Hi everyone,
Me and a friend have recently purchased a 1999 Melina Blue 1.7 Puma, with the intention of turning it in to a dedicated track weapon. We bought the car from a friend with 70k miles on it with 6 months MOT and 4 months tax for £350.
It is generally in good nick, the only issue when we bought it was a broken starter motor, so we fixed that and it is running nice.
I should mention we have no formal training in mechanics, just learning as we go along and also seem to be accumulating new tools at an alarming rate!
The first job was to strip it out, we went to the extremes on this, removing everything that isn't needed. This included removing the heater matrix, blower motor, carpets and soundproofing, spare wheel, rear wiper motor, airbag, etc. There really isn't a lot left in there now and the suspension has raised about 10cm haha.
We then removed the old seats and put some buckets seats in, they weigh around 8kg each which is a hell of a lot lighter than the standard seats which seem to weigh a tonne.
We have also fitted an induction kit and are going to install a heatshield around it to keep intake temps low, I work at an insulation company making heatshields for cars and aircraft so I have access to high quality insulation. We decided on the induction kit over a FRP airbox as we knew once we got it insulated properly it would perform just as well as, if not better than a FRP airbox.
The engine bay received a tidy up and the cam cover was painted green, we also changed the oil, oil filter, spark plugs and fuel filter.
The next big purchase was a full Milltek 4-2-1 system with sports cat for MOT time. We spent all of yesterday fitting it in the pouring rain, but now it is on and sounds awesome, should free up some more power too as the standard manifold and cat looks like a pretty rubbish design to me.
We have had the car for about 3 months now and are just buying parts as funds allow.
Future plans include:
Harnesses
Roll Cage
Coilovers
Re-profiled cams
Bonnet Pins
Mondeo Throttle Body
Fiesta ST front and rear disc brakes
Cambelt needs changing
Momo wheel
Trackday tyres + lightweight alloys
Possibly remove the ABS.
Replace window glass with polycarbonate if we can find a good deal
After the engine mods are done we plan on getting it mapped to run on 98 RON and to take advantage of the new cams we will be putting in.
It's a long term project and we are in no rush, just taking our time to do things properly. Initial targets are to run somewhere around 150bhp and see if we can get the weight to around 850kg. It should be ready for a track day in a few months.
Long term plans include LSD and throttle bodies, but thats a long way off.
I will get some pics up when I'm next working on the car, oh yer, the colour scheme is fluorescent green and Melina blue
Me and a friend have recently purchased a 1999 Melina Blue 1.7 Puma, with the intention of turning it in to a dedicated track weapon. We bought the car from a friend with 70k miles on it with 6 months MOT and 4 months tax for £350.
It is generally in good nick, the only issue when we bought it was a broken starter motor, so we fixed that and it is running nice.
I should mention we have no formal training in mechanics, just learning as we go along and also seem to be accumulating new tools at an alarming rate!
The first job was to strip it out, we went to the extremes on this, removing everything that isn't needed. This included removing the heater matrix, blower motor, carpets and soundproofing, spare wheel, rear wiper motor, airbag, etc. There really isn't a lot left in there now and the suspension has raised about 10cm haha.
We then removed the old seats and put some buckets seats in, they weigh around 8kg each which is a hell of a lot lighter than the standard seats which seem to weigh a tonne.
We have also fitted an induction kit and are going to install a heatshield around it to keep intake temps low, I work at an insulation company making heatshields for cars and aircraft so I have access to high quality insulation. We decided on the induction kit over a FRP airbox as we knew once we got it insulated properly it would perform just as well as, if not better than a FRP airbox.
The engine bay received a tidy up and the cam cover was painted green, we also changed the oil, oil filter, spark plugs and fuel filter.
The next big purchase was a full Milltek 4-2-1 system with sports cat for MOT time. We spent all of yesterday fitting it in the pouring rain, but now it is on and sounds awesome, should free up some more power too as the standard manifold and cat looks like a pretty rubbish design to me.
We have had the car for about 3 months now and are just buying parts as funds allow.
Future plans include:
Harnesses
Roll Cage
Coilovers
Re-profiled cams
Bonnet Pins
Mondeo Throttle Body
Fiesta ST front and rear disc brakes
Cambelt needs changing
Momo wheel
Trackday tyres + lightweight alloys
Possibly remove the ABS.
Replace window glass with polycarbonate if we can find a good deal
After the engine mods are done we plan on getting it mapped to run on 98 RON and to take advantage of the new cams we will be putting in.
It's a long term project and we are in no rush, just taking our time to do things properly. Initial targets are to run somewhere around 150bhp and see if we can get the weight to around 850kg. It should be ready for a track day in a few months.
Long term plans include LSD and throttle bodies, but thats a long way off.
I will get some pics up when I'm next working on the car, oh yer, the colour scheme is fluorescent green and Melina blue
)
