# Project: Red Rocket (2002 Focus ZX3)



## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

This is going to be much, much more than just a stereo build. I bought a new Mercedes in 2006. My plan was that to be my weekend/nice day car as well as an occasional Auto-X car. Things quickly got out of hand with that car and when I was finished- I couldn't bring myself to thrash it Auto-X style. Some spirited driving maybe- but outside of that- not so much. It's now 2010 and the Mercedes is finished (stereo, engine work, suspension work, etc.). I was getting the itch to buy another project. I was going to sell the Mercedes and use half for my new project and the other half for the business that my wife and I just opened. My wife loved the Mercedes and thought I would miss it. She suggested I keep it (SCORE!!!!). I started the search for a project. I know my way around Ford's as well as Chevy's- the Mercedes was a learning experience, but was not something I wanted to get into for this project. I wanted several things: 1) Easy to work on, 2) Good aftermarket support, 3) Good performance platform to start with, 4) Straight body (no rust- although needing paint was fine), 5) Under $3k. 

I searched for a while and found a 2002 Ford Focus for $2k. I know my way arond a Focus, as I have had one for the past 10 years. It had a good set of wheels and leather out of an SVT. Neither of which I was planning to use in my build- but would certainly be worth some money. I borrowed my dad's truck/trailer and made the 8hr drive to Oklahoma City to go pick it up. We headed out about 4am on a Saturday and had the car and back at the hotel by 1pm. We showered up and hit the town for some beer drinking. Back on the road the next morning. A couple weeks after buying the car a guy drove to STL from Rogers, Arkansas to buy the seats and wheels/tires ($1k).

Ultimately this car will be used at the drag strip, Auto-x courses, and general playing. It's going to look the part of a (tasteful) show car. All of the suspension will be replaced with a mix of H&R and Koni components. I have a set of light weight OZ wheels. The engine will be forged with a ported/polished head as well as a roots blower and nitrous. The interior will feature the stereo setup, Sparco (or similar name brand) seats, an odd-ball headliner, and a rear seat delete.

The car will be built in an odd order. I am buying parts as I find good deals, which makes it somewhat hard to get the parts to complete a "phase" of the project. As it sits now, the car is on jackstands with all suspension out from under it, the old engine out, as well as most of the interior. The plan is to build the stereo/interior, do the suspension, then finish up with the engine build- then send it to the paint shop. This will be no means be a fast build.

On the trailer, ready to come home:


My first order of business was to replace the old headliner. I found a plaid print featuring white, red, and black and a local craft store. I had to have it.



I then blacked out the headlights:




Built a harness bar:



Front/rear bumpers came off next (SVT units to take their place). The stock fenders came off also ('glass units to take their place). Stock hood: gone (vented CF unit going in place of that). Old engine- out:




Up next is the start of the stereo install. As I said before- this entire project is going to skip around with no real method to my madness. I work on it as I get parts.


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## JayinMI (Oct 18, 2008)

5.0 V8 Swap? 

Jay


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

The stereo is going to consist of the following:
Alpine CDA-9887
Audio Development AD60 components
Rainbow Audio Vanadium 10 subwoofer
Diamond Audio D5 600.1 and 300.2
Second Skin goodies
Knu 4ga/8ga power and ground
knu 12ga speaker wire to the sub and component xovers
Monster (leftover) 16ga to the mids/highs
Knu mKs RCA cables
Knu dist blocks
Metra Harness/adapters

The subwoofer is going to flush mount in the spare tire well. I could have done it in fiberglass, but I already had a boatload of MDF and the enclosure won't be seen anyway. It will appear to be flush mounted with the rear sear delete panel I am making. The enclosure is about .8cu and the inside has a little stuffing and rubberized undercoating. The outside is spray on truck liner just to protect the mdf.


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## Kpg2713 (Feb 10, 2008)

Awesome start dude. I just recently picked up a zx3 but my plans a bit more mild  More street daily, but still great to see. Keep up the good work.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Thanks. Be sure to look up Focaljet and FocusFanatics. I like FJ a lot more. The user base seems to be more knowledgeable and more mature. That might be because it was the first Focus forum. Either way- that's where I've spent most all of my time of owning a Focus. FF has some good people also- but overall, they seem less knowledgeable and less mature. However- their classified section is more active than FJ.

While I'm at it- Ill go ahead and post some pictures of the blower I just got back. It was sent out to be ported/polished. It's a PowerWorks kit. The base unit is an Eaton M62. It came stock with a 2.8" pulley but I have a 2.6 and 2.4" pulley. It's also been upgraded to a double heat exchanger setup.


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## MTopper (Nov 4, 2009)

Wow, you have a great looking project going there. Are cars just a hobby for you or your career?


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Just a hobby. It started with dirtbikes and 4-wheelers when I was younger and just grew from there. I've had a few projects ranging from a drag bike, V8 conversion S10, to the Mercedes. I still have a motorcycle- but it's just a beater. I ride it to work on nice days ('81 KZ440). My main thing is cars, kayaks, and pedal bikes now. 




On a side note- Last night I caulked the seams of the subwoofer enclosure then sprayed the inside with a liquid deadener. That was a bad idea. Well, actually- the bad idea was spraying the deadener before letting the caulk dry. It's a bit of a mess now- still really soft. Not sure if it's going to correctly dry or not. I'll leave it open for a few days before putting the sub in it just to see what happens. My plan was to work on the seat delete and flush look of the subwoofer today- but that apparently won't be happening.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Update: The rear seat delete and subwoofer install is done. The sound deadening is from Second Skin (deflex style pads, spl tiles, and damplifier pro). The white closed cell foam is from an ebay vendor. That will be going on the inside and outside door panels. I have the door panels apart and I will be deadening those in the next couple days. I also need to paint the MDF trim ring I made that goes around the subwoofer.











The new Ford Racing crate engine that will be re-built to handle the blower and nitrous.


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## Austin (Mar 12, 2009)

Subscribed! love these complete car overhauls.


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## dohcser (May 25, 2010)

sick


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

so... it'll go awright then aye!


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Power, ground, RCA cables, some speaker wire ran, beauty panel finished, sub installed, amps bolted down, speaker baffles complete, layer of Damplifier on door skin, oak filler pieces to button up the large holes in the door prior to another layer of Damplifier and closed cell foam. I've been out in the shop working since about 8pm- it's now about 4:45am. There's been a fair amount of beer consumed as well as a 5hr energy drink.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)




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## glidn (Apr 21, 2007)

Very nice start keep up the great work,

always had a soft spot for this shape focus.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

It's been a while since I updated. A few things changed (mainly the use of a/d/s/ amps rather than the original Diamonds that I had planned on using). I've made quite a bit of progress on the car- mainly the engine and suspension side of things.

Currently the engine and transmission are more or less complete, the interior is done, and the suspension is done. I still need to do a few small things to the engine before that’s ready to drop in. After that, I need to finalize my plan for tuning as well as save up some coin for the paint work. It’s going to stay red, although I have an FC hood, WRC front bumper, SVT rear bumper and spoiler, a set of Roush skirts, and a set of custom front fenders that my pops put together that all need to go on.

I looked around for a clean, straight, slightly modified car to start with. Paint condition didn’t really matter because I was planning to paint it anyway. I just didn’t want rust. Additionally, I was hoping the car would have some mods. I didn’t much care about what they were because I knew I wouldn’t use them. I just knew that most mods don’t allow you to get much more out of the car when you sell it. My plan was to sell the parts that I wouldn’t use, to negate the price I paid for the car. After a little searching, I found this ’02 in Oklahoma City (I am from the St. Louis, MO area). Even after fuel out and back, a hotel stay, and the price of the car- I more or less got it for free after I sold all of the aftermarkets parts (mainly the SVT seats, short shifter, EAP wheels, and Magnaflow Exhaust). 










After getting the car loaded, I proceeded to find a hotel and some beer before heading out to see what the Bricktown district had to offer. The “VIP” shuttle the hotel had was a nice touch. 


























After getting it home, the first thing was to yank out the old engine.


























I then took off all of the old suspension to replace with SVT brakes, Koni Yellows, H&R Race, H&R sways, CFM front control arms, FC rear toe arms, poly bushings, LCR camber plates, and adjustable front endlinks.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Karl’s woman was keeping an eye on me while I was fitting the bushings













































































More to come.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Next on the agenda was to get the interior knocked out. I wanted the standard issue things- gauge pillar, Sparco seats, rear seat delete, harness bar, recovered roof card, some weight loss (to offset the bit of weight added by a small sub and a little sound deadening in the doors), Massive rear bar (although it looks cocked in the picture- it's certainly not) etc. Being a bit of an audio buff, I had to have some tunes. I did a little door treatment, along with Audio Development mids/highs, a single Rainbow Audio subwoofer in the spare tire well, and a pair of small A/D/S/ amplifiers. As mentioned above, I wanted to find the limits of the PWSC- you’ll see the meth injection kit as well as the nitrous install in the interior. Although not yet pictured- there’s a CFM short throw as well as a airbag delete pocket.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Now, for the good/better part- the engine. I started off with a new crate engine from Ford. I wanted to keep the other perfectly good running engine/tranny as a spare for my aging dd or to build if I ever needed it for something else. I took that engine all apart and rebuilt it. All of the machine work was done by a friend of mine that teaches at an automotive school in Dayton, OH. I took the engine out there and we did the machine work and long block assembly. I used the factory crank and bearings, Oliver rods (had to mill a bit off of the small end- a little too fat to fit into the wrist pin area of the Diamond pistons), skirt and top coated Diamond pistons (should be around 11.2:1 when all is said and done), Massive Ultimate head (latest version), a custom set of Crespo cams, and the PWSC. Unlike many people on here- every clearance was checked and double checked. I didn’t just bore the block and build. The top half of the PWSC was ported by Massive. Steigemeier is local to me, so I had them work their magic on the bottom half. I know it’s debatable if that does any good or not, but it didn’t cost that much and I wanted to have the blower gone over anyway since I purchased it used. I also had a set of thermal intake and exhaust plates made by Ferriday Engineering. Again, I know the gains are most likely small, but every little bit counts. The spacer on the intake side also allowed me to better port match the PWSC to the cylinder head. I used a combination of tracings of the manifold and cylinder head to come up with the shape that I hand blended the spacer to. Because of the spacer on the intake side, I had to make a spacer for the triangle shaped block mounting bracket for the PWSC. I have the dual pass heat exchanger from Lightning Force Performance as well as the Garrett heat exchanger from a Cobra (that will go up top behind the grille). Exhaust will consist of the first large tube header that Top Speed made, as well as their 3” flex and 3” aluminum exhaust. The clutch/flywheel is a Clutch Masters FX650 twin disk (overkill I know, but Karl is a hell of a salesman). The transmission is a Haines built unit (not the full blown package though) with a Quaife and 4.06 gears.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

CFM oil pump gears

















































To do the port matching and fitting of the Ferriday plate, I did the following. I first made a tracing of the cylinder head on a piece of construction paper. I then put the Ferriday plate on top of the PWSC manifold and my tracing on top of that- bolted it all down. I then took my dremel and blended from the manifold to the tracing. Credit to Karl/Massive for that idea.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Had to make a spacer to bring the lower mounting bracket out a bit to take up the void created by the Ferriday spacer.










Upside down long block- loaded up for the trip back to STL from Dayton.










Fuelab’s (I do marketing/PR and some tech support for them Welcome to Fuelab! - Fuelab.com ) machinist made some solid inserts for me to make a solid motor mount out of my CFM mount. This is to go along with the solid top motor mounts that I already had. He also made a new coolant bulkhead for the PWSC since I managed to misplace the stocker.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

The supervisor of this entire operation:











Top Speed exhaust pron (Ended up not using the reservoir that’s pictured. I believe I have a better solution for the intercooler reservior)


































Had to take a pause for the cause:









How the engine sits now:

















More on this when there's more progress.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Made a little progress yesterday. I swapped over the wiring harness from the old engine to the new engine, mounted the transmission, and finally dropped the engine in place. Made a bit of a stupid move though. Mounted the blower and transmission to the engine.....then discovered that I hadn't installed the starter yet. Off came the blower in order to fit the starter, then reassemble.




My home-brew belt wrap kit. Just purchased a larger idler pulley w/ the correct bore and offset in order to force the belt to wrap around the blower drive pulley a little better.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

The fellas at Top Speed aren't the only fab guys in town ;-) My pops can weld with the best of them. Custom reservoir for the intercooler. Holds roughly 3.5gal and will go in the cavity where the wiper motor used to be. It fits perfectly between the driver's side and the air intake area for the HVAC. 





Had to have a little CFM pulley bling to go with the Massive bling. A bit of customizing was involved though. I used it in place of the factory idler, which the back of the belt rides on. No problem- just machined the ribs off of the CFM pulley. 










I know I just dropped a ton of posts on this thread- I just realized that I was posting on the Focus forum, but not this one. I will try to be better about updating as I go along.....not that many of you care about things outside of the audio portion of the project.


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## chithead (Mar 19, 2008)

Very impressive, I'm looking forward to the rest of this build.


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## vwjmkv (Apr 23, 2011)

my first car was a ford. after this build i may just go out and try to find another ford to build.... 

CC


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## sydmonster (Oct 5, 2009)

wow... back then and still going!!


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Yeah, it's certainly been a slow go. Not long after purchasing it I got laid off out of nowhere......just after paying a fair amount of cash for an expansion in my wife's office/business. The timing was great ;-)

Not to mention the fact that there's a sickening amount of money in the car. ...roughly $7k in the engine/tranny, $2500 in suspension and brakes, etc.- the list goes on an on. I wanted to do this right and not cut any/many corners (on the performance side anyway). I know there's people that spend loads more than what I am on a car project, but I don't have the funds to drop all at once. Besides a little help here and there, I'm a one man show and not paying someone else to build everything. 

In just glad to be able to get back on it. I hated going out to my shop and just seeing the cad sit there not getting worked on.


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Decided to switch it up a bit and get back to working on the audio side of things. I had some extra 1/8" oak from a home improvement project a while back. I traced out the size of the large openings and cut the oak to fit. Once I got the pieces cut, I coated it with some sort of polyurethane coating to protect it from moisture. I put a layer of deadener on the back of that. I figured the deadener on the door and the deadener on the door would create a pretty good seal when I bolted the panels down. It also makes it easy for me to access the window regulator (known to shoot craps on these cars) pretty easily. I know the closed cell foam from the real audio vendors might be better, but I've had good luck with closed cell foam from a company that sells poker tables/supplies. I'm not trying to turn the audio world upside down, so it will work for me. I just used some velcro to stick it to the inner door skin as well as the outter door skin. Speaker Tweakers, Damplifier on both skins, closed cell foam, mdf rings, and some clay is enough for my needs.

Nevermind the colored clay. The craft store didn't have any of the non hardening type that was white. The Audio Development mids seems to like the flair :laugh:


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## bumpnzx3 (Apr 6, 2007)

Had a few hours to spare on Sunday. I drilled, cut, and chiseled out the brackets for the windshield wiper assembly. That part turned out to be more of a chore than I thought it would be. Welds are much harder to drill than regular metal, so it wasn't as simple as just drilling the spot welds. There wasn't enought room to get a full size grinder/cutting wheel in there and I was going through Dremel cutting wheels like it was my job. Eventually, everything came out. One thing I screwed up on when I was measuring for the reservoir was the fact that I didn't take into account that the top of the cavity where I wanted to install this, is actually rounded rather than a perfect 90. I had to do a little "precision massaging" with my BFH in one spot of the firewall in order to be able to push the reservior back enough to fit the black plastic piece back in place. If I had to do it all over again, I would take off about 1/8" on the height and depth of my original design. But, I wasn't about to build another one over 1/8".....Beat it to fit and paint it to match- that's my motto!

Had to throw an old car cover over the engine- I didn't want to risk dirtying and/or scratching something on the engine.



You can see here that it sticks out just a shade too much in the middle. That was before the clearancing I did on the firewall.




I didn't take a picture but I made some trim pieces to go on the black plastic piece where the inlet/outlet nipples poke through. Not really needed, but it cleans it up quite a bit since I drilled the holes in the plastic pretty big to be sure the nipple made it through (not a good way to measure the exact placement before drilling.


Just sat the carbon cowl on top to get an idea how it would look once fastened down.


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