Well, it has been almost 2 years since our oft forgotten about ’02 Ford Focus project car, Red Hot Chili Pepper, has seen anything other than the parking lot at Level 10 Transmission. Thanks to the hard work of everyone at Level 10, Pepper is almost ready to be out on the roads cooking again!
As I detailed in a blog a couple of weeks ago, I spent pretty much an entire day driving around the upper part of New Jersey in an effort to get the little car back on the road. After picking up the replacement motor from Motor City Auto Body in Newark, I cruised in the company Windstar up to Hamburg, where I dropped the powerplant off to Pat Barrett and the Level 10 crew. After a couple of weeks, the motor was in, filled with fluids, and fired up. Of course, that came after having to replace a cracked alternator and a starter that was (in a word) fragmented by the exiting rods. While we decided to forgo swapping over the performance cams and the ported cylinder head from the old motor onto the new bullet, we are keeping the turbo system.
Once the new engine was in and secured, we had Pepper loaded onto a flatbed wrecker and towed to JDM Engineering in Freehold New Jersey, where the car awaits a re-tune. The idle on the car is surging and sputtering (yes, at the same time), which more than likely means the timing curve needs to be adjusted. Once that is done, and the boost is kept to a maximum of 5 psi so we don’t blast the rods through the oil pan for a second time, Pepper will become my daily driver.
While it may be a little over the top in looks, I’m certainly not complaining. With gas priced as high as it is, I will have a peppy daily driver that gets great gas mileage.
Now if I could only convince Evan to let me stuff a 514 ci big-block Ford in the Focus…