REP TO RACE CAR

from p5hcti391yg magzus.org

by Thomas Swift

FORGOTTEN FORDS

Liqui Moly Motor Cleaner helps remove oil deposits from inside the engine

New air filter was part of the service, but will be upgraded soon

Old oil was drained...

R E P T O R A C E C A R GE T TING STARTED

The Rep to Race Car project build begins with a full service, followed by a Scorpion Red Power turbo-back exhaust upgrade

Words JAMIE / Photos JAMIE & JULES TRUSS

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ast month we introduced our new Rep To Race Car project; a somewhat crazy idea to see if we can turn a lazy but comfy rep-spec Mondeo Titanium into something that’s harder, sharper, faster, and capable of tearing up racetracks across the UK.

That’s not going to be an easy task and is going to require a lot of work to pull off, so this month we’ve wasted no time in getting stuck into the transformation.

We’ve already got support from Teng Tools – backing the project and providing the necessary sockets and spanners to complete such a build – plus Mark Sargeant at Ford Parts R Us, who will be skilfully wielding those spanners to make our vision become a reality.

But before we could get carried away with fitting all the performance upgrades, we needed to make sure the basics were all in place. The car has a full service history and came with wads of receipts for previous work, so we thought we’d bagged ourselves a good’un. Yet there’s nothing like getting it up on a ramp and having a good old poke around for yourself.

Thankfully, despite the grime and dirt, everything looks solid. And evidence of the car being well cared for and regularly serviced was even more apparent when we removed the old air filter; it had clearly not been in for long. Still, we were covering all bases and ordered all the parts for a good service: oil filter, air filter, cabin filter and even two new auxiliary belts as the old ones had started squeaking on the alternator and power steering pump – not any more.

We even treated the engine to a good flush out with Liqui Moly’s Motor Clean. This clever additive is designed to dissolve old oil deposits and nasty build-up from inside the engine – perfect for a 120k-miler that’s spent most of its life cruising up and down the motorways. Just add it to the oil, run the car at idle for ten minutes to let it do its thing, and then drain it all out with the old oil.

This left us with a nice clean engine, which we topped up with Ford-spec 0w40 oil. Then, to add future protection – and hopefully free up a bit more performance along the way – we topped the system up with Liqui Moly’s Ceratec additive. This is like a ceramic coating for the inside of your engine, reducing friction for added protection and improved performance too. Just the job for this Mondeo.

With the car fully serviced and given the thumbs up from our resident mechanic,

we were given the green light to get stuck into the upgrades. First on our list, as with many modified cars, was the exhaust system. There were plenty of reasons for choosing to ditch the OE system: it’s a huge restriction when it comes to future tuning (especially the standard downpipe and catalytic converter); it sounded terrible – the five-cylinder five-pot should have a snarling off-beat growl, but the stock exhaust system muffled all of that; and finally, the original exhaust was rotten – one of the hanger brackets had already rusted away and broken off, and the rest of the system wasn’t far behind.

The perfect solution came in the shape of Scorpion Red Power’s stainless system for the Mk4 Mondeo. We’ve opted for the full turboback system, which means a high-flow 3in stainless steel downpipe coming straight off the back of the turbo. This will be needed later on when we start engine tuning work, and will allow the turbo to get rid of those exhaust gases much faster.

Coupled to the downpipe we’ve fitted a Scorpion sports cat. We could have opted for a de-cat pipe (which is significantly cheaper) but while the car is being built to take on racetracks, we still want to be able to drive there legally. A sports cat offers the best of both worlds.

Finally, the cat-back system bolts up to the sports cat and follows the original routing of the factory system, meaning it attached neatly to all the OE fixing points using the original rubbers. Our car did require some minor trimming to the rear bumper for tailpipe clearance – the system is designed to fit with the X Sport rear bumper, but we quite like the way it looks with the original Titanium X bumper. Plus, we may look to add a custom diffuser later in the build.

With the exhaust system fitted, we couldn’t wait to fire up the car to hear what it sounded like. What a difference! As soon as it bursts into life it has a much deeper growl and more meaningful burble at idle.