So, car modifying

foodpoison

foodpoison

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Sean
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No, I don't want to 'supe up ma focus brup', I just want to make a few little performance and aesthetic modifications to it, but I don't really know where to start.

I know I want alloy wheels, but what size? Type? Make?

I'd like to make it a little bit more fuel efficient, and give it a little bit of oomph, and one of my mates (who is doing a engineering course - not saying he's savvy, but no doubt he knows more than my college group of mates) suggested an air filter, but then said it's nothing without a turbo charger, or a cold air feed, and I'm just lost.

Should I wait until I get another car before playing around with it?
Should I give it to the garage, tell them what I want, and then leave it as it is?
Should I research into how a car works before even beginning to attempt modifying my own?
Should I stop being such a materialistic twit and realise a car is designed to get you from A-B - function over form?

I've had a look on the net, but it's unlikely that I'm going to find the talkphotography of the car modding world, and so I'm kind of lost!

I have a Ford Focus CL 1.4l 16v 2002 5 door model, by the way.
 
Forget about trying to get extra performance from a naturally aspirated 1.4 Focus. It will be a waste of time and effort. A panel filter, and aftermarket exhaust might make it sound a little better, but that's about it.

Personally, I think you've got a great car there, I'd just enjoy that for a while, enjoy some relatively cheap motoring then when you've got some spare cash and you've had chance to drive some other stuff and think about exactly what you're trying to achieve (both in terms of looks and performance), buy a quicker car to start with. It will cost you less in the long run, and still be cheaper to insure.

A modified car will cost more to insure, and you'll 99% certain make it depreciate a lot faster than a standard car.
 
Good advice. You'll have to declare each mod to your insurers and it can get very expensive. Just an exhaust and cold air intake could put over a 100 quid on your premium. You need to be very careful - non standard wheels need to be declared too. ;)
 
a full boot install, 19inch wheels, 10pot big brakes, body kit, new headlamps, air intake put my insurance up £14. LV baby. The brakes brought my premium down.
 
I agree with Shine On ; modifying cars can be an expensive business (it can cost alot to just insure cosmetic mods, never mind performance upgrades) as I'm starting to find out!

You could always try the Ford Focus Owners' Club Forum for advice; I've never looked at it myself but it might be of use to you:

http://www.ffoc.co.uk/
 
You'd be amazed how much "extra" performance you can get by just making sure your car is properly serviced and the tyres are at the right pressure.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
You'd be amazed how much "extra" performance you can get by just making sure your car is properly serviced and the tyres are at the right pressure.
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Totally agree with this. You're fuel consumption will improve also.
 
Simply replacing the (filthy) air filter on my current car (the manufacturer says it's not due for another 20k miles :suspect:) with a pipercross one(just the normal type) gave me an extra 3 mpg, which is an 11% improvement :thumbs:
 
As with everyone else I agree with leaving the engine alone as your not gonna get much more power out of it.

However if you want it to sound a little more meatier then just add an air filter, if you want more then add an exhaust.

Now depending on your budget if your after making your car look and feel sportier you;ll need to lower it, a couple of options:

1. Buy a spring kit (under a £100)
2. Buy a spring and damper set (around £300)
3 Buy coilovers (arond £5-600)

Obviously like anything you get what you pay for but also it depends how you drive, if you want to do track days your gonna find the limits of the cheap stuff sooner, if you just want to blast round back lanes every now and again springs and good standard damper will be fine.

As for alloys, i've never bought new as you just lose too much money, buy secondhand off a forum or ebay.

Oh and then there is the brakes :D

I'll stop now
 
Cranky said:
As with everyone else I agree with leaving the engine alone as your not gonna get much more power out of it.

However if you want it to sound a little more meatier then just add an air filter, if you want more then add an exhaust.

Now depending on your budget if your after making your car look and feel sportier you;ll need to lower it, a couple of options:

1. Buy a spring kit (under a £100)
2. Buy a spring and damper set (around £300)
3 Buy coilovers (arond £5-600)

Obviously like anything you get what you pay for but also it depends how you drive, if you want to do track days your gonna find the limits of the cheap stuff sooner, if you just want to blast round back lanes every now and again springs and good standard damper will be fine.

As for alloys, i've never bought new as you just lose too much money, buy secondhand off a forum or ebay.

Oh and then there is the brakes :D

I'll stop now
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If you're going to be "souping-up" a car the first thing you should attend to is the brakes.....not the last ;)
 
Also never use a spring kit because they'll wear out your standard dampers faster than normal. If you're going to lower the car or play with the suspension then buy a coilover kit.
 
Depends what you want from a car.

Alloy wheels - avoid the cheaper end of the market, because they're heavy and quite fragile. Cheap tyres also rubbish.

Spring kits, properly designed, won't put too much extra load on dampers. Decent dampers are expensive. A proper coil over system is often much more than £ 600!

Personally, keep it mostly standard, service it regularly. Tyres at correct pressure and some original equipment alloys will set it off.

De-junk the car and your mpg will increase (for free!)
 
foodpoison said:
Should I wait until I get another car before playing around with it?

I have a Ford Focus CL 1.4l 16v 2002 5 door model, by the way.
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If I was in your shoes I'd wait.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with a 1.4 Focus in fact it's a good reliable runabout but no matter how much you spend on it it'll still just be a 1.4 Focus. Put the money that you're thinking of spending somewhere where it'll earn some interest and when you've got a tidy sum tucked away get something that's fast in standard form.

Then when you get something nice remember the single most important thing on a car is tyres. I've studied vehicle dynamics at university and there is nothing more important, in fact it was the very first thing they taught us about. You can have more power than you know what to do with and the best suspension setup known to man but if the tyres can't get the power down or grip under cornering forces then you're ****ing in the wind :)
 
I loe mine but want something bigger

all i have done to mine is lowered 35mm and st170 wheels (mine is a TDCI though) oh and ST Headlights

the one thing i strongly recommend if you havent modded a car before is tell the insurers, it may cost an extra few quid but its money very well spent
 
I agree, if you know what you want to change it's worth ringing for a speculative quote beforehand. (Some insurers won't touch modified cars). I rang my insurer to ask how much extra it would cost me to get mine lowered 35mm, and they said it would be an extra £450! Needless to say, I'm changing my insurer before it gets lowered but I've had a quote that's way cheaper.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
If you're going to be "souping-up" a car the first thing you should attend to is the brakes.....not the last ;)
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I agree in theory, although in this case you could esily forget the brakes as the power output increase from filter exhaust isnt going to improve enough to test them.

Exhaust (asuming its a good one) and filter will improve the sound and throttle response, if there poorly designed then they can distroy the power curve. Deffo a good idea to have a look on ffoc used to be a good bunch on there, i did have Focus but moved to the Mondeo as i needed a larger boot.
 
andrewc said:
Personally, keep it mostly standard, service it regularly. Tyres at correct pressure and some original equipment alloys will set it off.

De-junk the car and your mpg will increase (for free!)
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this, maybe if you just want to enjoy your time in the car a bit more, consider lowering it a little (dont go mad). and maybe consider uprating the stereo to make it more comfy when driving, audio parts are good because on the whole you can transfer them if you change your car.

i agree with not bothering touching the engine, its a 1.4 pulling quite alot of weight for its capacity so no mods to it short of serious work or an engine swap are going to seriously alter its ability, if you just want a bit more noise then maybe a subtle exhaust but its usually painfully obvious to anyone listening that the exhaust is being fed by a tiny engine (farting beancan corsas anyone..?!), rather than something more powerful.


(and just when i sound almost like im condoning car modifying.... (im a contradiction in terms)


dont forget the "FORD MOTORSPORTS" sunstrip, big ally/fake carbon wing on the back and a barryboys swingbin bonnet vent!
 
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An induction kit or cold air feed won't make your car more fuel efficient, you'll find it using more fuel. If you want a better filter, replace your air filter with an after market filter such as Pipercross or K&N, these are a direct replacement for the paper filter in the filter box, more expensive, but you'll never need to buy another, just wash it out and once dry resoak in the special oil. Don't think this will cost you any extra on your insurance, but engine will breathe better.
I wouldn't bother uprating your suspension. The Focus chassis is good enough as it is, alter it and your ride quality will suffer, do you really want that? If you want alloys, I'd recommend fitting a set of Ford alloys, lower profile tyres may give a slightly harder ride, but not noticably so and again as it is a Ford item, insurance company probably won't increase your premium, unlike fitting aftermarket alloys. The wider wheels and tyres will improve the handling.
As already suggested keep the tyre pressures up to spec. and keep the car serviced etc.
 
Some of these air filters which require oiling (K&N) can cause havoc on hot wire MAF sensors as they get contaminated very easily. A fresh paper element air filter is easily changable DIY, cost nothing and restore lost performance.

Wider wheels can dull steering feel, but will increase ultimate grip.

I found that using super unleaded such as Shell V-Power improved mpg and although a tank cost more than regular, the extra mileage I got per tank full meant it was cheaper.
 
andrewc said:
Some of these air filters which require oiling (K&N) can cause havoc on hot wire MAF sensors as they get contaminated very easily. A fresh paper element air filter is easily changable DIY, cost nothing and restore lost performance.

Wider wheels can dull steering feel, but will increase ultimate grip.

I found that using super unleaded such as Shell V-Power improved mpg and although a tank cost more than regular, the extra mileage I got per tank full meant it was cheaper.
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What's hot wire MAF sensors, I've run my past two Mondeo's with the same K&N direct replacement filter with no adverse effects.
On my current Mondeo I've tried Shell V-Power and BP Ultimate, although the an improvement on mpg and performance over standard unleaded, I've found Tesco 99 Super unleaded better still and have used it for years.
 
KayJay said:
Also never use a spring kit because they'll wear out your standard dampers faster than normal. If you're going to lower the car or play with the suspension then buy a coilover kit.
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All depends on how much you lower it by, there are performance handling springs that only drop it by 15mm but at the more extreme end there are 60mm+ kits, its never advisable to lower it more than 40mm anyway as you'll struggle to get the car aligned properly.

A 35mm drop on springs will be fine if your on a budget, just make sure you get the progressively wound ones (tight coil at the bottom and looser coil at the top) if you want a more comfortable ride.

Oh yeah and get it laser aligned for around £50
 
andrewc said:
I know that some cars that use the hot wire type of sensor suffer from oiling up from k&n style filters. Foam filters don't have this problem.
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Always worth taking the maf off and giving it a good squirt with wd40 to clean it, never touch the wire though as its very delicate.
 
Flash In The Pan said:
If you're going to be "souping-up" a car the first thing you should attend to is the brakes.....not the last ;)
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I second that, know a boy that put a 2.0L in and didn't touch the brakes. Well his car is truly broke now

Tony
 
andrewc said:
WD40 is probably going to make it worse! Isopropyl alcohol aerosol is probably better IMO
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Probably = Definitly.
Essentially with WD40 you take an oiled up sensor and sprat a different type of oil on it. Not clever.

Under the bonnet I would second any suggestion of a K&N panel filter. It will not give you any increase in peformance but it will smooth throttle response out and may improve econmy a little.

Getting a set of ST alloys will probably look nice and if you already have alloys on the car then I doubt insurance would cripple you for them. Plus they are not technically aftermarket alloys...

Beyond that I would leave it be - the focus handles well anyway, minor body mods can look nice too.
 
air in and air out are the basic mods, better tyres are one of the most important. Then you can decide whether you want to do suspension mods and more involved engine mods.

Look around the focus scene to find out if your car is one of the models better suited to modding or if an equivalent would be better.

Do the usual things like regular (maybe early) services, pressure checks, preventative maintenance ect

I would say grease the propshafts before you go out but thats more my kind of modding offroad and greenalane
 
As young as i am, and what sort of car i have. I am not really that in to "modding" in the sense as to make the car go faster. I prefer to have it looking clean, looked after and have a nice sound system in it rather than putting all the fiberglass kits on it. I really want a Rover 75 as my next car, i think they are the sex :D

Tony
 
I do a lot of performance modifications for my track car (Lancia Montecarlo) plus we do a lot of race / rally prep and run two F3 cars.

The thing with modifications is that often there is a compromise. More performance is compromised by low down lethargy, increase in NVH - noise vibration and harshness, decrease in economy and potential decrease in reliability.
 
Oh yeah if i had a track car (which i probs will soon) i will try and have everything running at it's highest, I was talking to someone and they rekon everytime i take my car to the track i will need to buy about £400 worth of tyres :O Is this right andrew?

Tony
 
Depends on what it is and how you drive it.

A lot of track cars are prepared very badly although not intentionally. I always start by analysing the standard design and checking any proposed modification against the maths behind it. Takes a long time and some engineering knowledge but it generally means you are heading in the right direction. Just putting big, expensive things on can be foolish - no point having big brake calipers if your master cylinder can't deliver the goods...

If you are building a track car for track days then you are putting a lot of strain on the tyres, brakes and mechanicals, so all these have to be in good order.

On our F3 cars, a set of tyres will generally last the whole season - but when you work out the time on track it probably works out at about 6 hours on track for practise and race.

However, you could do this on a single track day if you were determined enough.

A lot of people either tow their track cars, or take a spare set of wheels, one with their softer track tyres, but also a set of road wheels for driving too and from the circuit. A light weight alloy jack is now fairly cheap and changing the wheels over only adds 1/2 an hour to both ends of the day. It means you are likely to be legal for the journey home as well.

Its also important to take spare brake pads and to allow the car to warm up before thrashing it. Jerry cans of fuel and water are sensible as well.
 
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KayJay said:
Also never use a spring kit because they'll wear out your standard dampers faster than normal. If you're going to lower the car or play with the suspension then buy a coilover kit.
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Depends what you mean by spring 'kit'. Actual kits come with shortened shocks designed to be used with lowering springs.

And you can use standard shocks with up to a 40mm drop, but if they're already worn the springs will accelerate it. Anything more than 40mm and you will need aftermarket shocks. I don't think coilovers will be worth the money on a 1.4 tbh.

Buying new standard shocks with -40mm springs is fine. Anything lower than that and I'd say you need aftermarket shocks too.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, some really useful (and extremely daunting!) information here.

If I'm honest, I'm happy enough with my car, and I'd just be throwing money at it pointlessly.

I'm going to wait until I'm out of uni and in a safe job before I get myself a project car, rather than wasting my money, especially as I have no idea about cars.

As said, thanks for the replies guys, didn't realise you were such a car savvy bunch!
 
2Thumbs said:
Buying new standard shocks with -40mm springs is fine. Anything lower than that and I'd say you need aftermarket shocks too.
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I can recomend Boge Turbo shocks with -40 springs. I have Boge turbos on and they're actually cheaper than proper Fiat ones (I have a Stilo) and improved the handling massively. I could list lots of thigs to go for, but no doubt someone from the 'why bother' brigade will pull me apart for it. As far as induction kits go, you won't get much from it without a remap and decent exhaust system (full system, not just a box). What you should find is increased throttle response, I certainly did. Just be careful with the K&N 57i kits, as on dyno tests some have been proven to actually decrease power, mostly from sucking in hot air (not as dense as cold) in form the engine bay. Modifying is a compormise, eg with slammed suspension you'll lose comfort, but it depends what you want. I went for 17" rims, -35mm all round suspension, OMP road and sport discs and pads, braided brake hoses, custom built GSR silicone induction system. I left it at that as I moved on, I'm happy with it the way it is. It sounds evil when I floor it, it stops rather quickly, and the handling is awesome thanks to the rims and suspension. I haven't bothered with bodykits, I just don't see the point. The Stilo is a pretty car to start with :)
 
Techno-Geek said:
As young as i am, and what sort of car i have. I am not really that in to "modding" in the sense as to make the car go faster. I prefer to have it looking clean, looked after and have a nice sound system in it rather than putting all the fiberglass kits on it. I really want a Rover 75 as my next car, i think they are the sex :D

Tony
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This is a joke, right :shrug:
 
Your not going to gain much for your £ but having an exhaust and Air/panel filter on a 1.4 unfortuntely.


Insurance can be free to modify if you select the right insurance ;)
I have a 2ltr Corsa, Which has an engine out of a calibra and only pay around £8-900 with everything declared.

If you want to put wheels on it still though think of this logic (performance wise)
Smaller wheels = Quicker acceleration
Bigger wheels = slow acceleration

I have 15" wheels on my car for acceleration purpose's, with the car lowered on race suspension, it looks ok but from memory I dont think a Focus will pull off small wheels because they have big archs.


If you need any help, feel free to PM me :)
 
gazedd said:
Insurance can be free to modify if you select the right insurance ;)
I have a 2ltr Corsa, Which has an engine out of a calibra and only pay around £8-900 with everything declared.
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So a little more than a carrera 4 cost me? (20Kmiles/year, full business use)

I have to say that I am a firm believer in spending the money on a better car to start with. There are vehicles that are significantly better than their reputation, you need to find one and buy that. And you should always put brakes and handling ahead of performance. Apart from anything else, £ for £, better stopping and handling will make you faster on pretty much any cross country route. Plus a couple of hundred on a decent performance driving course will also be a better return than the same spent on performance mods.

I'm not really up on insurance prices these days but are things like the saab turbos or audi 90 uninsurable for the youth of today?
 
who? said:
So a little more than a carrera 4 cost me? (20Kmiles/year, full business use)

I have to say that I am a firm believer in spending the money on a better car to start with. There are vehicles that are significantly better than their reputation, you need to find one and buy that. And you should always put brakes and handling ahead of performance. Apart from anything else, £ for £, better stopping and handling will make you faster on pretty much any cross country route. Plus a couple of hundred on a decent performance driving course will also be a better return than the same spent on performance mods.

I'm not really up on insurance prices these days but are things like the saab turbos or audi 90 uninsurable for the youth of today?
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But whats your age and area?
I'm only 22, so insurance companys like to try and place there P*nis as far up my Ars* as possibly, I live in an ok area but surrounded by rough area's so the post code is is not the worst, but not the best.
If I could afford a Porche, Do you think I would care about insurance prices?

I agree about being able to get the best for your money, but Some people just cannot afford these luxary cars and have to make do with modifying "lesser" cars, and to be fair to some - they do a cracking job. I know of a few "crappy" cars that would take a carrera 4 on a nice run for its money.
 
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