building my 2004 ZX3

I will start by saying I am new here. I've been around rally my whole life (first stage rally at the age of 6 months), mostly tsd though. Recently our Focus was hit in the left rear quarter and instead of fixing it to be the daily driver we are replacing it. I've been given permision to build it into an over agressive TSD car and a just legal RA car.

I've read through the super confusing RA rules for production class cars. I have a few questions. Like can I remove all of the headliner or just from the B pillars back? Do I have to keep the stock door panels in the car or can I put some kind of covering over the interior of the door as long as it covers the metal parts?

Is there a build thread somewhere that has good detailed info I could follow and keep the car legal for production class 2wd?

Please help.

Thanks, Devin

Mulder? Like Fox Mulder? Where art thou Brother?

Welcome to the circus.

I also say do group 2, its where all the fun is. Production has a bunch of difficult issues to deal with and there are usually very few P entries.

I know a guy with 2 rally Foci in his garage and word on the street is he's moving to Ingle-land, should I ask if he wants to sell some of his "stuff"?

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alkun
Mulder? Like Fox Mulder? Where art thou Brother?

Welcome to the circus.

I also say do group 2, its where all the fun is. Production has a bunch of difficult issues to deal with and there are usually very few P entries.

I know a guy with 2 rally Foci in his garage and word on the street is he's moving to Ingle-land, should I ask if he wants to sell some of his "stuff"?

Who I be familiar in any way with one of those Fuci?

Mulder, Welcome. Fill out your profile and location thingie so we know you are real and where you live so we can say stuff like "Dooooood! You're 2 miles away dooood, How kewl is zat?-----I know these doood who do cages..."


Again Production is and always has been a totally bullshit class full of people outrageously cheating in some psycho-drama to "Win" some class while usually finishing near or at dead last overall---except those who stuffed or rolled and continued.

Who then throw conniption fits if you are not in awe of their monumental accomplishments....I listened to one notorious P cheater bitterly rant about she had one one 2 second shot on the TV----a painfully slow shot of the car crawling out of a slow corner----for about 35 minutes.....I was working in same garage, and finally couldn't concentrate with all the noise...and told her to shut the fuck up and be happy nobody poked into the tranny which had illegal ring and pinion.....

The same person later in PGT class once protested a poor sap on the legality of the plastic gearshift surround on the tunnel..

Pitiful creatures really...
Seriously forget P class.
Tell us more about yourself, like who ya are, what you've done in life, what tools and skills you have, when you aiming for..

All advice except above anti-Pee council would really be silly without knowing who we're talking to...


Oh yeah there are some lovely piccies of the suspension made for Fucci,including the real vital rear links just search around a bit.

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John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

John and Albert - sorry about the information not being filled out correctly. I filled it out late last night on my phone and must not have noticed that it asked for location instead of last name. My fault.

So, I live in Muskegon, Michigan. I grew up on Jackson, Kalamazoo, and Portage, Michigan. I've recently moved back to the great state from South East, Texas. My wife and I are pastors of a Nazarene Church here in Muskegon.

My dad (the late, David Mulder) and I used to run lots and lots of tsd rallies when I was growing up. We ran in a Datsun 510, Dodge Omni, and Ford Focus - all daily drivers. I heard stories about how he worked with people like Terry Palmer, Colin Mclerey, Jimmy Brandt, Jeff Boris, Gene Henderson, Mark Henderson, and many others whose names elude me at the moment.

I think I will be going G2 instead of production and I will be keeping the drivetrain stock until my ship comes in and the house is paid off. Once the house is paid off we will be debt free and have a little (read that as tiny, tiny, tiny) extra money to play on the rally focus with.

Albert - yes, I might be interested in parts off of these rally foci. If you could put me in touch with this person I would appreciate it.

Devin

Devin you want to talk to "Haulin Colin" McClerey??

I think you should. He's a friend from way back...

I'm really familiar with the Focus, been studying them since before they arrived...and i am even more familiar with what Colin drove in about 40 events with mainly a lot of washing the car inbetween...

Now either way (yeah, I'm already suggesting you consider a different Ford, one which you can get upgraded parts for EVENTUALLY at junk yards and junk yard pricing) you ought to give me a call and we can talk suspesnion..
Doesn't matter which of the 2 Fords you end up with cause the suspension interchanges except the top mounts front and rear....
The main thing is there's a whole lot of fixed costs that are the same in a car that you have or one you get for 200 bucks...

The decisive thing is not now but 3 years from now when you been pounding on your near stocker and its getting old--since a Fucci makes barely 4-6 ft/lbs of torque and is geared for MPG...and weighs a LOT.

It is then the fact that you could, if lucky--and I was--find a LSD and a final drive short for gravel use for $50....a HUGE upgrade

That you will never ever find for a fwd car for even 10 times than..

Think ahead..

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

John,
Are you saying that Colin is selling is Xr4Ti? What other Ford are you suggesting? The reason I'm using the old Zx3 is because it is already in my stable and paid for. But 200 bucks isn't a bad price either.

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dmulder28
John,
Are you saying that Colin is selling is Xr4Ti? What other Ford are you suggesting? The reason I'm using the old Zx3 is because it is already in my stable and paid for. But 200 bucks isn't a bad price either.

No but he can tell you first hand how easy and fun it is to run them even in near stock spec.
I know you have the Fuccus but remember I said think not of today, but down the road when you start what I call "pervin' out" and want more than what a stock car does. THEN the costs for all upgrade will be realistically 10-20 times as much for the Fuccus.

And I know a coupla guys in Chicago with ideal starter rollers for cheep-cheep-cheep.

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

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john vanlandingham

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dmulder28
John,
Are you saying that Colin is selling is Xr4Ti? What other Ford are you suggesting? The reason I'm using the old Zx3 is because it is already in my stable and paid for. But 200 bucks isn't a bad price either.

No but he can tell you first hand how easy and fun it is to run them even in near stock spec.
I know you have the Fuccus but remember I said think not of today, but down the road when you start what I call "pervin' out" and want more than what a stock car does. THEN the costs for all upgrade will be realistically 10-20 times as much for the Fuccus.

And I know a coupla guys in Chicago with ideal starter rollers for cheep-cheep-cheep.

What do these rolling starters come with? If no drive train would mine out of the focus fit the xr4ti? Do you have contact info for colin? I have long since lost it.

any thoughts of rwd?

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TSSFAB.US No HYPE just parts!!!! And check us out on Facebook!!!

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dmulder28

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john vanlandingham

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dmulder28
John,
Are you saying that Colin is selling is Xr4Ti? What other Ford are you suggesting? The reason I'm using the old Zx3 is because it is already in my stable and paid for. But 200 bucks isn't a bad price either.

No but he can tell you first hand how easy and fun it is to run them even in near stock spec.
I know you have the Fuccus but remember I said think not of today, but down the road when you start what I call "pervin' out" and want more than what a stock car does. THEN the costs for all upgrade will be realistically 10-20 times as much for the Fuccus.

And I know a coupla guys in Chicago with ideal starter rollers for cheep-cheep-cheep.

What do these rolling starters come with? If no drive train would mine out of the focus fit the xr4ti? Do you have contact info for colin? I have long since lost it.

Shell and stock suspension and dash and door panels and I'm sure you could ask. I know he has more stuff of all the common junk than he can store. Between him or my friend in Chicago there could be put together a engine and gearbox..

I'll look. OK this is just a year or so old:
colin_mccleery at hermanmiller doooot com

The thing si last summer I worked about 70 hours on some kids locally who had a POS Fuccus, made my normal nice suspension and William at TSS Fab and I re-did all the stamped crap in the back of the car which was already, after just 2 short forays into the woods at the hands of rank beginners and slow ones at that, was already tear and bending failing..
It IS junk, the whole rear set up. We made it nice, (and that was really easy) and the car FELT Soooper bitchin but

a) VERY SLOW, like ugh youcannotbeserious slow.
but more importantly, the kid himself drove a couple of times my beater street car to get stuffs, and took it home one night..
He said "Holy sheeeeet, that thing pulls GOOD, man I can't belive it. I wish MY rally car pulled that good"
Later he said "dayum I wished i'd started with one of these instead..."
And that was my POS street car...

---

John Vanlandingham
Sleezattle, WA, USA

Vive le Prole-le-ralliat

www.rallyrace.net/jvab
CALL +1 206 431-9696
Remember! Pacific Standard Time
is 3 hours behind Eastern Standard Time.

okay. I'm a little lost now. I was planning on just using the focus and only having it for a very long time. But I guess what you are suggesting, JVL (if I can call you that yet), is that I look at an xr4ti.

As far as the rwd conversion - I'm not sure or sold on that just yet. Andrew seems to be pretty satisified with his focus, I think. I don't know.

I tried that e-mail for colin and it came back. Is he on here by chance?