[Litestorm17]

Well, time to blow the dust off this post...and this account. Looking at my posts, last login date was 2016!! How time flies. I'll try to be thorough, but I don't have all the photos easily accessible right now, but here's the story of how this car got back on the road, and is still going today!

After a few changing of hands, I acquired the car in January 2019. The engine was dead, but we didn't know just quite how dead it was. As you'll find out later...it was real dead. The engine was low on compression on all 4 cylinders, so we initially thought it was a timing issue. With the engine still in the car, we used the Massive timing bar to verify that the engine was still in time, and it was spot on, so that was ruled out. I had brought a borescope that day, we used it to inspect the pistons, and it looked like Cylinder #3 had a crack in it.

Out came the engine to do some digging.

I left the car at my friends shop and took the engine home with me to tear it down in my spare time after work and on weekends. I had never taken an engine apart this far before, so this was a learning experience in itself. At the time, I didn't have an engine stand, and had to make do with what I had.

A couple weeks went by, I picked up an engine stand, and continued tearing the engine down. I was having trouble getting that awesome lightweight flywheel off because I couldn't get enough heat into the bolts. However, after lots of patience and the purchase of a big ass electric impact, the bolts finally came out. Next came the oil pan, then the windage tray, and finally the main caps and crank...and ooooooh boy.

The main bearings were all spun, the rod bearings were all spun, and...well, I was right about the pistons being cracked. Just...not in the spots it looked like on the borescope. All 4 pistons had cracked ringlands: all in the same section and on the same side. Yikes....well, this was already going to be an expensive build, so I wasn't terribly concerned about it. However, the damaged pistons did a number on the cylinder walls, and I decided it would make more sense to start rebuilding on a block that wasn't all scored up. Time to source a new engine.

Well, since I'm this far, I might as well keep going...is what I told myself.

I sent the head off to Total Engines in the Twin Cities to have the head gone through, and oh man did they come through in a gigantic way. 3 angle valve job, port and polish, and they mic'd all the valves, put new valve seals in, and set the lash on it. It's truly a work of art.

The story continues below, we're only to fall of 2019.

 

[Litestorm17]

Part 2 of the SVT revival.

While all this was happening, I sold my Fiesta ST to continue to fund the rebuild of the SVT, and picked up a Saab 9-3 Aero Sportcombi wagon. Miss the FiST some days.

Anyways, I was able to find a working higher mileage engine in Kansas City in December 2019. I rented a truck and made the 11 hour round trip from Minneapolis to KCMO and back with the new heart. You could definitely tell the thing had 200K on it. But, as long as the pistons were in good shape, that's all I cared about.

And then...the world fell apart only a few months later. The car had to be pushed outside again, and I spent the time collecting as many parts as I could. Spring 2020 came around, it was finally warm enough to go look at the car again...and...it had a weird smell in it that definitely was not present last time I was inside the car. Well, it turns out some rodents decided to make the car their winter home, and the entire interior was covered in feces and urine.

Time to throw the interior away!

My buddy who was holding the shell for me did me a massive solid, and brought the car to my house in the Twin Cities so I could have something to do during lockdown.

Now, I could take my time working on the car after work, slowly strip the entire interior bare, and disinfect every surface inside. This part took WEEKS to do, I think I sprayed the bare metal of the interior down over a dozen times, and I still found new mice nests in there. Disgusting, but, it did finally come clean. While I was in there, I figured, might as well add a layer of sound deadening matt to the floor, roof, and inside the rear quarter panels. Every little bit can help. "While I'm In There" was the theme of this build anyways.

Two things I have always wanted since I was a teen: racing seats and a racing steering wheel. So of course, they went in there too. Not the best ones out there, but they did the job (the steering wheel was removed in 2023). I was also able to source all new interior panels, the only thing saved was the dash as that was able to be cleaned and disinfected well enough to where it didn't smell any longer.

Since I was still waiting on parts to rebuild the engine, due to the 2020 shutdown causing MASSIVE shipping and supply issues, I moved on to suspension work. I installed a set of KW V1 coilovers, Hawk HPS 5.0 pads, Centric Cryo blanks, Russell stainless steel brake lines, and drained all the brake fluid and replaced it with Hawk HP520 brake fluid. Probably was unnecessary, but the car was sitting for 11 years, so why not.I also painted the brake calipers with POR15 silver brake caliper paint.

Finally, all the parts for the engine came in, so time for reassembly.

Part 3: Engine Fun Stuff

 

[Litestorm17]

Part 3 continues...right now!

Where I could, I wanted to go with OEM Motorcraft bits, and upgrade things where I could. That way the engine could stay the way it is as a mildly stock SVT engine with a ported head, or be healthy with some light boost, or install some cams and ITB's. Basically, I wanted a good base so I could go any direction with it without needing to redo any work. Not listed in this photo, but it's got Clevite main and rod bearings (H-Series for higher revving fun), Massive's crank pulley, Massive's silicone intake boots, ARP head studs, polyurethane engine mounts, ITG sponge filter, Mishimoto silicone coolant hoses, and I did a Contour Thermostat Mod, but that cracked after only a year so now it's got the cast metal one. I also installed a Deatchewerks Fuel Pump in case I ever wanted to run ethanol, I could without needing to redo the fueling too much. There's probably more I'm forgetting, but...that's the basics of it.

A friend came up from Indiana to help with the reassembly process since I was not confident I could do this all myself without massively screwing something up. In 3 days, we got the engine reassembled and in the car. The 200K mile engine's pistons, rods, crankshaft, and block were all reused, but got new piston rings and bearings, and all new gaskets. My buddy plastic-gauged the whole thing, and unbelievably everything was still within factory specifications. These engines really are built well. The clutch and flywheel were also reused, but with brand new Motorcraft flywheel bolts.

But, there we have it! After three 14 hour days, the engine was back in the car! However, on first startup, it was not happy. It really did not want to idle, and was acting like the IAC was messed up. Admittedly, I did not think about buying a new one of those, but I temporarily borrowed the one off my Mom's SVT, and it didn't run any better. Under light throttle, it ran amazing, but it just did not want to idle, and was running pig rich. I remembered that the car had been supercharged at one point, and thought maybe the supercharger tune was still on the car. So I borrowed my Mom's ECU to see if that made things better, and...yup! Idled amazing, and ran great too. I still have the stock ECU for the car, and was never able to determine if the tune was still loaded up, or if just sitting for so many years maybe corruped the tune that was on it.

Either way, it didn't matter. The car was down on it's feet and moving under it's own power reliably for the first time in a very very long time. I can't explain this, and to this day I still have no idea how this happened, but I managed to literally loose an entire hood during the rebuild. I legitimately do not know what I did with it, so it ran around like this for awhile.

Talk about joy, going on that first drive after a big project like this was absolutely amazing. The car felt great, had TONS of power (seriously, SVT owners out there...port the head if you can, it adds so much!), and was fun as hell to drive. I was still using my Mom's SVT ECU and IACV, so unfortunately I was only able to drive it one time. A couple weeks later, though, I was able to pick up a new SVT ECU, key, and PATS ring from another long time Focus owner in Chicago. I also got a new IACV from Ford and had that installed before too long too.

Once this ECU went in the car, I was able to do some break-in miles. However, I couldn't spend too much time on it because...I was moving! I had to leave the car behind for a month while I packed up everything I could fit in my Saab (which I sold not long after arriving in Texas...Swedish Engineering did not apply to Saab like it did to Volvo), and moved down to Texas mid-summer 2020. I just couldn't take another Minnesota winter. One thing I knew though was the car still had a bit of a bucking problem under load, but I would figure that out when I came back to get it. The day before I left, my Mom and I took our SVT's out for a cruise to get a shot of them together.

We're now at Late Summer 2020: I moved to Texas, but still needed to come back for the car. Well, my roommate, a buddy from Texas, and I all road-tripped back up to the Twin Cities to collect the rest of my things, and my SVT. I also figured out what the bucking issue was: the upstream O2 sensor was burned out. Yet another thing I never thought of replacing. Thankfully, the local Ford dealer had one in stock, so that was a quick 15 minute job.

Now that the car is in tip-top shape, has been around the block at least a few times, and has only had break-in oil in it...time to drive it 1100 miles back to Texas! In hindsight, this really really was not the smartest idea. With fresh real oil in the car, down the road we went.

Thankfully there were no hiccups.

And...that's really about it! Since 2020, the car hasn't had a single day of downtime, and sees 7K RPM's at least one time every time I take it out for a rip. It now sits happily with 65K miles on it, and when I'm not driving my truck, I'm enjoying every minute of seat time in this thing.

Now, that's not to say that the car is done. Oh no...far from it. There were some things that I could not replace in 2020 because of availability issues, which of course are now all things that are failing today. So I have sitting waiting to go on a complete set of axle seals, front wheel bearings, a new IMRC, and a new cam sensor because it's leaking oil. I will also soon be ordering a Marra Sport 5qt oil pan & oil separator since both mine are leaking as well. Check them out here. I also had to go back to a stock steering wheel because of Texas inspections, and will likely be switching out the Braums for my spare set of EAP Recaros, or ordering a set of Corbeau's. The Braums look nice, but they're really flimsy and uncomfortable.

Also, I have a set of Fifteen52 Tarmac Evo's coming, and a side stripe from Fifteen52 as well. Photoshop courtesy of FocusRush.

The POR15 caliper paint is chipping off, so I have some G2 Caliper Paint in yellow that I'll be applying soon, as I've heard that's much better. I'd powdercoat the calipers, but there's zero trustworthy powdercoaters in this area. I also picked up a flocking kit, so I'll be flocking the A/B/C pillars black & having the local upholstery shop redo the headliner in black as well. I also installed a Euro center console because...why not?

The big focus for this year, beyond finishing up the maintenance items, is going to be body work. Because the car sat for so long, time has not been kind to it. There's a shop down in Waco that does incredible work, so I'll be having a new front clip painted and installed, as well as repainting the fading rear bumper, and finally I'll be dropping the car off at a PDR place to have them go over it too. That should take me through the rest of 2023.

Next year for 2024...standalone ECU of some sort, haven't decided which yet. LinkECU or EMTron are on the top of the list though.

And...that about covers it! I can almost guarantee that I've forgotten something, but, there's the redemption arc this car deserved to have.

 

[hEaT]

Awesome update! Thanks for sharing.

Please post up anything you find as you go down the ECU route. I've been toying with the same idea for a while now. One hurdle is the stock gauge cluster. It uses comms from the ECU and I haven't seen a solution that lets you use it yet.

Stealing that parts list pic for future reference too. OEM parts are getting so hard to find.

 

[Litestorm17]

Awesome update! Thanks for sharing.

Please post up anything you find as you go down the ECU route. I've been toying with the same idea for a while now. One hurdle is the stock gauge cluster. It uses comms from the ECU and I haven't seen a solution that lets you use it yet.

Stealing that parts list pic for future reference too. OEM parts are getting so hard to find.

Any time! Feel free to steal the list to your heart's content. I have a PDF of it somewhere, too, I think it's stashed away on my file server that went down and have been neglecting on fixing.

I was considering using a Motive Electronics ME221/442, because it allows you to keep the stock cluster, but I've read lots of things about how their support and service is really hard to contact when you run into tuning issues. I initially liked them because they come with a pre-terminated wiring harness with all the plugs, and the ECU's are pre-configured to work with Ford's VCT mechanics. But reading about their customer support has me wondering. EMTron and Link both support variable cam timing, but it's not pre-configured for Ford, but any competent tuner should be able to figure out programming for that easily enough.

 

[hEaT]

Any time! Feel free to steal the list to your heart's content. I have a PDF of it somewhere, too, I think it's stashed away on my file server that went down and have been neglecting on fixing.

I was considering using a Motive Electronics ME221/442, because it allows you to keep the stock cluster, but I've read lots of things about how their support and service is really hard to contact when you run into tuning issues. I initially liked them because they come with a pre-terminated wiring harness with all the plugs, and the ECU's are pre-configured to work with Ford's VCT mechanics. But reading about their customer support has me wondering. EMTron and Link both support variable cam timing, but it's not pre-configured for Ford, but any competent tuner should be able to figure out programming for that easily enough.

Good points. FWIW as well, you can adapt off the stock harness plug. The ME kits are nice if you are running a kit car and don't want to adapt a factory harness.

IST Products

These guys make an EEC-V extension harness. You can either cut off the end of wire into your aftermarket ECU harness, or run in parallel with the stock ECU. Many ECUs (MegaSquirt, MoTec, etc.) can run the Ford VVT and returnless fuel no problem. MoTec has a wiring harness diagram up for an ST170 parallel installation:

https://www.motec.com.au/filedownload.php/DVIN0003%20Ford%20Focus%20ST170.pdf?docid=1952

 

[Litestorm17]

Good points. FWIW as well, you can adapt off the stock harness plug. The ME kits are nice if you are running a kit car and don't want to adapt a factory harness.

IST Products

These guys make an EEC-V extension harness. You can either cut off the end of wire into your aftermarket ECU harness, or run in parallel with the stock ECU. Many ECUs (MegaSquirt, MoTec, etc.) can run the Ford VVT and returnless fuel no problem. MoTec has a wiring harness diagram up for an ST170 parallel installation:

https://www.motec.com.au/filedownload.php/DVIN0003%20Ford%20Focus%20ST170.pdf?docid=1952

For sure, both were options I also considered. But because the car's factory harness is so bad, I'd actually prefer to completely chop out most of it and replace it with all new stuff. There's so much electrical tape and heat shrink covering cracked insulation on this thing haha.

 

[hEaT]

For sure, both were options I also considered. But because the car's factory harness is so bad, I'd actually prefer to completely chop out most of it and replace it with all new stuff. There's so much electrical tape and heat shrink covering cracked insulation on this thing haha.

Got it, yea I would do the same as well. If you're debating standalone anyway, that's the way to go with a purpose-built harness that's brand new.