My first project! I need help!!

Ok so I have a 2001 Ford Focus ZX3 HB that I just recently got as a gift from my uncle. I looked through the car and it has taken some Washington weather and maybe some old owner beating (not my uncle, but maybe the ones before him since this car was from an auction), because man from under the carpets to the side panels it was full of dirt and its kind of rusted under some bolts and other places here and there. Anyways! back to the topic.... I'm trying to build a street legal rally car. I was gonna do an engine swap and make it an AWD. I saw other forums before I became a member of RA and I've seen people talking about using a Ford Explorer rear system and turbo the zx3 engine so it can comply with the rear system or maybe use a jags rear system as well?? I'm not car techy like some of you, but i was wondering if i can maybe fit an Eclipse AWD system in that and use the 4g63 motor and make custom mounts and do some fab work to get everything to fit. If you have any other suggestions besides changing the rear end and throwing extra parts in, please let me know because i don't want to spend money on something that won't work. I've been told by people who didn't really care about my build to just buy another car and build it up, but I've been wanting this car since high school and I've wanted to make this thing a monster. And no I won't buy an RS with the AWD already built when it comes out (unless it already has haha), because I will build a car with far more power than that and make it meaner too. I'm willing to hear suggestions and maybe other ideas of what motor i can put into it for more power and everything.

Also I need help with caging it. I've only seen like a couple of people start theirs, but this part would have to wait. If anyone has some suggestions on the parts I can use or maybe they have ideas on how to incorporate it into the car, please let me know. I need ideas for suspension, engine, drivetrain, custom body kits, lighting, pretty much the whole 9 yards!! Send emails, pictures, and even links to certain sites!! ALL HELP IS APPRECIATED!! THANK YOU!!

PS. This car is not going to be raced. This car is just to get experience from so that if I do end up getting another car to build, I will know how to do it without many problems that I have now.

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 04:32PM by TheRookie.

search around, buy an already set-up Rallye Fukus, and use yours for spare parts....

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---** To be in compliance with the Anarchy **---
Jorden R. Kleier
Baraboo, Wisconsin, USA
1990 Mazdog Protege 4WD
1973

wow. Just, wow.

See that's the thing. I WON"T buy another car because that will make this car not even a project haha. This is the car I want to build and not some other car that already has what ever I'm looking for. I mean building something from scratch is way better than building something that has the necessities already with it. I guess you can say this car is my "Frankenstein" car. It's gonna be full of other parts from other cars

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan

Were you saying wow to the person before you or to the post??

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan

1 of 20 AWD Focus conversions that have been done were done by someone themselves. The rest were done by paying someone else to do it.
19 in 20 were done by grafting in a Ford Sierra (AKA Merkur XR4ti) floor pan and using the AWD system for the Sierra Cosworth or Escort Cosworth.
1 in 20 is a bigger pile of shit than when it started.

Two people you need to know.
John Vanlandingham. If you go with the successful route of the merkur base and Sierra Cosworth running gear you will probably source everything through him.

William Timmins. Look up his Rallysport Focus project. RWD Duratec powered Focus. Way better and way more fun and cheaper route than the AWD.

If you think you'll follow some weird method some weird guy did then you will probably fail. I've talked with a few of the people that successfully complete weird projects that involve lots of weird fabrication and using parts that don't go into that car. Most of them are fairly eccentric and not the type of person who cares about racing or impressing people or having friends beyond the scope of their garage. The 20 hours they spend in the garage a week is fine and fun for them because it's 20 hours they are not watching the kids or being nagged by the wife. You're young and will probably want to spend more time chasing skirts than chasing problems with some stupid project. Just build something that gets you onto stage as soon as possible or else you'll end up like Timm with a never ending project. He's made some good progress lately, but he's also single right now.
I can tell you from experience. Nothing stops or slows down a rally car project when you are in your 20s than girls. Get a running rally car ASAP so you can go race it. You won't find the 100s of hours to tackle a project of your scope with girls, work, and/or school involved.
Oh, and wear a condom.

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Grant Hughes

I'll try and fill in for Sean's speechless post.

"custom body kits" + "engine swap and make it an AWD" + "street legal rally car" + "need help with caging it" = fail, or possibly troll...

You haven't a clue what you're getting into, I'm saying this in the nicest possible way. This isn't a first project. This is a project to do after you've done a halfdozen conventional non-driveline swap builds. Go learn some more. Do some more research and I don't mean hAxOrs mad tite intarwebz y0. Get your hands dirty doing, say, bare minimum, getting rid of the rust. Put the car up on stands and just hold a driveshaft up under there to see what has to be done to get it to actually go in the car, much less what it will take to get a rear subframe that holds a diff in place to actually work. Take a trans mount off the car. Make a copy of it with whatever tools you have in the garage. Bolt it on up and see if it works. No? Try again. Now visualize making your own mounts and subframes and everything else, for the whole car, to accomodate the various non matching bolt patterns your mixnmatch will bring up. Read the rulebook, discover that all rally cars are street legal, and then learn what it takes to have a RA or NASA legal rally car.
Cuz otherwise, wow. Just, wow.

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Jay Woodward
Snohomish, WA
'90 Mazdog Frankenprotege
Chronologically, 46...



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 01:30PM by Jay.

Grant, why wouldn't you suggest the obvious thing: 4wd a Xratty..
Why cut the floor out of an Xratty and shove it into a Focus? Just so the skin--the unuimportest part of a car has a certain look?
If that's the most important thing, OK the extra 100s of hours is a 'good' investment.
To barrow a phrase from the Forum Chihuahua "It's their money (whaaaaaaaaaaaa!) they can spend it any way they want (whaaaa! Whaaaa!)"

I've looked at some real nice awd a Focus projects in the UK..
HUGE amount of work and that was for these Pommie bastids who have and know how to use sheet metal forming and welding..

Look it's really funny how I get accused by some dedicated trolls of being a bully and insisting on "my" way when I would never begin to offer any advice without first establishing:
who the person is?
what their resources are, ie what their actual on hand budget is?
what access to more budget they have?
what connections (sheet metal work, machine work) they have?
what they have built before?
what their general background is?
what timeline they have?

And they always elusive, the most subjective : WHY this car?
What particular set of advantages does XXX car have...?

And What is the GOAL

(and god help us all if the answer is "because i have it", the single most nonsensical, silly, short sighted reason humanly imaginable.)

Without solid answers to all those questions, then all of us are only wanking.. Numbers are needed...

For all we know this guy may have lived in his Dad's garage from 9y.o. to 20 building drag cars or T-Fords, he may have 20g in his bank account and 375k in a trust fund, doesn't have to work, doesn't need to go to college, and can devote the hundreds and hundreds of hours a project like this would demand...

That's why we need to ask this guy questions not just throw out answers.

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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.

Other fundamental issues, even assuming you have all the technical expertise required. Not to diss you or your plans, but that doesn't sound like the case, at least at this point in your life.

Unless you're doing the floopan swap previously mentioned, there's no good gearboxes to make the Ford engine work AWD. Well, allow me to correct myself. XTrac or Sadev or Maktrak or someone like that would likely be willing to set you up, and they're very good gearboxes indeed. If you're not of a financial level where you can plunk down a couple hundred thousand to pay someone else to build the entire car though, you're not of the fiancial level where you can afford to think about buying a full out racing gearbox either. And if you were, you might as well buy an ex-WRC car, or have Olsberg MSE make you a rallycross based one.

In theory yes you could graft a DSM/Evo driveline over. It would likely not work nearly as well as in the original car, would be expensive to make work, and wouldn't actually be legal to rally in Rally America.

What are your actual goals here?

*quick edit* And there John goes saying some of the same basic stuff but mobetta.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/16/2012 01:55PM by mekilljoydammit.

Since you are here in Washington all the local events are Rally America. Idaho Rally being the exception. So to answer most of your questions...no!

Car basically must be powered by an engine produced by the manufacturer . No way to tie Mitsu to Ford in this case.

As a novice you can only compete in a G2, Production or Open Lite car. G2 is a no turbo deal, Production is a no tampering deal and Open Lite isn't really a consideration for a Focus. So you could rally it as G2 or P class as a FWD, or spend mega bucks converting it to a RWD NA car.

Why do you want the car to be AWD right a way?

Really no reason not to build it up FWD get it caged etc. enter a few rallys and then if you like all that and money is there convert later. You are not taking much risk, the seats, cage, tires etc you get to make it a FWD rally car will still work in an AWD car.

I guess a few suspension bits and a limited slip diff might not move over to the AWD monster but you can likely sell those to recoup most of that cost.

I recommend thinking of rally as an evolution, start by getting the fairly stock FWD ford thing running, then add to it from there. I once figured it cost $5,000 -$7,000 to get a stock street car to a running rally car with no performance improvement, that is seats, cage, tires, suspension, intercom, lights, other safety gear, decent brake pads, skid pan, minor strengthening and required maintenance such as replacement bushings or wheel bearings.

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In the long run reality always wins.

I have better questions.

Do you want to race it?

"I'm not tech savvie like you guys" Do you plan on doing the work? How so?

Do you have any driving experience in anything?

Have you read a rally america or nasa rally sport rule book?



PS, I am hardly the never ending project, lol. My project HAS an end, it's just taken awhile to get close lol.


Also, I'd look up some of the stuff John Vanlandingham has said on here lately before you decide to deal with him or not.

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Welcome to the cult of JVL drink the koolaid or be banned.

No i wasn't planning to race it. This is a project that I've been wanting to do so that i can have a learning experience. yes i am doing the work all by myself. if i need help, it'll probably only be for question purposes. do i have driving experience?? well I'm not a rookie for nothing, but i have grown up on racing a little and i do have what it takes to better my skills as a driver, but like i said, I'm not racing this thing. I'm building this car to make it something I can maybe go to shows or join groups and show off the car a little. Maybe take it off onto a trail or 2. Something I can look back on while looking at the car and say "WOW, did i do that??" If I did wanted to race this, I would have asked while writing this forum on what i would need to know about rules and what not or other stuff pertaining to racing or even rally racing itself.

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan

Who said girls are gonna be involve in this. its not to build and trap a girl in its grip and hope to take her home for a one night stand. this is a learning experience. Not no trying to make a famous name for myself haha

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan

That's the thing you don't understand and apparently can read. I'm asking questions on things about building a car, not about racing against other racers. This is a regular plain ol' build for an average joe like yourself. I'm building this car for a passion, not to show how fast i can complete a coarse in some random location across the nation. Now instead of giving me negative messages about how badly I may fail at this, why don't you as a professional (if you think you are) give me positive advice about what i should use and what not to use so i dont go wasting my hard earn money on something i won't fail on. sound like a plan??

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The Rookie with the "BIIIIIIGGGGGGGG"!!!!!!! plan