Mike’s Mk1 Fiesta
Downpipe, tunnel, quickshift, brace... Secret codenames? No, Mike’s joblist for the month.
Progress on the Fiesta has been slow and steady, and I’ve been gradually tackling all the jobs in little bite-size portions. If I looked at the whole list that’s left to do, I get a little overwhelmed and then I don’t really know where to start. Now I’m setting achievable weekly targets and in recent weeks I have restored the fuel tank and installed it under the car, and have made up a new larger downpipe from 3 inch pie-cut stainless steel that weaves round the front of the engine, squeezing past the block breather, radiator fan and the cradle. I have even manage to designed and make a new turbo brace to help support the weight of the two turbos over the gearbox.
One night after work I stayed late to fabricated a recessed aluminium panel that mounts in where the original bonnet release latch once sat. This will house the reservoir bottles for the Wilwood pedal box that is also now fitted for the last time. The engine bay is pretty much
there, all that’s left is to re-route the wiring loom, bolt everything back on the engine for the final time and make up the oil feeds and returns to all the turbos — oh, and the big task of getting some custom driveshafts made up.
On rails
Other progress inside the car includes the new custom seat rails that tie into the inner sills and bridge over to the tunnel. These have laser cut brackets welded on that align with the seat runners on my new lowback RSR bucket seats. I’ve also carefully cut out a section of the car’s floorpan and welded in a new raised section to give more clearance on the driver side for the ‘boom tube’ side-exit letterbox exhaust. With help from Zak at Power Engineering we even managed to swage some ribs into the top of the panel that align with the existing reliefs in the old floorpan, and also implement some much needed rigidity to the top of the panel.
A friend, Nathan kindly donated a Central Florida Motorsport quickshift gear selector from an ST170 he was breaking, so as soon as he dropped it off, l set about mounting it onto the raised gear selector tower I’d already built months back. I routed the cables through the bulkhead and clipped them onto the gearbox end. This gives the gear engagement a tighter, shorter throw and was just what I was after to help rip up through the gears when it’s all up and running.
Working towards the back of the car I have mounted the rear charge cooler radiator and the aluminium shroud cover into the boot well. The ducting will link the pipes on top to clear NACA ducts bolted into holes CNC machined in the new polycarbonate rear quarter windows (yet to be fitted). I have included two small electric fans to draw air in when the charge cooler temp gets above a certain temperature although I’ve yet to figure out how to get the ECU auxiliary inputs to do this.
All seemed to be going swimmingly. That is until I went to fit my freshly powdercoated rear anti-roll bar. One thing I hadn’t accounted for when designing and positioning my stub axle conversion was the proximity of the drop links on the anti-roll bar which foul on the rear bolts! Frustrated with this oversight I had to step away from the car for a couple of days. But speaking
“DRIVESHAFTS ASIDE, THE ENGINE BAY IS NOW PRETTY MUCH DONE”
with some friends, I think I have found a solution in the form of Orbital Motorsport’s rear updated ARB which has inboard facing Rose-jointed drop links that will clear the stub axle bolts. Plus this completes the race spec suspension package underneath the car.
One step, two step
Small progress is better than no progress and even with hiccups and setbacks along the way, if I can stay positive and proactive the issues can be overcome and now I can definitely see light at the end of the tunnel. It’s going to be so worth all the effort that’s gone into it all so far. If any of you are struggling with motivation or are overwhelmed with the bigger picture on your build try the bite size approach and hopefully before you know it we will all be up and running and back out to play sooner rather than later.