SUBTLE MK3 ST
Liam Merrick’s Mk3 ST is just about stealthy enough to sneak through the everyday commuter traffic. But unleash it on track and its inner superhero is revealed…
Focus ST boasts well thoughtout road and track mods.
Subtlety. It’s a much underrated quality in this day and age. With the hysterical excitability of social media, constant connectivity and fashionable oneupmanship, it would be easy for us all to end up with extreme, shocking and jarring cars that push the envelope of uniqueness to an absurd degree, wearing 14in-wide neonblue split-rims and rhodium-plated Recaros, with carbon-fibre bodywork hand-woven by the Kevlar-tipped fingers of virginal sirens. But thankfully there’s a hardcore of tuners that keep us balanced, focusing upon
performance above all else and allowing a more natural aesthetic flow to emerge – the purposeful look that’s achieved by the judicious application of quality upgrades. With this level-headed approach, equilibrium is restored and reason returns to the scene. Ostentatiousness is happily balanced by subtlety, the yin and yang of the modifying world.
Now, you might argue that suggesting a car with bright red side stripes, a low-slung gait and a distinctly rorty exhaust rasp is in any way subtle might be rather pushing the boundaries of what the word means, but stick with it. It’ll all make sense. You see, what Liam Merrick has achieved here is to start with a strong base – a Mk3 Focus ST-2 – and make it exponentially stronger where it matters. This all slots into place when we learn that, as well as being his daily driver, Liam takes the ST out on track whenever he’s able, and that includes an annual pilgrimage to the Nürburgring.
“This is the fourth car I’ve owned since passing my test, and they’ve all been modified in a track day manner,” he explains. “I started out with a Mk3 Fiesta, then a Mk5 Fiesta Zetec-S which had a 150bhp
“The car was fitted with a COBB carbon induction kit, intercooler and hard pipes, 3in cat-back exhaust system, rear motor mount, short-shifter and a COBB Accessport”
Ford Racing Puma engine; that was followed by a Mk6 Fiesta ST150, in mountune MP185 spec with bucket seats and so on… and now this.”
The Focus ST feels like a natural progression for somebody who’d been eagerly and consistently honing his skills in this fashion, although interestingly Liam hadn’t planned on buying such a thing at all. “I wasn’t actually looking for another car,” he recalls. “I was in a local Ford dealership in West Bromwich, picking up a family member’s new car, and I saw this Mk3 ST-2 sitting there as a manager’s special. It was a very good price; completely standard and with just 10,000 miles on the clock. And having owned naturally-aspirated vehicles for all those years, I thought it was about time for some boost!”
Fair enough, that’s the sort of logic we can get on board with. And it’s fair to say that Liam embraced the world of forced induction wholeheartedly, as it was only two months of ownership before he blew it up! Properly channelling the #justsendit vibes of the scene there, and of course a clear green light to upgrade. The engine was duly rebuilt with forged pistons and rods, the car being off the road for around a month, at which point Liam started working at CoordSport Ltd as Motorsport/Performance Parts Distributor – which obviously helped the project’s progression immeasurably. “This led to my Focus having demonstration parts supplied by COBB Tuning in Texas, all for test purposes,” he grins, fully aware of how fortunate a set of circumstances that is. “The car was fitted with a COBB carbon induction kit, intercooler and hard pipes, 3in cat-back exhaust system, rear motor mount, short-shifter, and a COBB Accessport. With the Stage 3 map installed, the ST was
producing around 315bhp.”
A pretty robust way to level-up, for sure – but Liam wasn’t done yet, far from it. Turbosmart UK then offered to equip the Focus with a recirculation valve and actuator, and with the engine rocking a formidable spec, he turned his attention to the chassis. Now, it’s key to remember that this car is a daily driver rather than an out-and-out track beast, but it does also need to hold its own on the racetrack, so Liam had some thinking to do. In the end, he concluded that the ultimate fusion of road manners and circuit agility would come from a set of lowering springs and front and rear anti-roll bars from Whiteline, which acted to augment the natural talents of the chassis in fine style. A set of Rays wheels were then stirred into the mix, and these are a real rarity in the Ford world; he was lucky to pick up a set of 57 Xtreme wheels in a 5x108 PCD, and these things are seriously featherweight – just 9kg apiece! Combined with a set of sticky Nankang NS-2Rs they work beautifully with a setup that was becoming increasingly refined by this point.
“In late 2018, I decided to swap to a hybrid turbo from AET Motorsport,” says Liam. “Naturally I then needed to get it mapped again to suit the hardware, so Motorsport Developments in Blackpool were my
“After ninety-four runs on the dyno, it made 360PS [355bhp] and 522Nm [385lb.ft], which I was more than happy with!”
first port of call. With the COBB Accessport already installed, they were able to use this to remap the car, and I left it with them for a week so they could get it perfect. After ninety-four runs on the dyno, it made 360PS [355bhp] and 522Nm [385lb.ft], which I was more than happy with! Afterwards, Stewart Sanderson sat down with me for about two hours before I collected the car and explained exactly how and why it was mapped in the manner it was; their afterservice is second to none – Stewart and I still have chats about the car to make sure it’s still all running OK.”
A natural consequence of putting more power through any drivetrain and chassis is that you’ll keep finding bits that need upgrading as the new forces operate outside of the stock parts’ tolerances, and sure enough with 385lb.ft to cope with the OE clutch cried ‘enough!’ – but this was easily remedied with a swap to a Mk3 RS item, supplied by Pete at Demon Performance Centre. Liam also saw fit to install a Quaife ATB diff to quell the torque-steer and help to get that power down effectively, and the front lower arms were polybushed for good measure.
“The most recent items to really help cope with the extra power are the KW V3 coilovers, and the upgraded brakes,” says Liam. “The car now has Brembo 4-pots at the front with two-piece 350mm discs, and a conversion to 300mm rears.” All of which must make the daily commute pretty entertaining, as well as fully lighting up the potential on those Nordschleife runs. Liam’s Focus may look relatively subtle, but that really is its trump card: to the uninformed observer it might simply pass unnoticed as a white five-door commuter hack. But the fact that the number plate says ‘BYE’ is significant – hiding beneath the demure exterior is a heart of pure darkness. A full-on track build, masquerading as something mild-mannered and sensible. Liam’s playing the subtlety game masterfully here. These still waters run deep.