs. For some reason its overboosting to 29psi. I'm not totally sure why, 99% certain I got the wastegate actuator vacuum line routing correct. Anyone got a pic of their line routing? I pretty much pulled the solenoid and lines right off the OE turbo and hooked them up the way they were on the OE turbo.

 

[Fusion Works]

On iteration K of the tune and making solid improvements. 260ish whp/270/whtq so far. Fighting heat issues while on the dyno of course. Should get it better soon. Looking to see how far we can go on regular 93.

 

[Fusion Works]

Working out the dyno problems this morning, but here is a graph showing the original setup when I dyno'd it back in 2018 with stock turbo, Mountune Intake and Intercooler and 3in Thermal exhaust.
The current setup is on 93/110 blended and still working with Randy on the tune. I'm about out of "blended" fuel so tomorrow morning on the way to work I will pick up 10gal of regular fresh 93octane and carry on dynoing the tunes.

Also some fresh Falken RT660s should be arriving tomorrow as well.